False Nine

7

The Princesa Sofia Gran Hotel is located in the west of Barcelona and is but a stone’s throw from the famous Camp Nou. It’s not the best hotel in the city — the Princesa has all the charm of a multi-storey car park and I much prefer the art-deco charms of the Casa Fuster nearer the city centre — but it is where FC Barcelona conducts a lot of its commercial business. If you hang around the hotel’s vast, rather Saudi-looking lobby long enough you’re almost certain to see someone famous from the world of Spanish football. From my chilly suite on the eighteenth floor I had a splendid view of Camp Nou which, from this altitude, looked smaller and less impressive than I remembered. It’s only when you’re inside the stadium that you can appreciate how it can accommodate almost a hundred thousand spectators. In 1993 the pitch was lowered by eight feet which helps explain this footballing trompe-l’oeil; and even now there are plans to remodel the stadium and increase capacity by 2021 to 105,000 at a cost of six hundred million euros. Nothing seems to be beyond the ambitions of this club or the Qataris who help to bankroll it. And why not? If you’re ever in Barcelona you should check out the FCB museum; it’s only when you see the trophy cabinet that you can begin to understand where the club’s ambitions are founded.

There’s more than one football club in Barcelona — RCD Espanyol has a large and enthusiastic support, especially among those who are opposed to Catalonian independence — but you wouldn’t know it while you’re there. Almost the whole city wears FCB’s blaugrana colours and everyone you speak to seems to support the club. Virtually the first thing you see as you arrive in the ultra-modern airport terminal is the FC Barcelona shop where, among other club merchandise, you can buy yourself a doll as big as a football boot that resembles your favourite player. In their plastic boxes these have the look of illustrious, embalmed corpses. The Luis Suarez doll is especially like a cadaver from a Mexican catacomb, while Lionel Messi’s figure wears a rictus smile as if he’s not quite sure if his lawyers were serious or not when they told him how much previously avoided tax he now has to pay on undeclared income.

‘They want me to pay how much? You’re joking, surely? Did you really say fifty-two million euros?’

‘Er, yes.’

By all accounts, that’s not the end of the affair, either. It seems that Messi may have to stand trial, with the possibility of going to prison, which is at least one way that Real Madrid can be absolutely certain of el clásico.

It was a cold Sunday night when I walked out of the hotel down to Camp Nou to see a match against Villarreal. I caught a quick glimpse of some of the players arriving in the black cars given to them by club sponsors Audi, whose four-ringed logo is in prominent evidence at the entrance to the club with the result that any match at Camp Nou has the air of a cut-price Olympiad. Still, to my mind these Audis look better to the paying public than Lamborghinis and Bugatti Veyrons. Black means business and a German saloon or Q7 exudes an air of common sense which is sorely lacking in the luxury car showrooms these footballing superstars have at home. And there’s one other good thing about driving a more modest car like an Audi: it’s less likely to arouse the envy and spite of the Spanish tax authorities.

I had a ticket in the central grandstand which entitled me to as much free cuttlefish and Cava as I could eat and drink in the hospitality suite. At €114 a seat there were plenty of locals doing just that, although I could see little or no evidence that any of this hospitality extended to anyone wearing the yellow of Villarreal. I’m not even sure any of them were in the stadium, and certainly no one expected them even to score a goal up against the sheer firepower of Messi, Suarez and Neymar — no one except me, perhaps. Villarreal has a good record against FCB and hadn’t lost a match since November. I necked a quick San Miguel and, keen to avoid the eye of anyone who might remember me from my time at Camp Nou, I went to take my seat.

The minute I felt the glare of the green, heard the buzz of the crowd and caught the smell of the newly sprinkled grass in my nostrils I felt my stomach tighten as if I had been putting on the shirt myself. It’s always like this. I expect there will come a time when I feel different near a football pitch but hopefully those days are still as far off as my Zimmer frame and hearing aid.

