January Window

26

I went along to the players’ lounge where everyone was watching Sky Sports, just for a change — Tottenham versus West Bromwich Albion, the first of three Super Sunday televised matches. In the studio before the match there was, of course, plenty of talk about Zarco’s death and my appointment as manager, which the three pundits seemed to think was a good thing. I tried not to pay attention to it but I’d always respected Gary Neville; that back pass to Paul Robinson in the Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia aside, you had to admire a man who, at the age of just twenty-three, had had the strength of character to tell Glenn Hoddle just what he thought about the faith healer the England manager had brought into the squad.

Every so often an attractive uniformed WPC with a clipboard from the Essex Constabulary would summon one of the players or staff who’d been at Silvertown Dock the day before for a short interview with a detective; but this seemed to be taking a while and some of the lads near the end of the alphabet were impatient to get back home to spend what would have been a rare Sunday with their families. A few of the others were behaving in a rather boorish and tiresome way towards the poor WPC; when she came into the room one of the younger players said, ‘Hey, lads, the stripper’s here,’ and I quickly gained the impression that this had been going on for a while.

‘That’s enough of that,’ I said firmly. ‘This woman has got a job to do. Try to remember that this is a murder inquiry and treat her with respect.’

Which was good, coming from me.

Everyone groaned, not because they disagreed with me but because Tottenham, who were just three points behind us in the table, scored first.

‘Hey, boss, can you get someone to turn the heating on? It’s brass monkeys in here,’ someone said. ‘We’ve asked Big Simon but nothing seems to happen.’

Which explained why a moody-looking Ayrton Taylor was wearing a black shearling coat from Dolce & Gabbana which seemed to match his curly, rockabilly hair; on the other hand, since the coat cost seven grand, maybe he just didn’t want to leave it lying around for someone to fuck with — give it a haircut, perhaps. I couldn’t blame him for that. Players were always pissing around with each other’s clothes — cutting the arse out of a pair of jeans, and sometimes far worse. I’d looked at that coat in the shop myself and decided that a) seven grand was far too much to pay for a coat and b) I looked like a tit in it anyway. That was how Sonja came to buy me a nice grey cashmere coat from Zegna. Taylor’s hand was still bandaged but he wasn’t trying to hide it in his pocket as perhaps he might have done if he really had battered Zarco to death.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said, then I caught Taylor’s dark eye. ‘Ayrton. Could I have a word with you, please?’

‘Sure.’

We stepped outside and walked down the corridor until we came to a bulletproof glass cabinet containing Viktor Sokolnikov’s most precious possession — a replica of the famous Jules Rimet trophy that he had bought from the Brazilian Football Confederation for fifty million dollars. The real one was in a vault in Viktor’s bank — but most people believed the one on display at Silvertown Dock was the real thing.

‘What happened to your hand?’ I asked.

‘I punched a locker door yesterday, after the match,’ said Ayrton. He was English, from Liverpool, but he’d grown up in Brazil where, in spite of a father who wanted him to become a racing driver, he’d learned to play football.

‘Why, for Pete’s sake?’

‘Because I was frustrated, I suppose.’

‘About what?’

‘I wanted to play yesterday, of course. There’s nothing worse than seeing your team do well without you. Even when you’re injured. Christ, you should know that, boss. I just wanted to get on the park and score a goal myself.’

‘You still feel that way?’

He nodded at the trophy. ‘There’s a World Cup coming up soon. The only way I can get picked to play for England is if I’m playing regular football, and scoring goals, but there’s not much chance of that happening now.’

‘Show me the door,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘The door you punched,’ I said. ‘Show it to me.’

‘Why do you want to see a fucking door?’

‘Just humour me.’

Taylor shrugged and led the way downstairs to the dressing room where there were twenty-seven locker doors made of polished oak, each of them behind an individual seat upholstered in orange suede. He led me to the number seven locker, which had Christoph Bündchen’s name on it. I opened the door and saw that it was split all the way through the wood, as if it had been struck with considerable force.

‘Christ, how hard did you hit it?’

He looked sheepish. ‘Hard enough. I used to study karate in my spare time and thought I could still do that kind of stuff. But it seems I can’t do that either.’

‘Have you had an X-ray?’

‘No need. I can tell it’s not broken. I bruised the bones, that’s all.’

I took his hand by the fingers and turned it over.

‘Nice bandage. Who did it?’

‘The wife, Lexi. She used to be a nurse. She was waiting at Hangman’s Wood for me to drive me home last night. You know I lost my licence a while back. She always picks me up after—’

‘Why her and not the team doctor?’

