Philip Kerr - January Window

‘I know. That’s why I’m your team coach, boss. A sick sense of humour is absolutely bloody essential when you’re training a squad of overpaid young cunts. Fucking with them keeps their feet on the ground.’

‘True enough. Look, I’m very sorry about Drenno. I know you two were friends. He was a great footballer.’

‘Just not very sensible.’ I shrugged. ‘Sonja thinks it was inevitable that something like this would happen eventually. In fact, she almost predicted it.’

‘See if she can predict the result on Sunday. I could use a little help from the spirits.’

‘She already did. We’re going to win 4–0.’

‘Good. Buy her a late Christmas present from me, will you?’

I sighed. ‘I’ll never forget Drenno’s Christmas present to me when we were playing at Arsenal. A bottle of sun-tan lotion.’

We were still laughing as we reached the tunnel. But the laughter faded a little as we heard a shout and Colin came running after us, holding a square object in his hands.

‘You were right, Scott. There was something in that grave. This.’

‘It’s not a grave,’ I said. ‘It’s a hole. Just remember that.’

He handed me a framed photograph. The glass was smeared with earth and mud but the person in the picture was clearly identifiable. It was a photograph of João Gonzales Zarco, the one that was on the cover of his autobiography: No Games, Just Football .

Zarco took the framed photograph from my hands and nodded. ‘This was in the hole?’

Colin nodded. ‘Last night’s rain must have brought some earth down on top of it. That’s why we didn’t see it then. We might never have found this. It’s lucky you suggested digging down a bit, Scott.’

‘Isn’t it?’ I said, doubtfully.

‘It’s a good picture,’ observed Zarco. ‘Mario Testino took this shot. I look like Bruce Willis, yes?’

I said nothing.

‘Don’t look so worried, Scott,’ said Zarco. ‘I’m not in the least bit concerned by this kind of thing. I told you: there are times when football supporters are like savages. At the Nou Camp, we had a pig’s head thrown on the pitch when Luis Figo was taking a corner. And you should see those crazy bastards at Galatasaray, Coritiba and River Plate. They probably get this kind of thing all the time. But it’s England where I work and where I make my living, not a country where a man who plays football sometimes goes in fear of his life. The values of this country are good ones. And the people who did this are the exception. What worries me more is Leeds, tomorrow. They’re always a good cup side. Manchester United 1972. Arsenal in 2011. Tottenham in 2013. And the best FA Cup Final I ever saw was a recording of Chelsea versus Leeds in 1970. Now that was a fucking football match.’

Colin nodded. ‘2–2 draw. Which Chelsea won in the replay. First one since 1912.’

Zarco grinned. ‘You see? He does read.’ He handed the picture back to Colin. ‘You hang onto this. A keepsake. Hang it above your desk and use it to frighten the rest of the ground staff.’

‘Shouldn’t we tell the police about this?’ said Colin. ‘Finding your picture in the hole, I mean.’

‘No,’ said Zarco. ‘Don’t tell anyone about this or the press will be all over it. It’s bad enough that they know I’ve been asked to go on Strictly Come Dancing without them knowing about this, too. And don’t for Christ’s sake tell Mario Testino. He’ll have a fit.’

‘My wife loves that programme,’ confessed Colin. ‘You should go on it, boss.’

‘With all due respect to your wife, Colin, I’m a football manager not a fucking bandido burro .’

He checked his phone once more. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘My builder — again. I swear that man calls me more than my wife.’

Zarco had bought a house in Pimlico and was having extensive building work done, including a new façade designed by Tony Owen Partners from Sydney, Australia. The façade included an ultra-modern-looking Möbius window that had proved less than popular with Zarco’s neighbours and, of course, the Daily Mail . From the artist’s impression I’d seen in the newspaper the new façade looked to me like the J. P. Morgan Media Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground.

‘That’s because your wife is at my house,’ I said. ‘To get some peace and quiet, not to mention some good sex. And to get away from you. She hates you just like everyone else.’

‘This architect was Toyah’s idea, not mine,’ said Zarco. ‘I tell her, you want a house that looks Australian then go and live in Australia. This is London. This is where I live, this is where I make my living. Let’s have a house that looks like a London house, not the Sydney fucking Opera House. But this isn’t good enough for her and as usual Toyah gets her way. I swear, this woman is more difficult than any footballer I have ever had to deal with.’

‘That’s why we love them, isn’t it? Because they’re not fucking footballers. They’re women, who smell nice and who have nice legs. That’s why we buy them expensive Christmas presents.’

‘Who says I buy her an expensive Christmas present? That’s you, Scott, not me. I don’t buy women presents. I don’t have time. You’re the one who likes to buy presents.’

‘You must have bought her something, surely?’

Zarco grinned. ‘Toyah’s married to Zarco. She doesn’t need a Christmas present.’

Elland Road, the home of Leeds United FC, is no place for the faint-hearted in January. Even on a midsummer’s day the area is as bleak as the hair on a witch’s tit, but in winter a northwest wind whips off the Yorkshire Dales and seems to take the spirit right out of you. Doubly so when you consider that the stadium is right next to Cottingley Crematorium and they do say that sometimes, when the wind is blowing in the right direction, you can catch the pungent whiff of an afternoon service of remembrance. The beautiful game was rarely ever played in Leeds and certainly never when Billy Bremner was the Leeds captain back in the seventies, a time when Leeds United was one of the dirtiest sides in football. And I have the marks on my shins to prove it wasn’t much better in the nineties and noughties, when David O’Leary was the manager and the likes of Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer were there.

Although my father knew Billy Bremner very well — Bremner captained Scotland at the 1974 World Cup — I met the man only once, not long before his untimely death in 1997. I mention Billy Bremner because I think there’s something very wrong about the statue of Billy that stands outside Elland Road. It’s only my opinion, but Billy Bremner looks like he’s black. In reality the diminutive Scotsman, who was born near Stirling, was a pasty-looking white man with red hair. I don’t know why the Billy outside Elland Road should appear to be black but it’s as if he’s been partly cremated in the crematorium nearby. The hair is the right colour, as it happens, and so is the Leeds shirt, but every time I see it I have a laugh because I’m sure Billy would have fucking hated it. Even the statue of Michael Jackson that used to stand outside Craven Cottage is more true to life than Billy’s statue; weirdly, Billy is blacker than Michael is, although maybe that’s not so strange. Anyway, Billy just looks creepy, like a shitty piece of sculpture by Jeff Koons, or a statue of a saint you might see in a shrine in Cuba or Haiti, as if he might come alive to put the fear of God and voodoo into any team turning up to play Leeds at Elland Road. Maybe that’s the idea. If so then it might work even better if the supporters were to carry it round the pitch before the match, because it certainly wasn’t working for Leeds when London City went there for the third round FA Cup tie.