‘With all the stiffs in their team it’s certainly handy for the mortuary.’
‘You’re playing them tomorrow night, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. It’s the second leg of our semi-final match in the Capital Cup. Would you like to come as my guest? We can have dinner afterwards in the director’s box.’
‘I can hardly say no if I’m to be your guest, can I? But what if you lose — won’t you be in a filthy temper? Throwing football boots at people and that kind of thing? You might throw a boot at me. I wouldn’t be at all surprised after yesterday.’
‘That’s Sir Alex Ferguson you’re thinking of, Inspector. Besides, we’re not going to lose. We’re going to win. And I promise not to be in a filthy temper. But bring your smelling salts, just in case.’
‘Are you planning another inspiring team talk, is that it? Like the one on YouTube.’
‘When they win it won’t be for me, it will be for João Zarco.’
‘That might work for the team. But it won’t work for me. I think if I come to the match it had better be because I’d like to see you smile some time. And only if you promise not to tell anyone that I’m coming. I’d hate the news that I was at your game to get as far as Stanford Bridge.’
‘It’s Stamford Bridge. And I don’t believe you’ve ever been to a game of football in your life, Miss Considine.’
Just beyond a park she pulled up on a double yellow line in front of a small sixties-style building that most resembled a public library, with what looked like a little chapel on the end. There was a fence and a hedge and a large oak tree in the garden. She smiled a disarming smile.
‘All right, it’s a fair cop. I haven’t. And I lied about supporting Chelsea. But it cannot be denied that José Mourinho is a very handsome man. Very handsome indeed.’
‘I can deny it, Miss Considine. I can deny it on a stack of Bibles.’
‘It’s Louise. If I’m going to switch allegiance from José to you, I think we’d better be on first-name terms, don’t you?’
‘Agreed. Louise.’ I smiled. ‘Is this just to make me feel better before we go in there?’
‘You’ll have to wait until tomorrow night to know for sure,’ she said.
She got out of the car, opened the gate and then pulled onto a short driveway.
Inside the door of the mortuary she handed me a little glass ampoule covered in cloth.
‘Ammonia gonna say this once,’ she said. ‘Just break it under your nose if you feel faint.’
A mortuary official greeted us. He was small and balding with a gold tooth, and had an Arsenal pin in his lapel, which struck me as brave so close to Upton Park. He showed us into a room with a curtained window.
‘You ready?’ asked Louise.
I nodded.
She broke one of the little white ampoules under her nose and inhaled sharply. The atmosphere in the room was suddenly filled with a strong smell of ammonia and then she was gasping and blinking like she was in bright sunshine and knocking on the window glass.
The grey curtains parted to reveal Zarco’s body lying on a trolley. Most of him was under a green sheet but I could have wished his head had been covered, too. He had been such a handsome man — every bit as handsome as José Mourinho, whom he had known well, of course, since they were both Portuguese. His habitually unshaven face was badly bruised and his skull bashed in like a discarded plastic water bottle. It was the only part of his face that had any colour; the grey hue of the remaining part made him look like an extra in a zombie movie. But it was Zarco all right — I recognised the grey Brillo-pad hair, the sulky mouth and the broad nose; I’d have recognised that nose anywhere. I’d seen it hovering over a glass of good red wine often enough, savouring the bouquet like a true connoisseur. I remembered the dinner we’d had at 181 First, a restaurant in Munich, when he’d come to offer me the job at London City, and the two-hundred-euro bottle of Spätburgunder he’d ordered to cement the deal, and how much he’d enjoyed that particular red wine. I remembered how the restaurant was in the Olympic Tower and that it had been a revolving room, and the fantastic 360-degree view of Munich it had afforded us, and how even now I could remember our table and the way that it, and the whole restaurant, had turned, and how I’d drunk too much that night — we both had — and then the whole world was spinning until the moment when Louise, bless her, had something under my nose and I was reeling away from the ammoniac smell and her hand and the next world’s window.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked as I staggered through the mortuary door.
Outside in the fresh air I wiped a tear from my eye and nodded. ‘It’s him,’ I said. ‘It’s Zarco. Sorry about that.’
‘Don’t be.’ She took my hand and kissed it quickly. ‘Come on. I’ll take you back to Silvertown Dock.’
40
On my way home from the dock to Chelsea I dropped in to see Zarco’s widow again. It wasn’t as if I had anything particular I wanted to tell her but after not taking Toyah’s call that morning I’d called her back, several times, without success. I’m not sure who else she had to rely on, apart from Jerusa the housekeeper, but I was determined not to abandon my friend’s widow just because I didn’t like her that much. Like a lot of Australians in London she was a little too contemptuous of Britain and its awful weather for my taste, which begged the question: if you don’t like it, then what the fuck are you doing here? The one time I’d been to Australia I’d enjoyed myself a lot; at the same time, however, when you were there it was easy to see why so many Australians came to live in London. The weather was actually the least important part of why anyone chose to live in London. Apart from the weather everything was better than in Australia. Especially the football.
I rang the bell without success. The copper guarding Toyah’s door recognised me from before and told me she was still at home but that he hadn’t seen her all day, which worried us both, a little, so he allowed me to shout through her letterbox; and when eventually she came downstairs and let me into the house, I found her wearing a long silk dressing gown and it was obvious that she’d been in bed.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was starting to get a bit concerned. So was the copper outside.’
‘I’m not the type to do myself in, Scott. Not for any man. And certainly not for one who was cheating on me with some little bitch at Hangman’s Wood.’
‘Did the cops tell you that?’
‘They didn’t need to. I knew what he was up to. I knew and I learned to look the other way because I figured it wasn’t going anywhere, okay? Don’t get me wrong. I loved Zarco. But there were times when he couldn’t keep it zipped. And to have an affair at work? That was just stupid.’ She lit a cigarette. ‘Would you like some tea?’
I took off my coat and we went down to the spaceship of a kitchen, which gave me a welcome opportunity to change the subject.
‘I’m sorry I woke you up, Toyah.’
‘That’s all right. I took a pill after I called you this morning and I’ve been asleep ever since. Really, it’s lucky you woke me up. I’ve got so much to do.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And apparently very little time in which to do it. Jesus, I had no idea it was so late. I must have slept for eight hours.’
‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘It’s probably the best thing there is for grief.’
I was looking forward to going to bed myself; Sonja had sent me a neutral sort of text, saying that she hoped I was all right and I replied that I was, but thoughts of Louise Considine notwithstanding, I knew I would feel a lot better as soon as I was fast asleep.
‘I identified his body,’ I said. ‘About an hour ago. I thought perhaps you should know.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate you doing that. I know it must have been very upsetting for you.’