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  She swallowed her resentment and put a hand on his forearm.

  Maybe things could get back to the way they used to be? They had said they would try. And hadn’t the counsellor said that he had thought they had every chance? If only she could stop these little pains and pangs that lived in her stomach and digestive system and seemed to perform an act of revolution every time she told herself that things would work out, that she deserved to be happy.

  She smiled at him. Of course, it wasn’t true though, was it? Despite the calls for honesty, to trust in their feelings, and to share those feelings. Despite her insistence that he tell her everything, his innermost thoughts, fears and desires, she hadn’t been honest. How could she be? She didn’t deserve to be happy.

  They were nearly home now. Maybe she would open a bottle of wine when they got in; keep the mood going, drown the nagging voices. Maybe they would make love like they had before Melanie came along, when making love was something they did as naturally as breathing.

  Clive steered the car up the small drive of their house and turned off the engine.

  ‘Clive?’

  ‘Yes?’ He looked worried now; an animal sensing the first signs of danger.

  She leaned across and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Thank you for today.’

  His smile was more one of relief than of happiness.

  They held hands as they walked to the front door of the house, and then giggled as Clive struggled to find his key. Five beers, decided Ella.

  He opened the door and the stillness that seemed to be waiting in the quiet house leaked out, enveloping them before they had even stepped over the threshold. Despite being a warm evening, a chill ran down Ella’s spine.

  Clive seemed oblivious to the strange, heavy quiet and walked into the house while Ella hesitated at the threshold,

  ‘You want a drink, honey?’ shouted Clive from the kitchen.

  She ignored him and took a deep breath, exhaled and walked into the house. The revolutionaries in her stomach charged, a fighting column of bile rising in her throat causing a violent retch. She gasped for air. It was the stillness, quiet yet the air charged with violence, like the moments before an electrical storm. The hairs on her arms leaped up as though seeking a way out.

  ‘Wine it is then!’

  Ella didn’t go into the kitchen. With a dread so heavy that she felt like her limbs were made of stone, she slowly walked up the mahogany stairs and then to the door from which behind the silence and dread seemed to emanate.

  She shouted her daughter’s name, the pet name they had given her as a child and which had stuck ever since.

  ‘Red!’

  She knew before she pushed open the door and the blazing rays of the evening sunset – bloody crimson and orange – blinded her momentarily.

  She knew before she screamed. Before the sound of the bottle smashing downstairs.

  She knew before she saw the pale figure, prostrate on the bed, her beautiful long red hair splayed out like a corona on the white sheets, the sheets that below her neck were now stained a bloody red. She knew before she saw her daughter lying in a butcher’s lake.

  She knew.

  She knew that her daughter was dead.

  ***

  The door gave way easily to Erasmus’s muscled fourteen-stone frame and his momentum carried him through and into the bedroom. He tripped on something soft and smashed into a bearded man. The man made a dull noise as air was exhaled forcefully due to Erasmus’s bulk landing on his ribcage.

  Erasmus was aware of blood and screaming. The screaming was from Karen, he was unsure of the origin of the blood that smeared his face.

  The figure below him began writhing.

  ‘Oh my God!’

  He looked up. Karen was standing over him.

  He looked down and saw that what he thought was a bearded man was actually a plastic mask and that what he thought was a man was very much a woman.

  Karen leaned down and pulled up the mask. A pretty girl with dark, angry eyes was underneath. She seemed to be snarling.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ she said, spittle landing on Erasmus’s face.

  ‘Are you OK, honey?’ said Karen, the emotion clogging her voice.

  ‘Of course I’m OK!’

  ‘But the blood?’ said Erasmus.

  ‘Have you seen your face? Now get the fuck off me!’

  Erasmus got to his feet and gingerly put a hand to his lip. Blood was pouring from a gash on his cheek, presumably obtained during his subtle entrance.

  ‘Why didn’t you answer the door?’ said Karen.

