The clock is ticking on Erasmus Jones’ deadliest case yet…

Jaded lawyer Erasmus Jones has been hired to protect the footballing world’s latest protégé – and while it’s a job he may not like, he can’t refuse. Thrust into the hedonistic world of the football elite, Erasmus discovers a sinister underbelly to the beautiful game, riddled with corruption, deceit… and murder.

It’s his most high-profile case yet… and it should be enough. But when the only woman he has ever loved appears, begging for his help, Erasmus finds himself caught between two deadly cases: and his professional instincts are tested more than ever before.

With mere seconds on the clock, Erasmus must make a choice: put his client’s life on the line, or turn his back on his past. Because there can only be one winner... and the penalty could be death.

Also by Phil Kurthausen

The Silent Pool

Sudden Death

Phil Kurthausen

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Phil Kurthausen 2014

Phil Kurthausen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472099990

Version date: 2018-09-20

Phil Kurthausen grew up in Merseyside where he dreamt of being a novelist but ended up working as a lawyer. He has travelled the world working as a flower salesman, a light bulb repair technician and, though scared of heights, painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ken Dodd once put him in a headlock for being annoying.

He has had work broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra, published some short stories and his novel The Killing Pool won the Thriller Round in the Harper Collins People’s Novelist Competition broadcast on ITV in November 2011 and appeared in the final. It was later shortlisted for the Dundee International Literary Prize in 2012.

He lives in Chester.

PRAISE

‘Totally un-putdownable. Quite Outstanding’ Jeffrey Archer

‘This pulls you in at 100 mph. [The] sense of place is terrific. A great central character. I love Erasmus Jones’ Mark Billingham

‘Wonderfully written, tightly written, Erasmus Jones is like Jack Reacher. Wonderful’ Cathy Kelly

‘I read ahead of myself. Just cracking. Macabre, brilliant’ Penny Smith

Dedication

For Dylan & Thea

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

PRAISE

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Epilogue

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

July 2nd 1992

She ran, breathing and sobbing hard. She didn’t dare turn around and look back, for the sound of the beasts was still close behind.

The tears that wouldn’t stop blinded her and she tumbled hard onto the cinder path. She lay there for a second and as her eyes cleared slightly she noticed the skin hanging off her knees, revealing lacerations the colour of cough sweets. She held up her hands. Even silhouetted against the sun she could still see the speckled grit that had lodged there as she had broken her fall.

From behind her there came a cackle, a sound that spoke of pleasure in pain, torture and fear. She stood up and ran faster than she ever had before and inwardly screamed at the universe, at herself, for believing that it had all been true.

***

The gap in the trees had been exactly where he had described it in the letter.

She had walked down the cinder path, her head bowed as usual to avoid attracting any unnecessary attention from the ever hungry eyes of the hawks, as she thought of them, those girls with the heightened sense of who was weak and vulnerable to attack, torment and destruction.

But she had been lucky, the path was unusually clear of other pupils. It was a warm day and everyone else had been desperate to leave, a rush and whirr of movement – perfume being applied, shirts rolled up at the waist and buttons undone – and all the time she had moved slowly, as though moving through a different world, a denser atmosphere than the others inhabited. By the time she had put her bag over her shoulder, the changing rooms had cleared save for the tired and grey looking Miss Clarkson, who had wearily ushered her out of the school doors.

When she had reached the end of the cinder path, instead of turning right and heading down the hill that ran to her home, she had turned left. The path ran for a few yards more here and then disappeared, reclaimed by weeds and the trees that surrounded the old Mill House copse

She had come to the gap in the trees, widened over the years by the smokers, potheads and mischievous school children who used this forbidden path. She had never dared come this way before, had never been invited before now but it was exactly as he had described it: a gap marked by the corpse of an old dead elm, dried and decaying.

Her hand had gone to the letter in her pocket. It had been tucked into her bag, placed there while she was doing gym. Resting at the top, the envelope sticking out of the zip so she couldn’t miss it. She had always thought that her half glances had been missed or ignored for the more obvious attentions of the prettier, more confident girls who danced and preened around Mark. But Mark, a golden flop of fringe, eyes the colour of sapphires and a quiet confidence and bearing that made her stomach loop and turn like a Tiger Moth performing acrobatics, had known all along. She had felt sick with the anticipation. For the rest of the afternoon she had struggled to keep her thoughts from colliding with one another, the letter seemed to have derailed all her carefully nurtured linear patterns of thinking. Miss Clarkson had asked her a question in her maths class and Alison hadn’t been aware that she was even being spoken to until she realized that the laughter of the other children was being directed at her.

Miss Clarkson had tutted and under her breath muttered something about periods. The laughter had grown louder but Alison was used to this by now. She had just lowered her head and stared at the desk. She knew the laughter would pass, it always did, it was a creature that constantly needed feeding, needed new targets and all she had to do was wait until some other prey walked unknowingly into the maw and she would be forgotten.

Even though it had been a sunny day, hot and sticky, the path had quickly become dark as the canopy formed by the oaks and the hawthorn blocked out the light. It was a little colder in here but she was happy about this as it cooled her and she knew that she was flushing already as the nervous excitement sent blood rushing round her body. So many times that flush had been the source of ridicule for her classmates and Mark couldn’t have helped but notice. She placed her hands on her cheeks. They were burning and for a second she considered turning back but then she thought of all her heroines of literature. Would they have turned back, would Cathy have not gone to Heathcliff?

She had taken a deep breath, smelling the sweet rich smell of the woods, and then walked on.

A hundred yards down the path she had come to a clearing. In the middle of the clearing were the crumbling remains of the old mill that set beside a small stream. Beams of sunlight penetrated here and within them droplets of water were leaping, forming a small shimmering rainbow that made her gasp at its beauty. She was so transfixed by this sight that she almost didn’t notice Mark step from the shadow of the mill.

‘Hello Ali,’ he had said and then grinned at her.

She had gone to speak but the words had caught in her throat, which seemed to have narrowed to the size of a drinking straw. The world turned and empires rose and fell as she tried to speak.

He had walked towards her.

Luckily her body, usually so much her enemy, started to work.

‘Hi Mark, I got your letter.’ She dug the letter out of the chest pocket in her blouse and held it up.

He had nodded and carried on walking towards her. He flicked his head to one side, clearing the thick golden fringe that had obscured one eye. He smiled at her and she didn’t blush, but feeling a newly discovered confidence, she smiled back.

And then he was holding her and kissing her. He smelled of sweat and sunshine and something darker and more frightening and yet at the same time intoxicating. She opened her mouth and then his tongue was in her mouth, roughly searching. She had read about this, but oh my, the difference was the difference between life and death. She felt her teeth hit against his and she tried to say sorry but his tongue was back, forcing the words back to where they belonged.

His hands moved from around her back and started to unbutton her blouse. She let the letter fall to the floor as she raised her hands to try and stop him but he was quick and powerful and really she didn’t want him to stop, not ever.

He ripped open the last buttons and then reached around and unclipped her bra. It fell to the floor. Instinctively she covered her breasts with her hands. He stood back, a strange smile on his face.

‘Let’s see you then,’ he said.

‘Mark, I wanted you to know … ’, and then she decided no more words, to say it was to unmake it. She let her hands drop to her sides and smiled at him. She revealed herself to him.

He folded his arms and looked at something behind her.

Someone started to laugh but it wasn’t him.

‘Oh my fucking God, she only went and did it. Hey Alison, smile for the camera! Nice scars. Fuck!’

She wheeled around and there sitting on the top of the mill wall were three demons, black plastic faces with red lips painted in evil grins. The Witches, for that was how she thought of them, were laughing hysterically. One of them was holding a camera and the flash exploded into diamond hard light.

She turned back to Mark, her face flushed, her throat as compressed as a strangler’s victim.

‘Why?’ escaped from the clutches of her throat.

Mark stopped laughing and suddenly he looked unsure. Maybe he saw something, the murder he had committed, the innocence he had killed, but he looked like a frightened boy now and not the man he had been moments before. He was staring in horror at the white scars that covered her arms, shoulder and stomach.

A hand pushed her to the floor.

‘Because we’ve seen you, we’ve all seen you mooning over him as if you’d ever have a chance and you needed to be told.’

The tallest witch was standing back taking picture after picture, the sound of the camera’s motor seemed as loud as a jet engine.

‘So have a guess what pictures are going to be all over the fence tomorrow and in every class room and posted to your dad!’

The girls laughed as one.

Alison scrambled away at the same time she tried to cover herself up. She picked up her blouse but it was snatched away by the girl with red hair.

The camera kept on clicking, the film turning.

Alison rolled over in the dirt and snatched up her bra and bag. She got to her feet and she ran.

‘Oi, where do you think you’re going!’ shouted the witch holding the camera.

Alison ran straight at her sending the camera tumbling to the ground. There was a screech of anger.

‘You’ll fucking pay for that. Get her!’

Alison ran and the beasts followed.

They had been no match for her speed though and after she fell on the cinder path she had run with every part of her mind and body and soon they and their cries had fallen behind. As she ran, she sobbed, but when she came to the front door of her house, the sobs fell silent, the fear disappeared and a cold, emotionless calm settled upon her.

She let herself into the house with her key and stood silently for a moment. The house was quiet. That afternoon quiet, when the only sounds were the distant rustle of her father’s paper coming from the study where he locked himself away, and from where she knew he would not venture until the late summer evening darkness descended like a shroud over the house. She couldn’t let him see her like this so slipped off her shoes and walked as quietly as she could through the house. As she passed the door to his study the sweet smell of black cherry tobacco seeped through the closed door, and the sound of a stifled sob.

She took the stairs one at a time, her bare feet soft and noiseless on the carpet. Creeping past her father’s bedroom she thought she heard a noise, and for a second she thought it sounded like a brush being pulled through long hair. It was a memory of a sound she had last heard many years before. Still, she froze by the open doorway, one foot suspended in the air, straining to catch the memory of that sound but there was nothing save for a far away crow’s caw.

Next to her father’s room was her bedroom and as soon as she was inside she shut the door softly behind her.

She flopped exhausted into the chair in front of her desk. She caught sight of herself in the mirror. The mascara she had applied so carefully only forty minutes previously now marked the track of each tear.

But the tears had stopped now. Something else had replaced the shame, the anguish and the heartbreak. This new feeling was hard and resolute, like the sharp edge of a steel blade.

Alison opened a drawer and took out a small black doll. The doll was wearing a black felt coat and a square black hat. The cloak was covered in thin, spiky gold stars. She called it Sleeping Beauty because the doll’s face was as white as ice just like the princess in the story. It was a troll. It had been made by her Icelandic grandmother for Alison’s mother when she was a child. When she was small Alison had imagined she could still smell her mother on the felt. She held it to her nose and inhaled deeply.

After a few seconds she returned it to the drawer. She opened another drawer and took out an extension cord that she used to plug in her hairdryer when the one socket was overloaded with other plugs. Her father had given her it only the week before and mumbled something about his little girl being grown up now.

She stood up and pulled the chair she had been sitting on into the middle of the room. She stood on the chair.

There was a noise from downstairs or maybe closer. She looked around. Her wardrobe door had slipped open revealing the darkness of its interior stuffed with clothes and the old toys that had recently been relegated there. She would have to hurry as soon her father would be calling her to dinner and when she didn’t come he would look for her.

She reached up and slipped the extension cord around the light fitting. She had to push to one side the Paddington Bear lampshade that hung from the fitting but this was easily done. Quickly now, she tied a knot and then looped the plug end into a simple granny knot. She placed the loop around her neck.

There was another noise, a rustling like rats under the floorboards. She ignored it and kicked the chair away.

Alison dropped two feet, her toes lightly brushing against the carpet. She pirouetted like a broken jewellery box ballerina, twisting as the cord spun her around. And as the breath began to leave her for the last time she looked directly into the darkness of the old wardrobe and there she saw, unmistakably, a pair of red bloodshot eyes looking straight back at her.

She span once more and then was gone.

CHAPTER 2

The girl sucked in her bottom lip and looked at Erasmus with as lascivious a glare as he had ever received. She was young, early twenties he would have guessed if he was inclined to give it much thought, which he wasn’t. Her short denim skirt had ridden even higher up her slim thighs than he thought physics would allow, and now she placed a tanned hand under his shirt and on his chest, and then ran it, long manicured nails digging into his skin, slowly down his torso, stopping just above his groin. She paused for a moment and then slipped her fingers underneath his belt

Erasmus groaned, a groan of pleasure but also of despair. He thought of his mobile phone tucked away in his inside jacket pocket. Martha’s number was in there. It wasn’t too late, he could take a step back, look at his behaviour objectively for a second – that’s all it would take. Enough time for him to recognise the old behaviours for what they were, call Martha, and tell her he needed her help. He had done it before and she had never failed to pick up, as he had never failed to pick up when she had called on the diminishing number of occasions when she had succumbed.

His right hand moved towards his jacket and his phone. The girl’s large green-flecked eyes, pupils dilated, flickered and she grabbed his hand and took his fingers between her lips, sucking and biting the nails.

This time his groan was pure lust. All thoughts of calling Martha departed. He was lost. He moved forward and placed his left hand on her buttocks and drew her near to him.

