Striker Boy Kicks Out (16 page)

Back at Inés's place, José's door was open a fraction again and Nat found himself looking through the gap. José wasn't there, but on his bed was a pile of car manuals. Nat checked the corridor behind him was empty and quickly dipped into the room. The manuals were concerned with top end cars – Porsches and Lamborghinis. As Nat stared, a thought suddenly hit him.

He'd seen José holding a large wad of cash the other day and had no idea how he'd come by it. Well, maybe this was the answer – maybe José was involved in some type of car theft racket, an industry that turned over millions of pounds every year. Inés certainly didn't have that kind of cash and as José wasn't officially working, there was no job to pull in that kind of wage. So maybe this could be the way it all fitted together.

Nat stepped out of José's room and walked back to his own, thinking about the whirlwind of events that had taken place just a short while back – the Chris Webb
and Tanner plot and his role in stopping it. If José was involved in stealing cars, while Nat didn't exactly approve, he wasn't going to get involved. He'd experienced more than his fair share of drama in recent weeks and he didn't want an ounce more.

He'd just sat down on the bed when his phone went. He expected it to be his dad. But it wasn't.

“Nat, it's Ray Swinton.”

Nat felt his whole body tense. “What do you want, Mr Swinton?”

“There's something we need to discuss.”

“If it's about the Lazio game, can we do it tomorrow?” replied Nat in a guarded voice.

“It's not about the Lazio game.”

“Well, what is it?”

“We have a problem,” sighed Swinton.

“What do you mean?”

“There was a break-in at my hotel and some of my notebooks were taken.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Nat, “but what's that got to do with me?”

Swinton took a deep breath and blew out his cheeks. “One of the notebooks has some notes about my suspicions concerning your age. My handwriting is pretty illegible, but if anyone put their mind to it they could see some thoughts and jottings about the possibility of you being under sixteen.”

“Oh my God!” exclaimed Nat in horror, his back
straightening with shock. “Please tell me you're making this up?”

“I'm sorry, Nat, but I'm telling you the truth.”

“Why did you leave your notebooks in your room if they contain vital stuff?” demanded Nat angrily.

“I thought they were only vital to me.”

“But now they're out there, right?”

“Look, Nat, there's no easy way to say this. I had a call from a guy who said that he has them.”

“This just gets worse!” gulped Nat.

“The guy demanded money to get them back. He said if I don't pay he'll show them to other papers. After an argument we agreed on a price. I'm meeting him on Friday night for the handover.”

“So you'll be taking the police with you?”

“No,” said Swinton flatly. “He says if I bring the police I'll never see the notebooks again.”

“How much money does he want?”

“It doesn't matter.”

Nat mentally switched out of the call for a few moments, trying to get things straight. The notebooks had been stolen but Swinton's handwriting was terrible. Was it so bad that someone else wouldn't be able to read it, or was it decipherable with a bit of time and effort? If someone at another paper got wind of the underage story, Nat could be heading for massive trouble.

“I want to talk something over with you,” Swinton went on.

Nat shook his head.
I can't believe this is happening!

“Alright, you've got ten minutes,” he replied, lying down on his bed and feeling as if the wheels were really coming off the juggernaut of his football career. Swinton outlined a possible way of dealing with the thief and Nat listened in stony silence.

No sooner had he finished speaking to Swinton than there was a knock on his door and Inés poked her head round it. “Could I have a word in the kitchen, Nat?”

Nat gazed at her blankly. Suddenly everyone wanted to speak to him. “Sure,” he nodded, “I'll be there in a minute.”

When he got to the kitchen, Inés was sitting at the table staring out of the window.

“Er . . . are you OK?” asked Nat.

Inés looked up quickly and forced a smile. “I'm fine,” she replied. “Please, take a seat.”

He sat down and she poured him a glass of lemonade.

“It's about José,” she said.

Is this going to be more about the accident?

“You seem like a nice boy. I know you're only sixteen but you come across as much older. And I know I shouldn't burden you, but sometimes it's very hard not to talk about the things that matter the most.”

Nat's mouth opened and shut.

“I'm very worried about him,” she went on. “He's only a year older than you, but look at the difference in your situations. You have a whole life to look forward
to, potentially a good career, a stable set-up. He has . . . nothing.”

“Because of the accident?”

Inés nodded. “As I've told you, the crash robbed him of two things – his father and his career. How is he going to find anything else that even comes close to football? How is he ever going to make a hundredth of the money he'd have earned as a professional player?”

Nat's mind instantly locked on the bundle of notes and the top-of-the-range car manuals he'd seen on José's bed. Clearly Inés knew nothing about any of it. Maybe that's what happened to some of the footballers who didn't make it – maybe some of them turned to crime because it was the only way they'd earn comparable money.

“And he's so angry all of the time,” said Inés. “He used to be a very relaxed sort of boy, but now you can see constant anger in his face.”

“Was he very close to your husband?”

“Incredibly close,” sighed Inés.

Nat knew that feeling all too well. “Was José's injury so bad that they instantly knew he'd never play football again?” he asked.

“The diagnosis was pretty quick, yes,” she nodded. “They didn't tell him for a few days at my request – he was trying to come to terms with the loss of his father. It was a terrible time. When they finally explained the situation to him, instead of screaming and crying, he went into his shell – he clammed up and
said nothing for over a week. It was very distressing.”

“Has José talked about any other potential careers he could follow?”

