by Peter Boon
Ricky Roberts wouldn’t have played with him anyway. Look up ‘Ricky Roberts ‘no gayboy’ on Youtube or TikTok.
He should have played for ARSEnal lol
Grow up, homophobe.
Dont wanna speak ill of dead but maybe its for the best. Dont think theres room for that in our sport
If that’s how you feel, it’s not your sport.
I’m a Brighton fan and we get so much homophobic abuse from away fans. Got to think he’d have got the same. Just look at some of the comments on here. At least he’s been spared that.
Got what he deserved then I’d have cut the brakes myself
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MURDERED GAY FOOTBALLER LATEST: BEST MATE HIGGINS IN ALLEGED HOMOPHOBIC ABUSE SCANDAL
Beachy Head United player, Danny Higgins, best friend of murdered footballer Kieron Juniper, has found himself at the centre of a homophobic abuse scandal.
Higgins, 25, is alleged to have given homophobic verbal abuse to an openly gay man in a gay bar in Brighton last night. This paper has been informed of the language allegedly used but decided that it is not suitable to print.
This is especially bad timing after our previous report that Juniper had been outed as GAY on the night of his death. Higgins and Juniper were well known to be best friends.
Neither Higgins nor his fiancée Chloe Stone were available for comment. Higgins’ agent Jackie Luton also refused to comment.
However, a fellow Beachy Head United player who wished to remain anonymous said: ‘This is disgusting behaviour the day after we lost our beloved Kieron. Sadly, it doesn’t surprise me. At least poor Juniper was spared seeing this side of his “best friend.” At least I hope he was.’
Comments
OMG how could he!
Chill. Imagine what that guy’s going through. We don’t know anything.
No excuse for homophobia. Ever.
Love that last quote, that’s so Roberts lol
Haha definitely, I thought the same!
How dare someone come into our bars and abuse one of our own. I hope they fire him!
They won’t. The Roberts homophobia video been out for nearly a year. They don’t care.
They should have cared, maybe poor Kieron would still be alive!!
Disgracing Kieron’s name like that, shame on him.
Did Danny really say it? Sounds like another case for WAGATHA CHRISTIE! #WagathaChristie
No wonder poor Kieron couldn’t come out. With friends like that, who needs enemies?
Why is this even news? A player just died. That’s the only story from BHU I want to read about.
Don’t you think he might be the killer. Maybe he’s proper homophobic and couldn’t deal with a gay best mate / teammate.
So OTT. Don’t be ridiculous.
Bet he’s tracked down Juniper’s boyfriend and sorted him out for Ellie LOL
Rumours are he said it to Troy Nicholson, Chloe’s best friend. Bet it was just a personal disagreement.
No no no, you don’t just get to be homophobic even in a personal disagreement, SORRY
Poor Chloe, hope her and Troy are okay. If she forgives Danny we should too xoxo
What if Kieron was sleeping with Troy?
You’ve nailed it. Bet he was.
What the hell is happening at that football club? All paid far too much. A disgrace to our country.
Don’t include Kieron in that please. RIP.
22
It took seven missed calls the next morning before Appleby finally answered.
‘Oh, here we go. Look mate, I don’t have to justify us in making a case public to you.’
These were his very first words on the call, not even a hello first. ‘I haven’t even said anything?’
‘Seven missed calls, that says plenty.’ Our last conversation yesterday was quite fraught, and this one didn’t sound like it was about to go any better.
‘Who even does a press conference at 8am in the morning?’ I was shocked to have woken up to the news having broken. It seemed unusual for the police to have made the murder public anyway (everyone still thought it was an accident or suicide), particularly with the speculation circus that would accompany such a high-profile celebrity case.
‘Want to keep them on their toes,’ he said in a disinterested way, like he was explaining something to a small child he couldn’t be bothered with. ‘The public are going to go nuts now. The killer won’t be able to cope with that kind of pressure. They’ll slip up soon.’
