Philip Kerr 15 страница

It seemed strange to have a holiday home on a Greek island if you didn’t like Greek food; then again most English tourists in Greece seemed to subsist on a diet of hamburgers and chips.

‘I can cook for you if you like, Mr...? ’

‘Manson. Scott Manson. ’ I picked up a photograph on one of the kitchen shelves and showed it to her; it was a team photograph taken at the end of the last season when we’d just learned we’d made it to the fourth spot and had qualified for Champions League football. I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if we’d come fifth. Would Bekim still be alive? ‘That’s me there, ’ I said.

‘Yes, ’ she said, more reassured now than before. ‘That is you. ’

‘I’ll probably go into town tonight and find something to eat in a local taverna, ’ I said. ‘So there’s no need to trouble yourself. ’

‘Is no trouble. I like to cook. But as you wish, mister. ’

‘Otherwise I can make do with a plate of tinned spaghetti. Like Mr Develi. ’

She pulled a face at the thought of that. ‘Ugh. I don’t know how he can eat things out of a tin. ’

‘He sounds like a difficult man to work for, ’ I said.

‘Mr Develi? ’ Zoi frowned and shook her head. ‘He is a wonderful man, ’ she said. ‘No one ever had a better person to work for than him. He is kind and generous like no one I ever met. Other people who know him will tell you this, too. ’

‘Really? I thought you said he was very private here. ’

‘He has friends on the island. Of course he does. There’s the artist lady in Sotires, who knows him best, I think. Mrs Yaros. She and Mr Develi are very good friends. She’s a sculptor. Lots of sculptors live on Paros. They used to come here for the fine marble but now all the best marble is gone, I think. I think maybe she know him better than anyone around here. ’

‘I’d like to meet this Mrs Yaros. Do you think she’s at home? ’

Zoi nodded. ‘I saw her this morning. In the supermarket. ’

‘What’s her address? ’

‘I don’t know the address. But her house is easy to find. You drive away from here, turn left, go for three miles, past old garage, turn right and her house is at the top of a steep hill. Is grey and white. There is a big blue gate. And sometimes a dog. The dog isn’t friendly, so you’d best wait in the car until she comes to fetch you. ’

‘Thanks for the advice. ’

I finished my coffee and then got back into the car. Even though I’d parked it in the shade the little Suzuki felt as hot as a crematorium. I switched on the air conditioning, started the engine and drove back down the track towards the garage. A few minutes later I was through the blue gate and driving up a steep, paved slope which had the little Suzuki straining to reach the top. But for the tip about the dog I might almost have got out and walked. The slope levelled out at the edge of a terraced garden and, above the sound of the engine, I heard what sounded like a dentist’s drill. For a moment I thought I might have got the wrong house. Then, in an open workshop/studio, I caught sight of a slight figure in a mechanic’s blue overalls, covered in a fine white dust. It was hard to make out if this was a man or a woman because of the protective mask he or she was wearing. I steered under the shade of a carport and waited for the dog or its owner, but when neither came I opened the car door cautiously and called out.

‘Mrs Yaros? Forgive me for dropping in on you like this. My name is Scott Manson. And I’m a friend of Bekim Develi. ’

By the time I had walked to the workshop the figure in the overalls had switched off the compressed air cylinder that powered a tiny drill being used to fashion an impossibly beautiful spiral of marble that looked like a piece of material falling through the air, removed her mask and tossed a mane of blonde hair from one shoulder to the other.

I recognised the woman immediately. It was Svetlana Yaroshinskaya, better known to me as Valentina.

‘What on earth are you doing here? I don’t understand. This is private property. Did Bekim tell you how to find me? ’

Somehow the woman managed to look more beautiful in her dusty overalls, although that could have had something to do with the fact that she had already unbuttoned them to reveal her generous cleavage. I opened my mouth to account for my presence but she wasn’t yet in the mood for explanations.

‘I must say that was very unkind of him, to say where I was. You can tell him from me: I’m very angry. He’s betrayed my trust. ’

The pink sandals she was wearing and her painted toenails were about the only concessions she’d made to her own femininity; that and the diamond stud I could see glinting in her belly button.