My seat was almost on the touchline and very close to the dugout of the FCB técnico Luis Enrique Martínez Garcia. At this level the pitch at the Nou seemed vast and with this number of people cheering on their team it was almost laughable that anything the manager might say during the course of the match would ever be heard by anyone other than the fourth official or the other manager. Really it’s just for the benefit of the fans, or the TV cameras; when you see José Mourinho performing in his technical area think Laurence Olivier in Richard III; and certainly his theatrics are sometimes worthy of an Oscar or a Golden Globe. In spite of the fact that he looks a bit like Roy Keane, I like and admire Luis Enrique who’s probably the fittest guy in football management having competed in several marathons and ironman challenges. And not just me: back in 2004, Pelé named him as one of the top living footballers.

The match kicked off at nine — only in Spain could a match be played at a time when many Englishmen are very sensibly thinking about going to bed — and straight away there was Messi, right in front of me and looking smaller and frankly much less happy than the doll wearing the number ten shirt I’d seen at Barcelona Airport. His twinkle-toes were working better than his smile, however, and he reminded me of Gene Kelly tap-dancing his way through Singing in the Rain, or Fred Astaire in Top Hat.

A lot is made of the rivalry that exists between FCB’s Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid. And I’m sometimes asked, who is the better player? Which one would you have wanted to come to a club that you were managing? The truth is they’re very different players. The taller more muscular Ronaldo is a consummate athlete, while the five-foot-six-inch Messi is more like an artist. Ronaldo seems more arrogant, too, and I can take or leave his strutting torero act that he puts on when he scores a goal. It’s like he expects the ears and the tail of the bull he has vanquished to be given to him. Me, on the rare occasions I ever scored a goal, I always looked around to thank the guy who’d passed me the fucking ball. It just seemed like good manners. You pays your money, you take your choice.

Reading the match programme I half-expected to see Barca‘s newest striker, Jérôme Dumas — reportedly now on loan from PSG — among the reserves at least, but there was no sign of him as yet. I was, however, delighted to see a match with Barca’s leading three scorers — Messi, Neymar and Suarez — leading their attack. It was all shaping up to be an exciting evening, as it’s not often you get a chance to see three of the best players in the world in action at the same time.

The game started with Villarreal in possession but Messi’s skilful moves managed to put Barca back in command and Villarreal showed quickly that ultimately they lacked the balance, intensity and speed of the Barca team at its best. But Barca too were misfiring. Suarez had three early goal-scoring chances with only one on target — a point-blank salvo turned away by Villarreal keeper Asenjo after just thirteen minutes. Number 16, Dos Santos, missed three scoring chances, again saved by Asenjo. With such chances coming, the Barca supporters waited patiently for a goal, but after half an hour of play, things did not go their way. Villarreal’s Gaspar unleashed a left-footed blast that looked destined for the other side of the field until Tcherychev deflected the ball past Barca keeper: 0–1 to Villarreal.

The goal had a predictably unsettling effect on the Barca players. Their energy disappeared, the team looked demoralised. The crowd fell silent. And the responsibility to get Barca back in the game fell again to Messi. One minute before half time he seized his chance. His searching pass found Rafinha in the area whose shot was saved by Asenjo, but the rebound fell to Neymar who banged it in without a moment’s hesitation.

Having equalised, Barca returned in the second half transformed. They pressured and threatened, proving why very few other teams cause so much disarray in opposing teams on and off the ball, both in defence and attack.

Nevertheless, Piqué’s defensive mistake allowed Villarreal’s Giovani to take advantage and assist Vietto’s strike, to make it 1–2 to Villarreal in the fifty-first minute. Camp Nou went silent again as if the crowd realised that the Yellow Submarine wasn’t going to go down easily. Just as the silence was becoming even more uneasy, both Suarez and Messi were denied before Rafinha scored the equaliser. 2–2. The cheering culers had just taken their seats when, in the fifty-fifth minute, Lio Messi let fly with a beautiful curving shot from outside the penalty area. With little or no room for the strike it seemed like the kind of goal that perhaps only Messi could have envisaged, let alone scored. 3–2 to Barcelona.

