by Robert Innes
Another voice rang out. “I think we both know why this is happening, Scott.”
It was Scott and Paul. Peter’s annoyance soon faded away when he realised that the apparent best friends seemed to be in the middle of an argument. He listened in closer as he slowly tied his shoelaces.
“Don’t start that again,” snapped Scott. “It’s helping me. You do remember just how far we are in this competition? Anyway, this is about team pride. It’s not just me going. A load of the lads are. It’s time we showed them what dirt they are. You want us to look the best, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” argued Paul. “But this is insane. The final is tomorrow. What if something happens? What if one of us gets hurt?”
“We won’t. You’re forgetting. I’m going to be there.”
Peter shook his head in disbelief. He really had never come across anybody so incredibly arrogant as Scott. It seemed Paul agreed with him.
“Will you listen to yourself? Can you actually hear the words that are coming out of your mouth? Christ, Scott. I don’t think you realise how much you’ve changed since…”
“Since what?” Scott replied, now clearly forgetting that he had been trying to keep his voice down. “Since Harmschapel started succeeding? Are you with us or not?”
There was a long silence. Peter was now sitting on the bench, fully dressed, but unable to tear himself away from the conversation.
“Fine,” Paul said at last. “But I’m not happy about it.”
“Like I care,” Scott replied. “Now, let’s go. We’re gonna be late.”
Before Peter had time to react, Scott had appeared from around the corner and was staring at him in horror and anger.
“How long have you been there?”
Peter stood up. “Long enough. What are you up to, Scott? Why is your best mate warning you not to do something because the final is tomorrow? What have you done?”
Immediately, Scott was on him. He rushed forwards, grabbed Peter by the shoulders and slammed him against the wall, his face inches away. Peter could see an almost manic anger in his eyes.
“Scott, leave him!” Paul shouted from behind him.
Scott either ignored him or did not hear. He merely gripped Peter tighter, causing him to gasp out in pain.
“Go on,” Scott said quietly, his teeth bared. “Give me the chance. I’ve been wanting to kick the crap out of you all day. Nothing I do has anything to do with you. You’re not on the same level as me, Simpkins. You know that. And you never will be. Don’t think I haven’t seen you making puppy dog eyes at my girlfriend either. Like she’d ever be interested in a failure like you. You stay out of my way or I will rip you apart. Do you understand me?”
Peter, despite how tightly he was pressed against the wall, tried to act braver than he felt. “I’m not scared of you, Jennings. You’re a joke.”
In a terrifyingly quick movement, Scott slammed his fist against the locker, inches away from Peter’s face. It must have been clear, from Peter’s expression, that it had had the desired effect. “You sure about that?”
He pulled Peter towards him and then flung him across the room. Peter landed in a heap on the floor, crying out in pain.
Paul finally stepped in. “That’s enough. Save it for them. Come on.”
Peter looked up to see Scott giving him one last smirk before he and Paul vanished from the changing rooms, leaving Peter alone to pick himself up of the floor.
His first thought was to charge after Scott and finish what he had tried to do in the shop that morning, but then a thought occurred to him. The way Scott had reacted implied that there truly was something going on, something that he wanted to keep secret that in some way threatened the final tomorrow. If Peter could catch Scott in the process of whatever he was doing and was able to prove it to Hattie, perhaps it would be enough to get Scott removed from the final, possibly even the team.
Peter gripped his rucksack and threw it over his shoulder, then marched quickly out of the changing rooms and down the corridor.
When he reached the exit to the stadium, he looked quickly around him. Night had now fully drawn in and the streetlights that were scatted around the carpark were not especially bright. Then, Peter saw Scott’s distinctive bright blue bomber jacket near a fence on the other side of the stadium. Now, Peter knew something was going on. The only thing near the stadium was a large field and there was no reason why anyone would need to go in there, especially at this time of night.
Peter hurried across the carpark and towards the hole in the fence he had witnessed Scott and Paul clambering through. Already, he could hear voices travelling across the field and as he crept behind a bush and peered between the leaves, he was amazed to see no less than six members of Harmschapel FC standing with their backs to him. All of them were friends with Scott, who had placed himself directly in the middle of them. Peter was pleased to see that Ashley Pharaoh was not among them.
All of them seemed to be waiting for something. Before Peter could ponder too much on what this could be, two sets of car headlights suddenly lit up across the field, temporarily blinding him.
Peter crouched down further behind the bushes while his eyes adjusted to the lights and took in the sight before him. A group of men, at least eight, had appeared from behind the cars and were slowly walking towards them. As they came closer, their faces slowly became recognisable.
Strolling across the field were members of Clackton United, the team they would be facing in the final tomorrow. Peter immediately noticed the largest and most intimidating member of the team, Alan Messing, leading the way. Alan was a defender, someone it was notoriously difficult to retrieve the ball from, as Peter had discovered the hard way in a so called friendly game the two teams had once shared, though the way the two teams had played against each other, there had been very little that could have been regarded as friendly about it. Peter had often thought since that Alan would have been better suited to rugby, due to his stature and apparent fondness for knocking players to the ground when he went in for a tackle.
