‘You are speaking to a football fan who is very concerned about your beautiful stadium — and who does not like to hurt people.’
‘How did you get this number?’ Morris asked. It was his private home landline, and ex-directory.
‘By disobeying my instructions and going to the police, you have eliminated my option to call you on your mobile. So I had to make, shall we say, a little more effort. You can get anything if you push the right buttons. Anything, Mr Morris. You can join the football stadium as an ordinary steward and one day rise to become its security boss. Anything at all. And that includes a bomb in your stadium, on or under a seat, this afternoon. Unless you pay the £250,000 I’ve suggested. This is a small amount. You will today, just in ticket sales alone, take around £1.5 million — and about the same again in drinks and pies, and over £10 million for the television rights. So, for a mere fraction of today’s revenue you can sleep in peace and the club will be safe. Would this not be a win-win?’
‘In your sick mind, perhaps.’
‘Who will come off worse from this tragedy? You, the Amex Stadium or Sussex Police? You would prefer to see fifty — perhaps one hundred — of your loyal fans blown to pieces, Mr Morris? That is all human life means to you? I think you should take a look in your bathroom mirror, and there you’ll see the one who has the sick mind. Why don’t you sleep on it? I will make contact later to give you one last chance.’
‘Look,’ Morris said, his brain racing. ‘Even if I was to agree, you’ve left it very late — how could I find a quarter of a million pounds on a Saturday morning?’
‘You really should have thought about that yesterday, this is very bad planning by you. I’m glad you don’t work for me. Goodbye, Mr Morris.’
The line went dead.
Instantly, Morris dialled 1471 to see if he could get the number. But all he got was the message saying it was withheld. He picked up his wallet, which was lying beside his laptop, and pulled out the number of the Detective Inspector who had come along yesterday with two other officers, after the blackmailer’s first call.
Glenn Branson answered on the first ring.
6
Saturday 12 August
10.00–11.00
At 10 a.m., Kipp Brown’s phone vibrated with an incoming text. It was from the racing tipster firm to which he subscribed.
Good morning, Mr Brown, we have two bets today. The first horse is DAAWY and take the 4/1 with Paddy. Also back MYSTERY OF WAR and take the 4/1 with Betfred. Both horses should be backed this morning taking the early price and both are WIN bets. Good luck — TONY FORBES
Immediately, Kipp made his daily call to his private bookmaker, recklessly asking him to place £10,000 he did not have on each horse.
7
Saturday 12 August
15.00–16.00
I’m a bomber! Uh-huh! Boom!
It felt good to be wanted!
Ylli Prek had been told by his mother that his first name meant ‘star’ in Albanian and his last name came from a freedom fighter.
That’s what he was! A freedom fighter with a bomb!
But for the moment, at 3.30 p.m., as he walked away from the train station at the Amex football stadium and across the busy concourse, he was Ylli Prek, football fan. Slung from his shoulder was an elaborate Sony FS7 camera, the kind professionals used.
Although it wasn’t a camera at all, of course.
It was a bomb. Filled with nails, bolts and ball bearings. The explosive charge packed inside would be enough, he had been told, to kill at least forty people all around him. And to injure at least one hundred, if not more.
He had in his wallet a ticket for a seat in the South Stand. Quite a lot of adults and children should be killed or maimed, if all went well.
‘I’m a bomber, I’m a bomber!’ he sang under his breath. A small, thin, bespectacled man of twenty-three, with a beaky nose and a shapeless mop of prematurely thinning dark hair that looked like a bad toupee, squashed beneath a red baseball cap. He strode along in a tracksuit with baggy trousers, with a gait that was a lot more confident than he felt inside.
I’m a star. I’m a freedom fighter!
I’ve been paid more money than I could ever have dreamed of. My mother will be so happy when she receives it!
This beat the crap out of working in the car wash for the past eighteen months. Wiping, polishing, vacuuming. Damp, cold, constantly numb hands. Shit pay. Shit accommodation, four of them in a single room.
Now I’m a bomber!
Oh yes. Uh-huh!
I have status! I’m a somebody.
8
Saturday 12 August
15.00–16.00
‘You wanker!’ Kipp Brown muttered under his breath at the security guard manning the entrance to car park A, Bennett’s Field. As he drove up to the barrier in his matt-black Porsche 911, he was in a mood because he was late — his own fault, he had been working. It was 3.45 p.m. and he had a bunch of clients whom he and two of his colleagues were meant to be entertaining to a late lunch. And he was angry at himself for trying to be too greedy with his bets today. One of Tony Forbes’s tips had paid off handsomely, but he’d had big losses on a series of accumulators he’d bet recklessly large amounts on, online, and was now badly down on the day — although there were still some results to come.
‘What’s going on here?’ he said to the guard.
‘We are carrying out extra security checks today, sir. You don’t have your car-park pass.’ He swung a mirror, on a long stick, under the Porsche.
‘Yep, well I couldn’t bloody find it. You have my registration on your list.’
‘I’ll have to make a phone call to check, sir.’ The guard peered in, looking at the rear seats. ‘Would you mind opening the boot of your car?’
‘I have a season ticket and a corporate box. Do I look like a sodding terrorist?’
‘Dad,’ Mungo cautioned, looking up from his phone, his newly bleached hair, the colour of winter wheat, scraped back into a topknot; his rubbish, cheap Samsung phone that his mean, embarrassing father had bought to replace the iPhone he’d got for his last birthday, and accidentally dropped down a gutter last week. Well, he hadn’t dropped it, actually, it fell out of his trouser pocket.
He was trying at this moment to send a Snapchat message to his best friend, Aleksander, who was also going to be here today, but it wouldn’t send. This phone was, like, useless.
‘What’s your problem?’ Kipp turned to his son, flipping the catch.
‘It’s not that man’s fault,’ Mungo said, as the security guard raised the bonnet at the front of the car.
‘Right — so whose fault, exactly, is it?’
The guard lowered the bonnet. ‘I’ve heard back from the office, you’re free to go through, sir,’ he said politely.
‘Is there any point?’ He stamped on the accelerator, squealing the tyres as he roared forward, jerking Mungo’s head back against the headrest.
‘Dad, take a chill pill.’
‘What is your problem today?’ he said to his son.
‘You!’ Mungo retorted. ‘You’re just in a weird mood.’
You would be too, Kipp Brown thought, if you knew just how much I’ve been screwed over by that goddamn roulette wheel at the Waterfront Casino. If you were aware that I don’t actually know where your next term’s school fees are coming from, and that I’m probably going to have to take you out of Brighton College and put you in a state school. That would wipe that smug, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou look from your face.