Authors: Philip Kerr
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 princeling 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.’
‘You’re forgetting I’m half German, half Scots.’
‘That’s true. So then, let’s talk. What do you want to know?’
‘I know about the insider share deal with SSAG. And to be fair I should inform you that so does Viktor Sokolnikov.’
‘That’s a pity. Is he going to inform the Financial Services Authority?’
‘Probably not if he can avoid it. Viktor likes to keep a low profile where he can. He’s going to speak to his lawyer before he does anything. But even if he did speak to the FSA you can probably blame what happened on Zarco.’
‘Thanks for that, Scott. I appreciate the heads-up.’
‘Look, the only thing I don’t know about is the cash part of the bung. What he wanted it for. And what the urgency was. So, tell me about Saturday morning.’
‘Are you turning detective at the same time as you become the new City boss? I’ve heard of total football. What’s this? Total football management?’
‘You might say I’m playmaking here, yes. Making space for the truth, perhaps. I figure it’s my job to sort things out here as quickly as possible. Not just the football, but the rest of it, too. The unsolved murder of a club manager is very bad for player morale.’
‘True.’ Gentile paused long enough to light a cigarette and inhale sharply. ‘So then. We’d done business like this before, Zarco and I. He would use an executive box when he knew it wasn’t going to be occupied. It was convenient for him and convenient for me, too. I went to the box, as instructed. I left the bung in the icebox, as instructed. Zarco wasn’t there when I got there; and he wasn’t there when I left. That’s all I know about Saturday morning.’
‘And why did he want the cash? I mean, he seemed to be in a hurry for it. In his texts he said he wanted it for the weekend.’
‘That’s true, he was. But I don’t know why. Look, why does anyone want cash, Scott? Paper is nice to have around. You put it in your safe and you use it for holiday expenses, to pay the babysitter, to give to your mama at Christmas. Lots of managers like a bit of cash in hand. Literally. They’re old-fashioned like that. You’d be surprised who else likes a bung; it’s not just the usual suspects. It’s like drugs and sport. Nobody takes drugs until they get caught and even then it’s a mistake, someone else’s fault, a cold remedy that turned out to be something bad. It’s the same with bungs. Everyone is against it until they get one. And is it any wonder with all the money that’s sloshing around football right now? BT pays out nine hundred million pounds for broadcast rights to the Champions League and right the way down the food chain there are people saying,
dov’è la mia parte?
Where’s my slice of the big pizza? That’s just economics, Scott. The law of supply and demand. Except that Adam Smith forgot about the law of television sport and the law of two hundred grand a week and the law of insatiable greed. You can’t change that. All you can do is take advantage of it.’
‘Did Zarco mention he was scared of anyone? I’m wondering if he wanted the fifty grand to pay someone off. Someone who’d threatened him, perhaps. I take it you heard about the grave that was dug in our pitch, with Zarco’s photograph at the bottom of it?’
‘He said something about it, yes. But it didn’t seem to have scared him. He thought it was just hooligans. Frankly he was rather more alarmed that Sokolnikov might discover the fact that he’d bought shares in SSAG. That he’d get fired, or worse.’
‘What did he say? Can you remember?’
‘Most of our communication was done by text, you understand. For reasons of confidentiality. But he did say something about it in a conversation we had. On Saturday morning. He called me from Hangman’s Wood and said something to the effect that he wouldn’t be surprised if he was found floating in the Thames when Viktor found out what he’d been up to.’
‘He actually said that?’
‘I thought he was joking. And to be fair he was laughing when he said it. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was fear making him laugh, yes? On the other hand, if Viktor Sokolnikov was going to take him out I can’t imagine he’d have done it at the dock. With his money and connections he could surely have arranged something a little more discreet. His kind of money buys you a lot of discretion.’
‘So it would seem. What about the room itself? Suite 123.’
‘An Arab’s idea of luxury. A bit like a cabin on a luxury yacht. What can I say?’
‘No, I meant was there anything unusual about it that you noticed?’
‘Unusual? No. Well, maybe a couple of things, yes. The dishwasher was on. That struck me as odd, for a suite that wasn’t supposed to be in much use. And there was a pair of sunglasses on the floor. I assumed they were Zarco’s and I put them on the worktop.’
‘So he’d been there already when you turned up.’
‘Yes. Just to make absolutely sure the room was empty, probably. His leather bag was on the sofa.’
‘Anything else?’
He paused. ‘That really is everything I can remember.’
‘All right.’ I thought for a moment. ‘By the way, what have you heard about Bekim Develi? He’s coming here.’
‘The red devil? It’s news to me. But if he is moving to London I’m not surprised. At a match against Zenit a couple of weeks ago, one of Dynamo’s black players was getting abuse from the crowd and Develi made a citizen’s arrest during the game. He went into the crowd and hauled a fan out – a man he claimed had been one of the ringleaders. He was pretty rough with him, too. Almost started a riot. The fan was sent to prison and Develi’s had death threats ever since.’
