January Window - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Philip Kerr (25) #25

25

Zarco Tuesday 20.45

VS says DK is history; KT'S yours now.

Gentile Tuesday 20.47

KT is cool with that?

Zarco Tuesday 20.48

If he wants to come to SD he is, yes.

Gentile Tuesday 20.49

I just wish I could have seen DK's face when you told him.

Zarco Tuesday 20.52

He was very pissed off.

Gentile Tuesday 20.53

Good. Shall I call KT tonight?

Zarco Tuesday 20.54

He's expecting your call at home.

Gentile Tuesday 21.00

Okay. I will call him now.

Zarco Tuesday 21.03

Good. NB he's Scots. If you don't understand him his text English is better than his spoken.

I assumed VS was Viktor Sokolnikov, DK was Denis Kampfner, KT was Kenny Traynor and SD was Silvertown Dock.

Gentile Tuesday 21.45

Okay, I called him. He's good. Watch his space. We're going to talk again in the morning. To finalise details.

Zarco Tuesday 22.00

WTF? Why not tonight?

Gentile Tuesday 22.11

Because he says he feels bad about DK. He's been with DK for a couple of years. Thinks they're friends.

Zarco Tuesday 22.15

You told him that V won't use DK for the deal. End of story. Doesn't trust him.

Gentile Tuesday 22.20

Who does? Of course I told him. Look, don't worry, he'll get over it.

Zarco Tuesday 22.21

I hope so for your sake.

Gentile Tuesday 22.20

Believe me, they always get over it when you tell them how much they're going to get paid per week.

Zarco Tuesday 22.29

I can never understand that. Players get paid monthly like everyone else.

Gentile Tuesday 22.40

Yes, but they can only understand these sorts of figures when you tell them how much per week. It's like they're autistic.

Zarco Tuesday 22.45

I thought autistic people were good with numbers. Like Rain Man.

Gentile Tuesday 22.50

Thick then. All footballers are thick when it comes to numbers. Have to be. Otherwise they wouldn't need agents.

Zarco Tuesday 22.55

True. You have the skill set of the Borgias. Are you by any chance related?

Gentile Tuesday 23.00

LOL.

So far this was all entirely above board, but as the texts became more cryptic and numerical, paradoxically it became more and more obvious that something even dodgier than a straight bung was about to go down.

Gentile Wednesday 13.30

Okay, you have new gk.

Zarco Wednesday 14.00

Ahd?

Gentile Wednesday 14.02

He's very happy. At least I think so. I don't understand everything he says.

Zarco Wednesday 14.06

Makes two of us.

Gentile Wednesday 14.30

There's half a quid in it for you, as discussed.

Zarco Wednesday 14.40

You remember how I want this.

Gentile Wednesday 14.50

Sure. 50k the hand. Balance in some SSAG with Monaco STCM. Tomorrow no fail.

Zarco Wednesday 14.55

You have contact and a/c details. Get a taste yourself.

Gentile Wednesday 15.25

You sure?

Zarco Wednesday 16.00

Sure. But Friday or Monday too late. Must be tomorrow. Before it's in the paper. Understand?

Gentile Wednesday 16.05

Okay. Understand.

Gentile Wednesday 17.00

All done. Where do you want the 50k?

Zarco Wednesday 17.30

Tomorrow. Usual BP 0n A13. 15.00

On the few occasions that I’d heard agents and managers talking business, some of them would mention ‘a quid’ in a kind of shorthand, coded, Polari way, almost as if trying to conceal the real monies that were involved in modern football. A quid was a million quid, just as ten quid was ten million and fifty quid was fifty million. It was yet another reason to despair of the attitude to money in football. With the likes of Eden Hazard, Robin Van Persie and Yaya Touré on £180,000 a week, it was easy to forget that fans could be asked to pay up to 126 quid — real quid, not millions — for a match-day ticket at Arsenal, which represents a quarter of the average weekly wage.

But it seemed that things had not quite gone to plan, and probably explained why I had seen the two men arguing at the service station in Orsett, near Hangman’s Wood — which was certainly ‘BP on A13’.

Zarco Thursday 15.00

Where ru?

Gentile Thursday 15.02

In traffic. Be there any minute.

Zarco Thursday 15.15

Still waiting.

Gentile Thursday 15.19

More traffic. Be patient.

Zarco Thursday 15.21

Easy for you to say. Did you buy SSAG? Like I said?

Gentile Thursday 15.22

Yes. No problem with that. But there was a problem with the 50k. I couldn't get it today.

Zarco Thursday 15.24

WTF? So why am I waiting here? I told you I needed that for the weekend. What I needed it for. Those guys will be very pissed off if I don't give them what I promised.

Gentile Thursday 15.25

Arriving.

Zarco Thursday 16.30

That was a waste of time.

Gentile Thursday 16.45

I told you. You'll have it day after tomorrow. I'll bring it to the BP.

Zarco Thursday 16.50

Be sure you do.

My first thought was that Monaco STCM was something to do with AS Monaco FC, the football club, and that SSAG was perhaps a player, although it hardly seemed likely that an agent would have been encouraged to buy a player, unless it was one of those offshore, Tevez-type economic rights schemes that had given lawyers and accountants so much well-paid work on the back of a talented footballer; but things were about to become even more confusing for me and, it seemed, very much more awkward for Zarco, to say the least.

Gentile Friday 18.00

Tell me, did you know that MSTCM is owned by SCBG?

Zarco Friday 18.47

SCBG? Remind me.

Gentile Friday 18.50

Sumy Capital Bank of

Zarco Friday 19.00

Fuck.