His shaved head silhouetted weirdly in the car headlights making him appear even larger and more foreboding. When Alan and his cohorts finally arrived close enough for Peter to hear what was being said, Alan gave Scott a sinister smile.
“You came then. We didn’t think you would.” His voice was deep, and his dialect was harsh. “Thought the Trunchbull might have scared you into being good little boys.”
“She doesn’t know,” Scott sneered. “Let’s do this. You’re going to wish you’d never been born.”
As the Harmschapel team took a few steps towards the boys from Clackton, Peter suddenly realised what was going on. It was an arranged fight. The two teams had been bitter rivals for years, longer than Peter had been a player, and it was not uncommon to hear stories about different players from both teams getting into scraps. It was well known amongst fans that a match between Harmschapel and Clackton would always result in at least two team members being sent off as the matches usually involved several fouls, usually that had very little to do with anything that had happened on the pitch. Peter had heard talk of a meet up like this for quite some time and he was not in the slightest bit surprised to see Scott right at the forefront of it. Peter watched the proceedings, unable to believe that either team were prepared to risk any players getting injured with the final so near. It was certainly the sort of activity that would get Scott thrown off the team, but it would also implicate the rest of the team.
Then, to Peter’s horror, the Clackton team all produced bats from behind their backs.
Scott stopped in his tracks. “Hey! We said no weapons!”
Alan smirked. “Yeah. You did, didn’t you?” He brandished his bat menacingly then turned to the rest of his team. “Go get ‘em, lads.”
The six Harmschapel men were all staring at Scott as the Clackton team advanced towards them.
“Scott?” Paul exclaimed. “What do we do?”
Scott seeme
d frozen to the spot. If the situation had been less serious, Peter would have loved to see the horrified expression on Scott’s face, but now he was thinking frantically about what he could do to help. He quickly reached for his mobile in his pocket.
Then the sound of sirens suddenly filled the air, causing everybody in the field to freeze. The next moment, blue flashing lights could be seen hurtling towards them across the field.
Alan turned, his face contorted in horror. “We’ve been set up. Get out of here! Move!” he yelled at his teammates. They clearly did not need telling twice. Immediately, the eight Clackton boys were sprinting across the field towards their cars. As the pair of police cars approached, the ignitions of the Clackton team’s two cars roared into life as they quickly sped out of the field.
As one patrol car sped after them, the other came to a stop in front of the Harmschapel team. When the siren finally stopped, the doors opened and the two officers that had broken up Peter and Scott’s fight in the shop that afternoon stepped out. Blake Harte stared at them all with his arms crossed.
“Evening, lads,” Blake said lightly. “And who can tell me what we’ve just walked into here?”
The team was silent. Even Scott appeared to be at a loss for words.
“Don’t all pipe up at once,” Blake said dryly. “Let me save you the trouble. We’ve had a call, claiming that there was a fight about to kick off in this very field and who do we find here but you lot?”
He paused impressively, then suddenly looked directly at Peter. “I can see you behind there, you know. Yes, you – behind the bush?”
The Harmschapel team all turned around leaving Peter with no choice but to stand up. Scott’s face was contorted in rage.
“It was you,” he growled. “You rang the police!”
“I didn’t, I swear,” Peter protested.
“Well, someone did!”
“It doesn’t matter who called us,” Blake said loudly. He stared at the team, shaking his head. “You do realise you lot are supposed to be the face of Harmschapel tomorrow? There’s going to be kids at that final watching you and hoping and dreaming that one day it might be them on that field.”
“Pitch,” said the officer behind Blake. “It’s called a pitch, not a field.”
“Yes, thank you, Michael,” Blake replied irritably. He turned back to the team. “And yet, look at you. Violence and thuggery. If we hadn’t have stepped in when we did, things could have gotten way out of hand. I suggest you all go home now. Otherwise, you leave us no choice but to take you all in for questioning. And don’t think we won’t be keeping an eye on you all for the rest of the night and during the game tomorrow. Any of you put one foot out of line and you’ll have more to worry about than being off side.”
The team all glanced at each other and began sidling off. Scott stood firm. “You tell me who called you.”
“Scott,” Paul said, pulling on his shoulder. “Come on. This isn’t the time to get yourself thrown in a cell.”
“It’s none of your business who called us,” Blake replied. “Now go home.”
“Scott, come on.” Paul began frogmarching Scott away. As they passed Peter, Scott threw him a disgusted look.
“I know this was you. Big mistake, Simpkins. Big mistake.”
Peter watched as Paul continued walking Scott away and then turned to Blake. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
He turned and stormed out of the field. When he was sure that none of the team were hanging around to give him more of a hard time, he made his way home.
It really had been one of the worst days of his life.
4
At five in the morning, Harmschapel really was a very beautiful place. The rays of light from the sunrise skimmed the roofs of the village’s buildings and the birds singing the Dawn Chorus echoed gently in the air.
Blake was sitting in the front garden on a bench beneath his kitchen window staring out as the sky steadily began to grow brighter. Although everything around him was picturesque, Blake could not have felt less at ease. The cup of coffee he had made himself was now cold as he had been sitting cradling it ever since he had come outside.
