January Window

6

In the event it took only half an hour to drive the ten-mile journey from my flat off the King’s Road to the East End. There aren’t many people on the road at that time of the morning but the press were there in force when I arrived. As I approached the gates of the club car park they surged towards the Range Rover to see who I was. At the same time I wondered what was so interesting at Silvertown Dock that it could have diverted them from going to Wembley Way; I didn’t know it at the time but Wembley Way was equally popular with journalists that night. There are more newspapers and television stations in England looking for a good story than you might think. Especially when it’s a story about football.

I drove up to the gates of the club car park and waited for our security men to let me in. It was raining heavily now and while I was waiting I switched off the windscreen wipers just to deny the many waiting photographers a better shot of my tired and probably miserable face. The floodlights were on inside the stadium, which was very strange at nearly three in the morning.

‘Scott! Scott! Scott!’

Since I had no idea of what to expect when I got inside the stadium I thought it best not to say anything. That suited me just fine as I don’t like talking to the papers any more than I like talking to the police. Sarah Crompton was always trying to persuade me to be a bit friendlier to the press but old habits die hard; whenever I get doorstepped by reporters or papped by some monkey with a Canon I feel half inclined to hand out a taste of what Zinedine Zidane gave to Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup Final. Now that’s what I call a headline.

I found Maurice McShane waiting impatiently for me at the players’ entrance, next to the riverside and the special private marina where Viktor Sokolnikov sometimes arrived at the stadium aboard a thirty-five-metre Sunseeker sport yacht. Maurice was a big fair-haired man with a beard and a voice like someone shovelling grit. To my surprise he was with the head groundsman, Colin Evans, who Sokolnikov had enticed away from the Bernabeu at great expense: Colin Evans was generally held to be the best groundsman in Europe and the City pitch always won all sorts of awards for its excellent condition.

‘The fuck’s going on?’ I said. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night, Colin?’

Colin shook his head, growled, clearly speechless with anger and led the way out through the players’ tunnel and onto the pitch. He was fit-looking and young for a groundsman — no more than thirty-five — and wearing the same kind of City tracksuit I was wearing, he could easily have passed for a player.

‘You’ll see soon enough,’ said Maurice.

‘Sounds ominous.’

The stadium always looked fantastic for an evening fixture when all the floodlights were on. They made the orange seating look a very appetising and Christmassy shade of tangerine, while the grass seemed to shine like a rare emerald; and for our sixty thousand seated supporters that’s exactly what it was: something very precious, hallowed even. Small wonder that every so often we had requests from fans who wanted to have a relation’s ashes scattered on the pitch. Colin would never have allowed such a thing, of course; apparently it’s very bad for the grass but not so bad for the flowers. Colin’s roses always won prizes.

He led us along the halfway line, through the centre circle to the spot where several policemen were standing as if about to kick off a game. Normally I could never make that walk without a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was about to play a match; on this occasion, however, I felt as empty as the stadium itself. Drenno’s death was still very much at the front of my mind. For a moment I thought I was about to see a dead body. But I certainly wasn’t expecting to find what I saw now.

‘What the hell?’ I put a hand to my mouth and rocked back on my heels for a moment.

‘Nice, isn’t it?’ said Maurice.

A hole had been dug in the centre of the pitch. I say a hole, but it was obviously a grave, about six feet long and at least two or three feet deep.

A stranger wearing a fawn-coloured duffel coat came towards me; he was holding a police identification card in front of him.

‘I wonder if I might have a word with you now, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘My name is Neville, Detective Inspector Neville, from Royal Hill.’

‘Give us a minute here, will you, Inspector?’ I asked. ‘Please.’

I led Maurice and Colin a few paces away so that the detective wouldn’t hear our conversation.

‘When did this happen?’ I asked.