She laughed and then pushed him back against the sink. Slowly she undid the three buttons on her tight electric blue blouse, revealing a black silk bra, and then tossed the blouse on the floor. He grabbed her now and pulled her to him. She kissed him passionately, her tongue exploring his mouth.

Suddenly, there was a burst of static in his ear mic.

‘I’ve lost him.’

Erasmus groaned but this time it was a groan of disappointment. He gently pushed her back.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘Work.’

She cocked her head to one side.

‘What is it you do?’

He half smiled and shook his head.

‘You don’t want to know.’

He opened the door of the cubicle and gave her an apologetic salute.

Even against the banging bass of the club and the whoops and cheers of hundreds of drunken and drugged revellers, Erasmus heard the message loud and clear through his earpiece.

‘I can’t find him!’

He began moving quickly towards the exit, pushing people aside gently but firmly so he could carve a path through the heaving, sweating mass of bodies. It was like swimming through flesh.

A bearded man, dressed to Erasmus’s mind like a cross between a thirties miner and a day-tripper, tried to grab him. He slipped under the man’s arm and brought his mouth close to the man’s glistening face.

‘Get out of my way now.’

The man stared back at him with pupils like black plastic buttons. His dopamine grin changed to a cocaine snarl and he pushed Erasmus in the chest. Erasmus glanced up at the suspended gantry that ran around the circumference of the dance floor. He spotted two bouncers, one of whom was scanning the dance floor for incidents just like this.

His earpiece growled static and then another message.

‘He’s on the roof. Get up here now! I think he’s about to do something stupid!’

He had no time to debate the issue with Cocaineman, who had now raised his hands and wiggled his palms in the internationally accepted gesture of ‘come on then’. Erasmus sighed.

‘When will you kids learn to just say no?’

Erasmus pulled his right arm back and balled his fist but it was just a feint. It would make what he actually planned to do easier. Cocaineman obliged and, anticipating a punch to the face, started to sway back. Erasmus dropped to his haunches and swept his right foot around in an arc taking the man’s legs away from under him in one smooth movement. He dashed forward and caught the guy’s head before it hit the floor and lowered him the few inches to the dance floor.

Cocaineman looked stunned and his breathing was laboured.

‘Do us both a favour and stay down,’ said Erasmus.

Erasmus stood up and began to walk quickly towards the exit and the lift that would take him to the top of the building.

‘You need to get up here now. I can’t see him!’ The voice in his earpiece sounded desperate now.

From behind him he heard a scream. Erasmus turned round and saw that Cocaineman hadn’t taken his advice and was back on his feet. Worse, he had pulled out a knife. Erasmus sighed.

People had instinctively moved away from Cocaineman, but not so far that they wouldn’t see the action. The crowd surrounding him were filled with a nervous but visceral bloodthirsty excitement.

The blade was six inches long and, reflecting the light from the strobes, it looked like a whirring, diamond power tool. Cocaineman was grinning, no doubt enjoying the reversal of power that his hyper firing synapses were telling him had just occurred. He was wrong.

There was another scream. Erasmus noticed a tall, pretty, heavily made-up girl run long pearlescent white finger nails over the bare skin of her arm and her red lips part in expectation. Wherever there is a fight there’s always a crowd waiting to watch the blood, thought Erasmus. He looked up and saw the bouncers were on the move heading for the metal stairs down to the dance floor. In a way it was a relief, there was no need for subtlety any more.

Cocaineman swung the knife at him in a lazy arc. Erasmus moved back an inch on his heels and the knife’s path missed him.

‘What did I tell you?’

Cocaineman ignored him and pulled back his arm ready to strike again. He never got the chance.

Erasmus transferred his weight onto his toes and then in one fluid movement pushed forward over his right knee, his right palm slamming hard into Cocaineman’s nose. He held back slightly as he didn’t want the bone fragments and destroyed cartilage that he could feel crunching beneath his palm to travel upwards into the chemical mess of Cocaineman’s brain: Erasmus figured he had enough trouble in there to be going on with.

Cocaineman didn’t even have time to scream before his eyes rolled up into his sockets and he collapsed unconscious to his knees, and then slumped onto the floor.

The girl with the pearlescent nails let out a small satisfied sigh.

Erasmus winked at her and then jumped over the man’s prone body and headed for the emergency exit. He risked a look back. The two bouncers had reached Cocaineman and were slapping him around the face to revive him. Nice doorman medical technique, thought Erasmus.

He hit the metal bar and the exit door burst open leading to a service corridor. Erasmus walked briskly to the end of the corridor and opened the door at the end. It led into the lobby of the club. There were velvet drapes hanging from the double height ceiling and a statue of a large golden cow squatted in the middle of the lobby, totally dominating the space. This was the icon of the Blood House, a refurbished dance and drugs palace that operated in the building where once Liverpool’s oldest slaughterhouse had stood.

Erasmus ran across to one of the drapes and pulled it aside, revealing a lift. He hit the call button. Above him he heard the sound of pulleys and machinery begin to whirr.

‘Can you see him, Dave?’ said Erasmus into his microphone. There was no reply, only the low sizzle of static.

Behind him he could hear leather soles on tiles. The bouncers were right behind him, running down the corridor.

The sound of the lift grew closer.

The head doorman was Jeff Dooley. He was forty-five, a former bare-knuckle fighter and too canny to lead. He left that to Craig, his assistant, who at twenty years his junior should damn well have the breath to run ahead, even though his steroid fed body hadn’t actually been developed for speed during the thousands of hours of gym work that he subjected it to. But it wasn’t just that. Jeff had seen the man take down Barry Gilligan, Cocaineman as Erasmus thought of him. Barry wasn’t professional but he wasn’t a pushover and the stranger had blown through him like a tornado through Texas. Best to leave the point work to Craig, thought Jeff, fingering the plastic grip of the weapon on his belt and flicking open the clip on the leather holster.

Craig burst through the door and Jeff slowly followed.

In the lobby of the club the front door banged on its hinges as the hard, cold wind whipped in off the Mersey, got funnelled up through the concrete canyon of Water Street and slammed into the front door. The door crashed against the frame again, this time so loud that Jeff thought it would shatter.

Craig pulled the door shut.

‘He’s gone,’ he said.

There was a loud ding as the lift arrived on the ground floor and the doors opened. Jeff pulled back a velvet drape revealing an empty lift. He shook his head.

‘I don’t think so,’ Jeff said looking up. ‘He’s taken the stairs. He’s headed for the roof, come on.’

Jeff stepped into the lift and Craig followed.

Erasmus was more out of shape then he had realised. As he crashed through the fire door and out onto the roof of the Blood House, the icy air from the Mersey stole away what little remained of his breath. He stood still for a second, panting slightly, and looked around. The roof of the bar had been turned into a terrace, no doubt trying to mimic some New York hotel but in the dark, cold of a Merseyside winter it was deserted and had all the charm of a northern seaside town out of season. Incongruous sun loungers lay in a regimented pattern around a frozen shallow pool that in the summer was blue and fresh but in the winter was left cold and empty.

The one benefit of the roof terrace was the view of the city that it afforded. From here he could look down Water Street and to the riverfront. The tall stone walls of two of The Three Graces, the Cunard building and the Liver building, framed the dark, broiling Mersey. It was chillingly beautiful.

He took a breath and started forward looking for Dave. He tried the microphone.

‘Dave, are you there?’

He shouted the same question.

His replies were static and silence.

Erasmus hurried around the side of the pool and towards the bar area at the far end of the roof. If Dave wasn’t behind it, lying unconscious or worse, than there was nowhere else he could be up here.

The bar was maybe thirty feet long and behind it was an open storage area for beer and wine crates. Erasmus jumped on the bar and slid across it. There was nothing there save for a few bottle tops and a soggy dead firework. The storage area was blocked off from his view by a ten feet high sign that ran the length of the rear of the bar and which depicted striking dockworkers holding a girl in a forties polka dot bikini aloft on their shoulders. An image that summed up the bar, and in many ways Liverpool: an awkward history, socialism and faded glory.

Erasmus ran to the end of the bar and into the storage area. This was just a piece of roof, maybe two metres long, and empty save for two aluminium beer barrels that Erasmus guessed some minimum wage student barman had neglected to bring down at the end of summer.

Of Dave and his client there was no sign.

‘Erasmus!’

He looked around but he couldn’t see anyone yet he had definitely heard his name being called. Erasmus walked to the edge of the building. He made the mistake of looking down. The side of the Blood House building fell away into a narrow dark slit, the alleyway that separated it from the adjacent building, which was slightly lower. From the alley far below came the sound of clattering cans and debris swirling around in eddies caused by the strong, grit-filled wind.

It was dark but not too dark for him to register how far the drop was to the concrete below and for some primal part of his brain to rebel and, without even realising what he was doing, step back from the precipice.

His stomach twisted and sent a rush of adrenaline through his system. Christ, he hated heights. A parachute jump, sure, that was no problem at all. He could step out of the plane and barely increase his heart rate, but when he could see the ground it set him reeling.

‘Erasmus, here!’

This time the voice was louder and it was unmistakably coming from the roof of the building next door.

He took a hesitant half step forward towards the edge and then halted.

The roof on the building opposite was of a similar size to the Blood House roof. Its surface lay mostly in darkness and with very little moonlight Erasmus couldn’t make much out in the shadows save for a large, rusty looking satellite dish.

He looked away from the roof and turned his head at an angle so he wasn’t looking directly at it. Using his peripheral vision, which was less sensitive to lack of light, he blinked every few seconds so his vision didn’t adjust to the lack of light and lose its sensitivity. It was an old army trick. He scanned the roof area without looking directly at it. And then there, on a part of the roof that was darker than the rest, was something that looked like a figure.

Erasmus cupped his heads together and shouted. ‘Dave, is that you? Are you OK?’

The figure moved slightly and then began to speak, repeating the same phrase over and over. Erasmus leaned forward trying to make out the words, trying to convince himself that what he thought he had heard wasn’t correct.

The wind dropped for a second and Erasmus heard him clearly now. He froze.

‘Dave’s dead, help me,’ said the figure.

Erasmus recognised the voice of his client. Something was very wrong.

From behind him there was the clang as the steel door that led out onto the roof hit the concrete doorframe. He stole a quick glance from behind the bar. It was the two bouncers. They had followed him up here. Erasmus noticed that the smaller and older of the two was carrying something in his right hand. Erasmus started to duck back behind the sign but he was too late, he caught the eyes of the older bouncer.

‘There. Go get him, Craig!’

The younger man began to walk forward quickly. He looked excited, always a bad sign, thought Erasmus.

He would have to move quickly. He had two options: give himself up to the bouncers, explain the situation, wait for the police to arrive and then, maybe, finally, take a tour of the building next door so the police could see if his story checked out, by which time it may be too late for his client; or jump.

Erasmus looked at the gap. It was probably less than six feet wide. An easy jump if it was between two marks on the floor. But with a drop of one hundred and fifty feet it became a different prospect all together. Bile rose in his stomach. Maybe the bouncers would listen?

He put his head around the sign again. Craig was standing right in front of him. He was so wide that Erasmus couldn’t see the other bouncer hidden behind his bulk.

Erasmus held his arms up palms open.

‘Listen, I haven’t got time. My client is in danger, he’s over there on the other building and – ’

Erasmus was cut off mid-sentence by the swinging right arm of Craig. Instinctively, he ducked and the sledgehammer fist went sailing over his head: Negotiations were over.

He didn’t have time for finesse. From the crouching position he had adopted, Erasmus jumped up and swung his right foot hard into Craig’s steroid shrunken testicles. Craig’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked in air and then almost immediately expelled it in a shriek. He collapsed to the floor. As he did so, two silvery jets, shot towards Erasmus. He swerved to his left and the shiny projectiles impacted against the wooden sign behind him. They were attached by trailing wires that led back to the Taser in Jeff’s chubby hand.

Jeff spat on the floor and his eyes flashed with anger.

Erasmus blew out a relieved sigh. If the Taser’s barbs had hit him he would now be enjoying the pleasures of 50,000 volts of electricity running through his nervous system.

Jeff hit a button on the Taser’s body and the projectiles whirred backwards. He started to reload the gun with an air cartridge.

Erasmus contemplated charging him. He could easily get to him before he could reload but the Taser had a drive stun mode, meaning that the bouncer would only have to touch the gun’s electrodes against Erasmus to incapacitate him instantly.

No, in the time it would take the bouncer to reload, Erasmus would have to move.

He ran around the rear of the sign and began sprinting at a perpendicular angle to the low parapet wall. An image of a theatre with high walls and velvet curtains from a long, long time ago filled his mind, and then he changed course and headed for the wall.

Behind him there was a shout of ‘No!’

Erasmus’s right foot pushed hard against the top of the parapet just as he realised that he was about to die.

CHAPTER 3

Rebecca was in love. She was sure of it. It was the feeling she had only thought possible in an Austen or Meyer novel, not something destined for her. And it was true, you only knew what it could be – how consuming, demanding and overwhelming – once you had experienced it. It was all-consuming, giving yet hungry, and it was like nothing she had ever felt before in her seventeen years.

She had rushed home from school; a day spent thinking about this moment, this time, her love. She could have used her phone but he had been very clear from the start that this was a private love, and he was right. She wanted to share it with her friends, but not her mother, of course, what did she know about love, real love? Yet she knew that in sharing it she risked diluting it, and it becoming nothing more than the currency of gossip and the shrieking hyperbole that her friends reserved for their silly schoolgirl crushes. He had warned about this.

