Exposed at the Back

by Arild Stavrum

  ‘My fees will be covered by the state. Besides, this case has also given me two other sources of future income. A case like this will make my business better known, and I’ll have the rights to represent Stanley.’

  ‘At least you’re honest. There have been several other agents here trying to court Stanley since Arild Golden died, and they made it out as if we should thank the Lord they would deign to have anything to do with our son.’

  ‘Did you meet Golden?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What impression did you get of him?’

  ‘Definitely a capable businessman. He told us when we signed with him Stanley would get an immediate offer from West Ham’s academy. He also presented a business plan showing how Stanley would make it rich within the next few years. But that bastard was cynical to the core.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Stanley had a number of physical problems. Pain in one of his knees and in both Achilles tendons. You know, Stanley was lured over to Skeid two years ago. Vålerenga, Lyn, Stabæk and Skeid were all begging for him, and when it turned out that Holmlia’s own team couldn’t offer him good enough training, we decided that he could move clubs, but we let him make the decision for himself. He chose Skeid because he knew a number of players there. We organised everything so he could get from school to his training sessions and matches. Everything went fine until Stanley began to complain of these injuries.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I took him along to our GP. He’s got a son of his own who plays on Holmlia’s junior team and played with Stanley before he went to Skeid. He diagnosed Stanley with the early stages of jumper’s knee and chronic Achilles tendonitis.’

  ‘Did you tell Golden?’ asked Steinar.

  ‘He was furious. He said that we had to keep it to ourselves. He also wanted to send Stanley to a specialist he knew. Well, after Golden’s death, we found out what that miracle doctor was doing. Naturally, he wouldn’t see Stanley again once Golden wasn’t paying him, so we took Stanley back to our GP. He spoke with Stanley, examined him again and became suspicious. Golden’s doctor had been giving him cortisone injections. These helped with his knee and tendon problems in the short term, but they could give him enormous problems later in life. His tendons might snap in a few years’ time. Our doctor called it madness to use cortisone in treatment like that, especially with a young boy.’

  ‘Do you know why he did that?’ said Steinar, wondering whether that was the reason Taribo had threatened Golden.

  ‘Golden had struck a deal with West Ham. Stanley was due to go to them in August, and these days there’s big money to be made by agents. The clubs where he played before can’t claim anything more than some small change if he goes to an academy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Steinar.

  ‘Golden called them hidden transfers, because Stanley wouldn’t be sold to the professional part of the club. First he would go to the academy, where they can only pay him board and lodging, plus a few scraps of pocket money, so West Ham wouldn’t need to buy him. But there was an agreement under the table that he would graduate from the academy into their first team squad. We would share a lump sum payment for the transfer with Golden Boys, which West Ham were only too happy to pay, because it was a lot less than the sum Skeid and Holmlia would’ve got from a professional transfer.’

  ‘And Golden told you this?’

  ‘We had to give him our consent, after all. He said it was normal. In cases when the clubs were especially keen, as they were with Stanley, they were willing to give the agent several million kroner under the table. Golden promised us half of the money, but we didn’t know about that business with the injections.’

  They heard the door close and Stanley came in. He took off his red hoodie, pulling up his grey T-shirt in the process, revealing a six-pack. Stanley put his hoodie on a chair and pulled his T-shirt back down, then took out his MP3 player and shook Steinar by the hand. He was almost as tall and muscular as his father.

  ‘How’s it going?’ asked Steinar.

  Stanley looked Steinar up and down before giving a shrug.

  ‘Can we have a chat?’ asked Steinar. Stanley didn’t answer but came and sat down.

  ‘I’ll go into the living room, so you two can speak,’ Mona said, leaving the kitchen.

  Stanley and Steinar made small talk for a few minutes. Stanley didn’t seem very interested to start with, but he gradually started to listen once he realised Steinar had been a good footballer, an international professional.

  ‘Your dad wants me to be your agent,’ said Steinar.

