I had gathered everyone who was at Hangman’s Wood in the players’ bar. I suppose one or two of them had seen into my eyes, watched my Adam’s apple, and already understood the worst.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ I said. ‘In any other circumstance but the one in which I am standing here now, the news that Didier Cassell, our team mate and friend, has recovered consciousness and is likely to make a full recovery would be cause for great celebration. But Didier would be the first to tell you that there are no celebrations tonight. Not for him. Not for me. Not for us. Not at this club. And not for anyone who loves the great game of football. Because what I have to tell you now is that João Gonzales Zarco is dead.’
There was a very audible gasp and one or two of the players sat down on the floor.
‘I can’t tell you very much about what happened. Not yet. Suffice to say that the police will want to speak to every one of us here, tomorrow. But what I can say now is this. A grief ago, when I lost my friend Matt Drennan, I thought I knew exactly what the acute pain of bereavement felt like. But I was wrong. For much as I loved Drenno, I find now he’s gone that I loved João Zarco even more. João wasn’t just my boss, he was also my friend; and not only that but my mentor, my inspiration and my example, the only true philosopher I ever knew, and the greatest football manager that ever lived.
‘I look around this room now and I’m very proud to see Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, Welshmen, Frenchmen, Brazilians, Spaniards, Germans, Italians, Ghanaians, Ukrainians, Russians, Jews and Gentiles, whites, blacks — all of us playing as one man for the same team. But that isn’t what João Zarco saw. Not at all. Zarco didn’t see different races, or different creeds; he didn’t hear different languages. He didn’t even see a great team when he looked at you people. When he was with us what he saw and heard was something very different. Something inspiring. What João Zarco saw when he looked at you all was the true family of football, his family and mine. And what he heard was only ever this: that we all speak the same language — a language spoken all over the world, in every country, and under every god; a language that unites us; it is the language of love for this beautiful game.
‘Right now we are also united in this terrible, unsupportable loss. United in mourning. United in our remembrance of our footballing family’s true father. This is a special day, ladies and gentlemen. Remember it always, as I will. For this was the day, not when Zarco died, but when his family wiped the floor with a great team. He can’t be with us to acknowledge that victory. But I promise you he sees it and he honours it, as I know you will honour him. And I ask you not to go out tonight but to stay at home and remember him in your prayers; and to remember all of us who have suffered the loss of this man we loved, this beautiful man from Portugal.’
I didn’t say anything else; in truth I couldn’t say anything at all, not any more. So without another word I went out to the car park and got into my car. For a moment I just sat in the snug silence of the Range Rover’s wood and leather interior, and then I wept.
And when I had finished weeping I drove west, to Silvertown Dock.
16
East London. A Saturday night. Horrible January weather. The air full of sleet and snow as if the city were witnessing a returning ice age; the black River Thames a huge slimy anaconda and as cold as death itself. Wet, dirty cars jostling for space and the kinder sentiments of Christmas and New Year all disappeared now, crushed underfoot by the costly imperatives of living in the most expensive city on earth, or just thrown out like a dead Christmas tree. People hurrying into pubs and off-licences to drink as much as possible before diving into evil-looking nightclubs. The smell of beer and cigarettes and exhaust fumes mixed up into one thick, yellow, all-pervading fog. Ugly buildings dark and derelict and unfeasibly old, as if any one of them might have known the feet of Dickens or even the hand of Shakespeare. And then the unmistakable silhouette of Silvertown Dock. The Crown of Thorns was well-named; sharp, intricately plaited, cruel and jagged, the outer shell of steel looked vaguely holy in the dark, as if the bleeding and battered head of our Lord might appear within it at any moment, looking perhaps more than a little like João Zarco.
The police were in force at Silvertown Dock and so were the TV cameras and newsmen. It looked like a repeat performance of the night Drenno had hanged himself, and I wondered why they didn’t just use the same pictures of me arriving at our ground that they’d taken then. I must have looked just as miserable that evening as my rear-view mirror told me I did now.
I parked my car, walked into the stadium and thought of how the last time I was here, I hadn’t known that Zarco was dead. Instinctively I made for the executive dining room; it was the obvious place for the police to use as a base for their investigations. Along the corridor leading to the dining room there were pictures of Zarco looking at his most enigmatic and handsome. I still couldn’t believe that I wasn’t going to see him again, muffled against the cold in his trademark N.Peal zip-up and cashmere coat, his face unshaven but still handsome, his thick grey hair the same colour as the steel structure outside.
A security guard said something and I shook his hand, as if I were on automatic pilot.
‘Thanks,’ I muttered.
In the executive dining room Phil Hobday, Maurice McShane and Ronnie Leishmann greeted me in the doorway and then turned to face the several strangers who were seated around an Apple Mac on a large circular table: designed by the artist Lee J. Rowland, the surface of the table was made of leather and resembled a football — the old kind, with the laces in the middle. On an earlier occasion Phil Hobday had told me it cost a whopping fifty thousand pounds. Since its arrival in the executive dining room it had been signed by everyone who’d played or coached at London City Football Club, including Zarco and myself.
The photograph of Zarco that we’d found at the bottom of the grave in the pitch was wrapped in polythene and lying on the table with an evidence number stapled to the corner.
A carefully groomed, androgynous woman in her forties, with short, almost white hair and a strong but equally pale face stood up. Good-looking in a MILFish sort of way, she wore a violet dress and a dark blue tailored coat. She was holding an iPad, which made her seem efficient and modern.
‘This is Scott Manson, our team coach,’ said Phil Hobday.
‘Yes, I know,’ said the woman quietly.
‘Scott, this is Detective Chief Inspector Jane Byrne, from New Scotland Yard.’
‘I know you’re feeling very upset, Mr Manson. I know because we were all just watching your very moving speech on YouTube.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, it seems that someone recorded it on a mobile phone and uploaded it while you were driving here.’
‘That was supposed to be private,’ I murmured.
‘Bloody footballers,’ said Phil. ‘Some of them haven’t got the sense they were born with.’ He shook his head wearily and then pointed at a drinks trolley with so many bottles and glasses it looked like the city of London. ‘Would you like a drink, Scott? You look as if you need one.’
‘Thanks, I’ll have a large cognac, Phil.’
‘How about you, Chief Inspector?’
‘No, thank you, sir.’ She handed me her iPad. ‘Here. See for yourself.’
I looked at the iPad and saw a paused picture of myself near the end of my little eulogy about Zarco; the title tag was A Tribute to João Zarco: ‘The greatest football manager that ever lived’, by Scott Manson. Someone called Football Fan 69 had uploaded it.
‘It was a fine speech, Scott,’ said Ronnie. ‘You should be proud.’