I closed the report and locked it in my filing cabinet before unlocking my office door again. Rather shamefully, perhaps, my first reaction on having finished reading the report was to congratulate myself on being alive when someone else — someone close to me — was not; but this, in the great scheme of things, is really all you can ask. To be around when others have had their heads bashed in is not much of a philosophy, but in the absence of something better it serves just as well as anything else.
37
When the training session at Hangman’s Wood was over I sat down with Simon Page and some physio reports and made the team choice for the match on Tuesday night. Christoph was out of the team in favour of Ayrton, and we had some of the more experienced players, like Ken Okri, at the back, but the rest of the side was taken from our reserves and under twenty-ones. At their pre-match press conference the Hammers had announced that they intended to field a full-strength side for the Capital One Cup match. Since the last cup won by West Ham had been the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1999 — an out-of-season competition that was generally held to be a joke — and before that the FA Cup in 1980, when they’d defeated Arsenal, the club had decided that they owed it to the supporters to actively compete for some silverware.
I was surprised at this decision; then again, it’s an easy mistake to make — to pay attention to what the fans want instead of what’s best for the team. I decided that we were going to stick to our guns — the young guns, that is. But my mind really wasn’t on team selection. I kept on thinking about Zarco’s sunglasses on the floor of suite 123 and what they were doing there.
I had a theory, but as with all good theories I needed to conduct an experiment in order to test it. I rang Maurice.
‘I want you to do me a favour,’ I told him. ‘There’s a place called the Mile End Climbing Wall, on Haverfield Road, in Bow. I want you to go and buy some rope.’
‘Don’t do it,’ said Maurice. ‘You’re too young to die.’
‘Two hundred feet of rope, to be exact. In fact, I want everything you’d need to go climbing on the Crown of Thorns. A helmet, a padded harness, the rope, and someone who knows how to use that gear. If Sir Edmund Hillary is knocking around tell him there’s two hundred quid and a pair of tickets in it for him if he’ll come back to the dock with you. Otherwise, bring back anyone else who looks like he knows his ice axe from his elbow. I need two things from him: one is to lower me safely out of a high window; the other is to keep his mouth shut. If there’s no one prepared to help we’ll just have to work it out ourselves. But I want to do this today before it rains or snows again.’
‘All right. Will do. It’s your neck. What’s this about, boss?’
‘I’ll explain everything when I see you.’
A couple of hours later Maurice was back at the dock accompanied by a thin, intense-looking man with red hair and a beard; he was wearing a green Berghaus fleece and carrying a large coil of rope and a rucksack full of gear. His name was Sean and he was from Bethnal Green, which is of course where a lot of great Alpinists have hailed from. I was still wearing my tracksuit and a pair of trainers from the training session at Hangman’s Wood. I led the two men up to suite 123 and closed the door behind us.
‘What is this room, then?’ asked Sean.
‘Private hospitality suite. Belongs to some guy from Qatar.’
‘Really? Looks like the inside of my dad’s Jaguar.’
I showed Sean into the kitchen and then opened the kitchen window.
He peered out of it and nodded, circumspectly. ‘That’s about a fifty-foot drop.’
‘About that, yeah. I figure twenty feet to the descending cross beam and then another thirty or so to the ground.’
‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’
‘Very.’
‘That cross beam looks a bit awkward. You wouldn’t want to have to climb on it. Especially in this weather. It looks slippy.’
‘Probably.’
‘What the fuck’s the point of it, anyway? The beam, I mean. In other words, does it have a function?’
‘It’s modern architecture,’ I said. ‘There’s no function. Just form.’
‘So what’s this all about?’ he asked. ‘Are you an adrenalin junkie or did you just drop your mobile phone out of the bleeding window?’
‘Let’s just say I’m doing it because it’s there.’
‘Comedian.’ Sean smiled a thin sort of smile. ‘Everyone thinks they’re Mallory and Irvine these days. You ever done any climbing before?’
‘Only the stairs,’ I said.
‘Got a head for heights?’
‘I guess we’ll find out.’
‘True.’ Sean sighed. ‘Two hundred quid and a couple of tickets, right?’
I nodded and handed over the money and the tickets for the Hammers match, which had been in my pocket.
‘Paid in full.’
‘Cheers, mate. I’d have preferred tickets for Tottenham, myself, but I ’spose these’ll do, yeah. Thanks.’
All the time he kept glancing around as if checking out his surroundings.
Sean went out of the kitchen and into the sitting room. He pointed at the sliding door.
‘What’s out there?’
Maurice lifted the roller blinds and then opened the door to reveal the stadium seating and, in the centre, the pitch.
‘Ah,’ said Sean. ‘Now that’s what I’m looking for.’ He pointed at some of the seats in front of the hospitality suite. ‘First principle of climbing: find something stronger than yourself to tie a rope onto. These seats will do fine.’
When he’d finished tying the rope onto the seats he fetched the climbing harness from his backpack and fed the long piece of webbing around my waist, through the buckle, and then back again; with the two leg loops he did much the same. He checked the three buckles were fastened to his satisfaction and then tugged a loop in front of my navel towards him.
‘This is the belay loop,’ he explained. ‘The single strongest point of the harness. And the bit that’s going to attach you to life. Are you left-handed or right-handed?’
‘Right-handed.’
He attached a karabiner to a belay device and clipped it onto the belay loop. Then he took a bite of rope and forced it through the bottom of the belay device. ‘This lower part of the rope is your brake,’ he explained. ‘The brake hand is your right hand and that never comes off the line. Not for a moment. The guide hand on the upper part of the rope is your left hand. You’re safely tied in now.’
‘I’m beginning to think my two hundred quid is well spent,’ I said.
‘Hopefully you won’t ever know just how well,’ said Sean. ‘Now all you have to do is belay.’
Having showed me the basics of belaying, and letting me practise a little, we were ready to go.
‘If you start to fall too quickly then bring your brake hand — your right hand — down between your legs and the bend in the rope will arrest your descent. Understand?’
‘I understand.’
He handed me a helmet and I strapped it on. A few minutes later I was out of the window and leaning back with both hands on the brake rope, as instructed. Each time I loosened my double grip on the brake rope I could descend.
‘Take your time,’ said Sean. ‘A couple of feet at a time until you get your confidence.’
From the kitchen window I let out the rope in short increments until I was standing on tiptoe on one of the main beams on the crown of thorns. And now that I was there I was able to inspect the steel surface of the descending beam more closely and confirm what I had strongly suspected: that Zarco had actually fallen from the window of the kitchen. He’d hit the main beam on which I was standing, then slid round and down at an angle, shifting a trail of dirt and bird shit from the polished steel.