  Stanley’s face lit up.

  ‘Yes!’ he said, slapping Steinar on the back.

  Steinar had spent the past day reading about young Norwegian players lured to various big teams’ academies. Almost without exception, they came back like slaughtered animals and spent years trying to build up a fraction of the career they might have had, wrecks as footballers, and wrecks in terms of their education too. The educational side of foreign football academies seemed a bit of a joke. Stanley would have his breakthrough at home in Norway before being sold. If he was going to be the boy’s agent, Steinar would build him up both as a player and a person.

  ‘But the most important thing is to get you into a proper secondary school where you can get some good exam marks. However you do as a football player, your education will always be useful.’

  Steinar heard the floor creaking and looked up to see Mona standing in the doorway.

  ‘I think we might be able to work together,’ she said.

  Steinar was glad to have gained their trust, but his happiness was short-lived. Stuck on the fridge, behind a magnet, was a picture that Steinar hadn’t noticed until now. A picture of Stanley and his dad, Taribo, at a football match, flanked by another bundle of muscles over 6 feet tall. They had their arms around each other and were smiling. Maybe they were celebrating a win. They were certainly happy. Especially the man that Steinar had seen together with Taribo at Nordre Åsen. The man that Taribo denied knowing. Taribo, who he had to defend in a murder case, had lied to him. How many other lies had he been telling?

  Zizu

  It was after 10 o’ clock. Benedikte walked through the last part of Grünerløkka to a corner of another part of town, Sagene. She crossed over the inner ring-road and went along Vogts Gate, through the neighbourhoods of Torshov and Sandaker and up to Storo. The busy junction there was a jumble of tram lines, tarmac and paving stones, so Benedikte took the cycle path towards Grefsen Station, which for some reason had a window shaped like a Star of David. Then she walked under the outer ring road and up Kjelsåsveien. The walk made her more or less sober again, but she was still heading quite clearly towards Steinar’s house.

  She wanted to laugh at PDTV, maybe show Steinar some of the highlights and ponder what might have happened to the tapes Bettina had spoken about, and what might have been on them.

  She was also curious about how the relationship between Steinar and Taribo was developing, and whether he’d got any further with Stanley. Or had other agents joined the fight?

  And then there was that business with the Astroturf. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. Some online research had given her further shocking relevations that she would have to investigate more closely. She needed help and wanted Steinar to be the one to help her. But most of all Bendikte had gone there from Bar Boca because she wanted to.

  Her determined footsteps stopped two paces away from Steinar’s house in Lofthusveien. She looked through the kitchen window and found herself staring at Junior’s tear-stained face. Steinar was rocking him gently like a baby.

  Junior raised his hand towards the window. Benedikte waved quickly and walked out of sight. The boy was clearly sick and needed his dad, she couldn’t just come barging in now.

  She walked down Lofthusveien until she came to Skeid’s football pitch at Nordre Åsen. She went in through the black metal gate and over to the astroturf. She leaned against
the fence and watched a couple of young lads knocking the ball to each other. One of the lads was tall, dark and West African. He was wearing rolled down socks, shorts that were far too long and a Barcelona top with the UNICEF logo on it. The other boy had lighter skin and was a little shorter, probably North African. The Barcelona boy called him ‘Zizu’, after Zinedine Zidane. He did resemble him, without a doubt. He was wearing a white football top with the number 5 on the back. They kicked the ball as it fell, giving it as much spin as possible. The organised matches and training sessions had finished for the day, but there was still enough light for a kickabout.

  Benedikte stepped onto the synthetic grass which was hard, like green tarmac. Pieces had started to flake off the pitch, as if it had psoriasis.

  One of the lads kicked the ball as hard as he could. It hit the crossbar, looped over the goal and bounced away. Zizu slapped his thigh and pointed at his friend, laughing at him for having to go and fetch the ball.

