Only a Game (4 page)

By the time a returning Helen Capstick drove her Mercedes along the same street ten minutes later, the town centre was silent and no one would have known there had been such recent drama there.

THREE

D
arren Pearson was a man who did not panic easily. That was just as well, for being the secretary/chief executive of a Club like Brunton Rovers was a demanding task.

The club had clung characteristically to the old title of secretary, but in terms of the commercial enterprise every Premiership soccer team must be, their secretary was now what most companies would term a chief executive. Or general dogsbody, he sometimes thought. In the first hour of his working day, Pearson chivvied the printer about the delivery of the ten pound tickets and publicity posters for the ‘bargain' FA Cup replay, negotiated with a superintendent at the police station about the number of police required for that night and the costs involved, and studied the extended contracts that were about to be offered to two of the Rovers' leading players.

Without the preparation he had promised himself, he now had to greet an official visitor from Barclays Bank, who was here to discuss the servicing and reduction of the club's banking debt. This promised to be a difficult half-hour, for banks in a recession were sensitive about debts and possible defaulters. Almost every Premiership team had substantial debts, but it was the small-town teams like Brunton Rovers who were most steadily under pressure from their bankers to reduce them.

Recession and their troubles of 2008 had made bankers jittery. The local ones were especially nervous about their soccer club. They looked at the diminishing numbers who trooped into Grafton Park as recession hit the earners of Brunton, read about the salaries which the millionaires on the pitch commanded, and sought some guarantee that debts would not only be serviced but eventually reduced.

‘Unlike some other Premiership clubs, we own our ground and we have substantial assets,' Darren Pearson asserted sturdily, hoping that this latest banking luminary would not recognize an argument he had used many times before.

The woman gave him a tight smile which revealed nothing. Darren was still trying to conceal his surprise that a woman should be occupying this high position in the bank's commercial arm. Perhaps, he thought, she had been promoted not on merit but because Barclays' policy dictated that a certain number of women should occupy responsible posts. The next few minutes would destroy that hopeful conjecture. She gave him a wide smile and said, ‘You had better give me some details of these assets, don't you think?'

‘Well, er, there's our ground, as I said. And we own some land near the centre of the town. And of course our substantial training facilities at Drewcock Hall. We have thirty acres and some excellent permanent buildings there.' Darren realized that he must not use that word ‘substantial' too often, but no other adjective would come to his racing mind.

She nodded, slipping a sheet from her briefcase and glancing at it for a few seconds before she replied. ‘Full account was taken of your ground and the Drewcock Hall facilities when we extended your loan facilities in 2005. It's only fair to point out that property values have declined substantially in the last year. The values we have here should probably be revised downwards, particularly in the case of the Drewcock Hall estate.'

‘These are not assets we intend to realize, so revisions are hardly relevant, are they? And I'm sure property values will recover in due course. It might take a year or two, but—'

‘I'm sure you realize that banks have to live in the present, not in some hopeful and possibly illusory future, Mr Pearson.' She bathed him in a wider smile; an indulgent smile; a smile which bespoke her tolerance of his financial naivety. ‘I have to say that there do not seem to be many other tangible assets to support the club's case for an extension of the period of the loan.'

Darren was stung by her knowledge as much as her attitude. ‘On the contrary, we have very substantial assets, Ms Alcock. Most of them are exhibited to the public every Saturday or Sunday.'

‘Ah! You mean your players.'

‘The heart and soul of a football club. Without them, there would be no club and no client for your bank.'

‘No bank deals with hearts, even less with souls, Mr Pearson. Those are matters for the various churches of the land – most of which seem to be in financial straits at the moment, incidentally. Your players are indeed assets, of course: you have a point, of sorts. But players are not the same kind of assets as bricks and mortar. Football players are the sort of asset which decline in value very quickly. They can even disappear overnight as assets, if they are unfortunate enough to suffer serious injury at their place of work.'

‘Apart from their insurance value. All our players are insured against injury.'

Another smile, another assurance that she knew what he was about and had rehearsed these arguments many times before. ‘I'm sure they are, Mr Pearson. But you must be aware as I am that insurance companies tend to have a very different view of current values than clubs have when players' careers are abruptly terminated. I can give you some examples, if they would be useful.' She opened her briefcase again, searching for a sheet of examples he was sure was there.

‘That won't be necessary,' Pearson said hastily, feeling that the reassuring smile he now attempted himself was a feeble effort. He sought desperately for something to divert this chic and urbane assailant who seemed to have superior artillery. ‘We may make some sales in the summer transfer period. It won't be entirely my decision of course, but it's possible that we might be able to offer you—'

‘Ah, yes. What you would expect to get for Ashley Greenhalgh?'

Darren hoped his mouth hadn't dropped open, but he feared it had. ‘I–I wasn't thinking of any particular player. It's not for me to—'

‘Come, Mr Pearson, let's be realistic, shall we? You mustn't be surprised that a female should follow the sports pages nowadays. I'm a Manchester City supporter, as a matter of fact.' Ms Alcock leant forward confidentially. Strictly between the two of us, I'm hoping they make a bid for Greenhalgh in the summer. He's just the sort of player we need, in my opinion.' She curbed the unprofessional enthusiasm which had broken through for a moment. ‘All I'm saying is that you have in Greenhalgh a very substantial asset which could indeed be realized.'

‘We were discussing the same thing in the board meeting the other night,' said Pearson, a little too eagerly. He checked himself; he too must behave professionally. ‘Of course, you must treat that as highly confidential and I can offer you no guarantee that any particular player will be sold.'

‘Of course. But my advice to you – strictly as a banker, you understand – is that the realization of a major asset of the club in the next few months would be welcomed by Barclays.' She beamed at him urbanely, as though they had reached an understanding. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you this morning?'