The key had been in her hand since the bell rang signalling the end of another school day. She lived close enough to walk to school but she had sprinted home, unlocked the front door, ignored her mother’s weary greeting shouted from the lounge over the din of the TV and run up the stairs to her bedroom.

She flung her bag on the bed, still covered with a pink bedspread illustrated with little ponies that she loved, and pulled out her laptop from underneath the bed. She sat cross-legged on the bed and turned on the computer. She was breathless with the thought of what awaited.

The old laptop spent an age warming up before the blue screen and icons appeared. She had set her wallpaper to a picture of the Milky Way, which reminded her of her dad, now long gone. He had pointed out the constellations to her on a holiday in France on a clear, cold Brittany night as they stood outside their tent looking into the dark blue of the endless universe.

She didn’t see this now though. Now, she just hit the internet browser icon and clicked on one of her favourites, her only favourite these days if the truth were told. Then she waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. He was never late, he always did what he said would do, and she trusted him that he always would.

This corner of the chat room was always empty, private, reserved for her and her lover. She giggled as she thought of him that way but it was true, she had a lover for the first time in her life. He wasn’t like the boys at school with their immature attempts at impressing her and her friends with their pathetic displays of bravado and nervous gropings. He was a man. Her man.

She checked her watch. It was nearly 5.30 p.m. The excitement that drove her stomach to twist seemed to act like a furnace sending heat lower, causing her to groan softly with need.

There was a ping from her computer as he entered her private space in the chat room.

Ethan’s user ID was E-Z92 and his thumbnail picture – a picture she had spent countless hours studying, worshipping, loving – appeared next to the ID. She knew every inch of his face: the mop of brown hair that threatened to cover his right eye, his beautiful deep brown eyes and the smile, oh my God, the smile that she would do anything for, anything.

She hesitated for a second. This first moment before they spoke was always the worst; the moment of anticipation. Would he still feel the same way? Would the spell be broken?

A sickness replaced the excitement. She should say something. Would he finally recognise her as the girl she was, not the lover she wanted to be?

Letters began to appear on the screen.

Hey Babe, I’ve been thinking about you all day. I’ve missed you, I want you, I need you.

The nerves blossomed inside her giving birth to an almost overwhelming feeling of pure love.

She began to type quickly, not using text speak, which she knew he hated, and was, as she now agreed, the sign of a weak mind.

I’ve missed you too. I spend every moment waiting for us to be together … do you feel the same way?

She hit send and then the nerves were back. Was it too much? She always worried that this was the case. She wanted nothing more than to reveal herself to him, to let him know her, but the magazines, her friends always said no. You had to be a player, follow the rules of the game, hide yourself in case you came across as too keen or, the very worst thing that turned all men off, needy. The other girls teased her at school, said she was too fat to be loved, to know love, but they knew nothing of real love. She had seen them with their silly tales of love bites, grubby unfulfilling sex and there was nothing there that matched this love. She bit her nails as she waited for his response.

It came.

I feel the same way. You know how I feel. The love we have is everything. I miss you when we are apart. Sometimes it’s too much for me to bear. It’s like a pain, a pain that needs more pain to block it out.

She knew what this meant. It was their code.

Her fingers glided over the keyboard. Once she had typed and sent her message she jumped off the bed and went to the wardrobe. Hidden at the bottom under her old and forgotten soft toy collection – he had mentioned some time ago that he thought such things childish in a woman and she had agreed, removing them from her bed that night and consigning them to the wardrobe gulag – was a small tin, the type that some of her more foolish school friends kept their dope hidden in, which she carefully picked up and took with her back to her bed.

Excitedly, she opened the tin and pulled out its contents.

His message was on the screen waiting for her.

For us, to bring us together and take away the pain.

This was theirs and nobody else’s. She understood that he couldn’t be with her, it was impossible; she had seen the pictures of his daughters, the daughters his wife would kill if he left her. Ethan was in an impossible position; their love was all they both wanted, all that mattered. In this universe what else was important? She typed quickly.

I am yours Ethan. For ever. I’m opening myself now.

She nearly added some kisses automatically but they had agreed that this was another childish affectation and she remembered this just in time, her finger aborting the landing before it touched down on ‘x’.

She took off her jumper and slowly unbuttoned her blouse before pulling it down, exposing her left shoulder. The skin was pale and soft and she let her fingers trail lustfully over the flesh there. It was new and unbroken, unlike her right shoulder, which would carry the marks of her love for ever.

She picked up the craft knife and brought the blade down onto her skin. It was sharp and the pain, such as it was, was more sweet and lovely than all the summer mornings of childhood. She inserted the knife deeper now, feeling the flesh resist and then yield as she drew the blade forward, cutting into her skin, marking herself for love, for pain, for him. Blood, their sacrament, warmed her skin and she let it rest there for a second before placing the knife on the tin lid and picking up the cotton wool from the opened tin and dabbing at the sticky warm redness. The white wool darkened quickly and she needed two more buds to remove the blood that collected on her skin.

Her heart rate was up and she could feel it pounding in her chest and through her veins. She placed the cotton buds carefully on the tin and turned back to the computer. A message was waiting for her.

This is for us and us alone. Did you do it my sweet? Did it take away your pain?

It was true, it was always the same, the exhilarating, ecstatic pleasure. But already she could feel the darkness at the horizon inching closer inside her, soon it would be all she could feel and then she would be alone, curled up and waiting, praying for it to pass. Only he could save her from this.

Yes, but I will miss you.

There was a longer than usual pause. She fretted again, this time causing the darkness to accelerate rapidly, the weight of it starting to crush her, blocking her out.

The response was all she could have wished for.

There is a way we can be together for ever.

She began to cry softly.

CHAPTER 4

It had been Pete’s idea. The bad ones usually were.

Erasmus couldn’t say he hated football, it was just he thought the attention paid to it, the billions spent on it, the emotions heightened or ruined by it didn’t seem to be in proportion to the actual physical activity of twenty-two men rushing around a field chasing an inflated ball.

This clearly put him in a minority of one among the other 38,000 people in the stadium who were roaring, cheering, booing and above all, it seemed to Erasmus, swearing all around him. None more so than his friend and colleague Pete Hoare – surname pronounced ‘Horay’ according to Pete’s wife, Deb, and no one else – who had spent the last twenty minutes introducing the people in the executive seats in which they were sat to some of the rarer examples of Anglo-Saxon English.

A player in blue kicked the ball lamely to the opposite team’s goalkeeper.

Pete, dressed in an old style Mod parka over his Gieves & Hawkes suit, leapt to his Italian-leather clad feet.

‘Did you see that? What a massive c – ’ Pete’s eyes flicked towards a glamorous young woman, all blonde hair, winter tan and nails who had appeared next to their seats ‘ – creep, massive creep.’ His voice tailed off, drowned by that most English of cocktails: lust and embarrassment.

The woman looked directly at Pete.

‘Creep? If he’d scored that he’d ’av had a goal bonus, five grand yer know, he’s my husband and he’s a massive cunt never mind creep, love!’

Her thick Scouse accent gave way to a cackle and she tottered away down the steps towards the seats reserved for the player’s guests.

‘Nice,’ said Erasmus.

‘You’re a snob. You know you would,’ said Pete.

Before Erasmus could say whether he would or wouldn’t, another very different figure emerged from the entrance to the lounge area at the top of the steps. Erasmus would have placed this man in his late fifties or early sixties. It was difficult to tell because the man’s silky, long white hair, white teeth and tan seemed somewhat at odds with the wrinkles and body flexibility that Erasmus could also see. He was dressed in a navy blue suit and had what looked like a divers watch on his right wrist.

‘Here’s our man,’ said Pete and bounded up the steps towards him.

The man greeted Pete with a sparkling smile. He was Ted Wright, theatre impresario and owner and chairman of Everton Football Club, and the man, who twenty-four hours ago had rung Pete telling him he needed the assistance of Erasmus Jones as a matter of urgency.

Pete and Ted exchange a few words and then turned and walked down the stairs towards Erasmus.

Ted showed his teeth again and extended his right hand, the left hand he placed on Erasmus’s shoulder, pulling him towards him.

‘Erasmus Jones, great to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

He had been around enough alpha male activity in the army to know when someone was trying to assert dominance. At Sandhurst they had watched a video of the then Israeli president Ehud Barak and Yassar Arafat trying to put an arm on each other’s shoulder and shepherd the other through an open door, and it had been almost comical the way that both had danced and twisted at the door, trying to avoid the other taking the alpha position of the shepherd. Erasmus hated those displays. In his experience they usually led to someone getting hurt so he just shrugged self-deprecatingly and smiled.

‘Nice to meet you too, Mr Wright.’

‘Call me Ted, everybody does, well that or something much worse!’ He laughed theatrically. ‘Come on down here, I want you to watch the rest of the game with me.’

Ted placed his hand in the small of Erasmus’s back and gently pushed him towards the plush row of seats five rows further in front.

Ted turned to Pete.

‘Sorry, but only room for one down there.’

Pete looked disappointed.

‘No problem. Let’s hope the boys can turn this around, eh,’ said Pete to the retreating back of Ted.

Ted ignored him and led Erasmus to the front row of the seating block. These were deep, blue leather seats, a stark contrast to the wooden ones that filled the rest of the ground.

In the middle of the row there were two empty seats. With Ted still pushing gently they made their way along the row, Erasmus muttering ‘sorry’ and ‘excuse me’ every few steps as he bumped into the feet along the narrow gap. Erasmus recognised the new mayor and a minor pop celebrity sitting in this, the rich man’s aisle.

‘You take that seat,’ said Ted from behind him, pushing him towards the furthest and most central seat. ‘It’s the best seat in the ground.’ He bared white teeth that would have looked more appropriate on a twenty-five-year-old. ‘It’s my seat.’

Erasmus let himself fall into the seat and Ted sat down next to him. The seats were wider than those he had left but still Ted’s wide thighs strained against the top of Erasmus’s legs.

As they took the seats a chorus of boos rang out from the stand opposite.

Ted smiled, his unnaturally white teeth flashing in the tungsten glare of floodlights, and raised his hand in acknowledgement.

‘Arsenal fans?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Nope,’ said Ted through a fixed smile, ‘just some fucking ingrates who call themselves fans of this club.’

The boos were almost immediately replaced by a communal howling as a player in red scythed down a player in a blue shirt. It was the noise of a million disappointments and the cry of a hungry beast looking for meat.

Ted was so close that his cologne, so heavy and thick it seemed to surround him like a planetary atmosphere, lodged in Erasmus’s throat like a sticky sweet.

‘Do you like football, Erasmus?’

Erasmus had never been a good liar and now was not the time to start. He coughed, clearing his throat.

‘I don’t see the point. There are so many books to read, places to visit, women to know so why would I want to spend any of that time on watching a bunch of men chase an inflated pigs bladder around a muddy field.’

Ted placed his right hand over Erasmus’s left wrist and leaned in close bringing Erasmus closer into the smell of musk that hung over him. It reminded Erasmus of his long dead Uncle Charlie who had washed with coal soap and worn lashings of what his dad called ‘Christmas perfume’; cheap, heavy and sweet. He had an idea that Ted’s cologne wasn’t cheap.

‘See over there,’ he nodded towards the opposite stand, ‘down near the pitch, that small standing area?’

Erasmus saw a part of the stand was fenced off and even from here he could see that this part of the stand was full of teenagers.

‘That’s the kid’s pen. I used to stand there, forty years ago now, watching the greats: Ball, Kendall, Harvey. I have been in the theatre business all this time, and I’ve seen and met them all. Queens, princes, the rich, the poor, the brilliant and the best this world has to offer. And do you know what? I learnt everything about life, loss and love in the first seventeen years of my life, standing over there.’

Erasmus noticed that Ted’s eyes had become moist. He remembered that Ted had, before making his millions in the theatre world, once been a TV actor in a soap opera.

‘Dads would bring their sons, it was a rite of passage. All that life has to offer can be found in this game and, more importantly, in this club. This club is my life, and the life of forty thousand others in this ground. It is everything to the working man: his theatre, his palace, his place of dreams and fantasy.’

Erasmus studied Ted, trying to make out whether any of this was an act, but the tears and the grip on his arm told him that they were not, or that Ted Wright, former actor and theatre impresario, was a master in his line of work.

‘Why are they booing you, your fans?’ asked Erasmus.

Ted leant back in his seat and laughed.

‘We win they cheer me, we lose they boo me and send me excrement, and worse mind, through my letterbox. It’s just the way it is.’

‘Doesn’t sound like much fun?’ said Erasmus.

‘Fun? What the hell has fun got to do with it? I do it because I have to. I’m the guardian of this club! It was here before I was and it will be here after I’m gone and that’s a fact. Tell me, when you were hunting Taliban, was it fun?’

Erasmus said nothing.

‘I know about you, Mr Jones. I make it my business to find out about who I’m going to be working with. Drummed out of the Military Legal Service for picking up a weapon, leaving base and killing two Taliban who had maimed a class of little girls. A rather unusual legal practice and frankly just the type of person who does things because they need to be done, and not because they are fun. Am I right?’

