by Adam Baron
The stand half stood as the ball flew over the bar, then relaxed. Applause. I was shunted out of my thoughts when the man to the left of me moved aside to let another man take his place. I looked up to see the thin, impassive figure of Mr Korai.
My head hurt, not made any better by the butt of the automatic in my thoughts. I nodded to myself, and looked at Korai as he settled himself. He didn’t look too comfortable, out here in the stand. I thought about all the things I’d found out about him, from the Internet. His two goons had sat up a bit. They looked a little more tense than they had before. Korai himself didn’t look at me and nor did he say anything to begin with, simply sitting there, engrossed in the game below us, as if he’d simply sat down next to a stranger. I folded my arms and set my face, my head tilted towards him. Korai was a tall, bone-thin man in the same cashmere coat I’d seen him in at the training ground, a blue and white scarf tied very tightly round his neck. His head, I noticed, seemed too big for his body. On it he wore a trilby, beneath which two peaked, white eyebrows sitting over dark, almost black eyes, gave his face the look of a hawk, an effect added to by a strong beak-like nose. His skin was the colour of a strong latte, his eyes dark as a chess player’s, unmoving. I turned away from him. Still, he didn’t speak. Was this just the chairman’s way of giving me a freebie, giving me a lift as well? I’d rather have paid, even though the price was probably outrageous.
The chairman and I both watched the proceedings until the young black lad with the lightning bolt shaved into his scalp took the ball past a lethargic-looking left back, only to see his shot tipped round the far post by the keeper. Korai clapped his gloved hands together but still looked distanced. His face became thoughtful, the peaks of his eyebrows meeting.
‘Do you think we have another star in our midst?’
Korai’s voice was high-pitched and shrill. Overly educated, more English than an Englishman and therefore faintly comical. He’d turned his head to me, his expression telling me he really did want to know the answer to his question. He was smiling.
‘Maybe.’ I shrugged. ‘I’m no expert.’
‘Neither am I, neither am I. Which is why I employ Mr Janner there. But I was told you were impressed by the boy. The striker. You picked him out at training, I was told.’
His sing-song enthusiasm stopped me. I pursed my lips. ‘Anyone can see he’s talented.’
‘Indeed, you are right.’ Korai nodded vigorously. ‘But has he got it? Got it like our Mr Draper has got it?’
‘Who knows?’
‘Who indeed, Mr Rucker, who indeed? Mr Janner, hopefully. I put a lot of money behind his ability to know. A great deal of money.’
My eyes flicked to the pitch as the ball was punted downfield by the opposition goalkeeper, straight out for a throw. I looked back as Korai turned his body towards me. I tried not to let his cheerfulness unsettle me. It’s easy to be cheerful with two bodyguards either side. I edged back slightly. He’d used too much aftershave, the kind you get in barbershops.
‘I, by the way, am Vish Korai. Although I think you know that.’
‘Oh yes, I know it.’
‘I understand you had a slight accident,’ Korai said. He looked slightly pained. ‘I want you to know I wouldn’t have told anyone to harm you.’
I looked at him. ‘I’ll take your word.’
‘I understand that you discovered the whereabouts of our ghostly employee Mr Draper. You led my fellows there. Unfortunately,’ he raised his voice to the men either side of us, ‘neither of them thought to chase after him!’
My mouth opened and closed. An aftershock of pain welled behind my eyes like the crowd rising before the ball went over. When it was gone I moved my head from side to side. ‘So it wasn’t him you were after?’
Korai laughed. ‘Him? No. You, Mr Rucker, you! Why should I go chasing round after Super Draper? What good would Super Draper do me now, huh? It’s not as if he can play, is it?’
Korai turned to the pitch again and tutted when one of his players passed the ball behind his colleague and it rolled out towards the advertising hoardings next to the dugout. For the first time that night I noticed Janner, as he burst up from the bench to tell Willie what he thought about it. The centre back held his hand up and his head down. In contrast to his coach’s outburst, Korai sat back and gave a short, dismissive laugh.