Gentile Friday 19.15

But surely VS knows what you're making from KT deal. It's why he agreed to bring me on board, isn't it? To give you a taste.

Zarco Friday 19.30

Yes. He knows about that. But he doesn't know I used most of the quid to buy into SSAG. He wouldn't like that.

Gentile Friday 19.37

Okay, but MSTCM wouldn't necessarily tell SCBG about the SSAG purchase. Client confidentiality etc.

Zarco Friday 19.48

This is VS we're talking about, not some muppet at the FSA. VS can go plases that others can't. He is omniscient and omnipotent. I am fucked. Maybe not right now. But later on.

I typed a few of these abbreviations into Google on my desktop PC. Monaco STCM was actually Monaco Short Term Capital Management, an investment company wholly owned by the Sumy Capital Bank of Geneva, which was in turn owned by Victor Sokolnikov; and SSAG looked like it was probably Shostka Solutions AG, which — according to the newspapers — was the Sokolnikov-owned construction company that had the contract to build the new Thames Gateway Bridge. According to what I found on Google, SSAG shares had shot up following the news that planning permission for the bridge had finally been granted. And from the texts I’d read it looked as if Zarco had used most of his bung for a bit of offshore insider-trading — to buy into his employer’s company before the news that all planning objections to the bridge had been lifted could be made public. Since the announcement, the shares had risen by almost thirty per cent, which meant that if the ‘half a quid’ mentioned in the texts represented half a million pounds — bar ‘50k’, presumably fifty thousand pounds — then four hundred and fifty thousand invested would have turned into almost six hundred grand. Which is a hell of a return. And thoroughly illegal.

Zarco Friday 21.00

On second thoughts, don't bring 50k to the BP. Prob best we're not seen together in public for a while. Anywhere.

Gentile Friday 22.00

Okay, you're right. Where than?

Zarco Friday 22.10

Use 123 this time.

Gentile Friday 22.13

Okay. Will you be there?

Zarco Friday 22.15

Maybe. Not sure. Before the game I have a lunch in director's dining room with VS and some people from the council. So if I'm not there just leave it where you left it last time.

Gentile Friday 22.25

Will do. Should beat Newcastle.

Zarco Friday 22.45

Scott has good idea to psyche them out. You wait and see.

Gentile Saturday 10.00

Have 50k.

Zarco Saturday 10.10

Glad to hear it.

Gentile Saturday 11.17

On my way to SD.

Gentile Saturday 11.45

Arrived at SD.

Zarco Saturday 11.48

If we meet anywhere in the ground outside 123 just blank me, okay?

Gentile Saturday 11.55

No problem. I'm not going to stay for the match.

Zarco Saturday 12.10

I appreciate this.

Gentile Saturday 12.10

No problem. Football Focus thinks it will be a draw today.

Zarco Saturday 12.15

Is that Keown or Lawro?

Gentile Saturday 12.18

Lawro.

Zarco Saturday 12.19

Both good defenders, but Keown is smarter. Besides, you can't have a haircut like Lawrenson's and be taken seriously. Put your money on City.

Gentile Saturday 12.23

I never bet on anything that's not a sure thing.

Zarco Saturday 12.45

Sensible guy.

Gentile Saturday 13.00

Delivered as promised. Just missed you, I think. Easy as 123. Good luck this afternoon, and enjoy weekend. I'm off home now. I have to fly back to Italy this evening.

Gentile Saturday 15.15

A thank you would be nice.

Gentile Saturday 15.25

Whatever. At airport.

Gentile Saturday 19.00

Back in Milan. Where the fuck are you?

There were no texts from Zarco after 12.45 p.m. and, according to Phil Hobday, Zarco had left the director’s dining room at around 1.05 p.m., after which he hadn’t been seen alive again. Where had he gone after that? It was impossible to imagine him being forced to go somewhere against his will without someone noticing. Zarco’s face was in a thirty-foot-high mural on the side of the stadium. He wasn’t exactly anonymous. Surely someone must have seen him.

These texts begged several other questions, too: if Paolo Gentile had brought a fifty grand bung to Silvertown Dock and left it hidden somewhere for João Zarco, where was it now? Was it even where he had left it? After all, fifty grand is a pretty good reason to beat someone up and rob them. Unless of course he hadn’t brought it at all, and they’d quarrelled again. Wasn’t it possible that the texts Gentile had sent to Zarco after 1 p.m. had just been a cover? And where better to be now that the police were investigating Zarco’s death than safely at home in Italy?

On the other hand, maybe Toyah was right after all, and Zarco had good reason to be afraid of Viktor — a better reason than even she knew. Just what would Viktor have done if he’d found out that Zarco had bought shares in SSAG on an insider tip?

In the hope of learning more — what was 123? Who were the guys he’d needed the fifty grand for? Could they have been sufficiently pissed off at Zarco to have killed him? — I called Paolo Gentile on the number listed on Zarco’s mobile phone, but I wasn’t at all surprised when the call went straight to his voicemail. I left a message asking Gentile to call me urgently.

By now I had also realised just how sensitive all of these texts were and how dearly the police would have wanted to see what was on Zarco’s phone. Of course I knew that I was committing a serious offence by not handing it over — withholding evidence in a murder inquiry carries a prison sentence, and I knew all about what that was like. I had no wish ever to go back to Wandsworth. But Zarco’s reputation and that of London City were of greater consequence than this. For the first time in my life I knew the absolute truth of Bill Shankly’s famous quote when he was still the manager of Liverpool: ‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death... I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’

And how.