‘Because I was embarrassed about it.’

‘You’re fucking crazy,’ I said. ‘You could have broken it.’

‘I figured it was better than hitting Christoph,’ said Taylor. ‘Given that it’s him who’s got my place in the team.’

‘True.’

Then he smiled. ‘Oh, I get it. You thought maybe it was me who smacked Zarco.’

‘Someone did.’

‘It wasn’t me. Between you and me I hated the bastard, sure. And he probably had it coming. But not from me. Besides, I’ve got a witness who saw me do this. Manny.’

Manny Rosenberg was the kitman.

‘Maybe you hit the door because you’d already hit Zarco. Good way of explaining your hand. You could have hit the door to disguise the bruising.’

‘But you don’t really think I hit him, do you?’

‘Not really.’ I glanced at the Jules Rimet. ‘How old are you, anyway, Ayrton? Twenty-eight?’

‘Yes. This is my last chance.’

‘You know we’ve had offers for you from other clubs?’

‘I know. But Fulham and Stoke City don’t exactly blow my hair back.’

‘Can I be frank with you?’ I nodded at the iPhone in his unbandaged hand. ‘That’s to say I don’t want to read anything I say now on Twitter.’

He nodded and dropped the phone into his coat pocket.

‘I thought the way Zarco treated you was unfair. But you should never have sworn at him like that. Even though he threw a cone at you. In my day as a player managers did much worse than that. It’s good to get angry in football. It’s an emotional game. Big Ron Atkinson chased a player around the dressing room at Villa and ended up punching the wrong bloke. Lawrie McMenemy had a ruck with Mark Wright in the showers at Southampton. And when he was at Forest Cloughie punched Roy Keane.’

‘Really? Jesus. I can’t imagine anyone punching him.’

‘Keane says now it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Players do things that piss coaches and managers off — like being lazy in training — and when that happens they deserve a kick up the arse. What happened was my fault. You were a lazy bastard but I should have been the one who kicked your arse, Ayrton. Not Zarco. I was taking the training session and it should have been me who bawled you out.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You won’t get a place in the England squad if you’re a lazy cunt — you know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I admire fair play and sportsmanship but there’s no place in my squad for anyone who doesn’t work hard in training. If you’re prepared to do that, then I want you in my team. As far as I’m concerned, everything that happened between you and Zarco is water under the bridge if you can tell me now that you want to stay here at City and work your fucking balls off for us.’

‘Do I want to stay here? I never wanted to leave.’

‘And you’ll work hard for me?’

‘Yes. Yes. You mean it, boss?’

I put my hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked him squarely in the eye.

‘Of course I mean it. We need an experienced player like you, Ayrton. There’s bags of talent here but apart from Ken Okri there’s no one in our squad who can steady the younger lads and help to keep them going if we’re still behind with five minutes left to play. When we lost 4–3 to Newcastle just after Christmas, you were the only one who was still looking for the equaliser at full time. You may be a lazy bastard in training but in a match you’ve got that never-say-die attitude that wins games, Ayrton. There’s no obligation to win when you’re playing football, but there is an obligation to keep trying. That’s what the fans believe. And it’s what I know. The number of games I’ve seen won in the last minute—’

‘You’re right, boss. Arsenal against Liverpool in May 1989, Man U against Bayern Munich in 1999, Man City against QPR in 2012.’

‘That’s what I’m talking about, son. The really beautiful thing about football is that at any moment, a match can turn the other way. A goal changes everything. The last minute of the game is always, always, without exception, the most important minute of the match; and yet the number of times you see a winning side relax before the whistle has gone. People used to talk about Fergie time as if by chewing the fourth official out he’d unfairly get a few more minutes of extra time so that Man U could steal the match. Bollocks. It was just that Fergie had schooled his players never to give up. The players saw him walking up and down, getting mad and they knew that he hadn’t given up. So they didn’t either. That’s what people didn’t understand. What they still don’t understand.’

He smiled and it was the first time I’d seen him smile in ages. ‘I’m really off the transfer list?’

‘You can play on Tuesday night if Simon thinks you’re fit enough.’

‘Fucking brilliant.’

Ayrton pulled his phone out of his pocket. ‘Can I tell Lexi?’

‘Yes.’

‘She’ll be over the moon, boss. There was no way she wanted to leave London to live in fucking Stoke.’

‘But no tweets. In fact, if I were you, I’d stop tweeting altogether. It’s only cunts that pay attention to Twitter.’

‘Yes, boss. Whatever you say.’

‘And no more punching lockers.’

I didn’t know it, but I’d just made one of the best decisions of my new managerial career.