by Robert Innes
Gardiner rolled his eyes and wandered away.
As Blake began strolling slowly around the pitch, he caught sight of Harrison in the stands. Blake laughed at the sight of Harrison joining in with the cheers and chants of the crowd around him. Even though it looked completely out of character for him, Harrison was clearly enjoying himself. Then, Blake’s face fell slightly as he looked on the row behind Harrison.
Tom and Jacqueline were sitting within touching distance of Harrison. Blake could imagine that Jacqueline had dragged Tom, who looked like he would rather be anywhere else, to the match and had deliberately seated them behind Harrison so that the two of them could talk and possibly be friends again.
“You alright, Sir?”
Blake had been so busy glaring at Tom that he had not noticed Constable Lisa Fox walk up behind him.
“Oh, Lisa. Yes, yes, I’m absolutely fine.”
“You don’t look it. Was there someone in the crowd causing trouble?” Fox asked, looking out in the direction Blake was staring.
“No, no. Well, not yet anyway,” Blake said. “There’s a guy in the crowd I’m not too keen on, that’s all.”
“I see,” Fox replied, nodding. “Dare I ask why?”
Blake sighed. “You see that blonde-haired guy in the red t-shirt?”
Fox peered to where Blake was pointing. “Oh, yes.”
“That’s my boyfriend, Harrison.”
Fox raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You’re not keen on your boyfriend?”
Blake laughed. “Of course I am, but you see the guy behind him, with the black hair and glasses?”
“Next to the red-haired woman in the hideous outfit?”
“Yes,” replied Blake chuckling. “That is Tom. He tried to kiss Harrison not so long ago. Safe to say, I’m a tad wary of him.”
Fox exhaled. “I’m not surprised. Mind you, he’s a good-looking bloke, isn’t he? I take it Harrison told him where to go?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Good,” Fox said, smiling. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a keeper there.”
“Here’s hoping,” replied Blake. “So, where are you from originally? I don’t think I heard you say.”
“Leeds,” replied Fox as the two of them wandered around the side of the pitch together. “To be honest, I hate city life. I’m much more your country village type. When I saw there was a cottage in Harmschapel, I just had to move here. It’s a beautiful village.”
“Yeah, it is,” Blake said. “How are you getting on with the rest of the team so far?”
“Everyone seems nice,” Lisa said enthusiastically. “Especially Billy. He’s been really welcoming.”
“Yes,” Blake said tentatively. “About that…”
“I don’t know about his girlfriend though,” Fox continued. “What’s her name?”
“Mini Patil.”
“She seems quite cold. I mean, I know you get the wrong impressions of people, but still.”
“Maybe you should get to know her a bit better, away from Matti,” Blake suggested. “I bet the two of you could be quite good friends.”
Before Fox could reply, the crowd around them suddenly exploded in a mixture of boos and cheers as the players stepped out onto the pitch.
“Here we go,” Gardiner said, appearing behind Blake as the players began spacing themselves out around the pitch.
“Is this sort of reception normal?” Blake asked him over the sound of the roaring crowd around them.
“It is between these two teams,” Gardiner replied. “If last night showed you anything, it’s that there’s a deep-rooted rivalry between them. You can’t expect that to not rub off on the fans.”
Blake watched as Scott Jennings and Alan Messing sized each other’s positions up. Both of them looked murderous, as if they were playing just to beat each other rather than bringing home any victory for their individual teams.
The referee put his whistle to his lips and for a few seconds the stadium went quiet. Then, he blew the whistle and the game began.
Blake knew very little about football, but even he was aware what a dirty game looked like. Very quickly, it became apparent that neither team was concerned with playing by the rules. In the first twenty minutes of the game there were numerous fouls, two yellow cards – one for each side – and at one point a fight nearly broke out during a corner when members of the Clackton team repeatedly pushed into the Harmschapel defence to distract them from where the ball was heading. The referee began looking more and more annoyed as the game went on. He was soon looking out of breath from constantly having to blow his whistle to halt play but neither Clackton or Harmschapel looked like they had any intention of letting up on the aggressive gameplay.
