by Philip Kerr
‘I’m not an idiot. I knew there was a good reason Zarco preferred us to use Paolo Gentile rather than Denis Kampfner for the Traynor transfer. I suspected he was going to take a bung on the deal. Partly it’s my fault. Let me explain: you see, a long while back Zarco had begged me for a share tip. I hate doing that kind of thing but he insisted, so I told him about this energy company in the Urals. They’d just had a big find of oil and it was generally held that the shares would go through the roof. I had bought some and so, I believe, did he. Except that there hadn’t been a big find of oil, it was all a fraud, and instead the shares went down the toilet. Zarco lost a lot of money. Not as much as I did, but then I can afford it. I felt bad about that. Very bad. He lost at least a quarter of a million pounds, I think. So when he asked if we could use Gentile as the agent on the Traynor transfer I agreed so that Zarco could recover what he’d lost. I even pretended to believe what Zarco told me – that Denis couldn’t be trusted. Yes, it’s true, I turned a blind eye to being robbed by my own manager.’
Viktor lit a little cigar with a gold lighter. That’s the thing about owning your own football club; the anti-smoking laws just don’t apply.
‘You remember when people first had cars? Well, of course you don’t remember it. What I mean is that in 1865 the British parliament passed a series of acts called the Locomotive Acts, which applied to self-propelled vehicles on British roads. A law that was copied in America, by the way. For safety reasons a man with a red flag was obliged by law to walk sixty yards ahead of each vehicle. It’s the same with me. My money walks sixty yards ahead of me with a red flag and everyone sees me coming, in the full sense of this figure of speech. Like a patsy, you know? What else do you call someone who always has to pay full price? And no one ever gives me value for money. Not unless I push hard for it, which means, of course, that I am always seen as ruthless. Ruthless and grasping. But only because I want the same value for money as anyone else.
‘You’re well off in your own right, Scott. Well off and comfortable – but not rich, perhaps. But when you’re very rich you get used to people robbing you, my friend. To some extent you learn to put up with it. I’ve been ripped off by everyone. My PA, my lawyer, my pilot, my driver, my butler, my ex-wife, my accountant – you name it, Scott, they’ve ripped me off. When you’re as rich as me it’s an occupational hazard. I suppose they think I’m so rich I won’t notice. But of course I do. I always do. It’s a sad fact, Scott, but when you’re as rich as I am the only people you can trust are the people who don’t want anything from you. It was extremely disappointing to find that Zarco was stealing from me. But it wasn’t exactly a surprise. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Not quite.’
The narrow eyes narrowed a little more. He picked a piece of tobacco off his tongue and said, ‘Explain, please.’
‘When Zarco learned that the planning objections to the Thames Gateway Bridge were about to be rejected by the Royal Borough of Greenwich, he used the money from the bung to buy shares in SSAG. Almost half a million quid’s worth.’
‘This I didn’t know.’
‘Him and Gentile.’
‘Wait.’ Viktor sighed wearily. ‘Don’t tell me he used the same company to buy the shares that he did to buy those Urals Energy shares? Monaco STCM?’
‘I’m afraid he did. It was only later on that he discovered Monaco STCM was partly owned by the Sumy Capital Bank of Geneva.’
‘Idiot. If you’ll forgive me, this is why people go to prison, Scott. Because they’re stupid and they make stupid mistakes.’
‘He was afraid you’d find out and that you’d be angry.’
‘He was damn right. I didn’t know this, Scott. But now that I do, I am angry. Perhaps I would have sacked him if I’d found out. Perhaps I might have been obliged to sack him, you know? It’s such a stupid thing to have done. Maybe I would even have hit him.’ Viktor smiled wryly as he realised what he’d said. ‘Yes, I might have hit him for being greedy, and for dropping me in the shit, which this does. But let me be quite clear, Scott: I would not have had him beaten to death. Insider trading – even by proxy – is a serious matter. Difficult to prove, but serious. And yet not so serious that I would have had him killed. Even so, I shall certainly have to take legal advice in this matter. Just in case it is suspected that I gave Zarco this information so that he might profit from it.’
