‘Hey, boss, I looked you up on the internet. You is famous. You played for Arsenal. And you managed London City. I was thinking, while you’re here maybe you could come down to take a look at a youth side I work with. They call theirselves the Yepton Beach Cane Cutters. Give they a few tips.’
‘Maybe. Perhaps later when I’ve done what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m a little busy right now. The Catalans they’re anxious to have Jérôme Dumas back in Barcelona before el clásico. I take it you know what that is?’
‘For sure. It’s like the most important match in Spain, right? Listen, boss, I flashed some of your money around St John’s but so far come up with nuthin’. I reckon anyone who knows anything about what happened to Jérôme Dumas is going to want a lot more than just a hundred bucks.’
For a moment I remembered the inspector’s words about the effect of money on people who didn’t have very much and how they might start to invent stories they thought I might like to hear. I hate it when cops are proved right.
‘I think that I should be there if that happens.’
‘Sure, boss. Maybe we can meet this afternoon. There’s a bar on Nevis Street called Joe’s. I finish work at four today. Shall we meet then?’
Minutes later, the telephone rang again.
‘Mr Manson? My name is Grace Doughty and I’m a lawyer at Dice & Company. We almost met today at the police station in St John’s.’
‘I remember. You’re the lady with the Burberry briefcase and the nice shoes.’
‘You noticed that.’
‘I pay a lot of attention to someone’s feet. Always have.’
‘I couldn’t help but overhear what you were saying to Inspector White. I hope you won’t think this presumptuous of me, but I wanted to offer you my firm’s help in finding Mr Dumas.’
‘That all depends on what kind of help you had in mind.’
‘Perhaps I could come and see you at your hotel?’
I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do. If nothing else you’ll get a better feel for how things are here, I told myself. Besides, it always helps to have a lawyer handy when you’re nosing around in foreign countries.
‘No need. I’m going to be in St John’s this afternoon. Besides, if you’re going to help me I’d like to see what kind of front you put up.’
‘Shall we say three o’clock? I’m at twenty Nevis Street.’
‘I’ll be there.’
The quaint colonial buildings that made up Nevis Street in St John’s were Creole-style cottages with wooden pillars, small verandas and shingle roofs. As I approached the wooden steps that led up to the front door of number twenty I half expected to see a swinging seat or a rocking chair. Some of these buildings were red, some were green, a few were pink or yellow and none was higher than a lamp-post; all of them were quite dwarfed by an enormous cruise liner, several storeys high, that was moored to the pier at the end of the street, and which towered over them like a Westfield shopping centre that had come adrift from its inner-city foundations and lost its way before washing up here in Antigua. Dice & Co was located in a pink building with yellow shutters and an orange roof from which a spaghetti tangle of cables and wires led across the street to a telephone cable in front of a Seventh Day Adventist Church that looked more like a police station than the police station.
I went inside and found myself in a near-perfect facsimile of a Dickensian lawyer’s office, right down to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with the All England Law Reports. There was a big leather chesterfield in the waiting room, a landscape picture of King John signing the Magna Carta and several portraits of geriatric English judges wearing full-bottomed wigs. All the place lacked for an English legal atmosphere was a freezing fog rubbing on the window panes.
The receptionist ushered me straight into her employer’s office where the tone of the decor changed a little. There were two photographs on the wall of Grace Doughty wearing a karate suit; she seemed to hold a black belt which must have helped to persuade some of her clients to behave themselves — at least when they were with her. I expect they needed reminding, too, as Miss Doughty was a real looker. She was black but I figured she was also what is sometimes described as high yellow in that she must have had a large proportion of white ancestry. She wore a navy-blue jacket and skirt, a crisp white blouse and was as voluptuous as a Mexican bass guitar. I knew there had been another reason why I’d wanted to see her in person, and this was it.
‘Miss Doughty, this is Mr Scott Manson,’ said the receptionist.
Miss Doughty got up and came around her desk with brown eyes that were already sizing me up. She had the look of a woman who was destined for higher things, at least in Antigua.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.
I was just about to shake her outstretched hand when the giant cruise ship sounded its massive horn which, on that small quiet island street, sounded like the final trumpet blown at the day of judgement or, at the very least, an irate mastodon.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, shrinking into the collar of my polo shirt. ‘Do they do that very often?’
She laughed. ‘Only every day. You get used to it.’
The horn sounded again and seemed to linger in the air long afterwards.
‘I don’t think I would. I bet the young mothers of St John’s just love that.’
‘This is a sleepy little place. It helps to keep us awake.’
‘I guess so.’
‘I’ve just been reading about you, as you can see.’ She pointed at her leather-topped partner’s desk where, on a laptop, I saw my Wikipedia entry displayed on screen. ‘It seems that you and I went to the same university.’
‘On an island as small as this that makes us practically related,’ I said.
She laughed again. ‘I think so. And I think we must have overlapped by a year.’
‘I’d like to say I remember something like that, but I don’t.’
What was wrong with the men on Antigua? To let a woman as fine as this one go unclaimed. She wasn’t even wearing an engagement ring.
‘Please. Sit down. Would you like some tea?’
‘English tea?’
‘What else would I offer someone who went to Birmingham University?’ she said.
‘You make it sound like the Old Vicarage, Grantchester.’
‘It was for a girl like me. I loved every minute.’
Mrs Doughty looked at the secretary still hovering in the doorway. ‘Tracy, would you bring us all some tea and biscuits please?’
‘Is that where you got your LLB? At Birmingham?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You didn’t ever want to stay on in England and practise there?’
‘Too cold,’ she said. ‘And too wet.’
‘You got that right.’ I smiled, liking her own smile which matched the string of white pearls around her neck and trying to keep my eyes off the Grand Canyon-deep fissure of cleavage that lay close to it.
‘And the interest in karate? Where did that come from?’
‘Oh that. At Birmingham, too. I was into a lot of sports there. I even played a bit of women’s football. And supported Aston Villa.’
‘Someone’s got to, I suppose.’
‘Hey, just a few years before I started my LLB they finished sixth in the table. If they hadn’t sold Dwight Yorke to Manchester United they might have finished even higher. Somehow the purchase of Paul Merson never quite made up for that. He was good but never as good as Yorkie.’
I made a quick Question of Sport guess. ‘That must be the 1998–99 season you’re talking about.’