‘Stupid bloody game, don’t you think? This soccer?’
I looked at him, surprised. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. ‘I have to say I like it,’ I said. ‘When it’s played well.’
He laughed again, louder. ‘Not bloody here!’ He sounded like a long-suffering fan.
‘No, you’re right, not here right now.’
‘No. No. Ah, but it will be!’ Korai said. ‘It will be! Believe me. Not long now. It will be, here or at a different ground.’
‘Different?’
Korai waved a dismissive hand at me. ‘This one is small. Too small for what I want.’
Korai winced again at another woeful error, this time a back-pass that had the keeper scurrying out to clear it just in time. He shook his head. I understood how he felt. This wasn’t exactly an ennobling spectacle. He held a finger up to me. ‘No, I’ll never really take to it, this nonsense, not like you all do. My interests, outside my work, are primarily musical. Classical music. For me you see this is work. It’s about investment. Just the right level of investment. To get us up. No more than necessary. Then more next season. I don’t want to waste resources, overspend…’
‘Why did you bring me here?’ I said.
Korai stopped his pleasant spiel and sat back again. He looked thoughtful, understanding, and he nodded. Then his look changed in a second. Suddenly he thought I was particularly stupid.
‘Well now. Well now, yes. The point? Let me think. I see a man looking at my players in training. I think you are a scout, a spy, but I’m wrong – Janner tells me you are looking for my player. Then I hear you’ve been asking questions about me. Here, other places. Everywhere I go, I feel you. Today I even had one of our fundraisers demanding to see me. About his daughter. This is the final straw. He seemed to be implying something. I cannot have this. She was murdered, as I believe you know. He wanted to know what I knew about it.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘That I knew nothing, naturally. And that while I sympathized I didn’t appreciate my name being mentioned in connection with her death.’
‘I can see why you wouldn’t. I can see that.’
‘Meaning?’
‘A high-profile man like yourself. It would be embarrassing for you if people started saying you had had Alison Everly killed. Very embarrassing. And even more so if you got arrested for it.’
If my words got through to Korai I couldn’t see it. He was still looking at me but there was nothing in his face. It was motionless, like the bird I’d seen, just before it struck. While Korai didn’t give the slightest hint to what he was feeling I had the impression that he wanted to reach over and peck my eyes out. He turned to each of his ‘helpers’ and, very politely, told them to leave. They climbed over the seats in front of them casting warning shots at me over their shoulders. They climbed over more seats and sat five rows down. Again Korai turned to me. His voice was English ice.
‘Why would I kill a girl I’ve never met, Mr Rucker?’
‘Let me ask you a question. What did you pay for Jack Draper?’
Korai took the question with surprise but he nodded, his eyes closing then opening slowly. He rubbed his hands together and spread his lips into a grimace, revealing Cohiba-stained teeth capped with gold. Then he shrugged. ‘Oh, next to nothing. Everyone assumed he was finished. Less than a quarter of a million. Not peanuts for us – the rest of the squad didn’t cost that much put together – but I trusted Mr Janner’s opinion…’
‘What’s he worth now?’ I said.
He looked like he’d never even thought about it. ‘Janner tells me two, three.’
; ‘Million. Yes?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Big profit, if you sold him, no? Transfer fees aren’t dead yet. And it’s probably more than two or three, these days. Big shot in the arm for a club like this. You could get three or four very promising youngsters for that. Except, oh, let me see, just one thing. One slight problem.’
‘Which is?’
‘An obvious one. You don’t own him, do you? He’s free as a bird. You can’t sell him. While you were right to take a chance on him you made the mistake of only giving him a year’s contract. Which means that he can leave at the end of it and pick up big wages elsewhere, from a club who won’t have to pay to sign him. Not pay you a single penny. Bit galling that, no? You take a financial risk on Draper, you pay him more than you normally pay, you get him fit, you get him playing well, you build your whole team around him and what does he do? He says so long and thanks for the career and walks straight into the Premiership. Unless, of course, you can persuade him not to leave somehow. Where did you get the cat’s head, Mr Korai?’
