In The Family - Part 6

“So he’s here,” Sid said. “His flight came in, he was on it -”

“I asked the airport staff to see if they could get hold of him,” I said. “In case he’d fallen asleep somewhere or stopped there for a meal. They put a call out for him on the tannoy but realistically, he must have left hours ago.”

“And now he has gone,” Donato said.

“Vanished,” James said.

“Yeah?” Jason said into the phone. “Really? Okay - what, everyone? And what? Hang on, I’ll have to ask the gaffer.” He turned to me. “He says he wants the whole family to come and watch us play and stay in a hotel and their transport paid.”

“He knows how to drive a bargain,” Sid said. “Tell him they can all come, but they’ll have to stay with us. With the players.”

“I think Jason was talking to me,” I said.

“You want to change that, Boss?” Jason asked.

“No,” I said. “Tell him that. But if he won’t go for it, I’ll pay for the hotel.”

“I’ve got five brothers and sisters and a granny,” Jason said. “And they’ve to come from Carlisle.”

“Just do it,” I said.

Jason concluded his negotiations and turned to us with a smile. “He says that’s better if they get to stay with the players. My little sister’ll want to stay with Sid. She thinks he’s cute.”

“I am cute,” Sid said.

“What did you find out?” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Well, the van belongs to a Craig Metcalfe and I’ve got his address here.”

“Let’s go, then,” I said as he handed me a piece of paper. “I’ve never heard of this place. Hob Hole? Where’s that?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Never mind,” I said. “We’ve got a postcode. Sid, put the GPS on. Everyone else, in the car.”

*********

“He’s not here.”

The woman who’d answered the door to the rather run-down looking council house didn’t look too happy at finding a slew of large blokes outside it, looking upset and asking for her husband. She looked as if she was about to close the door again and leave it that way, perhaps while she called the police or perhaps some even larger brothers, friends or neighbours.

“We’re the Knightley Wanderers,” I said, inspiration striking.

“You what?” she looked at us. “Oh, yeah… You’re that Donato Cola.” She smiled at Donato and blushed.

“Yes, that’s him,” I said. “And I’m Noel Stewart.”

“You what?”

“The manager,” I said as my players sniggered around me. “We’ve come to give you a - a prize.”

“You what?”

“You have won dinner with me.” Donato took over, and also took the lady’s hand and raised it to his lips.

“Omigod! Omigod!” The woman reached into her pocket and brought out her phone. I grabbed her other hand before she could start calling everyone she knew.

“We need to see Craig so he can sign to say he’s going to the dinner,” I improvised. “That both of you are going to the dinner. With the players.”

“Oh, well.” Her face fell. “He told me not to tell anyone where he was going. He’s got a thing.”

“Thing?”

“I dunno. It’s just him. He does stuff. Can’t I sign -”

“It’s got to be him,” I said. “Because he, uh, entered the off-season lottery.” I patted my pocket as if it was full of important papers. “If he doesn’t confirm his acceptance today, we’ll have to draw another winner.”

“Oh, well,” she said. “I mean, he’s not gonna mind, is he? Because he’s won - it’s not like you’re just anybody, is it?”

“Certainly not,” I said.

“He’s up at the Hob Hole,” she said.

“Pardon?” I said. “I thought this was Hob Hole?”

“Oh, aye, this is Hob Hole, but the Hob Hole is that old house up there.” She came out from the doorway and pointed up the hill to where some kind of structure stood. “It doesn’t belong to nobody,” she said. “He’s always up there doing stuff.”

“Thanks very much,” I said, and the whole lot of us took off in the direction of the hill.

There wasn’t very much to Hob Hole apart from the council estate. A few old buildings arranged around an overgrown green in what would once have been the centre. Very old buildings, looking as though they might have been built sometime in the seventeenth century or even earlier. One of them housed a Spar and another had become a bookie. There were a couple of bus stops and a chapel that had been converted into a community centre and that was it.

“That poor w-woman,” James said as we slogged up the hillside. There didn’t seem to be a road or even a path. Perhaps it was round the other side. “You should take her out to dinner, Pepsi. M-make up for the boss lying to her.”

“I don’t want to,” Donato said.

“It’s only fair.”

“I suppose. If I must. She is not much of a conversationalist.”

“I don’t suppose conversation’ll be what she’s after,” Sid said. “You’ll have to mind she doesn’t get in your pants and then you’ve got Craig whatsisface trying to kidnap you instead.”