‘He should fit in very well around here. Getting death threats is par for the course at Silvertown Dock.’
After my call with Gentile was concluded I stepped into the kitchen, placed Zarco’s Oakley sunglasses on the tiled floor and opened the curious-looking window – like one of the awkward rhombus-shaped windows in that talking shop for the awkward-squad that is the Scottish Parliament. Several pigeons flew away in a loud flurry of wings that made my heart leap in my chest for a moment. There was talk of employing a hawk or a falcon to control the pigeons at the dock; apparently they were very effective and, as far as I was concerned, it couldn’t happen soon enough. If only we could control players as easily. Then I walked back to the kitchen door and turned to face the room. You might say I was trying to see things just as Paolo Gentile and Zarco had seen them. I’d watched Inspector Morse do something vaguely similar on the telly and figured it certainly couldn’t do any harm. I checked the bin but it was empty; what’s more it looked clean as a whistle.
In a framed colour photograph hanging on the wall the former Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad, and his glamorous wife, Sheika Mozad, were pictured holding the World Cup under the proud eyes of FIFA’s diminutive president, Sepp Blatter, a man whose knowledge of football was doubtless enhanced by his having been the former General Secretary of the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation. Mr and Mrs Rich were smiling proudly and looked like two cats that had got all the cream. It was always nice to remember that the future of football was in such safe hands as these.
I leaned out of the window and stared up at the pale winter sun. It wasn’t the view of Silvertown Dock that made me yawn but the fresh air. From my current vantage point the outer part of the stadium was closer to the inner structure than on the ground floor. I could almost have reached out and touched one of the cross beams. I looked down through the polished plaited steel to the ground, about fifty or sixty feet below the window, and then glanced back at the fifty grand that lay on the worktop. What the hell was I to do with a fifty grand bung? I could hardly give it to the police or keep it myself, as Gentile probably assumed I would do. Of course, strictly speaking it was money paid to Gentile and Zarco that should never have been paid at all, which made it Viktor’s more than anyone’s. It seemed almost pointless to reimburse a man for whom fifty thousand was less than 0.0006 per cent of his total wealth, but it looked as if this was probably what I was going to do.
My phone started to ring. It was Phil Hobday.
‘I believe Viktor promised you sight of an autopsy report,’ he said.
‘Yes. I was wondering if he was serious about that.’
‘Viktor never makes idle threats,’ said Phil.
After what Paolo Gentile had told me that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear at this particular moment, and I reflected that the chairman might have chosen his words more carefully.
‘Is this from your source in the Home Office again?’
‘Actually, no. Since March 2012 all forensic work in the UK is contracted out to the private sector.’
‘That doesn’t sound very reassuring.’
‘Maybe not. Anyway, it’s here in my office if you want to come and get it. In fact I wish you would. I’m afraid I opened the envelope before I knew what it was. And now I’m rather wishing I hadn’t.’
‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
While Maurice escorted a grateful Terry Shelley out of Silvertown Dock, I got up and locked the door to my office before making myself a very strong cup of coffee with the Nespresso machine that sat on top of the filing cabinet. If there’d been any brandy around I might have added some of that to my mug instead of milk from the refrigerator. I figured I needed something strong inside me if I really was going to play detective for the whole nine yards, and it was impossible even to imagine catching Zarco’s killer without knowing the exact circumstances of how the man had met his death. I could see no way of avoiding it. Ignoring a text from the
Guardian
soliciting my opinion on the absence of black goalkeepers in top-class football – why was it, for example, that City had chosen a Scot instead of the ‘equally talented’ Hastings Obasanjo, or Pierre Bozizé? – I settled down to read.
I hadn’t ever seen an autopsy report or had anything to do with one before. In fact, I hadn’t even seen a dead body, unless you count the guy in the next cell at Wandsworth Prison who got a shiv in his neck and died later in hospital. The closest I’d come to seeing an autopsy had been on the telly when the almost infamous German anatomist Gunther von Hagens had dissected a cadaver ‘live’ on Channel Four television; it had been fascinating to see the human musculature in close detail. I was of course especially fascinated to see those more vulnerable parts of the human leg that give all footballers problems from time to time: the anterior cruciate ligaments, the knee cartilage, the hamstrings and the groin. I remember gasping that something as simple as a length of tendon at the back of the knee could be so fucking painful when it tore, and that an Achilles could reduce you to a whimpering puppy when it snapped. For me it was like my teacher at school explaining how the Pythagorean theorem works infallibly; or, in the case of the anterior cruciate ligament, doesn’t. Some of those Creationist bastards in the US who are forever arguing ‘intelligent design’ – I’d like to see them do that while trying to play on to the end of a match with a torn adductor muscle.