White Lines

by Mel Stein

  The phone in the Burrow rang three times and then the answerphone cut in.

  ‘Hi, it’s me, I am at Luis’s flat.’ He rattled off the number, then paused whilst the tape kept recording. ‘I love you. take care.’ But he knew that the last two words of his message were a waste of time.

  CHAPTER 41

  Another day, another plane, another country. Mark Rossetti was beginning to feel like an American tourist. This was Tuesday and therefore it had to be Brazil. Some song-writer had described it as a whimsical fancy to go to Rio and here he was indulging in his own little piece of whimsy. Luis had offered him a slender thread towards the truth, but he was using it to climb the side of the building, hoping he could haul himself up to the locked room, enter by the window and discover the secrets within.

  There could be no doubting that Luis was a better commentator than he was a cook and it did not need much of a story to distract Mark from the largely unidentifiable meal that was placed before him in a kitchen that also contained only the bare necessities of life.

  ‘You are wondering why I should have dragged you back to a country for which you justifiably have so little regard.’

  ‘It had crossed my mind,’ Mark said, shuffling the food around his plate so that it would look as if he had at least eaten something. It did not fool Luis.

  ‘Don’t worry, my friend, you don’t need to be polite. I know my limitations as a cook.’

  ‘I ate on the plane,’ Mark said.

  ‘I’m sure you did, but as I say there is no need to be polite. I’ll make us a coffee. At least I have a certain skill there. You can have the chair and I’ll have the floor.’

  ‘When all of this is over,’ Mark said from the relative comfort of the armchair, ‘I’ll treat you to another chair.’

  Luis took a sip of the scalding coffee and lit a cigarette without any apology to his visitor.

  ‘Ah, when this is over. That is why I wanted to see you. I have discovered something that is not quite right. You must make of it what you will.’

  Mark leaned forward in his seat, trying to urge the Colombian on with his story, but he had decided on a way of telling it, of squeezing the full drama out of something which only might prove to be dramatic.

  ‘After the match against England, Barry Reed was selected for a random drug test. There were two doctors present, the FIFA official observer and a local man, Dr Felipe Guerra. It is the local man who does most of the work and prepares the report. And the report finds Reed positive. Poof goes his career.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mark said impatiently, ‘we know all that. What’s your point?’

  ‘When you left the first time I tried to do some detective work. For your lady, there is nothing I can do, she has upset important people, dangerous people. How or why I do not know, but I do know that I do not care to walk down that road on my own.’

  He drained the coffee and Mark, who had burned his lips with the first taste, wondered if his mouth were made of asbestos.

  ‘You want another cup?’

  ‘No,’ Mark replied, impatiently, ‘I just want you to cut to the chase.’ He saw the look of puzzlement on Luis’s face and decided that this was not the moment to start explaining colloquialisms. ‘Get to the point, Luis, or else I might do some violence on your person.’

  ‘The point is, that I went to see Dr Guerra and he wasn’t there.’

  ‘So? I can’t believe that you’ve brought me all this way to tell me that a doctor was out visiting his patients.’

  Luis smiled. He was obviously enjoying the evening, even if Mark was not.

  ‘No, I do not think he was out on his acts of mercy. When you were here on the Ferrera deal I went to see him again.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, he was visiting a sick patent again.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. He wasn’t there, but then he hadn’t been there since my first visit. His housekeeper was not a happy woman. She had been trying to cope with a whole stream of angry patients, not to mention the fact she had no idea where her wages were coming from. She thought I was just another discontented patient looking for his doctor, so she told me where to look.’

  Luis had told Mark, and Mark was on his way to Brazil to see Felipe Guerra. Luis had his contacts in Brazil, he seemed to have his contacts everywhere, and it had taken him only a few calls to discover the whereabouts of the missing doctor. Mark had asked him to come with him, but Luis had been forced to decline.

  ‘We have an important league match here tomorrow, and I must cover it. If you would like to wait until the weekend, then I will be happy to accompany you.’

  Mark had not been prepared to wait. He wanted to get this over, to discover if there was anything in this tenuous link, and then to get back to England and Patti. He’d called again before he’d left and, judging by the number of beeps on the tape, he guessed that she’d not been home to pick up her messages. He’d decided that if he still couldn’t get hold of her when he reached Brazil then he’d call Rob Davies. Assuming she was safe, she wouldn’t thank him for involving the police, but her safety and well-being were not something he took for granted.

  He had no real idea what to do when he caught up with the doctor. Luis had told him that the wealthy, residential area in which Guerra was living was only a thirty-minute ride from the airport and, when he’d booked his tickets for him, he’d arranged a seat on the last flight back to Bogota which left at seven in the evening.

  ‘I apologise for the airline before you fly. It is one of our local carriers, but my travel agent has a good relationship with them and I was able to get you there and back in the cheapest way possible.’

  Mark was therefore travelling light, a small hold-all with a photo of Barry Reed, a dictaphone borrowed from Luis, and one change of clothing, in the knowledge that by the end of the day what he had worn would be soaked in sweat.

