by J M Gregson
Robbie Black hugged each of his players in turn as they came off the field: they were all heroes today. He gave his after-match interviews to Sky television and the BBC, taking several deep breaths before he did so to enable him to seem sober and balanced rather than happily triumphalist. He genially turned aside the inevitable probings about the future of Ashley Greenhalgh, saying reasonably enough that he wanted just to savour this moment – victories over Liverpool did not come too often to the smaller teams, and this was his first one as manager.
Robbie stayed with his players to enjoy the victory with them. The dressing room was a noisy, exultant place, filled with laughter and the clumsy male teasing which normally accompanies notable team triumphs. It was an hour and more after the conclusion of the game when Black donned his suit and climbed the stairs to the hospitality suite.
Entertaining visiting dignitaries is a strange business after a game like this. The home team’s representatives are trying not to exult too publicly in their victory. The visitors are trying desperately hard to be good losers. Both sides pretend that this is after all only a sporting occasion, which should be kept in its proper perspective. Neither group is normally very successful at adopting the role required of it. There is an air of strained politeness, with brittle laughter trying to soften the raw edges of triumph and disaster. Kipling’s advice to treat these twin impostors with equal contempt was an admirable admonition, but he never attended a Premiership soccer match.
The Liverpool group were sensibly looking to leave as soon as they reasonably could, to drive the short distance back to their great city and nurse their wounds in private. Edward Lanchester wrung the hand of his old friend Joe Nolan heartily enough as he took his leave, but the rest of the Brunton Rovers party were no more than decently polite. They wished their visitors well in their quest for the title, though by now they knew that Liverpool’s rivals had won and today’s defeat would almost certainly be crucial for them.
When the Brunton party were finally left alone, Darren Pearson made sure they all had full glasses in their hands to toast the victory. The tensions of politeness dropped away, the exultation of today’s result and the manner in which it had been achieved broke out anew. The noise level rose, the laughter now was uninhibited and genuine.
Jim Capstick watched and waited. On this night of euphoria, there wasn’t going to be a right moment for him to drop his bombshell, but it had to be done. He couldn’t leave it any longer without rumour running rife. The Sunday papers were already on to the story. The football correspondents of the News of the World and the People had phoned him during the morning, asking for comments on what they had picked up from sources they refused to name.
He rapped his glass upon the table, waited until the startled, apprehensive silence was complete and said, ‘I am sorry to interrupt our celebrations of one of the most notable victories since I took over here. This is not the right time to tell you this, but I have no choice. I had much rather that you heard this from me than from anyone else. I need to tell you that I am engaged in discussions about selling my majority interest in Brunton Rovers Football Club.’
There was a shocked silence. Then, as the excited reactions began, Edward Lanchester called over the heads of the others in the room, ‘You mean a take-over.’
‘I do, yes. I should stress that we are at an early stage of negotiation, but at the moment it seems that a change of ownership and direction will be in my own and the club’s best interests.’
Lanchester said sourly, ‘Your own interests I can appreciate. We shall need convincing that this will be in the club’s best interests.’
Capstick had expected this view from this source. He had also determined to point out the facts of life before anyone in this room got ideas above their station. ‘The decision to sell or not to sell is entirely in my hands, Edward. You need to realize that times have changed. I will put this as clearly as I possibly can. As far as I am concerned, Brunton Rovers is one of several business assets I possess. I need to review constantly the portfolio of those assets. We are in the midst of a recession which has considerably reduced the value of many of the businesses I control. One of the few assets which I can still sell for almost the same price as at this time last year appears to be the football club. I am therefore investigating the possibilities of doing so.’
Lanchester knew now that he would be unable to affect this, even if, as he sensed, there was support for him from the rest of the room. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to state the case he knew was hopeless. ‘Rich businessmen from all over the world are interested in buying Premiership clubs. Most of them have no previous affiliation with them: they are on ego trips or simply out to make money.’
Capstick smiled. ‘I shall of course make every effort to ensure that the long-term interests of Brunton Rovers are borne in mind.’
‘So long as it does not affect the price you receive for it.’
Jim Capstick was at ease now, with his announcement made and the realities of power becoming more explicit with each sentence in this exchange. He felt the excitement he always felt when he knew that the power over decisions was in his hands. ‘So long as it does not affect the price, as you say. I have already indicated that this is the disposal of a business asset, as far as I am concerned.’
It was Debbie Black who now unexpectedly took up the argument. ‘Does an afternoon like the one we’ve just enjoyed mean nothing to you, Jim? Surely you can see that this affects not just you, not just the people in this room, but the whole town.’
‘I expected to hear this argument, which is based purely on sentiment. You can’t run a business on sentiment. To put it bluntly, the feelings of the people of Brunton are no concern of mine.’
‘They are when you want them to come through the gates and support your business. Without the supporters who come through the turnstiles, there would be no afternoons like the one we have all just enjoyed. No Brunton Rovers.’ This was Darren Pearson, speaking up in spite of himself, in spite of what Capstick knew about him and his addiction to gambling.