The last half-hour saw Barca nervously protecting their lead, and slowly they wore the other side down. Near the end Rafinha was substituted and, feeling very cold — as the evening progressed the night grew colder and so did I, I’d forgotten must how cold Barcelona can be in winter — and irritated with what looked like an obvious attempt on the part of Barca to delay the game, I tweeted something stupid about how he was being taken off because it was his period. It was the same sort of Cranberry Juice Joke that’s in Scorsese’s film, The Departed. But at the time I thought no more about it.

The match finished. Villarreal had lost for the first time since November. But for Barcelona the win — which left them four points off Real Madrid at the top of La Liga — seemed typical of their lacklustre season: the flashes of brilliance were few and far between and they made it look hard work. As we would have said in England, they ’won ugly’. But they still won so most of the crowd went home happy. Frankly, I thought Villarreal — who had a goal disallowed for offside — were very unlucky not to go home with a draw.

The next day — which was no less cold — Jacint Grangel took me to lunch at the Drolma Restaurant in the Majestic Hotel — one of the best in the city. To be honest it’s a little grand for my taste. I prefer somewhere more authentically Catalan, like Cañete in the older part of town. (Whenever I’m there I think of Hemingway; I’ve no idea if he ever went to Cañete but there’s a big ibex head on the wall that makes me think he’d have liked the place.) But then again I wasn’t paying. Drolma’s chef, Nandu Jubany, is considered to be the great genius of Catalan cuisine and it’s easy to see why; I’d forgotten just how good lollipops of foie gras with white chocolate and Porto reduction can taste.

When I arrived at Drolma with Jacint there were others already seated at the table; three men, each wearing a sober blue suit with a shirt and tie. That’s the thing about Barcelona; everyone dresses well. No one would dream of turning up for lunch at a place like Drolma wearing a tracksuit and sports shoes. A lot of the time I look at players and the way they dress and think they need a good slap. There was another vice-president from Barcelona called Oriel Domench i Montaner, but I was surprised to be introduced to Charles Rivel, from Paris Saint-Germain, and a Qatari called Ahmed Wusail Abbasid bani Utbah. At least I think that’s what his name was. It’s possible the guy was just clearing his throat.

We spoke in Spanish. I can manage a bit of Catalan — which is an interesting, almost hermetic combination of French, Spanish, Italian and awkward-squad bloody-mindedness — but Spanish is easier for me. It’s easier for everyone who doesn’t speak Catalan. Catalans are very proud of their language and rightly so; under General Franco they had to fight very hard to keep their culture alive. Or so they’ll tell you. The same is true of the football club. Or so they’ll tell you. In 1936 Franco’s troops shot dead the president of the club, Josep Suñol, and to this day he is known as the ‘martyr president’. That sort of thing tends to put English opposition to the people like the Glazers and Mike Ashley in the shade. And perhaps it also explains why this club, which was founded by a group of English, Swiss and Catalans, is considered to be més que un club — more than a club. FC Barcelona is a way of life. Or so they’ll tell you.

This is going to be an interesting lunch, I thought, as the waiter poured the wine; I couldn’t imagine what they wanted to speak to me about. For a brief moment I wondered if it might have something to do with what had happened in Shanghai — if perhaps these three groups of people were looking to invest with Jack Kong Jia and wanted the opinion of someone who’d actually met him. By his own admission, Jia was someone who avoided publicity.

‘I believe you saw the match that PSG played against Nice,’ said Charles Rivel, from PSG. ‘At Parc des Princes.’

‘Yes. It was a bit like watching Arsenal grinding out a one — nil victory. I thought Nice deserved a draw more than you guys deserved a win.’

This was also true of the match between FCB and Villarreal but I kept that particular observation to myself.

‘I’m not sure that’s fair,’ said Rivel. ‘If Zlatan hadn’t hit the woodwork in the first fifteen minutes he might just have scored one of his best goals. The way he controlled the ball, turned and then took his shot was superb. For a big man he’s incredibly light on his feet.’

