by Philip Kerr
‘No, you’re right. I’m just tired, that’s all. As per usual. But actually, to be honest I don’t understand, Sonja. Really, I don’t. I thought we made a pretty good couple. At least I did when I looked at you. I even managed to like myself when I was with you, which, believe me, takes some doing.’
But what I was actually thinking was this: I couldn’t believe I was never again going to see her naked, or get the chance to marry her, even, and that seemed too much to bear.
‘Listen, this won’t help at all, but I’ll try to explain it to you, Scott. I owe you that much. I love you, and maybe you love me, but I can’t ever be part of the most important thing in your life, which of course is football. I’ve tried, believe me I’ve tried my best to like it, but a while ago I realised it just wasn’t going to happen, no matter how hard I tried. The fact is I can’t be interested in the very thing that’s about to take even more of your time than it does already, if such a thing were possible. You do see that, don’t you? I used to think it was just a game but it’s not, it’s much more than that, with you and with a lot of other men like you. It’s a way of thinking about the world. A philosophy of a kind. And why not? It seems to work for a lot of people. It’s no accident that the Premier League is like a mini-FTSE of successful companies. It’s pure capitalism. The strong survive and the weak get relegated.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You make it sound almost Darwinist.’
‘Oh, but it is. You’re just a kind of selfish gene, that’s all. Yours is a football-centred view of evolution. Because football is what everything comes down to with you, Scott; results, the team, the next match, the January window, a good cup run, the closed season, the top four, relegation, three points, a penalty not given, a red card that should have been. It’s never ending and unrelenting and I can’t take part in it because I feel nothing at all for it except the wish that the last match really could be the last match. And if what I’ve said doesn’t make any sense to you, then forget it and we’ll make it just this: even though a large part of me wants to stay with you, Scott, I can’t stay because I won’t be a football widow like the rest of those women you call the WAGs.’
‘No one’s asking you to be like that, Sonja.’
‘Maybe you’re not. But the imperatives of your job certainly are. And have you ever wondered why the WAGs are the way they are? Why they occupy themselves with shopping and fashion and hair extensions and manicures and boob jobs? Of course you haven’t. But I have. Those women are desperately trying to make their stupid boyfriends and husbands pay some attention to them, that’s why. They’re trying in vain to compete with the most jealous mistress or wife of them all, which is football itself. Well, I won’t be a part of that. I have my own life, my own interests, my own ambitions – and they don’t include a good run in the FA Cup. We’ll both have some bad nights for a while but we’re both grown-up enough to know that will pass.’
Some fucking Sherlock I was, I told myself. What chance did I have of spotting Zarco’s killer when I hadn’t even been able to spot the disappointments felt by the woman I loved.
‘Jesus, baby, it sounds like you’ve been saving this up for a while.’
‘Maybe I have. Maybe I was just waiting for the best time to say it. The best time for me, that is. You see, I met someone in Paris. He’s just a businessman. Don’t worry, nothing happened between us. I wouldn’t ever do that to you. But I will be seeing him again. Maybe nothing will come of it. Who knows? But on Saturday he goes to the theatre and on Sunday he likes going to Tate Britain. And he’s never been to a football match in his life.’
‘So he’s the guy.’
‘Make a joke of it, if it makes you feel better.’
‘It doesn’t. But I thought it was worth a shot. I would try to persuade you to change your mind, Sonja, but after a speech like that I can see it would be pointless. You’ve thought this out. Which is more than I have. Perhaps I should have done. So, I’m sorry.’
‘You’ll be fine, Scott. You’re strong. Very strong.’
‘Am I?’ I took a last puff of my cigarette and then stubbed it out. ‘Right now I don’t feel very strong.’
‘Of course you are. Just look at the way you smoke. Two or three puffs off one cigarette a week. Your strength astonishes me, sometimes. You know, if it was anyone else but you I wouldn’t be leaving you right now; not after the twenty-four hours you’ve just had.’
I smiled. ‘You noticed that.’
‘I read the newspapers.’
