Even concentrating on my introductions, and on the spoof barrier by my side, I had to admit that BattleGround was a terrific show. The fans, or ‘marks’ in Internet parlance, certainly thought so. They cheered the faces, they booed the heels, on time and in accordance with a script unknown to them and unseen by them. With their signs, banners, GWA tee-shirts and merchandise, they were all, without realising it, extras in a multi-million pound television extravaganza.
The loudest cheer of the show, before the main event, went to Sally Crockett, the GWA World Ladies’ Champion. The pleasant lass I had met the day before turned into a tigress as soon as she climbed through the ropes. Even with my limited experience, I could see that she was something special. She could fly like a bird, she had martial arts moves that would have graced any Kung Fu movie, and she finished her match with a power-slam that looked so hard it almost winded me at ringside.
We ran to perfect time. My watch showed eight minutes past seven, exactly on schedule, as I climbed into the ring to announce the headline match. The lights went out again as soon as I set foot on the canvas. Most of the crowd recognised the signal for the Black Angel’s entrance at once; those who didn’t were encouraged by some more taped cheers. As the applause took hold another sound began to build from the speakers. The howling wind noise grew in volume, reaching its height as a single green-tinged spotlight picked out the curtained entrance to the arena, and the enormous figure of Darius Hencke.
He was wearing an ankle-length robe, which was in reality a flexible frame for the huge plastic wings on his back. He seemed to glide down the ramp which led to the ring, without entrance music, only that howling wind, lit by only that pale green light. He reached the steps and climbed up on to the ring apron, then seized the top rope and vaulted high over it, in a flying entrance.
The lights came up as he landed, and the crowd erupted. I glanced down at the ringside and saw my nephews on their feet as their idol paraded round the ring, screaming, ‘Angel! Angel!’ with the rest. So was my dad. I stored that one away for future use.
The great thing about Darius was that he didn’t need an introduction. So, as the din subsided and as Darius peeled off his winged robe to reveal the black combat suit underneath, I stepped forward to do my bit.
‘. . and his opponent, in this title match, all the way from Dublin, Ireland, the GWA Transcontinental Champion, Liam. . The Man. . Matthews!’
I gave him the build up he wanted. The boy couldn’t have done it better himself. With his little, loud-jacketed manager Dee Dee by his side, he swaggered his way to the ring in time with his music, a jazzed up version of something by Thin Lizzy, dressed in green satin tights with shamrocks picked out in sequins. His hair was tied back in a pony tail, and round his waist he wore his gaudy leather and gold championship belt.
He unbuckled it as he stepped through the ropes, to use it as a weapon as he flew at Darius, whose back was turned — stupidly, I thought, given that this was Liam Matthews. But it was part of the act and the crowd loved it.
I beat it out of the ring before I got caught in the crossfire, returning to my ringside seat and renewing my grip on the special crush barrier which was soon to come into use. As I looked back up at the action, Darius had regained his feet, but Liam was still battering him with the belt, until at last, the Angel managed to rip it from his grasp and throw it over the top rope, conveniently in the direction of one of the roadies, whose job it was to recover all the props.
Having disposed of his weapon, he put the Irishman’s pony tail to good use, by grabbing it and using it as a lever to send him tumbling across the ring, in a beautifully disguised somersault.
That was only the start of ten minutes of absolute mayhem. I could hear my nephews screaming behind me as the television warriors gave as fine an imitation as I have ever seen of two guys knocking ten extremely large bells out of each other. First, the Angel, apparently recovered from the treacherous attack with the championship belt, battered Liam from ring-post to ring-post, as Dee Dee screamed constant abuse at the referee. Just when the crowd thought the Irishman was done, he countered with a series of lightning-fast wrestling moves which seemed to bewilder his huge opponent, culminating in a flying drop-kick from the top rope which stretched him out flat on his back.
I glanced round at the boys. Pure horror showed on their faces, until the Angel thrust an arm in the air, defeating Liam’s attempt at a decisive pin-fall. Beyond them the eyes of the Lord Mayor of Newcastle were shining, while on his left, Jack Gantry sat, shaking his head in what looked like bewilderment.
