False Nine

by Philip Kerr

  ‘I’ll come with you, Scott,’ said Grace. ‘Back to Antigua.’

  I looked at her narrowly. ‘Maybe you should stay here in Guadeloupe. It might not be such a good idea for Jérôme to be on his own too much until he’s on his meds again.’

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ said Jérôme. ‘Really. You don’t have to worry about me, Scott. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Good. I’ll come here in a car from the airport and pick you up myself. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  On our way out of the door again, Jérôme took my hand and held onto it tightly. There were tears in his eyes and for a moment he seemed unable to say anything. I squeezed his hand back and smiled.

  ‘I just want to say thanks, Scott. Thanks for helping me like this, man. I don’t know what I’ve have done if you hadn’t turned up.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I guess that you’d have carried on staying here. This is a nice house. It’s very comfortable. You’ve a fine cook here in Charlotte. And there’s a copy of my book as well. I really don’t know what else anyone could ask for.’

  26

  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.

  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 mo
re.’

  ‘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.

  After a while I noticed Jérôme standing on the level above.

  ‘At last,’ I said. ‘I’ve found something I really like about Guadeloupe. The coffee. It’s Bonifieur. Fantastic. You want some? I’ll fetch a cup.’

  ‘I don’t like coffee very much,’ said Jérôme.

  ‘Me, I love it. Coffee’s my thing, you know? I mean, after football.’

  ‘I prefer fruit juice.’

  ‘You should watch that. A lot of fruit juice, it’s just sugar. People think it’s good for them and it’s not.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You know, I think it’s really good the way you support people on this island. The local school’s football team. Grace told me that you even sent money to that hairdresser who was here earlier.’

  Jérôme sneered. ‘Yeah, I’m a real saint, aren’t I? Everyone loves me. But I’m not such a great guy, you know. I can be difficult. A selfish prick, you know? In fact, there are times when I fucking hate myself.’

  He was off his meds all right; his mood seemed to be the exact opposite of the one I’d seen last night.

  ‘I think we all get like that sometimes.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  I finished the cup I was drinking and went up to join him on the upper level.