Erasmus breathed in long and hard. Finally, he let the air out. He felt some, but by no means all, of the tension go with it.

‘Pete told me you wanted to speak to me about something?’

There was another roar from the crowd. Ted’s head snapped round towards the pitch.

One of the Everton players had slipped through the mass of red defenders and was bringing his left foot back to strike the ball. A pulse of excitement shot around the ground, transmitting itself through the people around them and suddenly everyone jumped to their feet.

To Erasmus’s amazement he found that he too was standing. Never underestimate crowd dynamics, he thought.

‘Go on, Wayne!’ screamed Ted.

A furiously loud shout of ‘penalty’ broke and crashed all around him as one of the Arsenal defenders kicked the Everton player’s standing foot away from him.

The referee blew his whistle and pointed to the penalty spot. More cheers.

Ted turned to Erasmus.

‘Wayne Jennings, the best player this club has ever produced. You don’t follow football but I presume you have heard of him?’

Erasmus just shrugged but even Erasmus, a sports hater, had found it difficult to avoid the existence of Wayne Jennings, the Premierships youngest ever goalscorer and England’s new hope for glory. He wasn’t going to let Ted know this though. He wondered at the reasons for his own contrariness, maybe it was a reaction to the fact that he had jumped up with the rest of the fans seated around him, an assertion of grumpy individuality. He knew any number of his ex-girlfriends and colleagues would say he was just being a twat.

Ted shook his head.

‘Score this goal and we’ll win and then be off the bottom. Come on, Wayne.’

An almost funereal hush had gripped the fans, men held each other in ways they would consider cause for a fight and shame outside of the ground. The tension was palpable as the young striker, Wayne Jennings, picked the ball up and placed it on the penalty spot.

The opposition goalkeeper moved from side to side and bent his legs at his knees in an effort to distract Wayne. He seemed to ignore the keeper, looking at the ground beneath his feet, until the last second before he looked up briefly and then began to run towards the ball.

There was the crackling sound of forty thousand breaths being held in the cold, November air.

‘Come on, Wayne,’ whispered Ted.

Two things happened at once. First, Erasmus noticed that although the crowd were all looking at Wayne running up to take the penalty, there was one face to his right, maybe twenty yards away, that was turned away from the goal, and the action on the field, and was looking directly at him. It was a man, maybe late forties, jet-black hair greased back and a lined face that spoke of an upbringing nearer to the equator than Bootle. The second was Wayne Jennings lifting his left foot to strike the ball, seemed to freeze in mid air, his foot extended back to almost a horizontal plane, and then wobbling as his right foot collapsed under him, before he fell crashing to the ground, his weaker right foot catching the ball by accident and knocking it forward no more than twelve inches.

The groans were deafening as the opposition keeper raced out and picked up the ball.

Erasmus looked back from the action and towards the man who had undoubtedly been staring at him. He was gone, his seat now empty.

‘Jesus!’ cried Ted.

He bent over and held his right palm to his forehead. An unhealthy looking flush had appeared on his face breaking through the tan.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ said Erasmus.

‘It just fucking well might be. Follow me. To business,’ said Ted.

Ted started walking back down the row, his girth forcing people back into their seats. He didn’t bother with any apologies. Erasmus followed him and supplied them to the pissed off people that Ted left in his wake.

Ted, moving faster than his size or age would suggest was possible or healthy, shot up the steps towards the exit. As he did so Erasmus realised why he moved so quickly. Boos and taunts rang out from what seemed like thousands of people in the stands. You wouldn’t want to hang around in this environment, thought Erasmus.

‘He’s a fucking wanker, drop him!’

Erasmus recognised the voice. It was Pete and he was pointing at the pitch. Erasmus tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Come on, Pete.’

Pete looked up and if he was embarrassed by his comments about Ted Wright’s star player he certainly didn’t show it.

‘Sure thing, he does need dropping though,’

Ted hadn’t stopped and showed no sign he heard the comment. He was now disappearing down the stairwell that led from the stands.

Erasmus and Pete followed.

The stairs led down into an empty lounge area full of set tables awaiting the post match influx of hungry and, by the sound of the groans coming from the stands above, disappointed spectators. The room reminded Erasmus of a shabby but once grand hotel, posters of ex-players covered the walls and there were lots of shiny plasma screens dotted around the room. But look a bit closer and you could see flaking paintwork and worn carpet.

Ted turned to check they were still there.

‘This way,’ he said and he pushed open a service door before stepping through.

Pete and Erasmus exchanged a bemused glance before following.

Beyond was a corridor dimly lit by industrial low wattage bulbs. Pipes and bundles of cable lined the walls. Some of the cabling had long streaks of copper wire that had burst through the perished rubber.

Ted was chuckling.

‘I know what you’re thinking! How do we get the Fire Safety certificate each year? Let’s just say the inspector is an Evertonian and the council leader brave enough to piss off half his constituents hasn’t been born yet.’

Ted didn’t look at them as he talked, he kept walking at his eerily fast pace, his little legs scuttling along the narrow corridor. They followed him along the corridor, which twisted and turned through the bowels of the stadium, for a couple of minutes. Finally, they came to another service door. Ted stopped, pulled out a key on a silver chain from under his shirt and used it to unlock the door.

‘Through here,’ he said with a flourish of his arms.

The door opened out into what looked like a large study more appropriate to a country home than a football stadium. The back wall was made up of bookshelves and a rich brown mahogany desk sat in front of them. But what was really impressive was the outer wall of the study. This was a floor to ceiling window that looked out onto the pitch.

Pete whistled.

‘Nice,’ he said.

Ted manoeuvred his bulk around the desk.

‘Assume you’re not talking about the team. It’s one-way glass.’ He jabbed a fat finger at the window. ‘The buggers can’t see us. Drink?’ he asked.

The fans outside might not be able to see in but they weren’t insulated from the cacophony of boos and jeers rolling down from the stands at the hapless home players.

Pete nodded.

‘No thanks,’ said Erasmus.

Ted poured out two large glasses of whisky and passed one to Pete. He then crashed back into his chair and let out the sigh that comes to all men of a certain age when they return to a sitting position.

Erasmus decided he had wasted enough time here. He hated football and so far the cruel pettiness and barely restrained violence he felt had done nothing to change his view of the sport.

‘So, I know that you instruct one of the magic circle firms for your corporate and transfer work and you use a local firm, Cuff Roberts, for the smaller stuff just so you can boast you support local businesses, so why in the world would you want to instruct us?’

Erasmus noticed Pete suck in his bottom lip.

Ted stared at Erasmus for a second during which Erasmus wouldn’t have been surprised if he had told them to get out right away. Then pointed out at the pitch.

‘Look,’ he said.

Erasmus turned and watched as the final whistle went and the players in red held up their arms. The Everton player’s body language told him everything he needed to know – hunched shoulders and downcast eyes – as they trudged slowly off the pitch. The booing and jeering was of the kind usually reserved for child killers as they sped off in a van from court.

‘Fuck, we lost,’ said Pete.

‘Again,’ said Ted. ‘Do you know what this means?’ He didn’t wait for answer. ‘This means we are second from bottom in the week before Christmas and do you know how many football teams have been second from bottom at Christmas and then not been relegated? Well, you won’t know Erasmus so I’ll tell you. None.’

‘It’s Wayne’s fault,’ muttered Pete.

Ted took a large slug of his whisky.

‘If we are relegated this club won’t survive. We will lose £125 million, be forced to sell our best players and we will be as welcome in this city as a Mancunian Tory.

Erasmus felt his thinner than most patience start to give.

‘So, what has this got to do with me and Pete? Other than Pete’s obsession with a football club.’

Pete shook his head and smiled ruefully.

‘You’ll never understand this place, Raz.’

Ted licked whisky from his lips.

‘Pete was right. It’s Wayne Jennings. Something is wrong.’

Erasmus considered for a second and then decided that, yes, on balance, he had heard him right.

‘OK, I have no idea how a small, two-man firm of lawyers can help one of your poorly performing footballers. Care to enlighten me?’

There was a glint of rage in Ted’s eyes and Erasmus guessed he was used to being given what he considered due respect when holding forth.

‘Wayne Jennings is the greatest thing that ever happened to this club. I believe your colleague Pete can give you his history.’

Pete smiled.

‘Youngest ever goalscorer in the Premier league, youngest and quickest player to reach thirty goals in a season, England cap at seventeen, England hat-trick at eighteen. Voted Europe’s best young player at eighteen. A local boy, a Scouser and the future and hope of this club.’

‘And what is he playing like this season?’ asked Ted.

‘Like a drunken paraplegic.’

Erasmus shot Pete a glance.

‘Nice.’

Pete looked at his feet.

‘Well he is, Roy needs to drop him.’

‘Roy?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Our sorry excuse for, and soon to be, between you me and the whisky, unemployed manager.’

Ted drained his glass.

‘This club is worth what, say £80 million. We had a bid last summer from Real Madrid for Wayne. They offered £65 million. Wayne is this club; he is the most valuable asset we have. It’s no secret that the club has borrowed against him and now he is playing like he’s never seen a ball before.’

‘Is he injured?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Our doctors say he has never been fitter.’

‘I don’t know what to suggest. Sports psychologist? A trainer? Again, how can we help?’

Ted filled up his tumbler with more whisky. This time he didn’t offer any to Erasmus or Pete. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. He looked at it.

‘Lawyer client confidentiality. I need to know that applies here.’

‘It does,’ said Erasmus, ‘unless you tell me you’re about to commit a crime.’ He smiled.

‘I was sent this three weeks ago.’

Ted handed the piece of paper to Erasmus. It was an email printout. The recipient was Ted. The sender was x546fg@hotmail.co.uk. Erasmus read it.

Wayne has become sick on The Flesh at the Blood House. Stop him or he will never play again.

He passed it to Pete.

‘A classic of its oeuvre,’ said Pete. ‘It’s a shame though that email has all but made extinct the fine art of cutting out newspaper print and gluing it to paper. A real shame.’

Erasmus shrugged.

‘Yes, but no request for payment, which is unusual if it is an attempt to blackmail? Have you asked Wayne about it?’

Ted shook his head.

‘I can’t and neither can the manager. Contractually we are forbidden from raising any non-football issues with Wayne directly. They have to go through his agent, Steve Cowley. I asked him and he said he would take care of it.’

‘Take care of it?’ repeated Erasmus.

‘That’s exactly it. If it was rubbish he would have laughed in my face. Like you say, these things are ten a penny. But he didn’t, he said he would take care of it. There is an “it” and I want to know what “it” is!’ He slapped his palm down against the rich mahogany. ‘Something’s happened and I think it’s the reason Wayne’s form has dipped. He’s a sensitive kid and something is bothering him. When normal teenagers are troubled you get dirty sheets and late nights, with this one, he could bankrupt the club. I want your firm to find out what’s going on. I need to protect my asset!’

‘But why us?’ asked Erasmus, although he already knew the answer.

‘You are lawyers, you can’t go running to the press, and well I know your history, Mr Jones, I know how far you will go.’

Ted looked directly at Erasmus.

‘You want us to find the blackmailer?’ said Pete.

Erasmus shook his head.

‘No, that’s not it. You want us to get Wayne scoring again, isn’t that right?’

Ted placed both hands face down on the table.

‘Will you do it? Peter explained your hourly rates. They are not a problem.’

Erasmus hesitated for a second. He didn’t like this environment, didn’t understand it, but wasn’t it ever thus? Wasn’t it always the appeal of the unfamiliar that attracted him, that usually ended up nearly killing him?

He looked over to Pete and nodded.

‘This one is for you, Pete, we’ll try and save your club.’

Ted was beaming. He walked around his desk and slapped Erasmus hard on the shoulders with one of his bear-like hands.

‘Excellent!’

‘One question, what is the Blood House?’

CHAPTER 5

The Blood House Bar or, as Pete explained, the unofficial home of the city’s Premiership footballers, the hangers-on, WAGS and wannabees, was the type of place that made Erasmus fear for western civilization.

He had no objection to music, albeit the music here seemed to be a sickly RnB, totally unrelated to what he thought of us as RnB: Franklin and Mayfield this was not. He was not against people dancing and having fun as long as he wasn’t forced to participate. No, what he really objected to was people wanting to be seen, to be photographed, to be vindicated by attention. ‘Posing’ his dad would have called it, and the Blood House Bar seemed to be the capital of the city’s posing fraternity.

Pete had cried off. He had a day pass from Debs to come to the football as it was work but an evening in a nightclub was never going to fly. So Erasmus sat with Ted alone in his Maybach on the way to the club.

In the back of the car, his bulk amply supported by the thick leather upholstery, Ted had reclined and had explained Erasmus’s cover story.

‘You are Wayne’s scorta.’

‘What is a scorta?’

‘It’s an Italian term, it means you do things for him, like a batman in the army.’

‘A bodyguard?’

‘Yes, that and more, you look after him.’

‘Do the other players have a scorta?’

Ted shook his head.

‘Footballers are not always educated but they are football smart. They understand the dynamics of a club clearly. Wayne may be young and he may be under the influence of the older players, but make no mistake, they all understand the pecking order of talent and value. The best players get a scorta, particularly if they are young.’

‘And what qualifications do you need to be a scorta?’

Ted smiled, the fat on his eyelids almost obscuring his eyes.

