Exposed at the Back (9 page)

Whore

Benedikte sat down with Ola Bugge in Burger King at Ullevaal Stadion. She’d treated him to a Whopper meal and hinted at a vague chance of an appearance on
Football Xtra
.

‘How come you’re listed on the electoral register as Alexander Bugge-Eriksen, yet your business card says Ola Bugge?’ she asked.

‘I thought it looked better to have a less pretentious name.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Most of my talent comes from the East End of Oslo, and the hyphen in my name seemed to snag on the last lamp-post every time I tried to cross over the river from the West End. Besides, all the biggest Norwegian agents over the years have had traditional Norwegian names like Lars, Leif, Per, Stig, Einar, Erik, Rune and, not least, Arild. Ola wasn’t taken yet.’

‘But neither Ola Bugge nor Alexander Bugge-Eriksen are licensed with the Football Association of Norway. So that means you’re not even an agent, are you?’

‘I am an agent, but if I want to sell a player, I need the assistance of someone who’s licensed. The only difference is that I have to split some of the profit.’

‘But you don’t want to sell, do you? You’re just going to take 1,000 kroner a month from every single player and pretend you’re working,’ said Benedikte.

‘I want to sell players, it’s just none of mine have been good enough.’

‘So why did you let Golden take over your best ones, such as Otto Cana and Kalid Jambo?’

‘He outmanoeuvred me,’ said Bugge, sucking the mayonnaise off the end of one of his chips.

‘How?’

‘I was picked up by a chauffeur. It felt like I was being given a private audience, but most of all it felt like I was being given a chance. If I could get in with Golden Boys, then all the doors of the football world would open,’ said Bugge.

‘But Golden wasn’t interested in you, was he?’

‘He barely had time to look at me. He was on his exercise bike, wearing one of those T-Mobile shirts from the Tour de France.’

Golden was known to be an exercise addict and a distinguished participant in everything from cross-country ski races to the Oslo Marathon. Benedikte even remembered seeing a report on Golden taking part in the formidable mountain run at Skåla in western Norway.

Bugge continued: ‘He was standing up on the pedals with his shirt half open, sweat running down his chest. Then he sat down in the saddle, looked at me and said: “Five minutes of slower pedalling now, that should be enough time to reach an agreement.”’

‘About what?’

‘The price for Kalid and Otto’s contracts,’ said Bugge.

‘And did you reach an agreement?’

‘Four minutes later we stopped at 100,000 kroner. I had to relinquish all my rights to them. I signed and was escorted to the bus stop on the ring road.’

‘100,000 kroner is good money.’

‘Not really, but the incident taught me a few things about business and football,’ said Bugge, unwrapping his cheeseburger.

‘So are you after Stanley now?’

‘He’s the biggest talent in Norway. And I wouldn’t even have to deal with all that passport mess that’s usually involved with African players.’

‘Passport mess?’

‘Stanley’s a Norwegian citizen. The really big talent is usually from African countries. And then you’ve got to work on their passports.’

‘I still don’t get what you mean.’

‘In Africa, the players with the most talent stagnate when they hit 16. Their league systems are weak, and they haven’t got the facilities or good coaches. Besides, it’s illegal to transfer players from one continent to another before they reach 18. Ergo it’s up to us agents to take the expense of buying new passports, so we can inflate their age and get them into Europe.’

‘I thought you aimed to make them seem as young as possible.’

‘Sooner or later, yes. When they’re in their early twenties we need to
bring them back down to 18. All clubs want to buy 18-year-olds.’

‘And the 100,000 you got? I expect you used it to buy the rights to Stanley. Am I right?’ asked Benedikte.

‘All I gave him was a CD,’ said Bugge.

‘What CD?’

‘Snoop Dogg.’

‘Which one?’

‘Can’t remember the name. There was a blue picture on the cover.’

‘
The Blue Carpet Treatment
? You went for the bargain section? You forked out all of 50 kroner. Just a guess, but you haven’t nailed the rights yet, have you?’

‘Hey, I didn’t come here to be insulted. On the phone you said you could help me out with some screen time if I gave you the information you needed.’

‘You’ve given me nothing of worth yet. Nothing that will help me to find out who might’ve killed Arild Golden.’

Bugge took a long look at Benedikte before he spoke again. ‘I was sitting outside their flat at Holmlia yesterday when a young African boy knocked on my car window and tried to sell me a bike. I turned down the offer but carried on talking with him. For 500 kroner, he told me everything he knew about Stanley’s family.’