‘Do you now?’ I pulled a face.
‘At least I do when you’re not around to look disapproving. Is there a law against reading the Mail on Sunday?’
‘No, but perhaps there ought to be. There’s a law against everything else that’s unwholesome in this country.’
34
After a miserable night I was up early to visit Silvertown Dock before driving on to Hangman’s Wood. It was a very cold morning and I was a little worried about Terence Shelley who we’d locked up in the maintenance area, the same one where Zarco had been found dead. Even in a policeman’s coat and uniform he would have spent a very uncomfortable Sunday night in the open air, handcuffed to a twenty-kilogram kettlebell. But if he had I doubt he could have felt as bad as I did after the events of the previous night. I hadn’t felt as bad as this since my first night in the nick.
On the way I listened to the news on the car radio. Ronan Reilly had been released on bail, which was the clearest indication yet that the police did not suspect him of murder. It seemed that plain-clothes police had arrived at his house in Highgate hoping to question the MOTD pundit about Zarco’s death and found a party in progress; mistaking the police for other guests, an unnamed female had admitted them to the house. Apparently it was Reilly’s birthday, which might have been why he’d decided to celebrate with several prostitutes and a quantity of cocaine; this was probably also the reason why he’d decided to climb over the wall of the back garden and run away, in the hope of denying any knowledge of what was happening in his house. I felt almost sorry for Reilly because if there’s one thing the BBC doesn’t like – even on grown-up programmes like MOTD – it’s pundits who use prostitutes and cocaine. Does anyone remember Frank Bough? I rest my case. But I still smiled as I tried to imagine how Zarco would have greeted the morning news. Zarco would have loved it.
Toyah called and left a message for me to call her back; she sounded like she still hadn’t been to bed. Death is like that. It stops you from sleeping, which, even when everything is rosy, can seem a little too close for comfort to being dead. I was feeling too sour to speak to her; too sour and more than a bit sorry for myself. But I was trying to get over my troubles; just about the last thing Zarco had said to me before I left my flat that morning was to pull myself together.
‘Come on, Scott,’ he said as I’d stared at Jonathan Yeo’s uncanny portrait of the Portuguese manager now hanging on the wall of my study. I’d been online to look at some of the other portraits Yeo had painted and thought the one of Zarco was as good if not better than the picture he’d done of a rather haunted-looking Tony Blair. ‘You’ll get over it, just like Sonja said you will. You had some good times, you and her. That’s the way to look at it. And don’t hold it against her. What she said was right. Football is football and nothing else matters very much; not to guys like you and me. That’s why we’re in the game, right? If we cared about anything else we’d be lawyers and bankers and fuck knows what. Me, I should have your troubles. Don’t you think I’d like to be around to have a nice girl like that dump me? Sure I would. And we both know you’ll get another soon enough. Handsome guy like you. Fact is you probably already know the girl you’re going to sleep with next. That’s how it works. Never forget, always replace – that’s what my father used to tell me when a girl gave me the sack. It’s good advice. Sure you loved her and maybe she loved you, like she said, but in six weeks you’ll wonder why the hell you ever cared. Besides, you’ve got other fish to fry right now. Find
out who killed me and why, Scott. Find my killer. I didn’t deserve what happened to me, no more than you deserved to be dumped by Sonja. So, please take control of the game yourself and don’t just leave it to other people, like the police. For them this is just another job. Please, Scott, for me and for Toyah, you must discover who killed me, okay? Really, I won’t have any peace until you do this for me.’
When I arrived at the dock there was a police boat parked by the marina and several divers bobbing up and down in the Thames. I didn’t envy them but I did wonder what they were looking for.
Maurice had already released our burglar and brought him back to my office where, still handcuffed, he was warming up with a cup of tea. Steam was emerging from the cauldron of his manacled hands, which were still trembling with cold, and he seemed to be as grateful for the heat from the mug as he was for the hot drink inside him. Secretly I was relieved that the man looked none the worse for wear but, for the sake of appearances, I decided to play the hard guy. I’d seen enough real hard men in Wandsworth to carry this off without any self-consciousness.
