False Nine

by Philip Kerr

  When I arrived at Drolma with Jacint there were others already seated at the table; three men, each wearing a sober blue suit with a shirt and tie. That’s the thing about Barcelona; everyone dresses well. No one would dream of turning up for lunch at a place like Drolma wearing a tracksuit and sports shoes. A lot of the time I look at players and the way they dress and think they need a good slap. There was another vice-president from Barcelona called Oriel Domench i Montaner, but I was surprised to be introduced to Charles Rivel, from Paris Saint-Germain, and a Qatari called Ahmed Wusail Abbasid bani Utbah. At least I think that’s what his name was. It’s possible the guy was just clearing his throat.

  We spoke in Spanish. I can manage a bit of Catalan – which is an interesting, almost hermetic combination of French, Spanish, Italian and awkward-squad bloody-mindedness – but Spanish is easier for me. It’s easier for everyone who doesn’t speak Catalan. Catalans are very proud of their language and rightly so; under General Franco they had to fight very hard to keep their culture alive. Or so they’ll tell you. The same is true of the football club. Or so they’ll tell you. In 1936 Franco’s troops shot dead the president of the club, Josep Suñol, and to this day he is known as the ‘martyr president’. That sort of thing tends to put English opposition to the people like the Glazers and Mike Ashley in the shade. And perhaps it also explains why this club, which was founded by a group of English, Swiss and Catalans, is considered to be més que un club – more than a club. FC Barcelona is a way of life. Or so they’ll tell you.

  This is going to be an interesting lunch, I thought, as the waiter poured the wine; I couldn’t imagine what they wanted to speak to me about. For a brief moment I wondered if it might have something to do with what had happened in Shanghai – if perhaps these three groups of people were looking to invest with Jack Kong Jia and wanted the opinion of someone who’d actually met him. By his own admission, Jia was someone who avoided publicity.

  ‘I believe you saw the match that PSG played against Nice,’ said Charles Rivel, from PSG. ‘At Parc des Princes.’

  ‘Yes. It was a bit like watching Arsenal grinding out a one–nil victory. I thought Nice deserved a draw more than you guys deserved a win.’

  This was also true of the match between FCB and Villarreal but I kept that particular observation to myself.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s fair,’ said Rivel. ‘If Zlatan hadn’t hit the woodwork in the first fifteen minutes he might just have scored one of his best goals. The way he controlled the ball, turned and then took his shot was superb. For a big man he’s incredibly light on his feet.’

  ‘Nevertheless, he missed. And by his own standards that’s just not good enough. What does he say in his book? You can be a god one day and completely worthless the next. That’s especially true in this city. He took his foot off their neck. That’s how it looked to me.’

  ‘You’ve read his book?’ asked Jacint.

  ‘I try to read all of the books about football, although sometimes I ask myself why. And while I start them all, there’s hardly ever one I finish. Including Zlatan’s book. In my opinion his wasn’t a good book. I think he’s a good player. Just not much of a writer. No worse than the others, perhaps. Like most of these books there were few insights into the game. But it was a shrink’s casebook.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Oriel. ‘They ought to have called that book The Ego has Landed.’

  ‘Perhaps he should have hired Roddy Doyle to write it,’ said Jacint.

  ‘I think Henning Mankell would have been more appropriate,’ said Rivel. ‘They’re both Swedes, after all.’

  ‘We could use Kurt Wallander now, perhaps,’ murmured Ahmed. ‘Given the situation.’

  ‘I don’t think Ibra was very fair about Guardiola,’ said Oriel.

  ‘We’re not here to talk about Ibra,’ said Rivel, ‘but someone else. Another PSG player.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better to have Mr Manson sign a confidentiality agreement first?’ said Ahmed.

  ‘I don’t think we need to worry about that with a man like Scott,’ said Jacint. ‘His word is good enough for me.’

  ‘Can we depend on you to treat this matter with confidence?’ asked Rivel.

  ‘Of course. You have my word on it. In case you hadn’t noticed, gentlemen, I’ve been rather keen to avoid the press of late.’

  ‘Is that working?’ said Jacint.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Have you checked your Twitter account?’