‘A willingness to do anything that is asked. You’ll be fine.’

Erasmus knew the building; he had passed it many times as he made his way to his office in the Cunard Building. Once home to the city’s only abattoir and prior to that the base for the merchants who dealt in African flesh, the grand India Building was now home to Blood House.

The car stopped outside and the driver came around and let them out. Outside the chilly night air, edged with the sharpness of an Irish Sea wind, had not stopped hundreds of people, dressed in clothes more appropriate for a summer’s day, queuing outside on the pavement. Erasmus noticed eyes flicker with interest and then fade into cold boredom as they realised Erasmus was a nobody.

There were two doormen, one older and presumably the boss, and the other young and gym muscled. The older bouncer nodded at Ted and the younger lifted up a braided gold rope that marked the entrance to the club.

‘Evening,’ said Ted.

‘Nice to see you again, Mr Wright. Pity about the result today. The boys are already inside letting off steam.’

Ted stuck out his hand and Erasmus saw that a note was being passed.

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

The rope was clicked back into place by the younger bouncer blocking the progress of two young girls wearing short, gossamer thin dresses and whose goosebumps were visible through their fake tans like seeds on a loaf.

Erasmus followed Ted through the entrance hall, which was lined with floor to ceiling purple velvet drapes. If they had been going for an ambience of expensive decadence crossed with brothel chic then they were bang on the money, thought Erasmus. Ted seemed to know exactly where he was going. He pulled aside one of the drapes revealing an aluminium door, cheap and incongruous. He opened it and stepped through. Erasmus followed him and walked into a wall of pulsing beats, strobe lights and the smell of money and sex. They were standing at the top of a wide metal staircase that overlooked a dance floor that filled with swaying, sweating bodies. The effect from up here was of one many-limbed organism moving in time. The bass that filled Erasmus’s chest was provided by a DJ whose booth was at their eye level, hung from the ceiling by steel wires, suspended over the flock.

Ted leaned in and shouted into Erasmus’s ears.

‘I hate it here, I’m going to introduce you to Wayne and then I’m going. I have to get my helicopter back to London.’

Erasmus nodded. It was useless him trying to speak. Ted would never hear him.

Ted descended the staircase. He seemed oblivious to the revellers who he bumped and barged past, but they also seemed unaware of him, their saucer eyes fixed on the DJ as they danced as one.

Ted carved his way straight across the dance floor, like a shark through an ocean of krill, until he reached the opposite side. Here there was a door with another bouncer stood outside except this one was professional. His dark eyes registered Erasmus and then immediately flickered back to the heaving mass of flesh on the dance floor, scanning for threats. Erasmus could tell from the guy’s bearing that he was ex-military.

‘This is Dave, the player’s general bodyguard.’

Dave tipped his head ever so slightly in Erasmus’s direction.

‘Let us in, Dave.’

Dave let his left hand drop to his side and he hit a button hidden somewhere behind him. His eyes stuck to the dance floor. The door swung open. Ted beckoned Erasmus forward. He followed Ted into the room beyond and the door swung shut behind them.

‘And this is the Blue Room. Wait here.’

Ted scuttled away.

The pounding music outside had been reduced to a far away bass thump by the soundproofing of the room and it also took a second for Erasmus’s eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom. When they did the sight was one he hadn’t been expecting. There were two large booths dominating the room, both facing the door that had closed behind him. The first booth was filled with a mixed group of young people and some of them greeted Ted with high fives and handshakes. Next to it was a second booth. In that one, a man sat on his own nursing a glass of mineral water.

Erasmus realised with a start that it was the same man he had seen staring at him at the match earlier that afternoon. The man caught Erasmus’s eye and a smile crawled up his face like a spider moving towards its prey.

Before Erasmus could respond Ted had returned and had hold of his elbow.

‘Come on, come and meet Wayne.’

Ted propelled him forward.

Seated at the first booth were five men and seven women. The woman seemed to be draped around the men in a way that suggested to Erasmus that they had been partaking of some sort of downer, a lugubrious ketamine pall hung over them.

Ted pushed Erasmus forward.

‘Everyone this is Erasmus Jones. He’s Wayne’s new scorta!’

The man seated at the centre of the circular seats and directly opposite Erasmus was older than the other men, he looked like he was pushing thirty, and he sneered at Erasmus.

‘So what?’ he said.

‘Erasmus meet Gary Jones, team captain.’

Gary looked away, ignoring the introduction, and kissed the ear of the blonde girl sitting next to him. Ted pretended not to notice.

‘This is Kristos, central defender,’ Ted said gesturing towards a tall, bearded and long haired giant who nodded at Erasmus. ‘This is De Marco, centre midfielder, Charley Bake, goalkeeper – ’ a well tanned and then a pasty ginger-haired men nodded in turn at Erasmus ‘ – and this is Wayne.’

Erasmus recognised him from earlier that day. Out of his kit and now dressed in a white shirt and jeans he looked like any pimply teenager you might see hanging around a bus shelter or park bench. He had a lank dark fringe that hung just short of bright blue eyes. Wayne stood up and put out his hand.

‘Nice to meet you, Erasmus,’ he said and gave him a generous smile that didn’t seem to Erasmus to be the product of a PR company’s brief.

Erasmus shook the boy’s hand.

‘Nice to meet you too, Wayne. Sorry about the result today.’

Wayne gave a half smile and looked down at the floor. Erasmus hadn’t expected the footballer to be so shy.

‘It was my fault – ’

A wet napkin hit Erasmus square in the face. It smelled of stale alcohol and tobacco. Gary Jones was laughing, clearly the originator of the missile.

‘Rules of the Blood House: We never talk about the game after the game if we’ve lost!’

He leant back and looked to his teammates for laughter. Erasmus noticed that De Marco didn’t laugh along with the others.

‘Guess you haven’t had much to talk about for a while then,’ said Erasmus.

A look of anger flashed on Gary’s face and he leapt to his feet.

‘Who the fuck is this nobody? You know the rules, get him out, Ted!’

De Marco started laughing and slapped Gary on the shoulder.

‘He’s right though, Jonesy, yes? We ’av been merda!’

This broke the tension and Wayne started to laugh followed by the others. Gary hovered over his seat for a second, assessing the support for any further action. Realising there was none, he smiled a violent smile and sank to his seat.

‘But, Ted, he is right, you know the rules. Ciao Erasmus,’ said De Marco.

Ted’s eyes flicked from side to side.

‘Yeah, of course, just wanted you guys to meet the new guy.’

‘Nice to meet you, Erasmus,’ said Wayne.

‘And you kid,’ replied Erasmus.

Ted was pulling at Erasmus’s arm.

‘Come on, we need to go.’

Gary Jones was staring at Erasmus daring him to look away. Erasmus winked elaborately at him and turned away.

‘What rules?’ asked Erasmus.

‘Only players, agents and invited guests in here. If one says you go you have to go and Jonesy wants you gone.’

‘Gary Jones is a charmer isn’t he,’ he said to Ted.

Ted didn’t look at Erasmus.

‘He’ll be gone next season. Hamstrings. They get like ageing racehorses. What did you think about Wayne?’

‘He’s a kid.’

Ted harrumphed.

‘A kid with the future of this club on his shoulders.’

‘And the man, at the other booth.’

Ted stopped and faced Erasmus.

‘Babak. Just hope you don’t ever have to deal with him. Come on, I’ll give you a lift home.’

Erasmus’s tenure as a scorta had begun that day two weeks ago. Since then he had followed Wayne around, from training ground to club, from match to club. And always that club was the Blood House and always it ended with a closed door to the Blue Room: the players’ inner sanctum. He hadn’t been inside since.

***

The realisation that he was about to die hit him before he committed himself to the jump. He stopped, teetering on the edge for a second and then he stepped back. Waves of panic engulfed him, sending pins and needles shooting up his arms and converging in his chest. He sank to his knees; trying to catch his breath, force it to carry oxygen to his hungry lungs.

It had been three years, four months and two days since he had last felt the overwhelming feeling that he felt now. Shit, he thought he had left this behind. He tried to concentrate on the cement floor. As he did so he became dimly aware of people laughing.

He looked up, straight into the face of Wayne Jennings.

His hyperventilating began to calm and he realised that he was surrounded by at least ten people, most of whom were laughing hysterically. Erasmus slowly got to his feet.

Wayne Jennings, the reason he was here, had a hand over his mouth and was shaking his head. Erasmus recognised three of the group as other players – Gary Jones, the captain, De Marco and Kristos – and they had been joined by the two bouncers who were also laughing. The rest of the group were all young girls, tanned and scantily clad even though it was the middle of January. They were holding bottles of champagne and all of them were laughing, apart from Wayne who looked concerned.

‘I’m so sorry, Raz, it was a joke. We wanted to see how far you would go to protect me. I can’t believe you were going to jump!’

Wayne, rosy cheeked and despite the thousand pound suit and shoes, looking like a naughty schoolboy who had just been caught having an extra biscuit, stuck out his hand and helped Erasmus to his feet.

‘A trick? Why?’

Gary Jones slapped his thick forearm around Erasmus’s shoulder. He stank of stale booze and tobacco mixed with his expensive cologne: a stomach churning scent.

‘A bet. I bet Wayne that his new scorta wasn’t the real deal, that if Wayne was ever kidnapped by ragheads or scallies, he would be a goner. We thought we’d see. We were hiding over there,’ Gary pointed over to a dark corner of the roof. Erasmus could just make out a small service hut. In his rush onto the roof he had run right past it without seeing it. ‘I tell you, we were pissing ourselves. I couldn’t believe you took out the bouncers as well. Don’t worry, we squared it with them.’

‘Charley did the voices. Charley, show yourself!’ shouted Kristos.

On the opposite roof the club’s goalkeeper stood up from where he had been hiding in the shadows.

‘Erasmus, Dave’s dead!’ he shouted over at them.

Cue more hysterical laughter.

Erasmus breathed in and let the urge to break Jones’s fingers disappear with the exhalation.

‘And you thought you’d do that by pretending Wayne had been kidnapped and risking my life?’

Erasmus pulled Jones’s arm away from his shoulder. Wayne looked down at the floor and his face flushed.

Gary raised his hands, palms facing Erasmus.

‘Whoa there, buddy. I thought you were meant to be his scorta, hard as nails, willing to take a bullet. It’s only a six foot gap, you pussy! Charley jumped it no problem.’

‘I could have died.’

Jones relocated his arm around the waist of a pretty young blonde girl. Erasmus noticed she shivered and wondered whether it was the cold or Jones’s touch that brought it on.

‘Look again, scorta.’

Erasmus turned and looked down. Now he looked closely he could see that about ten feet down there was a net, stretched between the buildings, covering the whole of the alley.

‘They put it up there when they built the roof terrace. They didn’t want any drunks falling off. Come on, have a drink, we can toast your cowardice!’

Jones snatched a bottle of champagne from the girl he was holding and offered it to Erasmus. The girl made a pawing motion, like a child reaching for a sticky sweet, but Gary shoved her aside.

Erasmus tried to breathe in and relax but before this thought had time to be put into practice he had already moved forward, grabbed Gary by the back of his neck and was propelling him forward towards the edge of the building.

‘What the fuck!’

Gary’s cries were cut off and replaced by a scream as Erasmus stopped Gary right on the building’s edge and, keeping a tight grip of his collar, pushed him forward so he was suspended above the drop.

‘What do you think of the drop now?’

Gary tried to speak but no words came out, his tongue lopped about in his mouth, waiting for air.

‘Silly games get people killed.’

‘Please – ’

Erasmus extended his arm further. Gary’s toes were now over the edge.

Erasmus felt the anger swirl and break inside him. His fingers loosened their grip.

Suddenly a hand gripped his arm. Erasmus’s turned his head. It was Wayne’s.

‘Don’t,’ whispered Wayne.

Gary was whimpering and the smell of urine was evident. Erasmus pulled him back from the edge and threw him to the floor.

Wayne’s face had turned the colour of sour milk.

‘You wouldn’t have done it would you, Erasmus?’ asked Wayne.

Erasmus ignored him and started to walk away towards the door that led to the stairs. He paused as he passed the girl who Gary had snatched the champagne bottle from. Now he was close he could see she was just a kid, nineteen at the most. Even under all her make-up he could make out the faint outline of a bruise on her right eye.

‘That one is bad news. Leave him,’ he said.

She pouted, large red lips almost clown like under the weight of heavy, red lipstick, but she didn’t look away.

‘I love him,’ was the simple reply.

Erasmus shook his head.

As Erasmus reached to open the door to the stairs it was pushed open from the other side and Dave, the security guard assigned to look after the players, appeared. He looked surprised to see Erasmus and then his face broke into a big grin.

‘Did you jump?’ He started to laugh.

Dave was a big man and used to be taken seriously. It was therefore a surprise when Erasmus didn’t laugh along with him but instead shoved his head fast and hard into Dave’s nose, causing it to make a crunching sound. Dave fell back clutching his broken nose. Special forces or not, if you weren’t expecting a head-butt your nose broke just like any other.

‘Tell your boss, I quit,’ said Erasmus as headed down the stairs.