One tackle sent Scott Jennings flying off his feet. Alan Messing, in what Blake assumed was an attempt to kick the ball away, slid into Scott. The result was Scott landing in a heap on the ground, clutching his shin and howling in agony.
“Foul!” Mattison exclaimed loudly from beside Blake.
“Matti, pull yourself together,” scolded Blake.
As Alan was given Clackton’s second yellow card and Harmschapel were awarded a free kick, Blake caught sight of Peter Simpkins. He was standing on the side of the pitch watching the match closely, hurling abuse at Alan. A large and imposing looking woman was standing next to him, who Blake learned from Gardiner was Hattie Atkins, Harmschapel’s manager. Blake could not help but think that she should have been the one in goal. He could not imagine anything getting past her huge frame.
Then, just before the end of the first half, the ball flew across the pitch thanks to a well-aimed kick from Alan.
“Defence!” shouted Mattison. “Where are the defence?”
“Matti,” said Blake warningly. “You’re not here to -”
But his words were drowned out by a huge cheer from the Clackton fans as the ball bounced off the head of a striker and flew past goalkeeper Paul Wainthropp’s head, hitting the back of the net. Clackton were now one nil up.
Soon afterwards, the referee blew his whistle to signify the end of the first half. Blake glanced around at the Harmschapel players. They all looked furious, no more than Scott Jennings who was yelling something at Paul.
“He can’t blame the goalkeeper for everything, surely?” Blake asked Gardiner. “It looked like a pretty good goal to me.”
“Looks to me as if he’s compensating for his own misgivings,” mused Gardiner. “I’ve never seen such weak play by him.”
Before Blake could reply, there was suddenly a commotion from the players’ entrance to the pitch. A fight was breaking out between Scott and Alan. Blake was immediately in action. He ran across the pitch and towards the scuffle just as Alan pushed Scott to the ground.
Paul the goalkeeper picked Scott up off the ground, struggling to stop him from charging at Alan.
“Ow!” Scott yelled, pushing Paul away. “That was my foot, you idiot!” He turned back to Alan with his teeth bared. “You -”
Blake grabbed hold of Scott’s shoulder before he could attack.
“That’s enough,” he said firmly. He was immediately deafened by the referee’s whistle. He had appeared behind Blake and was holding up a red card at Alan.
“What?” roared Alan furiously. “He started it! I’m going to kill him!”
The referee’s reply could barely be heard over the sound of the crowd jeering and shouting.
“You heard him!” Blake snapped, still trying to stop Scott from flying at Alan. “And if you carry on you’ll be coming with me.”
Hattie pushed her way through and took Scott’s other shoulder, turning to the Clackton manager with fury. “You want to learn how to control your players!” she snapped. Before Blake could stop her, she had frogmarched Scott away. Blake could hear him protesting until they both disappeared around the corner. He could not help but think that the Clackton manager was not the only one who needed to employ more discipline amongst his team.
As Ala
n stormed off towards the changing rooms, pursued by his manager yelling at him for being so stupid, Blake glanced nervously around at the crowd. He was starting to wonder if he had enough officers with him.
After fifteen minutes had passed, Blake had resumed his position on the other side of the pitch and had gathered the other officers around him.
“I think we need to be stationed outside when the match is over,” he told them. “I don’t like the vibe from either the players or the crowd at the minute.”
“Clackton are full of dirty players,” fumed Mattison. “They’ve been targeting Scott all the way through that first half. They just want our star player taken out.”
“He’s not been much of a star player yet,” Gardiner retorted.
“Look, will you lot stop talking about the game itself?” Blake said with exasperation. “You’re here to stop trouble breaking out and so far, I’m the only one who seems to actually be paying any attention to that.”
