‘I will, for sure,’ said Gabe. He stood up. ‘He’ll be here. He always turns up eventually.’

  CHAPTER 6

  The doorbell rang and Teddy Kang went to peer through the security viewer. It was CK Lee, stone faced, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. Kang opened the door and Lee walked in without a word. He was followed by two more heavies, Jiang and Tan. The two men nodded at Kang, who closed the door then followed his boss into the room.

  LeBrun was twisting slowly and it was several seconds before he saw Lee. ‘CK, please, get your thugs to let me down,’ pleaded LeBrun. ‘There’s been a mistake. We can sort it out, right. But not like this. All the bloods flowing to my head and I’m close to passing out. Come on CK, get me down and we can talk.’

  Kang went over to the marble coffee table and picked up LeBrun’s mobile phone, clicked the keyboard with his thumb and then handed it to CK Lee. He said something in Chinese and Lee grunted then studied the screen.

  ‘CK, look, I’ll throw the game, just the way you wanted. You’ve nothing to worry about.’

  Lee ignored him and continued to stare at the screen. Tan and Jiang walked over to the window and looked out over the river. Tan cracked his ring-encrusted knuckles and the sound could be heard around the room, like twigs breaking.

  ‘I’ll do exactly what you want,’ said LeBrun. ‘We’ll lose and you’ll make a fortune. It’s a win-win situation. There’s no need for this.’

  Lee looked up from the phone, scowled at LeBrun, then looked at the phone again.

  ‘I don’t know what you think, CK, but I’m on your side. You know I am.’

  Lee held the phone out. ‘Do you think I’m stupid, Eric? Is that what you think? I’m some dumb chink that you can lie to and I won’t find out?’

  ‘CK, please…’

  ‘I wiped out two hundred grand of your gambling debts!’ shouted Lee. ‘I own you!’

  ‘I know that. That’s why I’m throwing the game.’

  ‘Are you?’ snarled Lee. ‘Or are you spilling your guts to Ian Johnston on the Mail? That’s your plan, is it? Sell your story to the papers?’

  ‘No, CK. You’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m wrong?’ Lee held up the phone. ‘The texts on this tell me all I need to know. You were selling me out, LeBrun.’

  ‘He wanted to talk to me, I said no.’

  Lee shook his head. ‘That’s not what your texts tell me.’

  ‘Mr Lee, please… I’m sorry… I just wanted out.. I just wanted…’

  Lee took three quick steps forward and kicked LeBrun in the side of the head. LeBrun screamed.

  You fucking idiot!’ screamed Lee. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve done?’

  LeBrun was spinning around now as blood tricked from between his lips and splattered on the polished wood floor.

  ‘Tell me the truth, LeBrun, or I swear I’ll kick you to death.’

  ‘Please…don’t…’ gasped LeBrun.

  ‘You were going to tell him about me, weren’t you?’

  ‘He knew already. He said he had proof that I was fixing games for you and that he was going to write the story. I was trying to talk him out of it.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you come straight to me when he approached you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ gasped LeBrun. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? You’re fucking sorry? I don’t think you’re fucking sorry.’ He turned to Kang and shouted at him in Chinese. Kang took out a gun and gave it to Lee. Lee walked up to LeBrun, pointed the gun at his chest and pulled the trigger, three times in quick succession. LeBrun jerked and then went still. Blood stained his shirt and then began to drip down his face and onto the polished wooden floorboards. Lee sneered at LeBrun as he bled out. ‘NOW you’re fucking sorry,’ he said.

  Lee handed the gun back to Teddy Kang. ‘Clean up that fucking mess,’ he said. ‘Then take care of that fucking journalist.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said Kang, though Lee was already heading for the door.

  CHAPTER 7

  With a big match just a day away, the squad’s training session was little more than a long warm-up session with exercises and stretching, followed by half an hour of ball control exercises. Gabe had then done half an hour of penalty practise with the team’s two goalkeepers, alternating every half a dozen shots, while the rest of the squad were drilled by McNamara and Brett. Eventually McNamara blew his whistle to bring the session to a close. ‘Right guys, we’ll call it a day on the physical stuff. Jump in the showers and when you’re all squeaky clean and you’ve used all those hair care products you’re paid millions to advertise, we’ll go through some Chelsea videos.’