‘It wasn’t Bekim who told me how to find you, ’ I said. ‘It was Zoi. His housekeeper. ’

‘How did you even know I was here? ’

‘I didn’t. I came to see a Mrs Yaros. And instead it’s you, Valentina. Frankly, I’m as surprised as you are. I had assumed Mrs Yaros was a Greek. I mean, it sounds Greek. ’

She nodded. ‘That’s how I like it. Yaros is short for Yaroshinskaya – my real name. And please don’t call me Valentina. Not on Paros. I’m never Valentina when I’m here. My first name is Svetlana. ’

‘All right. ’ I raised my hands in surrender. ‘No problem. ’

‘So why are you here? ’

Like Zoi, Valentina clearly had no idea that Bekim Develi was even dead. For a moment I considered telling her I’d come to buy a sculpture, to spare her feelings a little, but in her dusty overalls she looked tough enough to hear what I had to say without a lengthy team talk.

‘I’m here because Bekim is dead, ’ I said, bluntly. ‘Last Tuesday night, during a football game against Olympiacos, he collapsed and died on the pitch in front of twenty‑ five thousand people. ’

‘Oh my God, ’ she said. ‘Poor Bekim. I didn’t know. ’

‘So I gather. ’

‘You’d better come into the house. ’

She led the way around an odd‑ shaped swimming pool to a small back door, and stepped over a sleeping dog.

‘Zoi told me he was fierce, ’ I said, hesitating.

‘He used to be. But he’s too old to offer much in the way of defence now. ’

‘I know the feeling. ’

I followed her into a sparsely furnished house that was more of a museum to work I presumed must be her own. We went through a drawing room and into the kitchen where she lit a cigarette and started to make Greek coffee. Next to the cooker was a photograph of Svetlana in St Petersburg standing next to an enormous equestrian statue of Peter the Great. I’d seen it from the bus on the team’s pre‑ season tour of Russia; at the time the tour had seemed like a disaster but of course that was before I knew what a real football disaster felt like.

‘What was it? ’ she asked. ‘A heart attack, I suppose. ’

‘Something like that. We’re still awaiting the autopsy, I’m afraid. Nothing in Athens moves quickly, it seems. Especially when everyone seems to be on strike. ’

She sighed. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea. ’

‘I’m beginning to see why Bekim liked it here so much, ’ I said. ‘Anyone would think televisions and the internet and the newspapers had never been invented. ’

Svetlana answered with a shrug, and then: ‘Most people who come to live on the island want to get away from the world, ’ she said. ‘We’re a bit like the lotus‑ eaters in Homer’s Odyssey. You know? Once you eat the fruit you lose the desire to leave? I don’t know – like most islanders I just want to live in peace and quiet. These days it’s only bad news on TV and in the papers. On Paros we try not to pay attention to what happens in Athens. It’s nearly always depressing.

‘I suppose Alex is too upset to come to Greece and sort things out. Which is why you’re here. ’

I turned my attention to a framed drawing on the opposite wall; a good drawing of a young woman who resembled Nataliya.

‘I’m not here for him or even her. I’m here for me. And for the team. You see, none of us is permitted to leave Athens until the police have satisfied themselves that Bekim had nothing to do with the death of a girl with whom he had sex on the night before he died. A Russian girl I believe you know. ’

Svetlana let out a sigh that filled the kitchen with cigarette smoke and made me want one myself. ‘Nataliya. ’

‘Is this a drawing of her? ’

‘Yes. ’

‘She was found in the harbour with a weight tied to her feet. ’

‘Oh, God. ’ Her eyes filled with tears for a moment and tearing off a square of kitchen towel she dabbed at them for a minute. ‘The poor kid. ’

‘Until now I’ve been trying to keep your name from the police. As a favour. ’

‘Thank you. ’

‘Your name, your phone number, your Skype address, your email. Not that I can see it would have made much difference. You never seem to answer them, anyway. ’

‘My phone doesn’t get a signal here. I don’t have a landline. My computer is in the repair shop right now. Something’s wrong with it. ’ She frowned. ‘And the police think what? That Bekim had something to do with Nataliya’s death? ’

‘Something like that. ’

‘Impossible. He was always very kind to her. And she was fond of him. Almost as fond of him as I was. ’

She took the drawing off the wall and contemplated it sadly.

‘I’m glad to hear that, ’ I said. ‘Not least because I’m checking out a few leads myself in the hope of clearing his name. You might say I’ve turned detective on the assumption that I couldn’t achieve any less than the Hellenic police. I came to the island to look for something that might offer a clue as to how or why she met her death. And it looks as if I was right. I have found something. ’

‘Oh? What’s that? ’

‘You, of course. ’

‘Me? I can’t tell you what happened to her. ’ She put the drawing back on the wall and rubbed one of her breasts absently.

