Sudden Death

Ted turned to Pete.

‘Sorry, but only room for one down there.’

Pete looked disappointed.

‘No problem. Let’s hope the boys can turn this around, eh,’ said Pete to the retreating back of Ted.

Ted ignored him and led Erasmus to the front row of the seating block. These were deep, blue leather seats, a stark contrast to the wooden ones that filled the rest of the ground.

In the middle of the row there were two empty seats. With Ted still pushing gently they made their way along the row, Erasmus muttering ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ every few steps as he bumped into the feet along the narrow gap. Erasmus recognised the new mayor and a minor pop celebrity sitting in this, the rich man’s aisle.

‘You take that seat,’ said Ted from behind him, pushing him towards the furthest and most central seat. ‘It’s the best seat in the ground.’ He bared white teeth that would have looked more appropriate on a twenty-five-year-old. ‘It’s my seat.’

Erasmus let himself fall into the seat and Ted sat down next to him. The seats were wider than those he had left but still Ted’s wide thighs strained against the top of Erasmus’s legs.

As they took the seats a chorus of boos rang out from the stand opposite.

Ted smiled, his unnaturally white teeth flashing in the tungsten glare of floodlights, and raised his hand in acknowledgement.

‘Arsenal fans?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Nope,’ said Ted through a fixed smile, ‘just some fucking ingrates who call themselves fans of this club.’

The boos were almost immediately replaced by a communal howling as a player in red scythed down a player in a blue shirt. It was the noise of a million disappointments and the cry of a hungry beast looking for meat.

Ted was so close that his cologne, so heavy and thick it seemed to surround him like a planetary atmosphere, lodged in Erasmus’s throat like a sticky sweet.

‘Do you like football, Erasmus?’

Erasmus had never been a good liar and now was not the time to start. He coughed, clearing his throat.

‘I don’t see the point. There are so many books to read, places to visit, women to know so why would I want to spend any of that time on watching a bunch of men chase an inflated pigs bladder around a muddy field.’

Ted placed his right hand over Erasmus’s left wrist and leaned in close bringing Erasmus closer into the smell of musk that hung over him. It reminded Erasmus of his long dead Uncle Charlie who had washed with coal soap and worn lashings of what his dad called ‘Christmas perfume’; cheap, heavy and sweet. He had an idea that Ted’s cologne wasn’t cheap.

‘See over there,’ he nodded towards the opposite stand, ‘down near the pitch, that small standing area?’

Erasmus saw a part of the stand was fenced off and even from here he could see that this part of the stand was full of teenagers.

‘That’s the kid’s pen. I used to stand there, forty years ago now, watching the greats: Ball, Kendall, Harvey. I have been in the theatre business all this time, and I’ve seen and met them all. Queens, princes, the rich, the poor, the brilliant and the best this world has to offer. And do you know what? I learnt everything about life, loss and love in the first seventeen years of my life, standing over there.’

Erasmus noticed that Ted’s eyes had become moist. He remembered that Ted had, before making his millions in the theatre world, once been a TV actor in a soap opera.

‘Dads would bring their sons, it was a rite of passage. All that life has to offer can be found in this game and, more importantly, in this club. This club is my life, and the life of forty thousand others in this ground. It is everything to the working man: his theatre, his palace, his place of dreams and fantasy.’

Erasmus studied Ted, trying to make out whether any of this was an act, but the tears and the grip on his arm told him that they were not, or that Ted Wright, former actor and theatre impresario, was a master in his line of work.

‘Why are they booing you, your fans?’ asked Erasmus.

Ted leant back in his seat and laughed.

‘We win they cheer me, we lose they boo me and send me excrement, and worse mind, through my letterbox. It’s just the way it is.’

‘Doesn’t sound like much fun?’ said Erasmus.

‘Fun? What the hell has fun got to do with it? I do it because I have to. I’m the guardian of this club! It was here before I was and it will be here after I’m gone and that’s a fact. Tell me, when you were hunting Taliban, was it fun?’

Erasmus said nothing.

