January Window (16 page)

I’d heard enough to know where I stood with the nice policewoman.

I came out of the ladies’ and went back along the corridor. Phil Hobday followed me as he exited the dining room; his office was near mine and he said he wanted to make some calls, but halfway there he stopped me.

‘When you’re through with her,’ he said, ‘Viktor wants you to drop in to KPG for a talk.’

KPG was Kensington Palace Gardens, the ultra-exclusive road in Kensington where Viktor lived in a seventy-million-pound mansion.

I paused. ‘What about?’

Phil shrugged. ‘I don’t know. No, really, I have no idea. And I wouldn’t dream of trying to second-guess Viktor Sokolnikov. It’s on your way home.’

‘All right.’ I glanced at the enormous Hublot on my wrist. ‘But I might be late.’

‘How long does it take to say a prayer? I didn’t even know you were religious.’

‘I am if it involves the people I love.’

‘So what time shall I say you’ll be there?’

I thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Come on, Scott. This is Viktor we’re talking about, not a drink in the Star Tavern.’

The Star was the posh pub in Belgravia where occasionally I met Phil for a drink. Calling it a pub at all was a bit like calling Phil’s Rolls-Royce a motor car.

‘Then tell him ten thirty.’

‘All right. And by the way, good work back there, the way you turned that cop around.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’

‘Not bad-looking, though.’

‘If you like that sort of thing.’

Phil grinned. ‘As a matter of fact I do. I like that sort of thing very much indeed.’

‘Ambitious, I should say.’

‘I like that, too.’

Outside Zarco’s door was a uniformed policeman who was checking his mobile phone. I nodded at him and went into my own adjoining office; the poor copper wasn’t to know that there was a door connecting Zarco’s office with mine and that the minute my door was closed I was through there with the flashlight app on my iPhone to see what I could discover on his desk and in his drawers. I knew there were some sex-toys and bondage paraphernalia – a remote-control vibrator and handcuffs – that no one needed to know about. It wasn’t simply the fact that I didn’t trust the police to find their own arseholes, let alone Zarco’s murderer; it was also that I had his reputation to protect, and not just his reputation but the club’s as well. The Met has a habit of selling sidebar stories to newspapers when they’re supposed to be doing something else; and the newspapers have a habit of burying the people they’ve already praised. Like my old friend Gary Speed; once you’re dead, and they’ve said a few nice things about you and wrung their handkerchiefs a bit, then they can say what the fuck they like. Of course, I already had Zarco’s ‘play phone’ and his ‘something else’ phone in my drawer, but I had to make sure there was nothing that might have left my friend’s family having to deal with a tabloid exposé:
The Real João Zarco
, or
The João Zarco Nobody Knew
. Or just as bad, a Twitter storm. Fuck that.

I wasn’t bent for myself, but I was quite prepared to be bent for my friends and for my club.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Maurice. ‘Look at that lot, will you?’ He nodded. ‘They’re going to do him proud.’

‘Looks like it.’

We were in my Range Rover, leaving London City Football Club for KPG. It was dark and bitterly cold and the air was full of sleet, but hundreds of fans had gathered to pay their tributes to João Zarco, and there were so many orange scarves tied to the gates of Silvertown Dock that it already looked like a sort of Hindu shrine. Some of the fans were singing the club songs – including what else but The Clash?

London calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared – and battle come down…

A few even managed Joe Strummer’s werewolf howl at the end of the lyric.

I was silent for a while as the song and the howls stayed in my head, giving me gooseflesh.

‘That’s the great thing about football,’ said Maurice. ‘When you go, people like to show their respect. Who else gets that these days?’

‘Michael Jackson?’ I suggested. ‘That hotel we stayed at in Munich. The Bayerischer Hof. They’ve still got a shrine going outside the front door.’

Maurice winced. ‘That’s just the fucking Germans.’

‘Hey, careful what you say about the Germans. I’m half German, remember?’

‘Well then answer me this, Fritz. How come they do that – make a shrine to him – when everyone knows he was a kiddy fiddler? Doesn’t make sense.’

‘In some ways the Germans – Bavarians especially – they’d prefer not to know about that sort of thing.’

‘Yeah, well, they’ve got a form for it, haven’t they?’ growled Maurice. ‘Preferring not to know about someone’s past.’

‘I wish he could have seen that,’ I said, ignoring the history lesson. ‘Zarco, I mean. Not the plastic guy.’

‘Did you actually see his body?’ asked Maurice.

