Putting the Boot In

by Dan Kavanagh

  ‘Tell me if I’m following you. Someone can apply for planning permission to develop land which they don’t in fact own?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘So I could put in an application to turn Buckingham Palace into a gay club and the application would be duly received and considered?’

  ‘You might have a problem with Crown Lands, but in principle the answer is Yes.’

  ‘Why would I want to do such a thing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d have thought there were enough gay clubs anyway.’ She smiled rather unenthusiastically at Duffy. Even some of the sensible ones were nutters.

  ‘No, I mean, what are the advantages in terms of planning?’

  ‘Well, it would speed things up. That’s why most people apply for planning permission on land they haven’t yet bought. It sort of primes the pump. Means you can start work as soon as the change of ownership comes through.’

  ‘What else would they have to do at this stage?’

  ‘Well, this is a big scheme. There’d obviously have to have been some consultations with council officers first. You know, fire, access, drainage. They’d have to have some idea of what might be allowable.’

  ‘Private consultations?’ Duffy heard the rustle of fat bribes.

  ‘Private? Of course. There’s nothing sinister about that. It’s quite normal.’

  ‘Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting any irregularity.’ Duffy was trying to work out how far some operator could get without anyone sniffing what he was up to. ‘And how long would it be before any of this would be bound to become public knowledge?’

  ‘Hard to tell. It depends a bit on the planning department’s schedule of meetings. Things are always a bit slow in the summer. I’m only guessing, but I’d say we’d have to publish this scheme in, what, three or four weeks’ time.’

  Just after the end of the season. Neat.

  ‘And how long would it take from the present stage to laying the first brick?’

  ‘Couldn’t tell you. Depends on too many things.’

  ‘But if, say, things went really smoothly. Say there weren’t any objections. Could they get a lot done in … three months?’ June to September, the summer lay-off. Even the yobboes were away, kicking heads in Ibiza. Cor, look, Wayne, someone’s nicked the Athletic ground while we’ve been away. So they cowing have.

  ‘You could probably get through a lot of the paperwork, yes.’

  The next stop was Companies House, City Road, where they assumed Duffy was an investigative journalist from a radical underground paper. Up to a few years ago you always used to get respectably dressed people who knew what they wanted. Nowadays you got any old—or, worse, young—crackpot walking in, wanting this, wanting that. ‘Hello, I’m from the Monthly Paranoid, we’re a bit short on city scandal this issue, can you dig me out a nice conflict of interests, please?’—it was almost as bad as that.

  Duffy flipped through the microfilm catalogue, paid his pound, and waited half an hour in the search room until his microfiche came through. Hess House Holdings. Registered 1974. Registered Office, Hess House W3. List of Directors. Dee-dum, dee-dum, Duffy read. Dee-dum dee-dum, dee-dum dee-dum. And then, well, well, well, Mrs C. R. Magrudo. He checked the profits as an afterthought. No profits declared for the last two years.

  When he phoned Jimmy Lister that afternoon the Boss sounded rather far away.

  ‘I think I’ve got something, I definitely think I might have got something,’ said Duffy.

  ‘Oh, yes. Crown Jewels turn up?’

  ‘I won’t tell you what it is now. I’d rather come round and see you.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘Sure it’s all right. But whatever you’ve got, Duffy, it won’t make any difference. They just charged big Brendan with rape.’

  Jimmy Lister ought to have been out on the pitch with the lads planning free-kicks or something at the time Duffy arrived; but he was still sitting at his desk, mournfully waiting for the next bad thing to happen.

  ‘It’s all over,’ he said, as Duffy sat down opposite him, ‘it’s just all fallen apart. First Danny, then Brendan, now the residents have got their injunction …’

  ‘When did they get that?’

  ‘First thing this morning. Layton Road entrance closed till the end of the season. Leave to appeal granted, but not until it’s too late. It’s all over, Duffy. The club’s going down the U-bend. You should have seen the lads this morning when I told them about Bren. End of the world, they knew it. And I don’t think my glorious reign of management here is exactly going to bring the offers flooding in from Abu Dhabi.’

  ‘How’s he taking it?’

