Striker Boy Kicks Out (20 page)

Ray Swinton was just finishing off a late-night coffee in a small corner bar in Talorca town centre when his phone rang.

“Mr Swinton,” said the Eastern European voice.

“Surprise, surprise,” answered Swinton, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Going to do the right thing and give me back what's rightfully mine?”

“I'm just checking to see if we're still on for tomorrow night and that you haven't contacted any of the law agencies of this country.”

“No,” snapped back Swinton. “I did consider phoning the air force but their helicopters are a bit too big to land in Talorca's central bus station.”

“If you think you are being funny, you are not,” said the voice coldly. “We have a business agreement and I need to be sure you will be there, with the money, at the right time.”

Swinton sighed wearily and wiped his brow. “I'll be there,” he replied testily, “and there'll be no policemen lurking round any corners. It will just be me and
the money, and you and the notebooks, OK?”

“That is what we agreed,” responded the voice.

“I'll see you there,” said Swinton.

The line went dead.

The following morning Nat got up early. The villa was quiet. Both Inés's and José's doors were closed. Nat stole down the corridor and exited the villa. He retraced his steps of the night before, up the hill and across the scrubland. There were no landmarks to indicate exactly where the trapdoor was, so he approximated the position and started clawing at the earth with his fingers. His first bout of digging revealed nothing, so he moved and tried again. This was unsuccessful too, but on his third try, his fingernails came into contact with wood. He quickly scraped the rest of the earth away to reveal the wooden trapdoor.

He pulled at the steel circle on its surface. The door flipped up and onto the ground, revealing the hole below. Nat took a quick look round to make sure he wasn't being watched, and lowered himself inside.

At the bottom was a tiny passage. There was just enough room for him to crouch down and crawl through it. At its end was a small opening, on the floor of which was the rucksack Nat had seen José carrying the night
before. He pulled open the zip and looked inside. The only thing in the rucksack was an A4-sized plastic pocket containing several sheaves of yellowing paper. He pulled these out and checked them over. The first lot were covered in Spanish writing, some done on a computer, some written by hand. These were followed by some spreadsheets, also in Spanish.

But at the bottom of the pile were several large fold-out technical drawings. At the top right-hand corner of each illustration was the words
La Plaza
– the home stadium of Talorca FC. Some were drawings of the entire structure, others were cross-sectional drawings of parts of it. One image particularly caught Nat's eye. It was a drawing of the stadium's executive car park – Nat could see this by the superimposed images of top-of-the-range vehicles in parking bays. There were several comments in Spanish scribbled in blue ink at the top of the page, next to Sunday's date.

Nat's mind worked furiously as he tried to piece together the jigsaw. It gradually started to make sense. Sunday was the day after the tournament final. On Sunday, a huge lunch was being hosted at the stadium by Victor Mabena for the two teams who'd reached the final – Hatton Rangers and Talorca FC. While Mabena and his fellow board members were busy at the lunch, José (and, presumably, some accomplices) would be in the executive car park, stealing their top-of-the-range cars. That had to be it! And that was why José was so interested in the car manuals – he was figuring out
how best to start them without the keys.

It was the perfect crime. On match days there would be loads of security around La Plaza, but this was a Sunday. Security would presumably be miniscule by comparison. José had already made it clear that he hated Mabena and the money men of the club, and this must be his way of getting back at them. Selling such cars on would also be a very healthy source of cash for José, who had no other obvious income. The money José had been holding must have come from his last job. He was a high-end car thief!

What should I do? Confront José and say I know all about it? No, that way he'll know I've been spying on him and he'll go completely crazy. Tell Inés? Show her this place?

It was impossible. José's life had already been messed up by the accident. Could Nat ruin it even further by getting him in serious trouble?

Nat sighed, carefully replaced the papers inside the rucksack and put it down on the floor. He reached up and pulled himself out of the hole. He flipped the trapdoor shut and set about re-covering it in earth. He hurried back to the villa with several burning yet unanswerable questions rattling around in his head.

On his return, he found Inés and José at the kitchen table, poring over an article in the newspaper. They both looked up guiltily when he came in.

“What is it?” asked Nat, worried for a second that
they'd
been spying on
him.

“It's just something in today's paper,” said Inés, folding it hurriedly.

“You should tell him,” said José. “He's got a right to know.”

“To know what?” asked Nat.

Had the moment finally arrived when the truth about his real age was paraded before the world? Had Ray Swinton broken his word and unleashed mayhem that would scupper all of Nat's football dreams?

“Please tell me,” he said anxiously.

“OK,” sighed Inés, “but I don't feel very comfortable about it.”

“Just read it,” urged José.

Reluctantly, Inés opened the paper up once again, studied the text for a few seconds and then began translating into English.