‘I came out here just after midnight,’ said Colin. Originally from the Mumbles, in Swansea, he spoke with a strong Welsh accent. ‘We recently had some electric fox-proof fences fitted to stop them crapping on the pitch at night. The lads hate it if they slip in that shit; it’s much worse than dog shit — the smell stays with you for days afterwards. Anyway, I was out to check that they were working properly and I noticed that someone had left some tools scattered across the pitch: a couple of spades and a fork. That’s when I found it.’

I picked up a spade, glanced at the initials on the handle: LCC and then tossed it aside.

‘How the fuck did they get in here?’ I said. ‘It’s supposed to be ticket only.’

Colin shrugged. ‘They probably slipped in during the day, when the doors are open to the building contractors, and hid in the stadium.’

‘Building contractors? What are they doing?’

‘We’re having one of the bars refurbished,’ explained Maurice.

I grunted. I could hear the internet joke now: thieves broke into Silvertown Dock to raid the trophy cabinet, but left empty-handed.

‘What kind of a bastard would do this, Scott?’ complained Colin.

‘Colin,’ I said. ‘How long have you been in the game? You know what some of these bastards are like. A rival team’s supporters could have done this. But with the results we’ve had since Christmas it could just as easily be our own fans — for fuck’s sake, our own lot aren’t exactly nice. Have you heard the kind of verbal poison that gets yelled from these terraces?’

‘Well, it certainly wasn’t a fox,’ observed Maurice. ‘I mean, I know foxes are cunning ’n’ all but I never saw one who could dig a nice rectangle like that. Not without a ruler.’

‘And as for you,’ I told Maurice, ‘sure it’s serious and a pain in the arse, but it could have waited until the morning, couldn’t it? I mean, it’s just a fucking hole in the ground.’

Maurice McShane was a former solicitor who’d been disbarred for professional misconduct after it was found he’d used an anonymous account to tweet some insults about another barrister. He’d also been a successful amateur boxer, almost winning a bronze medal in the light heavyweight division at the 199 °Commonwealth Games in Auckland. Maurice was a good man to have around when someone was in a difficult spot, and as able to sort things with his fists as he was with a wad of cash. He said nothing; instead he took out his mobile phone and showed me a text he’d received from a reporter on the Sun:

There was a similar text from the Daily Mail; and I dare say if I’d bothered to look at the texts arriving every minute on my own mobile phone I’d have found something along the same lines.

‘Would I like to comment?’ Maurice uttered a nervous laugh. ‘No, I fucking wouldn’t. Not particularly. Nor is it a conversation I’d feel comfortable about having with Viktor Sokolnikov. Especially as he’s suing the BBC because of what was said on Panorama. Isn’t that right?’

‘That’s what he told me.’

I put a couple of pieces of Orbit in my mouth and started chewing fiercely as if I were about to do my imitation of Sir Alex Ferguson, which had become a very popular turn of mine on the team bus.

‘But I do think Viktor should know about this as soon as possible,’ said Maurice. ‘So he can respond to it in whatever way he thinks appropriate. You know him better than I do, Scott. And I’d prefer it if you or Zarco were to tell him what’s happened here. This is well above my pay-grade.’

‘Yes, I see your point.’ I glanced back at Detective Inspector Neville. ‘By the way, who brought him along and said he and his size fucking twelves could come here and walk on our grass?’

‘I’m afraid that was me,’ admitted Colin. ‘Sorry, Scott. I was so upset when I saw that hole. But it is criminal damage, so I thought I should tell them. I mean, we do want to catch the bastards who did this, right?’

‘Never ever bring the filth into this club without speaking to me, to Zarco, or to Phil Hobday first. Got that, Colin? Once you involve the filth in this club’s affairs it’s as good as sending an email to Fleet Street. Undoubtedly it was a copper who texted a mate on the Sun or the Daily Mail about this. Hey, guess what? Someone’s only gone and dug a fucking grave on the pitch at Silvertown Dock. That’s a two-hundred-quid tip. Maybe more if it’s a front page. If it wasn’t for them being here with their fucking cameras we could have put out that it was just a hole and not a grave at all. We might still do that if we can get that rozzer in the duffel coat to cooperate.’