‘Pure sentiment, I’m afraid. I’d expect my chief executive to be more clear-sighted than that.’ He looked at the unhappy Pearson and could not resist turning the screw. ‘Especially if I’m to recommend his services to the new owner in due course.’
‘Who is the new owner to be?’ The quietly spoken question came from his own wife. It seemed that Helen Capstick wished to assert to the other people in the room that she had had no part in this.
‘I’m not at liberty to say at the moment. No one that you are acquainted with.’
Debbie Black stared at Capstick accusingly. ‘Middle Eastern. That’s the only place with money to throw around at the moment.’
Her husband spoke for the first time, as if anxious to support his wife. ‘Someone with no knowledge of football. Someone who probably knows bugger all about Brunton and its place in the history of the game.’
Jim Capstick gave him a patronizing smile. ‘History doesn’t buy players. History doesn’t pay the wages you and your players demand nowadays, Robbie. If the buyer can pay the price I want, that is all that concerns me.’
‘Will this mysterious buyer take on the existing staff? Will my job and my coaches’ jobs be safe? Will Darren’s job be safe? What about the people who have worked here for years?’
Capstick shrugged his shoulders elaborately. ‘I can’t attach strings to any sale. You should understand that. Once I wash my hands of the club, I must allow the new owner a free hand.’ He looked round at the company. ‘You need time to digest this. I shall leave you now. I have things to attend to in my office.’ He smiled a crooked smile. ‘People in the Middle East are waiting to hear from me: I have details to prepare and some important phone calls to make.’
There was no more laughter and little conversation in the hospitality suite after Capstick left. The great victory over Liverpool felt suddenly hollow. No one felt like drinking any more.
ELEVEN
Jim Capstick poured himself a malt whisky and sat contentedly in his office for a few minutes, allowing relaxation to flow through his body until he felt it coursing through even the extremities of fingers and toes. It was a technique which a physiotherapist girlfriend had taught him all of thirty years ago. He still found it effective; it still amused him to feel the gradual, controlled slackening of his tendons, whilst those other bodies in the world below him were taut with the drama of the news he had brought to them.
It was twenty minutes before he made the first of his phone calls. The man who had supervised the examination of the accounts and the assets of Brunton Rovers Football Club at the beginning of the week was waiting for the prearranged call in Reading. He was planning to take his wife out for a Saturday evening meal with friends, but he was too professional to betray his impatience when he heard the voice he had been expecting for an hour and more.
‘We beat Liverpool today,’ said Capstick.
‘I’m afraid I don’t follow football,’ said the financier coldly.
‘You should, in this case,’ said Capstick. ‘You should regard it as part of your professional responsibilities. A result like this is important to the financial health of the company you have been assessing. It is not just a sporting victory but a financial one.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do say so and I require you to take note of it. Today’s result virtually ensures that Brunton Rovers will be playing in the Premiership next season. You would be failing in your duty if you failed to note that fact and add it to your assessment of the present financial strength of the company you have been reviewing.’
‘I see. I take your point and will make it clear to the people who paid for the work I and my team did in Brunton.’
‘Do that, please. I shouldn’t want to find that your employers in Dubai found your report in any way incomplete or inefficient.’
The man became more deferential and Capstick terminated the call. You needed people like that, even sometimes needed their approval, for there was no faking things when the financial men came in. But once you had the right sort of report from them, you could still permit yourself a certain contempt for them and the narrowness of their views on life.
He fidgeted a little after the call, had to employ the techniques of relaxation again to make his hands and his feet relax. There would be at least half an hour to wait, possibly an hour or more. He had a very good idea of the way these Saudi Arabian people operated now. They were more ruthless than British bargainers, but infinitely more reliable, once they committed themselves. They were more courteous, too. You had to put up with all kinds of little humiliations, when a British deal-maker had bigger funds than you had; they often didn’t ring until two or three days after the time they had promised. The sheikh could buy and sell any man Jim Capstick had dealt with before, but if he told you he would ring at a certain time you would get the call. Jim shut his eyes and tried to wait contentedly.
Even five years earlier, he would have lit a cigar and smoked it slowly and with practised relish, watching the scented smoke rising quietly into the still air around him. But Helen had persuaded him to give up all smoking, even the occasional cigar. Sensible really, when you were fifty-seven, driven about in a Bentley by a chauffeur, and able to enjoy the best food and drink the world had to offer. He felt his body tensing a little as he thought of Helen and the problem he had to address with her. He had thought she might have come up here to speak to him by now.
Perhaps she was sulking because he hadn’t given her any prior notice of the deal; it had been as much a surprise to her as to the others in the hospitality suite. But that was business: the fewer people who knew what you were up to, the better – and that included wives. She might as well get used to it. He went through and locked the outer door in his PA’s office, making sure that there would be no interruptions to his next and most important phone contact.