‘Nevertheless, he missed. And by his own standards that’s just not good enough. What does he say in his book? You can be a god one day and completely worthless the next. That’s especially true in this city. He took his foot off their neck. That’s how it looked to me.’

‘You’ve read his book?’ asked Jacint.

‘I try to read all of the books about football, although sometimes I ask myself why. And while I start them all, there’s hardly ever one I finish. Including Zlatan’s book. In my opinion his wasn’t a good book. I think he’s a good player. Just not much of a writer. No worse than the others, perhaps. Like most of these books there were few insights into the game. But it was a shrink’s casebook.’

‘It’s true,’ said Oriel. ‘They ought to have called that book The Ego has Landed.’

‘Perhaps he should have hired Roddy Doyle to write it,’ said Jacint.

‘I think Henning Mankell would have been more appropriate,’ said Rivel. ‘They’re both Swedes, after all.’

‘We could use Kurt Wallander now, perhaps,’ murmured Ahmed. ‘Given the situation.’

‘I don’t think Ibra was very fair about Guardiola,’ said Oriel.

‘We’re not here to talk about Ibra,’ said Rivel, ‘but someone else. Another PSG player.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to have Mr Manson sign a confidentiality agreement first?’ said Ahmed.

‘I don’t think we need to worry about that with a man like Scott,’ said Jacint. ‘His word is good enough for me.’

‘Can we depend on you to treat this matter with confidence?’ asked Rivel.

‘Of course. You have my word on it. In case you hadn’t noticed, gentlemen, I’ve been rather keen to avoid the press of late.’

‘Is that working?’ said Jacint.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Have you checked your Twitter account?’

‘Not today.’

‘It seems you made a tweet about Rafinha that has some of your female followers in a rage.’

‘I did?’ I shrugged, not really knowing to what Jacint was referring. ‘I’ll check it later.’

‘What we’re here to talk about — well, right now, it’s probably the best kept secret in football,’ said Oriel.

‘Now I really am intrigued,’ I admitted.

‘First of all, we should say that we think you’re a talented young manager,’ said Rivel. ‘In spite of recent events in China. Which could have happened to anyone, really.’

The Qatari nodded. ‘It’s very difficult to know what’s happening when you’re in Shanghai.’ He laughed. ‘At least in Qatar there are only two million people. That makes things a lot simpler. Unless it’s something to do with religion. And Sharia law. And women’s rights. And the 2022 World Cup. Then things can get very complicated.’

I smiled, liking him for that.

‘Your reputation as a young manager and coach is one thing,’ said Jacint. ‘But it seems you have also gained something of a reputation as a problem solver. It’s now a well-known fact that it was you and not the Metropolitan Police who solved the mystery regarding the death of João Zarco.’

‘And the death of Bekim Develi,’ added Oriel.

‘I’m sure that you know I can’t comment about that.’

‘You can’t,’ said Rivel. ‘But the Athens police can. They’ve dropped some very broad hints that you were of great assistance to them in their inquiries.’

‘It’s your skills as a private detective that we need now,’ said Jacint.

‘And for which we are prepared to pay,’ said Ahmed.

‘Whisky, Tango, Foxtrot,’ I heard myself murmur. What the fuck?

‘Handsomely,’ added the Qatari.

‘Really, gentlemen, I have no skills as a detective,’ I insisted. ‘As usual, this is just the press exaggerating what happened. Anyone would think I was Sherlock Holmes in a tracksuit. Hercule Poirot with a stopwatch. The Kurt Wallander of the touchline. I’m not. I’m a coach. A manager. And right now it’s a football club I need, not an interesting case. Give me a squad of players and I’ll be as happy as Larry. But don’t ask me to play the copper.’

‘Nevertheless, you understand football and footballers,’ said Rivel. ‘In a way that perhaps the police do not.’

‘There’s no perhaps about it,’ said Jacint. ‘I can’t speak for how things are in Paris, but it’s quite impossible to be objective about football here in Barcelona. There’s too much emotion involved.’

