Philip Kerr - False Nine

‘So. Why don’t you tell me what happened?’

‘All right. I will. The guy in prison, in Antigua, Grace’s mystery client — he’s my father.’

‘I see.’

‘He lives in Antigua now. But he isn’t from there. And he hasn’t lived with my mother since the whole family left Montserrat, way back in 1995. That’s where we’re from, see? I’m not from Guadeloupe at all. I’m from Montserrat, which is the island between here and Antigua. When the Soufrière Hills volcano exploded in July 1995, it ruined not just Plymouth — which is the capital city of Montserrat — but my whole family. And not just ours. Two-thirds of the island’s population were forced to flee their homes. A lot of them went to Guadeloupe. But my dad always hated Guadeloupe, which was where my mum was from, originally. Anyway, he refused to come here with her and it didn’t help that they weren’t married. Dumas is my mother’s name. So, I came here with her and he went to Antigua to live with his sister, and her daughter.’

‘That’s me,’ said Grace. ‘John Richardson is my uncle.’

‘Jesus,’ I muttered.

Jérôme grinned. ‘I told you it was complicated.’

‘It was my cousin here who paid for me to go to Birmingham University,’ said Grace. ‘But for him, I’d probably be cleaning floors at Jumby Bay. He’s the most generous man I know.’

‘And she wasn’t lying, she really didn’t know where I was,’ insisted Jérôme. ‘I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell anyone. Even my dad didn’t know for sure.’

‘In which case, I apologise,’ I said. ‘I was out of line, I can see that now.’

‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘You weren’t to know.’

‘I still don’t know very much,’ I added, pointedly.

‘Whenever I went to Antigua I’d see my dad. He’d arrange a trip on board a friend’s boat. We’d sail down to Montserrat, just to take a look. But I don’t think things are going to get better there any time soon. There’s still a lot of pyroclastic activity in and around the south part of the island. People are not allowed into the exclusion zone but me and my dad still go when we can, and see for ourselves. The boat’s owner — DJ Jewel Movement — was another guy from Montserrat and a friend of my dad’s. Or at least he was. The day before I was supposed to fly back from Antigua, we went out on the boat. Took a trip to the island, as was usual. Got high. A bit too high, actually. My dad and Jewel Movement quarrelled about something. Money, probably. They were still at it when I got off the boat in Nelson’s Dockyard. But I never thought they’d try to kill each other. The first thing I knew about that was the morning I was supposed to fly back. Like you said, I was at the airport and I saw it in the newspaper. I didn’t know what to do. But I knew I certainly couldn’t leave the area. Equally, I didn’t want the publicity of staying in Antigua and turning up at the police station and trying to bail him out, or whatever you do when that happens. I thought it might jeopardise all of Paolo Gentile’s work in getting me all those endorsement deals. So I called Grace and told her. Then a friend of GJB — Gui-Jean-Baptiste — took me here on his boat until I figured out what to do. I’d hoped the police would accept his story — that it was self-defence — but instead they charged him with murder.’

‘It goes almost without saying,’ said Grace, ‘that being charged with murder is always a serious matter. In Antigua, however, it’s worse than serious. We have the death penalty in Antigua. My uncle is facing the gallows, Mr Manson. If he’s found guilty he might easily be sentenced to death. As things stand now, it’s unlikely he would be hanged; the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council would almost certainly prevent an execution. But the Labour Party, which took power in June 2014, seem to want to break away from the Commonwealth. And its legal system. If that happened we might soon start hanging people again in Antigua. Like in St Kitts and Nevis. And the Bahamas. By the time a verdict is reached in John’s trial there’s every chance that Antigua might have started to carry out executions again. It seems to be what the people here want.’

‘Christ, I didn’t know.’

‘Oh, yes. That would mean I’d have to leave the island, of course. I couldn’t continue to work in a society that hanged people.’ She glanced at her cousin. ‘Sorry, Jay; you were saying.’

‘At first I intended to be here for just a couple of days,’ said Jérôme. ‘A week at the most. But the longer I stayed, the harder it seemed just to leave him and go back to Barcelona and play football. I mean, you can imagine how worried I was? I couldn’t think about sport. Not for a minute. Someone once wrote that the immediate prospect of being hanged focuses the mind wonderfully. I’d agree with that except for the word “wonderfully”. The last few weeks have been hell. I was already depressed but this made everything seem even worse. I’ve been following the case on TV and in the papers but I haven’t been able to contact Grace. I gave her my numbers in Paris and Barcelona but of course I haven’t been there. And there’s no landline here; GJB likes it that way. Not even internet. As you’ve probably gathered by now, the mobile signal on the island is virtually non-existent. I didn’t like to go into Pointe-à-Pitre even at night, in case I was recognised. So I’ve just been laying low here, hoping something will turn up. My dad would have been furious that I’d stayed on here, of course, instead of going back. For Dad my career comes before anything. Anything at all, including him. The family needs money, see? It’s not just him. It’s my aunt, too. She’s been sick. My dad actually thought I was back in Europe until you showed up asking questions about my whereabouts. He only learned about that because Grace overheard you talking to that stupid cop in St John’s. Anyway, Grace told my dad, and he was furious and said she had to get a message to me insisting that I go back to Barcelona with you, and that he’d be all right. And here you both are.’

Sinking back into the big white sofa like a collapsing balloon Jérôme uttered a deep and despairing sigh as if at any moment he might fall to pieces and give way to a flood of tears and the insupportable weight of a very large black dog. He shrugged, and then rubbed his scalp as if acutely self-conscious that I was looking critically at him, narrow-eyed, trying to judge the veracity of his story.

‘I don’t know what else to tell you. Really I don’t. I can’t say that my actions could make sense. But, I’ve been depressed. For several months, really. And I can’t honestly explain why.’

‘You don’t have to,’ said Grace. ‘That’s the nature of depression. The only true cause is physiological.’

‘Maybe. But I know most guys would look at my cars and my house and my girlfriend and think such a thing impossible. How could a guy like me be depressed? But I am. And the fact is it’s getting worse. I ran out of Seroxat a couple of weeks ago, which was all that was keeping me afloat really. Since then I’ve done nothing but stay in bed, play the PS4 and stare out of the fucking window. Frankly, I’m glad you’re here as I really don’t know what would have become of me otherwise.’

It all sounded plausible enough, and yet there was something about his story that didn’t quite ring true. It was nothing I could put my finger on. Maybe it was just the fact that like a lot of rich young footballers Jérôme struck me not as someone stupid or lacking in intelligence, merely precipitate, a little unwise perhaps. Which was why most young footballers these days had someone like Paolo Gentile around; someone to advise them anyway. But I felt I had to push the door and see that there was nothing hidden behind it.