waited then went on. ‘He says he’s been threatened. Not that you’d know about that directly, not your concern, but I imagine if you wanted you could get it stopped.’
Stephen looked at him through eyes that had seen more than Kiley, far more, and survived.
‘Do you follow soccer at all, Mr Stephen?’ Kiley asked.
No response.
‘With some players it’s speed, with others it’s power, sheer force. Then there are those who can put their foot on the ball, look up and in that second see the perfect pass and have the skill to make it, inch perfect, thirty, forty yards crossfield.’
Something moved behind the older man’s eyes. ‘Liam Brady,’ he said. ‘Rodney Marsh.’
‘Right,’ said Kiley. ‘Hoddle. Le Tissier. Tommy, too. On his day Tommy was that good.’
Stephen held Kiley’s gaze for a moment longer, then slipped his wristwatch free and placed it on the desk between them. ‘Your Tommy Duggan, he owes close to one hundred thousand pounds. Each time the hands of that watch move round, he owes more.’ He picked up the watch and weighed it in the palm of his hand. ‘You tell him if he makes payments, regular, if the debt does not increase, I will be patient. Bide my time. But if he loses more…’
‘I’ll tell him,’ Kiley said.
Stephen set the watch back on his wrist. ‘Do you gamble, Mr Kiley?’
Kiley shook his head.
‘In gambling, there is only one winner. In the end.’
‘Thanks for your time,’ Kiley said.
Almost imperceptibly Stephen nodded and his eyes returned their focus to the screens on the wall.
‘Good evening, sir,’ said the brunette in the lift; ‘Good evening, sir,’ said the blonde. ‘Be sure to come again.’
‘Jack, you’re a prince,’ Duggan said, when Kiley recounted the conversation.
Kiley wasn’t certain what, if anything, he’d achieved.
‘Room for manoeuvre, that’s what you’ve got me. Pressure off. Time to recoup, study the field.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Jack. Nothing rash.’
There was a message from Kate on his answerphone. ‘Perhaps I was a little hasty. How about a drink, Wednesday evening?’
Wednesday was soccer training. Kiley called back and made it Thursday. The wine bar at Highbury Corner was only a short walk from Kate’s house; from there it was only two flights of stairs to her bed.
‘Something on your mind, Jack?’
There was and then there wasn’t. Only later, his head resting in the cleft between Kate’s bare calf and thigh, did it come back to him.
‘He’ll carry on gambling, won’t he?’ Kate said, when she had finished listening.
‘Probably.’
‘It’s an illness, Jack, a disease. If he won’t get proper help, professional help, there’s nothing you can do.’
He turned over and she stroked his back and when he closed his eyes he was almost immediately asleep. In a short while she would wake him and send him home, but for now she was comfortable, replete. Maybe, she was thinking, it was time for another piece on gambling in her column.
Duggan had returned from his second spell in the States with a fondness for Old Crow over ice and country music, bluegrass and pedal steel and tales of love gone wrong. Nothing flash, no rhinestones, the real thing.
Back in England he toned down his new-found love of bourbon but still listened to the music whenever he could. In a music store off Upper Street, less than a week ago, he’d picked up a CD by Townes Van Zandt, A Far Cry from Dead.
Sometimes I don’t know where this dirty road is taking me
Sometimes I can’t even see the reason why
I guess I’ll keep on gamblin’, lots of booze and lots of ramblin’
It’s easier than just a-waitin’ round to die
Playing it was like pushing your tongue against an abscessed tooth.
He had seen Van Zandt in London in ’97, one of the last gigs he ever played. Standing sweating in the Borderline, a crowded little basement club off Charing Cross Road, he had watched as Van Zandt, pale and thin and shaking, had begun song after song only to stop, mid-verse, forgetting the words, hearing another tune. His fingers failed to grip the neck of the guitar, he could scarcely balance on the stool. Embarrassed, upset, voices in the crowd began to call out, telling him to take a break, rest, telling him it was okay, but still he stumbled on. Dying before their eyes.
Two days before buying the CD, Duggan had placed the first instalment of his payback money on a four-horse accumulator and, on the small betting-shop screen, watched the favourite come through on the inside in the final race and leave his horse stranded short of the line.
Flicking the remote, he played the song again.
The money from the recording, some of it at least, would go to Van Zandt’s widow and their kids. Duggan hadn’t seen either his daughter or his two sons in years; he didn’t even know where one of the boys was.
There were some cans of lager in the fridge, the tail end of a bottle of Scotch; when he’d finished those he put on his coat and followed the familiar path to the Bald-Faced Stag.
Ten minutes short of closing, a motorbike pulled up outside the pub. Without removing his helmet, the pillion rider jumped off and went inside. Duggan was standing at the bar, drink in hand, staring up aimlessly at the TV. The pillion rider pulled an automatic pistol from inside his leather jacket, shot Duggan twice in the head at close range, and left.
Duggan was dead before he hit the floor.
Several evenings later, Kiley called the kids around him behind one of the goals. In the yellowing light, their breath floated grey and clear. He talked to them about Tommy Duggan, about the times he had seen him play; he told them how much Duggan wanted them to do well. One or two had tears in their eyes, others scuffed their feet in the ground and looked away.
‘Who cares?’ Dean said when Kiley had finished. ‘He was never any bloody good anyway.’
Without deliberation, without meaning to, Kiley hit him: an open-handed slap across the face which jolted the boy’s head back and round.
‘You bastard! You fuckin’ bastard!’
There were tears on his face now and the marks left by Kiley’s hand stood out livid on his cheek.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kiley said. Some part of him felt numb, shocked by what he’d done.
‘Fuck you!’ the boy said and turned on his heel for home.
Dean lived in one of the flats that bordered Wedmore Street, close by the park. The man who answered the door was wearing jeans and a fraying Motorhead T-shirt and didn’t look too happy to be pulled away from whatever was playing, over-loud, on the TV.
‘I’m Jack Kiley,’ Kiley said.
‘You hit my boy.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got some balls, showing up round here.’
‘I wanted to explain, apologise.’
‘He says you just laced into him, no reason.’
‘There was a reason.’
‘Dean,’ the man called back over his shoulder, ‘turn that fuckin’ thing down.’ And then, ‘All right then, let’s hear it.’
Kiley told him.
The man sighed and shook his head. ‘That mouth of his, I’m always telling him it’s going to get him into trouble.’
‘I should never have lost my temper. I shouldn’t have hit him.’
