January Window

32

There were one hundred and fifty executive boxes at London City, all of them on the second floor. For £85,000 — that was the starting price for the present season — you got a private box about the size of a decent caravan, a fully equipped kitchen, a private lavatory, fifteen seats for every competitive home fixture, a support team of elegant hostesses to greet guests and serve food and drinks, a widescreen television and betting facilities. The more you paid the nearer the halfway line you were and the bigger the box was. All the suites were furnished differently, according to the taste — or lack of it — of the person or company owning it. Most were owned by companies like Carlsberg and Google, but the name on the door of suite 123 was an individual and an Arab one: Mr Saddi bin iqbal Qatar Al Armani.

I unlocked the door, switched on the lights and went inside. The room felt cold; colder than it ought to have been. I checked the sliding doors, which were still locked behind the pulled-down roller blinds, then looked around.

Mr Al Armani’s suite was furnished like the interior of a private jet — all thick cream carpets, polished ebony panels and expensive white leather armchairs. He probably owned a private jet like this, too. Occupying a whole wall was a silver print of Monte Fresco’s famous photograph of Vinnie Jones squeezing Gazza’s bollocks, signed by both players — the poster, not the bollocks — and a framed number ten Argentine shirt belonging to Diego Maradona that had also been signed. On an ebony wood table stood a pile of dinner plates edged in gold, a canteen of gold cutlery, a gold table lighter and several gold ashtrays. The widescreen television on the wall was an 84-inch Sony, which looked as big as the sliding doors that led out to fifteen seats that were just fifty feet above the halfway line. Everything looked like it was of the very best quality, even though the taste left something to be desired in my own eyes; I don’t much care for all that Bin Laden bling.

It was obvious Zarco had been there; a black woolly hat lay on the table and his Dunhill chestnut leather grip was on the white leather sofa. I opened the bag, half hoping I would find fifty grand and Zarco’s lucky football scarf inside it — which was still missing — but apart from a pair of motorcycle gloves, it was empty.

I went into the lavatory; there were gold fittings on the sink and on the cistern, and on the wall an aerial photograph of the Al-Wakrah in Qatar — the so-called Vagina Stadium.

Opening the door to the kitchen, I switched on the light and walked the length of the room to the window. I opened the cupboards and the fridge, I even opened the dishwasher, which was switched on and had run a cycle, because a little light on the door indicated as much. There were three coffee cups in there, which wasn’t much washing up to have warranted switching it on. Glancing around, I saw a pair of grey steel Oakley sunglasses that lay on the worktop. I picked them up. They were Zarco’s. I knew that because I’d bought them for his birthday; I had told him they matched the colour of his hair, which they did. Otherwise I’d found nothing that left me any the wiser as to why a man with a gun would have taken the risk of impersonating a police officer to get in here.

On the face of it I couldn’t see why anyone would have burgled the suite. Not for an empty bag. I weighed the cutlery in my hand — at best it was dipped, and hardly worth the risk. The framed Maradona shirt wasn’t worth more than a few hundred quid; after all, he’d signed so many. At fifteen to twenty grand the telly was probably the most expensive thing in the suite, but it weighed a ton and wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you could tuck under your coat.

The only interesting fact I’d discovered was that the suite was owned by an Arab who appeared to be from Qatar. Why had Zarco arranged to have Paolo Gentile come here, of all places, with fifty grand? After all, the Qatari who owned the box was hardly likely to think fondly of a man who had been so vocal in his opposition to a Qatari World Cup. And you could just tell that fifty grand was chump change for a man like that. None of it made sense.

I sat down and noticed that the stereo was still on; I turned up the volume and found myself listening to TalkSPORT. Don’t get me wrong, I like TalkSPORT; most of the pundits know what they’re talking about. Especially Alan Brazil and Stan Collymore. But this was one of those post-mortem phone-ins when football fans would ring in with their opinions on the weekend’s games. Their comments were always the same: x should be sacked, y should never have been bought, and z was rubbish. TalkBOLLOCKS would have been a better name for what most of the fans calling in had to say.

I turned it off, picked up Zarco’s bag and his hat and his sunglasses, locked the door of 123 behind me and went back to my office.