He diverted his thoughts to the exercise he was always promising Helen he would take. He certainly wasn’t going to go and waste his time at the gym with all the earnest youngsters. Perhaps he would have another go at golf, after all. Even as he forced himself into that thought, he knew he would never do it. When you ruled the roost in most of the things you did, it wasn’t easy to accept your physical ineptitude as you struggled to cope with a sport.
He poured himself another whisky, but kept it deliberately small. The sheikh didn’t touch alcohol at all and Jim didn’t want to feel at any disadvantage when he eventually spoke to him. He tried to read the American detective novel which Helen had bought for him, but couldn’t concentrate on either plot or character as he waited for the phone to ring. The cop in the book had too many scruples: they were getting in the way of his efficiency. He wasn’t the sort of man Jim Capstick would have employed.
He went into the little private bathroom at the far end of his office and washed his face and hands briskly in cold water. It was somehow important to him to be as spruce and fresh when he spoke to the sheikh as he would have been in a face to face meeting, even though the man would be thousands of miles away on the end of a phone and unable to see him. He even brushed his teeth and used the mouthwash, though he told himself that he was merely filling in time. He took longer than usual to comb his hair in front of the mirror.
When the phone eventually rang, he let it shrill twice before he picked it up. Prompt but not too eager. The sheikh made the elaborate enquiry about his personal welfare which always prefaced the real business. Then he pronounced himself satisfied with the report he had received, which confirmed his impressions from the less formal investigation of the company which he and his own staff had already conducted. He congratulated the owner-chairman upon today’s result, assured Capstick that he understood the importance of it to the long-term future of the asset he was acquiring. You would never have known from the tone and substance of his conversation that it was the land in the town that the club owned which was the man’s main interest, Jim thought admiringly.
The lawyers should now get together and move fast on a contract, the sheikh said. The finance for the deal was not a problem: it would be available as soon as both parties were satisfied with the contract and prepared to sign the relevant documents. Jim agreed to fly out to Dubai as soon as the lawyers had ironed out the details. The sheikh was full of easy, efficient, automatic charm. ‘In that case, I look forward to seeing you again quite soon, Mr Capstick. There is no longer any need for us to meet on neutral ground. My staff will pick you up at the airport and bring you here. Mr Capstick, we have a deal.’
Jim sat and looked at the phone, at the desk, at the door to his PA’s empty anteroom, at the fittings of this office he would soon leave behind for ever. He needed some physical action to break the spell of his content, so he walked through the outer office and unlocked the door there. He could be available again now to these people of lesser vision, whom he had shut out for the period when he had been determining the shape of all their lives.
He could not banish his foolish smile of satisfaction at the biggest deal he had ever made. He would have another drink or two before he left – he could always ring for Wally Boyd to come and pick him up, if he needed it. But for the moment, he did not need drink or any other stimulant to sustain his high.
He was not sure how many minutes went by before his visitor came. Nor could he be certain whether there was a brief knock before the door opened or whether the person simply came in unannounced. Jim said with an attempt at his normal manner, ‘I was expecting you, you know!’ Whether that was true or not he had no idea. ‘You must join me in a celebratory drink. I’ll find you a glass.’
The owner of Brunton Rovers sat down heavily in his chair, then slid it a foot to his right to enable him to open the bottom drawer of the big desk. He was bending towards it when he felt the first touch of the cord upon his neck.
He jerked his head back, but he was permitted no breath for further words. The cable tightened steadily, biting deep
into his neck, cutting through the larynx and the pipes which drew air into the heavy frame of the man in the chair. He lifted his hands to the cord in brief, hopeless resistance.
In much less than a minute, Jim Capstick was dead.
TWELVE
Daughters are still children to their mothers, even when they have reached the age of twenty-nine and are shortly to be married.
Agnes Blake enjoyed spoiling her Lucy, as she had done when she was a small child recovering from a minor illness. It was not yet eight o’clock on Sunday morning and most of the nation was planning a lie-in. But Agnes had already brewed the tea and put the hand-knitted cosy over the small china teapot she kept specially for such early-morning occasions. She was preparing to mount the narrow staircase of the old cottage to her daughter’s room when a phone shrilled beside her. Lucy’s mobile, which she had left on the hall table the night before.
Agnes picked it up and began to state her identity. Before she could do so, Percy Peach’s voice said urgently, ‘Get your arse down here pronto, DS Blake! We have a suspicious death.’
‘I’ll thank you not to refer to my daughter’s anatomy in that way!’ said Agnes haughtily, taking care that no trace of amusement crept into her voice.
‘Ah, it’s you, Mrs B!’ said Percy, thrown out of his stride for all of half a second. ‘Sorry about the language. But could you convey the request to your daughter that she stows her extremely beautiful posterior into her car and drives it down to the Brunton nick immediately, please?’
‘I shall do that, Denis Charles Scott Peach. But I shall endeavour to force a little breakfast into her first. I shall also tell her to massage her considerable brain into full operation on the way.’
‘You’re a treasure, Mrs B. I only wish I could ask you to get your own arse down here pronto and sort out some of our management problems. But that cannot be, alas!’