  ‘Not today.’

  ‘It seems you made a tweet about Rafinha that has some of your female followers in a rage.’

  ‘I did?’ I shrugged, not really knowing to what Jacint was referring. ‘I’ll check it later.’

  ‘What we’re here to talk about – well, right now, it’s probably the best kept secret in football,’ said Oriel.

  ‘Now I really am intrigued,’ I admitted.

  ‘First of all, we should say that we think you’re a talented young manager,’ said Rivel. ‘In spite of recent events in China. Which could have happened to anyone, really.’

  The Qatari nodded. ‘It’s very difficult to know what’s happening when you’re in Shanghai.’ He laughed. ‘At least in Qatar there are only two million people. That makes things a lot simpler. Unless it’s something to do with religion. And Sharia law. And women’s rights. And the 2022 World Cup. Then things can get very complicated.’

  I smiled, liking him for that.

  ‘Your reputation as a young manager and coach is one thing,’ said Jacint. ‘But it seems you have also gained something of a reputation as a problem solver. It’s now a well-known fact that it was you and not the Metropolitan Police who solved the mystery regarding the death of João Zarco.’

  ‘And the death of Bekim Develi,’ added Oriel.

  ‘I’m sure that you know I can’t comment about that.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Rivel. ‘But the Athens police can. They’ve dropped some very broad hints that you were of great assistance to them in their inquiries.’

  ‘It’s your skills as a private detective that we need now,’ said Jacint.

  ‘And for which we are prepared to pay,’ said Ahmed.

  ‘Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot,’ I heard myself murmur. What the fuck?

  ‘Handsomely,’ added the Qatari.

  ‘Really, gentlemen, I have no skills as a detective,’ I insisted. ‘As usual, this is just the press exaggerating what happened. Anyone would think I was Sherlock Holmes in a tracksuit. Hercule Poirot with a stopwatch. The Kurt Wallander of the touchline. I’m not. I’m a coach. A manager. And right now it’s a football club I need, not an interesting case. Give me a squad of players and I’ll be as happy as Larry. But don’t ask me to play the copper.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you understand football and footballers,’ said Rivel. ‘In a way that perhaps the police do not.’

  ‘There’s no perhaps about it,’ said Jacint. ‘I can’t speak for how things are in Paris, but it’s quite impossible to be objective about football here in Barcelona. There’s too much emotion involved.’

  ‘I think the same is probably true in Paris,’ said Rivel. ‘Besides, the French police aren’t exactly known for their closed mouths. Just look at what happened to Francois Hollande. And before him to Dominique Strauss-Kahn. This story would be on the front of L’Equipe in no time.’

  ‘Gentlemen, you’re wasting your time. I’ve really no interest in crime. I don’t even like the goddamn books. All those stupid boring detectives with their drinking problems and their failed marriages. It’s all so very predictable. My idea of a good case is one made by Louis Vuitton.’

  ‘Please, Mr Manson,’ said Ahmed. ‘At least hear us out.’

  ‘Yes, Scott,’ said Jacint. ‘Please. Listen to our story.’

  ‘All right. I’ll listen. Out of respect for you and this club, I’ll listen. But I’m not promising anything. I’m telling you, it’s football I want to play. I don’t want to play cops and robbers.�
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  ‘Of course,’ said Oriel. ‘We understand. But more than anyone perhaps you understand footballers. The pressures. The mistakes. The pitfalls. You might not quite appreciate it yourself, Scott, but you’re in a unique position in football. In quite a short period of time you’ve made yourself quite indispensable to any European club who needs a special kind of help. You speak several languages…’

  ‘And, more importantly than that, you speak the players’ language, Scott,’ added Jacint. ‘Players trust you in a way they wouldn’t trust the police. They’re young men, some of them misfits and even delinquents from quite difficult backgrounds. Men like Ibra. He was a punk and a car thief, wasn’t he? If any of our players or perhaps those of PSG are going to confide in anyone it probably won’t be some nosy cop with a tape recorder in his hand. It will be you, Scott. You’ve done time in prison. You’ve been falsely accused of something. You don’t much like the police yourself.’

