Final Whistle

by J Jackson Bentley

  The postman was on the doorstep ringing the bell when I drove up to the house.

  “Morning, Tom,” I said.

  “Good morning, Alex. I have an envelope marked ‘Photos do not bend’ and it won’t go through the letter box, so I thought I’d take a chance on you being in.” I took the package from him and we talked about the England Football Team’s summer tour. Tom had no interest in football at all until he was given a round that included the house of Bobby Charlton. I don’t know what Bobby said to him but now Tom was a confirmed season ticket holder and my conduit to what the fans were saying and feeling. Tom pulled no punches with me. If we had played poorly he wouldn’t hesitate in telling me so.

  Postman Tom wandered off to Alice’s house next door and I let myself into the house. I laid the post down and put the kettle on to make a drink I never had. I opened the letters first and found the usual mix of insurance offers. I deposited them in the kitchen swingbin. Then I turned my attention to the large packet. It was brown and had a solid cardboard backing. I opened the envelope and pulled out the contents. There were a number of large photographic prints with a white sheet of paper clipped to them and covering the images. The letter was simple and threatening.

  “Keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you. Forget Roy Bennett and the Goalkeeper. If you don’t or if you go to the police, the negatives of these photo’s will be sent to one of the tabloids.”

  The print was large and bold, the message was equally clear. I removed the cover sheet and looked at the photographs. They were black and white and about eight inches by ten inches. They were very good quality.

  The first picture was of a naked man about to jump into a swimming pool. His back was to the camera and his leg obscured the face of the blonde haired woman in the water. The pool was mine but the bare bottom certainly wasn’t. I flicked anxiously to the second shot. The same man was in the pool and lifting the naked woman up out of the water, her long wet hair clinging to her back. Both photographs had been taken with a long lens through the glazed screen that surrounded the pool.

  The third picture had the man chasing the woman from the pool area into my lounge, his hand groping her buttocks. I could only see their backs. The fourth picture was of the same couple lying on the lounge rug in the tangle of love making, the woman’s long hair fell down, obscuring the man’s face. This was all taking place in my lounge. There was my chair, my TV and my football awards on the fire surround. I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing, but when I saw the fifth picture I had no alternative.

  There in front of me was a shot of the couple taken through the glazed screen and the open patio doors. Although it was darker in the lounge the light from the patio doors fell on the lovers. The man was lying flat on his back with his hands cupping the breasts of the blonde woman sitting astride him. There was no doubt as to what they were doing. The woman was looking straight ahead and smiling. It was Vicki, my wife.

  ************

  I didn’t even look at the rest of the photographs, I just let them slip from my hands onto the floor. There they lay, eight photographs of an unknown man cavorting with my wife. Vicki. The woman I loved and who I thought loved me. I fell back onto my chair and sat for almost an hour in total shock. The remaining three photographs showed the two of them in a variety of lovemaking positions but always from behind. His hands and lips were all over her. All over the naked body of my wife.

  I sat as if in a trance with the fifth picture on my lap. Vicki was smiling, just like she did for me, but with some other man inside her. I felt physically ill and had to rush to the bathroom where I was violently sick. Weak from vomiting I walked slowly back to my chair and the picture. I forced myself to look at it again. I still couldn’t believe it. In the bottom right hand corner the date was printed in white. The date the picture had been taken was recorded as 8th June four years previously. I had been away playing in the World Cup.

  I couldn’t bring myself to accept it. How could Vicki do this to me? Worse still, how could she go on pretending that nothing had happened? I thought back to my return from the England training camp that summer. She had seemed so pleased to see me. As soon as we got home she rushed me up to the bedroom and we didn’t come out for hours. She had me completely fooled. How could a woman claim to love one man and yet derive such carnal pleasure from a virtual stranger? He must have been a virtual stranger because I had never seen him before.

  I had to face the truth. The only answer that made sense was that she didn’t love me. She must have loved him whilst trapped in a marriage with me. I began to panic. I don’t know why, but my heart began to race and sweat beaded my forehead. All of a sudden I had to gasp for breath as an invisible vice gripped my chest and squeezed. My heart pounded, my breaths short and shallow. My vision began to blur and I thought that I was going to die. I tried to stand up but my legs gave way. I thought it was a heart attack. I wanted to scream. I was terrified and I didn’t know why. Air, I needed air. There was none in the room and so I forced myself to my feet and holding onto walls and doors I made it to the front door. I opened it quickly and breathed in the fresh air. Gulping it down I found my breath coming more easily. I sat on the bonnet of the car and breathed deeply.

  It was ten minutes before I calmed down enough to go inside. The house seemed so small, hot and confined I believed I would suffocate. I opened all the windows and doors and reached for the phone. I pressed redial and waited. Sara picked up the phone at the other end.

  “Hello,” she said brightly. I tried to speak but an unintelligible grunt came out.

  “Who is it?” She asked, concern in her voice. I managed to get out four brief words before another breathless attack hit me.

  “Alex,” I stammered. “This is Alex,” I passed out and dropped the phone.