‘If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’

‘He told me a long story about Stanley’s uncle, who thought he would become a pro too but was conned. His uncle had to live on the streets in Antwerp for years, until Stanley’s dad went down there and rescued him.’

‘On the streets, you say?’

‘He’d been working as a whore.’

Golden Goal

Steinar sat in his office, reading through the arrest warrant and the charge sheet that the police prosecutor had faxed over. They’d also had a short telephone conversation in which he’d been told that the remand hearing would be the next day at 1 o’ clock. The doorbell rang. Two cases in one day, or journalists who’d found their way to his office? He opened up.

Benedikte was wearing a beige top, a short, matching pleated skirt and brown high-heel sandals. She smiled. Did she like him? If so, would she still think the same if she knew the truth about him? Again Steinar looked at her for a little too long before he said anything, then eventually invited her inside.

She sat down and didn’t even let Steinar get back into his chair before she started.

‘How did you manage to get Taribo Shorunmo as a client?’

Steinar stopped short for a couple of seconds before he sat down.

‘How…’

‘Don’t waste any thought on it, we get hold of information like that. I can guarantee that the papers are on the scent too.’

‘Yeah,’ said Steinar, ‘I’ve had to give them “no comment” several times today.’

‘But just explain to me how you managed to steal the most attractive and high-profile criminal case in Norway when, let’s be honest, your business here in Sandaker isn’t exactly booming.’ Benedikte crossed her legs. The same combination of bare legs, sandals and chat. Steinar stood up and looked out of the window.

‘I… er…’

‘Relax. I’m here because we’ve got shared interests. We can help each other.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Steinar.

‘We both need Taribo Shorunmo to be innocent.’

‘Why?’

‘Wouldn’t it make your job a bit easier if we found out somebody else had done it?’ asked Benedikte.

‘Of course. What’s in it for you?’

‘He’s in custody. All of Norway knows that now, it’s not news any more. So I’m going to keep working on it in the hope that he’s innocent. I repeat, how did you get him as a client?’

There was something in what Benedikte was saying. He needed all the help he could get. He and Taribo didn’t stand a chance on their own. Perhaps they could help each other, and perhaps it was worth taking a chance and trusting somebody. He told Benedikte about Taribo, starting with their first meeting at a Norway Cup final and finishing with Taribo asking Steinar to be Stanley’s agent. He didn’t give her any sensitive information, and the fact that he was going to act as Stanley’s agent was not something that could be kept secret, or that he had to keep secret anyway. An agent had to work in the open market when a player was on offer, after all. Or was he just defending himself? Was he being unprofessionally open just because Benedikte Blystad was so beautiful?

‘So it’s a double jackpot for you, then,’ said Benedikte.

Steinar had read through the rules that applied to agents. It was a gold mine. There were no regulations as to how much an agent could ask for. In a country like Norway, where most things were regulated, and where an employer couldn’t even give his employees a bike without the gift being taxed, it was strange that it wasn’t subject to certain rules. An agent could charge anything. 10 per cent, 50 per cent, or even 100 per cent of a 15-year-old’s pay.

Stanley appeared to be a future international star. If his mother was unschooled in the world of football, like his father Taribo said, then there was basically nothing to stop somebody in Steinar’s position from putting together a contract securing himself an enormous future income. But Steinar didn’t want to exploit the situation, he wanted to have what he saw as reasonable compensation for work carried out, and Benedikte’s words ‘double jackpot’ hurt him.

‘Being Stanley’s agent makes me vulnerable too.’

‘How?’

‘Stanley might have been the reason that Golden was killed.’

‘Is there that much money involved with such a young boy?’

‘Agents who are willing to exploit the lack of restrictions could end up making several million a year from representing Stanley. And of course there are people who would kill for that.’

‘Are you thinking about Ola Bugge?’ asked Benedikte.

‘Taribo brought him up as a possible suspect. Taribo also thought it was Bugge who’d reported him to the police, so that he could sign a contract with Stanley without any interference. Who else do you think might have a motive for killing him?’

‘Per Diesen. I’ve got several sources who claim that Arild Golden was having a relationship with Sabrina,’ said Benedikte.

‘Jealousy is a classic motive, just like money. Any others?’