  There were groans from most of the players. ‘It’s not the first time we’ve played them,’ moaned Omar Babacar, the lanky forward from Senegal. He had been spotted by a talent scout when he was just ten and emigrated to the UK when he was 19. Ten years later he was one of the league’s top scorers, but he was very much a player who relied on his instincts and was bored by strategy briefings.

  ‘Yeah, and last time was a draw, remember?’ said McNamara. ‘I’m not prepared to have a draw tomorrow so in the viewing room and stop the bitching and whining.’

  Babacar raised his hands in surrender and jogged back to the changing rooms.

  McNamara went over to Gabe and slapped him on the back. ‘Looking good out there, Gabe,’ he said.

  ‘All good,’ said Gabe.

  ‘Grab fifteen minutes in the ice bath,’ said McNamara.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  McNamara grinned. ‘Doctor’s orders.’

  Gabe nodded and ran back to the changing rooms. He wasn’t a big fan of the ice bath but knew that it was a great way of dealing with aches, pains and swelling. The bath was a large metal container with plastic pillows for comfort. There was no actual ice, the temperature was lowered electronically to between 12 and 15 degrees Celsius. He stepped into the bath and eased himself into the water.

  Wood laughed at Gabe’s obvious discomfort. ‘Makes your nuts disappear, doesn’t it?’

  ‘His balls are tiny anyway,’ laughed Fernandez. ‘Like marbles.’

  ‘Yeah, and why are you looking at my tackle in the first place?’ asked Gabe, lying back and gasping as the freezing water covered his chest.

  ‘Tackle?’ repeated Fernandez. He had been in the UK for less than a year and his English wasn’t great.

  ‘Wedding tackle,’ said defender Michael Devereau, punching the Argentinian on the arm. ‘Cock and balls. The tackle you use on your wedding night.’ Devereau was a relatively recent signing from Everton, a tough no-nonsense Liverpudlian with a reputation for going for his opponents legs as often as he went for the ball.

  ‘Haven’t you two got anything better to do?’ asked Gabe.

  Devereau walked over to the ice bath and pulled down his shorts. ‘I could warm that up for you, sir,’ he said.

  ‘You piss in my ice bath and I’ll make you drink it,’ threatened Gabe.

  Devereau laughed and pulled his shorts back up. He and Fernadez headed over to their lockers as Gabe concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly. The first time he had used the ice bath, Lawrence had given Gabe rubberized dive booties to protect his toes and rubber briefs to keep his midsection warm, but there had been so much derision from his teammates he’d refused them ever since, preferring instead to get in wearing his full kit. The first couple of minutes were the worst but then his whole body went numb with the cold and he felt nothing. After ten minutes he climbed out, his body as white as a corpse. He stripped off his soaking wet kit and took a cold shower, gradually upping the temperature to warm, then dried himself off and changed into his casual clothes. The squad were all in the briefing room, helping themselves to sandwiches, biscuits, healthy snacks and a range of soft drinks, while Brett was busying himself attaching his laptop to the flatscreen TV. Gabe made himself a coffee and picked up an energy bar. Eventually Brett flashed McNamara a thumbs up and the coach went to the screen and blew his whistle to get everyone’s attention. ‘Bums on seats, guys!’ he shouted. ‘School’s in session!’

  Those players that weren’t already seated took their places, and McNamara spent the next hour playing them recent videos of incidents in recent Chelsea games. He’d show a Chelsea move, then play it again in slow motion several times, explaining what was going on and the strategies they were using. Then he’d use a whiteboard to show the best ways of responding to their strategies. Gabe was tired and had to fight to keep his concentration levels up, but he knew it was necessary. Teams spent hours and hours practising set pieces and if you could recognise a set piece you could block it and seize the advantage. That’s how Gabe saw it, but several of the players – including Babacar – found the sessions boring and kept sneaking looks at their smartphones.