‘I think the same is probably true in Paris,’ said Rivel. ‘Besides, the French police aren’t exactly known for their closed mouths. Just look at what happened to Francois Hollande. And before him to Dominique Strauss-Kahn. This story would be on the front of L’Equipe in no time.’

‘Gentlemen, you’re wasting your time. I’ve really no interest in crime. I don’t even like the goddamn books. All those stupid boring detectives with their drinking problems and their failed marriages. It’s all so very predictable. My idea of a good case is one made by Louis Vuitton.’

‘Please, Mr Manson,’ said Ahmed. ‘At least hear us out.’

‘Yes, Scott,’ said Jacint. ‘Please. Listen to our story.’

‘All right. I’ll listen. Out of respect for you and this club, I’ll listen. But I’m not promising anything. I’m telling you, it’s football I want to play. I don’t want to play cops and robbers.’

‘Of course,’ said Oriel. ‘We understand. But more than anyone perhaps you understand footballers. The pressures. The mistakes. The pitfalls. You might not quite appreciate it yourself, Scott, but you’re in a unique position in football. In quite a short period of time you’ve made yourself quite indispensable to any European club who needs a special kind of help. You speak several languages...’

‘And, more importantly than that, you speak the players’ language, Scott,’ added Jacint. ‘Players trust you in a way they wouldn’t trust the police. They’re young men, some of them misfits and even delinquents from quite difficult backgrounds. Men like Ibra. He was a punk and a car thief, wasn’t he? If any of our players or perhaps those of PSG are going to confide in anyone it probably won’t be some nosy cop with a tape recorder in his hand. It will be you, Scott. You’ve done time in prison. You’ve been falsely accused of something. You don’t much like the police yourself.’

‘True,’ I said. ‘Although I seem to be getting over that. My girlfriend, Louise, is a detective with the Metropolitan Police.’

‘So much the better.’

“Perhaps it’s her you should be speaking to.” I knew I wished I was.

The waiter came and took our order. And it was only after we’d eaten our the starters and tasted the wine that Jacint returned to the subject that was preoccupying him and the other three men.

‘I expect you’ve heard that Jérôme Dumas has been taken on loan by us from PSG,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was surprised. I think he’s a good player.’

‘He never really clicked with us,’ said Rivel. ‘I don’t really know why. He’s a talented player. But there was something in his head that was not quite right for us. It works like that sometimes. Torres worked at Liverpool but he never worked at Chelsea.’

‘Dumas came to Barcelona,’ said Oriel, ‘and then he went on holiday. Because he was on loan we’d agreed to honour his existing arrangements. We had yet to present him to the fans at the Nou Camp. Which is why we’ve managed to keep the lid on things so far.’

‘He had an injury which meant he couldn’t have played anyway,’ said Jacint.

‘He picked up a groin strain in the match you saw, against Nice,’ said Rivel.

‘He certainly looked like he was trying harder than anyone else in the team,’ I said.

‘Nothing too serious. He just needed rest, that’s all.’

‘So what happened? I mean, what’s he done?’

‘He was supposed to report for training at Joan Gamper on Monday, January the nineteenth,’ continued Jacint, ‘but he never showed up.’

Joan Gamper was the name of Barca’s training facility, about ten kilometres west of the Nou Camp in Muntaner; strictly off-limits to the press, everyone in Barcelona referred to it as ‘the forbidden city’.

‘And there was no sign of him at the hotel where we’d put him in the best suite until he could find somewhere to live.’

‘The same hotel as you,’ said Oriel. ‘The Princesa Sofia.’

‘FCB called us,’ said Rivel, ‘and we went to his apartment in Paris, but there was no sign of him there, either. Since then we’ve been in contact with the police on the island of Antigua where he went on holiday. So far they’ve turned up nothing. It seems that he arrived on the island but there’s no record of him leaving again. Of catching a flight back to Paris, or Barcelona. Or anywhere else, for that matter. We’ve phoned him. Sent emails. Texted him. Called his agent. He’s as baffled as we are.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Paolo Gentile.’