‘Yes, I see that now.’

‘No worries. Can’t be helped. Look, here’s what we’re all going to say. We’re going to say it looks like the work of some disgruntled fans. Kids, probably. And we’re going to piss on that Sicilian message stuff from an enormous height. The last thing Mr Sokolnikov needs right now is more wild speculation about who and what he is. The people who committed this outrage probably couldn’t even spell Sicilian. Got that?’

Maurice and Colin nodded.

‘More importantly, Colin, I want you to start thinking about if and how and when we can repair the pitch. We’re at home again to Newcastle in ten days.’

‘Believe me, I hadn’t forgotten.’

‘Right then. Let’s talk to that rozzer.’

I walked towards the policeman.

‘I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Especially at this late hour. But I really think we’ve wasted your time. Apologies for that, too. It seems obvious to me that this is the work of yobs. Disgruntled fans, so called. That’s nothing we’re not used to at a football club. I can’t imagine you’ll be surprised when I tell you that we get threats all the time and that very occasionally they manifest as vandalism. It’s regrettable but not uncommon.’

‘What kind of threats?’ asked the inspector.

‘Emails. Tweets. The occasional poison-pen letter. Boxes of shit in the post. You name it, we get it.’

‘I’d like to see some of these, if I may.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. We have a policy of not keeping anything like that. Especially the gift-wrapped turds.’

‘May I ask why, sir?’

‘Yesterday’s shit smells bad, Inspector.’

‘I meant the letters and the emails, of course.’

Detective Inspector Neville was thin with a hooked nose that made him look like he had a permanent sneer on his face. To my keen but cold ear his sounded like a Yorkshire accent.

I shrugged. ‘We don’t keep that kind of thing because frankly there’s so much of it. Really it’s simpler just to erase or destroy anything that’s threatening or insulting. Just in case a player who’s been threatened or abused sees it and is disturbed by what he’s read.’

‘I’d have thought anyone would have a right to know if he’s been threatened, sir.’

‘You might very well think that. But we take a different attitude. Some of these lads are very highly strung, Inspector. And one or two of them are none too bright. Even threats that are patently absurd can exercise a strongly negative effect on a weaker-minded player at a Premier League football club. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? Not with a third round FA Cup tie against Leeds on Sunday.’

‘Nevertheless, a crime has been committed here.’

‘A hole in the ground? That’s not exactly seven-seven, now, is it?’

‘No, but with all due respect, sir, that’s no ordinary hole in the ground. For a start, there’s the shape. And then there’s the obvious financial loss. As holes in the ground go, I imagine this is an extremely expensive one. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr Evans?’

The detective inspector obviously knew the kind of person he was speaking to. What groundsman doesn’t moan about the state of a pitch? But even before he started to answer I wished I’d told Colin to play down the cost of the damage to the police. His being Welsh only seemed to make this worse as Colin’s manner was very considered and deliberate.

‘A hole like that?’ Colin shook his head. ‘Let’s see now. The whole pitch cost nearly a million quid to lay down. So, frankly this is nothing short of a bloody disaster. In an ideal world we’d rip the whole surface up and start again. But halfway through the season we’ll have to make do with patching it up as best we can, I suppose. Of course, even before you think about the grass there’s the under-soil heating system that stops the pitch from freezing at this time of year. That’s been damaged and will have to be repaired. And the grass — well, it’s not just grass, you see. Artificial fibres will have to be sewn into the pitch alongside the grass so that the roots can wrap themselves around the nylon fibres. Then there’s the fact that at this time of year it’s not easy getting new grass to take hold. So we’ll need to run the grow lights around the clock. That’s expensive as well. I wouldn’t think there would be a lot of change from fifty grand to repair this. Seriously. The damage might be even more than that if the pitch still remains unplayable in ten days’ time. What with the gate ’n’ all. An average ticket price of sixty-two quid means that the total match day income is around six million pounds.’

‘So the cost of the damage might be anything between fifty grand and six million?’ said Detective Inspector Neville.

