Hand of God Read online

  ‘So, that’s how we beat Barcelona to his signature.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  I swallowed uncomfortably. The temptation to tell Vik and Phil to fuck off was strong, and getting stronger by the day. Somewhere in my ears I could hear Bastian Hoehling back in Berlin: ‘In a year or two’s time, when Scott here has been fired by his current master, he’ll be managing a German club.’ I was beginning to think it might not take that long.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Phil. ‘You look a bit sick.’

  ‘The beautiful game,’ I grunted, bitterly. ‘Christ, that’s a laugh. Sometimes it seems like the only thing that’s straight in the game are the fucking lines on the pitch. Everything else seems as bent as Pakistani cricket.’

  ‘Football is a business, like any other, Scott, especially off the field. And in the boardroom there’s nothing beautiful about it.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a game, but it’s a zero-sum game, with buyers and sellers, supply and demand, and profits and losses.’

  ‘Just don’t tell the fans,’ I said. ‘Look, Phil, I can just about forgive you for being a slippery fucking bastard. But they certainly won’t.’

  8

  ‘Peter,’ said Bekim. ‘After Peter the Great. As a child he had red hair, too.’

  ‘He’s another red devil, all right,’ I said. ‘Just like his father.’

  I was staring at a picture on an iPhone of a very small baby with red hair.

  ‘Yes, Peter is very lovely,’ I added quickly, for fear that the Russian might take offence at my calling him a devil. ‘You must be very proud, Bekim.’

  ‘Very proud,’ he said. ‘To be a father is to be blessed, I think. Perhaps one day, Scott, you too will have children. I hope so. I’d like you to feel the way I feel now.’

  I nodded. ‘Perhaps I will. But at the present moment I’ve got my hands full looking out for my players. I really don’t know where I’d find the time to be a father.’

  ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘You are a bit like our father. Only not as old.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes we’re like little children. This stupid business between me and Prometheus. You must think we’re idiots.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re an idiot, Bekim. Let me make that quite clear. I don’t hold you responsible for what happened at all.’

  Bekim nodded.

  ‘And now the German boy is leaving,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it. It’s such a pity. Because I think Christoph’s one of the most talented players at this football club.’

  ‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘I was very much opposed to selling him; and told Vik and Phil that a sale would be over my dead body. But now he’s asked for a transfer.’

  ‘Can’t you talk him out of it?’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve tried. But his mind is made up.’

  ‘You know why he wants to go, of course.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because of that stupid gay-hating bastard, Prometheus.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘My agent has asked me to make the peace with him. To shake his hand.’

  ‘I know. And will you?’

  ‘I suppose so. If Christoph is determined to leave the club then I can see no reason not to. For the good of the club, you understand. Not because I like this man. I don’t like him at all. Or what’s in his heart. But I think the feeling is mutual, don’t you? He hates me, too.’

  I let that one go. There seemed little point in discussing an enmity I hoped was now over.

  ‘Prometheus has tweeted his regrets about offending gay people,’ I said. ‘Which is helpful to this whole affair, don’t you agree?’

  ‘I just wish that it would make Christoph change his mind.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like it, though. Anyway, we’re not short of offers for the boy so far. Barcelona has offered thirty million quid.’

  ‘Then he should take it. Barca is a great club. And Gerardo Martino is a great manager. Although it’s still difficult to be a maricón in some parts of Spain.’

  We were at my flat in Chelsea. Bekim lived not very far away, in St Leonard’s Terrace, in a beautiful, seven-million-pound nineteenth-century Grade II listed building set back behind a private carriage drive with fine views over the rolling lawns of Burton’s Court. Inside there were red walls and red furniture as might have been expected from a man nicknamed the red devil; even the flowers in the vases were red.

  ‘Did you come by to talk about Christoph, Bekim? Or was there something else?’

  ‘There was something else, yes. I hear you’re going to Greece. To check out Olympiacos, in Piraeus.’