‘I know about you, Mr Jones. I make it my business to find out about who I’m going to be working with. Drummed out of the Military Legal Service for picking up a weapon, leaving base and killing two Taliban who had maimed a class of little girls. A rather unusual legal practice and frankly just the type of person who does things because they need to be done, and not because they are fun. Am I right?’

Erasmus breathed in long and hard. Finally, he let the air out. He felt some, but by no means all, of the tension go with it.

‘Pete told me you wanted to speak to me about something?’

There was another roar from the crowd. Ted’s head snapped round towards the pitch.

One of the Everton players had slipped through the mass of red defenders and was bringing his left foot back to strike the ball. A pulse of excitement shot around the ground, transmitting itself through the people around them and suddenly everyone jumped to their feet.

To Erasmus’s amazement he found that he too was standing. Never underestimate crowd dynamics, he thought.

‘Go on, Wayne!’ screamed Ted.

A furiously loud shout of ‘penalty’ broke and crashed all around him as one of the Arsenal defenders kicked the Everton player’s standing foot away from him.

The referee blew his whistle and pointed to the penalty spot. More cheers.

Ted turned to Erasmus.

‘Wayne Jennings, the best player this club has ever produced. You don’t follow football but I presume you have heard of him?’

Erasmus just shrugged but even Erasmus, a sports hater, had found it difficult to avoid the existence of Wayne Jennings, the Premierships youngest ever goalscorer and England’s new hope for glory. He wasn’t going to let Ted know this though. He wondered at the reasons for his own contrariness, maybe it was a reaction to the fact that he had jumped up with the rest of the fans seated around him, an assertion of grumpy individuality. He knew any number of his ex-girlfriends and colleagues would say he was just being a twat.

Ted shook his head.

‘Score this goal and we’ll win and then be off the bottom. Come on, Wayne.’

An almost funereal hush had gripped the fans, men held each other in ways they would consider cause for a fight and shame outside of the ground. The tension was palpable as the young striker, Wayne Jennings, picked the ball up and placed it on the penalty spot.

The opposition goalkeeper moved from side to side and bent his legs at his knees in an effort to distract Wayne. He seemed to ignore the keeper, looking at the ground beneath his feet, until the last second before he looked up briefly and then began to run towards the ball.

There was the crackling sound of forty thousand breaths being held in the cold, November air.

‘Come on, Wayne,’ whispered Ted.

Two things happened at once. First, Erasmus noticed that although the crowd were all looking at Wayne running up to take the penalty, there was one face to his right, maybe twenty yards away, that was turned away from the goal, and the action on the field, and was looking directly at him. It was a man, maybe late forties, jet-black hair greased back and a lined face that spoke of an upbringing nearer to the equator than Bootle. The second was Wayne Jennings lifting his left foot to strike the ball, seemed to freeze in mid air, his foot extended back to almost a horizontal plane, and then wobbling as his right foot collapsed under him, before he fell crashing to the ground, his weaker right foot catching the ball by accident and knocking it forward no more than twelve inches.

The groans were deafening as the opposition keeper raced out and picked up the ball.

Erasmus looked back from the action and towards the man who had undoubtedly been staring at him. He was gone, his seat now empty.

‘Jesus!’ cried Ted.

He bent over and held his right palm to his forehead. An unhealthy looking flush had appeared on his face breaking through the tan.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ said Erasmus.

‘It just fucking well might be. Follow me. To business,’ said Ted.

Ted started walking back down the row, his girth forcing people back into their seats. He didn’t bother with any apologies. Erasmus followed him and supplied them to the pissed off people that Ted left in his wake.

Ted, moving faster than his size or age would suggest was possible or healthy, shot up the steps towards the exit. As he did so Erasmus realised why he moved so quickly. Boos and taunts rang out from what seemed like thousands of people in the stands. You wouldn’t want to hang around in this environment, thought Erasmus.

‘He’s a fucking wanker, drop him!’

Erasmus recognised the voice. It was Pete and he was pointing at the pitch. Erasmus tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Come on, Pete.’

Pete looked up and if he was embarrassed by his comments about Ted Wright’s star player he certainly didn’t show it.

‘Sure thing, he does need dropping though,’

Ted hadn’t stopped and showed no sign he heard the comment. He was now disappearing down the stairwell that led from the stands.