‘That’s about the size of it, yes,’ agreed Colin.

Neville looked at me and shook his head. ‘Well, sir, I’d say this is as clear a case of criminal damage as I’ve come across in a long time. And since a crime has clearly been committed here then I’m bound to investigate it. Which is what the insurance company would insist on, I’m sure, if Mr Sokolnikov were to make a claim for this. They always do, you know.’

‘Those figures might seem like a lot to you and me, Inspector,’ I said. ‘But it’s not a lot to someone like Viktor Sokolnikov. I’m sure he’d much prefer just to pay for the repairs himself and avoid as much embarrassing publicity as possible. Which, if things had been done properly, ought to have been avoided. You know, it’s a mystery to me how the press managed to get here before the police. I’m sure no one here would have given them the heads-up.’

‘Are you suggesting that someone from Royal Hill station told them?’

‘I’m suggesting that if it transpires that the press were tipped off by someone from your station then Mr Sokolnikov will want to know why. Especially since it has been drawn to my attention that the press is already suggesting there might be some link with organised crime back in Mr Sokolnikov’s home country of Ukraine. That’s the kind of sensational reporting that we’d much prefer to avoid. Which we could still avoid, I think. Look, why don’t I just arrange for an executive box to be made available for our next home match so that a dozen of your officers from Royal Hill can come along and enjoy the game? You’ll be our guests and you’ll have a nice day. I’ll make sure of it.’

‘You mean if I were to forget all about this?’

‘That’s right. We’ll just tell the press that the reports of a grave being found in the centre of London City’s football pitch have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, I insist on it. Come on. What do you say? Let’s just forget about it and go home. Doesn’t that sound like common sense?’

‘What it sounds like is bribery,’ Neville said stiffly. ‘At the risk of repeating myself, a crime has clearly been committed here, Mr Manson. And it’s beginning to look as if you really don’t want the police here at all. Which I admit does puzzle me, since it was someone from the club who summoned us here tonight.’

‘I’m afraid that was me,’ admitted Colin.

‘He made an honest mistake,’ I said. ‘And so did I when I offered you the tickets. I think I must have assumed that you were the kind of bloke who had something better to do than look into the mysterious case of the hole in the ground.’

‘You know what I think? I think you’re one of those people who just doesn’t like the police. Is that what you are, Mr Manson?’

‘Look,’ I said, ‘if you want a police medal for this then go ahead, be my guest. I was just trying to save you the effort of wasting police time on something that will almost certainly turn out to be a random incident of vandalism. And to save the club owner a bit of unnecessary embarrassment. But when did that sort of thing ever matter to the Met? Look, I think we’ve told you all we know. It sounds to me as if maybe we’ve got even less time to waste here than you have.’

‘Yes, you said. An FA Cup third round match against Leeds.’ He smiled. ‘I’m from Leeds myself.’

‘You’re a long way south, Inspector.’

‘Don’t I know it, sir. Especially when I listen to someone like you. I’m just trying to do my job here, Mr Manson, sir.’

‘And so am I.’

‘Only for some reason you’re making mine difficult.’

‘Am I?’

‘You know you are.’

‘Then go home. We’re not talking about The Arsenal Stadium Mystery here.’

‘That’s an old black and white film, isn’t it?’

I nodded. ‘1939. Leslie Banks. Piece of shit, really. Only interesting because the film stars several Arsenal players of the day: Cliff Bastin, Eddie Hapgood.’

‘If you say so, Mr Manson. Frankly I’ve never been much of a football fan myself.’

‘That was also my impression.’

Detective Inspector Neville paused thoughtfully for a moment and then pointed at me. ‘Wait a minute. Manson, Manson. You wouldn’t be...? Of course. You’re that Manson, aren’t you? Scott Manson. Used to play for Arsenal, until you went to prison.’

I said nothing. In my experience it’s always best when you’re talking to the police.

‘Yes.’ Neville sneered. ‘That would explain everything.’