Philip Kerr - January Window

Instead I pushed my hands into my trouser pockets and looked at the ceiling as if searching for some inspiration. But none was there. And really, what was there to say? I’d already said everything that could be said before the game; to say anything else now would only look like I’d wasted my breath the first time. Besides, I’d have probably started to swear and chew the carpet like Hitler and that wasn’t going to help anyone; not tonight. They say actions speak louder than words and short of throwing boots and punches and kicking backsides I decided there was really only one thing I could do.

The lads were all looking expectantly at me now, waiting for the full Al Pacino, the Any Given Sunday , inch-by-inch, ‘I don’t know what to say’ speech that was going to work a miracle in their thick heads and turn the match around. I was all through with motivation. But I could, perhaps, offer a moment of epiphany, one simple symbolic gesture that would allow a leap of understanding where another thousand words would not.

I walked up to Zarco’s picture and lifted it away from the wall. I stared at the face for a moment, caught the expression in the eyes, and nodded; then I twisted the picture around on its cord and placed it back against the wall, face first, so that the Portuguese would not have to look at the players who, so far, had disgraced his memory. At least that’s what I wanted them all to think. Then I picked up my iPad and left the dressing room.

For a moment I stood outside in the corridor with all the noise of the stadium in my ears, wondering where to go. There were dozens of eyes on me now: policemen, officials, security men, ball-boys, television technicians and stewards. I had to get away from them, too, and as soon as possible.

I remembered I still had the key to the drug-testing station; I went in there and locked the door behind me.

I used the lavatory and drank some water. Then I sat down at the table with the black cloth on it and stared crossly at my iPhone and my iPad. As usual the iPhone wasn’t picking up any texts, or receiving calls, for which I was grateful; but there was a good WiFi signal in there which meant there were some emails on my iPad, including one from Louise Considine expressing concern for my humour and letting me know that it would be perfectly fine by her if I couldn’t face having dinner with her after the match. I realised I’d almost forgotten about lovely Louise sitting upstairs in the director’s box and immediately I emailed her back to say that after the match I was very much looking forward to her company one way or the other: to celebrate with or, more likely, to help me drown my sorrows.

Ignoring an email from Viktor suggesting that it was time we considered some substitutions, I sighed, opened another bottle of water and wished it could have been whisky. Brian Clough once said that players lose you games, not tactics, and while I could obviously have picked a different team I didn’t honestly think I should have done. There’s a lot of bollocks talked in pubs and television studios about tactics, and nearly always by people who haven’t coached and couldn’t manage their own Ocado order. As far as I’m concerned tactics are what fucking generals use to get a lot of decent men under their command killed in as short a period of time as possible. I knew I’d made the right decisions because whatever people say, making them in football is a lot fucking easier than making them in life; that’s why so many people go into football in the first place.

Not that any of it really mattered, as my doubts about Viktor Sokolnikov now seemed so compelling that I could see no real alternative to offering him my resignation immediately after the match was over. Because that’s what you do when you think you’ve been played for a fool by a crook. I couldn’t prove anything, of course; but perhaps, after the match, I might privately share a few of my suspicions with Louise. Given the likely result of the match my resigning would probably suit not just Viktor but the supporters, too. You see, it wasn’t only the players who had been jeered at the end of the first half. I could still hear someone shouting, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Manson,’ when I’d walked off the pitch at half time.

This didn’t bother me very much; when the world has fallen in on your head once before, it means you know where the tin hats are when it seems about to happen again. A few tossers handing out abuse from the stands is how you know you’re doing a good job, because if everyone agrees with you then it’s obvious that it’s a job that absolutely anyone could do.

It was Zarco I felt sorry for. I’d honestly believed his players would have wanted to honour his memory with a famous victory. It wasn’t that West Ham were so good; it was just that ours looked like a testimonial side — a few VIPs and guest players invited to kick a ball around to raise a bit of cash for one of yesterday’s stars.

I was also sorry for the friends and relations of Zarco — the ones for whom he always arranged complimentary tickets to City matches. It can’t have been very nice for them to see such a poor excuse of a football match. I knew they were here because Maurice had sent me a list of their names before the game; many of them were regulars at Silvertown Dock and had also been at the ground on Saturday for the match during which Zarco had been killed. His brothers, Anibal and Ermenegildo, his uncle, Jacinto and his sister, Branca; his best friend Dominique Racine, who had been managing PSG until he got sacked for — it was generally reported — failing to get the best out of Bekim Develi; and retired players like Paul Becker and Tano Andretti, who had been with Zarco at La Braga. Two tweets from Andretti about Zarco had been universally quoted in all of the newspapers, not least because it was a little unusual that an Italian footballer should have chosen to commemorate his Portuguese friend with four lines from Percy Shelley’s poem, Adonais :

And:

On that particular night, against a rampant West Ham side that looked like it was going to score at least another three goals in the second half, I certainly felt it was an unprofitable strife in which we were now engaged.

I glanced at my watch. There were five minutes to go before the second half started. I unlocked the door and went back outside to the dugout where the mood of the crowd was a strange mixture of dejection and delight: our own supporters, quiet and subdued and fearing the worst; and the West Ham fans, who were sensing a great victory and daring — perhaps — to dream of their biggest win since beating Bury 10–0 in 1983.

It seemed my career in top-flight football management was over before it had begun because everyone would assume I’d just not been up to it. I could hardly help that; perhaps I’d get another chance to manage a smaller club, a club where the owner was not the type to have his manager thrown out of a window and then make a joke about it afterwards.

Another email pinged onto my iPad: a list of names that Viktor thought should be on the field instead of the ‘kids and half-wits’ that were already walking back out of the tunnel. I ignored it.

Besides, there was another list of names in my head as I took my place alongside Simon Page in the dugout. (It was hard to imagine Viktor giving the blunt Yorkshireman my job when I resigned.)

‘What the fuck happened to you?’ he asked. ‘One manager disappearing at this club is unfortunate but two looks like fucking negligence. In case you didn’t realise it, boss, the ceiling is coming down on our heads. We’re getting done here. Maybe you should have wrung a couple of necks and kicked some fucking arses. I know which arses I would have kicked. That Scots twat in goal, for a start. He should never have come that far off his line. Not for a fifty — fifty ball like that.’