Darren Pearson reflected that she had done precious little for him so far, other than to issue a Victorian treatise on the necessity for caution. Thrift hadn't yet been mentioned, but it was surely only a matter of time. He pointed out as firmly as he could, ‘Interest rates are going down. It will be easier in the future for us to service our debt.'

‘In the immediate future, yes. But you will be aware that no bank can guarantee interest rates in a year's time. It is our duty to remind our customers of that. Wherever possible in the present industrial climate, our advice is that debt should in fact be reduced.' She shook her head sadly and said weightily, ‘I have to advise you that the director of my section, who is a member of the board and thus has a duty to implement its policies, advises me that he thinks this should be possible for football clubs.'

‘And I in turn have to respond by saying that we are aware of the situation and will do our very best to conform.'

Ms Alcock slid her papers back into her briefcase with an air of satisfaction. She had been well aware when she came here that there would be no dramatic concessions on either side. They had played out their little game of backing and advancing, as if feeling their way into an old-time dance. She had warned him that the club must come into line; Pearson had accepted the warning and said he would encourage his employers to take heed of it.

Alcock knew that it wasn't within Pearson's powers to do anything more concrete than that. She stood up and offered her hand. ‘I hope that this will be the first of many fruitful meetings, Mr Pearson. It may not sound like it at this moment, but Barclays wants to help wherever it can. It's just that part of that help must sometimes be to issue warnings to those institutions which seem to be in danger of incurring too heavy a level of debt.'

‘I understand that. I appreciate your comments, and I shall make sure our manager and my chairman are aware of them whenever any expenditure is contemplated.'

‘We must meet again in September. I'll ring you again nearer the time to arrange a date.'

Which would be after the summer transfer deadline, when she could review the progress that had been made towards debt reduction. Both of them knew that, so there was no need to state it. She refused coffee and he showed her out.

In the end, it had gone as well as could be expected, Darren Pearson decided. He had been shaken to find how much Ms Allcock knew about football, but there had been no clear orders issued to sell players or to cut back on wages.

If only his personal finances were in such good order. He was struck again by the fact that he could be so organized and successful in his working life at the football club, yet so chaotic in the organization of his private life.

Detective Sergeant Lucy Blake was looking at wedding dresses whilst still wondering whether marriage was a good idea.

That wasn't because she had any of the doubts about her chosen man which others had expressed. Percy Peach was ten years older than her twenty-nine, divorced, bald and belligerent. On paper, he was no catch at all for a chestnut-haired girl with startling green-blue eyes and a figure which turned male heads of any age. ‘No catch': that was the phrase her mother's generation would have used. And Lucy, though she had forsaken her mother's cottage for her own new and cosy flat in Brunton several years ago, was still very close to her mother.

Indeed, it was her mother's unlikely championing of Percy Peach and his virtues which had brought on this wedding. Agnes Blake yearned for grandchildren, but she loved her daughter far too much to have pressed her towards any mate of whom she did not thoroughly approve. She was a shrewd assessor of character who judged nothing by appearances, and she had approved of Percy an hour into his first visit to her home and never altered her opinion.

Agnes was a cricket fanatic, and the only person in Lucy's acquaintance who had instantly divined the significance of Peach's initials – he was D.C.S. Peach. ‘Denis Charles Scott
Compton
,' Agnes had shouted with instant delight, divining immediately that Percy's long-dead father had named his son after her favourite batsman, ‘the laughing cavalier of Lords' in the forties and fifties, and an unlikely hero of this doughty northern woman, who had been until the time of her marriage a weaver in a Brunton cotton mill.

And Lucy had approved of her mother's enthusiasm for the man they all called Percy. It was marriage she was doubtful about; not at some time in the future, but at this particular time, when her police career was burgeoning and she was thoroughly enjoying her post as Peach's chosen Detective Sergeant in the CID. She grimaced at herself in the small mirror of the cramped changing room, took a deep breath, and plunged into the more public arena of the dress shop, where her friend Diane was waiting to pass judgement.

Lucy gazed at herself in the full-length mirror, twirled swiftly, then turned to collect her colleague's judgement. ‘Before you say anything, my bum looks too big in this one.'

‘You've said that about three of the last five,' said PC Diane Warner with a touch of weariness. ‘It doesn't. It looks voluptuous. I wish I curved like that. Every man in the church would be controlling the urge to whistle at you in that.' The thought evidently cheered her. ‘I can think of one or two whose control might not hold out.'

‘Alternatively, I might just have to accept the fact that my bum
is
too big and try to disguise the fact. You don't like the dress, do you? And don't say you do just to get us out of here.'

‘It's a temptation, I must admit,' admitted Diane with a sigh. ‘I do like it. The green picks up the colour of your eyes, makes them look even bigger and even greener, you lucky sod.'

‘But you still don't approve of it.'

‘How do you know that?' Diane held up her hand. ‘No, don't tell me, it shows in my face. That's why you're a DS in CID, about to marry your boss, and I'm still a PC in uniform. I do like the dress. It's just that somehow it doesn't seem like a wedding dress.'

‘You want white.'

‘Not necessarily.'

‘That's why I wouldn't let my mother come with me: she'd have wanted white.'

‘Even though you're a scarlet woman who's been living in sin for two years before marriage.'

‘We haven't been living together. But all right, we've slept together more and more often over the last two years. I've never made any secret of that to Mum and she's never made any fuss about it. But she's seventy and her generation didn't do that. If it wasn't her precious Percy who was involved, I'm sure I'd have had more flack from her. I know it's terribly old-fashioned, but it just doesn't feel right to me to get married in church in white. I can just imagine Mum's friends casting their eyes to the ancient vaulted ceiling and tutting about modern young people's moral standards.'