False Nine (8 page)

‘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.