“I do not think it is very likely,” Donato said. “I know how to defend myself from genital fan attacks.”

“What the hell does this Craig Metcalfe want with my goalkeeper?” I wondered. “Do they support someone else and they want to put a spoke in our wheel?”

“I do not understand that,” Donato said.

“Nobody understands it,” I said.

“No, I am meaning the spoke in the wheel. Surely a spoke in a wheel is a good thing? Are wheels not meant to have spokes?”

“Can you focus?” I said. “We’re nearly there.”

I looked up at the building above me.

“Looks more like a pele tower than a house,” I said.

“What’s that?” James asked.

“Towers that used to be built in high places,” I said. “When the Scots were raiding the English or at war with the English.”

“Throughout all of known history, then?” Sid said.

“That’s right,” I said. “They’d light a fire on top of the tower if they saw anything suspicious riding towards them.”

“We have those where I come from, near Hadrian's Wall,” Jason said.

“I wonder what this Craig does in there?” James said. “It’d be a g-good place to let off fireworks.”

“What are we going to do, Boss?” Donato asked.

I couldn’t see anyone currently keeping a watch out of the narrow stone windows. Were they even glazed? The place looked neglected as we got near enough to see, stone crumbling down from the walls, but it didn’t look as if it had been left untenanted for a few hundred years. The area round it was another matter, a long-untrimmed garden thick with scrubby trees, brambles and trailing ropes of thorny rose.

“Maybe it's not Jelly that's here,” James said. “Maybe there’s a p-princess asleep inside.”

“We don’t need a princess,” Donato said. “We have Fib already.”

“I’ll take a princess if she’s a good shot-stopper,” I said. “Looks like there’ll only be one way in. Unless anybody thought to bring a rope and a grapnel.”

“I’m not sure I would fit through such a small window,” Donato said.

“They’re bigger than they look from down here,” I said. “The door must be round the other -” I paused as I heard a peculiar sound.

“What’s that?” James grabbed hold of Jason’s arm. “That sounds horrible. Is it a ghost?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said, quite seriously. Did all my players believe in that kind of rubbish?

The sound, which had started as a low roar, grew in intensity. It seemed to be coming from the upper floor of the tower and we all gazed up that way. A loud shriek sounded from inside and we watched in horror as a body flew from one of the windows and down into the undergrowth below.

“Jelle?” Sid ran over, fighting his way through thorny plants.

“That’s not him,” I said. I was trampling down the overgrown brambles and roses until I could see the groaning, writhing figure of the man who’d fallen from the tower.

“He’s gone mad,” the man muttered. He was covered in scratches and stuck fast in the garden, but he didn’t seem to be badly injured, given by the way he was wriggling to try and escape his vegetative captors. “He’s off his trolley. He threw me out the bloody window.”

“Who are you?” I asked. “Are you Craig Metcalfe?”

“Who wants to know?” the man asked, then his eyes widened as he realised who we all were. “Oh - fuck,” he said.

“You’re in a lot of trouble,” I told him.

“I don’t give a shit you money-grubbing bastard,” he said, rather incomprehensibly. “You and that fucking new goalie of yours.”

“What did you do to him?” Sid demanded.

“We didn’t do fuck all to him,” Metcalfe said. “We never laid a finger on him. We even tried to feed the bastard. But no, a sandwich and a Mars Bar’s too good for him -”

I left him struggling and swearing and hurried back towards the tower. Sid followed.

“A Mars Bar?” he asked. “Jesus. He told me he had a phobia, I didn’t know he Hulked out when he sees chocolate.”

“Never mind,” I said, applying myself to opening the door of the tower. As I’d thought, it was round the other side from Hob Hole the village and there was also a small path leading windingly back down the hill. “Give me a hand with this, it’s stuck.”

*********

We pushed the door open to find an unconscious man behind it. His body was what had been holding it shut.

We were in a square, dark, stone room, completely unfurnished; a flight of stone steps ran upwards against the far wall and a third man was standing at the bottom of them, turning to look at us in surprise. He was holding the shotgun I’d seen earlier.

“Don’t shoot anybody,” I said. That seemed to need saying more urgently than anything else.

“That bastard.” He indicated a place above him, where we could all hear a lower version of the horrible noise that had preceded the flight of the man from the window. It sounded more like growling now.

“Yes, well, I know, but don’t shoot him either,” I said.

“He’s thrown Craig out the window,” the man said. “And Kevin’s there, he might be dead, the nutter flung him down the stairs.”