  ‘True,’ I said. ‘Although I seem to be getting over that. My girlfriend, Louise, is a detective with the Metropolitan Police.’

  ‘So much the better.’

  “Perhaps it’s her you should be speaking to.” I knew I wished I was.

  The waiter came and took our order. And it was only after we’d eaten our the starters and tasted the wine that Jacint returned to the subject that was preoccupying him and the other three men.

  ‘I expect you’ve heard that Jérôme Dumas has been taken on loan by us from PSG,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was surprised. I think he’s a good player.’

  ‘He never really clicked with us,’ said Rivel. ‘I don’t really know why. He’s a talented player. But there was something in his head that was not quite right for us. It works like that sometimes. Torres worked at Liverpool but he never worked at Chelsea.’

  ‘Dumas came to Barcelona,’ said Oriel, ‘and then he went on holiday. Because he was on loan we’d agreed to honour his existing arrangements. We had yet to present him to the fans at the Nou Camp. Which is why we’ve managed to keep the lid on things so far.’

  ‘He had an injury which meant he couldn’t have played anyway,’ said Jacint.

  ‘He picked up a groin strain in the match you saw, against Nice,’ said Rivel.

  ‘He certainly looked like he was trying harder than anyone else in the team,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing too serious. He just needed rest, that’s all.’

  ‘So what happened? I mean, what’s he done?’

  ‘He was supposed to report for training at Joan Gamper on Monday, January the nineteenth,’ continued Jacint, ‘but he never showed up.’

  Joan Gamper was the name of Barca’s training facility, about ten kilometres west of the Nou Camp in Muntaner; strictly off-limits to the press, everyone in Barcelona referred to it as ‘the forbidden city’.

  ‘And there was no sign of him at the hotel where we’d put him in the best suite until he could find somewhere to live.’

  ‘The same hotel as you,’ said Oriel. ‘The Princesa Sofia.’

  ‘FCB called us,’ said Rivel, ‘and we went to his apartment in Paris, but there was no sign of him there, either. Since then we’ve been in contact with the police on the island of Antigua where he went on holiday. So far they’ve turned up nothing. It seems that he arrived on the island but there’s no record of him leaving again. Of catching a flight back to Paris, or Barcelona. Or anywhere else, for that matter. We’ve phoned him. Sent emails. Texted him. Called his agent. He’s as baffled as we are.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Paolo Gentile.’

  I nodded. ‘I know Paolo.’

  ‘In short,’ said Jacint, ‘Dumas has disappeared. Which is where you come in. We want you to find him.’

  ‘For a fee,’ said Ahmed. ‘You might even call it a finder’s fee.’

  ‘He’s only been gone two weeks,’ I said.

  ‘In the life of any other man of twenty-two, that’s not much. But the fact is, he isn’t any other man. He’s a footballing star.’

  ‘For once,’ I said, ‘the newspapers and television could surely help. It’s difficult to be missing when the whole world is aware of that fact.’

  ‘True,’ said Jacint, ‘but this is no ordinary football club. It’s owned and operated by the supporters, which means they trust us and are rightly very unforgiving when things go wrong. As we see things it’s up to us to try and fix the problem before we are obliged to announce that we may have a problem. That’s what the Catalan people expect of Barca. No excuses. But perhaps, in the fullness of time, an explanation.’

  ‘There’s also the public relations of the situation to consider,’ said Oriel. ‘It may have escaped your attention but things are difficult in Spain right now. The economic situation is dire. Twenty-five per cent of the country is unemployed. Losing a player we’re paying one hundred and fifty thousand euros a week for just looks bad. We can ill afford that kind of adverse publicity when the average wage is just seventeen hundred euros a month.’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ said Jacint. ‘When there’s so much going wrong in the lives of our supporters the one thing they need to be absolutely sure of is that all is well with their beloved football club. That we are still the best in the world.’ He shook his head. ‘The best football team in the world doesn’t lose an important player like this. They expect us to make sure our overpaid superstars can at least steer their Lamborghinis to the training ground.’