  When the briefing was over, McNamara gave them a brief pep talk about the forthcoming match and then sent them on their way but motioned for Gabe to wait behind. ‘Do you fancy going through some videos of Crowley in action?’ he asked. Ted Crowley was the new Chelsea keeper, a recent signing from Everton. He was in his early thirties and Gabe had come up against him more than a dozen times over the past few years.

  Gabe grinned. ‘Hell, yeah.’

  ‘Shouldn’t take more than half an hour or so,’ said McNamara.

  Gabe grabbed himself another coffee and settled down in front of the screen. McNamara had put together several dozen clips of the Chelsea keeper in action, mainly reacting to free kicks and penalties. Crowley was fast and confident, but his main weakness was a tendency to be flamboyant, often launching himself into the air to tip a ball over the goalpost when he could just have easily taken a step and reached up for it.

  ‘He likes to make it look difficult,’ said McNamara after they had watched a dozen saves where Crowley threw himself across the goalmouth and tipped the ball over the net. ‘But in every case he could have got there in plenty of time to have caught the ball with his body behind it.’

  Gabe knew Crowley of old, and knew that he was a showman. Every time a TV commentator came up with his – or her – saves of the month, there would be at least one featuring Crowley. Gabe had taken a penalty against him the previous year and had beaten him, but it had been more by luck than judgement. He was a difficult keeper to shoot against. Most keepers made up their mind which way they were going to move as the penalty-taker ran towards the ball. The ball was probably going to go top or bottom, right or left. Four choices. Depending on how the penalty-taker made his approach to the ball, the keeper would go left or right. The penalty-taker tended to work the same way. The decision was made before the ball was kicked, sometimes even before it was placed on the penalty spot. Gabe favoured the left, and he preferred bottom to top. So his favourite spot would be bottom left, followed by top left, then bottom right and top right. The problem was, if he always kicked to his favoured spot, the keeper would know which way to jump. And if the keeper didn’t spot it, the club’s penalty coach sure as hell would.

  Most penalty-kickers tried to keep their left-right ratios on fifty-fifty, or close to it. Which meant that sometimes they would decide which way to go long before they actually kicked the ball. What gave Gabe his edge was that he was able to change his mind right at the last moment, literally as his foot connected with the ball. He had developed the knack of kicking left or right no matter how he approached the ball and so was able to see how the keeper was reacting and kick accordingly. A good keeper would watch to see where the penalty-taker planted his foot because that would point towards where the ball would go. The hips, too, usually indicated where the ball was going to travel. But Gabe tended to run forward in a straight line, his hips facing the goal, giving the keeper no idea where the ball was going to go.

  ‘He watches the penalty-taker all the time,’ said McNamara. ‘You need to be careful of that. Some keepers just look at the ball, or they interact with their team mates, but Crowley just watches the eyes. Most penalty-takers will look at where they’re going to place the ball at least once and he’s quick to pick up on that.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Gabe. ‘But I’m pretty good about not telegraphing my kick.’

  ‘There’s one thing he’s started doing over the last few weeks that he might try tomorrow,’ said McNamara. ‘He’s been standing off centre. Not always, maybe half the time. But he moves a couple of feet one way, usually to give the penalty-taker more space in their natural direction. So you being a rightie he’ll give you a bit more space on your left. And he does this thing with his left shoulder, raising it just a bit and sticking his left arm out a bit. Let me show you.’

  McNamara showed Gabe four clips, and in each case Crowley had moved slightly off centre. The penalty-taker went for the larger space every time and Crowley dived and got the ball without fail.

  ‘It’s barely noticeable, but it seems to work for him,’ said McNamara. ‘He offers the penalty-taker a larger space for his natural kick, the penalty-taker bites and Crowley leaps early.’

  ‘Clever,’ said Gabe.

  ‘I think he’s been taught to do it,’ said McNamara. ‘I can’t find any examples of him doing it last year. Now here’s the thing. If he does move to his left, offering you more space to your left, from what I’ve seen he’s sure to jump that way.’

  ‘So I do the opposite of what he’s expecting?’

  ‘That would be my advice,’ said McNamara. ‘You make it look like you’re going left then do that thing you do and switch to your right and he should already be on the move.’

