SuperJack

by Adam Baron

  A small cloud billowed towards me from the woman on my left. I turned the paper over, wondering what shattering piece of crucial world news the editor of the paper had chosen to flag his publication with that day. A picture of Chris Evans greeted me. He was arm in arm with a woman I didn’t recognize, but the editor had assumed I would have. I didn’t stop to find out who she was, though. Nor did I wonder why anyone should care that she was going out with Mr Evans except for her mother because in a box at the bottom of the page was the face of another girl, a girl I did recognize. It stopped me like I’d walked into a glass wall.

  I couldn’t believe what my eyes were telling me.

  I stared at her face. I don’t know how long. I suddenly realized that I’d stopped breathing. I turned to the centre pages. She was there too, dressed in a bikini, lying on a bed, her head in her hands. Her golden hair was swept over one side of her head like a wave in a Japanese painting. She had an uncertain look on her face, a mixture, it seemed to me, of hurt and guilt. You couldn’t see her freckles.

  HE JUST USED ME

  The woman to my left was saying something. She was asking me to pass her the sugar. It sounded like the fifth time she’d said it.

  ‘You all right, love? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  More pictures were spread over the two pages, most of them of Alison. In the top right corner was a small shot of a couple, posing with their baby. Below was a head shot of a man with very shiny hair, grinning, the collars of his football shirt just visible.

  MY NIGHTS OF LOVE WITH FOOTBALLER JACK DRAPER

  I shook my head and apologized. I slid the shaker over and looked back at the newspaper. A very clear and obvious connection. I looked at the pictures and read the article twice before my mind went back to the conversation I’d had with Nicky, in my office. Less than twenty-four hours ago Nicky and I had joked around a bit until he had eventually told me that his friend Jack Draper might be in some sort of trouble.

  Draper’s big, square face smiled back at me.

  He was now.

  Part Two

  Chapter Seven

  One very long day later I was sitting in a well-kept if slightly chintzy living room, looking at some notes I’d made and waiting for a cup of coffee. I heard feet on the stairs and a young boy came round the banister, aged around nine or ten.

  He stopped still when he saw me.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a friend of Mrs Draper’s,’ I said. ‘You?’

  ‘I live next door. My name’s Michael.’ He was a well-spoken, intense little boy, with a slight lisp. He looked at me for a second, before pushing his thick, clear plastic glasses up his nose. ‘I’ve been playing Jack’s Dreamcast. My dad won’t let me have one. He doesn’t know I play Jack’s. They’re Jack’s medals.’

  The little boy pointed at a glass case in the corner, full of cups, medals, two or three scarves. He’d said it like Jack was a World War Two veteran.

  I turned back to him.

  ‘Impressive.’

  ‘He said he’d get us tickets. In the Cup, when Newcastle come. March the 5th. He said he was going to show Alan Shearer how to do it.’

  I smiled. Not difficult, these days. ‘It’ll be a great game.’

  ‘It will.’ He paused again, and looked sad. ‘My daddy’s a doctor. He’s no good at football. I wish he was like Jack. Jack’s taught me loads of tricks. Are you a friend of Jack’s as well as Mrs Draper?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ The kid looked at his feet.

  ‘They say he killed a girl, don’t they? They say he stabbed her. Stabbed her to death.’

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘Yes. They do say that.’

  ‘At school they all say it. Everyone. They call him Jack Raper. But I say they’re wrong. I got in a fight.’ He paused again and looked nervous. He didn’t really want to ask, but he went ahead.

  ‘Did he do it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know about that. No one does.’

  ‘He’s hiding, isn’t he, Jack is? No one’s seen him. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I could hear Mrs Draper in the kitchen, about to walk through to us. ‘No. I’m afraid that nobody knows that either.’