The Angel rallied, then Matthews came back, each of them seeming to soak up punishment. In fact, as I had learned, much of it was real. The drop-kicks and forearm smashes were pulled slightly, but the power moves were another thing entirely. Each wrestler’s well-being depended on his technique in absorbing their impact.
At last the moment of the climax arrived. I had seen Darius throw Liam over the top rope before, but from a distance away. This time he was no more than three feet from me as his broad, muscular back smacked into the padded mat surround. As Darius climbed to the top of the ring-post for the finisher, he lay with his eyes closed and his chest heaving from the very real exertion of his unreal fight. The pony tail had long since come undone, and his sweat-soaked hair was plastered across his face and around his neck.
I looked up at the Angel, balanced carefully high on the top turn-buckle almost twenty feet above me. In the second before he launched himself into the air, and as Dee Dee approached, I let go of the crowd barrier. Darius was in mid-air, his right arm stretched out before him in a flying v-shape, as the little manager pulled it over, so that it covered Matthews’ body completely, but without touching him.
The crowd on the far side of the arena, those without a clear view of the live action, could see every detail of what was happening on the giant screen. They roared as the big German flew; through the din I could hear the voices of the commentators rise in anticipation and mock horror. I thought I could even hear Jonathan scream.
Not even that cacophony though, could drown out the noise of the impact as the Black Angel of Death landed on the shiny barrier, exactly on time and exactly on target. It was a mixture of sounds: a metallic creaking and cracking, a booming rush as the pent-up breath left the German’s body in a great exhalation, and a loud, agonised scream — from Liam Matthews.
Close as I was, at first even I thought that it was part of the act. But then Darius rolled over slowly onto the matting, as if badly winded at the very least, and I could see that I was wrong. The Irishman’s face was screwed up, mouth open, eyes shut tight as if that would drive away the pain.
Several of the vertical aluminium struts which made up the centre of the barrier had snapped clean through with the impact of the Black Angel’s dive. Three of them had pierced Liam, one through his shoulder, one through his ribcage and one through his abdomen. Blood was pouring from the wounds.
Unaware of the disaster, the ringside cameraman moved in for a close-up shot. I had been frozen to my seat, but as he approached I jumped up and pushed him away. I grabbed my mike, not knowing if it was live or not.
‘Medics,’ I heard myself yell. ‘Get the medics down here!’
Chapter 10
‘Was Matthews really hurt, or was it all just part of the act?’ Jack Gantry asked me, in a quiet, almost conspiratorial, voice. He was still wearing his heavy gold chain of office, even in the privacy of the GWA hospitality room. It was an hour after the accident, and I had just emerged from a gruelling session with Everett and Jerry Gradi, who had questioned everyone around the scene of the accident.
‘No, that was for real.’ I winced as I spoke. I had watched as the paramedics sedated Liam then cut him free from the barrier, leaving the piercing spokes in place for removal by surgeons.
‘Diane went with him in the ambulance. She called ten minutes ago from the infirmary. He’s in surgery, but they don’t think that it’s life-threatening. This
can be a dangerous game, but Liam knew that. He signed up to take risks, like all these people.’
The Lord Provost nodded. ‘No serious damage, then.’
‘I didn’t say that, Mr Gantry. It could be serious enough to keep him out of action indefinitely, and that would knock a big hole in the GWA’s next pay-per-view event. Tonight’s match was supposed to have been a warm-up for that.’
‘Ach still,’ Mr Glasgow muttered. ‘Everett’s a resourceful big guy. He’ll paper over the cracks.
‘Here, listen,’ he went on, his tone changing. ‘Before I forget; I’m hosting another reception next Wednesday in the Burrell Gallery. It’s to mark the presentation of the city’s annual arts awards the night after. I’d be very pleased if you and your lovely wife would come along, as my personal guests this time. Susie and Mike’ll be there, and I’m sure you’ll know lots of other people, given your line of work.’