‘How did he find out? Do you have any idea?’
‘That’s a good question. I’m not sure. Perhaps he saw something on my laptop once, read an email on my iPhone, I don’t know for sure. But more importantly now, how did you find out? And does anyone else know about this? In particular, the police?’
‘Gentile knows, but that’s all. I only know because Zarco used to keep a burner phone in my cabinet drawer, which he used for – well, I assumed it was for making arrangements with his mistress. In fact I think this particular phone was exclusively for speaking with Gentile.’
‘And this phone? You still have it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I should like to see it,’ said Viktor. ‘It may even be that I will have to give it to my lawyers. Just to protect myself, you understand.’
‘I want to speak to Gentile before I do that. I’d like to use it to lever some more information out of him, if I can.’
‘Be very careful, Scott. While I’m not connected to the world of organised crime, the same can’t be said of Paolo Gentile.’
‘You mean, he’s linked to the Mafia?’
‘Gentile lives in Milan but he is originally from Sicily. A few years ago he was investigated by the Italian authorities for his links to a man called Giovanni Malpensa. Malpensa is the head of a family that controls the Palermo district of Trabia; not to mention a stake in several Italian football clubs. Gentile may not be dangerous but Giovanni Malpensa certainly is.’
‘And you still allowed the Traynor deal to be made by this man?’
‘You think one agent is any more honest than another? Come on, don’t be so naïve. Denis Kampfner has some very crooked friends in Manchester’s drug-dealing underworld. This is not surprising, of course, because there’s more money than ever in football. It’s a whale, tied to the side of the ship that’s the world economy. And more money means there are more sharks feeding on it. In 2013 BT paid almost a billion dollars for Champions League and UEFA football broadcasting rights. But do you honestly think that means the game has become any less corrupt than it ever was? On the contrary. Football and money go hand in hand. Football itself has become an important marketing tool – perhaps the biggest marketing tool there is, these days. How else are you to reach the all-important market of men? Life’s decision-makers. Whatever the women’s groups say should happen, it’s still men who make the big financial decisions in any household, which means they’re the most important audience to reach. Anywhere in the world. From Qatar to Queensland, football is now the lingua franca of the world. It’s why people are prepared to bid so much for World Cup rights, even to the extent of paying millions of dollars in bribes.’
‘Which reminds me,’ I said. ‘I understand we’re to be the Subara stadium.’
‘Yes, the Subara. It’s a little like the Emirates, don’t you think?’
‘And yet we could so easily have been the Jintian Niao-3Q.’
Viktor made a comic sad face. ‘Yes, it’s a great pity that isn’t going to happen. Unless of course you feel inclined to accuse the Qataris of murdering Zarco, Scott. That would certainly be a game-changer. It would leave the field clear for the Chinese. Again. Of course if you did that you’d be a friend to me.’ He laughed a big jolly laugh. ‘Not to mention Ronan Reilly. He’d be pleased to have the Qataris accused of murder, too.’
He was smiling but it was hard to know if he was joking or not. That was the thing about Viktor Sokolnikov; he was a hard man to read.
‘Look, Viktor. I think I should make one thing quite clear. I’m not going to accuse anyone of murder unless I’m absolutely sure
they did it. Not for you, not for Jintian Niao-3Q, not for anyone. Right now, I’ve no idea who killed Zarco. No idea at all. And I really think it’s best I keep any theory in this matter in reserve until I have some pretty hard evidence, don’t you?’
‘Well, please make sure you let me know first of all. I shall be very interested to hear what you have to say on the subject. Very interested indeed.’
‘Thanks for being so frank with me, Viktor.’
‘No problem.’
‘Since you’re being frank, let me ask you one more question.’
‘Fire away.’
‘That argument you had with Alisher Aksyonov, on Russian TV. When you nutted him in the teeth? What was it about?’
Viktor grinned sheepishly. ‘What else but football?’
31
It was almost seven o’clock when I decided to pack up and go home. I was tired. It had been a long day and I was looking forward to seeing Sonja and doing not very much. Maurice tossed me my car keys and wished me a good night.