  ‘Bren? Not too badly in a funny sort of way. I mean he says he didn’t do it. Course he didn’t do it—I know Bren like I know my own boy. He just seems to think that if he goes on saying he didn’t do it, they’re bound to believe him in the end. What he doesn’t realize is that if he carries on saying he didn’t do it they’ll end up thinking he’s being cheeky.’

  ‘When does he come up?’

  ‘Well, tomorrow, first time. Then there’ll be a remand, then another remand, and so on.’

  ‘Any chance of bail?’

  ‘Not much, the solicitor said. Not nowadays. You know what the headlines are like—ACCUSED RAPIST FREE TO STALK THE STREETS, and all that. Even with Brendan always being a good boy, I don’t think they’d do it.’

  ‘If we got him bail, would you play him?’

  ‘Come off it, Duffy. No way. No way. It wouldn’t be fair on the lad. It just wouldn’t be fair. Can you imagine what they’d do to him from the terraces? They’d roast the boy. I mean, remember Bobby Moore.’

  Duffy remembered. The 1970 World Cup, the England captain, an incident in a jeweller’s on another continent, and all the next season when he walked out on to the pitch he heard the tune of ‘Clementine’, and the fans singing, ‘Where’s the bracelet, where’s the bracelet, where’s the bracelet, Bobby Moore?’ And he was as innocent as the breeze.

  ‘I couldn’t play the lad, Duffy. I don’t know what I’d be more scared of, the fans away from home or the loyal supporters at the Layton Road end. He’d get crucified.’

  ‘When do you see him next?’

  ‘Tomorrow, next day. I’m not sure. I mean, it’s obviously not just a club matter, it’s a family matter as well. I can’t go stomping in saying Please can I have my Bren back when there’s his old mum sobbing her eyes out and seeing her boy getting set for five or six years behind bars.’

  ‘When you see him, find out the name of the girl and where she lives.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Just find it out, Jimmy.’ Lister was surprised by Duffy’s attitude; it had suddenly become very businesslike. This wasn’t altogether surprising. The more things that went wrong for Jimmy, the more things there were for Duffy to work on.

  ‘Isn’t that breaking the law or something? I mean, isn’t there a big thing about protecting the anonymity of rape victims?’

  ‘That’s only about publishing her name in the papers. Look, you don’t think Bren did it, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Jimmy Lister, though in truth he thought Bren might have done it.

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Duffy, though as a matter of professional principle he never put anything past anybody. ‘So if we know he’s innocent, we’ve got to find why he’s being fitted up, haven’t we?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Get me her name, get me where she lives. Either from Brendan, or from the solicitor. They’d probably have to tell him if he asked.’

  ‘All right, Duffy. I was going to say, please can I have my salary back; but I reckon I’m not earning it, so you may as well.’

  ‘Ta. Now, is the chairman about?’

  Melvyn Prosser was standing by his desk in his overcoat, just as before. This time, however, he didn’t look like a businessman in a hurry; he looked like a sea-captain whose ship is going down, and who thinks the b
est way of handling it is to put on his pea-jacket.

  ‘Still with us, Mr Duffy? Isn’t it all a bit out of your hands now?’

  ‘Parts of it, I expect. But I think I might be on to something.’

  ‘Some magic way of getting us three points from each of our last six games?’

  ‘Wish I could, Mr Prosser, wish I could. No, I don’t know what made me think of it …’ He looked at Melvyn Prosser carefully as he said the next words. ‘But I found out about the planning permission.’

  Melvyn Prosser’s broad, fleshy face with the vertical scar on the forehead disclosed to the keen observer only that Melvyn Prosser was still worried stiff about Brendan Domingo.

  ‘What planning permission?’

  ‘Did you know about the application for outline planning permission for the whole of the Athletic ground and two adjoining sites in Meadow Lane?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, Duffy. What sort of thing are we talking about?’

  ‘Big development. Shopping centre. Offices, flats. Leisure centre.’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea,’ said Melvyn Prosser evenly. ‘Sooner they wipe this shambles off the map the better.’

  ‘Hey, chief,’ Jimmy Lister protested.

  ‘Sorry, Jim boy, you know how much I love this club. I love the game, I love the club. I’d do anything for this club, but you can’t help getting a bit discouraged, sometimes.’