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘His legs, I guess. Where the body was – it wasn’t a very large space. There were three or four CSU officers around him, plus all their gear – spotlights, tripods, cameras and laptops. These days a murder scene looks more like they’re shooting a commercial.’

‘What a thing to happen to a guy like João,’ said Maurice. ‘How old was he anyway?’

‘Forty-nine.’

‘Christ. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’ He pursed his lips. ‘Tragic, that’s what it is. Without question. But it ain’t a fucking murder.’

‘Listen to him: Inspector Morse.’

‘At least not a murder in the old sense, that is, with intent. Yeah, it’s reasonably foreseeable that if you’re handing out some GBH you might kill a bloke. But I don’t see any intent here, according to how most blokes round our way would look at this.’

‘Keep talking.’

‘You remember how it was in the nick. Nine times out of ten, if someone wanted to kill a bloke, they didn’t do it with a beating. They used a blade. Or they strangled him. And if it was on the outside they’d shoot him or have him shot. But they didn’t kick the shit out of him. If a bloke dies after a beating then that’s a beating that went wrong or simply got out of hand. More like an accident. Manslaughter. No, if you ask me, someone wanted Zarco hurt, but not dead. This was revenge, or a warning, but it wasn’t supposed to be goodnight Vienna.’

‘I’m no Rumpole but the law says different, I think.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s the law, isn’t it? There’s not much common sense in the law these days. If there was we wouldn’t be in the EU, would we? We wouldn’t have the Human Rights Act and all that shit. Abu Hamza. Cunts like that make a monkey out of the courts in this fucking country.’ Maurice paused as some blue light spilled into the Range Rover. ‘Talking of monkeys,’ he said, ‘we’ve got some law on our tail.’

I checked the side mirror and nodded.

‘Let me handle it, okay?’

‘Be my guest.’

We pulled up and I lowered the tinted window a few inches.

A traffic policeman presented himself at the side of the Range Rover; he was already holding a breathalyser unit in one hand and adjusting his peaked hat with the other.

‘Would you step out of the car, please, sir?’

‘Certainly.’

I got out of the car and closed the door behind me.

‘Is this your vehicle, sir?’

‘Yes it is.’ I handed him my plastic licence. ‘What seems to be the problem?’

He glanced at the licence. ‘You were driving erratically, sir. And you were doing thirty-five miles per hour in a thirty-mile-an-hour zone.’

‘If you say so,’ I said. ‘I really didn’t notice the speed.’

‘Have you consumed alcohol this evening, sir?’

‘A couple of brandies. I’m afraid I had some bad news.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir. However, I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to take a breath test.’

‘All right. But you’re making a mistake. If you’ll allow me to explain…’

‘Are you refusing to provide a sample of breath, sir?’

‘Not at all. But I was just trying to tell you that—’

‘Sir, I’m asking you to take a breath test. Now, either you comply or I will arrest you.’

‘Very well. If you insist. Here, give it to me.’ I took the little grey unit, meekly followed his instructions on what to do and then handed it back.

We waited a few seconds.

‘I’m afraid the light has turned red, sir. The sample of breath you’ve provided has more than thirty-five millimetres of alcohol per one hundred millimetres of blood. Which means you’re under arrest. If you’ll please follow me to the police car.’

I smiled. ‘For what?’

‘You just failed the breath test, sir,’ said the policeman. ‘That’s what.’

‘Yes, but as I tried to tell you before, I wasn’t driving. My friend was.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The car is left-hand drive, you see?’

There was a long silence and I tried not to smile.

The traffic policeman marched around to the left-hand side of the vehicle and opened the door. Maurice grinned at him.

‘Evening, constable,’ he said, cheerily. ‘I’m teetotal. Diabetic, see? So you’d be wasting your time.’

‘Incidentally,’ I said, ‘this is an Overfinch Range Rover; as well as being left-hand drive it’s fitted with Roadhawk – a black box camera system that films what’s happening at the front, the rear and both sides of the car. In case of accident, you understand.’

The policeman pocketed his breathalyser unit. His face was the colour of the night sky in that part of London: an artificial shade of dark mauve. He slammed the door shut on Maurice’s grin.

‘Does it record sound as well as pictures, sir?’

‘No, sadly not.’

He nodded grimly and then leaned towards me until he was near enough for me to smell the coffee on his breath.

‘Cunt.’

Then he turned and walked away.

‘Good night to you too, officer,’ I said and got back into the Range Rover.