  Rebecca propped herself up on one elbow. She rolled her eyes and pulled a cable that dangled from her ear.

  ‘Ever heard of earphones?’ Her chin jutted forward as a challenge.

  ‘The bang?’

  Rebecca shook her head and reddened a little.

  ‘I was trying to put those – ’ she pointed at an upended plastic storage box, and now Erasmus noticed that the floor was covered with stuffed toys and animals ‘ – up there and I dropped it.’

  There was an open wardrobe in the corner of the room and a box upon which Erasmus guessed she had stood on when trying to jam the box on the top of the wardrobe.

  ‘And who is he?’

  It was Karen’s turn to blush.

  ‘This is Erasmus, he’s an old friend. Erasmus meet Becky.’

  He put out his hand, which Rebecca ignored. She didn’t take her flashing eyes off her mother.

  ‘So, this is what happens after Dad leaves, is it?’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ said Karen.

  Rebecca snorted.

  ‘Oh yeah, it’s not what it seems, isn’t that what they all say? It’s well sordid, Mum.’

  Karen ran her hand through her hair.

  ‘I was worried. I am so worried about you.’

  Rebecca looked away.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about.’

  Karen touched Rebecca’s arm but she turned her back on her mother.

  Erasmus noticed that the computer screen in the corner of the room was black but that a flashing green light on the front of the laptop showed it was in use. He had a feeling if he just pressed the keyboard and brought the screen back to life it might answer some of their questions. He made a movement towards the keyboard but Rebecca stepped to the side blocking his way.

  ‘I want you, Mum’s friend or whatever you are,’ she sneered, ‘to leave right now.’

  Erasmus looked at the computer. Becky’s eyes flickered with alarm. He took a step forward and then Karen’s hand was on his shoulder.

  Karen and Erasmus exchanged a look. She nodded.

  ‘OK, Erasmus was just leaving anyway.’

  Karen walked out of the room. Erasmus stayed where he was.

  ‘Rebecca,’ he said softy, ‘tell me, why were you wearing that mask?’

  Still she didn’t turn around but this time her shoulder moved slightly.

  ‘You ever heard of Occupy, grandad? Get out!’

  Erasmus nodded slowly and then left the room.

  Karen was sitting at the top of the stairs. She looked older than her years and when she looked at him all the defiance, the strength, seemed to have been drained from her.

  ‘You better leave,’ she said.

  ‘Sure.’

  She stood up and brought her lips close to his face. Erasmus felt an erotic charge hit him with an intensity that was almost violent.

  She whispered into his ear.

  ‘Send her the keystroke programme.’

  He wanted to hold her, tell her that he would protect her and her daughter, but she took a step back and instead he nodded.

  ‘I’ll tell Pete to send it tonight.’

  ‘And Erasmus?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Wayne was playing badly and the crowd were letting him know all about it. A ball was fired down the line for him from De Marco a
nd Wayne made an effort to trap it with his left foot, an effort he misjudged by a fraction of a second, allowing the ball to pass under his foot and roll out for a throw-in to the opposition, who today, according to Pete, were Newcastle.

  A chorus of boos rang out around the stadium while Wayne looked down at his left foot as though it were a malfunctioning piece of machinery. De Marco came over to him and patted him on his back, urging him to run back and take up his position. Wayne looked around with uncomprehending eyes at the faces all around that had once loved him, which were now contorted with rage. He slowly jogged back.

  Ted Wright shook his head.

  ‘So what have you got for me?’ he asked Erasmus without turning his head away from watching the game.

  ‘Wayne went way for some rehabilitation last March. I’ve been told he wasn’t injured.’

  Ted’s head snapped round.

  ‘What the fuck do you mean? Who told you that?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, I was told it in confidence but I need your permission and some key codes.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I want the key codes to Dr Khan’s office. I want to check a few things out.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘I’d rather not say until I’m sure.’

  Ted blew out his cheeks.

