‘Yes, I thought that was bollocks.’
‘Everything.’
‘You don’t know that I won’t spoil it. But I’m sick and tired of all this. I just want to go home to London, to try to find a proper job, not play nursemaid to someone who doesn’t know how well off he really is. And frankly I can do without any more bullshit, too. The fact is I will certainly tell PSG and FCB what I do know if you hold out on me any longer. If you want to wreck your fucking career completely, that’s up to you, son, be my guest.’
He pulled a face.
‘I won’t say the truth is always best,’ I added. ‘Sometimes a lie is kinder. But this isn’t one of those times. I love the game. And I love the people who are good at the game. I saw the way you played against Barcelona back in September and I honestly thought you were the best player on the pitch.’
He nodded. ‘You’re right. That was the best I ever played for PSG. If only I’d scored that night things might have been different.’
‘Football is hard like that. Very hard, sometimes. Talk about survival of the fittest. Sometimes it seems positively Darwinian. As unforgiving as Nature itself. A career can end in just five minutes with an ill-timed tackle, like the one that finished Man United’s Ben Collett. On football’s scrapheap at the age of just eighteen. But you’re still in the game, son. Never forget that. And just because it doesn’t happen at one club doesn’t mean it won’t happen at another. People never seem to remember that when Thierry Henry left Monaco he didn’t go straight to Arsenal, he had a dismal eight months at Juventus.’
‘You’re right. He did, didn’t he? Christ, I’d forgotten that, too.’
‘The Italians played him on the wing but he was largely ineffective and I think he scored only three goals in sixteen appearances.’
‘It’s the same with me,’ insisted Jérôme. ‘PSG kept playing me on the wing when I’m a striker. In that game for Barcelona I was a nine, but a false nine. That’s my best position. Same as Messi.’
‘Barcelona clearly think the same way. That’s why they’re keen to have you playing for them ASAP. I want to help Barcelona because they were good to me when I was just out of the nick and I needed a coaching job. And you should know I’ll always put them first. But I want to help you, too, Jérôme, because I respect your ability. I genuinely think you can be one of the best players in the world.’
‘Thank you for that.’
I stood up, straightened the crease on my trousers and glanced around. ‘I’d like to use the toilet if I may. While I’m out of the room I suggest you make a decision one way or the other.’
22
Jérôme Dumas showed me to a lavatory on an upper floor. I washed my hands in a stone shelf basin and on my way back downstairs stuck my head around a couple of doors because I’m nosy that way. Jérôme’s master bedroom was home to several Louis Vuitton bags and, strewn across the floor, a whole wardrobe of clothes and accessories; it certainly didn’t look as if the cleaner was doing very much in that house; then again, it was a cleaner from Guadeloupe.
On the wall of another bedroom was a painting of a pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama, very like the one Dumas had at his apartment in Paris. They must have been selling a job lot of them to footballers that year.
Back in the treble-height drawing room, it seemed that Jérôme was finally ready to spill his guts. It was about time. My patience with him was growing very thin. If there had been a boot or a pizza at hand I might have thrown it at him.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you everything. Everything. I just hope I’m doing the right thing.’
‘Then it’s lucky you’ve got your lawyer to advise you,’ I said. ‘Tell him, Grace. Tell him it’s got to be like this. My way or the highway.’
‘You’re doing the right thing, Jay,’ said Grace. ‘Scott really is here to help. I wouldn’t have brought him here if I didn’t think you could trust him.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
I knew Jérôme was serious because he turned off the PlayStation while he said this and you know something must be about to happen when someone under the age of twenty-five turns off one of those idiot-boxes voluntarily.
‘So. Why don’t you tell me what happened?’
‘All right. I will. The guy in prison, in Antigua, Grace’s mystery client — he’s my father.’
‘I see.’
‘He lives in Antigua now. But he isn’t from there. And he hasn’t lived with my mother since the whole family left Montserrat, way back in 1995. That’s where we’re from, see? I’m not from Guadeloupe at all. I’m from Montserrat, which is the island between here and Antigua. When the Soufrière Hills volcano exploded in July 1995, it ruined not just Plymouth — which is the capital city of Montserrat — but my whole family. And not just ours. Two-thirds of the island’s population were forced to flee their homes. A lot of them went to Guadeloupe. But my dad always hated Guadeloupe, which was where my mum was from, originally. Anyway, he refused to come here with her and it didn’t help that they weren’t married. Dumas is my mother’s name. So, I came here with her and he went to Antigua to live with his sister, and her daughter.’
‘That’s me,’ said Grace. ‘John Richardson is my uncle.’
‘Jesus,’ I muttered.
Jérôme grinned. ‘I told you it was complicated.’
‘It was my cousin here who paid for me to go to Birmingham University,’ said Grace. ‘But for him, I’d probably be cleaning floors at Jumby Bay. He’s the most generous man I know.’
‘And she wasn’t lying, she really didn’t know where I was,’ insisted Jérôme. ‘I didn’t tell her. I didn’t tell anyone. Even my dad didn’t know for sure.’
‘In which case, I apologise,’ I said. ‘I was out of line, I can see that now.’
‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘You weren’t to know.’
‘I still don’t know very much,’ I added, pointedly.
‘Whenever I went to Antigua I’d see my dad. He’d arrange a trip on board a friend’s boat. We’d sail down to Montserrat, just to take a look. But I don’t think things are going to get better there any time soon. There’s still a lot of pyroclastic activity in and around the south part of the island. People are not allowed into the exclusion zone but me and my dad still go when we can, and see for ourselves. The boat’s owner — DJ Jewel Movement — was another guy from Montserrat and a friend of my dad’s. Or at least he was. The day before I was supposed to fly back from Antigua, we went out on the boat. Took a trip to the island, as was usual. Got high. A bit too high, actually. My dad and Jewel Movement quarrelled about something. Money, probably. They were still at it when I got off the boat in Nelson’s Dockyard. But I never thought they’d try to kill each other. The first thing I knew about that was the morning I was supposed to fly back. Like you said, I was at the airport and I saw it in the newspaper. I didn’t know what to do. But I knew I certainly couldn’t leave the area. Equally, I didn’t want the publicity of staying in Antigua and turning up at the police station and trying to bail him out, or whatever you do when that happens. I thought it might jeopardise all of Paolo Gentile’s work in getting me all those endorsement deals. So I called Grace and told her. Then a friend of GJB — Gui-Jean-Baptiste — took me here on his boat until I figured out what to do. I’d hoped the police would accept his story — that it was self-defence — but instead they charged him with murder.’
‘It goes almost without saying,’ said Grace, ‘that being charged with murder is always a serious matter. In Antigua, however, it’s worse than serious. We have the death penalty in Antigua. My uncle is facing the gallows, Mr Manson. If he’s found guilty he might easily be sentenced to death. As things stand now, it’s unlikely he would be hanged; the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council would almost certainly prevent an execution. But the Labour Party, which took power in June 2014, seem to want to break away from the Commonwealth. And its legal system. If that happened we might soon start hanging people again in Antigua. Like in St Kitts and Nevis. And the Bahamas. By the time a verdict is reached in John’s trial there’s every chance that Antigua might have started to carry out executions again. It seems to be what the people here want.’