Philip Kerr - False Nine

I tried to give Everton some more money but he wouldn’t take it.

‘You done give me enough already, boss.’

‘All right. But if you’re ever in London — to see Tottenham Hotspur — make sure to look me up. We’ll go together.’

‘For sure.’

At Jumby Bay there was already a message from Jacint saying that a Legacy 650 — a long-range jet — would collect us from Guadeloupe at seven o’ clock the following morning, Atlantic Standard Time. This meant I was going to have another night in the Caribbean whether I liked it or not. I would have preferred to have spent my last night at Jumby Bay, which is a beautiful hotel. But I didn’t want to risk leaving Jérôme on his own for too long; in spite of everything that had been talked about and agreed I still worried that he might go walkies again. Without his meds anything was possible. So I packed my bags and flew back to Pointe-à-Pitre in the Diamond Twin Star that had brought Grace and me to Antigua.

I paid little or no attention to the spectacular view you get in the back of this aircraft. I’d realised there was something about the Caribbean — anywhere in the Caribbean — that I didn’t like. Probably the fact that it’s so very far away from anywhere else. I used to be jealous of people who went there during the winter while I was stuck at home playing football, but actually I think I was better off. Going to the Caribbean every winter is a kind of curse. It made me feel a little bit like Napoleon exiled on St Helena.

At the airport I bought Brand’s book and tossed it into the back seat of the white Mercedes limo that was to ferry Jérôme and me back to the airport. Then it drove me to the house in Le Gosier. I was banking on staying the night there and not La Vieille Tour which, without Grace to keep me company, would have been too depressing. I told the driver to pick us up at five the next morning and then rang the doorbell.

Charlotte let me in the door just as the Queen Creole hairdresser I’d seen the previous day seemed to be leaving. Charlotte told me that le maître was in the front garden. A heap of Louis Vuitton luggage lay in the hall which I found reassuring. At least it looked like he was ready to leave. I tossed my own cheaper overnight bag on top of the pile and went to find Jérôme.

He was lying on a sunlounger with a pair of red Beats on his ears. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing the previous night, including the earrings and the watch. It was almost as though he hadn’t been to bed, and the minute I started speaking to him I knew something was wrong. It seemed that he’d developed a cold — a box of fresh tissues lay on a glass table by his arm, while under the sunlounger was a cloud formation of used ones — and, perhaps understandably, he seemed very morose. His hair was shorter and I concluded that the hairdresser must have come there to cut it but it didn’t seem worth mentioning.

‘Have you got a cold?’

He sniffed loudly and nodded back at me. ‘A cold. Yes. It came on this morning. I just hope a cold is all it is and not something else. Like flu.’

I tried not to wince; the Embraer Legacy 650 seats thirteen which, as private jets go, is a good size, but the cabin is still small — small enough for a sneeze to carry his cold germs to me. I’d had a flu jab in the UK but there are so many different strains of flu you’ve no way of telling if that covers you for whatever flu they get in a tropical climate like that of Guadeloupe.

‘That’s too bad,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think it will affect your medical. These days sports doctors know how to take that into account. They’re looking for something a bit more serious than a cough or a runny nose. Take a sleeping pill, get plenty of sleep on the plane and you’ll probably be fine.’

He nodded again.

‘Here, I got you a present from the shop at the airport.’

‘What is it?’ He eyed the paper bag suspiciously and then held out his hand.

‘The book.’

He looked blank.

‘Russell Brand’s magnum opus.’ I took it out of the bag and handed it to him.

He stared at the cut-price Karl Marx on the cover almost as if he’d never seen him before.

‘The one you asked for?’ I said.

‘Oh, right. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I’ll read it on the plane this evening, perhaps.’

He didn’t even open it; instead he just laid the book under the lounger on a bed of snotty tissues. It’s keeping the right company, I thought.

‘Which reminds me. The plane is going to be a little later than I said. We won’t be leaving until seven o’clock tomorrow morning.’ I glanced at the Hublot on my wrist — a present from Viktor Sokolnikov. I shrugged. ‘I thought I could stay here with you until then. I’d already checked out of that hotel when I found out about the plane.’

‘Sure. Be my guest. Tell Charlotte to pick out a room.’

‘All right. Thanks.’

‘How long does it take? To fly from Pointe-à-Pitre to Barcelona?’ His voice was rusty with cold.

‘Eight or nine hours, probably. Which gives you even more time to recover from whatever it is that you’ve got. So that’s good.’

He grunted and stood up, almost as if he wanted to get away from me.

I followed Jérôme onto the lawn, collected the football still lying there under my instep, toed it into the air, dropped it onto my knee, bounced it a couple of times, let it fall onto the grass and gently kicked it to him.

Without much enthusiasm he trapped the football with his right foot, tapped it off the laces on his pink shoe six or seven times, flicked it up into the air, nodded it twice, headed it back to me, and then turned away. Game over.

He retreated indoors and for a while I left him alone; I wondered if he was upset about having to leave Guadeloupe in order to fly back to Spain to face the music. And I had to remind myself that I was dealing with someone who was a depressive; whose mood swings made him seem unpredictable, not to say a pain in the arse. So slapping him was not an option. Besides, he was more muscular than I had realised earlier; his upper body made him seem as muscular as Cristiano Ronaldo, who has probably the best physique in the game today. I don’t doubt that he could have hit me as hard as I could hit him; maybe harder.

A little later on I went into the kitchen where Charlotte was polishing marble work surfaces and generally avoiding my eye.

‘Our plans have changed a little,’ I explained. ‘We’re leaving first thing in the morning. So, I’m going to need a bed. For tonight. It’s just one night.’

She nodded. ‘Just pick yourself out a room, sir. All of the beds are made up.’

‘Thanks. I will.’

I went out and put my overnight bag in the spare room with the painting of a pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama, very like the one Dumas had at his apartment in Paris. Then I went back to the kitchen. I’d seen a Krups bean-to-cup coffee machine and was now intent of making myself a cup. I did, and it tasted delicious.

‘Is this coffee local?’ I asked Charlotte who was still there. ‘It’s fantastic. I noticed it last night after dinner. This stuff makes the coffee in the hotel taste like mud.’

She nodded. ‘That’s Bonifieur you’re drinking,’ she said. ‘It’s the local coffee here in Guadeloupe. Bonifieur is the ancestor of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, and very rare. Very expensive, too. That is, anywhere else except this island. Here, I’ll make you some more.’

‘Bonifieur,’ I said. ‘I never realised. I wonder if it’s too late to go and buy some beans.’

‘There’s no need, sir. I’ll give you a bag before you leave. We’ve got lots of it.’

Charlotte made a pot of coffee, put it on a tray with a cup and a jug of hot milk and I carried it through into the drawing room where I sat on the sofa, turned on the TV, hunted down a sports channel and started to watch some golf while I savoured what I was drinking. I loved watching golf more than I enjoyed playing it. I especially like those plush American courses like Augusta where even the fairways look like they’ve been upholstered with green velvet.