  * * *

  When I left Zack’s it was after eight. I was still in a kind of daze. It had got light without me noticing. I walked past Fred’s and saw Draper again, wound up tight, tapping his thumb on the table. I saw how he had snapped, jumping up, telling me to fuck off. All because I’d told him I couldn’t help him. Again I wondered what would have happened if I’d just said sure, I’ll help, though I’m probably not your best option. Would he then have gone off to the flat on Hoxton Square and done what he had?

  The morning was cold and I hadn’t bothered with a coat. I climbed the stairs to my flat, amazed at how suddenly my life had flipped on me. I shook my head and made a few phone calls, one of which was to Nicky, but again I only got his voicemail. I was confused. There was just too much to take in. I wasn’t ready for it. I shook the whole lot away and managed to get my head down for an hour. I had a dream in which I went to see my brother, Luke, in the hospital that has been his home for the last eight years. It’s rare that I dream and this one was clearer than any I could remember. Luke was lying on his bed, as he always is, not moving, not speaking, his grey eyelids closed to the world, only his shallow breathing and the monitors to the right of his head giving any indication that he is still alive. I dreamed that I was telling him about my new girlfriend, about Shulpa, telling him what she was like. The only thing was that Shulpa was standing there beside me, completely naked, and I was discussing her as if she weren’t there, telling Luke to open his eyes, he really wouldn’t want to miss that. Even in my dream I felt sleazy. Waking up felt like an escape even though I craved sleep. I got up quickly and plunged my face into a sink of cold water.

  It hadn’t gone away. None of it. It was all still there, waiting for me to decide what the hell I was going to do. I tried Nicky but again I couldn’t get hold of him. My hand hovered over the phone a few times, my finger over the nine. But I didn’t call the police. There was time for that. Rushing it wouldn’t do a lot for Alison Everly. I needed to think, to talk to Nicky. Instead I made one last call, to the Independent newspaper, and then, glad of having made some sort of decision, I grabbed my car keys and walked downstairs.

  I parked the Mazda next to a sleek modern Jag on the west edge of the large, green space, and looked at my watch. It was just after eleven. I clicked through the events of last night again until I came to the picture of Alison in the Sun. There most definitely had to be a connection between the photographs I’d seen and Draper’s actions, of Alison lying dead, then in a centrefold, but what it was, was a mystery to me. I didn’t know why Draper had really come to see me or if it had anything to do with Alison. I didn’t know anything, except that I wished, beyond measure, that I’d eaten somewhere else last night.

  I sat for a minute, yawning. The sleep I’d had had only reminded my body that such a state was possible, it hadn’t helped. I slapped the side of my face a few times and looked out of the window. I didn’t imagine I would be the only person looking for Jack Draper and I craned my head around for journalists. Draper was the kind of footballer Vinnie Jones used to be, with a far higher profile than his footballing achievements would have got him. There would be plenty of hacks who’d want his reaction to having been caught with a pretty ‘model’, though I didn’t imagine there would be any who wanted to ask him the sort of questions I wanted to ask him. Not yet. They’d just want to push his nose in it, go through the same routine they usually did. Kiss and sell, it was becoming a regular industry, with standard procedures. They probably taught it at journalism school. First, put aside any sense of right and wrong. Then get the man himself, after which the missus. I saw her, Jack’s wife, stomping off into the night. Had he told her? Had the editor phoned him, out of ‘courtesy’, to warn him? Had he then gone and hack
ed at Alison in a frenzy, for doing it to him? I didn’t know. I peered through my windscreen, out over the grass. There were no photographers that I could see but I couldn’t be sure until I got out there.

  The area of Wanstead Flats I was looking at was an uninspiring piece of land surrounded by a flyover, a row of shops and some large Victorian houses. I pushed open the door of the Mazda. A long cold claw of wind reached straight in and I pulled it shut again. In the distance, I could see a haze of small figures running around between some football posts and what looked to me like portable five-a-side goals. I thought about staying where I was, waiting until they broke, but I had no idea how long that would be. I locked the car then walked quickly across the crunchy grass towards the group of tiny figures, the sound of men shouting reaching me through the crisp air, backed by the dull whump of feet on leather.