I nodded. ‘I know Paolo.’

‘In short,’ said Jacint, ‘Dumas has disappeared. Which is where you come in. We want you to find him.’

‘For a fee,’ said Ahmed. ‘You might even call it a finder’s fee.’

‘He’s only been gone two weeks,’ I said.

‘In the life of any other man of twenty-two, that’s not much. But the fact is, he isn’t any other man. He’s a footballing star.’

‘For once,’ I said, ‘the newspapers and television could surely help. It’s difficult to be missing when the whole world is aware of that fact.’

‘True,’ said Jacint, ‘but this is no ordinary football club. It’s owned and operated by the supporters, which means they trust us and are rightly very unforgiving when things go wrong. As we see things it’s up to us to try and fix the problem before we are obliged to announce that we may have a problem. That’s what the Catalan people expect of Barca. No excuses. But perhaps, in the fullness of time, an explanation.’

‘There’s also the public relations of the situation to consider,’ said Oriel. ‘It may have escaped your attention but things are difficult in Spain right now. The economic situation is dire. Twenty-five per cent of the country is unemployed. Losing a player we’re paying one hundred and fifty thousand euros a week for just looks bad. We can ill afford that kind of adverse publicity when the average wage is just seventeen hundred euros a month.’

‘It’s not just that,’ said Jacint. ‘When there’s so much going wrong in the lives of our supporters the one thing they need to be absolutely sure of is that all is well with their beloved football club. That we are still the best in the world.’ He shook his head. ‘The best football team in the world doesn’t lose an important player like this. They expect us to make sure our overpaid superstars can at least steer their Lamborghinis to the training ground.’

‘I don’t know how things are in London but for most of these guys Barcelona is why they get up in the morning,’ said Oriel. ‘It’s why they can feel good about themselves. Their whole world view is affected by how the team is doing. You start to rock that boat and things could get very choppy indeed.’

I nodded. ‘Més que un club,’ I said. ‘I know.’

‘No, with respect I don’t think you do,’ said Jacint. ‘Unless you are Catalan it is impossible to know what it is to support Barca. This club isn’t just about football. For a great many people the club is the symbol for Catalan separatism. Barca has become even more politicised than when you were last working here, Scott. It’s no longer just the Boixos Nois — the crazy boys who are in favour of breaking away from the rest of Spain. It’s virtually all of the penyes.’

The penyes were the various fan clubs and financial groups that made up FCB’s highly idiosyncratic support.

‘If the Spanish government agree to allow us a referendum, then this football club will be the epicentre of that move for independence,’ said Jacint. ‘But those who are opposed to an independent Catalunya will try to exploit a situation like this to pour scorn on us. To accuse us of mismanagement; if we can’t be trusted to govern a football club then how can we be trusted with the government of Catalunya?’

‘Which means that this is about much more than just a missing player,’ said Oriel. ‘Nothing must interfere with our drive to be given our own referendum. Like the one you Scots had.’

‘Tell me,’ said Jacint, ‘as a Scot, how did you vote in the referendum?’

I shrugged. ‘I may be a Scot but I wasn’t allowed a vote because I live in England. Those people aren’t interested in democracy. And I have to tell you that I’m not in favour of Catalan independence any more than I was in favour of Scottish independence. In this day and age it makes a lot more sense to be part of something larger. And I don’t mean the EU. Go and see how things are in Croatia if you doubt that. As part of the old Yugoslavia, Croatians used to mean something. Now they don’t mean anything at all. And it’s worse if you’re Bosnian. They’re not even part of the EU.’

At this point the conversation started to become an argument about independence movements and it was Ahmed, who managed to steer the discussion back to the subject in hand: the disappearance of Jérôme Dumas.

‘We will pay all your expenses to look for him,’ said Ahmed. ‘First class, of course. And a flat fee of a hundred thousand euros a week deductible against a fee of three million euros if you do manage to find him.’