‘And was this your decision?’ I asked. Yesterday, Appleby was frustrated that I’d been solving his most recent cases. He seemed to be pulling out all the stops to make sure he got this one himself.
‘It was my suggestion, but the gaffer went for it. Like I said yesterday, there’s a lot riding on this one.’
There was something else I wanted to know. ‘And the leak about Kieron’s coming out, is that anything to do with you?’
I heard a deep sigh down the other end of the phone. ‘Listen, mate, I don’t have to explain or justify myself to you. But I didn’t, actually. His parents didn’t seem to know anything about it when we visited, so it wasn’t our place to. I’m not a monster.’
His poor parents. I couldn’t even imagine. ‘How were they?’
‘Not great. I believe Ellie’s with them now. Which works well for us, I want her where I can monitor her.’
He didn’t seem to have changed his view of the case since yesterday. ‘Is she still your number one suspect, then?’
‘I can’t say, mate. Though Danny Higgins is acting suspiciously too. But you might know more about that than me.’
Silence.
‘I know you were at that night out last night. You can’t resist getting involved, can you? Go on then, you might as well tell me what happened.’
I thought about this. There was more information that I could give him: the incident between Danny and Troy, the likely fling between Troy and Kieron. But most importantly, that Troy was there that fateful night and was a potential suspect they’d missed. I’d also now seen the coming out statement, but I’d given my word to Danny and they would likely have that by now anyway, from Kieron’s phone.
I decided not to drop Danny in it further and told Appleby that I didn’t see the Danny and Troy incident. I knew I had to tell him about Troy’s presence on the night Kieron died, though; the police deserved to know that. But what was the harm in trying to find out what I could from Appleby’s end in return?’
‘I have actually learned something really important. Maybe we could update each other on what we know?’
I heard a loud guffaw through the phone. ‘You’re a bloody cheeky beggar, Edward Crisp, I’ll give you that. You’ll cost me my job one of these days. I’ve not got much, but there’s no harm in telling you, I suppose. Go on, you first.’
I told him about seeing Troy and our theory about him and Kieron. ‘How the hell has he avoided us knowing he was there? Lucky you saw him. You’re always in the right place at the right time, aren’t you?’
I couldn’t tell if this was a compliment or another dig. I paced the living room, where I was taking the call, to keep calm. I looked towards my beloved book shelves for comfort. It was important to make Appleby feel still in charge. ‘What do you think, then? If anyone can find out if he was involved, it’s you.’
‘Yes, mate, leave him to me. It’s an interesting one, though. He could be our killer. Maybe Juniper was going to come out, but he backed out. Troy turned up to try to persuade him, but obviously it’s all kicked off with Ellie by that point, so that was a no go. Heartbroken and angry, he cuts his secret lover’s brakes, sending him to his death.’
It was certainly a theory, and one that had briefly occurred to me too. But was it as simple as that? And what had happened to Ellie being his number one suspect? I realised something. ‘No luck with the club CCTV then?’
‘Don’t get me started, mate. What kind of multi-billion
pound football club has hardly any CCTV? Barely any in the car park or building. The footage we do have isn’t worth anything.’
So much for his theory about solving it with CCTV. ‘What do you have then?’
‘Not much. We found brake fluid in Juniper’s parking spot, but that just confirms what we know, really. Most interesting thing we got only turned up early evening yesterday. Brake cutters found dumped in the club recycling bins. And the club’s tool cupboard was raided so we’ve got where it came from too. Again, it confirms what we know but the cutters are in for forensics, so I’m hoping they might tell us something.’
I doubted it would, but depending on how spur of the moment the crime was, there might be fingerprints on there. ‘How did all the interviews go?’
‘Sod all again, really. Ellie got a taxi home, which we’ve confirmed, but there’s nothing to say she didn’t cut her boyfriend’s brakes on the way out. This is the problem, mate. Almost everyone was in other people’s company all night, but no one can account for the five or ten minutes it would take to have slipped out. Could have been done while someone had gone to the loo or for a smoke.’
