False Nine by Philip Kerr Read Free Book Online Page A

Just to banish any further doubts you might have about who I really am.’ He searched through the channels. ‘As it happens,’ he added, ‘I’m currently on the Bloomberg Channel, on a series called Market Makers , talking about the uncertain future of the Chinese economy and our very overvalued stock market which is in line for a correction. Yes. Here we are. I am in conversation with Stephanie Ruhle. She’s rather attractive, don’t you think?’
    I watched for a moment – just long enough to realise that he was probably who he said he was – and then handed him back his passport.
    ‘You begin to see the problem,’ he said, switching off the TV.
    I nodded. ‘Shit, I knew there was something wrong the minute I got off the plane. I was supposed to have been paid a signing-on fee which never arrived.’
    ‘In business I always say that the only thing you can trust these days is the money. A man’s word is worth absolutely nothing next to the certainty of a CHAPS transfer.’
    ‘And there was to be a medical, too.’
    ‘A medical?’ Jack Kong Jia laughed. ‘For you? This is not necessary for a manager. Even for a player this would be possible to fix. Frankly I can fix anything here in Shanghai. Especially a medical. I should know.’ He grinned. ‘I have a minor heart condition – a hole in the heart – that somehow never shows up on my regular health check. Although everyone now knows about this.’
    ‘I’m wise after the event on that one, I’m afraid. Look, I don’t get it. Why would someone want to make me look a fool like this? In China?’
    ‘Not you, Mr Manson. This isn’t really about you at all. I’m sorry to disappoint you on that score. This is all about me. Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to impersonate me and embarrass my company. You’re just the fall guy in all this. Which I very much regret as I was an admirer of yours when you were managing London City.’
    ‘But I went to the club,’ I said. ‘We watched a match against Guangzhou Evergrande in a private box. I had a tour of the Yu Garden stadium the next day. I even met some the players. It all seemed so plausible.’
    ‘The box was probably one of our top executive hospitality packages. The one with the hostess girls? And the Krug champagne?’
    I nodded.
    ‘As for the private tour of the stadium, with a player-meet, this costs five thousand yuan. About five hundred pounds. No, you’ve been had, Mr Manson. And had good, too. The man hired to impersonate me was an actor, probably. A man with some ability, it seems, since I don’t assume for a moment that you’re a complete idiot.’
    ‘Fuck,’ I said.
    ‘Exactly so.’
    ‘If he’s an actor then perhaps we can trace him. He’s committed fraud.’
    Mr Jia – the real Mr Jia – smiled a smile of pity. ‘There are twenty million people who live in Shanghai,’ he said. ‘Even if we could find him, what would be the point? The damage is already done.’
    ‘But why? Why would someone do this?’
    ‘Oh, it’s simple enough. You see, I – my club – was about to hire two new players from English clubs to come and play for us in a few months’ time. At the end of your season. These two players – who are household names, I might add – they may have been finished in your Premier League but they would have been paid top wages and would, almost certainly, have given us the edge over all our rival teams. Not to mention some significant marketing opportunities. However, your press conference has put paid to that, I imagine. No one in their right mind is going to sign for Nine Dragons when the evening newspapers print the story about you walking out on us before you’d even started. Even for a hundred thousand pounds a week. You were very eloquent, Mr Manson. Your signing-on fee was not paid. Your accommodation arrangements were dishonoured. There were some calculated insults. Racism. Those new players who would have come are black. No, I’m afraid it all