Philip Kerr - January Window

Odds like that were too good to miss, even for me, especially as I still had ten grand of Zarco’s bung left in my bag.

‘You want to be careful, boss,’ Maurice said when I told him what I was planning to do with the money. ‘This isn’t a five-pound Yankee. If Sportradar or the FA finds out you’ve got ten bags of sand on with a bookie then they’ll have your guts for fucking garters.’

He was right — what I was doing was expressly forbidden by the FA’s betting rules but we’d done it before, of course. Everyone in football was betting on games, week in week out, and provided you never did anything as bent as betting against your own team there was, in my opinion, nothing wrong with this. It’s no different to what boys in the City do all the time.

‘I take it you want me to use our mate Dostoyevsky,’ he said.

Dostoyevsky was what we called a professional punter whom we’d met in the nick. For five per cent of a bet he’d put a house to let for anyone, on anything.

‘Of course. For the usual commission. Besides, if I win, the money isn’t for me. It’s for the Kenward Trust. An anonymous donation. Seems appropriate somehow, don’t you think? That some old cons should profit from a dodgy bet?’

Maurice laughed indulgently. ‘That sense of humour of yours, boss. One day it’s going to get you in trouble.’

‘I’m an old con myself, Maurice. What do you expect?’

‘On the other hand maybe you should mention it in the team talk before the match. They might play a bit harder if they know you’ve got ten k on Ayrton Taylor.’

‘This is Zarco’s night, Maurice, not mine. It might be me giving the team talk but it’s him they’re going to be playing for. They won’t be in any doubt about that, I promise you. The minute they walk into that dressing room they’ll know exactly what this match means. Not just to me, but to anyone who supports this football club. Anyone who fucks up tonight is going to have to explain himself to Zarco, not me. You see, he’s going to be there, Maurice. Zarco’s going to be with us all in that dressing room.’

Zarco might have been dead but I was certain that the Portuguese’s memory could still inspire the City team to victory. And not just his memory. I didn’t blame him, but Maurice probably thought I was crazy, or, even worse, that I was going religious on him — that I was going to tell him that Zarco’s spirit would actually be present in the dressing room. Of course I didn’t believe this any more than he did; however, I did want the players to think something like that, which was why, before any of the players arrived in the dressing room — while Manny Rosenberg was still laying out the kit — I went in there with a hammer and some nails and hung Zarco’s portrait on the wall. I’d brought it with me from Manresa Road especially for this purpose.

Manny was a tall, thin man with thick, white hair and heavy black glasses; he looked like Michael Caine’s older brother. Sounded like him, too.

He was about to lay the black armbands on each shirt when I stopped him.

‘I’ll give those out tonight if you don’t mind, Manny,’ I said.

‘As you wish.’ He handed them over.

‘I want to make this feel personal,’ I explained.

‘I take it that picture’s not permanent,’ he said, with one eye on the portrait. ‘I wouldn’t want to leave anything as nice as that in here. You know what these sods are like. Balls getting kicked around. Boots thrown. So-called practical jokes.’

‘No, it’s just for tonight.’

‘Wise.’

Manny nodded and gave it a longish appraisal. ‘Who did that, then?’

‘An artist called Jonathan Yeo.’

‘I know. He’s the Tory politician’s son. I read about him in the paper. That’s a good portrait, that is. Lad’s got talent. Not easy to capture with a brush, a man like João Zarco and what made him tick, but he’s done it very well, so he has. Soft twinkly brown eyes, big broad nose, sulky mouth, with just a hint of a sneer. Face like an African tribal mask, when you think about it. Hard as fucking wood but full of mischief, too. There was always so much going on behind the eyes, you know? Like now. I mean you can look at this painting and tell exactly what’s in Zarco’s mind.’

‘What’s in his mind, Manny? Tell me. I’m interested.’

‘Easy. He’s thinking if these overpaid cunts don’t win this fucking match tonight out of respect for my memory I’m going to haunt the bastards forever. I’ll sit in their fucking Ferraris and their ridiculous Lamborghinis and scare the cunts off the road and into a ditch. And they’ll deserve it, too.’

I grinned. ‘Maybe you should do the team talk, Manny.’

‘Nah. They’re so gullible they might actually believe me. Besides, you’ll know what to say, Mr Manson, sir.’

‘I hope so.’

Of course, I’d thought long and hard about what I was going to tell the players. Every word, every inflection of my voice would be important. I knew they would be looking for something extra from me tonight, a reminder of who and what they were playing for. And as I looked into Zarco’s eyes now I could hear the advice he had once given me about how a manager talks to his players. I was grateful to Manny for reminding me of what Zarco had said:

‘I’ve heard a lot of dressing-room team talks in my time, Scott. We both have. Most of them were a joke — David Brent in a tracksuit, a shop-steward on a soapbox, a travesty of what it means to manage players. You know why? Because most managers and coaches are stupid, ignorant men, who’ve had no real education and possess no imagination. Can you picture some of our own players becoming managers? Jesus Christ, they can’t even manage their pet dogs, let alone men. Their brains are in their feet. They haven’t got the words — at least not ones that don’t have four letters. I don’t know why but a lot of guys in football think they’ve got to behave like that marine drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket . Fuck this, fuck that, kicking lockers, punching the air. Ridiculous. Embarrassing. Futile. When I was a player and I heard this kind of thing I wanted to laugh, every time. This kind of talk is going to motivate me? I don’t think so. You shouting in my ear like I’m some guy in the army is going to make me score a goal? Not a chance. Half the time I think maybe the managers are shouting because they really don’t know what to say. They’re angry because they don’t have a solution to the problems they see on the pitch.

‘Sure, sometimes you have to be a bully, but motivating players is something else. To motivate men in sport is like motivating people in any other walk of life. You need two things. First thing is you need to understand people and you can only do that by listening to them; too many people talk but they don’t listen first. Listening is essential. Get to know your players; talk to them quietly and with respect; and treat them like individuals. Like human beings. Second thing you need is to have earned people’s respect. People respect experience, and mostly that means experience of life itself. Now I don’t know many men who have as much experience of life as you, Scott. After all that’s happened to you, I see a man who other men will always listen to. Sure, you played professional football for years, you’ve been where they are, but this is the very least you can expect of a manager. That he’s done the job himself. More important than any of this is that you’ve survived the worst things that life can throw at you and come out the other side. You’re a survivor. This makes you a man that other men will listen to. Even me.

‘But when you do speak, what will you say? Actually, speaking to players is simple; you have to say a lot but in as few words as possible, because they have very short attention spans. You have to make every word count. Simplicity is the most sophisticated motivational tool in the world. It takes real intelligence to know what not to say as well as what needs to be said. I’m not talking about doing it in a hundred and forty characters but frankly, men who can say what needs to be said in less than a thousand words are the best men in football.’