Philip Kerr - January Window

‘Talk about a Pyrrhic victory,’ I said to the doc. ‘It’s the curse of Billy Bremner.’

‘Who’s Billy Bremner?’ asked Ferguson.

‘Black bloke, used to play for Leeds,’ I answered patiently.

‘And what’s a Pyrrhic victory?’

I saw no point in giving a history lesson to someone who thought that Napoleon was a type of brandy and that Nelson was a fucking wrestler. It’s true I have a university degree, though it’s a 2:2 from Birmingham, not a First from Oxbridge, but while I reckon I possess an above average intelligence, next to some of the lads on our team I’m Richard fucking Dawkins.

‘It means a win that’s so bloody good it gives you a hard-on,’ I told him.

Even before we reached the airport the weather suddenly changed for the worse. The team coach felt like our own little snow globe.

We were late getting back from Leeds. The flight was delayed by the snow. As usual my mind was buzzing after the match and it was almost 2 a.m. when I finally went to bed. I took the bed in the spare room so as not to wake Sonja, who sleeps like a cat. When I woke up the following morning it was with the knowledge that she’d already gone to work — she has a practice in Knightsbridge shrink-wrapping people who have eating disorders: people who are fat, or anorexic — and that there was someone ringing my doorbell.

I slid out of bed, hobbled to the entryphone and found a woman staring up at the camera. For a moment I thought it must be one of Sonja’s patients except that she was neither thin nor fat; in fact, she was just right.

‘Mr Manson?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. But we did make an appointment for ten o’clock this morning. My name is Detective Inspector Louise Considine, from the police station at Brent. I’m investigating the death of Matt Drennan.’

‘Right. I’m sorry. Had a late night. You’d better come up.’

I buzzed her in, threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, and poured some bottled mineral water into my one-touch, bean-to-cup coffee machine. At nearly four grand it was the pride and joy of my kitchen. I couldn’t cook very much, but I could make a delicious caffé latte.

She was better-looking than most coppers I’d seen, and believe me, I’ve seen a lot. Wholesome-looking and frankly a bit fairy-like, she had long fair hair, big blue eyes and a nose that was sort of pointy. She was wearing a short grey coat and leather gloves.

‘Did you forget? That we had a meeting? Oh dear, I’m sorry. You certainly look like you forgot.’

‘We had a match yesterday. And the flight back was delayed by snow. Please. Take off your coat and have a seat.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Want some coffee?’

‘Yes, please, if you’re making it. Milk and no sugar.’

I nodded and flicked a switch on the machine.

‘That looks impressive,’ she said. She sounded posh — too posh to be a copper.

‘It does everything except wash the cup afterwards.’

She shrugged off her coat and went to inspect some of the paintings on my walls.

‘This is good,’ she said, examining a largish picture of a thuggish-looking man with a shaven head and raised fists. He looked like a bare-knuckle fighter. ‘He’s rather frightening, isn’t he?’

‘That one’s by Peter Howson,’ I said. ‘Scottish artist. I bought that painting to remind myself of what it was like to be in prison. There were several times when I found myself sharing a cell with blokes just like him. People who were always ready to put a fist down your throat for no good reason. Every time I look at it I tell myself how incredibly lucky I am. Lucky that I was able to put all that behind me. Unlike nearly everyone else who comes out of the nick.’

‘It’s a nice place you’ve got here, Mr Manson. You have very good taste.’

‘You mean for someone in football.’

‘You must be rich to live round here.’

‘I only work in football,’ I said. ‘I make money from something else that doesn’t require me to do anything at all.’

‘Yes, you’re a director of Pedila Shoes.’ She smiled. ‘I Googled you. It was easier than tapping your phone or having you followed twenty hours a day. These days police work is mostly done with the aid of web-crawlers and hyperlinks, html and meta-tags.’

‘That explains why you don’t look anything like a copper.’

She smiled. ‘How is a copper supposed to look, then?’

‘Not like you. You look like you just finished your law degree.’ I smiled. ‘I read your business card. Or at least a picture of it on my iPhone. LLB, wasn’t it?’

She raised an eyebrow at me. ‘I do have flat feet. And I can say fuck a lot. If that helps.’

I brought her the coffee and then sat down opposite her.

‘It makes two cups at once. Fuck.’

‘Time is precious.’

‘Isn’t it?’ She tasted her coffee and nodded with appreciation. ‘Mmm. Good, too.’

‘Java beans. From the Algerian Coffee Stores, in Soho.’

‘I love that place. I should warn you: I’m liable to come here again. This is much better than my local coffee shop.’

‘And I should warn you, I don’t much like the police.’

‘Yes, I know. I was warned about that by my chief inspector. And from what I’ve read about you I’m lucky this coffee isn’t poisoned.’

I smiled. ‘I should wait and see, if I were you, Miss Considine.’

‘I don’t blame you at all for thinking ill of the police. I’m sure I’d feel the same way if I’d been wrongly convicted of something.’

‘I was fitted up. That’s what happened.’

‘But the Met is very different today from how it was, even a few years ago.’

She had a sexy way of talking, as if she knew the effect her voluptuous mouth had on things as ordinary as words; every sentence seemed to end in a pout. She sipped her coffee and glanced around the room again.

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Please do. I was very sorry to hear about Mr Drennan. But if I’m honest, it seems that I only ever knew him as someone who was famous for being drunk and getting himself into one scrape after another. It’s hard for me to connect someone as clownish as him with top-level sport.’

‘What you have to remember is that a lot of footballers — and I do mean a lot — are just overgrown schoolboys. Every team has someone who’s as much of a comedian as Drenno was. But there are very few teams that have someone as talented as him. In his day Drenno was perhaps the most outstanding player in the country. Look, there are a lot of wankers in football — just watch Soccer AM — but Matt Drennan wasn’t one of them.’

‘Yes, I read your tweets about him. And watched some of his goals on YouTube.’ She shrugged as if she was hardly impressed with what she’d seen.

‘Do you follow a team?’

‘Chelsea.’

‘It figures.’

‘Does it? Oh dear. That makes me sound very predictable. Unlike Matt Drennan. I mean, I know he was your friend and I’m sorry to say this, but to me he always looked like an accident waiting to happen.’

‘Not like that.’

‘No?’

‘I certainly never expected him to go and hang himself, if that’s what you want to know.’

She nodded. ‘It is, among other things.’

‘I expect there will have to be a post-mortem and an inquest,’ I said.

She nodded again.

‘Will I have to give evidence?’

‘Perhaps. Did you know his wife, too?’

‘Yes. I was at the wedding. Actually, I was at both his weddings.’

‘She says she’d already thrown him out. For good this time, according to her. And that was before he beat the shit out of her.’

‘So I believe. How is she, by the way?’