‘Perhaps not. But you can help to colour in my drawing. If you do that, I’ll try my best to keep your name from the police. ’

‘I need to wash and then cool down. ’ She unbuttoned her overalls, let them fall to the ground and, naked, sipped some of the delicious coffee she’d made. The cup, and more especially the saucer, made the informality of her appearance all the more alluring.

‘You’ve no idea how hot it is in that studio. The air conditioning has broken down. And I have dust in every part of my body. ’

Wet or dry Svetlana was the best thing to look at for miles around. While she showered, I took a few minutes to admire some of the sculptures that surrounded the pool: elegant pieces of marble and granite that had the quality of natural objects – plants, shells, marine life – which, given that they were carved from stone, were all the more impressive.

I turned as Svetlana stepped out on to the deck, towel in hand and glistening. She draped the towel over the back of a basket chair then dived into the water, swam a couple of lengths and then came to the water’s edge. I sat down on a chair near her.

She sank below the surface for a moment and then came powering up again, lifting herself onto the side with arms that were more muscular than I remembered, and sat there in the sun like the Little Mermaid.

‘So, tell me what you think you know, ’ she said.

I told her. It didn’t take very long. I was almost embarrassed at the sudden realisation of how little I did know. Perhaps that’s how it is with detective work. You know nothing; and then, a few minutes later, you think you know almost everything.

‘I last spoke to Bekim about two weeks ago, ’ she said. ‘He emailed me from London with the intention of hooking up in Athens. I said I couldn’t come because I was working. And he understood that. So, naturally he’d have called Nataliya. No, wait. I need to go back to the beginning, about six years ago. It’s not that I feel the need to justify myself to you, Scott. I don’t. It’s just that when you said you’d kept my name from the police I realised that you’d done me a huge favour. I think that in return I need to tell you absolutely everything. ’

‘In 2008, when the recession hit this country really hard, some of the banks looked like they would fail. Like a lot of Russians I had money in the Bank of Cyprus and it seemed for a while that I was going to lose it all. For a while my work stopped selling. Art is always the first thing that most people cut back on. But not Bekim, who has a good eye for paintings, and for sculpture, too. He saved me from going under. He bought several pieces of mine and then came up with a suggestion of how I could earn some regular money. He said that even in Greece there were lots of guys in football who would be prepared to pay for a GFE – a girlfriend experience – with someone who wasn’t a professional escort.

‘I thought it was a joke at first. But then he introduced me to an English woman at the Hellenic Football Federation, Anna Loverdos, and some Greek guy from UEFA she was into. Anyway, they were hot for Bekim’s idea. The whole thing was Bekim’s idea. He said we’d be doing a favour to a lot of guys who would otherwise just go and get themselves into trouble on Sofokleous, which is the red light area of Athens. Bekim was the first, of course. The man has a libido like a goat.

‘The first time I went with another man it was some old guy from FIFA. Something to do with the World Cup in Qatar. I was the cherry on top of the money he’d been paid for his vote. The sex was lousy but the money was great. I got paid five thousand euros for spending the weekend with him because some of that was mouth‑ shut money. The guy gave me a thousand‑ euro tip. He could afford it, of course. Later on I read in the newspaper that he got over a million US dollars for his vote.

‘Then Anna called me again and before I knew it she was calling once or twice a month. She would tell me to contact some footballer or perhaps an official from FIFA or UEFA. I’d get paid as much as a couple of thousand euros a night, cash. I told myself that turning tricks wasn’t such a bad thing for an artist to do. Fucking a few guys didn’t seem as bad as some of the things that Caravaggio and Cellini had done. ’ She shrugged. ‘You can justify anything to yourself, if you want to. I figured that all I really cared about was my work and that if I had to fuck some rich guy in order to keep doing it, then that’s what I’d do. I won’t deny that there were plenty of times when I even enjoyed it. Especially when it was a player. There are worse things to do than sleep with fit and handsome young men.