  Benedikte took out her mobile and scrolled down through her contact list. She couldn’t deal with the Golden case seriously without following up on every bit of information, and maybe it was best to keep Steinar out of it, he might try to stop her. This could cost Benedikte her job after all.

  She scrolled until she came to the number of the NFF’s facilities manager, Birger Holme.

  Part 6

  5 October 2009

  Arild Golden stood in his office on the phone with Per Kristian Boltedal, the journalist from Dagens Næringsliv. He looked across the pitch at Ullevaal while trying to avoid answering Boltedal’s questions. Still, he also needed to find out what the journalist was getting at.

  ‘We’ve heard rumours about money being passed under the table in a transfer deal involving a well-known Swedish keeper moving from a big-name Norwegian club to an even bigger-name English club. What can you tell me about that?’

  ‘No comment,’ said Golden. Snotty brat, he thought. Bloody punk journalist, with his ‘Swedish keeper, big-name Norwegian club, bigger-name English club’. If he was going to accuse Golden of something, he should do it properly and name names.

  Golden knew which transfer the journalist was alluding to, it had happened in a moment of pure Golden inspiration. He’d been at a match and was impressed by the keeper. At the same time, he saw a well-known English talent scout in the stands and sat down next to him.

  The English team didn’t really need a new keeper but the match was so terrible, and there were no other players near international standard, so the scout and Golden started negotiating.

  By midway through the first half they’d agreed on 600,000 pounds. Not as the transfer fee, but as the sum Golden would have to send so that enough people would persuade the club’s all-powerful manager that they needed a new keeper.

  40 minutes after the end of the match, Golden had his first meeting with the keeper. He hoped that the keeper would have an anonymous little agent or, even better, a humble brother or father taking care of business dealings, but no, he had one of Sweden’s biggest agents. Of course, having that agent wouldn’t stop the transfer, but it would cost Golden extra.

  ‘We’ve spoken with a Nigerian agent who claims that you paid him to be an “on-paper” agent,’ said Boltedal.

  This was the first time Golden had used Chukwudi for a transfer. Chukwudi was resident in Norway but, since it’s the individual agent’s own national association that issues a licence, Chukwudi was subject to Nigerian rules. In terms of football, that meant 25-year-old players on the national under-17 team, all of whom were born on 1 January. The Nigerian association was even more lacking in scrutiny than the Norwegian one.

  Golden wouldn’t dare let the Swedish agent into the negotiating room, so he’d represent the keeper himself. The English team had their own agent, so Golden would need one more person to represent the Norwegian club.

  Still, Golden couldn’t quite understand why he’d given this job to Chukwudi. Africans were muscle. When playing football, they shouldn’t stand in goal or take penalties, and Golden couldn’t think of a single African economy that was in good health. A generalisation? Well then, thought Golden, show me a decent goalie, penalty taker or accountant from Africa.

  Of course it was an idiotic thing to do. Of course it was manna to the press. Why should this unknown Chukwudi represent the club in their biggest transfer ever? It was a good idea to use him to bring young Nigerians to Norway, but it had been madness to use him to represent a Norwegian club.

  The money had been siphoned off in too many directions. Golden Boys were left with just 3 million kroner. A big transfer, but a terrible payback. Was he really going to be grilled about such trivial deals?

  Golden answered: ‘No comment.’

  ‘I’ll speak to you again soon,’ said Boltedal.

  Golden hung up.

  XYZ

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Benedikte Blystad to meet Birger Holme.’

  ‘Come on up.’

  A small click. Benedikte opened the door and went into the NFF’s reception at Ullevaal Stadion.

  Nobody was using Ullevaal that day. Vålerenga had played an away match against Start in Kristiansand the day before, and it was a long time until the next international. But the main reason it was empty was that Holme and Benedikte had agreed to meet on a Sunday morning.