  ‘OK, it’s my birthday. All the codes in the club are. Silly I know, but I would forget them otherwise: 23/12/47. But I don’t believe it about Wayne. Any injury is also checked out by our doctor. I’m not stupid. I know what these kids can be like. We had a French Muslim striker. Every Ramadan, he would get injured. That’s why I don’t sign ragheads any more.’

  Erasmus marvelled at the casual racism.

  ‘I think it’s worth following up.’

  ‘I believe you met Babak?’ said Ted.

  ‘I did yes.’

  ‘You know that means that another club is sniffing around. Probably want to get Wayne on the cheap, figure he will come good with a change of scenery.’

  On the pitch Wayne had dribbled round a defender and he attempted a long-range shot that was athletically tipped over the bar by the Newcastle keeper. Syncopated ooos and ahs echoed around the stands.

  ‘They may be right. Maybe he’s just a teenager with too much weight on his shoulders.’

  Ted shook his head.

  ‘No, the boy has no imagination and football is his life. This isn’t some angst ridden spotty student with time to waste dwelling on himself and his “feelings”. Wayne was brought up by his mum in Huyton. Introspection is a luxury people like him can’t afford.’ Ted placed his hand on Erasmus’s forearm and patted it almost affectionately. ‘There is something else. Find out what it is. I won’t let Babak have him on the cheap.’

  Erasmus stood up.

  ‘You’re not staying for the rest of the game?’

  ‘Football’s not my thing.’

  Ted harrumphed and turned back to the football.

  ‘What is your thing?’

  Erasmus laughed.

  ‘Who knows?’

  Ted snorted. He didn’t take his eyes off the game.

  ‘Never trust a man who doesn’t like football, I say. Let me know what you find.’

  Erasmus jogged up the steps and then descended the stairs that took him deep below the terraces.

  Once he was past the still busy lounges with be-suited men eating small pieces of food and drinking large amounts of alcohol, past the cheery bonhomie and frustrated lives, he reached a door marked ‘Private. No Entry’. He pushed it open and descended down concrete steps that led him deep into the bowels of the stadium. They were empty. Everybody must be watching the game, he supposed. Down here the roars and jeers of the crowd, a dull symphony of anger and joy, were muffled.

  Erasmus walked down the deserted corridors, passing the admin offices, down steps that brought him to the lowermost corridor and the treatment rooms. From above there came a huge cheer, a goal perhaps or a sending off. Dr Khan’s office was the last at the end of the corridor, which ended five yards further on at a concrete wall painted with the club’s crest.

  The door to his office was closed. Erasmus knocked. He wasn’t sure what he would do if anyone answered. Lie and say he was looking for Ted, he guessed. He needn’t have worried though as no one came to the door. He punched in the door code on the aluminium panel next to the door and a red light changed to green. Erasmus pushed open the door and walked into Dr Khan’s office.

  Inside it was dark. There were no windows this deep in the stadium. He hit the light switch and a sickly, yellow fluorescent bulb flickered and clattered into life. The jaundiced light shone on the treatment table upon which he had seen Wayne getting his injections. In the corner of the room was a steel medicine cabinet and at the end of the room a consulting desk made of a rich mahogany that contrasted with the rather shabby air of the rest of the room.

  Erasmus tried the desk first. He opened the desk drawers. In the first he found nothing but a yellow legal pad and a calculator, in the second, a copy of a porn magazine called Nugget. On the front cover was a picture of a naked woman. What made this unusual was that she didn’t have any arms.

  ‘Niche,’ he muttered to himself and slid the drawer shut again.

  He moved across to the medicine cabinet. A simple combination lock held the door sealed. What had Ted said? All the locks in the building had the same combination. Well, they better had, thought Erasmus. He only had one theory as to the combination. He entered Ted’s birthday and then tried the lock. Nothing. He tried another combination of the same numbers and tired again. Nothing. A third and fourth try yielded the same results.

