The next day started like many others, with a cold sun, but I still remember it like it was today.
It started for me in the Sunshine Cafe, looking for my father. He’d eaten there for years, soaking up cholesterol like it was a delicacy. He was by the window, the empty breakfast plate in front of him, a cup of coffee flicking steam into the air. I patted him on the shoulder and sat down. When he looked round he smiled. I was looking for an edge, something not right. I couldn’t see anything.
‘Hi, Jack. Bit early for you, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve got myself some good habits since I went to London,’ I said, and waved an order for coffee at the waitress and then turned back to him. ‘Did you have a good night?’
I didn’t get the answer I expected. When it’s warm like this, the true smile of summer, the hoods get artistic or horny, and both mean trouble.
He shook his head, the tiredness showing around his eyes. ‘Nothing much going on. I’ve spent the night driving around.’ He drank some coffee. ‘What about you? Did you get much done?’ He looked down as he asked the question.
‘Yeah, not so bad. I have a few contacts for interviews, and I’m going to speak with David’s agent later. I’ll fill it with tales from the Fold, make it sound like a great place, and then just try and get a good interview with him.’
He looked relieved somehow, although I didn’t know why.
‘How was Alice?’ he asked.
I found myself smiling. Alice had flirted and teased out Watts’s titbits and ridden her brush with big-time journalism as hard as she could. I’d tried to tell her that the big city wasn’t like that, how every day was a catfight, a nonstop hustle for the best story, but she hadn’t cared.
I caught my smile quickly, replaced it with a quiet nod and concentrated on my coffee. ‘She did okay.’
‘She’s a pretty girl.’
That surprised me. I felt caught out, but when I looked at my dad I saw a mischievous twinkle behind the lines around his eyes.
Then he smiled, the twinkle replaced by something I couldn’t fathom. Maybe sadness. He drained his coffee. ‘Time for me to go. Are you staying out? You look like you’ve got some reading to do.’
I looked down to the newspapers I had in my hand, all of the national dailies. I wanted to see what they were saying about the shootings. The television had done most of that already – Dumas and Nixon weren’t friends, had no connections together, had never played on the same team – but I was a newspaper man, so I wanted to read words, not hear them. I had skimmed the papers on the walk over and they seemed to be saying the same thing. There was talk of Far Eastern gambling syndicates, but that was just rumour. Nixon was old-style, too blood and thunder to throw a game, and Dumas won too many to be a candidate for that.
‘I’m checking out the Post archive once I’ve read these, and then I’ve got a couple of interviews. Do you want me to stay away?’
‘No, but I need to sleep. Do what you need to do, but keep the volume down.’
I agreed to that, and then watched as he stepped off his stool, moving slower than I thought he might, just showing the traces of the old man that was waiting for him a few years along. When he went, waving his goodbye to the waitress, I felt alone in there.
She felt the dew rise through her toes as she walked on the grass in front of her house, a glass of juice in her hand. Summer mornings that started like this always turned out to be the best of days. This was the day after Manchester and she hadn’t expected it to feel like this, so free, so right. Her hand brushed the damp strands of a willow tree, and she closed her eyes as the leaves trickled over her fingers. The breeze tickled her hair, light and fresh.
She felt herself relax, just for a moment, but then just as fast, like a reminder, her eyes opened, quick and darting. The sounds around her were like soft bliss, but she felt like someone balancing feathers, one quick movement and the calm would all be gone.
She took another drink. She noticed the faint scars on her forearm, like old memories she would rather forget. But she couldn’t forget. She remembered well the nights when she was on her own, wrapped up in memories and hurt, dancing the knife across her skin.
She put her glass down and flexed her fingers once more. She had a memory of leaving Manchester, but it was scrambled, like staccato bursts of light and noise, driven by pure adrenalin. It was only when she’d got back home that things became clear again. But she knew the peace in her head wouldn’t last.
The grass ran out and she walked up the steps to the house, to the front porch, dark stone framed by trailing roses. She turned and looked down the fields in front of her. They stretched out long and sloped, meadow grass dotted by buttercups, running down to the river a quarter of a mile away. Beyond that lay trees, a buffer between herself and the rest of the county, green as far as she could see. The road through her land snaked up from a stream, a potholed dust-trap running over a metal cattle-grid, her own personal alarm. She always knew when she had visitors because the rumble of tyres over the grid carried along the currents.
She drained her drink and looked down to the old wooden seat, painted soft blue. She saw her phone and her nerves crept back in. That’s why she was outside: trying to stay calm for the next part of the plan, the crucial part.
Her eyes caught a movement, a dark shadow moving across the porch. She looked over quickly, but whoever was there was gone. She turned round at a voice, just a light whisper, but there was no one there.
She took a deep breath and turned back into the shade of the porch. Now was the time. She’d planned it this way. Now was the time.
She reached down and picked up the phone. She felt suddenly nauseous, the phone hot and heavy in her hand. She held it against her chest, heavy breaths, trying to stop her hands from shaking. She looked around. There was still no one there, but she thought she heard movement, saw petals move, a soft brush like a whisper.