  ‘Sure, chief.’

  ‘I mean, don’t think I overvalue my contribution. Any club—it’s the players, it’s the team, isn’t it? The players, the fans, that’s what counts. And the results. You can’t have a happy club if you aren’t getting the results. But I’ve always been right behind this club, and any little something I’ve been able to do, I’ve done.’

  ‘Course, you have, chief, course you have. Pulled the club up by its bootstraps.’

  ‘No, no, I’ve just done what any other chairman would have done in my place.’

  Like pay all the bills, Duffy thought. Like pay Jimmy Lister’s wages, and thus, indirectly, mine. Duffy noticed that in Melvyn Prosser’s basic outline of a football club no mention was made of the manager’s role. He wondered if Jimmy Lister had noticed this.

  ‘Anyway, Mr Prosser, shall I go on?’ Duffy felt that the excitement of his discovery was being rather deflated by Melvyn Prosser’s philosophizing.

  ‘Oh, go on, yes, sure.’

  ‘Outline planning permission for the entire Athletic ground and two adjoining sites has been applied for by a company known as Hess House Holdings.’

  ‘Never heard of them,’ said Prosser.

  ‘Hess House Holdings have an interesting Board of Directors,’ said Duffy. ‘One of them is listed as Mrs C. R. Magrudo.’

  ‘Charlie’s wife?’ Melvyn seemed delighted. ‘Charlie’s wife?’ Then he burst out laughing. ‘The cheeky bugger. Cheeky Charlie Magrudo. You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because it’s one of Charlie’s jokes. You sure there wasn’t something else on the plan? Like a lighthouse or a pier or an airport or something?’

  Duffy was a bit pissed off with Melvyn Prosser.

  ‘Look, Mr Prosser, correct me if I’m wrong. Someone’s trying to fuck up this club. I asked you if you had any enemies. You mentioned Charlie Magrudo. I find out that Charlie Magrudo, through his wife, has applied for outline planning permission on this site.’

  ‘Yes I’m sorry to laugh, Mr Duffy,’ said Prosser, and carried on laughing none the less. ‘But what do you deduce from this?’

  ‘That Charlie Magrudo is trying to fuck up this club to buy it cheap and develop it like he’s asked for.’

  ‘Hmm. Yes, I’m sorry not to take your theory with the seriousness it warrants, and do please watch your language by the way, we’re not in the team bath now. The point is, Charlie Magrudo hasn’t got two beans to rub together.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If he wanted to rub beans together, he’d have to take out his sole surviving bean and cut it in half first. He’s a bankrupt. Not officially, of course, but as close as you can get without the men coming round for your three-piece suite at eight o’clock in the morning. That’s why Mrs Charlie’s name’s on everything. She holds the surviving bean in her little bean-bag, and takes it out occasionally and lets poor old Charlie count it.’ Melvyn was off into chuckling again.

  ‘You did him some naughty, you said, over some contract.’

  ‘Oh, that. No, that wasn’t much; just normal business procedure. The real naughty I did Charlie was with Mrs Charlie, and that was years ago. It’s all blood under the bridge and I’m sure we’ve forgiven one another.’

  ‘What was that bit of naughty?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to ask, do you? What do you do with your middle stump?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not very bright today, are we? Look, the point about Charlie Magrudo is that if this whole club came up for sale he might, if the bank gave him a loan—which is less than likely—be able to bid for a half-share in the toilets. Maximum.’

  ‘Couldn’t he … I don’t know, get backing or something?’

  ‘Not with Charlie’s business record.’

  ‘But … but I read his file down at the Chronicle. They said he was a thriving local businessman.’

  ‘I’ll tell you how he does that. It’s called buying the reporter a drink. It’s called not turning up with dandruff on your collar. It may, or it may not, be called passing the wine list across to the reporter with twenty-five quid inside it—I wouldn’t want to cast any aspersions on the lawfully wedded husband of Mrs Charlie or on the integrity of the gentlemen of the press.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘It’s also called not believing what you read in the papers.’

  ‘Oh dear. But why would he do it?’

