Own Goal

by Tom Palmer

  MONDAY

  THEO AND CHARLOTTE

  ‘Morning, Danny.’

  Danny came down for breakfast the next day wondering if, like Saturday, anybody would be there.

  Today there was just Dad.

  He’d heard his mum go out first thing. And Emily had left the night before.

  ‘Tea?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Yes please,’ Danny said.

  Dad reached for two mugs and put them on the counter.

  Danny and his dad were comfortable with silences. They never talked just to fill them. Silences were just silences. But not today. Today there was a massive unfilled chasm there too.

  Danny decided to fill it.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

  He watched his dad smile as he poured water on to tea bags.

  ‘I’m OK, Danny,’ Dad answered in a weary voice. ‘But what about you?’

  ‘I feel sad,’ Danny said, trying to be as honest as he could. ‘But I don’t know exactly what I feel.’

  ‘I’m sorry this is happening now,’ Dad said, after pausing. ‘Before your exams.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s happening at all,’ Danny replied, without thinking.

  He watched his dad’s shoulders slump, then firm up again.

  ‘This has been going on for a while, Danny. Your mum and I have not been getting on, not been happy.’

  ‘I know,’ Danny said.

  Mum and Dad had been on a holiday together recently. Trying to work things out. Danny knew that was why they’d gone without him. They’d been arguing a lot too. Often about him.

  And that was still going round his mind. That he was to blame for this.

  The time when he’d been arrested.

  The time he’d been involved in solving the kidnap of Sam Roberts.

  The time when his dad had let him run on to the pitch at the football.

  Danny realized that a lot of his parents’ arguments had been about him.

  But he wouldn’t let the next thought come into his mind. The thought that he was to blame kept coming up, over and over. A thought he couldn’t face.

  ‘There’s a meeting at the Playhouse Theatre tonight,’ he said to Dad, interrupting his own thoughts. ‘About the City takeover.’

  ‘Right,’ Dad said. ‘How, er … how did you find out about that?’

  Danny immediately thought he should lie. Make up some story about where he’d heard it. Not on the train back from City’s away game on Saturday.

  But why should he bother lying?

  What was the point? What difference would it make in the end?

  And he knew his dad hated lies.

  ‘I went to Spurs on Saturday,’ Danny confessed. ‘I overheard some men talking about it.’

  Dad said nothing.

  ‘Do you want to come?’ Danny asked.

  ‘To the next away game?’ Dad said, with a half-laugh.

  Danny wanted to laugh himself, but found he couldn’t. ‘To the meeting.’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘OK,’ Danny said.

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Seeing as we’re being honest … I sort of knew you were heading off to the Spurs game, so I, er … I phoned a couple of guys I know who were going down on the train. Asked them to look out for you.’

  Danny walked across the park to school, wondering about what his dad had done. Those men on the train. The one who had winked. Were they his dad’s friends? He thought he’d been following them, being all clever like a detective, but, in fact, they’d been waiting for him, making it easy for him. No wonder he’d found it so straightforward.

  He didn’t know whether to feel angry or pleased. So he just walked through the quiet park, without feeling either.

  Danny didn’t notice the silver car tracking him as he made his way across fields and roads. Or the determined face of the man behind the wheel.

  School was a contrast to the peace of the park. The corridors were packed with hundreds of children and with teachers shouting orders.

  It was chaotic and noisy and overheated and people kept barging into him.

  Danny felt like walking out.

  Why not?

  He had a good excuse. His parents were splitting up. He was feeling depressed. He could say that. No problem. Just go to see his head of year and tell the truth. Maybe they’d order a taxi to take him home. Give him the week off, even.

  But Danny did want to see Charlotte.

  And he knew that, if he took the day off, his parents would hear about it and there’d be more recriminations at home. More arguments. More reasons for his mum and dad to split up.

  So he headed down the corridor, dodging bags and running year-sevens, hoping to get to the classroom before registration.

  But just as he made it to the door, a familiar form came out of the room.

  Someone who should not have been in there.

  Theo Gibbs.

  ‘All right, Danny,’ Theo said, deadpan.

  Danny smiled. ‘Fine, thanks. You?’

  ‘Fine, mate.’ Theo lowered his voice, so he was almost whispering. ‘You missed a great party at the weekend.’

  Danny smiled again, expecting a new round of jokes about City and the game with Forza later in the week. Something to get under Danny’s skin.

  But he could take it. He could take anything Theo Gibbs threw at him.

  ‘Great party,’ Theo said again, still whispering.

  Danny stepped to the side to push past Theo. But Theo moved across the doorway with him. Danny could sense more people behind him, waiting to get in. He could feel the tension rising. What was Theo up to? He clearly had something to tell Danny. But what Theo said next was not what Danny was expecting at all.

  ‘I had a great time with Charlotte,’ Theo said, stressing her name. ‘She’s a friend of yours, yeah?’

  Danny said nothing. He just looked at Theo and saw a smile creeping across the sixth-former’s face before he finally moved out of Danny’s way.