I nodded. ‘That’s very generous. But supposing he’s dead?’

‘Then your fee will be capped at one million euros.’

‘Supposing he’s alive and he doesn’t want to come back?’ I shrugged. ‘I mean, clearly he’s disappeared for a reason. Perhaps he sneaked off to Equatorial Guinea to see the African Cup of Nations. For all I know, he even went to play. Stranger things have happened.’

‘I never thought of that possibility,’ admitted Ahmed. ‘Perhaps he’s got Ebola. Perhaps he’s in a field hospital awaiting rescue. Holy shit, that might explain everything. You know he’s not the only player who’s gone missing since that tournament.’

‘Dumas is not black African,’ said Rivel. ‘He’s French-Caribbean. And as such he’s eligible to play for France.’

‘Have you considered the possibility that he’s been kidnapped? Footballers make good victims. They’re overpaid, asset-rich and wayward. They don’t always do what they’re told and most of them figure they’re too tough for bodyguards which means that they’re easier to snatch than most rich kids. When I was in the nick I had a bunch of cons come to me with a scheme to kidnap a top Arsenal player. There are some bastards out there who’ll do anything for money’

‘If that’s what this is then we’ve received no demand for ransom,’ said Jacint.

‘Nor has PSG,’ said Rivel.

‘But you are certainly empowered to negotiate a release if it turns out that this is what’s happened,’ said Ahmed.

‘Then suppose he’s just had enough of football?’ I said. ‘Maybe he’s burned out. That can happen.’

‘Your fee is still one million,’ said Ahmed. ‘The three million euro fee is payable only if Dumas plays. Needless to say that his failure to play at all for FCB will have financial consequences for PSG.’

‘We won’t get paid,’ said Rivel.

‘If he’s had enough of football an important part of your job would include persuading him to come back home,’ said Oriel. ‘That’s another reason we want to hire you. To talk him round if he’s got cold feet.’

‘Let’s say I do take this job. How long should I keep looking for?’

‘Until the end of this month,’ said Ahmed. ‘Four weeks. Six at most.’

‘Ideally,’ added Jacint, ‘we should like the player back in time for us to play him in el clásico, on Sunday, March the twenty-second. If he could feature in the match against Madrid, it will be as much as we can hope for.’ He shrugged. ‘As you may remember, Madrid won the last classic, three — one, in front of their home fans.’

‘We were robbed,’ said Oriel. ‘Not the first time, of course.’

‘They came from behind after Neymar gave us the perfect start, with a goal after just four minutes.’

‘They had a penalty which should never have been given,’ said Oriel. ‘It was ball to hand, not hand to ball as the law states. Gerard Piqué was unfairly penalised. It was the sheer injustice of this penalty that affected our team.’

I nodded, smiling. Nothing changes very much in a rivalry like the one that existed between Madrid and Barcelona. But it was perhaps the only rivalry in which one side had forced the other to play, at gunpoint. For many, the hatred that now existed between Madrid and Barcelona had not existed at all until that game, in 1943. Madrid won the game 11–1, which makes you wonder about the team talk at half time. What did the manager say to his team?

‘On second thoughts, you’d best let these Spaniards beat us, lads, or they’re liable to shoot us, like they shot Lorca. If they can shoot a poet these fascists can certainly shoot a football team.’

‘Will you do it?’ asked Jacint. ‘This club will be forever in your debt.’

‘And ours,’ added Charles Rivel.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, wavering a little.

I like Barcelona. I like Catalans. I just didn’t want to turn into football’s Inspector Clouseau.

I got up from the table.

‘I’m going to the men’s room. So give me a few minutes, to think about it.’

‘If it’s a question of money...’ said Ahmed.

‘The money’s fine,’ I said. ‘No, I’m just wondering if you’d come to Pep on his year off and asked him to help you out like this, what he’d have said.’

‘Pep’s not an intellectual,’ said Jacint. ‘You’re the one who went to university, not him. All he knows is football.’