She took one last deep breath, looked down at the handset, and then pressed a key to activate a stored number. As she put the phone to her ear, she heard the steady ring. She imagined it ringing in London. It rang four times before the answer machine kicked in.
‘Hello, you’re through to David Watts. Please leave your message and I’ll get back to you. Thank you.’
She clicked the phone off quickly, almost dropping it. Her breaths came fast again and she sat down hard on the floor.
She sat like that for a while, her chest tight, her hands clammy, looking at the floor. She tried to listen to the countryside, to drown out his voice. She opened her eyes to check the sky. She saw birds just circling over the river.
Eventually, calmness returned. And with it came fresh determination.
She pressed redial.
Same as before. Four rings. Answer machine. The tone.
She let the silence fill the earpiece, and then put a small electronic box over the mouthpiece. It was a microphone that distorted her voice, picked up from a gadget shop. After a few seconds, she spoke.
‘Hi, David.’ She said it cold, like it would freeze him the second he heard it. The microphone took the rest of any emotion out, her voice coming out as electronic distortion. ‘It’s me.’
David was in his apartment, trying to relax after his breakfast. The shooting of Johnny Nixon was still playing with his thoughts: who was doing this?
The telephone rang. He looked over and then decided to ignore it. He had dealt with enough press queries the previous day and he had nothing else to add.
He lay back on the sofa, a cushion over his face. The darkness felt good, silent, the only clear noise his breathing, steady and warm.
The answer machine clicked off and he relaxed. Perhaps if he stayed like that it would all go away?
The telephone rang again. He ignored it again until the answer machine clicked on.
‘Hi, David. It’s me.’
He paused, the voice strange, electronic distortion.
‘Do you recognise my voice?’
He sat up.
‘C’mon, David, you must recognise it.’
He was bemused. A new silk to her voice distracted him, soft seduction despite the electronics.
‘Think back to your last night in Turners Fold, the last night before you left to be a star.’
His face froze. His mind hurtled back through the last ten years, back to a balmy night in Lancashire, a mosaic of sad goodbyes, prolonged best wishes.
‘Do you, David? Do you remember me?’
His face went pale, his mouth went dry. The room around him shrank away. The only thing he could hear was the machine, which came at him clear and crisp, cutting through the sound of a thousand bad dreams rushing at him.
‘Perhaps if I sobbed, David, you’d remember.’ The words were beginning to snap out. ‘Do you want me to scream? Would that work? Beg for my life?’
He felt his stomach turn over. A cold sweat prickled his lips. His chest became tight. He stood over the machine, wanting to pick up the receiver.
The voice continued, softer now.
‘Do you still go down to the old school, throw a few memories around? Do you think about how you hurt me? Do you remember how I looked when you left me, my scarf pulled tight around my neck?’
He could hear his mind screaming at him to turn it off, but he couldn’t. All he could do was stand and listen, his jaw clenched firm, his mouth set hard so that his lips turned pale.
‘Do you ever, David, when you’re alone in the dark, just you and your conscience? Have you ever thought about me?’
He felt powerless, transfixed.
‘No, you haven’t, David. I know that, because you didn’t even look back.’
He looked at the ceiling, and it seemed to swirl at him.
‘Enough reminiscing, David, it’s time to come clean.’
The snap of anger was back. David looked down at the answer machine.
‘Get on the TV, David. Tell them what you did. Tell them everything you did.’
His hand was over his mouth, shocked, confused.
‘If you do it right, I stop shooting.’
He went pale and sat down hard, felt himself go dizzy.
‘That’s right, David, it’s me. I’m the one doing it, and I’m doing it all for you.’
There was a laugh, but it sounded cold.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he gasped. ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ His eyes were wide and his face was drawn and grey.
‘But this is the rub, David. You get on the TV and tell everybody what you did. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You do it right and no more footballers die. But, if you don’t do it right, if you try to get yourself out of this jam, I keep on shooting, until the only person left to shoot in football is you.’
David looked back at the machine, numb now, unable to speak.
He put his hand over his face and slumped backwards. The sound of the voice was the only thing in the room now, filling the spaces between the walls so that it felt like they were all coming in on themselves.
‘You could tell the police, David. That would stop it. But if they catch me, I’ll tell them everything. Would you want that?’
His fingers clenched around his hair.
‘This call is being recorded, David, so everyone will know you had a chance to stop it. Any which way, you’re finished. So just do it, David, and you might get lucky.’
The message ended. The silence in the room felt like it was loaded, a barrier, not a gap.
He looked at the machine, and then down at his hands. He was shaking.
When she clicked off the phone she felt the swish of the willow tree replace the dead air of London. She looked back to the house and saw a figure leaning against the wall.
She dropped the phone and clenched her fists, her palms damp, trembling. She felt the sky spin, the earth turn beneath her feet. Her breaths were coming fast and her hands covered her face, her cheeks wet with tears. She thought she felt raindrops on the back of her neck, but when she looked up it was still a bright day. She raised her hand to her eyes to shield the sun, but when the glare was gone, so was the figure, blown away like dust.
She fell to her knees and began to sob, her face buried in the grass, the sounds of summer gone.