  Danny walked into the classroom. His head felt like it was about to explode.

  What was Theo on about?

  What the hell did that mean?

  Was he going out with Charlotte now?

  He kept his eyes on the pale green plastic tiles of the classroom floor. He followed the route through the tables that he followed every day. To his desk. And he looked at the desk. How the edge had been scuffed and chipped.

  And then, as soon as the teacher came in, he closed his eyes and wished he’d just walked.

  Back down the corridor.

  Back across the grounds.

  And out.

  Out of school.

  He’d do it in ten minutes, after registration.

  He didn’t even know if Charlotte was in the room. He didn’t look.

  SILVER CAR

  Danny rushed across the school playing fields and out of the grounds towards the shops. He didn’t look back. If someone was going to try to stop him, they wouldn’t be able to anyway. He could do anything he wanted: his mum and dad were splitting up. No one could tell him what to do any more.

  What now?

  He couldn’t go home. Dad was there. And he’d just send him back to school.

  It was a shock when the silver car’s door opened right in front of him.

  ‘Get in,’ a man’s voice said.

  For a moment Danny panicked. He was always on his guard. After he’d been involved with stopping crazed football chairmen, agents and billionaires getting what they wanted, there was always a chance a car would draw up to him somewhere and that something bad could happen. So he sidestepped the car door and headed on.

  ‘Danny?’

  Danny stopped this time. He recognized the voice.

  He turned. It was his friend, the football journalist,
Anton Holt.

  ‘Want a lift?’ Holt said.

  ‘OK. Where are we going?’

  ‘Wherever you want. I tried to catch up with you before you got into school.’

  ‘Town?’ Danny said. He had decided to spend the day doing research for his project. ‘I’m going to the library,’ he explained. ‘Researching something.’

  ‘Will you have a coffee with me first?’ Holt asked.

  ‘On one condition,’ Danny said.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘We don’t talk about all the stuff that’s going on at home.’

  Danny watched Holt frown, then take a breath.

  ‘But I want to help you,’ Holt said. ‘To talk about it.’

  ‘I don’t need help.’

  ‘Just talk,’ Holt said.

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about. How’s Emily?’

  ‘She’s OK,’ Holt said, smiling.

  ‘Well, that’s everything sorted, then.’

  ‘But she’s worried about you.’

  ‘Are you going to the thing tonight?’ Danny said, changing the subject for a second time.

  ‘Yeah,’ Holt answered. ‘You?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Danny spent the day in the city library, going through books and newspapers for anything he could find out about Salvatore Fo. He’d discovered quite a lot.

  That Fo wanted to become leader of Italy. That he modelled himself on Mussolini. That he wanted to drill for oil in the Mediterranean, and blow up mountains in the Alps to find precious stones. That he had a posh house in the Italian Lakes. That he might have killed political rivals. Or had them killed. But there was no evidence to convict him.

  Danny needed more. More information. More time.

  But he was gradually building something. He was getting happier about it.

  Later, his dad met him at a café for something to eat before they went to the meeting about the City takeover.

  Danny knew there was a reason for this – and Dad didn’t waste time.

  ‘Can we talk now?’ Dad asked.

  ‘OK,’ Danny said.

  ‘I want to know that you’re all right. About home.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ Danny repeated. ‘I feel weird and sad, but my heart’s still beating.’

  ‘This is going to be a hard time,’ Dad went on. ‘But I want you to know that your mum loves you and that …’ Dad’s voice broke. He was too emotional to speak.

  ‘I know she loves me. I know you love me. But …’ Danny stopped.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But the problem is you don’t love each other.’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Danny said.

  ‘We do. It’s just …’

  ‘Then why don’t you stay together?’

  ‘We want different things,’ Dad said.

  Danny felt a sharp pain in his head. It came out before he could stop himself. ‘She wants different things,’ he said, too loudly.

  ‘No.’ Dad was fierce now. ‘Don’t blame her. If you want to blame anyone, blame us both. Your mum has worked hard to keep this family together since my accident. She’s worked too hard. She’s carried us.’

  ‘You’ve carried us too, Dad.’

  ‘We all have,’ Dad said. ‘We’re a family.’

  ‘We were a family.’

  Dad did not answer that.

  It was getting dark when Danny and his dad met Anton at the Playhouse Theatre.

  By the time the journalist arrived, there were dozens of men and women coming towards the theatre from all directions. Danny felt a gentle rain starting to fall.

  ‘We’d best get inside,’ Anton said. ‘It’ll be standing room only.’

  As they went in, Anton filled Danny and his dad in on the gossip from the club in the lead-up to the Forza game. Holt was due to interview Sam Roberts the next morning – for Wednesday’s pre-match edition of the paper.

  Then Dad held Anton up.

  ‘Get us some seats, Danny,’ he said. ‘I just want a word with Anton.’

  Danny grinned at Anton. He knew what this was. This was Dad laying down the law about Emily. He knew his dad would be nice about it, but he also knew that Dad would be saying that if Anton didn’t treat his daughter right, he’d be for it.