  Gabe nodded. He knew that McNamara was talking sense. Crowley was so used to diving at the last moment that he often didn’t start moving until the ball had been kicked. It was called reactionary defending and it was the most problematic keeping for a penalty-taker. Crowley was a master at it. But if his coach had persuaded him to try something different, that could be a weakness Gabe could exploit.

  They spent another half an hour studying the footage before McNamara called an end to the session. Gabe was still thinking about what McNamara had said as he pulled up in front of Ollie’s school. There was no doubting the use of video and pre-planning, but sometimes it was just better to run at the ball and kick it instinctively. His instincts had stood him in good stead so far, which was why he was so close to breaking the record.

  Ollie was in the playground with two of his friends, deep in conversation. Gabe beeped his horn to attract the boy’s attention. Ollie waved and ran over, his backpack bouncing on his shoulder. He climbed into the front passenger seat.

  ‘Seatbelt,’ said Gabe, and waited until Ollie had buckled himself in before driving off. It was a thirty-minute drive to their home, a six-bedroom house with a double garage on an estate with a dozen similar dwellings. Their neighbours were stockbrokers, doctors and businessmen and a private security firm drove around regularly in a clearly-marked van. Gabe’s house, like all the rest, were covered by CCTV and had alarms linked by secure phone lines to the security firm. The developers had wanted to surround the estate with a high wall but the local council had refused planning permission.

  The house had been very much Laura’s choice - she liked modern and minimalist whereas Gabe would have preferred something older and with more character, but he had been happy enough to let her have her way.

  ‘Is mum home?’ asked Ollie, looking around for her car as they drove up to the house.

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ said Gabe and he winced as he saw Ollie’s face fall. ‘It means we can have a kickaround before tea,’ said Gabe, patting him on the leg.

  ‘Cool,’ said Ollie.

  Gabe took Ollie inside and he dropped his backpack in the hallway before running into the kitchen. ‘No soda!’ shouted Gabe.

  ‘Oh come on, Dad,’ moaned Ollie.

  ‘One on Saturday, one on Sunday, you know your mum’s rules,’ said Gabe. ‘Water or fruit juice.’

  ‘You know there’s as much sugar in orange juice as there is in soda,’ said Ollie, opening the fridge.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘The internet,’ said Ollie. ‘How about a Snapple?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Gabe. Ollie was as good at arguing as his mother and it was often difficult to fault his logic. Gabe figured he’d make a great lawyer.

  Ollie grabbed a bottle of Snapple iced tea, unscrewed the top and drank greedily. Gabe opened the kitchen door and went out into the garden. There was a football at the edge of a flower bed and Gabe picked it up and began bouncing it up and down on his forehead.

  ‘To me, dad!’ shouted Ollie, putting his bottle of Snapple on the counter and running after Gabe.

  Gabe let the ball fall, caught in on his left thigh and let it drop to his right foot. He kicked it over to Ollie who trapped it easily before starting to run across the lawn, dribbling the ball from left to right. Gabe stood with his hands on his hips, grinning at the boy’s enthusiasm. Ollie turned, trapped the ball, then kicked it towards Gabe, who caught it on his chest and let it drop to his feet. ‘Nice pass,’ said Gabe. He kicked it back to his son who ran with it to the far end of the lawn before kicking it back.

  ‘When do you think I could play professionally, dad?’ asked Ollie.

  ‘You’re eight,’ said Gabe.

  ‘I’m just asking.’

  ‘You can be an apprentice at sixteen. And you could play in the Premier League then.’

  Ollie wrinkled his nose. ‘Eight years? I have to wait eight years?’

  ‘To play professionally, yes. But I think your mum might have something to say about that.’

  Ollie picked up the ball. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she wants you to get a good education. And she’s right.’

  ‘You didn’t go to university.’

  ‘True. But I wish I had.’

  ‘You left school and played for West Ham.

  Gabe laughed. ‘It wasn’t quite as easy as that. I had to clean a lot of boots.’

  ‘But I can join the Academy this year, right. And get extra training?’

 

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