Philip Kerr - January Window

‘Boss,’ said Ken, ‘this is Father Armfield from St John’s Church in Woolwich. Before we get on the bus, if it’s all right with you, the lads would like him to say a short prayer for Mr Zarco. It is a Sunday, you know.’

‘Of course,’ I replied and bowed my head in prayer, wishing I’d had the nous to think of inviting a priest along that morning. Zarco had been a staunch Roman Catholic, and so was I. It was being a Catholic that helped get me through prison. At least that’s what I told myself. The priest was a welcome surprise. But there was more to come when we got on the bus: to my surprise all the lads started to sing the FA Cup hymn, ‘Abide with Me’. I was surprised that they knew the words — many of them were foreigners, after all — only until I saw that they had downloaded the words onto their smartphones. I might have joined in myself but couldn’t because I was so choked with emotion and, for a moment, I was transported to Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium in 2003 and the only FA Cup Final I ever played in. I was hugely impressed with this show of loyalty to Zarco and wished only that Matt Drennan could have been here to hear it, as no one loved the hymn more than he had.

The bus route west along the B1335 through Aveley and Wennington was pretty well known to the residents of east London, and to our surprise — London City was a new club, after all — many had lined the route to pay their respects. Twenty minutes later we were driving through the gates at Silvertown Dock, slowly, so as not to crush the hundreds of fans gathered there, or the many bouquets of flowers that had been laid there as a mark of respect to Zarco. The gates themselves were almost invisible, hidden under a mass of orange scarves. Candles had been lit and the whole area now resembled the scene of some national disaster — a rail crash or royal death.

‘Is the chairman joining us?’ I asked Maurice.

‘Yes.’

‘What about Viktor?’

‘He’s coming later on with Ronnie. He decided it was better to meet them here rather than have them over to KPG.’

‘When we get inside you’d better put the lads in the video analysis room,’ I told Simon. ‘They can watch the Tottenham match while they’re waiting for their turn with Chief Inspector Byrne.’

‘Right, boss.’

‘Maurice? I’ll want you with me in my office. We’ve got a lot to talk about.’

‘Too right we have.’

We trooped inside the door of the south entrance where, on a black easel with a black laurel wreath, there was a framed photograph of Zarco — a larger version of the same Mario Testino picture that we had found in the grave.

Uniformed officers and men from the Essex Constabulary were already there, of course. Probably they’d been there all night. The corridor leading down to the crime scene was cordoned off with tape.

Simon led the players along to the video analysis suite, while Maurice and I went upstairs to the executive dining room where I found Chief Inspector Byrne and the members of her team, only now she was also accompanied by the two detective inspectors she had drafted onto her inquiry: Denis Neville, who had investigated the hole in the pitch, and Louise Considine, who was — as far as I knew — still investigating the suicide of Matt Drennan. Both of these events already seemed a long time ago.

I wished Jane Byrne a good morning, trying my best to conceal my loathing; she had conspired to have me nicked for drunk driving, after all. She smiled thinly, no doubt wondering if I was going to mention it. So was I.

‘You’ll remember Detective Inspector Neville and Detective Inspector Considine,’ she said.

‘Yes, of course,’ I replied. ‘Thank you for giving up your Sundays to be here. We’re grateful. Detective Inspector Neville?’

‘Sir?’

‘I’d like to apologise for not being more cooperative when you were here the last time. Perhaps if we’d taken things a little more seriously then you wouldn’t be here again now.’

Neville smiled a wry-looking smile as if he didn’t quite believe me.

‘No, I mean it. But with regard to the picture we found in that grave, it wasn’t my call. It was Mr Zarco’s.’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘Are you being looked after all right?’ I asked DCI Byrne, politely. ‘Getting everything you need? Something to drink, perhaps? Tea, and coffee?’

‘Miles Carroll and his staff are being very helpful,’ she said. Miles Carroll was the club secretary. ‘They’ve opened up the staff canteen for us.’

‘Good. And please order anything at all. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. It’s on the club.’

‘Just to let you know, we’ve asked everyone who was in the executive dining room yesterday to come back here today. We’re going to be interviewing Mr Sokolnikov, Mr Hobday and all of the club’s guests from the council. At the same time we’re going to be interviewing the players and playing staff in alphabetical order.’

‘So I could be in for a wait, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Actually, no, I was hoping you might sit down with me right now and do what you said you’d do last night.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Help me identify who disliked him enough to kill him, perhaps. After all, you knew him as well as anyone here.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Was he always such a big mouth?’

I winced a little at that, but left it alone.

‘Zarco was someone who called a spade a spade.’

‘I certainly hope not,’ she said. ‘That would make my job even more difficult than it is already.’

I frowned, wondering exactly what she meant by that remark. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I mean he does seem to have gone out of his way to irritate people, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Playing mind games with other teams and other managers was just part of his style. Everyone does it. But Zarco being Zarco, people just paid more attention to it. He was quite a charismatic figure. Good-looking, articulate, well dressed. A breath of fresh air after all the dour Scots managers who used to dominate the game: Busby, Shankly, Ferguson et al .’

‘If you say so. But this was more than just mind games, I think. I’m sure you’ll agree that pre-match wind-ups are one thing, but this must have been something much more serious. With that in mind, Mr Manson, I was hoping you and I could arrive at a definitive list of his enemies.’

‘Sure, why not? It will save you the effort of having to look them up on Google, I suppose.’

‘Oh, I’ve already done that.’ On her iPad she showed me a dozen names I recognised. ‘Here.’

I nodded. ‘The usual suspects. Okay. Now all you have to do is round them up. Like Captain Renault in Casablanca .’

‘Actually, I was hoping you might help me to shorten the list.’ She shrugged. ‘Or perhaps add a name or two that isn’t there already. That’s what I meant by definitive.’

‘All right.’

‘Please. Come and sit down. Talk to me, Mr Manson.’

I followed her to the far end of the room. Out of the irregularly shaped window you could see the equally irregular steel structure that constituted the exterior of the stadium. The rain had turned to snow; I felt sorry for the fans still out there. I sat down on a leather sofa and reread the list on her iPad. Our knees were just touching, which is more than could be said of our respective characters. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, just a cunt.

‘Well, what do you think?’ she asked.

‘About this list? You know, if you were writing a piece for a newspaper about who disliked João Zarco, then you’ve already covered the bases with most of these names. But there’s a healthy difference between disliking someone enough to bad-mouth them, and hating them to the extent that you actively want them dead. Some of these men are highly respected figures in football. This is a game that inspires strong feelings, after all. Always has done. I remember my father taking me to an Old Firm match on New Year’s Day. That’s Rangers versus Celtic, by the way. This was long before the laughably named Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act, which sounds like an oxymoron. The ferocity of the historic and religious rivalry between those two sets of supporters was truly something to behold. And it’s fair to say that murders have been committed because a man was wearing the wrong colours in the wrong part of town. Having said all that—’