Well, what do you think?'
'Not bad,' he said. 'Think there were a few times when you could have used the ball a bit more wisely.'
The boy's face fell.
'Usually when you passed it to one of your mates rather than keeping it yourself.' He ruffled his hair.
The kid grinned.
'No, you were different gravy today' He started the engine. 'I've got some news for you.'
Was it that bloke I saw you talking to second half?'
'Him? No, nothing to do with him. This is much more important. I got a call during the first half. Guess who from?'
'Chelsea?'
'You wish. No, it was from the Law Enforcement Agencies in the USA. They've made a few arrests in the small town I told you about, the one where Leonie lived.'
Yeah?' A look of suspicion crept across his face.
Well, they've also spoken to Leonie.'
Gary looked down at the footwell.
'And she's coming back.'
He looked up, face alight with joy. 'Really? Will I be able to live with her?'
We'll have to see. But as long as she's OK, I don't see why not. But there's a complication.'
'Oh.'
'She has a two-year-old baby. A boy'
He looked stunned.
'She called him Gary'
His eyes lit up. 'I'm not sure about babies, man. Could be fun. Maybe. But can we live together?'
'There's some paperwork that needs doing, and a few other bits and pieces but she should be home in a week.'
Gary punched the air.
'That's the good news,' Foster said.
Again, Gary's face fell. He looked anxiously at Foster.
Foster couldn't contain his smile. 'The bad news is that she won't be back in time to see you have a try-out for the QPR academy!'
Nigel drank his morning tea and listened to the radio. The story of Naomi Buckingham being saved dominated the headlines. Nigel turned it off, not wanting to hear.
'Oi, I was listening to that.' Heather came out from the kitchen, wearing one of his striped shirts from Pink -- nothing else - a cup of tea in her hand.
'Sorry,' he said.
'No, you're right, time to move on.'
She bent down and kissed his cheek. Three days since they'd got back from the States and she hadn't been home.
He grabbed her now and sat her on his lap.
'Mind my brew,' she said, laughing, putting the mug on the table.
They kissed. The phone rang. They both laughed.
'There's a theme developing,' he said.
She told him to answer.
It was his television producer. She was almost hyperventilating with excitement. They had heard of an unconsecrated old non-conformist burial ground that had once been attached to a chapel in Islington. The graveyard had been closed in 1863 when it contained around 15,000
bodies. Ever since it had lain unused, a prime piece of London real estate. Eventually the Council had given permission for it to be used for commercial purposes, yet only on condition that the bodies which lay beneath be disinterred, moved and reburied on consecrated ground. A company, the delightfully named Necropolis Ltd, had been hired to perform the task before the developers moved in, and had agreed to allow the production company to spend one day at the site filming for use in a short pilot that could be touted to the television networks.
He cursed. It meant leaving Heather. On the way back from the airport, they had intended dropping Nigel at his place first, before the cab took Heather back home. Nigel paid the driver off and asked Heather in for a coffee. She came in with him -- and stayed.
You said you'd explain,' he had got round to asking eventually, as they lay in his bed, morning or afternoon, he couldn't remember -- time had ceased being relevant.
About why you rejected me last summer.'
She had winced at his choice of verb. 'I didn't "reject"
you,' she maintained. 'It was a difficult time.' She told him about her mother's death, its effect on her, and how an ex had provided a sympathetic and familiar shoulder on which to lean. She hadn't felt it was the right time to start a new relationship - she'd been weak, vulnerable. 'I didn't want to burden you with it all. At times like that, an old slipper seems more comfortable than the brand-new high heel.
Not that you're a stiletto kind of bloke. More of a nice pair of trainers.'
She stroked his cheek.
He had laughed. 'Thanks. I think. But what about now.''
She had remained silent for a while, a brief few seconds in which he allowed his heart to slide as he imagined her getting up, getting dressed and walking away once more.
'Grief is a funny thing,' she had said eventually. 'You feel like life is something that's happening to you, that you're not in control, like you're watching a film of yourself. You let things happen. You cling to the familiar, what's easy and comfortable. You have to. But now I feel in charge again. You didn't pursue me, go all crazy. You gave me time and space -- I might have made a few mistakes, but I needed to make them.' She had looked at him. 'I want to make a go of it. With you.'
'But what about this guy . . . ?'
'Let me handle that,' she had assured him.
He hadn't wanted that time to end, but real life had to intrude. After the producer's call, he ventured out into the open air for the second time in seventy-two hours -- the first had been to buy milk, wine and bread -- to meet Guy the cameraman, the producer, Lysette, a sound recordist and production assistant on a back street in Islington on a cold November morning. The group of them were all smoking furiously against the cold. Lysette wrapped in hat, gloves and scarf appraised Nigel's long winter coat.
'Didn't you bring your tweed jacket?'
'And freeze to death?'
'You could have worn a jumper underneath. I don't like this look.'
Her assistant beside her nodded vigorously.
This isn't a look, Nigel thought. It's what I bloody wear when it's cold.
'The long coat covers too much of everything up.
Makes you look like a cop.'
'Sorry,' he said. You didn't mention anything about a look when you called.'
'It doesn't matter,' she said, in that blithe yet irritated fashion people adopt when nothing else could actually matter more to them. 'The main thing is that we get something on camera.' She brandished a wad of A4 paper.
'Here's the shooting script. We'll find a corpse and get some film of it. Nigel and the same worker will have a chat about either a tombstone inscription they've dug up or a brass plate from a coffin that identifies someone buried here and talk about that, preferably next to the skeleton.
On another day we can go to the parish records and film you finding the corpse's entry, how they died, their address, and take it from there. If we're really lucky, we might be able to film them reburying the corpse in the new burial ground, perhaps even find us some ancestors to attend the burial, though the budget might not stretch. Guy'll also film lots of GVs and other footage to flesh things out with.'
'Let me get this right. We've found a corpse that's identified by an inscription of some sort?' Nigel asked.
Lysette shook her head. 'No, we'll just film a skeleton.
We'll also find an inscription to give you something to go on.'
'OK. But we'll say that the corpse and whatever means of identification we have belong to different people?'
She looked at him as if he was an imbecile. Why? As long as we get some film of a skeleton we can say it's whoever we like. They all look the same. We'll cut it and make the viewer believe that the corpse belongs to the person you're tracing through the records.'
'Isn't that misleading, though? I
mean, the viewer will
think the corpse belongs to the person I'm tracing through the records, when in truth the remains are of someone completely different.'
From the corner of his eye he could see Guy raise his eyebrows and smirk.