‘Like I say, the work was part‑ time, at first. Maybe a couple of times a month. I paid off all my bills; I even had enough to buy a small flat in Athens. Then Anna started to telephone me a bit more often. It seems that there’s no shortage of guys with money in football. Agents, managers, players, officials, even a few match referees who someone wanted to fix before a big game. So I found another Russian girl to help me out when I was busy. Nataliya. She was much more of a professional than I was; and much better at it, too. I’d either see the client myself, if I needed the money, or I’d give the work to Nataliya and take ten per cent. That seemed fair. It’s less than my art dealer charges. I think Bekim preferred her to me, anyway. She was more adventurous than I am. If he was coming to Athens he’d call me or Nataliya direct. He meant well, of course. And he’d recommend us both to a few people. You included.

‘After a while I didn’t want to do it any more. I sold some of my work to a cruise ship company and I was a lot less inclined to fuck guys in football for money. You might find this hard to believe but as a matter of fact, you were my last client. Really, I only did it as a favour to Bekim. He paid me in advance and said I didn’t have to fuck you if I didn’t want to but you were a nice guy, and you’d behave yourself. Anyway, just so you know, I did it with you because I wanted to. But I’ve never done it here on Paros. Not even with Bekim. When I’m in Athens I’m Valentina. When I’m here I’m Svetlana Yaros, the sculptor. And that’s never been a problem until today. ’

She gathered her hair in a ponytail at the back of her head and squeezed some of the water out.

‘Stay there, ’ she said.

She got up for a moment and went to fetch not her clothes or a robe but a cigarette from the kitchen and I wasn’t sorry about that. Calypso herself could not have looked more seductive.

‘Tell me about Hristos Trikoupis, ’ I said.

‘Did he tell you about me? ’

‘No. It was Jasmine. ’

‘Ah, Jasmine. You have been thorough. For a while I had a regular thing going with Trikoupis. He wanted me to be his mistress, but I wasn’t interested in something like that. He was too hairy for me. Too much like an animal. What is more he has terrible breath. ’ She wrinkled her nose with displeasure. ‘We’d have dinner at Spondi and then I’d go to his apartment near the stadium and have sex with him. But I’d stopped seeing him and more or less got out of the football VIP escort business. When you and I went to the game against Hertha he saw us and was furious about it. I didn’t mean to make him angry. But he was so jealous of you. Like, he really hated you. ’

‘That explains a lot, ’ I said. ‘He said a lot of nasty things in the newspaper about me I figured were just mind games, ahead of the match. But maybe I was wrong about that. ’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. ’

‘When did you last see Nataliya? ’

‘In May, I think. We had a drink together at the Grande Bretagne with two black guys. A Panathinaikos player and his agent. We all went to dinner at a place called Nikolas tis Schinoussas where we met another player, a Romanian guy. He plays for Olympiacos. Then we went back to the Romanian’s place in Glyfada. The agent went back to the hotel by himself. ’ She frowned. ‘You’re going to make me try to remember names, aren’t you? I’m not much good with names. ’

‘Try. ’

‘The Romanian guy was Roman someone or other. ’

‘Roman Boerescu? ’

She nodded.

‘And the others? The two black guys? ’

‘Let’s see now. The player was called something angelic. Yes. It was Sé raphim. ’

I nodded. ‘Sé raphim Ntsimi. Panathinaikos bought him from Crystal Palace in the summer. ’

‘If you say so. I wouldn’t know anything like that. I just sleep with them. ’

‘And the agent? ’

‘Tojo. At least I think that was his name. Tall guy. Head like a bowling ball. ’

I nodded. ‘Yes, I know who that is. ’

I was silent for a while.

‘How am I doing? ’ she asked.

‘Good. ’

She closed her eyes and held her face up into the sun.

‘Are you planning to stay at Bekim’s villa tonight? ’ she asked.

‘That’s the idea. ’

‘What are you going to do for dinner? ’

‘I thought I might go into town and find a little taverna. Not to mention a telephone signal and a Wi‑ Fi signal. ’

‘You won’t get into anywhere good. Not in August. Everywhere reasonable will be booked up. Why don’t you have dinner here? ’ She shrugged. ‘I already made something. I generally cook for two and that lasts for two days. So you’re in luck, really. ’

‘I’d like that. But on one condition. That you put on some clothes. ’

‘Are you sure about that? There are some men who would pay a lot of money to have a naked woman cook for them. Besides, I never wear clothes at home, apart from my overalls. And I wouldn’t like to wear those while I’m serving dinner. ’

‘Perhaps we can excuse them on this occasion, ’ I said vaguely. ‘It is very hot, I suppose. ’

Svetlana was a good cook and had prepared a variety of delicious Greek dishes.