Talorca stalwart and captain Alberto Tieras has had a busy week. As well as leading his team to the final of a tournament involving some of Europe's best teams, he also had a lot of fun winding up two players from the English team, Hatton Rangers, whom he will now be facing in Saturday night's final. Appearing on a local radio show, the two young players were stunned when Tieras showed up in the studio and they stormed out when his jibes got the better of them.

Inés looked up to gauge Nat's reaction. He nodded at her to go on.

With Hatton Rangers now facing Talorca in the final,
Tieras was in a particularly upbeat mood at the team's training ground yesterday. He had some words of warning, particularly for one of the players he met in the studio.

“The English team, whose name I can't remember because they are so low-profile, have a young player called Nat Dixon, and this boy is very arrogant. He swaggers around with the air of one who has seen many campaigns, when in fact he has only played a few times for his club. While the two strikers in front of him at the club are the first choice pairing, this Dixon kid has come on as a substitute in both games so far and made something of an ‘impact'. Well, the child can forget about making any such impact this Saturday night because he will be playing against the big boys! If he does come on and try anything fancy, he will very soon be looking at a stretcher – the one that is carrying him off the pitch!”

Tieras's words are always strong, but this outburst was one of his most ferocious. Little is known about Nat Dixon, other than that he was scouted playing street soccer in the US and was bought by Rangers's manager Ian Fox in this year's January transfer window. Due to some hold-up in his paperwork he was only able to play for his team in the last few games of the season, when he also made a big impact, scoring the goal that saved his club from relegation on the very last day of the season.

Nat looked at Inés and José in amazement. “That's pretty strong,” he said in shock.

“It's a disgrace!” exploded Inés. “How dare he say such things? These comments should be reported to the police – talking about a stretcher! That's threatening you with violence! Footballers need to observe the same laws as the rest of us. If he went onto the street and said something like that, he'd be immediately arrested.”

“He's all mouth,” muttered José. “Ignore him.”

“That's easier said than done,” tutted Inés.

“Anyway,” said José, “the tournament's over on Saturday and hopefully Nat won't have to hear any more of this rubbish from Tieras or Victor Mabena or anyone connected to the club.”

There it was again – José's hatred of Mabena. Well now Nat knew that José would be punishing Mabena on Sunday when he stole his car, and probably those of some of his cronies too.

As Nat helped Inés with the washing-up, he kept thinking about how a supposedly straightforward trip to Spain had become so complicated. First there was his stalker, then there was Alberto Tieras, and Ray Swinton's missing notebooks. And now there was José's car-stealing plan. It felt like the dream jaunt had become a bit of a nightmare.

“Nat?”

“Hey Dad.” It was a couple of hours after Nat's early morning hunt and the sun's heat was already hitting the villa.

“I have some excellent news.”

“What?”

“We've finished the first part of the job early. They don't need me this weekend, so guess what? I'm flying out to Spain tomorrow morning.”

“Are you serious?” asked Nat, suddenly feeling a wave of relief and joy.

“I get to Talorca airport at half past eleven in the morning.”

“That's great,” said Nat. “Talorca are training at La Plaza from nine to ten thirty. Then we've got it from eleven thirty until one and after that we'll be at the team hotel. Fox has said that families can visit us in the hotel between two and four.”

“Perfect. I'll come to the hotel.”

“Where are you staying?”

“A small hotel on the outskirts of Talorca. Stan Evans has already sorted me out with a ticket for the match.”

“Excellent! I'm really pleased you're coming, but I don't know if I'll get on the pitch.”

“Nonsense,” said Dave. “You've done wonders out there. I'm sure you'll get a decent run out. Fox knows what you can do.”

Nat paused. There was so much he wanted to tell his dad.

“What's up?” asked Dave.

“Er . . . nothing.”

“Doesn't sound like nothing.”

“It's just . . . Alberto Tieras – you know, the Talorca captain.”

“What's he been up to?”

“There was a thing on Wednesday when he kind of hijacked a radio interview Emi and I were doing, and then in the paper today there was a quote from him about putting me on a stretcher.”

“A
stretcher
?” exploded Dave. “How dare he?”

“Apparently that's what he's always like – he loves intimidating opponents.”

“But he mentioned you by name?”

“Yeah.”

“If he lays one finger on you, I'll be on him!”

“Maybe we should leave things to the ref?”

“OK, but I'll be watching him like a hawk.”

“I know you will. Anyway, I'll see you at the hotel at two, yeah?”

“Absolutely. You just need to win to make my trip worthwhile.”

Nat laughed, pleased he'd at least mentioned one of his current worries to his dad.

* * *

“Well done, everyone!” Stan Evans called out, as the players came to the end of a series of runs and sprints. Nat took a swig from a water bottle and sat down on the grass with the others. He'd been on top form again during training, buoyed by the news of his dad coming over the next day. He was looking forward to training at La Plaza too.

This was Rangers's last training session on the El Mar pitch. Tomorrow – the day of the final – they'd have their session at La Plaza.