  ‘As I say, it’s a typical Charlie joke. Well, it’s typical of what he used to do, anyway. I haven’t seen him for years, to tell you the truth. But it sounds like he’s getting his own back for that little bit of council business I dropped him in. He puts in this plan, and then waits a bit, and then one day when he’s a bit low or something, he gets someone to ring up the Chronicle and say, Did you know they were going to knock down the Athletic ground and build a racecourse? And they’re bound to do a big story, whatever, aren’t they? Front-page splash, if it’s a boring week. And then Charlie gets to think about what my face will look like when I pick up the paper. Typical Charlie.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Well, nice try, anyway,’ commented Prosser benevolently.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  As Duffy drove home, he thought, Typical. Bloody typical. Spend all morning chasing a really bright idea, find exactly what you’re looking for, get back and what happens: something much more important has turned up, and your own bright idea is transformed into a real poodle.

  Carol seemed to be coming round more often lately. Duffy couldn’t work out whether this was because of him or her. Had he been asking her more, or had she been just turning up more? Perhaps those parts of her life he didn’t like to ask about weren’t so busy at the moment; perhaps Robert Red-ford was away on location and not able to ask her out so much. On the other hand, it might be that since his activities down at the Alligator were a bit curtailed at the moment, he’d been inviting her round more without noticing. Or it might be a mixture of the two.

  ‘What’re the chances of getting bail for rape nowadays?’ he asked over dinner.

  ‘Rape? Pretty thin. I mean, there’s always a chance, because of the overcrowding in the cells. But it’s not the sort of thing that happens very often. The bench doesn’t like to get egg on its face, especially not with rape nowadays.’

  ‘What if the accused has got a nice smile?’

  ‘No previous?’

  ‘None of any kind. Clean as a whistle. Simple conflict of evidence.’

  ‘Well, it’s possible. It’s always possible. A smart lawyer might swing it. I mean
, he might be able to suggest bail conditions that would satisfy the court.’

  ‘Like having his cock chopped off?’

  Carol grinned.

  ‘I think they’d accept that.’

  Duffy didn’t think Brendan would, though. Then he noticed that Carol was looking at him and smiling. Oh dear, he thought: were things going to stop being neat again?

  ‘You wash, I’ll wipe.’

  Carol sighed.

  ‘You don’t have to say it, Duffy. That’s what we always do.’

  Later, in bed, he realized that he hadn’t worried about his lymph nodes all day. Well, that was something. Carol seemed wide awake, but Duffy had had enough. Another dog of a day. Another real bow-wow. As he lapsed into sleep, he remembered the last time Carol had stayed, and how he’d won himself a night sweat and an erection. The second of each. He could hear that man reading the sports results on the telly. Erections 2, Night Sweats 2. Replay on Monday.

  When he woke up he realized that he’d got through the eight hours without a night sweat. He’d also got through the eight hours without an erection. Perhaps the two were connected in some way. Perhaps you couldn’t have one without the other. That worried him.

  There were four weeks of the season to go, and six games left for Athletic. Fourth from bottom of the table, and with everyone in the relegation zone having played the same number of games, their future was, as the lads kept telling one another and the manager kept telling the lads, in their own hands. If they won every single remaining match, they wouldn’t be relegated. Of course; but you might as well say that if they’d won every single previous game in the season, they’d be in the Second Division by now. Who, for instance, fancied Athletic’s chances away from home to top-of-the-table Oxford? That was the trouble at the end of a season. The clubs at the top were still chasing promotion, and you didn’t expect any favours from them; while the clubs at the bottom were trying to escape the drop as much as you were. This left the clubs in the middle, the clubs who’d had an average season but were safe for another year. In theory this made them easy pickings: kick them about a bit in the first twenty minutes, and they lost interest and started to think about their summer holidays. But it didn’t work out like that: just because they were safe for another year, they were more relaxed, more ready to try things, less depressed if they went a goal down. All footballers like to play a bit of fancy stuff if they can; they like to score goals; and they like to win matches. Middle-of-the-table clubs at the rear end of the season aren’t any different in these basics. And if you tried kicking them, well, who likes being kicked, especially by some no-hoper with his luggage packed for the Fourth Division? Middle-of-the-tablers can kick back just as well; they might even mind a little less than you do about being sent off.