  ‘I don’t know how things are in London but for most of these guys Barcelona is why they get up in the morning,’ said Oriel. ‘It’s why they can feel good about themselves. Their whole world view is affected by how the team is doing. You start to rock that boat and things could get very choppy indeed.’

  I nodded. ‘Més que un club,’ I said. ‘I know.’

  ‘No, with respect I don’t think you do,’ said Jacint. ‘Unless you are Catalan it is impossible to know what it is to support Barca. This club isn’t just about football. For a great many people the club is the symbol for Catalan separatism. Barca has become even more politicised than when you were last working here, Scott. It’s no longer just the Boixos Nois – the crazy boys who are in favour of breaking away from the rest of Spain. It’s virtually all of the penyes.’

  The penyes were the various fan clubs and financial groups that made up FCB’s highly idiosyncratic support.

  ‘If the Spanish government agree to allow us a referendum, then this football club will be the epicentre of that move for independence,’ said Jacint. ‘But those who are opposed to an independent Catalunya will try to exploit a situation like this to pour scorn on us. To accuse us of mismanagement; if we can’t be trusted to govern a football club then how can we be trusted with the government of Catalunya?’

  ‘Which means that this is about much more than just a missing player,’ said Oriel. ‘Nothing must interfere with our drive to be given our own referendum. Like the one you Scots had.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Jacint, ‘as a Scot, how did you vote in the referendum?’

  I shrugged. ‘I may be a Scot but I wasn’t allowed a vote because I live in England. Those people aren’t interested in democracy. And I have to tell you that I’m not in favour of Catalan independence any more than I was in favour of Scottish independence. In this day and age it makes a lot more sense to be part of something larger. And I don’t mean the EU. Go and see how things are in Croatia if you doubt that. As part of the old Yugoslavia, Croatians used to mean something. Now they don’t mean anything at all. And it’s worse if you’re Bosnian. They’re not even part of the EU.’

  At this point the conversation started to become an argument about independence movements and it was Ahmed, who managed to steer the discussion back to the subject in hand: the disappearance of Jérôme Dumas.

  ‘We will pay all your expenses to look for him,’ said Ahmed. ‘First class, of course. And a flat fee of a hundred thousand euros a week deductible against a fee of three million eu
ros if you do manage to find him.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s very generous. But supposing he’s dead?’

  ‘Then your fee will be capped at one million euros.’

  ‘Supposing he’s alive and he doesn’t want to come back?’ I shrugged. ‘I mean, clearly he’s disappeared for a reason. Perhaps he sneaked off to Equatorial Guinea to see the African Cup of Nations. For all I know, he even went to play. Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘I never thought of that possibility,’ admitted Ahmed. ‘Perhaps he’s got Ebola. Perhaps he’s in a field hospital awaiting rescue. Holy shit, that might explain everything. You know he’s not the only player who’s gone missing since that tournament.’

  ‘Dumas is not black African,’ said Rivel. ‘He’s French-Caribbean. And as such he’s eligible to play for France.’

  ‘Have you considered the possibility that he’s been kidnapped? Footballers make good victims. They’re overpaid, asset-rich and wayward. They don’t always do what they’re told and most of them figure they’re too tough for bodyguards which means that they’re easier to snatch than most rich kids. When I was in the nick I had a bunch of cons come to me with a scheme to kidnap a top Arsenal player. There are some bastards out there who’ll do anything for money’

  ‘If that’s what this is then we’ve received no demand for ransom,’ said Jacint.

  ‘Nor has PSG,’ said Rivel.

  ‘But you are certainly empowered to negotiate a release if it turns out that this is what’s happened,’ said Ahmed.

  ‘Then suppose he’s just had enough of football?’ I said. ‘Maybe he’s burned out. That can happen.’

  ‘Your fee is still one million,’ said Ahmed. ‘The three million euro fee is payable only if Dumas plays. Needless to say that his failure to play at all for FCB will have financial consequences for PSG.’

  ‘We won’t get paid,’ said Rivel.

  ‘If he’s had enough of football an important part of your job would include persuading him to come back home,’ said Oriel. ‘That’s another reason we want to hire you. To talk him round if he’s got cold feet.’