  Ahead of the entrance door was the changing room area. When she’d started working as a reporter for Sports Review, Benedikte had hung around after matches with the other journalists there in the mixed zone, where they waited for over-dramatic statements from young footballers or angry coaches leaving in protest. It wasn’t that difficult to judge what state of mind footballers would be in.

  But this was also where Steinar Brunsvik had been presented with an impossible choice to make. Benedikte thought for a moment about the young VG journalist who hadn’t understood what was going on when the national team’s highest-profile player had left the stadium during half time.

  She went up the stairs and into the long corridor where the NFF offices were. The association’s logo was woven into the carpet. She skimmed through some of the names on the two large plaques in honour of those with 50 or more caps. The plaques looked like two giant beer labels. She walked past a display case with some kind of Ming vase inside. It was surely an innocent gift, but it reminded her of what Boltedal had said about them all being corrupt.

  Outside the window she saw the empty rows of plastic seats. In the east stand, the VG Stand, blue seats spelt out the word ‘Ullevaal’ amongst the red seats.

  Benedikte had been to all the Tippeligaen and First Division grounds in Norway. The TV crew always arrived several hours before the match started, so the sight of an empty football stadium was nothing new to her. What always surprised her was that clubs managed to sell seating as advertising, with hundreds of chairs spelling out a company’s name, even though the name could only be read if there was nobody at the match. It was advertising space for companies who wanted to sponsor losers.

  She looked at the other side of the stadium, where Arild Golden’s office was. There was just one stand separating her from the crime scene. She carried on to Holme’s office.

  His office was empty, so Benedikte took out her mobile but like so many times before at Ullevaal there was no sign of a signal. How was the NFF supposed to pick up what grassroots Norwegian football was saying if they couldn’t even get a phone signal?

  Benedikte tried sending a text: ‘Where are you?’

  She sat down and took out a plastic folder with some print-outs she’d made of reports on research into synthetic turf.

  Then a noise, as if somebody had closed a door. Benedikte leant forward, craning her neck so she could see down the corridor, but everything was silent. She sighed and went on reading a report about the use of a specific type of synthetic grass, called XYZ.

  For prestigious facilities like top division pitches, Golden had made sure to get the best types of artificial grass. The real scam was aimed
at the smaller clubs, where the rock-hard XYZ was used, like at Nordre Åsen.

  XYZ was also used in the vast majority of the country’s indoor arenas, large and small, including Årvoll. And the developers, both in the public and private sectors, had done everything they could to save money on something as important as ventilation. Was that such a lethal combination that it might cause cancer?

  She was going to force answers out of Holme. If TV2 found out she was still investigating the story, she’d need something heavy to slam on the table, a story so good that they would have to show it.

  She walked along the corridor and into the boardroom. The floor was covered with wide, brown wooden panels, blue upholstered chairs around an oval table. All the old association presidents stared down at her from black-and-white photographs on the walls. Apart from them, this room was empty too.

  What if Holme had suffered a heart attack? Maybe he was lying down the corridor fighting for his life. There had to be something, as he’d let her in after all. Or had the voice on the entry phone belonged to somebody else? The sound had been crackly, but she’d just assumed it was him. What if it was somebody who altered their voice so that she’d think it was Holme?

  Benedikte’s phone beeped as a text message arrived, making her jump. She unlocked the keypad and read the message from Holme: ‘But I thought you’d cancelled?’

  She ran towards the exit.

  Back then, long ago, all her trouble had started in her bone marrow and spread through her blood, so from then on she’d always been in a hurry. She wanted to do everything. Life could be so short. Now she was being chased again. The monsters were back.

  She was grabbed from behind, a cloth over her nose and mouth. She couldn’t help trying to breathe. Then she passed out.

  Vroom

  Steinar put down the phone.

  His eyes were wide open, even though he hadn’t slept more than a few minutes that night. Junior’s chickenpox had been itchy, and the boy had been crying, it all felt like one big hangover. The lack of sleep dulled his senses, but he had to get to the police station as soon as possible.