January Window

  The victim – Helen Fehmiu, who was Turkish – wasn’t at all sure that it was me who’d raped her, however. Her attacker had punched her several times in the face, so hard she had a detached retina, but she thought he was perhaps black or ‘a bit foreign-looking’ which was good coming from her, quite frankly. She was darker than I am. Helpfully the police arranged for Mrs Fehmiu to see my picture on the back pages of the newspapers, where I’d been apologising for my conduct after the Tottenham match. One of their players took a dive when I tackled him and the ref awarded a very dubious penalty that resulted in me shouting in his face, which earned me a well-deserved red card. Arsenal versus Tottenham is always a highly emotional fixture, to put it mildly.

  Anyway, Mrs Fehmiu thought it might have been me who’d raped her, and what with that and the forensics in my car the cops then interviewed me for sixteen hours, at the end of which they typed up a transcript that bore absolutely no relation to what I had said on the tape. In the typewritten transcript I admitted more or less everything; I even admitted ‘doing an O.J.’ and trying to shake off a police car that was in pursuit of my vehicle. In short they verballed me, confident that the quality of the recording made of the interview was so poor that the jury wouldn’t be able to make out what was said, which proved to be the case. Indeed, the jury was so persuaded by the police transcript that it managed to hear me saying things on the tape that were never even there to hear. Weird but true.

  Meanwhile it transpired that the police had managed to ‘lose’ the only piece of evidence that was vital to my defence: a used condom that was found in Greenwood Park on the day of the rape and in the spot where the victim said she’d been attacked. That condom would easily have cleared me.

  The newspapers were involved, of course, and before I came to trial the tabloids did their bit for English justice; having already concluded that I was ‘a monster’, and ‘revealing’ that my nickname at Highbury was Norman Bates on account of my psycho-like personality on the park (which was a blatant lie), they managed to rake up the fact that I was already technically a rapist. As usual it wasn’t what they said, it was what they didn’t say. They managed to find an ex-girlfriend in Northampton with whom I’d had sex a few days before her sixteenth birthday. They neglected to mention that I was just eighteen at the time and that she and I had been going out for more than a year; her father – who was none too keen on someone he described as having ‘more than a touch of the tar-brush’ about him, i.e. me – had found out that we’d slept together and even though he wasn’t living at home with his daughter at the time, he threatened to have me charged with statutory rape. It hardly seemed to matter that this same girl volunteered to be a character witness in my defence.

  In spite of this, and after a December trial that lasted two weeks, I was found guilty at St Albans Crown Court on the day before Christmas Eve 2004, and sentenced to eight years in prison.

  I was sent to Wandsworth nick. In case you didn’t know, it’s the largest prison in the UK. They’ve had a lot of cricketers in there – for match fixing – not to mention Oscar Wilde, Ronnie Kray and Julian Assange but, surprisingly, I was Wandsworth’s first Premier League footballer. Things went all right for me in the nick – everyone likes talking about football in prison, even the governor – and I made a lot of friends in Wandsworth. There’s all sorts in the nick, not just criminals. Some of those blokes I’d trust more than I’ll ever trust any copper again. It’s one reason why today I’m involved with the Kenward Trust, which assists the resettlement of offenders.

  Certainly things went better for me than they did for poor Mrs Fehmiu, who lost the sight in one eye. Three months after the trial she killed herself. I, on the other hand, spent my first year in Wandsworth doing a correspondence course in sports management because I knew eventually that I was going to be cleared.

  Eighteen months after I went inside, Karen’s husband died of cancer. But frankly I had no idea that his dying would take quite so long. That’s a pretty fucked-up place to find yourself in, psychologically; hoping that some poor bloke whose wife you’ve been shagging will die so that you can get out of prison, but that’s pretty much how I was feeling at the time. Straight away she contacted the police to explain that on the afternoon of the rape she’d been with me. But the police said the case was closed and told her to go away.

