I picked up a spade, glanced at the initials on the handle: LCC and then tossed it aside.
‘How the fuck did they get in here?’ I said. ‘It’s supposed to be ticket only.’
Colin shrugged. ‘They probably slipped in during the day, when the doors are open to the building contractors, and hid in the stadium.’
‘Building contractors? What are they doing?’
‘We’re having one of the bars refurbished,’ explained Maurice.
I grunted. I could hear the internet joke now: thieves broke into Silvertown Dock to raid the trophy cabinet, but left empty-handed.
‘What kind of a bastard would do this, Scott?’ complained Colin.
‘Colin,’ I said. ‘How long have you been in the game? You know what some of these bastards are like. A rival team’s supporters could have done this. But with the results we’ve had since Christmas it could just as easily be our own fans — for fuck’s sake, our own lot aren’t exactly nice. Have you heard the kind of verbal poison that gets yelled from these terraces?’
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t a fox,’ observed Maurice. ‘I mean, I know foxes are cunning ’n’ all but I never saw one who could dig a nice rectangle like that. Not without a ruler.’
‘And as for you,’ I told Maurice, ‘sure it’s serious and a pain in the arse, but it could have waited until the morning, couldn’t it? I mean, it’s just a fucking hole in the ground.’
Maurice McShane was a former solicitor who’d been disbarred for professional misconduct after it was found he’d used an anonymous account to tweet some insults about another barrister. He’d also been a successful amateur boxer, almost winning a bronze medal in the light heavyweight division at the 199 °Commonwealth Games in Auckland. Maurice was a good man to have around when someone was in a difficult spot, and as able to sort things with his fists as he was with a wad of cash. He said nothing; instead he took out his mobile phone and showed me a text he’d received from a reporter on the Sun:
Mozza. Would you care to comment on the suggestion being made that the grave in the middle of your pitch is a Sicilian-style message for your prop, Viktor Sokolnikov, whose former partner, Natan Fisanovich, turned up in a shallow grave in 1996, having been buried alive? At least that’s what it said on Panorama. Gordon.
There was a similar text from the Daily Mail; and I dare say if I’d bothered to look at the texts arriving every minute on my own mobile phone I’d have found something along the same lines.
‘Would I like to comment?’ Maurice uttered a nervous laugh. ‘No, I fucking wouldn’t. Not particularly. Nor is it a conversation I’d feel comfortable about having with Viktor Sokolnikov. Especially as he’s suing the BBC because of what was said on Panorama. Isn’t that right?’
‘That’s what he told me.’
I put a couple of pieces of Orbit in my mouth and started chewing fiercely as if I were about to do my imitation of Sir Alex Ferguson, which had become a very popular turn of mine on the team bus.
‘But I do think Viktor should know about this as soon as possible,’ said Maurice. ‘So he can respond to it in whatever way he thinks appropriate. You know him better than I do, Scott. And I’d prefer it if you or Zarco were to tell him what’s happened here. This is well above my pay-grade.’
‘Yes, I see your point.’ I glanced back at Detective Inspector Neville. ‘By the way, who brought him along and said he and his size fucking twelves could come here and walk on our grass?’
‘I’m afraid that was me,’ admitted Colin. ‘Sorry, Scott. I was so upset when I saw that hole. But it is criminal damage, so I thought I should tell them. I mean, we do want to catch the bastards who did this, right?’
‘Never ever bring the filth into this club without speaking to me, to Zarco, or to Phil Hobday first. Got that, Colin? Once you involve the filth in this club’s affairs it’s as good as sending an email to Fleet Street. Undoubtedly it was a copper who texted a mate on the Sun or the Daily Mail about this. Hey, guess what? Someone’s only gone and dug a fucking grave on the pitch at Silvertown Dock. That’s a two-hundred-quid tip. Maybe more if it’s a front page. If it wasn’t for them being here with their fucking cameras we could have put out that it was just a hole and not a grave at all. We might still do that if we can get that rozzer in the duffel coat to cooperate.’
‘Yes, I see that now.’
‘No worries. Can’t be helped. Look, here’s what we’re all going to say. We’re going to say it looks like the work of some disgruntled fans. Kids, probably. And we’re going to piss on that Sicilian message stuff from an enormous height. The last thing Mr Sokolnikov needs right now is more wild speculation about who and what he is. The people who committed this outrage probably couldn’t even spell Sicilian. Got that?’
Maurice and Colin nodded.
‘More importantly, Colin, I want you to start thinking about if and how and when we can repair the pitch. We’re at home again to Newcastle in ten days.’
‘Believe me, I hadn’t forgotten.’
‘Right then. Let’s talk to that rozzer.’
I walked towards the policeman.
‘I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, Inspector,’ I said. ‘Especially at this late hour. But I really think we’ve wasted your time. Apologies for that, too. It seems obvious to me that this is the work of yobs. Disgruntled fans, so called. That’s nothing we’re not used to at a football club. I can’t imagine you’ll be surprised when I tell you that we get threats all the time and that very occasionally they manifest as vandalism. It’s regrettable but not uncommon.’
‘What kind of threats?’ asked the inspector.
‘Emails. Tweets. The occasional poison-pen letter. Boxes of shit in the post. You name it, we get it.’
‘I’d like to see some of these, if I may.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. We have a policy of not keeping anything like that. Especially the gift-wrapped turds.’
‘May I ask why, sir?’
‘Yesterday’s shit smells bad, Inspector.’
‘I meant the letters and the emails, of course.’
Detective Inspector Neville was thin with a hooked nose that made him look like he had a permanent sneer on his face. To my keen but cold ear his sounded like a Yorkshire accent.
I shrugged. ‘We don’t keep that kind of thing because frankly there’s so much of it. Really it’s simpler just to erase or destroy anything that’s threatening or insulting. Just in case a player who’s been threatened or abused sees it and is disturbed by what he’s read.’
‘I’d have thought anyone would have a right to know if he’s been threatened, sir.’
‘You might very well think that. But we take a different attitude. Some of these lads are very highly strung, Inspector. And one or two of them are none too bright. Even threats that are patently absurd can exercise a strongly negative effect on a weaker-minded player at a Premier League football club. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? Not with a third round FA Cup tie against Leeds on Sunday.’
‘Nevertheless, a crime has been committed here.’
‘A hole in the ground? That’s not exactly seven-seven, now, is it?’
‘No, but with all due respect, sir, that’s no ordinary hole in the ground. For a start, there’s the shape. And then there’s the obvious financial loss. As holes in the ground go, I imagine this is an extremely expensive one. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr Evans?’
The detective inspector obviously knew the kind of person he was speaking to. What groundsman doesn’t moan about the state of a pitch? But even before he started to answer I wished I’d told Colin to play down the cost of the damage to the police. His being Welsh only seemed to make this worse as Colin’s manner was very considered and deliberate.