Erasmus and Pete followed.

The stairs led down into an empty lounge area full of set tables awaiting the post match influx of hungry and, by the sound of the groans coming from the stands above, disappointed spectators. The room reminded Erasmus of a shabby but once grand hotel, posters of ex-players covered the walls and there were lots of shiny plasma screens dotted around the room. But look a bit closer and you could see flaking paintwork and worn carpet.

Ted turned to check they were still there.

‘This way,’ he said and he pushed open a service door before stepping through.

Pete and Erasmus exchanged a bemused glance before following.

Beyond was a corridor dimly lit by industrial low wattage bulbs. Pipes and bundles of cable lined the walls. Some of the cabling had long streaks of copper wire that had burst through the perished rubber.

Ted was chuckling.

‘I know what you’re thinking! How do we get the Fire Safety certificate each year? Let’s just say the inspector is an Evertonian and the council leader brave enough to piss off half his constituents hasn’t been born yet.’

Ted didn’t look at them as he talked, he kept walking at his eerily fast pace, his little legs scuttling along the narrow corridor. They followed him along the corridor, which twisted and turned through the bowels of the stadium, for a couple of minutes. Finally, they came to another service door. Ted stopped, pulled out a key on a silver chain from under his shirt and used it to unlock the door.

‘Through here,’ he said with a flourish of his arms.

The door opened out into what looked like a large study more appropriate to a country home than a football stadium. The back wall was made up of bookshelves and a rich brown mahogany desk sat in front of them. But what was really impressive was the outer wall of the study. This was a floor to ceiling window that looked out onto the pitch.

Pete whistled.

‘Nice,’ he said.

Ted manoeuvred his bulk around the desk.

‘Assume you’re not talking about the team. It’s one-way glass.’ He jabbed a fat finger at the window. ‘The buggers can’t see us. Drink?’ he asked.

The fans outside might not be able to see in but they weren’t insulated from the cacophony of boos and jeers rolling down from the stands at the hapless home players.

Pete nodded.

‘No thanks,’ said Erasmus.

Ted poured out two large glasses of whisky and passed one to Pete. He then crashed back into his chair and let out the sigh that comes to all men of a certain age when they return to a sitting position.

Erasmus decided he had wasted enough time here. He hated football and so far the cruel pettiness and barely restrained violence he felt had done nothing to change his view of the sport.

‘So, I know that you instruct one of the magic circle firms for your corporate and transfer work and you use a local firm, Cuff Roberts, for the smaller stuff just so you can boast you support local businesses, so why in the world would you want to instruct us?’

Erasmus noticed Pete suck in his bottom lip.

Ted stared at Erasmus for a second during which Erasmus wouldn’t have been surprised if he had told them to get out right away. Then pointed out at the pitch.

‘Look,’ he said.

Erasmus turned and watched as the final whistle went and the players in red held up their arms. The Everton player’s body language told him everything he needed to know – hunched shoulders and downcast eyes – as they trudged slowly off the pitch. The booing and jeering was of the kind usually reserved for child killers as they sped off in a van from court.

‘Fuck, we lost,’ said Pete.

‘Again,’ said Ted. ‘Do you know what this means?’ He didn’t wait for answer. ‘This means we are second from bottom in the week before Christmas and do you know how many football teams have been second from bottom at Christmas and then not been relegated? Well, you won’t know Erasmus so I’ll tell you. None.’

‘It’s Wayne’s fault,’ muttered Pete.

Ted took a large slug of his whisky.

‘If we are relegated this club won’t survive. We will lose £125 million, be forced to sell our best players and we will be as welcome in this city as a Mancunian Tory.

Erasmus felt his thinner than most patience start to give.

‘So, what has this got to do with me and Pete? Other than Pete’s obsession with a football club.’

Pete shook his head and smiled ruefully.

‘You’ll never understand this place, Raz.’

Ted licked whisky from his lips.

‘Pete was right. It’s Wayne Jennings. Something is wrong.’

Erasmus considered for a second and then decided that, yes, on balance, he had heard him right.