  Luis had been right about the plane. It carried about sixty passengers, most of whom looked as if they had exhausted the possibilities of begging on the streets of Bogota and were looking to try pastures new in Rio. There were one or two businessmen in well-cut lightweight suits, with briefcases rather than bundles, but they had been shepherded together in the first three rows, although the seats looked no more comfortable than those in the rest of the cabin. Some of the upholstery was torn and patched, most of it did not match and Mark had noticed on take-off that the crew had rushed through the safety instructions as if embarrassed by the fact that there were several seatbelts missing. Mark had to resist the temptation to check to see if there were a life-jacket under his seat. Even if there were it was unlikely that the body of the plane would hold together well enough actually to get to the ground or the water.

  As he came through the airport he was besieged by unofficial taxi drivers all trying to persuade him to hire them before he got to the official rank. One of them was more persistent than the others and once he discovered Mark was English seemed so anxious to demonstrate his command of the language that Mark relented and was led, almost by the hand, to his beat-up vehicle.

  ‘Señor, you will be very happy with me as your driver. My name is José. I love England. Bobby Charlton, yes? Gazza, yes? Princess Diana, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mark replied. If his driver was going to finish every sentence with a yes, then it should turn out to be a very positive day.

  José did his best to act as a tour guide as he drove recklessly towards the address Mark had given him. The car seemed incapable of reaching a speed over forty miles an hour, but the way that José threw it into bends, overtook bicycles and donkeys and ignored any traffic signals made it feel as if he were breaking the sound barrier. As they progressed it became apparent that his conversation with Mark at the airport had been about the limit of his English and eventually Mark simply switched off and concentrated on his approach to the doctor. Somehow or other he had to persuade him to speak to him, to talk him through the events of the night minute by minute.

  When they finally arrived at the docto
r’s house, Mark took in a deep breath. His surgery had been in a fairly respectable area of Bogota, but what was facing him was pure luxury. There were huge iron gates with a security intercom and beyond them a long gravel drive leading up to the sprawling hacienda. A sprinkler was playing on the carefully tended lawns and, behind the main building, Mark could just see the diving board of a swimming pool.

  ‘I didn’t know that medicine in Bogota was such a profitable trade,’ he said aloud.

  ‘Yes,’ said José although he could not have understood a word.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Mark said to himself and pressed the buzzer to the left of the gate.

  A woman’s voice answered in what Mark took to be either Spanish or Portuguese. Either way he couldn’t understand a word.

  ‘Dr Guerra, is he home?’ he asked.

  There was some confusion when she heard his accent and then the sound of feet on wood and a male voice.

  ‘Si. Dr Guerra, that is me.’

  ‘My name is Mark Rossetti. I’m from England. I’m sorry to arrive without any warning. I wonder if I could talk to you. It’s rather important.’

  ‘What is this about, Señor Rossetti?’

  There seemed to be little point in lying. He had little doubt that if the man could afford a house like this then he could also afford the security men to go with it and they would have no hesitation in throwing him out if his presence was unwelcome.

  ‘It’s about a drug test you carried out on an English footballer after the match against Colombia.’

  There was a deathly silence at the other end. Mark looked up at the house, trying to visualise the expression on the man’s face. He was so near, yet so far.

  Eventually the doctor replied.

  ‘I have nothing to say to you. Or anybody. Now, this road is private so I must ask you to leave my property.’

  Mark took out his camera and photographed the house and as much of the estate as he could see. The doctor had refused to meet with him to reply to his questions, but the house and his silence had spoken volumes in themselves.

  CHAPTER 42

  Although neither of them would have known it, Juanito Ferrera and Mark Rossetti had quite possibly crossed in mid-air. Now, whilst Mark sweated in the Brazilian sunshine, the Colombian was shivering in an English November mist. Ray Fowler had wasted no time in getting him out on the training ground. He’d had his reservations when his chairman had suggested they try to buy him. He was a class player, there was no doubt of that, but he could not help but recall the problems they had experienced with foreign imports in the past. Admittedly, Dimitri Murganev was coming good, and there had just that week been a five-million pound bid for him from Juventus, but that had taken time and no little heartache on the way.

  He had put Ferrera under Stuart Macdonald’s wing. His captain and most experienced player would look after him, of that he was sure. He would also report back accurately to Fowler. Macdonald’s career was coming to an end and he was a natural for a coaching position at the club. Other men might have hesitated over appointing such a popular figure and natural successor, but Fowler was always going to do what was best for the club. He knew in his mind that he had never fully recovered from the appalling injuries he’d suffered in an attack a couple of years back and he was finding it harder and harder to keep up with the pressures of the modern game. He’d never thought he would ever look forward to a time when he was no longer involved in football, but the headaches that were now a constant companion were giving him the message that his days were probably numbered. When he retired he could not think of anyone better to take over the reins than Stuart Macdonald.

  Ferrera seemed to have settled in remarkably well. They had put him in the local four-star hotel they always used whilst a player was looking for somewhere to live and he appeared to be quite content there.

  ‘He’s no trouble, this one,’ Macdonald had reported. ‘He’s in most nights, watching telly although I have to tell you I dread the phone bill we’re going to get. Every time I pop in or try to call he’s on the line. He seems to know quite a few people here already.’

