False Nine by Philip Kerr Page A

ball to kick. Like a soldier without a rifle, I guess.
    I went to wash my hands. Along the way I glanced at my phone and saw from the Twitter feed that some women were calling on me to be sacked after my joke about Rafinha coming off the pitch during the game against Villarreal because he had his period. The fact that I didn’t have a job didn’t seem to have registered with my critics, many of whom had tweeted to tell me I was a sexist pig and every bit as bad as Andy Gray, and so I dismissed them from my mind.
    Besides, it seemed rather more important that the manager of another Premier League side had just lost his job. I didn’t kid myself that I was about to walk into another big club soon. Not when there were men like Tim Sherwood, Glenn Hoddle, Alan Irvine and Neil Warnock all looking for a new job. In truth I’d already made my decision about what I was going to do. Jacint had reminded me, subtly, that Barcelona had taken me into their family at a time when I was recently out of prison, and anyone else might have given the matter of my employment a second thought. I owed the Catalans something for giving me a chance when no English club had been there for me. And now that I came to consider the matter in more detail, it seemed that I owed them, big time.
    Besides, without a ball to kick, what else was I going to do with my time?
    I came back to the table.
    ‘All right, I’ll do it. I’ll look for your missing player. But let’s get one thing clear, gentlemen. Let’s assume for one minute that I am as clever as you say I am. Then you’ll forgive me if I tell you the real reason you want to find Jérôme Dumas and are prepared to pay me so handsomely to do it. Which has only a little to do with everything you’ve mentioned. I mean, that was nice and it all sounded very plausible. Even romantic. I like the idea of Barcelona as the political heart of Catalunya. But as a reason for paying me to try to find Jérôme Dumas discreetly? It’s bullshit.
    ‘The real reason you want me to find Dumas is mostly to do with the FIFA transfer ban on FCB that took effect at the end of December 2014.’
    This was the ban that was imposed as a result of FCB having breached the rules regarding the protection of minors and the registration of minors attending football academies.
    ‘I assume the loan of Jérôme Dumas from PSG to FCB was specifically constructed to get around the transfer ban. Because, according to my sources, you won’t be able to sign another player until the end of 2015, which means that the loan of this player assumes a much greater importance than it would normally have done. Especially in a year with a club presidential election.’
    My sources were my own father, of course, but it sounded better than just coming out with ‘my dad says’.
    ‘There aren’t many top strikers who get loaned between clubs like this. You were lucky to find one at this time of year. Most smaller teams are looking to sell their best players to the bigger clubs in the January transfer window. So I also assume that FCB will pay a fee to PSG at the end of 2015, regardless of whether Dumas performs or not.
    ‘Look, I don’t blame you. I’d have done the same if I’d been in your position. A ban like this because of some stupid administrative error seems quite disproportionate and typical of the high-handed way that FIFA conducts itself these days. Frankly, I think they’re all a bunch of crooks. But please don’t think I’m at all ignorant of what’s going on here. If you hire me you hire me to find the truth, with all that that entails. I think it’s best we all know what’s what here. Fair enough?’
    Jacint smiled, exchanged a look with Oriel and then nodded.
    ‘Fair enough.’

8
    I returned to Paris to begin the search. By now the Twitter flap was a storm with the sorority calling for the FA to punish me with a fine, and given some of the things I was on record as having said about the FA, this looked to be more