CHAPTER 6

Erasmus’s office amounted to two rooms in the old, draughty but glorious Cunard Building, one of the three commercial buildings, The Three Graces that stood as proof of the city’s once mighty industrial past on the banks of the Mersey. Rent was cheap here now as the more successful businesses retreated like the tide, away from the riverfront to the newer, less draughty, glass and steel offices that had begun to populate the city.

The first room was an antechamber to the slightly larger second. Pete was sitting in this room in a chair by the desk that functioned both as his desk and reception. He was wearing a white grandad shirt, houndstooth trousers and from his headphones Erasmus could hear the strains of ‘Itchycoo Park’.

As Erasmus entered the office Pete took off his headphones. He looked concerned.

‘Listen, you’ve got a visitor and –’

Erasmus wasn’t expecting anyone as he knew that their diary was empty. If they hadn’t taken the Wayne Jennings case there would be no money coming in at all so a walk-in was good, especially now he had quit the Jennings case.

But it wasn’t good. It was devastating.

He opened the door to his office before Pete could finish. As he entered he had just enough time to register the smooth, lithe curve of the seated woman’s neck and the soft brunette curls that she had swept to one side of that neck before she turned to face him.

He couldn’t help himself, the words were out before his normally reliable brain had time to exercise its veto.

‘Shit.’

She smiled at him but it was a forced smile.

‘ – It’s Karen,’ finished Pete from behind him.

‘Nice to see you too, Erasmus,’ said Karen.

Karen Kelly, the first owner of Erasmus Jones’s heart, the woman he had loved in a way that he knew was impossible for him now, whatever happened, whoever he met, the woman who he would have died for, for which a piece of him had died, and the woman who had left him a wreck and with no option but to run away and join the army, faced him for the first time in fourteen years.

Erasmus wasn’t sure but he felt like he was viewing the scene from above and it seemed as though he watched himself calmly walk around and take a seat behind his desk, like a real solicitor and not one whose heart was pounding as though he had just been in a fire fight. He was only vaguely aware of Pete shutting the office door.

And then he was back in his body and looking across the table at the person he knew he had loved and who had hurt him more than anyone else alive and yet all he wanted to do was touch her. Fuck! He managed to breathe and surprised himself by being able to speak.

‘Karen, I can safely say you are the last person I expected to see in my office today.’

She smiled again, this time it was a little less forced.

‘I’m sorry I have to do this to you. I know things, I could have been different, behaved differently, but … ’ she trailed off.

Inside, Erasmus was screaming obscenities at her. ‘Behaved differently’, well, yeah, that would have been a start. Not turning up the morning they were due to fly around the world together, a trip they had been planning for two years, and announcing that she didn’t love him any more and that she was leaving him for her boss, some seedy thirty-year-old she had copped off with at the office party. Not leaving him to have to take back the engagement ring he had stashed in his backpack to the jewellers and explain to them that it hadn’t gone to plan.

Instead he heard a calm voice that sounded like his say, ‘That’s OK. It’s nice to see you after all this time, Karen. How can I help you?’

She looked on the verge of tears. Time had added some wrinkles, a few laughter lines, but it was still the Karen that he had loved. Erasmus’s stomach did a backflip.

‘I don’t know whether you know but me and Tony had a daughter, Rebecca, not long after we split up.’

Split up? It was like calling a mugging an exchange of ideas about wallet redistribution, thought Erasmus. The daughter, he knew about. He had been told by a friend a couple of years after. It had been vinegar in an open wound but by then Erasmus had seen and done things that put things in a different perspective.

‘I heard.’

‘She’s in trouble.’ She began to sob and then while Erasmus struggled with conflicting emotions over whether to move around the table and try and comfort her, she pulled herself together.

‘Me and Tony split up five years ago and since then there’s been nobody else, at least nobody important. I’ve had to try and steer her through her teenage years alone and you know how hard they can be. Did you ever have kids?’

His stomach again, this time somersaulting at the thought of lost possibilities and alternate futures.

‘One, a girl.’

He looked out of the window at the Mersey. It was broiling, grey and angry.

‘It’s a cliché but you know it’s true; they change everything. Your life really isn’t your own any more, you would do anything for them, die for them at the drop of a hat.’

Erasmus wanted to say that was how he had felt about her. He said nothing instead.

‘I think she’s become part of something bad, something really bad and dangerous.’

Erasmus needed a drink and quick. The adrenaline causing his stomach to pitch and roll had flown through his nervous system and it was lighting up like a forties telephone switchboard. Unless he added booze he would be on the floor breathing through a paper bag before he knew it.

‘Drink?’ he asked and, not waiting for a reply, fished out a bottle of Yamakazi he kept on standby for emergencies. Luckily, there were two semi-clean glasses in the desk drawer and he filled both up with generous measures. He passed one to Karen and drank his in one, replenishing it straight away.

Karen looked on agog.

‘Shock of seeing you,’ he explained. ‘So what kind of trouble?’

‘Can you remember what it was like when you were sixteen? The strength of your emotions, how passionate you felt about the world, how it left you breathless with excitement at the possibilities?’

Erasmus could and even with the benefit of twenty years experience that had slowly crushed those dreams and passion, he could still remember the feelings that a piece of music, an argument, and the possibility of love, could bring.

‘I can, but I can also remember the angst, being miserable as sin and thinking I was being deep and lost in an existential fugue rather than sulking.’

Karen leant forward and Erasmus found himself mirroring her, shortening the distance between them across the desk.

‘About two years ago Rebecca changed. I was expecting it, of course, but it’s still a shock to the system when it happens. I wish I could apologise to my parents for what I must have out them through. She went from being a kind and sweet child to a selfish, sulky teenager who would shut the door to her room if she heard me coming upstairs and who barely talked to me, and this happened so quickly.’

‘Par for the course so far though.’

‘It’s not that I’m worried about, all that is normal. Annoying, but normal. What I’m worried about,’ she began to choke up again, ‘is what happened two days ago.’

‘What was it?’

‘The last six months, she’s been acting even worse than normal. Not coming down for dinner, barely communicating even when pressed and then I noticed she was covering her arms. It reminded me of a girl from school. When this girl turned fourteen she stopped doing PE. This wasn’t unusual, to be fair. Lots of us felt uncomfortable as our bodies began to change and the list of excuses for missing PE was always long. But she missed week after week and there are only so many times you can blame your period. She also took to wearing long sleeved blouses even in summer. Some of the girls bullied her.’ Karen’s eyes flickered to the side for second and she paused as though composing herself. ‘You know how children can be.’ She cleared her throat and continued ‘Eventually, the gym teacher, a tough old woman called Agatha had enough and when faced with her latest excuse, grabbed hold of her in the changing rooms and shook her, ripping the top of her blouse. She let go of her when she saw what was beneath the material. Old, white scar tissue crisscrossing her arm and newer pink tracks. She had been cutting herself. So, when Rebecca started covering her arms I was suspicious. But when I found a craft knife in her bag I knew.’

Erasmus always wondered how his experiences, day by day, changed him but the slow drip of the world meant it was hard to tell. Here, looking at the woman he had loved, he saw the change that life wrought on the once young. The Karen he had loved had been daring, fearless and full of adventure. It was difficult to square this with the anxious, worried woman in front of him.

‘I accessed her Facebook account. I’m not one of her friends, I used to be but she removed me, and her privacy settings are set on high. I guessed her password though. It was “Timmy” the name of our old dog. I logged on, violated her privacy but when you become a mother, you do things, anything.’ She looked down at the desk and then took a sip of the whisky he had handed her. ‘Her regular Facebook account was an eye opener, for sure. She has been smoking, a bit of drink, that I guess I expected, and so far, nothing that we didn’t do, Erasmus. Surprisingly, it seems that she is still a virgin. I can see from your face that you think I’ve gone too far.’

And it was true. Erasmus was trying to square what this Karen was telling him with the Karen who had been such an outspoken supporter of Human Rights, demonstrating against any number of dictatorial regimes.

‘Being a parent changes everything.’ She looked at him quickly and then away again. ‘I found something though. Her browser history showed she had been going to sites that dealt with self harm and – ’ her voice caught ‘ – suicide.’

This time she couldn’t help herself and she began to cry freely. Erasmus didn’t move. He was thinking. He was thinking of two instances ten years apart, each lasting no more than sixty seconds, when he had come close to taking his own life. The first had been six months after Karen had left him and he had found himself drunk again, staring into a mirror at eyes that hadn’t slept properly in many weeks, and the darkness and loneliness had felt as tight as a straitjacket, squeezing any remnants of joy left out of him. He had held a razor to his wrists and to this day he had no doubt he would have carried through with it unless at that very moment a burglar hadn’t decided to put a brick through the back window of the house he lived in and, incidentally, save his life. The second incident had been in Afghanistan, and was difficult to see as a memory, more a collection of blood-splattered images linked by rage and a desire to kill and to die. He blinked, forcing the memories away.

‘And then when I was at the computer an instant message arrived from a boy I don’t know. Someone called Ethan.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I didn’t know what to do but I knew I had to know. I typed in “yes” and sent a reply.’

‘What happened?

‘Nothing for a moment and then a reply asking who was this? He knew, you see. He knew I wasn’t Rebecca. But the worst part is I heard the door open to Rebecca’s bedroom and when I turned around to look there she was, standing there looking at me, crying. Instead of doing what I should have done I did what Agatha did to that girl from my school. I attacked my own daughter, I confronted her, demanded she show me her arms. When she wouldn’t I pulled and ripped at her shirtsleeves. She was screaming at me, clawing but I did it and there they were, scars, Erasmus.’

Erasmus shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

‘Can’t social services help? Your doctor?’

Karen shot him a look that could have been contempt but her tone didn’t change.

‘Of course I’ve spoken to them and the school. They have procedures in place, counselling courses, they always have done, even in our day. Rebecca has agreed to go.’

‘How can I help?’

She looked up at him, this woman whose face still had the power to make him shudder, but who, in truth, in many ways he barely recognised.

‘I haven’t told you the worst bit. Three days ago I came home early and – ’ she gulped, shut her eyes, and then recovered herself ‘ – the house was quiet, I thought no one was home. I took off my suit, you know how it is when you get home from work, you want to relax, and I decided to run a bath. I walked into the bathroom and I found Rebecca in the bath.’

She paused.

‘Was she OK?’

‘She was naked in the bath, with her iPad propped in front of her, and there was blood in the water. I looked at her and just knew what she had been doing, but she screamed at me to get out, that she was on her period. But I know that’s not true, we’re synched. She had been cutting herself and you know when they do it in a bath … ’ She shook her head. ‘Erasmus, there was a razor blade on the side of the bath. I think she was going to … Shit.’ She raised her hand to her temple.

Erasmus bit his lip.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just I know what she was thinking of doing. What am I going to do?’

‘Did you speak to her about it?’

‘Of course I did, I even managed not to shout, God knows how. I asked her what she was watching on her iPad in the bath.’ She smiled wanly. ‘But she told me it was none of my business. None of my business, my own child’s life.’

This time the tears came.

Erasmus wanted to get up, walk around the desk and hold her, but the weight of the years and the history between them acted like a force field around him preventing any reaction.

She composed herself.

‘I think she was messaging this boy Ethan at the time. Why else would she have her iPad there? I don’t know any Ethan. I’ve spoken to the school and they don’t have an Ethan there. Rebecca won’t tell me anything. I’m sure he’s been influencing her.’

Erasmus leaned back. One of these days he would get a nice straightforward legal case, a dispute over a hedge boundary, a divorce case maybe. Or maybe not, his reputation seemed set after the mayor’s case the previous year.

‘And you want me to find this Ethan?’

She nodded.

‘I’m scared, Erasmus.’

At that moment she looked like the twenty-five-year-old who had broken his heart.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Karen nodded. He led her out into the other office, all the time wanting to touch her on the arm but resisting because he didn’t trust what that feeling may do to him.

Pete had removed his headphones and appeared to be doing some work on the computer. On closer inspection Erasmus could see he was on the Racing Post website. He looked up.

‘You two, er, all right?’

‘We’re fine,’ said Karen.

‘We are going to be working on a job for Karen. I’ll fill you in.’

He saw Karen out and then walked back into the office. Pete ran his fingers through his long hair.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing. You’ve told me what happened when she left you the first time.’

‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that time is a great healer,’ said Erasmus. ‘I’m going to open a new file.’

He shut the door to his office behind him and walked over to the large window that overlooked the river. He stood there and the feelings that swept through him were as strong as the tides twisting and pulling at the Mersey below.

CHAPTER 7

Quitting hadn’t been as straightforward as Erasmus thought it would be.

He had gone home and opened a fresh bottle of Yamakazi, and then played some Fall and Pixie tracks from his Mac until the liquid concrete above his eyes had set. Press repeat, Friday through Sunday. He had deliberately not left the house in the evening. The twelve steps were all well and good but Erasmus knew that if he left the house drunk he wouldn’t be returning on his own. His mentor, Martha, swore that this was what had kept her faithful to her husband for the past eighteen months. Denial of service, she called it. Erasmus thought it might just be dealing with the symptoms rather than the cause but if the result was the same –not having sex with random strangers – then who cared? He had come too close that night at the club and wasn’t it true that some of the anger he directed at Gary Jones had sprung from his own self loathing at succumbing once again?

The fact that he might be replacing one addiction with another in the form of alcohol was a risk he was prepared to take, or rather thought he was happy to take until he woke up on Monday morning to the sound of his mobile phone like an electronic rat burrowing into his brain and gnawing on his awake switch.