  Erasmus pulled at the door in frustration, rattling the steel. He could easily pull the door off its hinges but he didn’t want to let Khan know anyone had been there.

  Suddenly there was the sound of a door slamming from outside. Quickly, he moved to the door and placed his ear on the wood.

  Silence.

  From above he could make out the sound of booing. And then again a bang, more regular now. He realised it was the sound of footsteps on concrete and they were getting louder, closer. Erasmus stole a glance back at the room. There was nowhere to hide. He had to hope that whoever it was wasn’t coming his way.

  The footsteps were close now and then they stopped. He was sure the person was in the corridor outside but there had been how many rooms off this corridor? Maybe five or six? The odds were with him.

  There was a noise outside. Someone looking for something? And then the door handle moved downwards, catching Erasmus’s belt briefly and then releasing it and continuing downwards. Erasmus held his breath as the person pushed the door. Nothing happened. Whoever it was hadn’t keyed in the code.

  He had maybe less than ten seconds. Erasmus ran as silently as he could to the end of the room and jumped on top of the mahogany desk. He reached upwards and pushed a polystyrene square of the suspended roof back. He felt for the joist, his fingers gripped the wood, and then he pulled himself up through the gap just as he heard the loud click of the lock disengaging and the door begin to open. There was no time for him to replace the tile. He would have to hope that the visitor didn’t look up or, if he did, would just assume that this was another sign of the general shabbiness of the ground.

  Erasmus flattened himself against the roof tiles and held his breath. He couldn’t see the door from this angle but he could see the medicine cabinet and a corner of the desk. With a growing sense of horror he realised he had left the light on. Surely, the man – from the breathing and sound of movement he could tell it was a man – who had entered the room would notice that fact and then look up at the space in the roof and reach the obvious conclusion.

  For an agonising moment Erasmus awaited the inevitable. He braced himself for the lies he would tell or the fight he may have. The adrenaline fuelling his system made the sound of his own heartbeat sound like the roar of the crowd so much so that he was sure the man would hear it.

  The
man moved forward and went straight to the medicine cabinet. Erasmus recognised him: Steve Cowley. He fiddled with the combination lock and a second later it was open. Erasmus could see the tools of the trade inside: vials, boxes and containers of pills. Cowley produced a small blue cardboard box and placed it inside the medicine cabinet, then shut the door and snapped the lock shut.

  It was at this moment that Erasmus’s mobile phone began to vibrate in his pocket. The noise of the vibration was deafening to Erasmus’s ear but there was no way he could access the phone without making the tiles beneath him creak loudly.

  Cowley looked up, directly into the dark void, at Erasmus. Busted, he thought.

  Cowley squinted. The dim light and the darkness of the void hid Erasmus’s face but he knew that if Cowley moved, changed the angle, then he would see him clearly. Cowley kept his eye on the void and began to move slowly to one side for a better look.

  Suddenly there was a growing roar from the crowd above, followed by a deafening outburst of noise as they went crazy.

  Cowley took out his own mobile phone and checked it.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ he said to himself.

  The roar began to subside and at the same time Erasmus’s phone stopped vibrating. Cowley looked up again and then shook his head. He put away his phone and left Khan’s office. Erasmus waited for a moment and then jumped down and went to the medicine cabinet.

  He had seen the first two digits Cowley had dialled in and he had a suspicion that the second two were the same. Carefully he moved the dial to 6969 and tried the lock: it clicked open.

  Once open Erasmus picked up the small blue box. He didn’t recognise the name of the drug so he took a picture of the box with his iPhone. He opened the box. There were five foil wrappers each containing thirty pills. Erasmus placed one of the strips in his pocket and then carefully replaced the box and shut the medicine cabinet. He hoped Khan wouldn’t notice the missing strip and if he did then maybe he would blame Cowley or the manufacturers.

  His phone vibrated again. It was Pete.

  Erasmus answered.

  ‘Raz, where are you?’