‘Thanks very much,’ I said, unashamedly delighted by the Great Man’s patronage, and amused privately by the fact that he too clearly thought that I was an actor. ‘We’d love to.’
‘That’s good. Ring my office on Monday and give my secretary your address. He’ll send you an official invitation and send a car to pick you both up on the night.’
As I nodded, he patted me on the arm, as if for being a good boy, and headed back to rejoin his colleague, the Lord Mayor.
I turned and wandered across the room to find my family. My dad and Jan were chatting quietly, watching wee Colin as his idol, the Bee-Moff, lifted him in one huge hand and sat him carefully on his shoulder. Jerry shot me a quick stage scowl, then grinned. The Monster was back in friendly mode. Meanwhile Jonathan — a lad after my own heart — was showing remarkable initiative for one so young, by practising a belly-to-belly suplex on Sally Crockett.
‘You keep it up while you have the chance, wee man,’ I told him. ‘If you were ten years older you wouldn’t get that close.’
The Ladies World Champion smiled. ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ she said. ‘He’s got a gleam in his eye, has this one.’
‘Christ, don’t tell him that,’ spluttered Mac the Dentist. ‘He’s full of himself as it is.’ He reached out to take Colin from Jerry, as the wrestler lifted him down from his perch, his huge paw almost engulfing the wee chap.
‘Come on, you two lads. Time we were off. I promised your mother I’d have you home by midnight, and I’d rather have Mr Behemoth here mad at me than have our Ellie.’
‘How is my sister?’ I asked, as I walked them to the door.
‘Oh, she’s fine. She’s got a date tonight. Not with that teacher guy she’s been seeing though; someone new. A journalist from Dundee, I believe.’
‘As long as she doesn’t get her name in the papers. You drive carefully now.’
I watched them as they walked up the drive away from the Arena. When I turned, Everett was behind me, with Jan, who was carrying my suit-bag. ‘Let’s go find dinner,’ he said. ‘Diane’s meeting us at the restaurant.’
The taxi which arrived less than a minute later took us to Twenty-One Queen Street, which Everett had been assured was the best restaurant in Newcastle. His wife had beaten us to it. She was seated at a corner table, looking tired and worried.
‘What news?’ the giant asked her, at once.
‘He was still in the theatre when I left,’ Diane answered. ‘His mother’s waiting back at the Infirmary for him to come out of the anaesthetic.
‘The shoulder wound was nothing much, but the next one skidded off a rib and lacerated his side quite badly. The third is the most serious: the receiving surgeon thought it might have pierced a kidney.’
Everett’s face twisted in a grimace. ‘Let’s hope not. Liam may be an s.h.i.t. but he’s a talent. How’s Mrs Matthews handling it?’
‘Is she going to cut up rough like Tricia Manson, you mean? She won’t do that. She told me that Liam’s father was killed by Loyalist paramilitaries. The way she sees it, being in our industry has kept him away from that sort of trouble, and she’s thankful for it. She accepts that what happened tonight is an occupational risk.’
She frowned at her husband. ‘We are going to sue the people who made those barriers though, aren’t we? The design was supposed to have been tested, plus, they guaranteed that those struts wouldn’t break, no way.’
‘We’ll talk to them Monday, but let’s drop it for now. This dinner is to welcome Oz and Jan to the GWA family. So let’s change the subject.’
‘What are you doing about tonight’s transmission?’ Jan asked him, suddenly. ‘Wasn’t the ending a bit chaotic?’
Everett beamed at her, with professional pride. ‘The station will run it uncut,’ he said. ‘I reviewed the footage straight away. To those who don’t know about the accident, the ending is absolutely terrific. When Oz stands up and gets in the cameraman’s face, between him and Liam so he can’t get a shot, he looks really shocked and threatening. Then when he shouts “Medics!” that’s really great television. You couldn’t plan it, or rehearse it.
‘So tonight we make the best of it. We take that and we use it, then we freeze on Oz’s face in close-up, and run the credits over that.’