“I’m sure he’s not dead.” Keeping my eye on the man, I knelt to look at the one behind the door. Donato started to move sideways towards the stairs, but I shook my head at him. It was a shotgun. He could probably hit all of us at once with it and apart from that, if he fired it in here, we’d all be deaf.

As I touched the man lying on the floor he groaned and opened his eyes.

“See? He’s not dead,” I said.

“Oh, aye, never mind that. I know who you are,” the man on the stairs said. “So don’t be starting anything. Fucking posh fucking manager.”

“I’m sorry?” I said. “Have we met?”

“It’s all your fault.” The man, Jelle apparently forgotten for now, swung his shotgun decisively in my direction. Sid shifted at the side of me and I grabbed his arm to restrain him.

“Um - what’s my fault?” I asked. “You didn’t want me to have a Belgian goalkeeper?”

“He’s Dutch, isn’t he?” Shotgun Man said.

“He plays in Holland, but he’s Belgian,” I said.

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“They’re quite similar countries in many ways,” I said.

“That’s got nothing to do with it.” Shotgun Man remembered his mission. “You. And your bloody Premier League. How do you think normal folk are going to be able to afford to come and see you play any more if you get in the Premier League?”

“Oh, is that the problem?” I asked. “Because, excuse me, I can’t see how kidnapping my new goalkeeper before he’s even signed a contract is going to help you. You won’t be able to see any footie in prison unless you're allowed to watch it on the TV they have nailed to the wall.”

“We was meant to get you,” the man said. “Talk some sense into you. What happened? You were supposed to be out cold and then you just went off home like normal.”

“What?” I said. “You mean - when you put me in the van -”

“No, the other night. That bloody reporter, you paid him off, didn’t you? You and your money and -”

“I don’t have any money,” I interrupted him. “The club doesn’t have any money. We’re as poor as church fucking mice after they turn the church into a bingo hall. We’ve just had half the new stadium fall down a hole and take our starting goalkeeper out. And no, I didn’t pay off that bloody reporter for anything. Are you saying he was actually supposed to drug me?”

“I’m saying nothing,” the man said. He seemed to come to a decision and took a step upwards. “We’ve still got your goalie. You’ve only got one decent goalie now and this is him. So we’re hanging onto him. If you’re as skint as you say, you’ve got no money to buy another one and you’re not going to get into the Premier League with James Halliwell in goal, are you?”

“I heard that,” James muttered.

“I think you’re being very unreasonable,” I said. “But -” I lifted my hands and spread them in a gesture of what-can-I-do?

The man sneered and half turned away.

I leapt.

Two long steps across the room, he was turning back, the shotgun looked huge, I flung myself forward and grabbed him on the stairs and we both rolled down onto the stone floor together, me on top and him trying to hit me with the butt of the shotgun.

It didn’t last long as my players abandoned their learned techniques for something approximating a rugby scrum. By the time we got Shotgun Man out of it - minus his shotgun - he wasn’t in any mood to pass further comment on me or my managerial methods.

“Let’s get Jelle,” Sid said. James and Jason were sitting on the ex-shotgun toter, just in case he recovered himself, and Donato was calling the police.

I nodded and we both set off up the stairs. It was quiet up there now and I wondered what we’d find.

*********

Jelle was standing at the top of the stairs, near the entrance to another room, presumably the one with the window he’d thrown a man out of. He looked ready to throw us somewhere as well, maybe back down the stairs. He’d found himself a length of metal pipe, perhaps taken it off one of his captors, and was clutching it menacingly in both hands. I couldn’t credit the change in him, such belligerence in a young man who’d looked so mild-mannered, almost shy, in his interviews.

We all stared at each other for a moment, me wondering what on earth I could say to defuse his current homicidal mood; then I noticed something else different about him.

“You’ve changed your hair,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” Jelle reached up and patted his head. “Yes, of course. I have thought that it is very old-fashioned to have the long hair. I am having it undercut to be with my new team.”

“It looks good,” I said. “Suits you.”

“Thank you very much,” he said.

“I’m Noel Stewart.” I took a step towards him and held out my hand. “Knightley Wanderers manager.”

“You - are my possible new manager?” Jelle’s eyes widened and he dropped his hands, apparently attempting to hide the length of pipe behind himself. “You like my hair?”

“Uh - yes,” I said.

“You like me?” he asked.

“I’m sure I shall,” I said. “Once we get to know each other.”

Jelle flung the metal pipe to one side and himself into my arms. I was startled. He seemed to weigh a lot more than he should.

