‘And if I think it through and still refuse?’ I challenged.
There is an old saying in Georgia, Mr Blake. ‘If you forgive the fox for stealing your chickens, he will take your sheep,’ he told me, ‘so I do not forgive. I never forgive.’
29
‘What do you think?’ asked Palmer, when we were driving out of the main gate.
‘I think he’s crazy, out of his fucking mind.’ I was angry now. ‘He’s a Bond villain, sitting in a hollowed-out volcano, stroking a white cat and plotting to blow up the world. He’s barking,’ I forced myself to calm down, ‘but he doesn’t know it and there’s nobody around him who’s brave enough to explain to him that he’s gone crazy. He reckons he’s at war with a country and, worse than that, he thinks he can actually win.’
‘He’s got billions,’ said Palmer, ‘with that kind of money he can cause a whole heap of trouble.’
‘Maybe, but that’s all he’ll ever be able to do. Napoleon and his armies couldn’t bring down Russia. Neither could Hitler and his Panzer divisions. Vasnetsov’s got no chance and sooner or later they will get him.’
‘They’ve been trying to get him for years and not managed it,’ Palmer reminded me.
He was right about that, which left me in an impossible position; trapped between the entire Russian state and a madman.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
Not for the first time lately, I found myself stuck for an answer, ‘call Amrein,’ I said, ‘tell him to get this crazy Russian off my back.’
When I walked into Susan Fitch’s office she was already reading the file she’d asked an intern to prepare for her so she could be up to speed for our meeting. It contained the ‘high spots’ of Golden Boots’ career so far and, as I sat down opposite her, she raised her eyebrows.
‘1999,’ she said to me, instead of a greeting, ‘and he has his first brush with the law, while still a teenager in London, getting into a fight in a nightclub and, allegedly, smashing a glass into a man’s face.’ She read further, ‘the charges are dropped, when the man who was glassed changes his story and fails to be completely sure who actually did the glassing,’ and she looked up at me. ‘He was paid off, wasn’t he?’
‘By the famous old London club Golden Boots played for at the time, so I heard. They didn’t want their expensive asset diminished by a spell in prison.’ She went back to reading the file, ‘2001 and he’s on the move in the first of a series of transfers.’
‘All of them for multi millions.’
‘And in the same year a girl slaps him in the face in another nightclub, reason unknown, and he responds by punching her in the face, breaking her nose. Once again the case does not reach court, witnesses are unclear and the girl withdraws her complaint.’
‘That cost him forty-five grand,’ I said, ‘just to pay off the girl.’
‘Forty-five grand?’ she frowned, ‘that’s a lot for a nose.’
‘It was a week’s wages for him, at the time. That was before he really made it big. He was on probation back then and she was an aspiring model.’
‘Obviously,’ said Susan Fitch, ‘do footballers ever mix with anyone who isn’t?’
She fell silent for a time as she read further, then concluded with a shake of her head, ‘so there’s nothing to worry about here,’ she said dryly, ‘apart from the alleged racist assault on an Asian cab driver; the numerous domestic violence allegations, including two police cautions for assaults on separate girlfriends, both of whom refused to press charges: half a dozen acts of violence on and off the pitch: convictions for assault and affray with their suspended prison sentences: rehab for drink, rehab for drugs, rehab for sexual addiction: the online porn video of him having full sexual intercourse with an unidentified but widely deemed to be underage girl…’ She shook her head and sounded gloriously old-fashioned when she said, ‘He’s an absolute bloody charmer, isn’t he?’
‘I can’t deny that,’ I admitted. ‘He’s vermin, in fact, but he’s not the only one, is he? Not all footballers are rotten to the core,’ I reminded her, ‘just most of them, including at least half of the current England team, if even one-tenth of their reported antics are to be believed. However I’m pretty sure Golden Boots didn’t kill this girl,’ Susan Fitch was watching me intently. I was choosing my words carefully, ‘and we have done a little business together.’
‘Business of a sensitive nature that he might feel compelled to reveal should he feel unduly threatened by the court proceedings?’
‘Indeed.’ I shrugged, ‘I’m keeping my distance. I just said we’d help him find a lawyer, that’s all, so he doesn’t feel any ill-will towards us.’
There was a long pause before she concluded, ‘Then we must find him a very good barrister. It’s a pity Julian Aimes is busy right now.’
The next morning Fallon arrived on an early train from Edinburgh. We met him at the station and, over a fry-up in the platform cafe, he gave us the latest status on his war with the Serbs. ‘It’s like a goalless fucking draw,’ Fallon told us, ‘they beat up a couple of our lads, we kick the shit out of one of theirs, but we’re not getting anywhere.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we can’t get near the main men,’ he explained, ‘not without blowing up their headquarters and starting the kind of war you don’t want.’
‘My profile is high enough as it is right now without you planting a bomb in a house full of Serbs who are protected by police top brass.’
‘So what do we do then?’
‘We make a deal,’ and I had to hold up a hand to stop him from going off on one. ‘Hear me out. I’m not talking about splitting the turf or the take. I’m saying we give them a one-off payment to get them to leave. They can go back to Belgrade with their money and let us get on with it.’
‘You’re fucking joking me!’ I had never seen Fallon so furious. A couple of people glanced over at us, but soon looked away again.
‘I’ll cover it with my cut, not yours.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ he was incredulous. ‘They come over here and take the pish and you are going to just pay them off? Well you can talk to them then, because I fucking won’t!’
‘Let me talk to them,’ said Palmer.
Palmer was fearless. I’ve seen him walk right up to buildings full of psychopathic cut-throats without any outward sign of nervousness. I don’t know how he does that. He is obviously wired very differently from me. I do feel fear and would never put myself in jeopardy the way he does.
‘Okay,’ I said, glad of his intervention.
I’d had a long day shovelling a seemingly endless amount of shite. As well as the meeting with Fallon and the briefing with Susan Fitch, some issues came up involving Henry Baxter’s impending trial and some short-notice transferring of money from place to place was also required so I could pay my suppliers without a major drama. It was late, I was tired and I had a series of meetings in York the next day. All I wanted was to go to bed.
I returned home to find the kitchen in darkness, but Sarah was sitting there, all alone at the table, with only the light from the moon outside to illuminate her. In the half-light I could make out the half full bottle of wine in front of her and the half empty glass standing next to it.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked her.
‘You know,’ she was slurring, ‘you know what’s the matter. I want you to talk to me.’
‘About what?’ We both knew I was stalling.
‘About dad. I want you to talk to me about dad. I want to know what happened to him.’ Sarah was speaking slowly and deliberately, as if she was worried she might mess up her sentences. It was only then I realised there was a second empty wine bottle on the kitchen counter.