“Sorry, Sir,” Mattison replied.
“Tell you what, Billy,” Fox said, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “You come stand with me. I’ll keep his mind on the job, Sir.”
“I’m sure Matti is quite capable of doing his job,” Blake said, fully aware of Patil’s furious expression.
As the players returned to the pitch, the officers returned to their posts. Blake glanced at the huge LED screen which was displaying “Harmschapel 0-1 Clackton”. He was starting to think that the aftermath of the match was going to be hellish whatever the final result was.
The referee blew his whistle and the second half began and Clackton immediately had the advantage. Immediately, the ball was kicked high into the air towards the opposing goal. The Harmschapel fans cheered loudly as a tall player, Ashley Pharaoh, kicked the ball away from the goal and out of play resulting in Clackton being awarded a corner.
As the players gathered themselves around the Clackton goal area, Blake scanned the pitch for Scott. He had positioned himself in the middle of the pitch, far away from the other players. Blake assumed that he was readying himself for the eventuality of the ball being kicked away from the goal and towards him and then shook his head at the thought of himself being invested in the game.
The corner was taken, and the ball sailed over some of the Harmschapel defence. It landed right in front of a Clackton striker who kicked the ball with all his might towards the goal. Blake watched as the ball sailed past Paul Wainthropp’s fingers and flew into the back of the goal.
The Harmschapel fans’ cries of dismay were drowned out by the cheers of the Clackton crowd.
“I can’t believe it,” Mattison said, who had appeared beside Blake to get a better vantage point of what was happening. “We came so close.”
“Never mind,” Blake said, shrugging. “There’s always next year.” He was already dreading it.
“What’s wrong with Scott?” Mattison asked, frowning.
Blake looked across to where Mattison was pointing. Scott had sunk down to his knees. He was staring out into space, his face contorted in pain.
The rest of the players did not seem to have noticed anything. Paul kicked the ball away from the goal and towards Scott. As the ball flew over his head, Scott collapsed completely and was now laid on the ground.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Blake murmured. He waved his arms at the referee and pointed to Scott. The referee blew his whistle and the game stopped. Soon, the Harmschapel players were running across to Scott who was now face down on the field completely still.
Blake and Mattison watched as the medics hurried across the pitch with a stretcher between them, hotly pursued by Hattie Atkins.
“Something’s wrong,” Blake said. “Come on.”
They ran across the pitch, shouting for the players to move out of the way. The medics turned Scott over. His eyes were open but there seemed to be no life in them. As Blake looked down at Scott’s body, he saw a large red patch on his shirt which seemed to be growing from his side. As Hattie lifted his shirt up and pulled it over his head, she recoiled. Scott had a large wound on his side. Blake glanced at Mattison and then turned to the referee.
“I think you better call this match off.”
Scott Jennings was dead.
5
Blake was leaning against a wall watching the forensics team examine Scott’s body, trying to piece together what could have happened to him. As much as he tried to apply logic to the situation, he knew in his heart that the situation was exactly as he had remembered it. Nobody had been anywhere near Scott at the time of his death. He had been standing in the centre of the pitch while most of the other players had been gathered over the other side waiting for the corner kick to be taken. There was no way in the few seconds it had taken for Blake to look the other way for there to have been a chance for anybody to get anywhere near him. As he stared at Scott’s lifeless face, he suddenly had a flash of the screaming old woman appear in his mind’s eye.
“It’s like you suspected, Blake.”
Sharon Donahue, the head forensic pathologist, broke into his thoughts.
“Hm?”
“The wound is definitely from a knife,” Sharon said as she removed her mask. “And it was deep, certainly deep enough to have killed him, though obviously I’ll have to get him back to base to be sure. He seems to have lost quite a bit of blood judging by the state of his football shirt. It’s sodden.”
