False Nine

27

I sat bolt upright on the spare room bed as if a powerful current of electricity had been conducted through my body, and swore, loudly, several times.

‘Fucking hell. Fucking hell. Fucking hell.’

Okay, it’s not exactly ‘eureka’ and I’m no Archimedes but suddenly the solution to the problem that been occupying me earlier now seemed so bloody obvious that it shouldn’t have been a mystery at all; in fact, the very ordinariness of the answer now seemed to be in inverse proportion to the apparent difficulty of the original question. It was simple. And it was brilliant. And nobody but me had guessed it until now.

‘Fucking hell. The sneaky little cunt. The duplicitous bastard.’

I jumped off the bed, went into the bathroom, splashed some water onto my face and then stared into the mirror at my ruefully smiling double. The man I knew almost as well as I knew myself.

‘You look very pleased with yourself, Scott Manson.’

‘You have to admit. It’s the only possible answer.’

‘Go on then. You’re dying to tell me what I already know, of course. But don’t let that stop you.’

‘It’s not him,’ I said. ‘The kid downstairs. It’s not Jérôme Dumas. It can’t be. It looks exactly like him. Almost exactly. It sounds like him. Almost. Even behaves like him.’

‘Almost.’

‘Precisely. But it just isn’t him. It’s some other sod. I’m looking at you in the mirror and I’m thinking this is what he sees. Only he doesn’t need a fucking mirror to do it.’

‘You mean...’

‘Exactly. He’s got a brother.’

‘Like Gary and Phil Neville.’

‘More alike than them. Identical. And probably a lot more amicable than those two bastards.’

‘Fábio and Rafael da Silva? The Brazilian lads.’

‘Yes. Monozygotic twins.’

‘Did you say psychotic or zygotic?’

‘You probably need a bit of both to get away with a scam like this. I was trying to work out why the fuck I was thinking about Manchester United before I went to sleep, and that’s the reason. Them. The da Silva boys. Old Trafford’s Cheech and Chong.’

‘They were good. Rafael is better than Fabio, who’s now at Cardiff City, I think. Which says all you need to know. And don’t forget the Bender boys in Germany.’

‘Jérôme has got a secret twin.’

‘Or Frank and Ronald de Boer. Rene and Willy van de Kerkhof. Except that they’re not secret twins, of course. Everyone knows about them.’

‘This would certainly explain why Jérôme didn’t know about Russell Brand’s booky-wook, about the picture, or the Spanish teacher, and why the brother I met this afternoon isn’t quite like the one I met last night. There’s no ink on his forefinger and he plays with his right foot instead of his left. Because he’s not the same man. Apart from that they’re identical.’

‘Fucking hell, you’re right, you know.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But why? Why would you do something like this?’

‘I don’t know. But when you think about it, it could be the basis of a very nice racket.’

‘I see what you mean. If one brother ever gets injured, the other can take his place. Like The Man in the Iron Mask.’

‘Yes. Just like that. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Jérôme Two is almost as talented a player as Jérôme One. Only not quite. Which makes a big difference in football, of course. I mean, there are lots of lads with plenty of talent but only a few with the extra five per cent of ability you need to carry you into professional football at the highest level.’

‘That could be it, yes.’

‘Which would explain this whole weird scam. One twin supports the other. They probably shared everything. The same job. The same girl.’

‘You mean?’

‘Why not? Bella Macchina. It’s what twins do, isn’t it? Shag each other’s girlfriends.’

‘It’s what you’d do if you were a twin, Scott, which isn’t necessarily what most normal people would do. Not everyone is a bugger for the hole like you.’

‘Maybe you’re right. But it also explains why he — they — liked to hire those two French hookers he called the Twin Towers. Because he, they, were into twins in a weird way that no one could ever have suspected.’

‘Fucking hell. That’s right. So. What the fuck are you going to do now?’

‘I don’t know. Have it out with him — them — I guess. Here and now. I think I’ll have to tell the one who’s here to go and fetch the other from his hiding place so I can hear them out.’

‘That could be tricky.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Suppose they don’t want to play?’

‘Then I’ll have to leave them here and fly back to Europe by myself.’

‘And the clubs? What are you going to tell PSG and FCB?’

‘I don’t know that either. I think a lot depends on what the twins have to say about this. But if this has been going on for a while, and I rather suspect it has, then there are an awful lot of people in Paris and Barcelona who are not going to be happy. Not to mention Paolo Gentile.’

‘Do you think Grace Doughty knew about all this? She was pretty economical with the truth before, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes. I do. The bitch. I think she knows everything.’

‘A good fuck, though.’

‘Yes, a very good fuck. And I’m going to miss that.’ I paused and thought for a second. ‘But it might explain why she didn’t want to come back to London to represent me before the FA. Because she didn’t want to be involved with this little scam any more than was absolutely necessary. The plain fact of the matter is that it’s fraud, pure and simple.’

‘And the father? John? Where does he fit into this picture?’

‘I’m not quite sure. My brain is still a bit puffed out after thinking of this answer.’

‘You didn’t exactly think of it. I mean, it sort of arrived in your subconscious mind, while you were napping. It’s not like you deduced it while smoking your favourite pipe, is it?’

‘Where does it say that all your best thinking has to be done consciously?’

‘True. But don’t think this makes you a fucking genius. It doesn’t. Not by a long chalk.’

‘Maybe so, but if two big clubs like Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain thought that I was the one man in football who could solve this fucking problem for them then you have to admit they were bloody clever, because that’s exactly what I’ve done, isn’t it?’

‘Good for you. But where does that leave your three million euro bonus? Have you thought about that? Will they still pay it if all this comes out into the open? They never said anything about paying you if it turns out that Jérôme’s disappearance was related to some wrongdoing. Did they?’

‘I don’t remember. But look, that hardly matters right now. All that matters is the truth, surely?’

‘Don’t be too sure about that. Lies and lying are the oil that keeps the wheels of civilisation turning smoothly.’

‘Who said that?’

‘I did.’

‘Well, you should know. The amount of lies you’ve told. Or maybe I should say that you are planning to tell.’

‘To who?’

‘That nice policewoman. Louise. You are going to lie to her, aren’t you? When you get back home. About what you’ve been getting up to here and in Paris with that other bird. The lovely Bella.’

‘I don’t know that I’m planning to lie to her, exactly.’

‘No, you’re just going to do what Grace Doughty did. Which is to be economical with the truth.’

‘Touché.’

‘You know it’s not fair to her, don’t you? Louise. She’s a nice girl. Too good for a bastard like you, probably.’

‘Agreed. But what can I do? Grace handed it to me on a plate. And so did Bella Macchina, more or less.’

‘Would you Adam and Eve it? What a load of bollocks. “And the man said, The woman thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.”’

‘Yeah, all right. Guilty as charged. I’m feeling bad enough about that as it is without you making me feel even worse.’

‘Are you? Are you really? I doubt that. I really do.’

‘It’s not like we’re married or anything.’

‘And that would make such a big difference to someone like you, wouldn’t it? Need I remind you of how you behaved when you were married? You were shagging someone else’s missus, that’s what you were doing. Paolo Gentile was right, you know. For you, this is a weakness. An Achilles heel. Which is a nice way of saying that you’re just a cunt. A clever cunt. But a cunt nonetheless.’

I sighed and turned away from the bathroom mirror. You can take only so much from your own conscience.

Feeling a little cross with myself I went to find Jérôme 2 — or whatever the hell his name was — and then have it out with him.