  ************

  I must have only been out of it for a few seconds because when I came around, the phone was calling out.

  “Alex, Alex, stay with me, Alex.” It wasn’t Sara. It was a man’s voice. Sara’s brother.

  “Jimmy?” I asked uselessly into the phone mouthpiece.

  “Oh, Alex. Thank God. I thought we’d lost you. Look, stay where you are Sara’s on her way. She’ll be there in thirty minutes. Do you need a doctor?”

  “No. I think I’ll be OK.” The voice didn’t sound like mine but it was coming from my lips.

  “Right you are, then. You’d better put the phone down so that I can get hold of Sara on her mobile and tell her that you’re all right. Otherwise she’ll have the doctor, the paramedics and the bleeding seventh cavalry down there. Take it easy, mate. I’ll speak to you soon.”

  ************

  I couldn’t figure it out. I’d never been afraid of anything in my life and yet here I was, lying on the sofa terrified and I didn’t know why. Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed, at least in my mind. In my panic I must have left the front door open because Sara suddenly appeared at my side. Worry lines creased her young face. She sat on the edge of the sofa and dabbed at the beads of sweat on my forehead with her handkerchief.

  “What is it, Alex? What happened?”

  I spent the next few minutes describing my attack. She asked questions, I answered. She felt my heart. It had slowed a lot but it was still beating faster than normal. Sara stroked my hair and diagnosed an anxiety attack. She made me lie still and relax while she made me some tea. When it was ready I took a sip. It was sickly sweet. I grumbled, only to be told that it was good for me and that I was to drink it all.

  We sat together on the sofa holding hands, saying nothing. She smiled and kissed me lightly on the cheek before speaking slowly and calmly.

  “You are getting your colour back now, Alex darling. Can you tell me what you were doing when the attack began?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to speak and so I pointed to the photos lying scattered on the floor at the other end of the room. Sara picked them up and shuffled them into order. She read the note that had been
attached and sifted through the pictures. After looking at each one for a few seconds she set them down on the chair and came to sit beside me again.

  “Vicki?” she asked, already knowing the answer. I nodded. Tears welled in my eyes and I blinked them away. Sara pulled me close and held me there for a long time.

  ************

  Sara ran me a warm bath and demanded that I soak in it for at least thirty minutes whilst she prepared some lunch. When I emerged from the bath I found that Sara had laid towels on the bed. She asked me to lie face down on the bed and to loosen the towel around my waist. I did as she asked. Using some pure olive oil that she found in the kitchen she massaged my back, neck and shoulders. I hadn’t done a thing all day and yet I felt drained and exhausted. Sara spoke as she manipulated my neck muscles.

  “Alex, from what you have told me about Vicki, I find it hard to believe that she would do this to you. There must be some other explanation.” She paused for thought. “Perhaps she was forced into it in some way. Blackmail, maybe.”

  “You saw the smile on her face,” I retorted. Sara was silent for a moment before she continued.

  “Maybe so, but I still don’t believe it and neither should you. She loved you, Alex, and if you love her you shouldn’t accept it so easily either.”

  “What other explanation is there?” I wanted to believe that Vicki had loved me and me alone.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps the pictures are fakes. It has been done before. Just last week in the newspaper there was a picture of how Cheryl Cole might have looked had she done the wonderbra advert. It was tasteless but clever. The picture looked real enough to me but it was all done with computers and that was in full colour.”

  I sat up, ensuring that my modesty was retained by the strategically positioned towel. I wanted to go along with Sara’s conjecture but whoever had sent the photos said that they had the negatives. If that was true I couldn’t take any chances. Sara rebuked me for my pessimistic outlook and determined to take the photos and have them checked out. I let her take them, I didn’t want them in the house for Tanya to find.

  For the next couple of days Sara phoned me three times a day. I had slipped into a deep and dark depression and despite my best efforts I was unable to snap out of it. The doctor suggested some anti depressants and in desperation I accepted a week’s supply. I heard nothing more from my blackmailers but that was presumably because they had succeeded in keeping my nose out of the match rigging affair.

  Opening the post had become a concern to me and I opened each letter with more than a little trepidation. I breathed a sigh of relief when the only letter was from my solicitor. My case was now listed as first fixture and would commence in the High Court in September. Perhaps I would feel better by then. Quite honestly at that moment I couldn’t have given a damn about the case.

  The phone rang and I prepared myself to chat to Sara and reassure her that I was feeling fine.

  “Hello, this is Alex,” I said more brightly than I felt. The call wasn’t from Sara but rather it was Tony McDonald from Sky Sports.

  “Alex. Listen, I can’t talk at the moment but you need to switch Sky News on in ten minutes.”

  “Why, Tony? What’s going on?” I was puzzled and concerned.

  “I can’t explain but the newshounds are pressuring me for your home phone number and so far I’ve told them I can’t find it, but I can’t hold out for too long.”

  “Tony, please. What’s going on?”

  “Alex, I’m sorry. Watch the news and when things quieten down I’ll do everything I can to help. Call me at home if you need me. Take care, Alex. I’m on your side, man.”