I was interested to know his views, though I didn’t expect to agree with them. ‘What do you think?’
‘Not sure, mate, I’m thinking maybe Troy now. I’m going to take his statement as soon as I put the phone down. But I’m still not sure about Ellie, and I really didn’t like Danny Higgins. Something about him I didn’t like.’
Nothing to do with him being one of the star players and you being a Brighton fan, I thought to myself. We agreed to keep each other posted and were saying our goodbyes when he asked me one more thing. ‘You’re not up to anything though, are you, mate? That night out is one thing, but we don’t need you and Noah going round carrying out your own investigations. We’ve got it covered.’
I promised him we weren’t and walked back into the kitchen, where I saw Noah had reinstalled his makeshift interview room. ‘Okay Noah, let’s make a plan.’
23
I’d felt bad that Noah couldn’t come to Brighton last night, and I was more determined than ever to work out who was behind what happened to Kieron. This meant that I was back in a scenario becoming more and more familiar in the last year: the two of us working together to help solve a murder.
‘The game’s afoot!’ he said with delight as a reference to one of his favourite detective duos, Holmes and Watson. This was probably the saying’s most famous source, but I didn’t tell Noah that Shakespeare used it first in Henry V. He didn’t pay too much attention to any literature outside of crime fiction.
‘Okay, so let me update you on what I’ve been doing,’ he said brightly as he pushed my laptop across the table to me. ‘This is the Ricky Roberts homophobia video, for reference.’
I pressed play. The video was pretty much as described in the article comments: a fan in a bar asked him how would he feel if a teammate came out as gay, and he replied no way would he ever play with a ‘gayboy,’ he would walk away from his contract first. He looked very drunk on the video, but there is no question of what he said and what he meant.
‘Fiona’s also contacted her mate at the newspaper who printed the Danny Higgins story,’ Noah went on.’ ‘They wouldn’t say anything officially, but off the record they confirmed it was Ricky Roberts who gave them the anonymous quote criticising Danny.’
I knew it would be, but it was good to get it confirmed. Did Roberts have any more to do with this than disliking Danny and Kieron, as well as being homophobic?
I began discussing this with Noah. ‘I’m not sure homophobia is a strong enough motive.’
Why not?’ he challenged. ‘Most murderers kill to either gain something or prevent themselves from losing something.’
I knew his frame of reference was fictional killers rather than real life, but I understood his point. ‘What would Roberts lose from Kieron coming out?’
Noah looked at me, confused. ‘You just saw the video. He said he’d walk away from his contract. So he would lose his millionaire job and probably lose all the money he already has, in legal disputes with the club.’
I’d forgotten Noah’s literal interpretation of everything. ‘I don’t think he meant it literally, Noah. He was just making the point he didn’t want a gay player on the team.’
‘Exactly. He really didn’t want a gay player on the team. I’m not 18 yet and not of legal drinking age, but even I know people say what they really mean when they’re drunk. And they carry out what they really mean, often ending in disastrous consequences.’
I was confused where he was going with this. ‘What do you mean?’
‘If he’d say something as awful as that when drunk, it could also mean that he’d do something awful, like cut Kieron’s brakes. I estimated that when he was on the microphone, he’d already had about five pints of beer.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I counted three empty glasses on his table, but everyone was mingling before that, so my guess is he probably had two before that, too. And his behaviour seemed to correspond with an athletic man in his mid-twenties who had consumed five pints of beers.’
I was stunned. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘Oh, I’ve been studying it. There are lots of YouTube videos on things like that,’ he said as if this was completely normal. ‘I’m 18 in a few months and I want to be prepared for when I go out drinking and what type of people I might encounter. Plus, I’ve been living above a pub for a while now and it doesn’t do any harm to know how the customers might behave. Your mum already said I can do some shifts once I’m 18.’
I wasn’t sure which image was the strangest: Noah on a night out or Noah behind a bar.
