Exposed at the Back (3 page)

The Small World of Football

‘Kick him, for fuck’s sake!’

Steinar turned towards the shouting. A man in his forties, wearing glasses and light-blue clothes, was gesturing at the pitch. He carried on screaming abuse at the Skeid players in their red strips, and at the referee, with the occasional bit of praise mixed in for the right-back on the team in white.

A few yards behind him stood two African men, over 6 feet tall and broad shouldered. One of them had to grab onto the other several times to hold him back.

The right-back miskicked a pass straight out of play. Undeterred, the man in glasses shouted, ‘come on Oppsal!’, his voice annoyingly high-pitched.

Skeid took a quick throw in, the ball ending up at Stanley’s feet. The players on both teams were shouting his name continuously. Either, ‘pass to Stanley’ or, from the other side, ‘mark Stanley’ and then more and more often, ‘get Stanley!’

Stanley was right in front of the man in glasses, showing off. He put his foot on top of the ball purposefully. Two players from Oppsal were blocking his way. He performed the slightest of feints, a minimal shift of weight from right to left. Steinar felt the same movement in his own legs, how many times had he done the same? Stanley took off and sprinted down the touchline.

Steinar didn’t read the sports pages any more, but it was impossible not to pick up on the biggest stories. He knew that Spain had won the World Cup, Lionel Messi was a fantastic footballer, and Liverpool had gone from three goals down to victory against AC Milan, but he hadn’t seen it himself. Still, it was so easy to recognise a dummy on the pitch.

‘Shit,’ said the man in glasses.

One player had reacted and was now approaching at full speed from the side. He was clearly fed up of Stanley laying waste to them. He closed his eyes and flung himself with both legs stretched out, one along the ground and the other high in case Stanley jumped. This tackle had to hit its target. Either the ball or the player, preferably both.

Stanley stopped and the Oppsal player went past him, onto the tarmac surrounding the astroturf, crashing into a large rubbish bin. By the time he opened his eyes Stanley was long gone.

In between the artificial grass pitch and the gravel pitch there was a small, grassy knoll, a natural grandstand usually reserved for the players’ parents and friends. Today it seemed as if there were an unusually large number of people watching this match between two of Oslo’s boys’ teams.

Steinar looked along the crowd. A couple of them nodded at him, a few others trying unsuccessfully to put a name to his face. He moved, scanning for a free spot away from the others, then he saw her sitting there on the grass.

Above her light summer trousers she was wearing a blue sleeveless shirt, holding one slender hand over her sunglasses. The evening sun rippled down over the apartment blocks below the pitch. The lenses on her Ray Bans were darker nearer the top, and her blonde hair also went through different shades.

Steinar was afraid he’d been studying her too closely, so he looked over at a small step where he could stretch out his legs, which were stiff after the bike ride. Just as he started walking towards it he heard her shout: ‘Steinar Brunsvik!’

You might hate hearing about rally speed tests, the national crosscountry skiing championship and the Gundersen method in the Nordic combined; you might think Swix was a kind of chocolate bar, not ski wax, or that Offside was the name of some distant country, but you would still know who Benedikte Blystad was.

His legs steered him towards her, but he didn’t answer. The ball was out of play, Benedikte was looking at him, and the whole neighbourhood had fallen silent. He had to say something.

‘You know me?’

‘Do you know
me
?’

‘You work for TV2.’

‘Why are you so surprised that I recognise you?’

‘It’s a long time since I was last in the sports news.’

‘You’re still a frequent discussion topic over lunch at TV2. A quiz question. “Name a man who made a legendary exit.”’

Steinar felt his body itch. The blood was streaming from his lower legs, through his hips, up through his chest, on its way further up. He rubbed his hand on his forehead and tried to push the blood down through his face, down to his neck and away. He didn’t want to blush now, couldn’t blush now. He was 35, for Christ’s sake.

‘You talk about me at TV2?’

‘Why so surprised?’

‘No, I just didn’t think, I thought, I don’t know…’

‘Straight from the Norwegian First Division to Ajax Amsterdam. Everyone was sure you’d come home with your tail between your legs but you ended up in the Dutch Team of the Season. You’re one of the few footballers who’ve played on the Norwegian national side without having played in top-flight Norwegian football. But that’s not the most interesting part of the Steinar Brunsvik puzzle.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Steinar.