  A friend of mine on the Independent sports desk had told me where Leyton Orient train. I’d caught her there, not long after leaving Zack’s. I worried a bit about asking her, and she had sniffed around a bit, but I couldn’t think of any other way to find out. No one was answering at the club, and with their lead striker in the paper they probably wouldn’t have been too keen to tell me anyway.

  The day was definitely cold rather than fresh, a frigid east wind whipping my collar against my neck and playing havoc with the crosses several of the men in front of me were trying to practise. Others were doing sprints or practising skills, while two goalkeepers were diving around after the balls some younger lads were throwing. I dug my hands in my pockets, looking from face to face. Then I just watched them, with interest, never having seen a team train before.

  No one seemed to notice me or be put off by my presence. There was a big pile of kit on the halfway line and I saw a gaunt Asian-looking man in his sixties standing next to it, with light skin to match a black cashmere overcoat, belted over a thin frame. He was watching the action, next to a younger man wearing what looked to me like a chauffeur’s cap. The players all certainly seemed to be working very hard, and I wondered if this guy’s presence might have had something to do with it.

  After ten minutes the players all stopped what they were doing and stood, catching their breaths, their hands on their hips, steam coming off them like racehorses. I thought the session was over but instead the manager, a bull terrier of a Scot with a bobble hat and a limited vocabulary, handed out red bibs and organized the players into two teams of ten, which went up against each other for another twenty minutes.

  Draper wasn’t there. I suddenly realized that it was a bit of a long shot that he would be. I stood watching the game anyway, trying to focus on what was in front of me. It was a mixture of some surprisingly good stuff and some pretty woeful rubbish. I picked out a couple of skilful midfield players and one lad in his teens, a winger with a hell of a lot of pace and almost as much touch, but who didn’t know quite when to pass it. I winced when I saw him clattered by a lumbering centre back whose tackle was a good second too late. I was surprised by the tackling in general, which was more full-on than I’d thought would be the case on a training ground.

  The manager played on one team but that didn’t stop him screaming at the other, urging them to greater effort, telling them to run off the ball more, create more spaces. When a defender miss hit a back pass, letting the manager’s team score, he didn’t congratulate the young lad who’d dribbled round the keeper, instead turning on the defender.

  ‘Useless cunt,’ he spat. ‘Who do think you are, Gary fucking Neville?’

  He got a laugh for that but he wasn’t trying to be funny. He continued to give his squad the benefit of his instruction for another ten minutes, before calling a halt to the proceedings. The red team won, both goals scored by the nippy teenager, a black kid with a big lightning flash shaved into the back of his scalp.

  Both teams made their way to the pile of kit. I left it a minute and then walked towards them. The manager was zipping himself into a coat that made him look like a giant caterpillar – with arms. His face was as red as a skinned tomato. All around him players were pulling on sweatpants, coats, hats.

  ‘Mr Janner?’

  My friend on the Indy had given me his name. He carried on with what he was doing, not even glancing at me.

  ‘You’re a bit late, son. Most of your lot have been and gone. So why don’t you piss off, eh?’

  I couldn’t help smiling to myself. I didn’t know what kind of man Janner was but watching him train had warmed me to him. There was something about the way he abused his players that told me he really cared for them. I looked down at him.

  ‘I’m not a journalist, Mr Janner.’

  “Course you’re not, lad. And I’m not a wee Jock with a foul temper this bright morning. Go on with yer, before I set big Willy our centre back on you.’

  ‘I saw what he could do.’

  ‘Then you’ll know not to mess around wi’ me, eh? Now scurry along, I’ve nothing to tell yer.’

  He was packing up a sports bag. I stood in front of him. ‘I’m not a journalist, really.’

  ‘Then what are you?’