‘Anyway, let’s stick to the case, if you don’t mind, Edward. We have lots to get through.’
I rolled my eyes. Working with Fiona had seemed to make him adopt what I’m sure he thought was a no nonsense, businesslike manner.
‘So, these five pints were before everyone learned Kieron’s secret. Jackie Luton them sent him to the bar with Beaumont, where my educated guess is he had several whiskeys and several shots.’
I didn’t even ask how he knew it this time. I just looked at him dumbfounded as he continued.
‘People always drink spirits when they’ve had a shock, and according to the internet his favourite is whiskey. And everyone orders shots when they’re sat at the bar, don’t they? But Ricky Roberts would have had a lot to drink, and who knows how that affected his behaviour.’
Bizarre close analysis of alcohol intake aside, I liked his analytical way of thinking. ‘What about the others?’
‘Other than Roberts, I think we need to focus for now on Ellie Marsden and Jackie Luton, as well as anyone else in club management who might have a motive. You’ve spent plenty of time with Danny Higgins and Chloe Stone, who are still suspects I’d say, but let’s put them further down the list. I would have said Troy Nicholson too, but as the police are interviewing him today, let’s leave that with them.’
I hadn’t told him that yet. ‘How do you know that? DI Appleby’s only just informed me of that a minute ago.’
‘Oh, while you were out of the room, I had a phone call of my own. DC Wood is very helpful, isn’t he?’
I allowed myself a laugh. Appleby was acting like he was breaking the Official Secrets Act by divulging the tiniest snippet, while one of his DCs was sharing away with Noah.
He continued. ‘Then there’s any other club staff or players who might have had a grudge or a motive, but there’s nothing to suggest any of them so far. Including Beaumont, who I think we can set aside for now. And Fiona’s helping with the investigation anyway, so we can keep our eye on her while we’re with her.’
I’m sure Fiona would be delighted. I wondered how she felt about the story going public; I hadn’t heard from her since last night. Someone else had, though.
‘Regarding Jackie Luton, Fiona has booked us in to have a meeting with her at 2pm today. You
could join us.’ He’d spoken to Fiona already too? He really had been busy.
‘How’s she managed that?’ I asked.
‘Since the stories broke this morning, Fiona’s offered to do some damage control. Jackie quickly said yes, but could only meet at 2pm as her and the club are meeting with some individual players.’
‘Yes, I bet they are.’ Roberts and Danny both sprung to mind. ‘But that sounds brilliant, well done, Noah.’
‘I thought in the meantime we could try to pay a visit to Ellie Roberts. But we don’t really have a link to her. Unless we ask Fiona?’
This was awkward. ‘Ah sorry, Noah, I’m tagging along with Patrick soon, he’s going visiting Kieron’s parents. Ellie is apparently staying with them so I’m hoping to have a chat with her.’
He didn’t pick up on what I meant. ‘Ah, perfect! We can go see her with Patrick then. We might learn something from talking to Kieron’s parents too.’
I had a dilemma. Him talking to Kieron’s parents was exactly what I was afraid of. We’d had a couple of incidents in the past where Noah had accidentally been a little too honest and offended people. He can’t help it, of course, but I knew it might not be the best idea to put him in front of two grieving parents who were mourning their murdered son.
I didn’t realise til afterwards that around 30 seconds must have passed while I was thinking about this. Enough time for Noah to realise something was wrong and speak up.
‘You don’t want me to go, do you?’ There was no particular tone in his voice to suggest he was upset, or indeed any other emotion: just the words expressed in a matter-of-fact way. He looked straight at me and waited for a response.
What was the right thing to say? ‘It’s not that I don’t want you to go, Noah. Just that it must be such a tough time for his parents. I’m going along with Patrick but three of us might be a little much.’
He considered this for a moment. ‘No, you think I’ll say the wrong thing. And maybe I will. I’ll try my best not to, though. Perhaps we can have a signal or something. What if you blink three times if I’m about to say something I shouldn’t?’