‘Why did you stop playing? You were a standard fixture at Ajax, a regular on the national team, only 25 years old, just approaching the best age for footballers. Then, during half-time in an international match at Ullevaal, where you were the best player on the pitch, you just vanished. Never to be seen on a football field again. Why?’

Steinar was out of practice. All the sports journalists in the country had tried to solve the puzzle back then, but it had been a long time since anybody had shown interest, not least such a beautiful girl.

Steinar didn’t generally watch sports programmes, but he’d seen Benedikte at least twice on TV2’s Friday late-night talk show. There it had seemed as if she were playing some kind of role, although they probably all did. Her voice, in particular, was different now in real life. Softer, perhaps. And she appeared genuinely interested as she looked at him, asking why he’d stopped.

Luckily, they were interrupted by a plump young man in a suit. The man cocked his head and gave a crooked smile. He pulled a business card out of his pocket and gave it to Benedikte.

‘My name’s Ola Bugge, football agent. If you need a strong new voice on TV2, an expert commentator with charm, just give me a call.’

Bugge winked at Benedikte, holding his eye closed for several seconds before bowing his head, then lifting it back up and opening his eye again. He turned, carried on walking along the crowd, handing out
cards to everyone whose eyes met his. Benedikte looked at him, then at Steinar, and puffed out her cheeks.

The interruption had given Steinar time to regain his composure.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

Benedikte looked at Steinar through the darker part of her sunglasses.

‘I’m a journalist. I want to find out who killed Arild Golden. This is my chance for a scoop, and the clues are to be found here, in the world of football.’

She nodded at the astroturf, where Stanley was performing a double step-over feint.

Part 2

24 July

Arild Golden stood at the busy junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. Outside the Dominion Theatre was a gold-painted statue of Freddie Mercury with the promise: ‘We will rock you.’

He walked a short distance up Tottenham Court Road and took a side road to the left. It was narrow and dark. At the end of the blind alley stood a tall, heavy-set man, dressed in black, who opened the unobtrusive door. Golden walked downstairs, and a smiling woman in a raspberry-red dress showed him the rest of the way
.

The bar was at least 15 metres long. Shadows danced on the grey brick wall behind the eight barmen, and music by Massive Attack was playing. Golden loosened his tie just a little, undid the top button on his shirt and sat down on a bar stool. He didn’t look at the cocktail list, ordered a drink he knew wasn’t on it
.

‘An Old Fashioned, please.’

‘With whisky?’

‘Tequila. Jose Cuervo, Reserva de la Familia.’

‘You know it’ll take about 15 minutes?’

‘I know.’

The barman took out two glasses. Into one he poured the tequila. In the other, a heavy on-the-rocks glass, he put some sugar, which he dampened with a few drops of Angostura bitters. He crushed the mixture with a long, twisted steel mixing spoon. Then he added a minimal amount of tequila and an ice cube. He stirred it for a couple of minutes before fishing out a small piece of orange peel, which he singed, then put in the glass, stirring some more
.

Into the bar came the man who had so often ended up in the ‘sundry’ column of Golden’s accounts. A number of the patrons glanced up. Everton manager Brian Fulton was a well-known face. Fulton wasn’t bothered by
people looking and made a beeline for Golden
.

Fulton was wearing a dark grey suit with a white, partially open shirt. He was still slim, even though it was a few years since he’d stopped playing
.

‘For Christ’s sake, Golden. Who the fuck is this fucking Per what’s-his-fucking-name?’

Golden signalled to the barman and asked for a beer for his friend. The barman served up a bottle of Sapporo Black Label. Fulton brought it to his mouth and drank half the bottle in one go
.

‘And what’s this fucking piece of Japanese shit?’ he said, before going on to drink the rest
.

Golden ordered another one, and Fulton took a swig of the Japanese beer that clearly wasn’t so bad after all. Golden leant closer to Fulton
.

‘Per Diesen is Norway’s best footballer,’he said. ‘He’ll fit in perfectly in the English league. Your team needs a playmaker, and Diesen will be a star for you. I’ve never let you down before.’

‘We do need midfielders, but there are loads of them out there,’ said Fulton, finishing his bottle and starting another. He was on auto-pilot now
.

‘7 per cent,’ said Golden
.

‘15.’