My host nodded appreciatively but the smiling was over. He locked his fingers together and then pushed his gloved hands forward until I could hear them crack.
‘Why would I want to sell him?’ he asked dismissively. ‘Surely you realize that Draper is worth more to me getting us promoted. Why would I want to make my star striker go into hiding at this crucial time for us, when we need him? I want him on that pitch.’
I was about to answer that when Squires floated a corner over and Willie the centre back sent his elbow into the side of his opposite number’s head, before holding up his hands in amazement when the whistle blew. The player stayed down and Willie shook his head as he was booked. The clash sent a shock wave through my own head, but I didn’t really mind it. I’d wanted to sit next to Korai and say what I was saying to him. I didn’t like the way it had happened but his boys had saved me the trip.
‘I don’t think you knew he would go into hiding after Alison was killed. That was not what you expected.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re used to getting what you want,’ I explained. ‘I think it frustrated you that Draper kept refusing to sign. Well, didn’t it?’
‘You seem to know everything.’
‘You tried to scare Draper into it with photos and a late Christmas present on the back door, but you got no response from him. Then you somehow found out about his affair with Alison and you saw your chance. You had her killed, that’s my guess. Your idea was to blackmail him. When she was dead you would tell Draper you’d let the police know about his affair with her if he didn’t give you his signature. That would really land him in it. You stood to get your team promoted and make two million pounds at least, by selling him straight after. A motive if ever there was a motive. The only problem was you didn’t know about McKenna, and his deal with Alison, and the Sun. You had Alison murdered, thinking you could hold Draper’s affair with her over his head, only to see the next day’s papers drop Jack in it anyway. Your plan backfired a little, didn’t it? If you’d left well alone he may have gone on a free transfer at the end of the season but at least he’d have been out there tonight, wouldn’t he? And it looks like you need him, doesn’t it?’
The crowd fell silent like a storm that suddenly drops to nothing. All that is, but the tiny pocket in the far right-hand corner who jumped out of their seats in an instant frenzy of orange and yellow, as if a conductor had suddenly pointed his baton at them. A tannoy announced that Crewe’s scorer was one Jes Lee. His friends were congratulating him as he made his way back to the halfway line.
‘All going a bit pear-shaped, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I bet you’re sick as a parrot.’
‘Listen,’ Korai hissed. He had swivelled right round to face me and his hands were clenched into fists. ‘Ask me if I’d kill someone to keep what I have here. To make it better. Go on, ask me.’
‘Well, would you?’
He snapped his fingers. ‘Like that! This isn’t just a couple of million I’ve got here, all wrapped up in Draper. This club is going to be huge. Look at Chelsea, at Fulham. Do you know the demographic of this area? The East End is hip now, it’s cool, though God knows why anyone with any money would ever want to live amongst these people. In five years time the streets of Leyton will be lined with Range Rovers – it’s already happening!’
‘You seem to be agreeing with me,’ I said. ‘You had every reason…’
‘Maybe. But I didn’t. How would I know Draper was fucking some little newspaper whore?’
‘You had me followed. Following Draper would have been easy. You have resources, Mr Korai.’
‘So why not just blackmail him with the knowledge, why kill her?’
‘Because he would have just taken the affair on the chin or denied it. He wasn’t the first player to be stitched up and he won’t be the last. And he really wanted to leave. But threatening him with a murder rap? He’d have signed his name quicker than a B-list celebrity on a children’s ward.’
‘You’re a clever man, Mr Rucker. But there is one thing you’re forgetting. McKenna. Why kill him too?’
‘Revenge, for spoiling your little plan, that’s my guess. Or else, now that Draper’s prime suspect he may as well go away for it, and killing McKenna adds to the pressure on him. Better him than you, eh?’