  I felt my heart racing again.

  ************

  I rang Sara but she wasn’t in. I left a message on her answering service. She wouldn’t catch the news anyway as they didn’t have satellite television.

  The titles rolled and the news headlines were read out over pictures of the leading stories. The first item was presumably the one that Tony had expected me to watch. Onto the screen came a jaded and confused looking Eddie Winston. Eddie was one of the country’s top strikers. Only tough competition had kept him from a regular England place. Now he was sitting in the press room of his North London club as cameras flashed and his solemn manager introduced him to the waiting press. Eddie’s voice was a monotone as he read out a prepared statement.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, I believe that the time has come to make a statement to end the speculation about my personal circumstances. Some newspapers have carried stories about my having a drug problem, others have hinted at it. The club have been very supportive and I have repaid that support by coming out and admitting that I have been a regular user of cocaine.” He paused as audible gasps came from the gathered press corps. “Today I am being admitted to a clinic where this problem can be treated and I would ask that you all give me peace and quiet so that I can fight this addiction and, hopefully, get back to playing football next season. Thank you”

  A hundred reporters all shouted out their questions at once. The manager fielded them and asked the Evening Standard reporter for his question first. I had always admired Eddie and I believed that he should have had more caps than he did, but I was hardly a close friend and so Tony’s urgent phone call puzzled me. I continued to listen as the pressmen and women probed to find out when it all started, whether he took it before matches and all manner of irrelevant but newsworthy facts. The manager called a halt to the questioning and everyone stood up when a late question was shouted out.

  “Is it true that Roy Bennett supplied you with illegal substances until his death?” Eddie looked sombre and ashamed.

  “It’s true,” he said. The pressman smelled blood and pressed on.

  “And would you confirm the story that another prominent footballer has supplied you ever since?”

  “No, I won’t,” Eddie replied. The pressman pushed harder as Eddie began to walk from the platform.

  “Come on, Eddie, don’t cast a shadow over your team-mates. Tell us who it was. We have a good idea anyway.” Eddie dropped his head and mumbled a name as he exited through the door. Despite his mumbling the name was picked up by the microphone quite clearly. The whole press corps was silenced as they jotted the name down in their reporter’s notebooks.

  The name they wrote down was Alex Carter.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Come on, Alex. Everybody’s snorted a line of coke at sometime in their life. Its no big deal. Hell, the next government might even legalise it.” The detective was trying to sound reasonable, trying to be my friend, my confidante.

  “You may have experimented with drugs but I haven’t. Never.” The detective shrugged his shoulders and sat down opposite me.

  The room was hot and stuffy, there were no windows and four of us were breathing the limited stale air. I had Simon Moreton beside me and it wasn’t just the temperature that he found uncomfortable. Nobody believed me but it was true, I had never found the need to experiment with drugs. It wasn’t because I was a Mr Clean, it was because I had no need of stimulants, and then I thought of the diazepam that the doctor had prescribed sitting on my bedside table. Maybe if things kept going from bad to worse I would have been tempted but then I remembered Tanya and knew it wouldn’t have happened.

  ************

  I had been trying to contact Sara when the banging started. I opened the door to see two police cars sitting on my driveway. The plain clothes policemen flashed their warrant cards and handed me a search warrant before marching past me into the house. They asked me to co-operate and tell them where the ‘stuff’ was, or they would take the house apart. I told them that I had no idea what they were looking for and they laughed.

  After thirty minutes of searching I heard a yell from upstairs.

  “Bingo! Up here, Sir.”

  We all congregated in front of the airing cupboard where a uniformed PC had his arm stretched around the hot water cylinder. With a flourish he pul
led out a Harvey Nicholls carrier bag. Inside the bag was a sealed bag of white powder, some small stainless steel instruments and a number of smaller clear plastic sachets. The detective turned to look at me and smiled. Gotcha, he must have thought.

  I’d never seen the contents of the bag before, though I remembered the carrier bag from one of Tanya’s shopping trips in Leeds. Needless to say the police didn’t believe a word I said and so now I sat in an interview room denying all knowledge for the fifth time.

  “For the last time, my client denies any knowledge of these illegal substances, if in fact they prove to be the alleged cocaine at all.” Simon protected me as best he could but I knew that the odds were stacked against us. The policeman smiled nastily and issued a threat.

  “Well if it wasn’t Mr Carter, it must have been his daughter. Perhaps we should bring her in for questioning.” Bad leg or no bad leg, I would make him pay. The chair scraped along the floor and then fell over as I leapt at the scowling detective. I grabbed his jacket and said quietly, but with venom,

  “You leave my daughter alone.” Simon eased my hand off the policeman, who was taken aback by my reaction. I sat down. The policeman withdrew his threat and apologised for the benefit of the tape recorder.

  I was detained overnight until the substances had been properly analysed, but none of us had any doubt as to what they would find. A kindly duty sergeant took my belt and settled me into the police cell for the night. I had plenty of time to think but I could come up with no answers. Sara picked me up from the police station the next morning. I had been charged and released on bail. I would be appearing in court in due course.