  So she took her story to the Daily Telegraph, who started to campaign for my release. Almost immediately they discovered that Inspector Twistleton, who had led the inquiry into Mrs Fehmiu’s rape, was facing sixty-five disciplinary charges including an assault on a black police officer. It soon became clear that not only was Twistleton a racist – in view of some of the words he’d used in my cell, this was no surprise to me – he was also a member of the National Front. Incredibly, the condom used in the rape was now ‘found’ by someone in Willesden Police Station and even after eighteen months there was enough DNA there to clear me of any involvement.

  Three judges at the Court of Appeal quashed my conviction and I was released from the cells at the Royal Courts of Justice the same day. Subsequently eight newspapers paid libel damages to me totalling almost a million pounds. The police were also ordered to pay half a million pounds in damages for false imprisonment, although on appeal these were reduced to one hundred grand because I had chosen to omit telling the police that Karen could have provided me with an alibi. Not that the money was important. The damage was done. My playing career was over and even without knowing about Karen my wife had divorced me.

  On my release I decided I needed to get away from England. For a while I went to live with my grandparents in Germany, and then I went to study at the Johan Cruyff Institute in Barcelona, which opened in 2002. I’d done a BA in Modern Languages at Birmingham University so I spoke a bit of Spanish, and in Barcelona – my favourite European city – I did a one-year course in Sports Management and then an eight-month postgrad in Football Management. In 2010 I obtained my UEFA certificates and accepted a trainee coaching role with Pep Guardiola at FC Barca. In 2011, I became the first team trainee coach at Bayern Munich and worked with Jupp Heynckes, who was an old friend of my dad. He was part of the West German squad in 1974 although, like Dad, Jupp was injured and spent most of the tournament on the bench.

  I’ve thought about poor Mrs Fehmiu a lot, however; the only time I ever saw her was in court and I felt her pain. A couple of years ago I got involved with another charity called Rape Crisis; I help to fund a Rape Crisis Centre in Camden, because the way I see it I was a victim of Mrs Fehmiu’s rapist too. Of her rapist, of the newspapers, and of the Metropolitan Police.

  I try not to be bitter about what happened. I tell myself that to some extent it was my own fault. And yet I still feel a sense of grievance. I know I should get over it and put it all behind me and perhaps, in time, I will. Of course it’s one thing giving good advice to others in such matters, it’s something else when you try to take that advice yourself. But here’s one truth I have learned that I try to pass on to all my players: when the worst has already happened, nothing can hurt you. That’s as true on the football pitch as it is in life. Because there is always a next time.

  I am not a philosopher of football like João Zarco, you understand. To me, managing a football team is just common sense with a scarf on.

  8

  The next day I went back to Silvertown Dock and took another look at the hole with Colin Evans and João Zarco. It was cold and the sky above the stadium was a dispiriting shade of January grey. The rain and the police had gone but not the picket of reporters, who’d already gone to town on Drenno’s death and the Sicilian message that had surely been sent to Viktor Sokolnikov. Fortunately I hadn’t had to tell him about it because he’d read the story online and told me he thought the idea of such messages to be preposterous.

  ‘Where I come from, if you want a man dead you don’t warn him by sending him a message,’ he’d said. ‘And certainly not one as theatrical as this. It’s like something from the
pages of a book by Mario Puzo. I appreciate you calling, Scott, and your concern for my reputation. But don’t worry about me. I can assure you, I am very well protected.’

  This was true; Sokolnikov never moved without at least four bodyguards. One of them was a former Russian boxer, covered in tats, who looked like Vinnie Jones’ ugly big brother.

  Now, Zarco stared into the hole and shook his head.

  ‘Football,’ he said. ‘It’s tribal, of course. And this kind of thing is what tribes do, isn’t it? It took billions of years for man to evolve from being a beast and a savage, but it only takes ninety minutes on a Saturday afternoon for all of that to come undone.’ He looked at Colin. ‘Can you fix this little divot, Colin? Before the Newcastle match?’

  ‘It won’t be easy,’ said Colin, ‘but I can fix it, yes. It takes seven to ten days for a new pitch or a bit of turf to bed in. But what about the police, boss? I reckon I could get myself into trouble here. This is a crime scene, isn’t it? Suppose that bloody Inspector Neville finds that I’ve filled in his hole? Suppose he comes back here this morning?’