He turned to Diane. ‘You see, babe. I told you it was the right thing to hire an actor for this job.’
Under the table, I kicked Jan sharply on the ankle to stop astonishment showing on her face. But she was better than that. She treated me to a smile which let me know, among other things, that she’d see me later about the sore ankle. ‘Didn’t I tell you, darlin’,’ she said, ‘that if you just hung in there, your big break would come?
‘It looks like Everett’s made you a household name overnight. Who knows, now you might even get on Coronation Street.’
Chapter 11
It was late on Tuesday afternoon when Everett loomed on my doorstep again.
We had shot the Sunday matches in Newcastle without further trouble, and the day had been made easier by the news that Liam’s kidney hadn’t been badly damaged, and that he could be back at work in a matter of weeks rather than months.
However, I had no opportunity at all to speak to the big man alone that day, and there was something I had to ask him. So I was pleased when he called me on Tuesday morning and asked if he could come to see me at four-thirty.
I was by myself when he arrived, since Jan, after her discussion over lunch with Susie the day before to talk terms, was spending her first working afternoon at the offices of The Gantry Group plc.
‘Hi Oz,’ he said, on my doorstep. He was in his business suit and spectacles, as before, but I could see at once that his expression was different. The big man was subdued. ‘Thanks for seeing me. I know you got other business to do, but I got a few things to tell you that I can’t handle over the phone.’
‘Come on in,’ I told him. I was prepared this time. There was a pot of coffee on the table, together with two litres of water and a plate of iced doughnuts.
‘Is Liam still on the mend?’ I asked, pouring Everett a glass of water and myself a coffee as he arranged himself on the sofa and reached for a doughnut — no, two doughnuts.
‘Yes. He’s still in pain, from his kidney mostly, but he should be fit to leave hospital come Friday. Diane stayed down there. She’s coming home today, then going back to collect him and bring him home.’ He made the first of the doughnuts disappear.
‘Where does he live?’ As I put the question I realised that I had never pictured any of the GWA team as ordinary people with private, domestic lives, not even Everett and Diane, with whom we had enjoyed a quiet, civilised dinner on the previous Saturday night.
‘He’s got an apartment in Kelvin Court, out in the west of the city.’
I glanced at him in surprise, unable to suppress a smile at the thought of the spangled superstar among the sober occupants of Glasgow’s famous art deco residence. ‘How about you, where do you and Diane live?’
‘Not far from Liam. We have a big old villa in Cleveden Drive.’
He touched the top of his head, with a fleeting grin. ‘It has high ceilings and doorways, so it suits. When we came here I thought we’d have to build something to suit my size, but we found plenty of property that was okay.’ He looked around our living room. ‘This would be okay too. . if the doors were a little higher.’ The second doughnut vanished.
I sat facing him and picked up my coffee. ‘So? What’s happened since Sunday? Have you tackled the people who made the barrier?’
He frowned. ‘Damn right I have, first thing yesterday morning. They put their technical director on the first plane up from Birmingham, knowing the depth of the shit they were in. He went over the thing with a magnifying glass, checked every weld and every strut, including those that were taken out of Matthews in the hospital.
‘He did all that, then he showed me that every second strut had been cut halfway through, then painted over with silver nail enamel so it wouldn’t show. Someone turned that barrier into a death trap, Oz. I guess they figured that if Liam had been killed, we’d have been forced off the air.’
Everett looked at me, Daze eyes; hard behind his soft framed spectacles. ‘Whoever’s out to get me is raising the stakes.’
‘How would they know to fix that particular barrier?’ I asked him.
‘They didn’t. We checked: found they fixed all the goddamned barriers. It must have been done after the guys had finished their practice.’
‘So it must have been someone in the very heart of the team,’ I muttered, voicing a thought.
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘Because whoever doctored the barriers must have known that they had finished practising, and that they wouldn’t try another before the show.’ He considered the point and nodded, slowly.
‘Everett, who else knows about this?’
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