He swore and reached for the source of his pain. The mobile was lodged under the sofa cushion he had fallen asleep on. He dug it out and answered.

It was Ted.

‘Why haven’t you been answering your phone?’

Erasmus started to speak but his throat seemed to be clogged with cotton wool. He reached for a mug and luckily it had some cold tea in it. He drained it.

‘Business trip,’ he said.

‘I heard what happened. These kids can be a handful sometimes.’

Erasmus dug out a pack of Marlboro lights from the pocket of his trousers and lit one with a lighter he didn’t recognise. This was a bad sign. Instinctively, he looked around for the girl whose lighter this might be.

‘Those “kids” nearly fucking killed me.’

Ted chuckled.

‘I heard you made them pay, as well. I’ve had Gary Jones’s agent, Steve Cowley, on the line screaming at me that I should sack you. Apparently Gary soiled himself and the other players have been taking the Michael ever since.’

Erasmus inhaled, so much guilt and pleasure in one tiny object. They should charge double for them, he thought.

‘You can’t sack me, I quit.’

Ted ignored him.

‘Of course, what Gary wants isn’t so important. He is coming to the end of his career, no one wants him but us now, and so I can ignore that. The interesting thing is that Wayne has taken to you.’

Erasmus shook his head as though this might help dislodge the sharp crack of pain that seemed to be forming on the right-hand side of his brain.

‘Didn’t you hear? I quit. Those fuckers nearly did what the Taliban couldn’t manage.’

‘I’ll double your hourly rate.’

Erasmus stubbed out the cigarette in the nearest receptacle, a chipped tea-stained mug with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it: a relic from a past life. Briefly, an image of his daughter, Abby, came into his mind. He dismissed it quickly, he hadn’t seen her in over six months. He wanted to put all the blame for that on his ex-wife Miranda but the truth was that the fault lay squarely between them.

Double rates. Truth was that the firm only had one client at the moment that was actually willing to pay their standard rates and Erasmus was speaking to him right now.

‘I usually take silence as agreement,’ said Ted, chuckling again.

Erasmus looked around. At the age of thirty-nine he had finally managed to buy a flat with the last of his resettlement money from the army that he hadn’t blown on his two-year voyage of self destruction around the globe. It was in an old Victorian mansion, with high ceilings, damp and a panoramic view of Sefton Park and the local patch of a skag dealer called Eric. The decayed grandeur of the place had appealed to Erasmus and although it still did, waking up cold and shivering most mornings because the place leaked heat was starting to lose its appeal. But it was all he had, and what little it was depended on the mortgage being paid on time.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I want you to go and see Wayne. Turns out that the boy was quite impressed with you. You see Cowley also represents him and he let it slip that Wayne hasn’t stopped taking about the fact that you took out that bouncer. I mean you could have jumped as well but never mind, you’re in, Erasmus! Now all you need to do is find out what’s up with the boy. It should be a stroll in the park.’

Ted gave Erasmus Wayne’s address and told him that Wayne was expecting him. Grudgingly Erasmus agreed he would go and see him.

He flopped off the couch and reached over to his Mac and selected a Doves track, ‘There Goes The Fear’, in the hope it might actually be a statement that would assist with his hangover. He hit play and cranked up the volume. He needed music to get going and it wasn’t like anyone was going to complain. The other two apartments in the building were currently empty. Ali, who lived above him, had moved out four months ago to go and work with a cousin in Iraq. Mark and Sue in the flat below had taken career breaks and by Erasmus’s reckoning would now be either buying beads in Macchu Picchu or selling small beers to large Aussies. They wouldn’t be back for six months. Erasmus liked the fact that he had the building to himself, it meant there were fewer judging eyes.

Before he went to Wayne’s house though there was something far more important he had to do. He dialled the number. It was answered on the third ring, as it always was, by Miranda.

‘Erasmus,’ she said in the clipped tone that conveyed ten years of disappointment, heartbreak and the suspicion that any contact with him brought her and their daughter closer to chaos and darkness then she was willing to allow.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

She ignored his question. ‘Abby’s not here. You’ll have to call back.’

He felt tension in his chest.

‘This happened last week as well. What’s going on?’

He despised the way his voice rose an octave as he finished his sentence but he couldn’t help it.

‘She’s having a sleepover at her friend Rachinder’s tonight. I told you about this last week.’

He had a vague memory of her saying something about a friend but he had been hung-over on Sunday when he thought she may have mentioned it.

‘Who’s Rachinder?’

There was a pause and a sigh from Miranda.

‘Rachinder is her new best friend as of two weeks ago. You know how they are at that age.’

Abby was nine and since the events of two years ago he had seen her only twice. The fact is he had no idea what it was like at that age.

‘Well, who is she, who are her parents, do you know them? Have they been, I dunno, CRB checked?’

‘Jesus, Erasmus, when did you become so suspicious? It’s a friend from school and she’s staying over to watch some silly movie, eat too much food and giggle a lot like little girls do!’ This time Miranda’s voice pitched upwards, this auditory escalation usually ended with one of them slamming the phone down. ‘Look, she’s growing up, she occasionally has to leave the house, meet other kids, it’s normal, Christ, in a couple of years she’ll be going out with boys, half of her class have boyfriends already, childhood’s speeded up since we were kids. You’re going to have to get used to it.’

One thing he was sure of more than anything in the world, he wouldn’t be getting used to it anytime soon.

With the word ‘boyfriends’ rattling around his brain like an escaped tiger he agreed to call back tomorrow.

He grabbed his car keys and headed to Wayne’s place.

The contrast between Erasmus apartment and Wayne’s house was stark. Wayne’s house was another level altogether. A level marked ‘How dare you drive down this road in that crappy car’ to be judged by the stares he had received from the private security guards parked at the entrance to the road in this exclusive part of Formby. The road ran down to the beach and was covered with a fine layer of red sand. Either side of it were mansions set back from the road. Wayne’s was the largest and last one on the road before it turned into a track leading down to the beach. The house seemed to be made mainly from glass and the bits of wall on show were brilliant white. It was, to Erasmus’s mind, more suited for Miami than Merseyside. Envy is not an attractive trait, he told himself.

Erasmus pulled up outside and got out of his car. He hit the buzzer on the gate and a woman’s voice thick with a Scouse accent, answered.

‘Who is it, love?’

‘Erasmus Jones. I’m here to see Wayne.’

‘Never heard of yer.’

‘I’ve got an appointment with Wayne.’

‘You could be the fucking pope love but I’ve still never heard of yer.’

‘I’m his new scorta.’

There was a pause and then a buzz. The gates started to open.

‘Park next to the Aston Martin will yer love.’

Erasmus got back into his Golf and drove through the gates. Sure enough there was a royal blue Aston Martin with the number plate WJ EFC. Erasmus parked his car next to it, carefully opened his door and got out.

The front door of the house was already open and a young woman in her late teens or early twenties was standing there. She looked like she was on her way out to an awards ceremony. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders in blonde locks that looked fresh from a salon appointment, her skin was glowing and bronzed, and she was dressed in heels, a short skirt and a tight gold top that squeezed her tiny frame’s bosom into a painful looking cleavage.

‘Hi, I’m Erasmus.’ He offered his hand which she ignored. ‘Hope I haven’t caught you on your way out.’

She pursed her lips.

‘As if I’d go out dressed like a dog’s dinner,’ she said. She stood with a hand on her hip waiting for a compliment. Erasmus didn’t oblige.

‘As I said, I’ve got an appointment to see Wayne. Is he in?’

‘Nah, he popped out but he’ll be back anytime now. I guess you better come in then. I’m Steph, by the way. Wayne’s better, much better, other half.’

She wasn’t smiling but her eyes were twinkling with amusement. She turned and Erasmus followed her into the hallway. The hall was as big as Erasmus’s whole apartment and lined floor to ceiling in marble. A grand staircase flowed up and away from its centre. Steph led him through to a reception room. The facing wall of the room was covered in a mural, ten feet high at least and as wide as the room, of Wayne sitting in an armchair with Steph, wearing nothing but a bikini, sitting on his knee and holding a football. Erasmus nearly laughed but stopped himself just in time.

Steph looked at Erasmus. She took a cigarette from a packet on the mantelpiece and lit it. She blew out the smoke fiercely and then looked up at the massive portrait.

‘It was Wayne’s idea. What can I say?’

She sat down on a white couch and indicated to Erasmus that he should take a seat opposite her on a facing couch. He did so. There was around fifteen feet between them.

‘So, Mr Scorta, what do you want to speak to my boyfriend about?’

She smiled this time but her cool, blue eyes narrowed slightly. Girlfriend or bodyguard, or probably a bit of both, thought Erasmus. It seemed everybody had a stake in brand Wayne.

‘He invited me to lunch. It’s kind of an apology, did he tell you what happened at the Blood House Bar?’

Her eyes rolled.

‘That fucking bar.’

‘You don’t like it?’

‘You’ve been there, haven’t you? You’ve seen the girls throwing themselves at the players?’

‘I have yeah. It’s what my parents would call a meat market but I’m sure Wayne knows how to handle it.’

She looked upwards and blew out a long stream of smoke.

‘So, how did you meet Wayne?’

A look of anger crossed her face.

Erasmus had wondered if that was how Steph had snared Wayne. She must have guessed what he was thinking.

‘I grew up three doors down from him. He played football in our street and his Jenna was my best friend. I was there for him when his dad died when he was eleven. I’ve known him when he was dirt poor and he can trust me. I’m not like those gold diggers. And you can drop the attitude, I know exactly what your job entails. You’re nothing more than a pimp.’ She spat the words out as a challenge.

Erasmus shook his head.

‘Nope, I don’t do that. The club has asked me to look after Wayne and that’s all I intend to do and that doesn’t cover providing him with women. If it’s any reassurance I can tell you that when I’ve talked with Wayne all he wanted to do was talk about music, martial arts and well, you.’

Not strictly the truth but Erasmus’s dad had told him you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but he had a feeling that his dad had never met someone like Steph though.

She pursed her lips to one side as though chewing.

‘I tell you what, Erasmus – and what kind of a name is that anyway? – I think you’re full of shit but I want to believe you so I’m making a choice that I will, but let’s be clear, if I find out you are lying to me I’ll have your balls,’ she mimed the cutting action of a pair of scissors with her fingers, ‘in a bag and mounted above that fucking picture do you understand?’

Erasmus smiled.

‘Crystal clear. Any chance of a cup of tea?’

Steph laughed and the in-your-face, hard, Scouse façade dropped for a second and Erasmus could suddenly see the young girl, not yet twenty-one surely, who lived under the glitter.

‘Do I look like a scivvy to you?’

Her mouth remained open, her ruby red lips hanging there in a pout of mass destruction that she had no doubt employed effectively many times before.

Erasmus never got to answer the question. Steph raised an eyebrow.

‘I’m vibrating,’ she said. She slid a hand into her top and pulled out a tiny, gold-plated phone from between her cleavage. ‘Hi ya love?’ As she listened her face became stern again. ‘What? Are you fucking kidding me? With that twat! You promised you would be back here. And I’ve got your fucking gopher sitting her looking at my tits, as well. What do you want me do with him?’ Another pause. ‘Cunt!’ she said and threw the phone on the couch.

Erasmus worked on the basis that the ‘cunt’ was not meant for the gopher.

‘Was that Wayne?’

Steph leapt to her feet and nodded quick and angry.

‘Oh yeah, it was His Majesty. He’s decided to stay at the golf club with that tosser Gary Jones and Kristos and get pissed instead of coming home and having dinner with me!’

Steph was pacing now.

‘You’ve got to go. I need you to leave now.’

Erasmus stood up.

‘Which golf club is he at?’

For a moment he thought she was going to ignore him.

‘Formby Golf Club. He won’t be home for the night now.’

‘If I bring him home will you do something for me?’

For a moment he thought she was going to tell him to get lost. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and looked directly at him, challenging him, it seemed to Erasmus.

‘You’ll never get him home now. This happens. A lot.’

‘If I get him home will you talk to me about Wayne. About why he’s playing so badly? Anything might help?’

She stopped pacing and looked at Erasmus.

‘Read the back pages of the newspapers. They’ve all got a theory.’

‘I want to know what you think.’

She rolled her eyes.

‘I’ll tell you what, love. If you bring him home, I’ll think about it.’

Erasmus stuck out his right hand.

‘Is it a deal?’

She took hold of his paw with her doll-like hand. Long red nails with golden stars stroked the inside of his wrist. She held his gaze.

‘It’s a deal,’ she said.

‘I’ll see myself out.’ He turned and headed for the door. ‘And by the way, I wasn’t looking at your tits.’

She arched an eyebrow. He decided not to push the point.

As he drove away from the house he noticed a black saloon car parked in the street that hadn’t been there before. That wasn’t unusual of course, what was unusual was that he could have sworn he saw someone quickly slide down behind the steering wheel as he turned out of Wayne’s drive way. Erasmus looked back in his rear view mirror. There was no one visible in the car. Perhaps, he had imagined it, he wondered, knowing for certain that he had not.

