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.’