‘Okay. But one more thing, a minor irrelevance. Proof.’
‘If you did it, I’ll find some. Me or the police.’
‘I have already spoken to them. They weren’t quite so incisive as your good self. Have you mentioned your little theory to them?’
‘Not yet. But I will. They’re a bit obsessed with Draper at the moment.’
‘A bit like this lot, eh, Mr Rucker?’
Korai turned from me to the crowd who, finding no one on the pitch worth shouting about, were singing the praises of their errant hero. The chanting rang out loud and clear from all areas of the ground, cutting through the rain. They weren’t singing ‘Super Jack’, though. Not ‘Super Jackie Draper’, the chant that had followed Draper from West Brom to East London. They sang,
‘Super, Super Mac.’
‘Super, Super Mac.’
‘Super Mac the Knife.’
Korai listened, his blank look underlined with something a step or two beyond hatred. But it wasn’t for me. His mouth was open in amazement at the crowd as the chanting went on. I know what he was thinking and I felt it too. I saw Alison, her body, her hair, how empty were her eyes. I wondered if somewhere in that ground, her father was listening to this.
‘Charming, aren’t they?’ The chairman’s mouth moved as if it were full of anchovy paste. ‘What lovely people. I was brought up round here, you know?’ He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the people who came through his turnstiles every week, but he wasn’t really seeing them. ‘Leyton boy from the age of nine. Went to the local school. John Stanley Comprehensive, it’s still there. About ten minutes’ walk from here.’
He stopped for a second as he went back there, his eyes full of images. I didn’t have to ask him what he was seeing.
‘What a place we found when we came here to this country. To this city, this backward city. We were nice people. Quiet people. I had never ever known violence before. But we had to put up with a lot of it, a lot of Paki bashing, as they called it. Funny that, seeing as we came from Singapore. Not that that made any difference to them. I had my ribs broken one day, you know? Four ribs, after they caught me on my way from school. Top of the class Paki boy, they didn’t like that. That was the worst time but there were many others. Punching, swearing, tipping things on me. I didn’t walk past this place, not when there was a game. My mother was spat on in the shops. Literally spat on. And not by children, by other women. You know we never sat in our front room because of the stones through the window? My mother used to dream of moving, though she never did. She died just as I was making my way. Some women stop outside dress shops but my mother couldn’t wa
lk past an estate agent. And now people flock to the area, an estate agent’s dream!’
Korai’s voice reached up high and sharp. He gave a short, guttural laugh and shook his head vigorously, trying to get it back together.
‘Then why?’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘You’re rich now. Why, all this?’
‘In a minute you’ll see,’ he said. ‘Look around you.’
I did, but I didn’t know what I was looking for.
‘White people,’ he said. ‘The sort of people who don’t mind the likes of me “but I wouldn’t want my daughter to go out with one”. You know?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s not just whites. Look, I can see—’
He waved me away, his eyes glinting. ‘The young ones, no. I admit. But these older ones. I remember them, you see? They don’t know it but I do. These old ones. I see them. Eating the overpriced food I sell them that rots their guts, buying replica kits in the shop for their grandchildren that cost me nothing. Fifteen pounds each, to see this rubbish! You know how much we made from each ‘real’ fan of this club when I bought it?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Ninety pounds in a year, including season ticket, food etcetera. Not much.’
‘Not much.’
‘Last year it was two hundred eighty. You know how much a season ticket to Arsenal is?! And there are more of them, many more fans now. If we go up this year, more again. And then more, more fans, more money from each of them. And the more we win, the more they pay, the more they cheer! Do they have nothing else in their lives but this, this game? They don’t realize that when their team wins, they have less money! The FA Cup, for instance – if we do well there are more games they have to pay for. And if we don’t win? In two years’ time I build a big supermarket right in front of your eyes!’
Korai was gripping my arm. I put my hand on his wrist and nodded towards the pitch, where the ‘O’s had got a penalty, Squires having gone down after another run.