The fake cop was where I had left him, handcuffed on the chair, staring morosely at the floor. There was a little bit of blood on his nose; I found a tissue and wiped it, but only to prevent it from dripping on the carpet.

With the man’s gun lying on the desk, Maurice was in front of my PC.

‘Has he said anything?’ I asked.

‘Not yet.’

‘What did you find out about suite 123?’ I asked.

‘The suite is owned by an Arab gentleman from Qatar,’ said Maurice. ‘Mr Saddi bin iqbal Qatar Al Armani from the Bank of Subara and, according to Forbes, he’s worth six billion dollars. Mr Al Armani has owned one of the top-price boxes here for the last three years, although he doesn’t actually appear to be a very keen fan of football. He hasn’t been to a match since the beginning of the season. Probably too busy finding oil and shitting money. Not that this is at all unusual at our club. There’s at least half a dozen others who own a hospitality suite who’ve never shown up to a game. Wanker bankers, mostly. No wonder the fucking fans go mad when they see so many empty seats going begging. Some of these rich bastards have probably forgotten they even own these boxes. Not surprising when you think about it. Eighty-five grand when you’re worth several billion dollars? What’s that? A fucking pizza.

‘Yesterday wasn’t an exception to Mr Armani’s general no-show rule. None of the tickets allocated to Mr Armani shows up on the computer as having been used. And whoever João Zarco went to see in that box it doesn’t look like it was a man with a towel on his fucking head.’

‘Possibly that’s why he went there,’ I said. ‘Because he knew it wasn’t going to be occupied. A nice quiet place for Gentile to leave a bung and for Zarco to collect it. Only I don’t think he did. He took a bag there all right. This bag. But the bag was empty.’

‘So maybe the bung didn’t get paid after all,’ said Maurice. ‘And Zarco went looking for Gentile. Found him somewhere. Dragged him into that maintenance area to give him a piece of his mind and got more than he bargained for.’

‘And no one recognised him?’ I shook my head. ‘Wearing this hat and these sunglasses I can easily see how he made it to the executive suite without attracting attention. But he seems to have left them there. Who owns the suites on either side of 123?’

Maurice typed out the numbers on my keyboard. ‘122 is owned by a Chinese gentleman called Yat Bangguo. Runs something called the Topdollar Property Company. 124 is owned by Tempus Tererent Inc. They’re the people who make games for people like Xbox and PlayStation. Including Totaalvoetbal 2014. The Tempus Tererent people were there yesterday, used all their tickets; Mr Bangguo only used half his tickets. 121 is owned by Tomas Uncliss.’

Tomas Uncliss was the previous manager for London City when they’d been in the Championship League; he’d been sacked unceremoniously by Viktor after a few unlucky results.

‘All of them had catering and hostesses. Might be an idea to speak to some of those girls and see if they noticed anything unusual in 123.’

‘Have you ever spoken to one of those girls?’

‘Can’t say I have.’

‘Most of them aren’t English; and about the only footballer they would ever recognise in a million years is David Beckham. Still, it couldn’t do any harm, could it? See what you can find out.’

‘Sure thing, boss.’

I looked at our prisoner. ‘What do you think, Mr...?’

Maurice pushed back from my desk and handed me a driving licence and a Tesco loyalty card.

‘This cunt’s name is Terence Shelley. Lives in Dagenham. And he shops at Tesco. Apart from that I know fuck all about him.’

‘Well, every little helps, doesn’t it?’

I picked a football off the floor and bounced it hard on the back of Shelley’s head.

‘Hello! Is anyone at home? Talk to us, Mr Shelley, or you’re the Sweeney’s fucking dinner.’

Shelley said nothing.

‘I’m tired. My friend here is tired. So I tell you what we’re going to do: we’re going home, he and I. But we’re going to leave you somewhere safe overnight to reflect upon your situation. Manacled to a nice heavy kettlebell. All right? That is unless you talk to us, now. So, what do you say?’

‘Bollocks,’ said the man.

‘You know something, Terry?’ I said. ‘I can call you Terry, can’t I? You should be on TalkSPORT.’