CHAPTER 8

Erasmus parked his car near the clubhouse and for the second time that day he couldn’t help but feel that his vehicle was actively lowering real estate values. The clubhouse looked new-old: recently built but with a false patina of age brought about my using recycled materials. Erasmus didn’t like the place. It gave off a manufactured air of superiority. He snorted as he realised an old combination of inverted snobbery and aggression had been activated. Did realising this make him less culpable of being a twat? He suspected not.

Golf, the third in a deadly triumvirate combining with football and nightclubs as things Erasmus despised, and had, in his opinion, no merit. Golf could be used as a useful social barometer of whether someone was an absolute tosser or not. Not that Erasmus was prejudiced too much, some of his best friends were golfers, a term that even thinking about caused Erasmus to feel slightly queasy. He reminded himself that even Hitler had liked dogs, so maybe golfers too had some redeeming features.

Erasmus breezed through the reception area. There was a guard on the desk and he looked up and started shaking his head.

‘No, no, no. Oh most certainly not. Sir, I say, sir. You can’t come in here dressed like that.’

Erasmus stopped in his tracks. He was wearing his weekend uniform of dark blue Paul Smith Jeans, an old and worn black wax jacket and black Chelsea boots.

‘I’d say I’d just raised the tone, wouldn’t you?’

He glanced up and down at the guard in his beige slacks and black and blue diamond patterned wool jumper.

‘The rules say collared shirts and trousers only in the bar, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to leave,, sir.’

Erasmus pretended to take out a pen from his jacket and began to write in the air. The guard looked confused.

‘Here’s a note. It explains my position clearly.’

He offered the invisible note to the guard.

‘Very funny, sir, but you’ll still have to leave. Rules.’

The man looked ex-military to Erasmus. His posture, his bearing and his doggedness sticking to the most inane rules in the face of unpleasantness. The sort of doggedness that saved and lost lives in the army.

For a second Erasmus weighed up his options. There was a palm punch in the face, always a favourite but the consequences in this environment were not conducive to the mission. He could ignore him but he could tell that this man wasn’t the type to let it go, or he could try the third way and appeal to the man’s better nature.

He stepped closer to the desk. The man looked at him with a mixture of hostility and concern.

‘You’re ex-military, aren’t you?’ asked Erasmus.

‘That’s right, sir. Cheshire Regiment. Duke of Westminster’s own infantry. Retired.’

‘Well listen, apologies for being a bit of a berk there it’s just that I need to get into the lounge. I’m an ex-military myself, you know, lawyer now that I’m on civvie street, and I need to speak with one of my clients urgently.’

Erasmus had pulled out his wallet and he slid up the top half of his old warrant card to show the guard. He hoped he didn’t ask him to show him the whole card as the expiry date was four years ago.

The guard smiled.

‘I’m most sorry, sir, I would love to help out an old soldier like myself but, you know … ’

‘Let me guess, rules?’

‘That’s it, sir, unless that is of course you have anything else in your wallet that might, ahem, change matters.’

There’s always another option you didn’t think of, thought Erasmus. The world is full of surprises. Who would have though backhanders would be at play in a posh golf club? Austerity maybe. He pulled out two twenties and placed them on the desk.

‘Thank you, sir, and if any of the members ask you to leave tell them Tom has granted you dispensation on account of your war wound.’

Erasmus gave Tom a mock salute.

He heard them before spotting them. It was the sound of drunken braying and loud laughter. Wayne was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the bar by the snooker table accompanied by a loud and leery group of men. They were surrounded by empty glasses. Erasmus recognised Gary Jones and Kristos but none of the other three men. They didn’t look like they were built like footballers, more like body builders. Erasmus’s first thought was doormen. Erasmus hated doormen. He snorted unconsciously.

As he approached Gary Jones looked up from the snooker table.

‘All right look who it is! It’s Ted Wright’s very own arse wiper, Erasmus.’

Erasmus let a fake smile crawl up onto his face and stay there.

‘Gary, good to see you setting a captain’s example as usual.’

Erasmus could see that Wayne was asleep in the armchair. There was a long string of drool hanging from his bottom lip.

Gary noticed Erasmus looking at Wayne.

‘Play a drinking game and there’s always a loser. Talking of losers are you going to buy us a round? I have to warn you it’s expensive in here, a dogsbody’s wages might not stretch to it.’

Erasmus breathed in and concentrated on exhaling the anger instead of letting it transmit to his fists, which he felt twitching in anticipation.

‘I’ve come to take him home,’ said Erasmus nodding at Wayne.

‘He’s fine and he’s staying here, aren’t you, buddy? We are going to have a few more drinks.’

Gary placed his hand on Wayne’s shoulder. His head lolled forward.

‘A feeww more drinhks,’ repeated Wayne.

‘You think this is good for him, for the team, do you?’

Gary stood up and let his arms fall to his side, palms facing Erasmus.

‘Good for the team? You fucking lowlife, what do you know about the team or football? This is team bonding. Now get the fuck out of here before I throw you out.’

Kristos stood up and though Gary was at least six foot he was dwarfed by Kristos.

‘Iz good for you if you does as he sez, no?’ said Kristos.

Now the other three men stood up. Erasmus didn’t fancy the odds but he had been in worse scrapes.

‘Ted Wright wants me to look after Wayne. That’s what I’m doing. Wayne, stand up and come with me. Steph’s waiting.’

Wayne started to stand up but Gary pushed him hard in the chest so he fell back in his seat.

‘Whdda fuk?’ said Wayne.

‘I don’t give a shit what Ted thinks or wants. I’m the captain and he stays.’

Gary shoved his head forward in a quick darting movement that reminded Erasmus of a hungry rat he had caught chewing on his boot in a Sangar in Afghanistan. Erasmus had the same urge to do to Gary what he had done to the rat.

‘I tell you what I’ll do, I’ll make you a promise. Let him come with me now and I won’t break your kneecap and bring to a premature end a career that I’m reliably informed is coming to an end soon anyway.’

Gary flushed and there was a pulse above his eyebrow that told Erasmus that this was only going to end one way. Erasmus shot out his right hand and picked up a snooker cue. He would make good on his promise to Gary.

The three doormen types stepped forward. The one to Gary’s left smiled at the anticipation of violence. Erasmus decided to break his arm first before moving on to the others.

‘Gentlemen, gentleman, are we all not on the same team? What is this all about?’

Erasmus looked around and came face to face with the man who had been staring at him the day he first met Ted at the match and who had been sitting on his own in the Blood House: Babak. He was in his late fifties at least and had short, jet-black hair. He was dressed immaculately in a tailored suit and lingering behind him was Steve Cowley hoping from foot to foot and looking anxious.

Babak extended his hand.

‘Babak Badalian, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Jones. Ted has told me all about you and your role at the club. Gary, sit down, if you please.’

Gary looked uncertain for a second and then grimaced, but he sat down. His goons followed suit. Wayne had woken up and started laughing at nothing in particular.

‘Erasmus, Greek yes, it means “to love”, this doesn’t look like love to me.’ Babak chuckled. ‘Come and join me at the bar.’

Erasmus put the snooker cue back on the baize and walked to the bar with Babak. Steve Cowley followed but Babak turned to him.

‘I think Erasmus and I would speak alone.’

He didn’t wait for an answer from Cowley.

Once they had ordered their drinks, Babak a mineral water and Erasmus a Coke, Babak leaned in conspiratorially towards Erasmus.

‘I love athletes, footballers. They are like the very best hunting falcons but sometimes you need to put a hood on them, stop their more savage behaviour.’

‘I saw you at the match watching me,’ said Erasmus.

Babak’s eyes twinkled with amusement.

‘Ah yes, I always wonder when a client has a new “contact”, it’s my business to keep my clients happy and to do that I have to know what and who is important to them, yes?’

Erasmus sipped his Coke.

‘And what is your business, Babak?’

Babak rolled his eyes.

‘I am an Armenian. My country has been the pathway for invading armies for centuries. Some of us learnt that the best way to survive is to provide the invaders with what they want. My family has traded everything, precious metals, livestock, commodities and now we deal in talent.’

Babak nodded towards Wayne.

‘I thought Steve was his agent?’

‘Indeed he is, I am merely the means by which people who want something speak to those who have it. I bring people together. I make things work.’

‘Are you working for Real Madrid, I heard they wanted to buy Wayne?’

‘I work for no one but my family. If there is a deal to be done then I will always help the parties along, to come to a mutual understanding over the commodity. But Real Madrid, no. They are old money. There are new, more profitable markets.’

‘I think the commodity needs to come with me and go home.’

Babak’s expression was one of concern. He held Erasmus’s shoulder.

‘I like you, Erasmus. I can see that this is more than work, yes? Of course you should take him home to be with his family if that’s what they are.’

Erasmus wondered what he meant by the comment but decided not to ask. Babak clearly carried the authority here and he had given Erasmus the pass he needed.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Maybe you will return the favour one day soon, yes?’

Erasmus went back over to the group and pulled Wayne up out of the chair.

Gary Jones sneered at him.

‘You’re a cunt, a nothing, and this isn’t over.’

Being called a cunt twice in a day wasn’t quite his best record but it wasn’t an everyday occurrence either. Erasmus turned his head away from Gary and towards two of the goons sat next to Wayne.

‘Big girls say what,’ whispered Erasmus.

‘What, what did you say?’ said Gary.

The goons began to snigger.

‘Nothing, just leaving.’

Erasmus pulled Wayne out of the chair.

‘Rasmus, karate moves, I wanna see them now!’

‘Maybe later,’ said Erasmus, ‘you’re coming with me now.’

‘OK, but I feel sick.’

Erasmus put his arm around his shoulder and walked him outside.

The cold December air seemed to have a little sobering effect on Wayne and he managed to walk unaided to Erasmus’s car.

‘Get in, it’s unlocked.’

Wayne got in and slumped down into the passenger seat.

Erasmus turned up the heaters and set off. He selected the first Stone Roses album and slipped it into the single slot CD player.

The opening bars of ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ kicked in and the bass flooded the car. Wayne, who Erasmus thought had fallen asleep, began to hum along to the bass.

‘I love the Roses, my dad loved them. He was at Spike Island.’

Spike Island. A grotty piece of land stuck in the Mersey near Runcorn where the Stone Roses had held a legendary gig in 1991. Erasmus had been to the gig. It had been chaotic and the sound had been washed away by the winds swirling around the site. Somehow, it had become legendary, the nineties version of the Sex Pistols and the 100 Club.

‘I was there too, it was quite a day.’

‘Maybe, you saw my dad there,’

Wayne had opened his eyes now and was looking at Erasmus hopefully. Surely the kid didn’t think he had actually bumped into his father?

‘It’s a long time ago now but maybe, how old were you when he died?’

Wayne’s head fell back against the seat. He shut his eyes again.

‘I was eleven.’

‘I’m sorry, Wayne.’

Erasmus decided to take a calculated gamble, a dangerous one in the age of the internet. He lied.

‘My father died when I was a young boy too. It was tough growing up without him being around. Did you find that too?’

The truth was that his father was still very much alive and kicking. He was a retired journalist who lived in Oxford and who, a widower, was still, to a mixture of admiration and disgust on Erasmus’s part, very active on the senior dating scene.

Wayne gave a derisory snort. It wasn’t what Erasmus had hoped for.

‘My dad was a coward. He hanged himself in our shed in the back yard. He left me and Mum alone, the fucker.’

Erasmus felt his mouth open but then his brain applied the brake. He had been engaged by Ted to find out if there was a reason behind Wayne’s loss of form. Was it possible that there wasn’t anything untoward behind that loss of form, couldn’t it be the case that Wayne had a depressive tendency like he assumed his father must have done given he hanged himself? He was certainly drinking too much on his day off but didn’t a lot of teenagers when they got the chance? Erasmus had certainly spent many weekends in his local park as a teenager smoking illicit cigarettes and drinking cider. Maybe the email was just a red herring. It could just be the case that Wayne had slept with a couple of the girls who threw themselves at him and the other players but in the grand scheme of things, so what? He wasn’t married and, sure, Steph would be furious but it didn’t amount to blackmail type material surely? Erasmus was reaching the conclusion that what Everton Football Club had on their hands was a teenager going through a period of angst. Plus cą fucking change.

He turned to say something to Wayne but his eyes were closed and he was snoring.

Wayne slept all the way back to his house. When Erasmus reached Wayne’s street he found himself looking for the parked car across the street but it was gone.

This time when he hit the buzzer the gates opened straight away.

Steph came out and watched as Wayne staggered uneasily towards her like a newborn deer trying out its legs for the first time. She shook her head and then stood aside to let him in. She walked across to the car. Erasmus rolled down his window. She leaned down and nodded her head slowly.

‘Thank you.’

‘Not a problem,’ he said and was about to turn the ignition key when she placed her hand on his right arm and leaned in so close he could smell the sweetness of her body scent.

‘A deals a deal. I’ll be in touch. Have you got a card?’

Goosebumps formed at the back of Erasmus neck and then hurtled down his arms like they were in a race to get to Steph.

‘Sure.’ He dug out a card from the glove compartment and handed it to her.

She took it and placed it next to her mobile phone. She leaned in close.

‘I’ll call you.’

Erasmus just nodded. He knew if he spoke the lust caught in the back of his throat would be heard by her and he didn’t want to give her that victory. She let go of his arm and he pulled out of the drive, and headed back to Liverpool.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.