‘You staying in the office?’ I asked.
‘Just for a short while,’ he said. ‘I made a call to a mate, someone I knew in Wandsworth. He’s always been good for information. You know, the sort you can’t get on Google. And he said he’d call back before seven thirty. I was thinking that if this was a professional job – I mean the meet-and-greet on Zarco – then he’d probably know about it. There’s not much he doesn’t know.’
‘Thanks, Maurice.’
‘Careful driving home, boss. It’s pretty murky out there.’
I went along the corridor towards the main stairs. It kept you fit walking around and up and down the dock; there were only three floors but at the highest point of the Crown of Thorns the building was almost ten storeys high, a height of more than one hundred feet, and it could take you a full ten minutes to make your way around the entire floor. Some of the security guys and post boys used Segways – those electric stand-up scooters – but I preferred to walk, especially on a day as busy as this one when I’d been unable to get into the gym. Things were much quieter now and almost everyone had gone home. A yard or two ahead of me, a uniformed police officer seemed to be walking in the same direction and, in his wake, I could detect a faint whiff of something sweet and vaguely familiar.
‘Are you lost?’ I asked, helpfully. ‘This place is like the maze at Hampton Court. Each floor looks the same.’
‘Looking for the stairs to the main entrance,’ he muttered.
‘Then you are lost,’ I said. ‘The main stairs are back the way you just came. This way are the stairs to entrance Z. Which leads to the car park.’
‘The car park will do,’ he said vaguely. ‘That’s where I left my car.’
Everything about this copper seemed vague except the smell, which at last came to whichever part of my memory dealt with something as elusive as the proper names for scents. I could never identify perfumes. I never knew the name of the stuff Sonja preferred, but I did know the smell that was coming off the copper’s clothes. When you’ve spent eighteen months in Wandsworth you get to know the smell of marijuana the way you know the stink of your own unwashed body. And there was something else that was strange: the car park I was going to was the players’ car park, not the place where the police had parked their own vehicles; that was outside the front entrance.
I came abreast with the man and glanced over at him. He wasn’t the copper who’d been stationed outside Zarco’s office that morning while detectives conducted a fruitless search of his desk and filing-cabinet drawers. That man was long gone. This one was different. Perhaps a little too different.
‘Have you got the time?’
‘Sure.’
The man stopped and lifted his wrist, which gave me a chance for a closer look at him.
‘Five past seven,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’
He was tall, with slightly too-long hair, and badly pitted skin on his face, but it wasn’t any of this or the dope on his breath that gave me pause for thought; it was the job-stoppers that were tattooed on his knuckles. Back in the nick there were plenty of cons who went in for prison tats, with ACAB being one of the most popular. It stood for All Coppers Are Bastards and was a sentiment with which I heartily agreed. But it seemed unusual that a policeman should have had those four initials on his knuckles; just as it seemed unusual that a policeman from the Essex Police – which was the force on the scene – should have been wearing a badge on his flat cap from the Surrey Constabulary. The cap badges were the same colour, all right – blue and red – but the Essex badge had three scimitars and this one had a lion couchant. I could see why the Essex law had called in detectives from the Yard, that made sense, but I really couldn’t understand why the Essex Police should have felt they required the help of the Surrey Constabulary.
I told myself that it wasn’t any of my business if a copper should have been sneaking a quiet toke on an upper floor when things were a bit slack; the job was probably very boring. I told myself that maybe the rules about coppers not having tattoos on their hands had been relaxed since I’d had much contact with the law. I told myself that my hatred and distrust of the police was becoming an obsession and that I should tell Sonja and ask her if she thought I needed professional help. I told myself I had enough trouble with the Met without pissing off the Surrey Constabulary as well. I told myself I just wanted to go home and have a nice bath and eat the sushi dinner I supposed Sonja had ordered in for us from the Jap restaurant on the King’s Road. I told myself that if he was impersonating a police officer then he’d leg it when I asked to see his warrant card and that I’d better be ready for a thumping.