‘It’s nice to have someone here for dinner, ’ she said bringing one plate and then another out onto a terrace that overlooked a small yard that was full of blocks of stone. ‘When I’m here I tend to live like a nun. ’

She poured me a glass of cold white wine and then went back into the house, leaving me to think a while. For some reason I was thinking about Sara Gill. At the same time I was thinking about football. The truth is, of course, I’m nearly always thinking about football; and quite often when I’m thinking about football I remember something that Joã o Zarco used to say. He was much more of an original thinker than most people ever knew. I could almost hear him now:

‘I’ve been reading about this Greek philosopher called Zeno, ’ he said. ‘You know? That story about the arrow in flight? It’s an argument against motion. That time is entirely composed of instants so that at every instant of time there is no motion occurring. I was wondering if his thinking could be applied to football, and I think it can. Everything in football can be broken down into distinct passages of play like the movement of the arrow; and every passage of play can be broken down into transitional moments, when a game turns decisively: a tackle, a poor clearance, a penetrating pass. These transitional moments can have the force of revelation when you see these moments of revelation for what they are. So that you can act on them. That’s all the future is, too. ’

At that point I wouldn’t say I had a revelation, but I did stand up from the table and make a fist. Something Svetlana had said – I wasn’t even sure what this was – had made me guess the probable identity of the man who had helped Thanos Leventis attack Sara Gill; the man who had raped her and left her for dead in the harbour.

When Svetlana came back onto the terrace she was wearing an elegant pair of black slacks and a matching long‑ sleeved T‑ shirt, and she smelt of perfume.

‘You look pleased with yourself, ’ she observed.

‘If I do it makes a change on this trip, ’ I said, sitting down again. ‘I’ve never been one to sit around congratulating myself. I guess all football managers are like that: beset with thoughts about what could have been. Sometimes it seems that there’s a guy inside my head who’s always cross with me. ’ I sighed. ‘Poor Bekim. This might have been his best season ever. ’

We sat down at the table and started to eat.

‘I certainly admire your appetite, ’ I said, watching her eat a large plate of moussaka. ‘It’s not many women who can eat like that with a clear conscience. ’

I knew I didn’t have to make a cheesy remark about what a good figure she had – we both knew it was superb – but I was anxious to secure her continued cooperation. Svetlana had told me quite a bit, however I felt I needed to know everything.

When we finished dinner she lit a cigarette and since it was Sunday night – the only night when I allow myself to smoke – I had one, too.

‘Thank you for an excellent dinner, ’ I said. ‘And for saving me from an evening on my own. It was the local taverna or tinned spaghetti. ’

‘Tinned spaghetti? ’

‘Bekim’s kitchen cupboards are full of the stuff. ’

‘Yes, of course, it would be. He loved English food. You know, I think the last person I cooked for was probably Nataliya. She came out here to stay for a few days about six months ago. She was going through a bad patch, poor kid. She was depressed. I’m not exactly sure but I think there had been an attempted suicide when her boyfriend had cleared off to England. ’

‘This would be the guy called Boutzikos. ’

‘Nikos Boutzikos. Yes. ’

‘You were friends then? You and she. ’

‘It wasn’t just business. We were – well, let’s just say we were close. ’

‘No, let’s just remember that you agreed to tell me everything, ’ I said. ‘For keeping your name from the police. So I need it all, if you don’t mind. ’

‘All right. ’ For a moment she exhaled smoke from each nostril, like a dragon about to breathe fire. ‘If you really must know we went to bed together. It was her idea. She wanted me more than I wanted her, and I only did it because I thought it might make her feel better. As a matter of fact it was me who felt better. She made me come like a train. Which is odd because I have very little experience with women. ’

I shrugged. ‘Then I guess she knew what she was doing. Professional girl like her. After all, that was her job, wasn’t it? Threesomes. Foursomes, for all I know. That kind of thing. ’

‘You make that sound ugly. ’

‘I don’t mean to. But in retrospect that’s how she seems to me: professional. How else am I to describe someone who was prepared to dope her clients? ’

‘Nonsense. She wasn’t that kind of girl at all. ’

‘What do you think these are? Breath fresheners? ’

I tapped the Photos app on my phone and showed her the picture of the Rohypnol pills I’d found in Nataliya’s handbag.