  Zarco pulled a face. Sometimes his face was as rubbery as a comedian’s.

  ‘To look at the hole again?’ he said. ‘It’s just a bloody hole in the ground, isn’t it? Besides, it’s not his hole, it’s our hole. And it doesn’t belong in the middle of a football pitch.’

  ‘Listen to him,’ I told Colin. ‘He sounds just like Bernard Cribbins.’

  Colin knew I’d made a joke although he didn’t understand it. I make a lot of jokes like that, which nobody understands. That’s what happens when you get older. Zarco didn’t understand it either, but then he was Portuguese.

  ‘Fill it in and repair it,’ I told Colin. ‘I’ll take full responsibility. You can tell him that. But before you do fill it in maybe you should dig down a little. It could be that when you disturbed the people who excavated this, they were actually filling the hole in again.’

  ‘I don’t follow you, Scott.’

  ‘Humour me, will you, Colin? Usually when people dig a grave it’s because they want to bury something in it. Something, or someone.’

  ‘You don’t mean…?’ The Welshman glanced at the grave in horror.

  ‘I do mean, Colin. I do mean.’

  Zarco grinned. ‘Perhaps Scott is expecting you to find Yorick in this grave,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Terry Yorick,’ I said. ‘Defensive midfielder for Leeds United. His daughter Gabby used to do the football on the telly. Nice-looking bird. Great pins. I don’t watch it nearly so much now she’s gone.’

  Zarco laughed at Colin’s continuing incomprehension and walked back towards the players’ entrance. I followed him closely.

  ‘Alas, poor Terry Yorick,’ I said. ‘He was Welsh, too. Poor bastard.’

  ‘To be or not to be. You know, with an attitude like that I think maybe Hamlet followed a football team.’

  ‘FC Copenhagen, probably.’

  ‘So, Scott. Today’s fitness and injury reports? You got them?’

  ‘On your desk, boss.’

  ‘Good.’ Zarco’s phone bleeped. He checked the screen and nodded: ‘Paolo Gentile. Excellent. Looks like we’ve now got ourselves a Scottish goalkeeper. Let’s hope he’s as good as you said he was. Now all we need is a translator. I couldn’t understand one fucking word he said. Except that one. Fucking.’

  ‘I’ll translate. I speak good Scottish.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  ‘I thought Denis Kampfner was handling the transfer.’

  ‘Viktor doesn’t trust him, so he brought his own agent in. Paolo Gentile.’

  ‘He’s your agent, too, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. What of it?’ Zarco’s phone bleeped again. ‘Now who’s this? The BBC. Strictly Come Dancing. They want me for the new series. I keep saying no and they keep offering more money. As if.’

  ‘I bet you’re quite the twinkle-toes.’

  ‘I hate that shit. I hate all those stupid shows. Me, I’d rather read a book.’

  I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that Colin was already in the hole and digging.

  ‘Poor Colin,’ I said. ‘Get him on the subject of grass seed and he’ll talk for fucking hours, but I don’t think he’s read a book in his life.’

  ‘He reads. He has a book in his office toilet.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. Mind you, it’s a pretty crappy book. I think maybe when he runs out of toilet paper… It’s your book. Foul Play.’

  I grinned. ‘At least I wrote mine, boss.’

  Zarco laughed. ‘Fuck you, Scott.’

  ‘You know, it’s a pity I didn’t think of it before,’ I said. ‘But I kind of wish I’d persuaded one of the lads to get in that grave before we looked at it with Colin just now. We could have chucked a bit of earth on top of someone and given that Welshman the fright of his bloody life.’

  ‘After what happened to Drenno last night? I worry about you, Scott. Really I do.’

  ‘Drenno would have been the first to see the funny side of a joke like that. That’s why I loved him.’

  ‘You have a very sick sense of humour.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I’m your team coach, boss. A sick sense of humour is absolutely bloody essential when you’re training a squad of overpaid young cunts. Fucking with them keeps their feet on the ground.’

  ‘True enough. Look, I’m very sorry about Drenno. I know you two were friends. He was a great footballer.’