‘So, you didn’t freeze to death after all,’ I said. ‘Maybe now you’ll talk to us, you stupid cunt.’
He sipped his mug of tea and nodded his alacrity. Cold had turned his nose the shape and colour of a tomato and had it not been for the gun he’d been carrying I might have felt sorry for him. In Wandsworth some of the old lags had always said that you should never carry a gun unless you’re prepared to use it.
‘Because if you don’t start talking you can spend the rest of the fucking day where you already spent the night. Freezing your nuts off outside.’
‘You’ll really let me go if I tell you?’ he asked.
‘You have my word. You can even keep the money you were paid. I’m assuming the two grand in fifties was your fee.’
‘What about my gun?’
‘Would you have used it?’
‘Just for show. Made a noise if necessary. I’d use blanks but you can’t get them; there’s just no call for them these days.’
‘That’s a comforting thought,’ said Maurice.
‘You can have the gun back, too,’ I said. ‘But not the bullets. We’ll hang onto those, just in case you come back here with an attitude.’
‘Fair enough, guvnor.’
‘But don’t dick us around with any lies. My girlfriend dumped me last night and I’m not in the mood to be patient.’
He finished his tea, replaced the mug on my desk and shook his head. ‘I should have known better than to rob someone from me own fucking club. S’right. I’m a City fan meself. So I had my doubts, yeah? It felt unlucky. Any other London club – the Yids, the Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, the Hammers – I’d have been laughing to do a job there. But not City.’
‘More facts, less fart,’ I said.
‘I’m just saying I didn’t want this job, that’s all. It felt unlucky. But the guy who paid me to do the job – an Italian bloke, called Paolo Gentile – he was paying good money.’
‘Gentile. It figures.’
‘Anyway, he told me to collect a package that was in suite 123. I was on my way there when you spotted me.’
‘You’re lying,’ I said. ‘I already searched that suite from top to bottom and found nothing.’
‘Yeah, but did you check the fridge? Inside the freezer cabinet?’
‘No.’
‘That’s where it is, apparently. The package I was supposed to grab. Job couldn’t have been simpler, you’d have thought. A quick in and out. But it’s always the easy ones you fuck up, not the jobs that require some planning.’
‘Whose idea was the Plod uniform?’ asked Maurice.
‘Mine. The Italian bloke said the place would be swarming with law ’cos of Zarco’s murder, so I thought I’d be all right dressed like this. Blend in, like. I thought no one would face down a copper. Not even another copper. Rented it off a mate who’s a real rozzer, in Teddington, I did. Cost me two hundred quid. Never gave a thought to the fucking cap badge until you mentioned it.’
‘Blimey,’ said Maurice. ‘The old Bill these days is getting to be like Berman’s and Nathan’s.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Then what?’
‘There’s a FedEx box in my car, with a waybill already filled out for an address in Italy and everything. Business documents, it says. That’s what I was told, anyway. I was to put the package from the freezer in the box and take it to the FedEx office in Dartford first thing this morning. Unit 14, Newton’s Court. Apparently they open at 7.30 a.m. It was all on account so I wouldn’t have to pay anything.’
‘How did you get the job?’
‘On the phone. Friend of a friend.’
‘And you spoke to Gentile? On the phone?’
‘S’right. He was in Milan, he said. It wasn’t even stealing, he said. It was him what put the package there in the first place.’
‘What about the key to the box? How did you get that?’
‘From Mr Gentile’s offices in Kingston. Really that was the only part of the job that involved any breaking and entering. I had to get in there on Sunday morning and collect the key from his office drawer. And two grand in fifties that was in the cash box. Straight up, guv, that’s the God’s truth. All of it, I swear.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Wait here with my friend.’