‘OK, I have no idea how a small, two-man firm of lawyers can help one of your poorly performing footballers. Care to enlighten me?’

There was a glint of rage in Ted’s eyes and Erasmus guessed he was used to being given what he considered due respect when holding forth.

‘Wayne Jennings is the greatest thing that ever happened to this club. I believe your colleague Pete can give you his history.’

Pete smiled.

‘Youngest ever goalscorer in the Premier league, youngest and quickest player to reach thirty goals in a season, England cap at seventeen, England hat-trick at eighteen. Voted Europe’s best young player at eighteen. A local boy, a Scouser and the future and hope of this club.’

‘And what is he playing like this season?’ asked Ted.

‘Like a drunken paraplegic.’

Erasmus shot Pete a glance.

‘Nice.’

Pete looked at his feet.

‘Well he is, Roy needs to drop him.’

‘Roy?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Our sorry excuse for, and soon to be, between you me and the whisky, unemployed manager.’

Ted drained his glass.

‘This club is worth what, say £80 million. We had a bid last summer from Real Madrid for Wayne. They offered £65 million. Wayne is this club; he is the most valuable asset we have. It’s no secret that the club has borrowed against him and now he is playing like he’s never seen a ball before.’

‘Is he injured?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Our doctors say he has never been fitter.’

‘I don’t know what to suggest. Sports psychologist? A trainer? Again, how can we help?’

Ted filled up his tumbler with more whisky. This time he didn’t offer any to Erasmus or Pete. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. He looked at it.

‘Lawyer client confidentiality. I need to know that applies here.’

‘It does,’ said Erasmus, ‘unless you tell me you’re about to commit a crime.’ He smiled.

‘I was sent this three weeks ago.’

Ted handed the piece of paper to Erasmus. It was an email printout. The recipient was Ted. The sender was [e-mail]. Erasmus read it.

Wayne has become sick on The Flesh at the Blood House. Stop him or he will never play again.

He passed it to Pete.

‘A classic of its oeuvre,’ said Pete. ‘It’s a shame though that email has all but made extinct the fine art of cutting out newspaper print and gluing it to paper. A real shame.’

Erasmus shrugged.

‘Yes, but no request for payment, which is unusual if it is an attempt to blackmail? Have you asked Wayne about it?’

Ted shook his head.

‘I can’t and neither can the manager. Contractually we are forbidden from raising any non-football issues with Wayne directly. They have to go through his agent, Steve Cowley. I asked him and he said he would take care of it.’

‘Take care of it?’ repeated Erasmus.

‘That’s exactly it. If it was rubbish he would have laughed in my face. Like you say, these things are ten a penny. But he didn’t, he said he would take care of it. There is an “it” and I want to know what “it” is!’ He slapped his palm down against the rich mahogany. ‘Something’s happened and I think it’s the reason Wayne’s form has dipped. He’s a sensitive kid and something is bothering him. When normal teenagers are troubled you get dirty sheets and late nights, with this one, he could bankrupt the club. I want your firm to find out what’s going on. I need to protect my asset!’

‘But why us?’ asked Erasmus, although he already knew the answer.

‘You are lawyers, you can’t go running to the press, and well I know your history, Mr Jones, I know how far you will go.’

Ted looked directly at Erasmus.

‘You want us to find the blackmailer?’ said Pete.

Erasmus shook his head.

‘No, that’s not it. You want us to get Wayne scoring again, isn’t that right?’

Ted placed both hands face down on the table.

‘Will you do it? Peter explained your hourly rates. They are not a problem.’

Erasmus hesitated for a second. He didn’t like this environment, didn’t understand it, but wasn’t it ever thus? Wasn’t it always the appeal of the unfamiliar that attracted him, that usually ended up nearly killing him?

He looked over to Pete and nodded.

‘This one is for you, Pete, we’ll try and save your club.’

Ted was beaming. He walked around his desk and slapped Erasmus hard on the shoulders with one of his bear-like hands.

‘Excellent!’

‘One question, what is the Blood House?’

CHAPTER 5

The Blood House Bar or, as Pete explained, the unofficial home of the city’s Premiership footballers, the hangers-on, WAGS and wannabees, was the type of place that made Erasmus fear for western civilization.