‘Bugge told me that Taribo had a brother, and the rumours are that he used to be a street prostitute in Antwerp.’

‘A prostitute?’

‘Apparently Taribo found out about it after a number of years, went down there and fetched him.’

‘But what’s that got to do with Golden?’

‘We know that Golden’s been an agent for more than 20 years, and that he’s been working in Africa for just as long. Could Taribo’s brother have been an early transfer for the Golden Boys system? A transfer that went wrong and led to him ending up on the streets? It happens all the time. We’re talking about thousands of African footballers living like this.’

‘I’d go for revenge as a possible motive too.’

‘We’ve also got the other Norwegian footballers. In the top division alone, Golden Boys has the rights to 134 players. It’s obvious that some of them might feel passed over or poorly treated.’

‘134 players. Are you sure about that? How on earth is one agent supposed to keep a personal eye on all of them?’ asked Steinar.

‘All agents work on a principle of “profit in numbers”. By signing as many players as possible you increase your chances that one of them might excel and make you a profit.’

‘So do you think that a player might have missed out on some income and taken Golden’s life?’

‘That’s one possible slant. And money takes us further along the list. Kåre Jan Vasshaug, the TV2 news anchor, gave me a tip on how he used to approach a story. He always went looking for the money. If it was raining in the Sahara, you could bet that an oil company was
making money by disturbing the ecosystem. Somewhere or another there’s always a trail of money,’ said Benedikte.

‘And then there’s the question of where there’s the most money to be found.’

‘That brings us back to astroturf. A hundred new pitches every year, pitches that have to be replaced every five years. Millions of kroner each time, millions that soon turn into billions. Golden had secured work through all kinds of channels. He was making money out of players, coaches, clubs, national teams, sponsorship, TV rights, but perhaps most of all out of astroturf. And since I met Birger Holme, the facilities manager of the NFF, my suspicions in that area haven’t exactly diminished.’

Steinar had visited the increasingly frail Ståle Jakobsen again that morning, so he was keen to investigate that avenue further. That trail might provide some answers about who’d killed Golden as well as who’d slowly been killing Jakobsen. Besides, it might divert Benedikte’s attention away from his own past.

‘We’ve got to follow up on the artificial turf. That way, we’ll find out who might stand to gain most now that Golden’s not got a slice of the cake any more.’

‘Speaking of cake, you owe me a dessert from last time. Let’s go for a walk,’ said Benedikte, getting up.

They strolled to a nearby café, Åpent Bakeri, where they pushed through a pile of pushchairs and found a table. Benedikte bought a croissant and a latte, Steinar made a fool of himself by ordering toast. It had to be made so he had to sit there keeping the conversation going while she ate.

Had Benedikte reminded him of the dessert because they hadn’t finished their conversation at the Baltazar Restaurant, was that where she was heading? How long would it take before she started digging into his past again?

‘Have you heard that Jonathan Franzen’s working on a new book?’ Steinar said.

He’d been skimming through the culture pages in
Aftenposten
and had seen a short note about it. In actual fact, Steinar hadn’t read any of Franzen’s previous books, nor had he any intention of reading his new one, but that was the kind of thing people chatted about.

Benedikte didn’t answer.

Steinar was about to say something else when she leant forward over
the table. She dried her mouth on a white napkin and said: ‘I don’t give a shit about Franzen. Why do you want to talk about him?’

‘Huh?’ said Steinar.

‘It makes me suspicious. I’m starting to wonder why you ran off and why you change the topic to trivial things like Noddy, Pippi or Franzen.’

Steinar glanced at the counter, looking for his toast. At the till, a woman with far too many tattoos was playing with her hair.

‘Either you’re hiding something and are directly involved in the Golden case,’ Benedikte continued, ‘or you’re nervous because you like me. So, let me ask, did you have anything to do with the murder of Arild Golden?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So this has to do with you wanting to sleep with me.’

‘I…’

‘Let’s nip this in the bud.’

‘How…’

‘I think we’ve got to sleep together.’

‘Wh…’

‘You’ve got to stop stammering. Let’s make a deal. You stop hiding things from me, we’ll work together to find out who killed Golden, then we’ll have sex. That way you won’t have to think about pulling me as we go along. Consider me pulled. How does that sound?’

After some back and forth, Steinar stuttered: ‘I look forward to it.’

Benedikte crossed her arms and leant back, melting the whole bakery with her warm smile.