Philip Kerr - False Nine

It sounded good. The part about Tranmere Rovers. But it wasn’t entirely true. Over a swift dinner with my iPad I checked my email and there was one from Qatar offering me a job working with the national side, which must have seemed urgent after their recent exit from the Asian Cup in Canberra. The 4–1 defeat they’d suffered at the hands of their most bitter rivals, the United Arab Emirates, would have been especially hard to bear for the Qataris. But try as I might I couldn’t see myself doing a Don Revie and coaching football in the desert any more than I can see a World Cup being played there in the summer of 2022. Nobody can. They’d have more chance of mounting an ice-hockey tournament. But it wasn’t just that. It was the way all of these Arab countries treated women. I like women. A lot. Paolo Gentile couldn’t have been more on target about my Achilles heel if he’d hit it with an arrow.

Then there was an email from Tempest asking when I was going to be back in the UK. I’d been summoned to appear before the FA to face a charge of bringing the game into disrepute because of my stupid tweet about Rafinha having his period. I replied to her that I honestly didn’t know when I’d be back but that obviously I’d agree to meet with them as soon as I was in London. So that was something to look forward to. If it wasn’t so irritating it would be laughable.

I also had an email from Mandel in Paris. Attached was a copy of the Paris police report on the murder in Sevran-Beaudottes: a drug dealer had been found shot dead less than two hundred metres from the Alain Savary Sports Centre. There had been no arrests and there were no suspects, but there was a clue: the dead man had been found with a bloodstained satin patch in his hand. On the patch was a Gothic letter D. And I couldn’t help thinking that this was the same patch missing from a T-shirt modelled by Jérôme Dumas in a magazine and which was now being worn by another drug-dealer in Sevran. All of which might have been a pretty good reason to leave Paris and not come back.

My mobile phone rang, which was a surprise since the signal was up and down like a yo-yo. It was Everton.

‘I done followed that lady like you asked, boss.’

‘And?’

‘After we saw her outside the bar on Nevis Street, I tailed her east for a couple of blocks onto Independence Avenue, and then Coronation Avenue. She went to the local jail, boss. HMP St John’s, Antigua. She was there for almost an hour, after which she went to a travel agent on Nevis Street, and then to a place in Jolly Harbour. I followed her in me own car. Jolly Harbour is about fifteen minutes’ drive southwest of St John’s. She lives in a nice apartment close to the golf course which is a game she plays because there was a full set of clubs in the back seat of her car. She lives alone, I reckon. There’s only her name on the bell. I was about to call you from a bar in Jolly Harbour when she went out again. And I followed her all the way to the ferry dock.’

‘The ferry dock. Where’s that?’

‘The ferry dock for Jumby Bay, boss. There’s one every hour. I figure she’s on her way to see you. She’s on the boat now. Be there in less than five minutes, I’d say.’

‘I’m not expecting her.’

Everton laughed. ‘Looks like that lady has got other ideas. Maybe you is going to have some female company tonight after all, eh?’

I left my room and went down to the lobby, hid myself behind a banana plant and waited. A minute or two later Grace Doughty came in through the door of the hotel, looking a little less formal than when she’d been in the office. She was wearing a pink skirt and jeans, with a pair of matching blue, high-heeled sandals that helped to show off her shapely legs. At the front desk, she spoke to the concierge, handed him a manila envelope and headed out of the front door again. And because she was wearing heels I had plenty of time to collect the envelope from the concierge and catch her up on the pathway to the jetty.

‘You were leaving the ground without shaking hands? That’s an Aston Villa supporter for you, I suppose. You and Paul Lambert both.’

She frowned.

‘He’s the current Villa manager,’ I explained.

She smiled thinly. ‘I didn’t want to disturb your dinner.’

‘Had that. Believe me, with just my iPad for company it didn’t take very long.’

‘The restaurant’s supposed to be very nice.’

‘It is. I suppose.’

‘Albeit very expensive.’

‘Yes it is. Still, it’s an expensive mail service you’re running here at sixty bucks for the ferry trip.’

‘Actually it didn’t cost me anything because I said I’d be coming straight back. I wanted to make absolutely sure that got into your hands tonight.’

‘Well now that you’re here, why not stay for drink?’

We went into the bar where I ordered some wine. ‘Thank God you came,’ I said. ‘Now I can justify ordering something good. It never seems worth it when you’re on your own.’

‘I know that feeling.’

‘You live alone?’

‘Divorced. Husband’s a lawyer, too. Which isn’t a good recipe for matrimonial harmony.’

‘I think it beats marrying a footballer. I was never a good husband.’

‘That’s a fairly common mistake.’

‘What’s this?’ I asked staring at the envelope.

‘An air ticket, to Pointe-à-Pitre.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Guadeloupe.’

‘Is that where I’m going?’

‘First thing tomorrow morning. We both are. I felt I should accompany you. As a sign of my good faith. To help you find Jérôme Dumas. Besides, it’s a short flight and I thought you might need someone along who speaks French and Creole.’

‘And is this on the say-so of someone in the local nick? Your secret client perhaps.’

‘So, it seems that you do have a good nose after all.’

‘I like to know who I’m dealing with. Especially when it turns out to be a criminal.’

‘I didn’t know you were so particular,’ said Grace. ‘Given your own penal history.’

‘Is that on Wikipedia, too?’

‘Yes. It is. You’ve had an interesting life, Mr Manson.’

‘Scott. If we’re going to be travelling together we should call each other by our first names, don’t you think?’

‘You are going then? To Pointe-à-Pitre?’

‘I don’t think I have much choice. Right now, yours is the only game in town. So I may as well play along. Three points would be nice, but I’ll settle for a no-score-draw. Finding out just where he is right now would be almost as good as meeting him in person.’

‘Have you met him before?’

‘No.’

‘So why did they send you and not someone he knows?’

‘I might be wrong about this but the people he’s met already aren’t too impressed with him. In fact, not knowing him might actually be an advantage.’

‘Is that why PSG loaned him to Barcelona?’

‘Probably.’

‘Was he in any kind of trouble?’

‘In Paris? Yes, he might have been. I’m not sure.’

The waiter arrived with the wine; I sniffed it carefully and then nodded at him to pour.

I clinked glasses with Grace affably; she tasted the wine and added her appreciation.

‘Incidentally,’ she said, ‘it’s worth mentioning that while my client may be in prison at the moment, that doesn’t make him a criminal. Actually, he’s on remand. That means he’s innocent until proved guilty. Although to be quite frank with you that’s the part of English justice that continues to elude me. You arrest a man, charge him, throw him in prison for months and months, and only then do you bring him to trial. Some of my clients have been waiting to come to trial for more than a year. That might be permissible in England where the prisons have to conform to European standards, but here, on Antigua, it’s nothing short of a disgrace.’