Blake stared at Scott’s body. He had been moved from the pitch via the medic’s stretcher and had been placed in the centre of one of the changing rooms. Sharon had been very unhappy that the body had been moved, but Blake had been reluctant for the body to have to be seen by the crowds for any longer than was necessary. His blood-soaked football shirt had been placed in an evidence bag leaving him topless on the stretcher. Now the bleeding had stopped, Blake could see that the wound was no more than a few millimetres thick, but it certainly looked deep enough to have resulted in Scott collapsing to the ground.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Blake murmured. “How do you stab someone with hundreds of witnesses around you without anybody seeing a thing?”
“Sir, I’ve got something to show you,” Patil said, walking into the room. She was holding a small video camera which she passed to Blake. “This is from somebody in the crowd who was filming the match. They caught the moment Scott fell.”
Blake watched the screen as Patil pressed play on the camera. It had been taken from the other side of the pitch to where Blake had been standing and was a wide view so that all the players were in shot.
“This is just at the start of the second half,” Patil explained. “If you look here, that’s Scott Jennings.”
“How do you know?” Blake asked, squinting at the screen. “You can’t see his face.”
“No, but you can see the number on the back of his shirt,” Mattison said. “Number nine. It’s always been his number.”
Blake glanced at the blood-stained number nine in the evidence bag and then back to the video as the ball went flying towards the Clackton goal and was then kicked out of play. Then, as most of the players gathered around the goal, Scott could be seen making his way to the middle of the pitch. As Blake had suspected, there was absolutely nobody around him and as Scott ran towards the spot where he would eventually collapse, he was showing no signs that he had been stabbed, but then he began to keel over. A few seconds later as Clackton scored their second goal, Scott fell to his knees before eventually dropping to the ground, never to move again. Throughout all of this, he remained completely out of reach of anyone.
Blake sighed. “I’m going to need a copy of this.”
“I’m on it,” Patil replied.
Fox, who had been standing in the corner taking notes of everything Sharon had been saying stepped forwards. “That’s alright, Mini. I can do that if you like?”
Patil’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry?”
Fox smiled. Blake could tell she was trying to get on Patil’s good
side. “I just thought you know this village and the people who live here so much better than I do, you might be more useful here questioning than me.”
“She has a point,” Blake said to Patil. “I could do with you here.”
Patil looked as if she was trying to work out whether there was an ulterior motive to Fox’s offer but eventually gave a tight smile and nodded.
“Cool,” Fox said. “I’ll see you back at the station.”
When Fox had left, Mattison turned to Patil. “She’s really nice, you know. You should give her a chance.”
Patil ignored him. “So, Sir. Who do you want us to speak to first?”
Blake exhaled, suddenly becoming aware that the fact that Scott’s death seemed so impossible meant that, in theory, he had hundreds of potential suspects, both on the pitch and in the crowd.
“I think we better start with Alan Messing,” he said at last.
Alan glared up at Blake and Patil from the bench in the other changing rooms. Blake was unsure as to whether he was trying to be intimidating or was just sulking because the match had been cancelled.
“Go on then,” he growled. “I know you think it was me.”
“We haven’t said anything of the sort,” Blake replied, sitting down opposite him. “But you have to admit you and Scott weren’t exactly friends. Last night you probably would have started beating him with a bat if we hadn’t have turned up and then you got yourself sent off for fighting with him today. A few minutes later, he drops down dead from a knife wound.”
“So?” Alan replied, shrugging his shoulders like a surly adolescent. “Like you just said, I wasn’t even on the pitch when he died. How could it have been me?”
“You tell me. The last words I heard you say to him were “I’m going to kill him.” Doesn’t exactly give you an iron cast alibi. What were you doing when the second half started?”
“I was in here. Where else was I supposed to go? If you don’t believe me, you can ask my manager. He was in here biting my head off about me getting myself sent off. He’s a hypocrite anyway, he’s the one who told us not to be afraid to do some hard tackles if we needed to.”