‘Maybe that’s where I’ve been going wrong,’ I said. ‘Anyway, university doesn’t mean much nowadays. You can get a degree for staying in bed and watching television. What I meant was that Guardiola has always been very single-minded. A man with a plan. Total football of the kind he learned under Cruyff doesn’t seem to accommodate what you’re asking me to do. Other clubs might get the idea that I’m less interested in playing 4-4-2 than in playing the amateur sleuth.’

‘You’re a clever man, Scott,’ said Jacint. ‘Maybe a little too clever for this game. But you’ll always be part of the Barca family. I think you know that.’

There are times — usually when it’s someone paying me a compliment like that — when I look down at my feet as if I expect to find a ball, and the fact is that sometimes I still don’t know what to do when I see there isn’t one. I swear when I first stopped playing football I used to wake up at night and look around for the ball. Especially when I was in the nick. It’s like I don’t know what to do with my feet. As if they’re at a loss without a ball to kick. Like a soldier without a rifle, I guess.

I went to wash my hands. Along the way I glanced at my phone and saw from the Twitter feed that some women were calling on me to be sacked after my joke about Rafinha coming off the pitch during the game against Villarreal because he had his period. The fact that I didn’t have a job didn’t seem to have registered with my critics, many of whom had tweeted to tell me I was a sexist pig and every bit as bad as Andy Gray, and so I dismissed them from my mind.

Besides, it seemed rather more important that the manager of another Premier League side had just lost his job. I didn’t kid myself that I was about to walk into another big club soon. Not when there were men like Tim Sherwood, Glenn Hoddle, Alan Irvine and Neil Warnock all looking for a new job. In truth I’d already made my decision about what I was going to do. Jacint had reminded me, subtly, that Barcelona had taken me into their family at a time when I was recently out of prison, and anyone else might have given the matter of my employment a second thought. I owed the Catalans something for giving me a chance when no English club had been there for me. And now that I came to consider the matter in more detail, it seemed that I owed them, big time.

Besides, without a ball to kick, what else was I going to do with my time?

I came back to the table.

‘All right, I’ll do it. I’ll look for your missing player. But let’s get one thing clear, gentlemen. Let’s assume for one minute that I am as clever as you say I am. Then you’ll forgive me if I tell you the real reason you want to find Jérôme Dumas and are prepared to pay me so handsomely to do it. Which has only a little to do with everything you’ve mentioned. I mean, that was nice and it all sounded very plausible. Even romantic. I like the idea of Barcelona as the political heart of Catalunya. But as a reason for paying me to try to find Jérôme Dumas discreetly? It’s bullshit.

‘The real reason you want me to find Dumas is mostly to do with the FIFA transfer ban on FCB that took effect at the end of December 2014.’

This was the ban that was imposed as a result of FCB having breached the rules regarding the protection of minors and the registration of minors attending football academies.

‘I assume the loan of Jérôme Dumas from PSG to FCB was specifically constructed to get around the transfer ban. Because, according to my sources, you won’t be able to sign another player until the end of 2015, which means that the loan of this player assumes a much greater importance than it would normally have done. Especially in a year with a club presidential election.’

My sources were my own father, of course, but it sounded better than just coming out with ‘my dad says’.

‘There aren’t many top strikers who get loaned between clubs like this. You were lucky to find one at this time of year. Most smaller teams are looking to sell their best players to the bigger clubs in the January transfer window. So I also assume that FCB will pay a fee to PSG at the end of 2015, regardless of whether Dumas performs or not.

‘Look, I don’t blame you. I’d have done the same if I’d been in your position. A ban like this because of some stupid administrative error seems quite disproportionate and typical of the high-handed way that FIFA conducts itself these days. Frankly, I think they’re all a bunch of crooks. But please don’t think I’m at all ignorant of what’s going on here. If you hire me you hire me to find the truth, with all that that entails. I think it’s best we all know what’s what here. Fair enough?’

Jacint smiled, exchanged a look with Oriel and then nodded.

‘Fair enough.’