Philip Kerr - January Window

ZarcoTuesday 22.45

I thought autistic people were good with numbers. Like Rain Man.

GentileTuesday 22.50

Thick then. All footballers are thick when it comes to numbers. Have to be. Otherwise they wouldn't need agents.

ZarcoTuesday 22.55

True. You have the skill set of the Borgias. Are you by any chance related?

GentileTuesday 23.00

LOL.

So far this was all entirely above board, but as the texts became more cryptic and numerical, paradoxically it became more and more obvious that something even dodgier than a straight bung was about to go down.

GentileWednesday 13.30

Okay, you have new gk.

ZarcoWednesday 14.00

Ahd?

GentileWednesday 14.02

He's very happy. At least I think so. I don't understand everything he says.

ZarcoWednesday 14.06

Makes two of us.

GentileWednesday 14.30

There's half a quid in it for you, as discussed.

ZarcoWednesday 14.40

You remember how I want this.

GentileWednesday 14.50

Sure. 50k the hand. Balance in some SSAG with Monaco STCM. Tomorrow no fail.

ZarcoWednesday 14.55

You have contact and a/c details. Get a taste yourself.

GentileWednesday 15.25

You sure?

ZarcoWednesday 16.00

Sure. But Friday or Monday too late. Must be tomorrow. Before it's in the paper. Understand?

GentileWednesday 16.05

Okay. Understand.

GentileWednesday 17.00

All done. Where do you want the 50k?

ZarcoWednesday 17.30

Tomorrow. Usual BP 0n A13. 15.00

On the few occasions that I’d heard agents and managers talking business, some of them would mention ‘a quid’ in a kind of shorthand, coded, Polari way, almost as if trying to conceal the real monies that were involved in modern football. A quid was a million quid, just as ten quid was ten million and fifty quid was fifty million. It was yet another reason to despair of the attitude to money in football. With the likes of Eden Hazard, Robin Van Persie and Yaya Touré on £180,000 a week, it was easy to forget that fans could be asked to pay up to 126 quid — real quid, not millions — for a match-day ticket at Arsenal, which represents a quarter of the average weekly wage.

But it seemed that things had not quite gone to plan, and probably explained why I had seen the two men arguing at the service station in Orsett, near Hangman’s Wood — which was certainly ‘BP on A13’.

ZarcoThursday 15.00

Where ru?

GentileThursday 15.02

In traffic. Be there any minute.

ZarcoThursday 15.15

Still waiting.

GentileThursday 15.19

More traffic. Be patient.

ZarcoThursday 15.21

Easy for you to say. Did you buy SSAG? Like I said?

GentileThursday 15.22

Yes. No problem with that. But there was a problem with the 50k. I couldn't get it today.

ZarcoThursday 15.24

WTF? So why am I waiting here? I told you I needed that for the weekend. What I needed it for. Those guys will be very pissed off if I don't give them what I promised.

GentileThursday 15.25

Arriving.

ZarcoThursday 16.30

That was a waste of time.

GentileThursday 16.45

I told you. You'll have it day after tomorrow. I'll bring it to the BP.

ZarcoThursday 16.50

Be sure you do.

My first thought was that Monaco STCM was something to do with AS Monaco FC, the football club, and that SSAG was perhaps a player, although it hardly seemed likely that an agent would have been encouraged to buy a player, unless it was one of those offshore, Tevez-type economic rights schemes that had given lawyers and accountants so much well-paid work on the back of a talented footballer; but things were about to become even more confusing for me and, it seemed, very much more awkward for Zarco, to say the least.

GentileFriday 18.00

Tell me, did you know that MSTCM is owned by SCBG?

ZarcoFriday 18.47

SCBG? Remind me.

GentileFriday 18.50

Sumy Capital Bank of

ZarcoFriday 19.00

Fuck.

GentileFriday 19.15

But surely VS knows what you're making from KT deal. It's why he agreed to bring me on board, isn't it? To give you a taste.

ZarcoFriday 19.30

Yes. He knows about that. But he doesn't know I used most of the quid to buy into SSAG. He wouldn't like that.

GentileFriday 19.37

Okay, but MSTCM wouldn't necessarily tell SCBG about the SSAG purchase. Client confidentiality etc.

ZarcoFriday 19.48

This is VS we're talking about, not some muppet at the FSA. VS can go plases that others can't. He is omniscient and omnipotent. I am fucked. Maybe not right now. But later on.

I typed a few of these abbreviations into Google on my desktop PC. Monaco STCM was actually Monaco Short Term Capital Management, an investment company wholly owned by the Sumy Capital Bank of Geneva, which was in turn owned by Victor Sokolnikov; and SSAG looked like it was probably Shostka Solutions AG, which — according to the newspapers — was the Sokolnikov-owned construction company that had the contract to build the new Thames Gateway Bridge. According to what I found on Google, SSAG shares had shot up following the news that planning permission for the bridge had finally been granted. And from the texts I’d read it looked as if Zarco had used most of his bung for a bit of offshore insider-trading — to buy into his employer’s company before the news that all planning objections to the bridge had been lifted could be made public. Since the announcement, the shares had risen by almost thirty per cent, which meant that if the ‘half a quid’ mentioned in the texts represented half a million pounds — bar ‘50k’, presumably fifty thousand pounds — then four hundred and fifty thousand invested would have turned into almost six hundred grand. Which is a hell of a return. And thoroughly illegal.

ZarcoFriday 21.00

On second thoughts, don't bring 50k to the BP. Prob best we're not seen together in public for a while. Anywhere.

GentileFriday 22.00

Okay, you're right. Where than?

ZarcoFriday 22.10

Use 123 this time.

GentileFriday 22.13

Okay. Will you be there?

ZarcoFriday 22.15

Maybe. Not sure. Before the game I have a lunch in director's dining room with VS and some people from the council. So if I'm not there just leave it where you left it last time.

GentileFriday 22.25

Will do. Should beat Newcastle.

ZarcoFriday 22.45

Scott has good idea to psyche them out. You wait and see.

GentileSaturday 10.00

Have 50k.

ZarcoSaturday 10.10

Glad to hear it.

GentileSaturday 11.17

On my way to SD.

GentileSaturday 11.45

Arrived at SD.

ZarcoSaturday 11.48

If we meet anywhere in the ground outside 123 just blank me, okay?

GentileSaturday 11.55

No problem. I'm not going to stay for the match.

ZarcoSaturday 12.10

I appreciate this.

GentileSaturday 12.10

No problem. Football Focus thinks it will be a draw today.