Philip Kerr - False Nine

I kissed Grace and then her fingers, still inky from the night before and smelling strongly of me. Taking advantage of our last chance for a fuck before I flew back to Spain, neither of us had had much sleep. Every time I’d opened my eyes I’d climbed on top of her bones.

‘I’m exhausted,’ she admitted. ‘You must be, too.’

‘I’ll sleep on the jet,’ I told her. ‘In fact I’m kind of banking on that. It’ll be a good way of escaping from Russell Bore’s half-baked theories about the future of global capitalism.’

‘He means well.’

‘So did Robespierre. Seriously though, how much influence do you have with your cousin? Because someone needs to tell him to button his lip for a while. Catalans are a generous-hearted people but they don’t much like it when people start telling them where to get off. There’s a good reason that Spain had a civil war.’

‘I’ll speak to him.’

‘Do. And while you’re at it tell him to lay off the hookers and the weed.’

‘Yes. I will. I must say the gun thing still worries me a bit.’

‘You can leave that to me.’

We left the hotel and went to the airport in Pointe-à-Pitre to get on the Diamond Star I’d chartered for a return flight to Antigua. It turned out that Guadeloupe’s airport had the best mobile signal on the island. As soon as we were there I started to receive texts and missed call messages. Most of them were from Jacint Grangel at Barcelona, Charles Rivel at PSG and Paolo Gentile, but there were one or two from Louise Considine, in London. To her I sent a text saying that I missed her and that I was looking forward to coming home: both of which were true. I’d already spoken to Jacint from the hotel, the night before.

It was a bumpy flight that had us both groaning like a couple of pensioners on Blackpool’s Big Dipper, and I was glad I’d hired a twin engine light aircraft; there’s something about having two engines instead of one that reassures me — even if they are propeller engines.

When Grace and I landed in the airport at St John’s and had recovered our nerves we said our goodbyes in the terminal.

‘I’ll see you in London,’ I told her.

She said nothing for a moment.

‘The FA? My disciplinary charge? Remember?’

‘No.’ Grace shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What do you mean? I’m going to need your silver tongue, Grace. My own has a habit of getting me into trouble. That and my thumbs. But I’ve taken your advice and binned my Twitter account. I should have done it months ago. It’s been nothing but grief.’

‘Look,’ she said, ‘the last few days — they’ve been nice, very nice, but frankly I’m going to have my hands full preparing my uncle’s defence. In spite of what I told Jérôme back in Guadeloupe, there’s still a long way to go on this one. Any optimism you might have heard from me was calculated to help you get him back to Spain for his medical. Until the DPP says that this is a case of manslaughter he’s still facing a capital charge.’

‘Yes, I had wondered about that.’

‘Before you spoke to him last night you asked me to back you up and I did. Not because I was anxious to please you, Scott, but because I don’t see that anything’s helped by him staying here. So, let’s just agree that we had a great time and leave it at that, can we? Maybe you’ll come back here to Antigua and maybe you won’t. We’ll just wait and see, okay? For the record I hope you do. But I think I told you I wasn’t looking for anything serious right now. And I meant that. I might not have mentioned this before but I’m thinking about going into politics and I don’t want anyone on the island thinking that I’m not a serious person. Which it could easily look like if I go to London to defend something as trivial as your sexist tweet.’

I grinned. ‘Well, that’s telling me.’

‘Oh, but you’ll easily find a brief to look after you. Hire yourself a QC. There’s plenty of them doing not very much. Better still, hire Amal Clooney. I’m sure that this is just the sort of high-profile case she’s looking for. It seems to me strange that the English law I studied and learned to love has nothing better to do these days than pay attention to a long line of stupid people who are just waiting to be offended by someone’s else’s opinion. I used to think England was the home of free speech. Thomas Paine. The rights of man. Speaker’s Corner. Now I tend to think it’s just the home of wimps, wallies and witch-hunts.’

‘I can see you were made for politics,’ I said.

She was right, of course. I knew that. But as Everton ferried me back to the hotel I felt just a little sad that I wasn’t going to see Grace any time soon. I hadn’t told her — it wasn’t perhaps what she wanted to hear — but she was the first black woman I’d ever been with and I’d liked it; I’d liked it a lot. I don’t think there’s anything Oedipal about that but maybe, just maybe, I’d fallen for her in a way I hadn’t expected.

‘Did you find him, boss?’ said Everton. ‘Your missing footballer? Monsieur Dumas.’

‘I found him. He’s been hiding in a house on Guadeloupe.’

‘Hiding? From what? Or who?’

‘I think he probably had a nervous breakdown.’

I was trying out this explanation just to hear how it sounded. It sounded a lot better than saying Jérôme’s father killed someone. That never plays well.

‘I’m going back there this afternoon. I’ve returned to Jumby Bay to settle my bill and fetch my bags. Barca are sending a jet for us. To Pointe-à-Pitre.’

‘They must be pleased.’

In truth ‘pleased’ hardly covered it. Jacint Grangel had been ecstatic.

‘I knew you were the man to find him, Scott,’ he’d said when I called him from the hotel in Le Gosier the previous night. ‘This is fantastic news. And very timely. We have weeks to get him fit for el clásico . Oriel is going to be delighted. And Luis. As for Ahmed, well, he had his doubts that you could pull this off. I’m really going to enjoy watching him hand you a cheque for three million euros. But is he fit? Is he all right? And where the hell are you? I’ve called you several times.’

‘Just charter a private jet. And send it to Guadeloupe as soon as possible. There’s a company in England I use sometimes called PrivateFly. They’re pretty good. It’s a little complicated so if you don’t mind, Jacint, I’ll explain everything in an email.’

‘Sure. I can’t wait to read it. Will you please copy it to Paolo Gentile? I think he’s phoned me every day since you left Paris. Have I heard anything? What’s happening? Would I be sure to call him back the minute I had any news? He said you’d ignored all his texts. If it comes to that you’ve ignored mine as well.’

‘Mobile reception isn’t so good on Guadeloupe. Nor is the food. The food is lousy. As a matter of fact, nothing is very good. Except the weather, of course. No complaints about that.’

‘It’s better than here, I can assure you. It’s been cold in Barcelona. We’ve even had some snow in the mountains above Tibidabo.’

I was going to miss the weather, but probably not much else. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting the FA, but I was very much looking forward to getting back home to London and seeing Arsenal at home to London City — although that was going to be a difficult match for me to watch. Who was I going to support? The last time I’d seen the two in action against each other I’d favoured the Gooners, only because I’d once played for them and because I was still angry with Viktor Sokolnikov; but time had softened my anger, not to mention my principles. I missed the team. I missed them more than ever I could have admitted to almost anyone.