‘These were found in her bag, ’ I said.

But Svetlana was still shaking her head.

‘You’ve got it all wrong. Nataliya didn’t use these for knocking out clients. That’s not how this business works. Not at our sort of level, anyway. No, these pills were for her. They’re antidepressants. A girl on Omonia Square might have done what you’re suggesting but not someone like Nataliya. At a thousand euros for a two‑ hour GFE she wasn’t exactly a hooker off the street. ’

I showed her the next picture. ‘And I suppose the ceftriaxone was just in case she caught a cold. ’

‘Accidents happen. It’s best to be prepared. ’ She frowned. ‘How do you know all this anyway? About the Rohypnol? I thought you said the cops hadn’t found anything. ’

‘They didn’t find it. I did. With the help of my driver, Charlie. He used to be a cop with the Hellenic police. We persuaded her landlord in Piraeus to let us into her flat and then had a nose around. I took her bag away for safekeeping. And I photographed the contents, as you can see. ’

I handed her my phone and let Svetlana look at the pictures I’d taken.

‘For the moment I still have the bag although our team’s lawyer in Athens reckons that I will have to hand it over to the police sooner than later. ’

Svetlana paused when she saw the picture of Nataliya’s iPhone.

‘So, the cops are going to want to speak to me after all. I mean they’ll almost certainly find my number on her phone. Not to mention a few texts, perhaps. ’

‘Not necessarily. One of my players used to knock off phones for a living. He’s trying to break the code. It might be that I can erase one or two things before I hand it over. ’

‘I see. ’ Svetlana swept the screen of my phone to view the next picture and then frowned. ‘Wait a minute, ’ she said.

‘What? ’

She turned my phone around to show me a picture of one of Nataliya’s four EpiPens.

‘These EpiPens. I don’t think she was allergic to anything. In fact, I’m sure of it. I cooked for her. She’d have mentioned something like that. ’

‘Charlie says that’s not why she had the stuff. He says Viagra is in short supply in Greece and that a shot of adrenalin will help some guys get it up. ’

‘Nonsense. Believe me, there’s no Viagra quite as powerful as a twenty‑ five‑ year‑ old girl like Nataliya. ’

She pinched the screen of my iPhone and enlarged the picture of the EpiPen.

‘Besides, look at the writing on the side of the box. It’s in Russian. This wasn’t even hers. This EpiPen was prescribed in St Petersburg. To Bekim Develi. ’

‘What? ’

‘She must have taken it. Them. ’

For a moment I considered the possibility that Bekim had been using epinephrine as a performance enhancer, like ephedrine, for which Paddy Kenny had been busted while playing for Sheffield United back in 2009. Suddenly the heart attack started to look like it might have been self‑ inflicted.

‘Christ, the idiot, ’ I muttered. ‘Bekim must have been using the stuff as a stimulant. ’

‘Well, he was but not like you think, ’ said Svetlana. ‘Bekim might have been a lot of things but he wasn’t a cheat. But surely you must know he suffered from a severe allergy? ’

‘An allergy? To what? ’

‘To chickpeas. He never travelled without at least one of these pens. ’

‘Are you sure? ’

‘Of course I’m sure. He told me himself. ’

‘I’ve seen the medical report that was carried out prior to his transfer. There was no mention of any allergies. ’

‘Then he must have lied to your doctor. Or the doctor agreed to cover it up. ’

‘Our guy would never have done something like that. ’ I shook my head. ‘But chickpeas. Surely that’s not very serious. ’

‘Not in London, perhaps. But it is serious in Greece. They use chickpeas to make hummus. And for curries, of course. ’

‘Christ. That explains the spaghetti hoops. ’

Svetlana nodded. ‘As long as I knew Bekim he was always careful about what he ate. Especially in Greece. ’

‘Then no wonder he didn’t let Zoi cook for him. ’

‘If he’d accidentally ingested chickpeas, he’d have suffered anaphylaxis. ’

‘And without the EpiPen that would have been potentially fatal. ’

She nodded.

‘But surely someone at Dynamo St Petersburg, his previous club, would have known about this? ’ I wasn’t asking her, I was asking myself.

‘And if they didn’t mention it? ’ She left that one hanging for a few seconds before saying what was already in my mind. ‘That would have affected the transfer fee, wouldn’t it? ’

‘It would have affected the whole transfer, ’ I said.