  ‘Yes. The Berlin side Hertha FC has a pre-season friendly with them. They’ve invited me along to see them play. I’m also going to check out their number two goalkeeper, Willie Nixon. Now that Didier Cassell is out of the game we’re going to need to buy a reserve goalkeeper, and soon. If Kenny Traynor gets injured we’re screwed.’

  Didier Cassell had been City’s first choice goalkeeper until an accident had forced him to quit the game; he’d hit his head on the post in a match against Tottenham the previous January. He wasn’t long out of hospital after making an only partial recovery.

  ‘You know I have a house in Greece,’ said Bekim. ‘On the island of Paros. As a matter of fact it’s not so very far from the place in Turkey where I’m originally from. Before we moved to Russia.’

  I shook my head. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘I bought it when I was playing for Olympiacos. It’s just a thirty-minute hop on a plane from Athens. Very quiet. When I’m there the local people leave me alone – in fact, I think they really don’t know who I am at all – you can’t imagine how wonderful that is. I go there several times a year. By the way, you must stay at the Grande Bretagne Hotel; it’s the best hotel in Athens. And while you’re there – yes, this is the reason I came here today – you must meet this woman I know and take her to dinner. Her name is Valentina and she is the most beautiful woman in all Athens, although originally she’s from Russia. I’ll text you her number and email. Seriously, Scott. You won’t be disappointed. She makes every other woman look quite ordinary and she’s great company. You should take her to Spondi, the best restaurant in Athens. I know she likes it there.’

  I knew Bekim’s reputation as a ladies’ man. Before meeting his current girlfriend and the mother of his child, Alex, he’d had a string of glamorous girlfriends, including the Storm supermodel Tomyris, and the singer Hattie Shepsut. In an interview with GQ magazine he’d admitted to sleeping with a thousand women, which, if it was true, meant he was basing his opinion of his friend Valentina on a fairly significant statistical sample and was perhaps something that needed to be taken seriously.

  He took out his iPhone again. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a picture of her on my phone.’

  He swiped his way through several photographs until he found the one he was looking for.

  ‘There. What do you think?’

  ‘I’m going to watch a football match, not check out the local hookers.’

  ‘She’s not a hooker. Believe me, you won’t forgive yourself if you don’t at least take her out to dinner. I wouldn’t recommend her to you if I didn’t think you’d find her the most delightful company. She’s very sophisticated, very well read. And she knows about art. Every time I see her I learn something new.’

  ‘If she’s so sophisticated, how come she knows a sod like you?’

  ‘Does it matter? Look at her, man. She’s properly fit. A face to launch a thousand ships, eh?’ Bekim grinned. ‘Sometimes I read this phrase in the newspapers. Writers talk about a country’s best-kept secret. Well, she’s Attica’s best kept secret.’

  ‘Attica?’

  ‘The historical region that encompasses Athens.’

  ‘I see. So, when I’m in Attica, I’m going to look up Helen of Troy, is that it?’

  Bekim grinned. ‘That’s right. It couldn’t do you any harm, could it?
’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  ‘Life is more than just football, Scott. Even for you. You have to remember that.’

  ‘You’re right. I forget that sometimes. But with two games a week – three if we get through the play-offs for the Champions League – there’s not much time for life.’

  ‘In this game of ours, it’s easy to forget everything else.’

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  ‘I’ll tell her you’re coming, shall I? And that you’re staying at the Grande Bretagne on Syntagma Square. The rooftop bar and restaurant has the best view in all of Athens. Take her there before you go to Spondi and put the bill on my tab.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I agreed just to humour him, as if he really was a child, and then forgot all about it.