The screaming old woman had haunted his dreams again the previous night and it had been worse than Blake could ever remember and far more vivid. While the dream usually ended with him stuck to the floor as the screaming old woman rose from her chair and lunged towards him, this time she had chased him all over the house. Each corridor he ran through had been a dead end. He had finally woken up just as the woman had pulled the knife out of her back and gone to attack him. Somehow Harrison had stayed asleep which Blake had considered impressive considering how twisted the sheets on his own side of the bed had been, meaning that he must have been tossing and turning terribly.
He took a long inhalation on his ecig and took a sip of the cold coffee. Why was he suddenly having these dreams again? So much had happened in his life since the days when he had been frequently waking up crying from the dreams as a child. The only conclusion he could come to was that Harrison’s suggestion was right. All the death and bodies he had come across since arriving in Harmschapel may have somehow triggered some dormant memory in his head.
He was just wondering if it was time to start thinking about taking a holiday when the door to the cottage opened and Harrison stepped out looking bleary eyed.
“Blake?” he muttered sleepily. “What are you doing out here at this time?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Blake replied. He did not see the point in going into detail about the dream again, especially as there was very little that Harrison could do about it.
Harrison wandered over and snuggled up to Blake on the bench. Blake put his arm around him and they sat in silence for a few moments.
“Don’t tell me you’re excited about the final tonight,” Harrison said, smiling. “You get to watch the footie for free. I had to pay for my ticket.”
Blake snorted. “I’m not watching the football, I’m watching the players.”
“Oh, is that a fact?” Harrison asked lightly. “Should I be worried?”
“Yes,” Blake replied, laughing. “Thugs who play football is my thing. I may have to be restrained.”
“You really think you stopped some sort of mass fight happening last night?”
Blake nodded. “The Clackton side had baseball bats. Even the great Scott Jennings wouldn’t have been able to stop himself getting his legs broken. Matti and Patil went after them in their car, but they gave them the slip. So, tonight we’ve got to be at the match to make sure nobody starts anything. It’s crazy, it’s normally the fans police have to keep an eye on, not the players.”
At that moment, the door of the cottage opposite them opened and Blake felt Harrison tense up underneath his arm. They both watched as Tom, the son of Blake and Harrison’s landlady, stepped out onto the street. He was one of the best-looking men Blake had ever seen, but Blake was as far from attracted to him as it was possible to be. Recently, Tom had made a move on Harrison in an attempt to take advantage of a slightly rocky period of Blake and Harrison’s relationship. The fact that he now lived opposite to them did nothing to ease Blake’s paranoia, even though he trusted Harrison implicitly.
“Have you spoken to him since…?” Blake asked Harrison, his voice trailing off.
“Don’t be daft,” Harrison said quietly as they watched Tom walk off down the road towards the bus stop. “Although Jacqueline has been badgering me non-stop about why we’ve fallen out. I didn’t have the heart to tell her what actually happened.”
“What, that he tried to break us up and then attempted to snog you?” Blake said dryly.
“Exactly. Anyway, I need to start getting ready for work. And you should try and get a bit more sleep before you go in as well. If something does kick off at the final tonight, you’ll want to be as alert as you can be.”
Blake stretched out on the bench and nodded. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
“I often am,” Harr
ison said lightly as he kissed Blake on the head. Blake smiled as he watched Harrison go back inside and then drained the rest of his coffee, grimacing at the taste. Sleep could not have been further from his mind. At least, he thought as he watched a flock of geese fly overhead, if he was awake then the old screaming woman could not get to him.
Because Blake had never had any reason to visit Harmschapel FC’s football grounds, he had never actually seen quite how large the stadium was. It was located just on the outskirts of Harmschapel and had seen relatively little activity since Blake had arrived in the village, mainly because Harmschapel had gotten nowhere near the final for so long. Now, the stands were full of fans for both teams. Loud chants filled the air and Blake suddenly wondered how it would be possible for the police to be able to control things if anything did happen.
“Quite a lively crowd,” Gardiner observed as he wandered towards Blake. “Mind you, it is the final. You can hardly expect them to be chatting quietly amongst themselves.”
Before Blake could answer, there was a flash from the other end of the pitch. A huge LED screen had burst into life. It was attached to the end of the stands and was displaying the match information. The crowd roared in appreciation as “HARMSCHAPEL 0-0 CLACKTON” appeared on the screen.
“What the hell is that thing?” Blake exclaimed. To him, it looked an enormous eyesore.
“Oh, that got installed a few years back,” Gardiner replied. “Took a fair amount of approval from the council beforehand I can tell you. Some of the locals felt that the money for it would be better spent elsewhere.”
“And they’d be right,” Blake said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Honestly, it’s not like the World Cup takes place here.”
“You’re just down on the game because you’re not a fan,” Gardiner replied. “It wouldn’t kill you to have a bit of loyalty behind your home town’s team, you know.”
“If I may remind you, Michael,” Blake said sternly, “we’re not here to watch football. We’re here to make sure that there’s no more trouble between the players.”