“No. But he loved cars when he was younger. I'm hoping he might go back to that – be a mechanic, something like that.”

Maybe Nat was way off-beam with his car-theft theory. José might just be exploring a career as a mechanic. It didn't explain the big pile of cash, though.

“But I can't talk to him,” Inés went on. “He's so inward-looking, and if ever I try to make a suggestion, he gets angry and tells me to leave him alone.”

“Maybe he just needs more time,” suggested Nat.

“Of course,” nodded Inés, “but how long? Another year? Another two years? It feels like he's wasting his life. Yes, he's still young, but time passes quickly and I don't want him to look back and realise there was a huge hole in his life for ten years.”

Nat was about to reply, when the kitchen door flew open and a furious José stormed in. His cheeks were scarlet and his eyes large and glaring. He yelled furiously at his mother in Spanish. She stood up and shouted back at him. He took a couple of steps forward and smashed his fist down on the kitchen table, bellowing at her again, this time for longer. But before she could answer him, he turned and stamped out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Inés said nothing for at least a minute, but when she
did, it was in a very quiet, low voice. “He is angry with me for talking to you about him.”

“I'm sorry,” said Nat, standing up. “I . . . er . . . I guess I'll go and grab a shower.”

Inés nodded wearily. “Thank you for listening,” she said.

“No problem,” replied Nat, but he didn't see how listening to her for five minutes could alleviate the problem even the tiniest bit. It was a bleak scenario and whichever way you looked at it, it felt like José was in trouble.

“Hey Emi!”

Nat ran over to his friend, who was signing an autograph for a Spanish boy outside the El Mar Stadium. It was just after 9.30 a.m. and the sun was already heating the metal shutters at the front of the stadium's box office. Emi finished signing and shook hands with the child, who ran back to his friends, waving his piece of paper in the air as if it were a valuable artefact from the
Titanic
.

Thoughts of Ray Swinton's missing notebooks had been flooding Nat's mind, but he knew that if he kept thinking about them it would seriously affect his performances on the pitch. For the time being, he had to place them to one side and focus on the team and his fellow players.

“Nat, how's it going?” said Emi.

“How's your dad doing?”

“Thanks for asking again,” replied Emi with a smile. “He came out of hospital last night and he's back home. He'll have to go back for some more tests next week but the doctor think he's going to be fine.”

“That's brilliant,” said Nat, putting an arm round Emi's shoulder.

“You two – let's get going, we have a big match tonight, remember?” It was Stan Evans calling over to them and tapping his watch.

On the El Mar pitch, the atmosphere was less jokey than the other days. Fox encouraged this. His expression was solemn.

“I don't need to tell you, lads, that if we win or draw tonight against Lazio, we make it into Saturday's final. If we lose, we'll be flying home tomorrow morning. I'm well aware that Lazio are a top Serie A team, with many seasons of European Champions League experience behind them, and that we are a team very new to the heady world of the Premier League. But none of that matters tonight.”

The manager swivelled his head round, making eye contact with every one of his players.

“Defenders – you're facing a potentially rough ride tonight. Their two strikers Laurent Breton and Luigi Fellini scored fifty-four goals between them last season. They're fast, tricky and neither of them are afraid to shoot from distance. Having said all that, they both get frustrated when they don't get good service.”

“What about midfield?” asked Dean Jobson, with a quick and not-very-friendly sideways glance at Paulo Carigio.

“Dean, you'll be sitting in front of the back four.
Paulo will be taking the more attacking role tonight.”

Carigio nodded. Jobson's top lip curled unhappily.

“Sorry, Dean, but that's where I want you and that's where you'll play – unless of course you want to warm up the subs bench?”

“No thanks, boss,” replied Jobson.

“I didn't think so,” nodded Fox.

It crossed Nat's mind that the gaffer should drop Jobson for this game and put Jermaine Clifton on instead. Wouldn't Jobson be out there eyeing each of Carigio's attacking runs with envy? Maybe it really was time to accept that they couldn't play together?

“I'm not going to wait until two hours before the match to tell you the team this time, I'm going to tell you
now,”
continued Fox. “Adilson, you'll be on the left flank, Jermaine you're starting on the right.”

Jermaine Clifton nodded, but Pierre Sacrois's face was darkened by a frown. This was the first time in six months he hadn't been in a Hatton Rangers starting eleven.

“Dennis and Robbie, you'll start in attack again.”

Nat felt a pang in his stomach, but in reality he hadn't expected anything different, even though he'd done pretty well against Celtic. He knew that having unrealistic expectations was a waste of time.

“The game plan for tonight is to go at them. They won't be expecting us to play an attacking game, but that's exactly what we're going to do. If we sit back and play like the away team, inviting them to come at us, they'll cut us
in ribbons. We push them on the flanks and through the centre. While I don't want you to go all Lionel Messi on me, Adilson, I do want you to play a pretty free role.”

“Yes, boss,” nodded Adilson seriously.

“We think they have two weak links. The first is in central defence with Carlunos. He has a massive reputation but we're not sure he fully deserves it. At set pieces he sometimes takes his eye off the ball because he's concentrating so hard on pushing attackers around. The team conceded at least five or six goals last season directly because of this. The second is at left-back – Roger Salba had a bit of a bad patch at the end of the Italian season. It looked like his confidence left him. So have a go at him – shake the tree and see if the fruit falls.”