  ‘But be careful, Scott,’ he added, ‘and I don’t mean with lovely Valentina. There are two teams in Attica. Olympiacos and Panathinaikos, and they are bitter rivals. They hate each other. They are eternal enemies, Greeks say. Sometimes when these two sides play they don’t even finish the game because the crowd violence is so bad. When you go to Olympiacos, keep away from Gate 7, okay? Those are the real hard-core fans. Very violent. Like Glasgow Rangers and Celtic. Only worse.’ Bekim grinned. ‘You raise your eyebrows. I can see you don’t believe me. Yes, I know you’re part Scottish and you think that nothing could be as bad as the Old Firm. But what you have to remember is that half of all the men in Greece under the age of thirty are unemployed; and where there is such mass unemployment, you’re always going to have bad hooligans. Same as Weimar Germany. Same as South America. There is also match fixing because there is a football mafia. To be an honest sportsman is difficult in Greece, Scott. And if you are interviewed by a newspaper just remember to keep your mouth shut. Because the people who talk about this kind of thing get hurt. Just be careful, is all. Please be careful, Scott.’

  There was real concern in Bekim’s voice and, after he’d gone, I wondered if this might actually have been the real reason that he’d come to see me. That would have been typical. In many ways he was a very secretive man, as I later discovered.

  9

  I flew to Athens the night before Hertha’s match with Olympiacos. It was past 1 a.m. when a taxi dropped me in front of the Grande Bretagne Hotel, which was every bit as impressive as Bekim had told me it would be. The huge marble-floored lobby was spacious, elegant and above all, wonderfully cool; outside, in Syntagma Square, the temperature was still in the mid-twenties. The people inside the hotel were well-dressed and looked prosperous and it was easy to forget that Greece was a country with 26 per cent unemployment and a debt that amounted to 175 per cent of its total economy; or that Syntagma Square had seen some of the worst riots in Europe as the Greek parliament voted on austerity measures that would, it was hoped, satisfy the European central bank and, in particular, the Germans who were contributing most of the money that was needed to bail them out. All that seemed like a long way off as I walked towards the front desk.

  The receptionist on duty checked me in and then handed me an envelope that had been in my pigeonhole. Inside the envelope was a handwritten message on scented stationery:

  Bekim told me what time you were arriving in Athens and since I was in the vicinity of your hotel I thought I would stop by and say hello. I am in Alexander’s Bar, behind the front desk. I shall wait until 2.15 a.m. Valentina (00.55)

  PS, If you’re too tired from your journey, I shall quite understand, but please send this note back via the bellboy.

  I went up to my room with the porter and pondered my next move. I wasn’t particularly tired: Athens is two hours ahead of London time and having scorned the plastic in-flight meal, I was now hungry for something more substantial than a handful of peanuts from the minibar. Greeks tend to eat quite late in the evening and I was sure I could still get some dinner, but I felt less certain about eating on my own; an attractive dining companion would surely be a pleasant alternative to my iPad. So I cleaned my teeth, changed my shirt and went back downstairs to find her.

  In spite of what Bekim had said I still suspected that I was about to meet a hooker. For one thing there was his own priapic reputation to consider, for another there was her nationality. I don’t know why so many Russian women become hookers but they do; I think they feel it’s the only thing that will get them out of Russia. After our pre-season tour I never wanted to see the country again either. I’ve never minded the company of prostitutes – after you’ve been in the nick for something you didn’t do, you learn never to judge anyone – it’s just sleeping with them I object to. It doesn’t make me better than Bekim – or any of the other guys in football who succumb to all the temptations made possible by a hundred grand a week. I was just older and perhaps a little wiser and, truth be told, just a little less pussy-hungry than I used to be. You get older, your sleep matters more than what’s laughingly called your libido.

  Alexander’s Bar looked like something out of an old Hollywood movie. The marble counter was about thirty feet long, with proper bar stools for some serious, lost weekend drinking, and more bottles than a bonded warehouse. Behind the bar was a tapestry of a man in a chariot I assumed was Alexander the Great; some attendants were carrying a Greek urn beside his chariot that looked a lot like the FA Cup which probably explained why everyone looked so happy.