  ‘Do you think I should take a chance and play him tonight?’ Fowler asked. There was a mid-week fixture against Colborough Town at Hertsmere that evening and he was bringing Macdonald into his selection decisions more and more.

  ‘I would. Maybe as sub with a view to giving him a run out if we get a hold on the game.’

  As it was, Tommy Wallace had pulled a hamstring in training and Fowler decided to throw Ferrera in at the deep end. It was a choice that the Colombian totally vindicated in the first five minutes. A long clearance by Liam O’Donnell was nodded down by Aled Williams. Ferrera fed off him as if they had been playing together for years, took the ball on his chest and turned away from his marker in one movement. He flicked the ball back to Williams who played a perfect one-two with him, leaving Ferrera with a clear run to goal. The Colborough keeper decided to come off his line and spread himself, but to no avail as the Hertsmere man simply clipped the ball over him and into the net with a sublimely delicate chip.

  He ran to take the accolades of the crowd behind the goal who greeted their new hero with a single chant, ‘Juan, Juan, Juanito, there’s only one Juanito.’ It didn’t end there. Just before half-time he received the ball on the halfway line from Macdonald, ran some twenty yards until the ball bobbled in front of him. Instead of trying to regain control he simply hit the ball on the volley and was already turning back to the centre circle as the net bulged for another goal.

  Some twenty minutes from the end he began to tire but by then Hertsmere were already four up and were assured of the three points that would take them into the top six for the first time in the campaign. Fowler enthusiastically threw an arm around the huge striker as he insisted he pull on a tracksuit top to protect him from the evening’s chill.

  ‘Great stuff,’ the manager said, and those who knew him would have been amazed by his unqualified praise.

  But Ferrera had already taken his mobile phone out of his bag and was speaking rapidly in Spanish. Fowler couldn’t bring himself to reprimand the player. He had banned mobiles from both the training ground and the dressing room when he’d first taken charge at the club. He was tired of players talking to their agents about deals when they should have been listening to him talking about tactics. If he’d been the Colombian then he would also have wanted to phone home to tell them about his accomplishments.

  At the post-match Press conference all the talk was of Ferrera.

  ‘I’ve not seen a better debut,’ Fowler told the scribbling group of journalists, ‘but there were ten others out there tonight who all played their parts. I think this is the turning point of our season.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll miss Barry Reed as the season goes on?’ asked Dennis Stratton of the Post.

  ‘He’s not available, so we’ll have to make do,’ Fowler replied diplomatically and then felt a terrible guilt as he realised that he had not given the banned Geordie a single thought throughout the match.

  He returned to the dressing room, but most of the players had left. Only Stuart Macdonald was there, combing his hair carefully to conceal the bald patch that showed his advancing years.

  ‘Where’s Ferrera?’ the manager asked.

  Macdonald smiled.

  ‘He seems to have made himself at home. I offered him a lift, but someone phoned him and he said he was going out for a meal.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anybody settle in so quickly,’ Fowler commented.

  ‘You’re right there, boss. I saw him from the window in the car park. He was picked up by a Porsche.’

  ‘Not bad transport.’

  ‘Not a bad chauffeur either. Blonde, long-haired and definitely female.’

  ‘I thought married men weren’t supposed to notice things like that.’

  Macdonald had married Sally, Mark Rossetti’s ex-wife, some years ago and both Fowler and her second husband knew that she would not take lightly
to infidelity, even if it were only cerebral.

  ‘I can notice. I just can’t do anything. Anyway, I’m off. I’ll see you Friday, assuming we’ve still got the day off tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh aye, you’ve earned it. See you Mac.’

  Fowler was left alone in the dressing room. He picked up a shirt that was folded in the corner, unused. It was the number eight, with the name Reed printed on the back. He held it out in front of him, as if satisfying himself it would still fit the absent player, then carefully refolded it and placed it gently in the kit basket.

  ‘Of course we’ll fucking miss him,’ he said out loud, giving a belated answer to the reporter’s question.

  CHAPTER 43

  Mark was almost at the airport when he decided to try again with the doctor. Not tonight, perhaps in the morning. If only he could see him face to face then he might have a chance. Either the man had won the lottery, inherited a fortune from a rich relation, or else he had been paid off. Given that only the last would have encouraged him to leave his native country, Mark was more convinced than ever that Luis had been right to point him in the direction of Guerra.

  ‘José, can you recommend a hotel?’

  ‘Hotel, yes. Very good, yes. Belongs to my friend.’

  ‘I thought it just might,’ Mark muttered to himself, but was pleasantly surprised when José drove up to a perfectly respectable establishment just outside the bustling centre of the city.

  He was quoted a rate that seemed very cheap but doubtless included a commission for José. He didn’t bother to negotiate. The man had been a real find and he asked him to return at eight the following morning. The furniture in the room was simple, but functional, made largely of cane. The bed was a double, the linen crisp and clean. There was a shower, but no bath, a satellite television, a Gideon Bible in English in the drawer and a telephone. He wanted the phone more than the Bible or the shower. He didn’t even bother to consider the time in England. He just phoned Patti’s number and to his enormous relief she picked it up herself.