  ‘Just not very sensible.’ I shrugged. ‘Sonja thinks it was inevitable that something like this would happen eventually. In fact, she almost predicted it.’

  ‘See if she can predict the result on Sunday. I could use a little help from the spirits.’

  ‘She already did. We’re going to win 4–0.’

  ‘Good. Buy her a late Christmas present from me, will you?’

  I sighed. ‘I’ll never forget Drenno’s Christmas present to me when we were playing at Arsenal. A bottle of sun-tan lotion.’

  We were still laughing as we reached the tunnel. But the laughter faded a little as we heard a shout and Colin came running after us, holding a square object in his hands.

  ‘You were right, Scott. There was something in that grave. This.’

  ‘It’s not a grave,’ I said. ‘It’s a hole. Just remember that.’

  He handed me a framed photograph. The glass was smeared with earth and mud but the person in the picture was clearly identifiable. It was a photograph of João Gonzales Zarco, the one that was on the cover of his autobiography: No Games, Just Football.

  Zarco took the framed photograph from my hands and nodded. ‘This was in the hole?’

  Colin nodded. ‘Last night’s rain must have brought some earth down on top of it. That’s why we didn’t see it then. We might never have found this. It’s lucky you suggested digging down a bit, Scott.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I said, doubtfully.

  ‘It’s a good picture,’ observed Zarco. ‘Mario Testino took this shot. I look like Bruce Willis, yes?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Scott,’ said Zarco. ‘I’m not in the least bit concerned by this kind of thing. I told you: there are times when football supporters are like savages. At the Nou Camp, we had a pig’s head thrown on the pitch when Luis Figo was taking a corner. And you should see those crazy bastards at Galatasaray, Coritiba and River Plate. They probably get this kind of thing all the time. But it’s England where I work and where I make my living, not a country where a man who plays football sometimes goes in fear of his life. The values of this country are good ones. And the people who did this are the exception. What worries me more is Leeds, tomorrow. They’re always a good cup side. Manchester United 1972. Arsenal in 2011. Tottenham in 2013. And the best FA Cup Final I ever saw was a recording of Chelsea versus Leeds in 1970. Now that was a fucking football match.’

  Colin nodded. ‘2–2 draw. Which Chelsea won in the replay. F
irst one since 1912.’

  Zarco grinned. ‘You see? He does read.’ He handed the picture back to Colin. ‘You hang onto this. A keepsake. Hang it above your desk and use it to frighten the rest of the ground staff.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we tell the police about this?’ said Colin. ‘Finding your picture in the hole, I mean.’

  ‘No,’ said Zarco. ‘Don’t tell anyone about this or the press will be all over it. It’s bad enough that they know I’ve been asked to go on Strictly Come Dancing without them knowing about this, too. And don’t for Christ’s sake tell Mario Testino. He’ll have a fit.’

  ‘My wife loves that programme,’ confessed Colin. ‘You should go on it, boss.’

  ‘With all due respect to your wife, Colin, I’m a football manager not a fucking bandido burro.’

  He checked his phone once more. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘My builder – again. I swear that man calls me more than my wife.’

  Zarco had bought a house in Pimlico and was having extensive building work done, including a new façade designed by Tony Owen Partners from Sydney, Australia. The façade included an ultra-modern-looking Möbius window that had proved less than popular with Zarco’s neighbours and, of course, the Daily Mail. From the artist’s impression I’d seen in the newspaper the new façade looked to me like the J. P. Morgan Media Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground.

  ‘That’s because your wife is at my house,’ I said. ‘To get some peace and quiet, not to mention some good sex. And to get away from you. She hates you just like everyone else.’

  ‘This architect was Toyah’s idea, not mine,’ said Zarco. ‘I tell her, you want a house that looks Australian then go and live in Australia. This is London. This is where I live, this is where I make my living. Let’s have a house that looks like a London house, not the Sydney fucking Opera House. But this isn’t good enough for her and as usual Toyah gets her way. I swear, this woman is more difficult than any footballer I have ever had to deal with.’

  ‘That’s why we love them, isn’t it? Because they’re not fucking footballers. They’re women, who smell nice and who have nice legs. That’s why we buy them expensive Christmas presents.’