“There, there,” I said, patting him on the back.

“I am glad you do not hate me.” He gave me a grateful look and I was disturbed to see tears in his eyes. What was wrong with him? Was I about to exchange a bad goalkeeper for a mad one? The phobias were going to be enough trouble without any added neuroses. I tried to reassure myself that he was just stressed out over recent events.

“Nobody hates you,” I said. “Now, let’s get you out of here and we’ll all, uh, go home and have a nice cup of tea.”

“I am liking the coffee,” Jelle said.

“Coffee, then.”

“But not the -” he glanced around him, then whispered, “- cappucino.”

“Certainly not,” I said.

“Let me see, I think James can take care of Jelle while we drive back to - where are we going?”

“Our house,” Sid said. “Jelle can stay in our spare room. It’s ready for him.”

“Sid, I am seeing you at last!” Jelle abandoned embracing me for grabbing Sid, nearly knocking them both down the stairs in his exuberance.

“Yes, it’s lovely,” Sid said, setting off down to the ground floor. “Come on down here and meet James. He’s a goalie too, you’ll have lots to talk about.”

“You are James?” Jelle was staring at our hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-goalkeeper in wonder.

“Yeah, that’s me,” James said. “The one and only. James Halliwell, pleased to meet - urkh!”

He left his sentence unfinished as Jelle hurtled over to him and gave him an enormous hug.

“You are beautiful!” Jelle declared. “I will go to your home with you and we will be friends, yes?”

“Uhhk, um,” James replied, which Jelle seemed to take as agreement. He grabbed James’s hand and dragged him towards the door with a big smile on his face.

“Donato, will you stay with Jason and deal with the police?” I asked. “I’ll have to see them myself, but for now…”

“Yes, I can see you are having problems of your own,” Donato said, giving Jelle a dubious look. “We will deal with it all. Should any of these men cause trouble, Jason will shoot them.”

“Why me?” Jason asked.

“Because you know how to shoot shotguns and I do not.”

“Oh. Okay, then.” Jason picked up the shotgun and glared at the men lying on the floor.

“Don’t let the police see you with that,” I said. “Sid, let’s you and me drag in the other one from the rose bushes before we go.”

********

Our prisoners all secured, Sid and I went out to see that James and Jelle, still holding hands, were halfway down the hill.

“That was odd,” Sid said, as we hurried after them. “Jelle I mean. What he did.”

“He’s odd,” I said. “I think he’s got some kind of mental problem.”

“What, you think he’s really mad?”

“I got the impression that he thinks he’s - well, I don't know, he seems to be worried that some kind of chocolate is following him or something.”

“What, haunted by the spirit of chocolate?” Sid looked puzzled. “Something like that?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “He certainly seems volatile, doesn’t he? We’ll have a job keeping him calm enough to play.”

“Do you not want him?” Sid asked.

“Well - I don’t want to send him back,” I said. “I mean - look at him.”

“He seems cheerful enough now,” Sid said. “And he’s a good goalkeeper. If we make sure nobody shows him a Mars Bar.”

“Yes, we’re going to have to keep his problem secret,” I said. “Nobody should say anything about it to anyone that doesn’t already know. The last thing we need is to have someone’s striker running up to the goal and pulling a bar of Fruit and Nut out of their shorts so they can score while he’s distracted. Or fans thinking it’s funny to show him chocolate while he’s shopping and so on. Or throw it on the pitch, God forbid.”

“We’ll have to not let him go out too much,” Sid said. “Maybe take him to the park or something. Take him for a run up on the moors. Places where there’s not likely to be shops selling sweets.”

“Sounds like owning a dog,” I said. “What’s this about a spare room, anyway? You didn’t tell me you had a spare room.”

“Yeah, we converted the loft,” Sid said. “You know, in case we had visitors.”

“So, um, how is it that Jelle gets to sleep in your spare room and I slept in your room?” I asked.

“I don’t want Jelle to sleep in my room,” Sid said.

I stopped on the edge of the road as we were just about to cross over to the Land Rover.

“But you want me to sleep in your room?” I looked at him. He was looking back at me, cheeks flushed.

“Uh. Yes,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “Um. Do you mean sleep or -”

“Don’t be daft.”

“Ah. So you want, er -”

“Yes.”

“Well. That’s, um -”

“We should probably talk about this when we’re back at the house,” Sid said, taking my arm and steering me across the road. “And when you actually can manage to talk about it.”

NOW GO TO PART 7....

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