‘Are you mad? 8.’

‘I’m taking a big risk with this transfer. 12.’

‘There’s a good tradition called meeting each other halfway. Let’s say 10 per cent.’

Fulton downed his third beer in a single gulp, then put down the bottle, shook Golden by the hand and left the bar
.

As if on cue, the barman put the Old Fashioned he’d finished mixing down on the bar. Golden closed his eyes and took a good sip. He controlled the two men from Everton he needed. Any other representatives would be like the damask rug in the Wimborne Room at The Ritz, unnecessary decoration
.

He had a deal
.

Pride

Steinar looked out the window and saw a man walking around on his property, a white van parked in the drive. Steinar went outside. The man was wearing a blue boiler suit, and he was scratching the part of his scalp not covered by his cap, which he wore backwards.

‘How does it look?’ asked Steinar.

‘Looks like there’s still a fair bit of activity, I’m afraid. Especially at the bottom of the house. It might be slugs eating the poison there, though.’

The man was from Rentokil. The company’s mission was to fight vermin, and Steinar thought that it’s name was almost perfect. Why hadn’t they gone all the way, though, changing the middle vowel and calling themselves Rent-a-kill? Together with some of his neighbours, Steinar had called in the company after last year’s neighbourhood barbecue was interrupted by a lethargic brown rat sauntering off with a Hungarian sausage.

Rats were unavoidable in a city like Oslo, in fact, they said there were twice as many rats as people there. But even though, statistically, Steinar should have to house two of them, neither he nor his neighbours were willing to accept that.

‘Well, at least there’ll be fewer slugs then,’ said Steinar, who had just as little sympathy for the Spanish slug as he had for
Rattus norvegicus
.

‘No, they just scoff the poison. They think it’s tasty; it doesn’t hurt them. They don’t have any blood in their bodies.’

‘They snack on rat poison?’

‘That’s what they do,’ said the Rentokil man, putting on a cheerful face and standing stock still. After a few moments, he spoke again. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking how cool it would be if my body had the same kind of tolerance for Coke and crisps. If none of it stuck. If it just
passed straight through.’

He picked up a grey, metal box with yellow stickers on it and opened it with a special key. Inside was an empty, white plastic bowl.

‘You see how the bowl’s been practically licked clean? Typical slugs.’

He sprayed the bowl full of blue foam and locked the metal box with demonstrative thoroughness. The rat poison looked like toothpaste.

‘Humans can’t keep down enough of the stuff for it to be dangerous. It contains an emetic that rats don’t react to, but that makes us throw up. It’s an ingenious little product, this is, when you think about it,’ said the man, taking off his plastic gloves. ‘Turns out this is the last time I’ll be here. I’ve got a new route. It’s a shame, because there are so many nice people in this area.’

‘Do you like your job?’ asked Steinar.

‘Yeah, I get to be out and about lots, meet new people all the time. I love it.’

‘Good luck, then.’

Steinar thought the conversation was over, but there was something keeping the man here. He looked down, cleared his throat and said: ‘I’ve got a nephew.’

Steinar looked at the man, who gave no sign of continuing. Steinar knew where he was heading, but he still waited for him to go on.

‘He’s football mad. He practises the whole time. Well, he’s quite good at skiing too, but in the summer it’s nothing but football.’

‘Great.’

‘I’m sorry to ask, but I’d really like to have your autograph. For my nephew, I mean.’

‘That’s no problem,’ said Steinar, looking at the man. Now, according to the usual custom with autographs, the man would normally produce something to write on and something to write with. After a brief pause, the man started patting down his pockets. He’d clearly left his pen in the van. He apologised and went to get a biro and a piece of copy paper that he used for his reports. He asked Steinar to write on the back.

‘Thank you so much. He’ll be happy with this,’ said the man, meticulously putting the top back on his biro. ‘So what are you doing these days anyway?’

Instinctively, Steinar was about to answer ‘I’m a footballer.’ He’d worked so hard at it for so many years, it was still part of his system in a way. But he looked at the Rentokil man and told him what he did.

‘I’m a lawyer.’

‘Blimey.’

Steinar gave a lop-sided smile. The man held up the little scrap of paper in the air.

‘Thanks. I’ll make sure the next technician gets all the information.’

Technician, thought Steinar. So that’s what they call themselves.