  The theatre was packed. Danny got three seats at the back. He was pleased. He wanted to watch what was happening on stage, but he also liked to watch the audience. So sitting at the back was perfect.

  Danny felt great. There was an atmosphere. It was the same feeling you got before kick-off at City FC.

  Dozens of conversations.

  Laughter.

  Tension building.

  ‘That’s Phil Haxford,’ Holt said, having led Dad through the packed seats. ‘He’s behind the whole protest movement. He used to run the supporters’ club for City, but they sacked him after Gawthorpe disappeared.’

  ‘Who are the others?’ Danny asked.

  Three other men were on the stage, all fiddling with microphones as the lights on the stage kept fading in and out.

  ‘One’s Don Kelner. He runs Radio City. He’ll be chairing the meeting. Then there’s David Brass – he writes on football and business for the Guardian. And that other guy … he looks like someone I’ve not seen for a long time.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Billy Giles,’ Holt answered. ‘He played for City in the sixties.’

  Dad smiled. ‘I wish I could see him. I watched him play at the end of his career. What does he look like now?’

  Danny studied the man on the stage as he eased himself into a black chair. He looked nothing like the photos Danny had seen of him in club history books, towering up for headers in the penalty area forty years ago.

  ‘Small. Grey hair. Wearing glasses. But he looks fit,’ Danny said.

  Then they were called to order.

  The meeting was fascinating to Danny. And he found a lot of things out.

  First, that City had not had a legal owner since the death of Sir Richard Gawthorpe.

  Second, that several organizations had tried to take the club over. City were in the Champions League. Lots of people wanted to own them.

  Third, that no one could take the club over, because no one was really sure that Gawthorpe was dead.

  But that was about to change.

  A lawyer had found a way to prove that Gawthorpe was legally dead, meaning that City FC could now be bought.

  The panel onstage were taking questions coming from every part of the theatre.

  ‘It’s all very well talking about this, round and round,’ shouted a man two rows in front of Danny. ‘We’ve talked. We’ve invaded the pitch. We’ve done everything. But City are about to be bought out by these idiots.’

  ‘We just have to keep at it,’ Phil Haxford said. ‘More of the same.’

  ‘No!’ shouted the man who had asked the question, followed by a burst of applause. ‘It’s time for action.’

  ‘But what sort of action?’ Billy Giles, the ex-player, said suddenly.

  ‘Violent action,’ the man in the crowd said, followed by more applause and shouting. ‘This is our club and if we have to fight to keep it, then we have to fight.’

  Danny sensed a sudden darkening of the mood in the room. Something bad could happen now. He could feel it.

  ‘Violence never works,’ the Guardian journalist said.

  Several people in the audience started to boo.

  Don Kelner, as chair, was trying to take control, but he was drowned out by noise and disagreement in the audience and on the stage.

  Then Billy Giles stood up.

  He did not speak or shout, but, even so, the audience fell silent.

  Danny smiled. It amazed him that a room full of fans and experts would fall silent because a man who used to play football forty ye
ars ago had stood up. But they had.

  ‘This is the most important moment in the history of City FC,’ Giles said. ‘The decisions you make tonight will determine the future of your club – if it even has a future.’

  There was a murmur of agreement in the audience. Then silence again. In fact, it was so quiet, you could hear the cars on the roads outside.

  ‘What you need is a figurehead,’ Giles said. ‘Someone associated with City FC, who can take the club on directly in the media and in person. Someone who will make a big news story every day because everyone will want to hear what they have to say.’

  ‘How about you, Billy?’ the chairman asked in a low voice.

  ‘Not me. I’m not a big enough name,’ Giles answered. ‘It needs to be one of the players of today.’

  ‘But none of them will do it,’ the Guardian journalist said. ‘They’ll be watching their backs. If they stand up to the club, they’ll get sacked. And they might not get another club if people think they’re troublemakers.’

  The room went quiet again.

  There were no solutions.

  Everyone had run out of steam.

  Danny led his dad and Holt out of the theatre. The mood was just like it was after City had lost a key match at home. A cup quarter-final, something like that.

  Danny was turning over all the things he’d heard in the theatre in his mind. There had to be a way out of this. But what? He ran a couple of ideas – bad ideas – through his head. Then he stopped walking, forcing Holt and Dad to run into him.

  ‘What’s up?’ Holt asked.

  ‘You know you said you were interviewing Sam Roberts tomorrow?’ Danny asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Holt answered, cautious.

  ‘Can I come?’ Danny asked.

  ‘I suppose so. Once the interview’s over,’ Holt replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s something I need to ask him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If he’ll do it.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Be the person,’ Danny smiled. ‘The person Billy Giles was talking about.’

  And he could see that his dad was nodding. ‘And you’re the perfect person to ask him,’ Dad said. ‘You saved him when Sir Richard Gawthorpe kidnapped him. He always said he owed you a favour.’