‘Thanks, Charlie.’
The bodyguards nodded silently and I nodded back, wondering if they were armed and what they might have done if they had known what was in my mind; only it wasn’t them who gave me pause for thought as I opened the door to the box, but Louise. I’d forgotten that Vik had invited her to watch the match with him and she was the only person in that room whose good opinion of me really mattered. About Vik, Phil, Kojo Ironsi, Gustave Haak and his diminutive toady, Cooper Lybrand, I couldn’t have cared less.
‘Scott,’ said Vik. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Yes,’ said Phil. ‘Surely you must have missed the all-important goal.’
‘What goal?’ I asked.
‘Ayrton Taylor just scored from thirty yards,’ said Phil. ‘While you were probably climbing all those stairs.’
‘What?’
Kojo swatted something invisible with his fly-whisk. ‘It was a beautiful strike,’ he said, quietly. ‘Almost as good as the one scored by Prometheus.’
I walked to the window and stared down from the gods at the pitch where Ayrton was still sprinting around the pitch perimeter, spinning an orange City football shirt in his hand like it was a lasso, and probably earning himself a yellow in the process. At last the Olympiacos fans had become silent. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘That’s right,’ said Vik. ‘We’re three — nil up. That’s four all on aggregate. If things stay as they are we’ll go through on the away goal we scored last week. Isn’t it wonderful? I don’t know what you and Simon have said to them this past week, but the boys are playing out of their skins. Congratulations. Right now, I couldn’t be more happy.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘We will. Jesus fucking Christ. We’re going to qualify. I don’t believe it.’
‘Even so,’ added Phil, ‘don’t you think you should be down there on the touchline supporting your team? Advising them? Encouraging them? With all due respect, it’s a little bit early for a celebration. There are at least thirty minutes of the game left to play.’
My delight in the score line gave way to something much less pleasurable.
‘I didn’t come up here to celebrate,’ I said. ‘Or to look for any praise, Phil. Not right now.’
Louise stood up and tried to take my hand; she could see the anger in my face even if the others couldn’t. I took my hand out of hers, kissed her fingers and tried to contain myself for a few moments longer.
‘Then, I don’t understand,’ said Vik. ‘What did you come for?’
‘Louise,’ I said, ‘I think you’d better let us have the room for a moment. You, too, Mr Haak, Mr Lybrand. What I have to say is best kept among the people at this football club. Me, Vik, Phil and Kojo here.’ I smiled a humourless smile. ‘If you don’t mind.’
‘Be careful,’ murmured Louise and went out of the door.
‘I don’t deserve you,’ I whispered.
Looking more than a little bemused, Gustave Haak and Cooper Lybrand stood up but hesitated to follow her, looking to Vik for their proper cue to stay or leave.
‘Scott, please,’ said Vik. ‘These gentlemen are my guests. You’re embarrassing me. Whatever this is about, can’t it wait until after the game?’
‘I’m sorry, Vik, but no, it can’t. You see, if I wait I might just lose a little bit of the anger I’m feeling now and then I might not be able to go through with this.’
‘That sounds ominous,’ said Phil.
Vik looked at Haak and Lybrand and nodded. ‘Perhaps, if you guys were to wait downstairs. You’d better tell Louise to wait there, too.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll text you all when we’re through in here, okay?’
‘All right,’ said Haak and went out of the door, with Cooper Lybrand close on his heels like a small dog.
‘Soccer’s not really my cup of tea, anyway,’ he said. ‘I prefer baseball.’
‘Wanker,’ I muttered, after they’d gone.
‘Your timing stinks, Scott,’ said Phil.
‘You’re right. But you can’t always time these things to perfection. One minute you don’t know something and then the next it’s like the light goes on and you see everything really clearly but you just can’t wait until the time seems right to do something about it.’
‘You’re a jealous bastard, if ever I met one,’ he added.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I assume this display of petulance is all about Kojo here. And his appointment as the club’s new technical director? He told us about your swearing at him in the tunnel before the game.’
‘That was thoughtful of him.’ I decided to say nothing about his role in Soltani’s sending off; that seemed hardly important beside what I had to say now. But it told me something important about the kind of treacherous colleague Kojo would have made.
‘If you are going to offer us your resignation,’ said Phil, ‘then it could easily have waited until after the game.’
‘Yes, it is about Kojo.’
Kojo put down his cigar and stood up. We were all standing now.
‘But it certainly isn’t about his appointment as the club’s technical director. And it’s not about me offering you my resignation. At least it wasn’t. Although now that you’ve mentioned it, Phil, then we’ll have to see how things pan out, won’t we? But why don’t you tell them why I’m here, Kojo? I assume you must have guessed.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. You may be unscrupulous but you’re not stupid.’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, Scott. Like I said to you before, I sincerely hope we can work together but I’m beginning to have my doubts about that. Seriously, Vik, this man seems a bit unhinged.’
‘I wouldn’t work with you Kojo. Not in a million years. Not if you managed every player in the world. And I’ll tell you why. I mean, quite apart from the fact that you are a fucking crook—’
‘Of course he’s a fucking crook, Scott,’ said Vik. ‘Do you seriously think I don’t know that already? I know everything about this dodgy bastard. How do you think he got the bloody job at the club in the first place?’
‘What?’
‘He twisted my arm, that’s why I employed him. He threatened to reveal an important business deal I have concluded with Gustave Haak and the Greek government. A deal that’s been cooking for months. A deal it’s best that no one knows about. Especially here in Greece. At least not right now.’
‘Vik, please,’ said Kojo. ‘You make it sound like blackmail. It wasn’t like that at all. All I did was point out that I could hardly talk about your deal if I’d signed a confidentiality agreement, which I could only do if I was actually employed by you. I was actually trying to protect you and our relationship. I explained all this to you before.’
‘Shut up, Kojo,’ said Vik. ‘When I want you to speak again I’ll press a button. That’s what I’ve paid for, right?’ Vik looked at me with narrowed eyes; it was the first time I’d seen him looking angry. ‘There was a deal being cooked which he overheard while he was a guest on my boat. And which I don’t want anything to disturb. Anything at all. You understand?’
‘And perhaps the less Scott knows about that deal the better,’ Phil told Vik. ‘Don’t you think?’
‘His salary as technical director and what I paid for King Shark are a drop in the ocean compared to the deal I’ve just done here. So, whatever it is you’ve come to tell me about him, I really don’t give a fuck about it. D’you hear? He could have embezzled Oxfam and I wouldn’t give a damn. Okay? So why not forget about whatever this is about and go and watch the rest of the game from the dugout, where you belong?’
I nodded. And I might have done exactly what Vik had suggested I do — at least until after the match — if Kojo had not put that fat cigar in his greedy mouth and smiled at me.