  It wasn’t hard to spot Valentina: she was the one in the grey armchair with legs up to her armpits, coated tweed minidress and Louboutin high heels. Louboutins are easy to identify; I only knew the minidress was a three-grand Balmain because I liked to shop online and it was a rare month when I didn’t buy something for Louise on Net-a-Porter. The blonde hair held in a loose chignon gave Valentina a regal air. If she was a hooker she wasn’t the kind who was about to give a discount for cash.

  Seeing me she stood up, smiled a xenon headlight smile, took my hand in hers and shook it; her grip was surprisingly strong. I glanced around in case anyone else had recognised me as quickly as Valentina had done. You can’t be too careful these days; anyone with a mobile phone is Big Brother.

  ‘I recognised you from the picture Bekim sent me,’ she said.

  I resisted the immediate temptation to pay her a dumb compliment; usually, when you meet a really beautiful woman, all you can really hope to do is try to keep your tongue in your mouth. I remembered Bekim showing me her picture on his iPhone. But it was hard to connect something as ubiquitous and ordinary as the image on someone’s phone with the living goddess standing on front of me. All my earlier thoughts of dinner were now gone; I don’t think I could even have spelt the word ‘appetite’.

  We sat down and she waved the barman towards us; he came over immediately, as if he’d been watching her, too. Even Alexander the Great was having a hard job keeping his embroidered eyes off her. I ordered a brandy, which was stupid because it doesn’t agree with me, but that’s what she was drinking and at that particular moment it seemed imperative that we should agree about everything.

  ‘I live not far from here,’ she explained.

  ‘I had no idea that Mount Olympus was so close,’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘You’re thinking of Thessaloniki.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking of Greek mythology.’ I was having a hard job to restrain myself from pouring yet more sugar in her ear; she probably heard that kind of shit all the time.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘There’s still time to go to dinner,’ she said. ‘Spondi is a five-minute cab ride from here. It’s the best restaurant in Athens.’

  The waiter returned with the brandies.

  ‘Or we could eat here. The roof garden restaurant has the best view in Athens.’

  ‘The roof garden sounds just fine,’ I said.

  We took our drinks upstairs to the roof garden restaurant. The rocky plateau that dominated the city and which was home to the Parthenon, now floodlit, is one of the most spectacular sights in the world, especial
ly at night, from the rooftop of the Grande Bretagne, when you’re having dinner with someone who looks like one of the major deities who were once worshipped there; but I kept that one to myself because it’s not every woman who likes that much cheese. And frankly, after a couple of minutes, I barely even noticed the Acropolis was there at all. We ordered dinner. I don’t remember what I ate. I don’t remember anything except everything about her. For once Bekim had not exaggerated; I don’t think I’d ever met a more beautiful woman. If she’d had any skill with a football I’d have offered to marry her right there and then.

  ‘What time is the game tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Seven forty-five.’

  ‘And how were you planning on spending the day?’

  ‘I thought I would see the sights.’

  ‘It would be my pleasure to show you the city,’ she said. ‘Besides, there’s something I want you to see.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s a surprise. Why don’t I come back here at eleven and pick you up?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  Sweet dreams, she said as we parted on the steps of the hotel and I knew that this was almost a given. I don’t usually remember my dreams but this time I was kind of hoping I would, especially if Valentina featured in any of them.

  10

  The following morning I caught a taxi down to Glyfada, just south of Athens, to have breakfast with Bastian Hoehling and the Hertha team at their hotel, a sixties-style high-rise close to the beach but perhaps a little too close to the main road north to Piraeus. Apparently Olympiacos supporters had spent all night driving past the hotel with car horns blaring to prevent the Berlin side from sleeping. The Hertha players looked exhausted; and several of them were also suffering from a severe bout of food poisoning. Bastian and the club doctor had considered summoning the police to investigate, but it was hard to see what the police could have done beyond telling them the Greek for lavatory.