35
I went back up to the suite, opened the fridge and plucked the freezer door towards me. The package was there, just like Terence Shelley had said it would be – a large Jiffy bag that was wrapped in a thick plastic bin bag. I opened it up and found ten pink bricks of nice new fifties. The bricks of notes were a little hard but none the worse for a weekend below zero. Hot money never felt so cold. It was clear Shelley had spoken the truth; if the FedEx box was in his car as he’d said it was then I’d send him on his way like I’d promised. Quite apart from the risk to Zarco’s reputation the last thing I wanted was Detective Chief Inspector Byrne upsetting our new goalkeeper by asking him about the details of his own transfer.
The chain of causation was beginning to seem clear enough, too. Zarco would have known that the Qatari guy who owned suite 123 wasn’t likely to be using it for a while and figured he could use the room as his letterbox. Gentile would have taken the fifty grand to the suite and left it in the fridge freezer, as instructed in Zarco’s texts; but when the news of Zarco’s death broke the Italian agent must have realised that only he and Zarco knew about the bung and figured that he might as well try and recover the money. It was just sitting there, getting cold, and with the key it would have been easy enough, but at the same time Gentile couldn’t have risked leaving the cash there for much longer as there was a match against the Hammers on Tuesday night and, unlike Zarco, he had no way of knowing if suite 123 would remain unoccupied by its usual owner.
It was time I spoke to Gentile, so I called him on my mobile and on this occasion he answered.
‘Scott,’ he said, ‘I was just about to phone and congratulate you. It’s too bad about João. He was truly one of the greats and I shall miss him a great deal. But I hope you and I can do business together in the future.’
I’d met Paolo Gentile on several occasions; it was hard to be the assistant manager of a top English football club owned by a billionaire and not have met Paolo Gentile. Where there is a huge picnic laid out on a perfect lawn there are also wasps, and Gentile was one of the largest and most persistent. FIFA seemed to have him under permanent investigation but nothing ever stuck. And unlike most English football agents, who couldn’t have looked less like their clients, Gentile was smooth and cool and strikingly handsome, in a very Italian way. He always dressed well, in Brioni, and his many white Ferraris were his trademark and just the thing to excite the impressionable and usually car-crazy young men who were the subject of his relentless human trafficking. Incredibly thin – he seemed to survive on a diet of tennis, cigarettes and coffee – Gentile had a hooked nose that lent him the profile of some Renaissance pr
inceling or Doge of Venice. And he was just as cunning as either.
My Italian was usually better than his English but on this occasion I wanted him to be the one who was paying close attention and so I sat down on the sofa and continued the conversation in my own first language.
‘That all depends, Paolo,’ I said. ‘You see, I’ve just been having a little chat with a friend of yours. Terry Shelley. I caught him raiding the fridge here yesterday evening. It seems as if he was trying to find you a late-night snack. That’s what fifty grand is to someone like you, isn’t it, Paolo? A snack.’
‘Terry Shelley. I don’t know him, Scott. Unless he’s the boy who plays up front for QPR.’
‘Nobody plays up front for QPR, Paolo. If they’ve any sense they sit back and defend. And if you’ve any sense you’ll sit back and try to do the same. Only the ball’s already in the back of your net, old son. It only remains for me to decide on the proper course of action. Whether to involve FIFA or the Metropolitan Police. After all, there is a murder inquiry going on here at Silvertown Dock. And you were trying to get hold of what the police might consider to be vital evidence that might shed some light on who killed João Zarco.’
‘I had nothing to do with what happened to Zarco,’ said Gentile. ‘Really, I am as mystified by what happened as you probably are. But you know that already, of course. Otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me like this, would you? And you must also have the money, too. Perhaps you have even decided to keep it for yourself. I certainly couldn’t stop you. So the only question is what else do you want, Scott?’
‘Some information.’
‘Perhaps I can help you. But let’s be quite clear. It’s you I’m speaking to, right? Not the police.’
‘You know about me and the police, Paolo. We’re not really on speaking terms. Haven’t been for a while.’
‘Yes, I thought that was still the situation. I just wanted to hear you say it. In Italy we have a different attitude to the police than you do in England. You make jokes about the law-abiding Germans but I think no one in Europe is quite as law-abiding as the English.’