  I thought about that. It would take too long.

  ‘My name’s Billy,’ I said. ‘I’m a friend of Jack Draper’s.’

  Finally, he looked at me, his chin going towards his throat. I couldn’t tell whether he believed me or not.

  ‘Are you now? Then I wished you’d have advised the daft little prick not to go screwing wee lasses with mouths bigger than their titties.’

  ‘You’ve seen the Sun, then?’

  ‘Oh aye, we’ve all seen it. We get it for the stock markets, you know.’

  Again I smiled, until a picture of Alison came to me. ‘I take it he never showed this morning.’

  ‘You take it correctly. And when I speak to him, he’ll take it correctly too. Not that I really blame him. About an hour ago there were more lenses here than in Dolland and fucking Aitchison.’

  I smiled again. ‘Did he phone, say anything?’

  ‘Not a dicky.’ He zipped up his bag and called to one of the teenagers I’d seen helping out the goalkeepers.

  ‘Right,’ I said. I looked around. ‘What did you tell the press?’

  It was his turn to smile. ‘To fuck off. What else? When that didn’t work I said he was at the football ground, getting physio.’

  ‘And is he?’

  ‘No. I don’t know where he is. Having a long talk with his missus if he’s any sense. Now is that all?’

  The young lad picked up his bag and Janner, not waiting for a reply, followed a loose line of players, lumbering over to a squat concrete building I took to be a shower block. I followed.

  ‘The young lad’s good,’ I said. ‘The goal-scorer.’

  He was up ahead of us, plugged into a Walkman, limping slightly with the knock he’d had.

  ‘Potentially.’

  ‘Been on yet at all, in the first team?’

  ‘A couple of times, twenty minutes at the end. He did okay. Not sure he’s quite ready yet.’

  I nodded. ‘You might have to find out for sure, though,’ I said, ‘and soon. Next game’s Thursday, isn’t it? I think you’re going to have to play him.’

  Janner laughed. ‘Because our Jack’s put his plug in the wrong socket? Oh no. I’ll let him miss a session because of it but play, he will—’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘he won’t be playing.’

  It was my intention that something in my voice should stop Janner and it did so. He came to an abrupt halt and turned to me. He put his hands on his hips and let the last few people trail past us. Then he let out a breath.

  ‘What do you know?’ he said. He sounded weary, instantly resigned. ‘What the fuck’s happened?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough. Just tell me, how did he meet her?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Janner said, putting his hand to his forehead. He could tell I was serious and he took the worry straight into him. I could see him working it, instantly reorganizing his team. �
�She modelled some kit in our programme, so the lads say. I think that was it. But why do you care?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough, really.’

  He seemed to accept that. He let out another breath and shook his head. The wind played with the bobble on his hat like the swingball Luke used to beat me at as kids.

  ‘Fifteen goals in twelve starts. Super bloody Jack! Best signing I ever made. Cost next to nothing. And there was me, already cleared a space on my sideboard for the Manager of the Month shield. I knew it was too good to last. What a fucking morning. Draper’ll be out, you’re telling me? Really?’

  I pointed forward. ‘Better get someone to look at that lad’s leg. And if you speak to Draper, get him to call me. Billy. Okay? It’s important.’

  ‘Aye. Aye. And thanks, I suppose. Oh fuck, fuck it. Squires,’ he screamed. ‘Squires! Stop rotting your brain with that tuneless fucking druggie music and come over here. And cut that limp out, you sorry little pansy, or you’ll not start against Crewe. Do you hear me?’ The lad turned. When he realized what Janner was telling him beneath the bluster he couldn’t stop a huge grin splitting his young face.

  ‘And you’d better learn to pass the twatting ball too, or else I’ll be sending you back to your knife-wielding ghetto friends in fucking Harlesden or whichever crime-ridden filth-hole you were lucky enough to be plucked from by Mr Korai. You hear me, son?’