Alex Gray - Pitch Black

‘Wasters,’ he muttered under his breath, scowling at them and standing aside as they pushed in. ‘Like a lot of jackals,’ he spat out after them, but nobody seemed interested in the opinions of a mere groundsman. Still, that suited him; he’d work to finish and it wouldn’t do to fall behind his schedule.

One by one the newspaper men and women came to a halt at the front entrance and turned to see if Albert would open up for them.

‘You’ll need to wait for the polis,’ he told them, a smile of satisfaction spreading across his weather-beaten features as the protests began. ‘This is a secure area now,’ he added and, as if to prove Albert’s point, at that moment a police van rolled into the car park. ‘Youse cannae get in without a special permit.’ He grinned, then, opening the main door, he stood arms folded, as if daring anyone to pass. ‘Ah’ve got ma orders, so ah have, an ah cannae let onybody in.’

There was a muttering, then one man stepped out from the crowd and stood directly in front of the groundsman. He was a tall, spare individual, a nicotine-stained moustache giving him the look of a dissolute cowboy villain, but the eyes that stared into Albert’s were sharp as flints. Albert felt the folded notes being pressed into his palm and heard the whispered words: ‘Jimmy Greer. The Gazette . Just you give me an exclusive. More where that came from, pal. Round at the Wee Barrel, six o’clock, right?’

Albert grunted and looked away as if he was completely disinterested but his gnarled fingers pocketed the money.

Greer stepped away and made a face to the crowd, pretending that Albert had given him a flea in his ear. ‘Wee Hitler!’ he exclaimed then pushed through the lines of journalists to where the uniformed officers were alighting from their van. The others turned and followed the Gazette ’s senior reporter, the groundsman temporarily forgotten.

‘Bunch o’ sheep!’ Albert snorted in disgust, but he fingered the notes in his pocket, calculating their worth and wondering if he would meet up with this chancer, Greer, later on or not.

Kelvin Park was virtually in a state of siege, thought Patrick Kennedy, as he gazed from his vantage point upstairs. If it had been match day then all of this rabble could have been sent packing by officers from the local division who came as a matter of routine to keep order among rival groups of fans. But no opposing teams would meet out on the pitch today. For the players it was the business of training as usual. He was glad that Ron Clark believed in hard work as a panacea for all ills, even for the shock of knowing your colleagues might have been picked off by some nutter on the loose on the streets of Glasgow. There had been some frightened faces among the players as they’d arrived for training.

Kennedy had been wakened in the wee small hours by DCI Lorimer telling him about White’s death. Since then he’d hardly had a good night’s sleep. When he’d opened his eyes this morning it still seemed like some wicked dream he’d been having and it was only his wife Barbara’s hushed tones that had brought him fully awake and facing reality. Now the chairman stood, hands behind his back, gazing out at the empty expanse of green and Wee Bert walking around the perimeter of the pitch with his white paint-marker. There was something infinitely reassuring about the groundsman’s activities, he realised, watching the man mark out the lines with military precision. Thank God someone was behaving normally at least.

Pat Kennedy pursed his lips. Things weren’t going right at all. By now the newspapers should have been full of the success of his two new signings, White and Faulkner, plus the news that he’d so far kept to himself of Kelvin’s putative new stadium. Kennedy clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails dug into the flesh. He’d worked and planned meticulously to achieve it all and Barbara’s control of the shares would be meaningless once he’d finished … He’d imagined the headlines in all the local papers, especially after the hype they’d written about his promising new players being sure to take Kelvin into the Premier League this season, but nothing could have prepared the chairman for what had actually appeared instead. ‘Kelvin Killer at Large’ one of them had written; ‘Football Club Seeks Protection’ another one had proclaimed. And it was true: Kennedy had insisted that Lorimer provide them with some form of security. The DCI had listened to his harangue on the telephone and answered politely that while Strathclyde Police could not offer continuous police protection, they would make every effort to give advice to the players and staff and in fact a senior liaison officer had been promised at the club within the hour. Kennedy had ended the call with a sense of dissatisfaction. It was one more instance of things slipping out of his control, he thought, as he watched the groundsman mark out the pitch.

He should really speak to the players, give them some reassurance, let them know that ‘Big Pat’ Kennedy wasn’t standing for any nonsense. An official from the Scottish Football Association had already been on the phone to ask if the fixtures were to continue as planned. Kennedy had said Yes, of course, and had merely grunted when the fellow on the other end of the line had gone on at length about offering commiserations and did he want the association to send anything to White’s family? With a sigh that seemed to come from his boots, Kennedy contemplated that other, necessary, call. What on earth was he to say to White’s mother? Had the player disclosed the bollocking he’d been given? Kennedy chewed his lip for a moment. No, probably not. The wee toerag wouldn’t have wanted his mammy to know he’d been in trouble with his new boss.

Kennedy shuddered. This wouldn’t do at all. Thinking ill of the dead was just as bad as speaking it, and it would make things a lot worse if he should blurt out exactly what he had thought about the late Jason White.

Despite the manager’s best intentions, business was anything but normal for the players that morning. Usually they’d be training outside with Ally Stevenson, their coach, but today they had been making do with the facilities in the gym. Stevenson looked as glum as they all felt. By this time of the morning he’d usually be bawling them out, running back and forwards with them, his thickset figure belying the man’s strength. Stevenson had been a professional footballer years ago but now he resembled more a wrestler or a prop forward. Some players hinted that years of steroids had altered the coach’s physique, but none of them would ever have dared ask him.

‘Where’s Donnie Douglas?’ Stevenson growled.

‘Dunno. Not everyone came in this morning,’ Baz Thomson mumbled.

‘Well, he’s supposed to be here,’ the coach objected. ‘Anyone else missing?’ Stevenson looked round at them. What he saw were boys whose heads were bowed, not only avoiding the coach’s stare but deliberately failing to look at one another. There was a collective sense of grief about them that Stevenson suddenly admired. They were good lads, all of them. Even if White had been a bit of a Jack the Lad, he’d been their teammate and his murder was a huge shock.

‘Ally, d’you know what we’re meant to be doing?’ Gudgie Carmichael spoke up at last.

Stevenson shook his head. ‘Waiting for Mr Clark and Mr Kennedy to come down and see us all,’ he replied. A few heads shot up at his words. They weren’t used to hearing Ron Clark being referred to as Mister , Ally thought. But it had seemed right to speak in that way even if such formality had a strange, funereal foreboding about it. Why had he said that? The manager, whilst not being their bosom buddy, was an approachable sort and they had begun to have a good rapport with him. But everything was different now; all their relationships with one another were under scrutiny and would be until they found who had killed these three men. And the sooner these boys realised that, the better.