Philip Kerr - False Nine

‘If you were a Bond villain I guess you could. But what did you have in mind?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Perhaps, if they were able to prove that this was the island that Columbus discovered first, and not the Bahamas, they might get some Americans coming here. No one really knows for sure where he came ashore in 1492. If they could get some Americans then that might bring in some money.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Without that it’s all a question of attitude. I think there would be more money spent here if the local people looked as if they gave a shit. Until that happens, this place is going to remain a backwater. Right now the most valuable export the island has are its footballers.’

‘That I can understand. Almost. But how is it that the French manage to export their ugliest tourists here? I like the French, I love the French, but these are the most badly dressed tourists you can find anywhere south of Blackpool. Anyway. How do you change an attitude?’

‘Give the place its independence, probably.’

‘Yes, I can see why that wouldn’t ever work in France. You’re talking about taking away the best chance France has of winning the next World Cup. And the one after that.’

‘Not everything’s about football, Scott.’

‘Who told you that?’ I grinned and finished a bottle of Carib, the local beer, which wasn’t very good either. ‘Football is, in point of fact, more important than everything. It’s only when people understand this that we’ll arrive at the true meaning of life and death and perhaps the universe, too. In fact Total Football is the only feasible theorem. Anything else is bound to fail.’

‘I’ve been away from Birmingham for too long. I never know when you’re joking. Or maybe I’ve just lost my sense of humour since I became a lawyer.’

‘Now that just can’t be true. After all, to support Aston Villa you need a good sense of humour.’

It stopped raining just as quickly as it had started and within minutes the temperatures were soaring again.

We left the restaurant and walked around the corner to the dock where the cruise ships were anchored. Halfway there we were intercepted by an almost toothless beggar to whom I gave a two euro coin. A row of shabby offices and shops that seemed to have gone out of business faced the dock, among them a ladies’ hairdresser with several faded photographs in the window that would have deterred any woman who cared what she looked like. Grace knocked on the door and peered through glass that was almost opaque with heat and dust.

‘This is one of the addresses?’ I asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘It doesn’t look like anyone’s been through this door in a while,’ I said, observing a pile of uncollected mail inside the door.

‘All the same, I think someone’s in there,’ said Grace, pressing her nose against the glass.

‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘And I’m beginning to doubt why I’m here.’

‘We accept disappointment. But we don’t lose hope. The thing about mounting a search for someone or something is that there’s always a stage when it seems like a wild goose chase. Right up until the moment that you find what you’re looking for it helps to be patient, I think. Columbus teaches us that much, surely.’

‘True.’

Finally a door a few yards up the street opened and a woman poked her head out.

‘ Weh ?’

The woman was black, about forty, wearing a white blouse and with a sort of blue tartan turban on her head. In the lobes of her ears were earrings that looked like two golden fly-swats and around her neck was a yellow cotton scarf that was tied into a knot above her narrow waist. Once again the conversation was conducted in Creole. I was left staring up at the huge ship which looked even more like an office block than I’d supposed; there was a viewing deck and from it I could see the three of us being viewed by a man with a telescope. I was tempted to give him the finger — I thought of the number of times I’d wanted to do something like that in the dugout at Silvertown Dock on seeing the TV cameras focused on me, usually when something catastrophic had just occurred on the pitch — but fortunately I restrained myself long enough for the conversation to be completed.

‘Who was that?’ I asked when the woman in the turban had disappeared back indoors.

‘No luck there, either,’ said Grace.

‘What did she say anyway?’

‘Very little.’

‘It didn’t sound like very little. It sounded like quite a lot for very little.’

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘Any of these people have names? Or does she just go by the name of Queen Creole?’

‘I don’t think their names are that important.’

‘Maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now. Maybe Jérôme Dumas was watching us from the ship. You know I wouldn’t be at all surprised. If he’s on the island at all it looks like the best place to stay. And very probably the best place to get dinner, too. I don’t know why anyone would come here, really. He certainly didn’t come home for the food, that’s for sure.’

‘All the same, like you say, this was his home.’

‘So far that doesn’t mean very much.’

‘No, I mean that old hairdresser’s salon. That was his home when he and his mother were living here in Pointe-à-Pitre. That was his mother’s business.’

‘What?’ I stopped in my tracks and turned around. ‘That old place?’

‘When she and Jérôme left Guadeloupe Mrs Dumas sold the business to that woman. Then last year an earthquake broke the pipes from the hot water tank. Wasn’t any money to fix them. So the place went out of business. It’s a common enough story in this part of the world. Life’s hard here, Scott.’

‘I had noticed that, Grace. It beats me why anyone without family left here would want to come back at all.’

‘He’s got family here. He must have. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we’ve already met two of them.’

‘That’s a depressing thought. I mean, if I’d even thought that was possible I’d have—’

‘You’d have done what? Asked them questions? In French? They wouldn’t have told you a damn thing. You may be black and you may be handsome but you’re not from around here. Take my word. The only way you’re going to get anywhere in Guadeloupe is to say it in Creole.’ She sighed. ‘We may have to come back here, so it would be best to take things slowly. In case you didn’t notice, that’s the Creole way. No one here’s in a hurry except you. So why don’t you remember that there’s not a ball at your feet and slow down.’

‘All the same, in the future, I’d like to know things like this, please. Otherwise I’m just a substitute.’

‘Fair enough. But look here, there’s something that I’d like to know. You said that you thought Jérôme Dumas might have been in trouble, back in Paris. What kind of trouble did you mean, Scott?’

‘He was depressed and taking meds. His girlfriend had dumped him because he was fooling around with other women.’

I thought about what that meant for a moment; I was fooling around a bit myself.

‘Hookers mostly. He was on loan to another club — no player likes to be on loan. It really plays with your head.’

‘I said “trouble”, real trouble, not the ups and downs of normal life.’

‘I was coming to that. You know, you could learn a bit of patience yourself, Grace.’

We walked up the street a way, back to the Yacht Club where we were hoping to find a taxi. The heat was at its most intense now so we sought out the shade of the buildings. For some reason I kept thinking that this was only in the high twenties, low thirties. In the Qatari summer the temperatures reached as high as forty-seven degrees; 2022 was going to be fun, but only if you were a local.