He nodded and turned away.
‘Just a moment,’ I said. ‘Would you please show me your warrant card?’
‘Come again?’
‘Your warrant card. I’d like to see it please.’
‘Don’t need one, sir,’ he said. ‘Police Act 1996. ’Sides, I’m off duty. My warrant card is in the car downstairs. I was just dropping off some spare forensic kits for the coppers here. I’m not even part of the local force. So it wouldn’t be right for me to be carrying a warrant card. If I was arresting you, sir, then I would certainly need my card. Although the uniform is meant to be a bit of a clue for dozier villains.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Sounds fair enough. But only if you can tell me what the local force is.’
‘You what?’
‘Simple. The uniformed coppers here. Are they Metropolitan Police or Surrey Constabulary? And which one are you?’
The man faced me down. ‘Look, sir, it’s been a long day and I really don’t need someone getting clever with me right now. So why don’t you just fuck off?’
Now ordinarily I’d say that was standard chit-chat from a copper, and I’d have taken it, too; but not this time.
‘You know, if I was impersonating a police officer,’ I said, ‘in a building where there are lots of coppers, I might have a joint in the car outside, just to calm my nerves a bit. To give me the bottle for the job. Whatever that might be.’
The man shot me a sarcastic smile and then ran for it.
Which was like a hare setting off in front of a racing dog.
As a defender I’d earned my fair share of red cards; sometimes you have to take one for the team. A striker gets through and then you simply have to chop his legs and bring him down – like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. I’d seen some pretty criminal tackles in my time, too. None worse than Roy Keane in 2001 when he tackled Alf-Inge Haaland. I still remembered the red card the Man U captain had got from David Elleray – again – when he took down the Manchester City midfielder. But that’s football, as Denis Law has famously said.
As tackles went, this one was just as high as Roy’s, and of course was well off the ball; and it was probably just as well that the fake copper’s leg wasn’t on the ground when I struck with both feet against his knee, otherwise I could have done him a lot more damage. The man went down and he m
ust have banged the back of his head on the floor, because he lay there stunned just long enough for me to get up and call Maurice on my phone.
A few seconds later the two of us were marching the still-groggy man back to my office for a little Q & A.
A quick search of his pockets revealed another copper’s warrant card, not to mention a couple of joints, and an automatic pistol that gave me more than a pause for thought.
‘It’s a Ruger,’ said Maurice, examining the gun carefully.
‘Is that fucking real?’ I asked.
The fake copper sat down on the chair opposite my desk.
‘What do you think?’ he sneered.
‘It’s real all right, boss.’ Maurice thumbed out the magazine and inspected the bullets. ‘Loaded, too.’ He smacked the man on the back of the head. ‘What are you fucking thinking of, you stupid cunt – bringing a gun to football? There’s tooled up and there’s tooled up, but that shooter’s just asking for trouble.’
‘Fuck off,’ said the man.
I was still searching his pockets; wallet, car keys, a map of Silvertown Dock with an X to mark the spot somewhere on the second floor, a couple of grand in new fifties, a mobile phone, and a door key with a number on it.
‘Tell you what,’ I said. ‘It’s handy that we’ve got so much law upstairs. Makes it easy for us. And for you.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Tell us what you were up to, and we’ll let you go,’ I said. ‘Or else we’ll hand you over to the filth. It’s as simple as that.’
The man moved suddenly for the door but Maurice was there before him – or more accurately Maurice’s fist was. It connected with the side of the fake copper’s head like a wrecking ball and sent him crashing onto the floor.
‘Fuck,’ said Maurice, shaking his hand and flexing the fingers. ‘That hurt.’
The burglar was still lying on the floor.
‘Not as much as it hurt him,’ I said. ‘He’s out cold, I think. Still. Can’t be too careful, eh?’ I pulled open my desk drawer and found the handcuffs I had taken from Zarco’s desk the night before – the ones I guessed he’d used for his sex games with Claire Barry. I took the key out of the lock, dropped it into my pocket and then cuffed the unconscious man’s hands behind his back.
