Philip Kerr - January Window

‘Precisely.’

‘I understand.’ I frowned. ‘Actually, no, I don’t. You say you want Zarco’s murder solved quickly. Surely that implies we ought to cooperate with the police. I mean, how else are they to find out who killed him unless we help them? I don’t see how we can let them hunt for our fox in any other way. If I can borrow your metaphor for a moment, surely the risk to our rabbit is the price we have to pay in order to shoot the fox.’

‘Then let me explain. I want you to hunt for our fox, Scott.’

‘Me?’

Viktor nodded.

‘You want me to play detective?’

‘I pride myself on knowing the people who work for me and I think that you would also prefer to have things handled as discreetly as possible, out of your loyalty to the club and to Zarco. Am I right?’

I thought of the two mobile phones I’d already taken away from Silvertown Dock and which were now in the bag at my feet. You had to hand it to Viktor Sokolnikov: he had me sussed all right.

‘Yes. You are.’

‘We both know that Zarco pulled quite a few strokes in his time as City manager. It certainly wouldn’t help him and it probably wouldn’t help me if some of those strokes were laid bare in the media.’

‘Agreed.’

‘You’re not afraid of the police, Scott. That makes you a very unusual man. That makes you ideally suited to steer your own course in this investigation. To risk their collective displeasure. You understand?’

‘Yes. I think I do.’

‘I also have the impression that it would give you some pleasure to embarrass the police a little. Am I right?’

‘Of course. But look, Viktor, I’m not a policeman.’

‘In Ukraine we say that a policeman is just a thief with no manners. In truth, Scott, have you ever really met a policeman you thought was well qualified for the job? No, of course not. Motorists are the only criminals in this country who are regularly caught and prosecuted. Why? Because they have registration numbers. The police will arrest someone for making a racist tweet, or an NHS manager who’s fucked up, but try asking them to catch a burglar and they wouldn’t know how to begin going about it. We live in a country where it is quicker to order in sushi than to summon the police.’

‘It’s true I don’t like the police any more than I trust them. But detectives have their ways. Investigative techniques. Forensic reports. Informers.’

‘I have several reasons for thinking that you can catch Zarco’s murderer quicker than the police can, Scott. You are intelligent, well educated, you speak several languages, you’re resourceful, you knew Zarco as well as anyone, you know the club, you know Silvertown Dock, you know Hangman’s Wood, and you know football. That woman from the Yard — Detective Chief Inspector Jane Byrne: in the days it would take just to bring her up to speed with what you know, I’m certain this case could be solved.’

I nodded. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Forensic reports? I’ll get those for you. Believe me, News International aren’t the only ones who can pay the police for information. I guarantee to have a copy of the pathologist’s report delivered to you before that cop even knows it’s finished. As for informers — well, you know the same people the police do. People who’ve been in prison. Our own club fixer, Maurice McShane, is just such a person. Yes? Perhaps information can be obtained from this world, also. The criminal world.’

‘You could be right about that, Viktor. As a matter of fact Maurice has already suggested that Zarco’s death was an accident. A beating that went too far.’

I explained what Maurice had said in the car.

Viktor nodded. ‘You know, I have a little experience of this myself. Back in Ukraine, in the last days of communism and the beginning of the new republic, there was no company law, no law of contract, no commercial law, so we handled things ourselves. No Mafia, just businessmen. To be honest, Scott, sometimes things went a little too far there as well, you know? So it strikes me that Maurice is probably quite right.’

I nodded.

‘I’m glad you agree,’ said Viktor. ‘But before you say yes, Scott, let me tell you that in addition to everything I’ve told you, you’ll also have two very important incentives to find Zarco’s killer that Detective Chief Inspector Jane Byrne and the police won’t have.’

‘Like what?’

‘The manager’s job, for one thing. You find out who killed Zarco, and soon — you get the police out of our hair for good — and the City job is yours, permanently. A five-year contract. On the same salary as Zarco. Same bonuses. Same everything.’

‘That’s very generous, Viktor. And the other incentive?’

‘I know you like pictures, Scott.’ Viktor glanced up at the painting of the naked man. ‘You like this portrait?’

‘I hadn’t noticed the face very much.’

‘My wife, Elizabeth, doesn’t like it. She’s English, as you know, and she’s not what you might call comfortable with the human body. When I first met her she used to wear a swimming costume in the banya .’

Banya was what Russians called the sauna.

‘Anyway, I paid ten million dollars for this painting, back in 2008. It’s worth twice that now Freud’s dead. Perhaps more.’ Viktor stood up. ‘Come with me. There’s another portrait I want to show you.’

We walked through the house into his study where, above a Hitler-sized desk, there was a large and very striking portrait of João Zarco. I’d read about the portrait in the London Evening Standard at the time of its commission. It was painted by Jonathan Yeo, one of Britain’s most collectible young artists.

‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

‘Very much,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you owned it, Viktor.’

‘It was a gift from Zarco. I suppose his idea of a joke — to give me a picture of himself. But it’s very fine, don’t you think? It was having his photograph taken by Mario Testino — yes, that photograph — which gave him the idea to commission a portrait from a painter.’

I nodded. ‘I won’t say it’s an excellent likeness. That much is obvious. But there is something very lifelike about it. And I like the way that the clothes don’t matter all that much — the way they fade away. It seems to make him seem altogether more himself. He’s not smiling but there’s a real twinkle in his eye, as if he’s about to say something else that would get him into trouble.’

‘You say more than you know, Scott. When Jonathan Yeo showed the portrait to Zarco he said he didn’t like it. Said it made him look too ugly and too grumpy. That’s why he gave it to me. But I think it’s excellent. I think that in a few years a painting by Jonathan Yeo is going to be every bit as sought after as one by Lucien Freud. Anyway, I want you to have it, Scott. That’s the other incentive I was talking about.’

‘You’re joking. Really?’

Viktor lifted the picture down from the wall; the fact that it was covered in glass made it heavy, so I helped him.

‘I’m perfectly serious, Scott. This picture is yours, now, to take home with you tonight. I want you to have this so that every time you look at it, you’ll hear João Zarco saying what I’m going to say to you now:

‘“Find out who killed me and why, Scott. Find my killer. I didn’t deserve what happened to me today. Not ever. So, take control of the game yourself and don’t just leave it to other people, like the police. Please, Scott, for me and for my wife, Toyah, you must discover who killed me, okay? Next time you look in my eyes I want to know that you’re doing your best to get them. Really, I won’t have any peace until you do this for me.”’