5
There was a knock at the door of my hotel room. I opened my eyes and stared out of the window at my Standard Room view. It wasn’t much different from the view in the Presidential Suite except for the fact that there seemed to be a little more cloud at this level. Then again, maybe that was just my outlook on the day. Cloudy with a chance of aggro.
‘Go away,’ I shouted. ‘I’m trying to sleep.’
There was another knock and this time I picked up my iPhone and with the help of the translation app, I shouted the Chinese equivalent, ‘Likai! Likai!’ It sounded more polite than ‘fuck off’, which is what I felt like saying. My love affair with China was definitely over.
‘Mr Manson?’ said a man’s voice. ‘I need to speak with you on a matter of grave importance.’
‘If you’re from the newspapers you can sod off.’
‘I am not from the newspapers, Mr Manson. I promise you. Please, can we talk? Just for a minute. I can assure you that it will be to your advantage.’
The man’s English was good enough to persuade me that the least I could do was answer the door and hear him out.
I slipped off the bed and opened the door to reveal a Chinese man in his late forties. He was wearing a pair of jeans, sunglasses and a black leather jacket; around his neck were several silver necklaces and on his thin, bony fingers was a selection of grotesque rings. He looked like a Chinese version of Keith Richards.
‘Scott Manson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Forgive me, Mr Manson. In the circumstances I know this will sound like a very strange question, but have we ever met before?’
‘It’s you that’s knocking on my hotel room door, remember?’
‘Please, if you could just answer the question. Before just now, had we ever met before?’
I thought for moment. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘You’re quite sure about that?’
‘What is all this? You’re not a policeman, are you? You sound like a policeman.’
‘No, I’m not a policeman. But please. Just answer the question.’
‘No, I’m sure we haven’t met before. I think I might have remembered the necklaces and the rings. Not to mention the David Beckham aftershave.’
‘Too much?’
I shrugged. ‘Depends if you like it or not. As it happens I don’t. I think it might have been made by the same people who made his whisky. It’s all alcohol and not much else.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ The man smiled. ‘So then. Let me introduce myself, Mr Manson. My name is Jack Kong Jia. I own the Nine Dragons Mining Company.’
He paused for a moment to allow this information to sink in. Which it did. I felt a huge weight start to descend on my head. It reminded me of a time when I’d had a kick-about for a telly programme using one of those old leather footballs with laces. It had been waterlogged and when you headed it the thing was like a bloody cannonball. When you play with a ball like that you wonder how any of those lads on Gillette Soccer Saturday can manage to string two words together. Maybe that’s the real reason ITV ended Saint and Greavsie.
‘Since you admit that we’ve never met before, you’ll also admit that I couldn’t possibly have hired you to be the manager of the Shanghai Xuhui Nine Dragons football club.’
‘I don’t understand. You say that you’re Jack Kong Jia?’
‘I don’t say it. I am Jack Kong Jia. Yes, that’s correct, Mr Manson. I am he. I can see you still don’t believe me. Let me prove it to you.’
He handed me his passport and after my initial surprise that a Chinese passport should be in Chinese and English I felt my heart sink as I saw that his name was indeed Jack Kong Jia. The passport also said that he was a businessman, and that he was unmarried.
‘So who was guy I met before?’
‘Did he show you his passport?’
‘No.’
‘Then it may be that we shall never know. But if I might come in for a moment then perhaps we can find an answer to these and other questions.’
‘Yes, sure. Please. I think you better had.’
Inside my room he collected the remote control off the bedside table and switched on the television. ‘Let me show something. Just to banish any further doubts you might have about who I really am.’ He searched through the channels. ‘As it happens,’ he added, ‘I’m currently on the Bloomberg Channel, on a series called Market Makers, talking about the uncertain future of the Chinese economy and our very overvalued stock market which is in line for a correction. Yes. Here we are. I am in conversation with Stephanie Ruhle. She’s rather attractive, don’t you think?’
I watched for a moment — just long enough to realise that he was probably who he said he was — and then handed him back his passport.
‘You begin to see the problem,’ he said, switching off the TV.
I nodded. ‘Shit, I knew there was something wrong the minute I got off the plane. I was supposed to have been paid a signing-on fee which never arrived.’
‘In business I always say that the only thing you can trust these days is the money. A man’s word is worth absolutely nothing next to the certainty of a CHAPS transfer.’
‘And there was to be a medical, too.’
‘A medical?’ Jack Kong Jia laughed. ‘For you? This is not necessary for a manager. Even for a player this would be possible to fix. Frankly I can fix anything here in Shanghai. Especially a medical. I should know.’ He grinned. ‘I have a minor heart condition — a hole in the heart — that somehow never shows up on my regular health check. Although everyone now knows about this.’
‘I’m wise after the event on that one, I’m afraid. Look, I don’t get it. Why would someone want to make me look a fool like this? In China?’
‘Not you, Mr Manson. This isn’t really about you at all. I’m sorry to disappoint you on that score. This is all about me. Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to impersonate me and embarrass my company. You’re just the fall guy in all this. Which I very much regret as I was an admirer of yours when you were managing London City.’
‘But I went to the club,’ I said. ‘We watched a match against Guangzhou Evergrande in a private box. I had a tour of the Yu Garden stadium the next day. I even met some the players. It all seemed so plausible.’
‘The box was probably one of our top executive hospitality packages. The one with the hostess girls? And the Krug champagne?’
I nodded.
‘As for the private tour of the stadium, with a player-meet, this costs five thousand yuan. About five hundred pounds. No, you’ve been had, Mr Manson. And had good, too. The man hired to impersonate me was an actor, probably. A man with some ability, it seems, since I don’t assume for a moment that you’re a complete idiot.’
‘Fuck,’ I said.
‘Exactly so.’
‘If he’s an actor then perhaps we can trace him. He’s committed fraud.’
Mr Jia — the real Mr Jia — smiled a smile of pity. ‘There are twenty million people who live in Shanghai,’ he said. ‘Even if we could find him, what would be the point? The damage is already done.’
‘But why? Why would someone do this?’
‘Oh, it’s simple enough. You see, I — my club — was about to hire two new players from English clubs to come and play for us in a few months’ time. At the end of your season. These two players — who are household names, I might add — they may have been finished in your Premier League but they would have been paid top wages and would, almost certainly, have given us the edge over all our rival teams. Not to mention some significant marketing opportunities. However, your press conference has put paid to that, I imagine. No one in their right mind is going to sign for Nine Dragons when the evening newspapers print the story about you walking out on us before you’d even started. Even for a hundred thousand pounds a week. You were very eloquent, Mr Manson. Your signing-on fee was not paid. Your accommodation arrangements were dishonoured. There were some calculated insults. Racism. Those new players who would have come are black. No, I’m afraid it all makes us look as if we’re not to be relied on for a moment. Wouldn’t you agree?’