Maurice was laughing. ‘That was fucking priceless,’ he wheezed. ‘I can’t wait to see that again. You have got to put that up on YouTube.’

‘I think I’ve been on YouTube enough for one night,’ I said.

‘No, really. Or else nobody will fucking believe it. That rozzer was so keen to nick you he didn’t even notice that this was a left hooker. Straight up. That was comedy gold.’

‘Might be better to keep it in reserve. Another time I might not be so lucky.’

‘In the circumstances you’re probably right. I thought you were joking about that bitch back at the Crown of Thorns. But it looks like she’s got it in for you, old son.’

‘So what’s new?’

We drove to the north entrance of KPG on Notting Hill Gate; the south entrance – on Kensington High Street – is reserved for the inhabitants of the royal palace. Not that any of the other houses on KPG looked to be anything less than palaces. I’d say it’s the most exclusive road in London but for the fact that anyone can live there, as long as they can afford to pay between fifty and a hundred million pounds for a house, and it’s only the presence of the grey and very grim-looking Russian embassy at the north end that lowers the tone a little.

Viktor’s house was three storeys of Portland stone with four square corner turrets and had everything except a moat, a flag and an honour guard. You can live in a bigger house in London but only if you’re the Queen.

I got out of the Range Rover and leaned through the open window.

‘You take the car,’ I told Maurice. ‘I’ll get a cab home. It’s not far from here.’

‘Want me to pick you up in the morning?’

I shook my head. ‘I’ll get a cab company to take me in.’

‘Call me when you get home, will you? Let me know if he offers you the job.’

‘You really think he will?’

‘What else could it be?’

I turned and gave my name to the gorilla in the gatehouse. He checked me off on his clipboard and then waved me through. I didn’t have to ring the bell; another security man was already opening the polished black door. A butler materialised in a marble hallway that was dominated by a life-size Giacometti sculpture of a walking man as thin as a pipe cleaner and who always reminded me of Peter Crouch. I’d shared this observation with Viktor before and I reminded myself not to offer it again; when you own a famous work of art I expect your sense of humour about who or what it looks like is limited by how much you paid for it – which, in the case of the Giacometti, was a hundred million dollars, so you do the maths. Clearly Sotheby’s or Christie’s had a more developed sense of humour than anyone.

Anyway, I wasn’t really in the mood for jokes. I wasn’t in the mood for anything very much except putting my head under a pillow and going to sleep for about twelve hours.

The butler ushered me into a room that was in keeping with the Giacometti, which is to say that it was one of those ‘less is more’ modern rooms that looks like you’re in the new money wing of a national museum; it was only the huge cream sofas that persuaded me I didn’t need a ticket and an audio-visual aid. The big black log resting on the fire dogs looked as if it had landed on Hiroshima a split second ago and even the smoke rising discreetly up the enormous chimney smelled reassuringly exclusive – like being in an expensive ski-chalet.

Viktor dropped a copy of the
Financial Times
and came around the sofa, which took a while, and gave ample time for me to admire the Lucien Freud above the fireplace. Although admire is probably the wrong word;
appreciate
is probably more accurate. I’m not sure I could have enjoyed the sight of a reclining nude man with his legs apart every time I glanced up from my newspaper. I see enough of that kind of thing in the showers at Silvertown Dock.

We embraced, Russian style, without a word. The butler was still hanging around like a cold and Viktor asked me if I wanted a drink.

‘Just a glass of water.’

The butler vanished.

I sat down, stretched a smile onto my face, just to be polite, and told him everything I’d learned about what had happened. This wasn’t much, but still, it seemed more than enough.

Viktor Sokolnikov was in his forties, I suppose, with a receding silvery hairline that was more than compensated for by the amount of hair growing between his eyebrows and on his habitually unshaven cheeks. His eyes were keen and dark and they were the shrewdest I’d ever seen. A little overweight, he had a jowly sort of cheeks with a near permanent smile; and after all he had much to smile about. There’s nothing like having several billion dollars in the bank to put you in a good mood. Not that he always was: right now it was difficult to connect this urbane, smiling man with the guy who’d nutted his fellow oligarch, Alisher Aksyonov, live on Russian television after the two got into an argument. I’d watched the clip on YouTube and, not understanding Russian, it was difficult to know what the argument had been about. But there was no doubt that Viktor had effectively given the other, bigger man a Glasgow kiss – good enough to put him down on the deck. I couldn’t have done it better myself.