He had no objection to music, albeit the music here seemed to be a sickly RnB, totally unrelated to what he thought of us as RnB: Franklin and Mayfield this was not. He was not against people dancing and having fun as long as he wasn’t forced to participate. No, what he really objected to was people wanting to be seen, to be photographed, to be vindicated by attention. ‘Posing’ his dad would have called it, and the Blood House Bar seemed to be the capital of the city’s posing fraternity.

Pete had cried off. He had a day pass from Debs to come to the football as it was work but an evening in a nightclub was never going to fly. So Erasmus sat with Ted alone in his Maybach on the way to the club.

In the back of the car, his bulk amply supported by the thick leather upholstery, Ted had reclined and had explained Erasmus’s cover story.

‘You are Wayne’s scorta.’

‘What is a scorta?’

‘It’s an Italian term, it means you do things for him, like a batman in the army.’

‘A bodyguard?’

‘Yes, that and more, you look after him.’

‘Do the other players have a scorta?’

Ted shook his head.

‘Footballers are not always educated but they are football smart. They understand the dynamics of a club clearly. Wayne may be young and he may be under the influence of the older players, but make no mistake, they all understand the pecking order of talent and value. The best players get a scorta, particularly if they are young.’

‘And what qualifications do you need to be a scorta?’

Ted smiled, the fat on his eyelids almost obscuring his eyes.

‘A willingness to do anything that is asked. You’ll be fine.’

Erasmus knew the building; he had passed it many times as he made his way to his office in the Cunard Building. Once home to the city’s only abattoir and prior to that the base for the merchants who dealt in African flesh, the grand India Building was now home to Blood House.

The car stopped outside and the driver came around and let them out. Outside the chilly night air, edged with the sharpness of an Irish Sea wind, had not stopped hundreds of people, dressed in clothes more appropriate for a summer’s day, queuing outside on the pavement. Erasmus noticed eyes flicker with interest and then fade into cold boredom as they realised Erasmus was a nobody.

There were two doormen, one older and presumably the boss, and the other young and gym muscled. The older bouncer nodded at Ted and the younger lifted up a braided gold rope that marked the entrance to the club.

‘Evening,’ said Ted.

‘Nice to see you again, Mr Wright. Pity about the result today. The boys are already inside letting off steam.’

Ted stuck out his hand and Erasmus saw that a note was being passed.

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

The rope was clicked back into place by the younger bouncer blocking the progress of two young girls wearing short, gossamer thin dresses and whose goosebumps were visible through their fake tans like seeds on a loaf.

Erasmus followed Ted through the entrance hall, which was lined with floor to ceiling purple velvet drapes. If they had been going for an ambience of expensive decadence crossed with brothel chic then they were bang on the money, thought Erasmus. Ted seemed to know exactly where he was going. He pulled aside one of the drapes revealing an aluminium door, cheap and incongruous. He opened it and stepped through. Erasmus followed him and walked into a wall of pulsing beats, strobe lights and the smell of money and sex. They were standing at the top of a wide metal staircase that overlooked a dance floor that filled with swaying, sweating bodies. The effect from up here was of one many-limbed organism moving in time. The bass that filled Erasmus’s chest was provided by a DJ whose booth was at their eye level, hung from the ceiling by steel wires, suspended over the flock.

Ted leaned in and shouted into Erasmus’s ears.

‘I hate it here, I’m going to introduce you to Wayne and then I’m going. I have to get my helicopter back to London.’

Erasmus nodded. It was useless him trying to speak. Ted would never hear him.

Ted descended the staircase. He seemed oblivious to the revellers who he bumped and barged past, but they also seemed unaware of him, their saucer eyes fixed on the DJ as they danced as one.

Ted carved his way straight across the dance floor, like a shark through an ocean of krill, until he reached the opposite side. Here there was a door with another bouncer stood outside except this one was professional. His dark eyes registered Erasmus and then immediately flickered back to the heaving mass of flesh on the dance floor, scanning for threats. Erasmus could tell from the guy’s bearing that he was ex-military.

‘This is Dave, the player’s general bodyguard.’