Holyrod frowned. ‘Why don’t you just tell him to get lost?’
‘If only it were that easy. Agents are a real pain in the arse. They contribute to football’s prune-juice effect – the money comes in at the top and goes straight out of the bottom. We manage to grab some of it on the way down, but only a little.’
‘So why not just sell the club?’
Dino smiled ruefully. ‘Two reasons. First, and most important, we’d lose a packet. We paid far too much for the bloody thing in the first place, I’m ashamed to say.’
‘And the second?’
‘The second is that if we hold on long enough, we might make a packet. Hope springs eternal.’
That doesn’t seem like much of a plan, Holyrod thought.
‘People are always saying the bubble is going to burst, but the whole thing just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Compare Gavin Swann with the Queen,’ Dino continued. ‘Twenty-five years ago, the Queen’s Christmas Day speech was watched by twenty-eight million people in the UK. This Christmas she’ll be lucky to get a quarter of that. And the only way for the Royals is down. Even the new lot. Mark my words, in a few years they wouldn’t even be able to get their own reality TV show. We make a few of those as well, by the way.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. Nothing you’ve ever heard of. Hell, nothing I’ve ever heard of. Anyway, as I was saying, as the Royals have fallen, football has risen: more than twenty-three million people in Britain saw Gavin break his foot at the last World Cup – at two o’clock in the morning!’ Dino’s eyes misted over. ‘It is a monster that generates unbelievable wealth . . . and we can grab a piece of it.’
We’ll see, thought Holyrod.
‘It would help if – off the pitch, at least – Gavin were a bit more like David Beckham and a bit less like Diego Maradona.’
‘Mm,’ said Holyrod, not really sure what Dino meant.
‘Anyway,’ Dino continued, ‘it’s probably best not to spend too much time thinking about it all or it will drive you round the bend. In terms of the numbers, sport is only a small part of our Group. There are lots of things in the portfolio that are currently more lucrative – and less likely to make you want to blow your brains out. I’ll arrange some kind of induction.’
‘That would be great.’ Glancing at his watch, Holyrod got to his feet. ‘Thank you for an excellent lunch. Let’s hope we can build on all your good work.’
Dino Mottram showed no sign of wanting to move from where he was. ‘I’m sure,’ he said, looking up at his newest recruit, ‘that we are going to go and do great things together.’
‘Fantastic!’
‘And more importantly,’ Dino added, with a cheeky glint in his eye, ‘make some serious amounts of cash.’
THREE
‘Can I touch it?’
‘What?’
‘Is it real?’
Scowling, Sergeant Alison Roche looked down at the boy who had sidled up to her at the Eurostar terminal in London’s St Pancras station. He was a scruffy-looking kid but well dressed; maybe ten or eleven with frizzy hair and a cheeky expression on his face.
‘I am Sidney,’ he told her.
Looking the kid up and down, Roche said nothing. He was wearing a pristine pair of blue and white Adidas sneakers, a pair of baggy stonewashed jeans and a grey T-shirt with a picture of a Dalek on it in red, under the legend EXTERMINATE. In his left hand was a half-eaten king-size Mars Bar.
‘That’s my name,’ the boy persisted. His English was precise but with a clear trace of an accent. Presumably, he was French.
Roche cleared her throat. ‘Go away,’ she growled.
Standing his ground, Sidney looked thoughtfully at the Heckler amp; Koch MP5 in Roche’s hands, waiting for another question to pop into his head. ‘Have you ever fired it?’ he asked finally.
Roche felt an overwhelming urge to give him a hard slap round the back of the head. Instead, she took a deep breath. ‘Bugger off!’
‘Have you?’ Sidney persisted.
‘Of course I’ve fired it, you stupid little sod,’ she hissed. ‘Now clear off.’ Thoroughly exasperated, she scanned the heaving station concourse, looking for any sign of someone who was responsible for this annoying kid. People were rushing around in all directions – the usual frenetic scene you got at any mainline terminus – but no one seemed to be looking for Sidney. Bloody parents, Roche thought with the righteous anger of someone who had never had any offspring of their own. They shouldn’t be allowed to have children if they can’t look after them.
Sidney stuck the last of the Mars Bar into his mouth before extending an arm and letting the wrapper flutter to the floor.
Roche gestured angrily at the litter with the toe of her boot. ‘Pick that up!’
Happy to have gotten a rise out of the female copper, the kid grinned, revealing a mouth full of chocolate and caramel. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’ he asked, making no move to pick up his rubbish.
No, thought Roche, but a bullet in the foot might encourage you to lose the attitude. Subconsciously checking that the safety on the Heckler amp; Koch MP5 was on, she felt her finger tighten around the trigger and realized that she’d been holding her breath. Exhaling at length, she took a step away from the boy. Get a grip, she told herself. Shaking out some of the tension in her shoulders, she made a mental note not to recall this little episode the next time she was called for a session with the departmental shrink. Suddenly, she saw a middle-aged woman in a paisley kaftan waddle towards them, a look of concern etched into her face.
About fucking time.
‘Sidney,’ the woman squawked, ‘viens ici!’
‘Maman . . .’ the boy sighed, slumping his shoulders in the exasperated fashion of children the world over.
The woman grabbed her child by the arm and pulled him towards her with a force that seemed to Roche somewhat excessive. Catching the mother’s eye, Roche saw a look of horror cross her pudgy face. ‘Attention, chéri,’ she whispered theatrically. ‘Elle est armée.’
‘I know,’ Sidney said in English. He beamed. ‘It’s cool.’
‘Tu m’emmerdes à la fin, Sidney.’ The woman dragged him away, Roche glaring at her as she went. If she didn’t like the son, she liked the mother even less. We’re supposed to be here to protect you, she reflected, and you look at us like we’re shit. Bending down, she picked up the discarded Mars Bar wrapper and tossed it on to a nearby café table.
Sitting at the table, Commissaire de Police Jean-Pierre Grumbach sipped his espresso and gave her a rueful shrug. ‘Another happy member of the public goes about her business.’
Roche felt like screaming. She was more than ten hours into a fourteen-hour shift, and for almost all of that time she had been babysitting the Frenchman and his colleague, Lieutenant Ginette Vincendeau, along with their prisoner, a sallow youth called Alain Costello. ‘In France,’ she replied stiffly, ‘I suppose the police are universally loved?’
‘No, no.’ Shaking his head, Grumbach sat back in his metal chair. He was a tall, elegant man, with a thick head of grey hair and laughter lines around his eyes, which looked good on his tanned face. In a black, single-breasted Christian Dior suit and a crisp white shirt, open at the neck, he looked less like a policeman than some kind of high-end businessman. Irritatingly, he had been hitting on her all day. Roche might have been more receptive to his flirting if it wasn’t for the fact that it was so shameless – that, and the fact that they were still on the clock. ‘There it is just the same. They need us, but they hate us. Or, at least, they want us kept out of sight, along with the bad guys.’