Paul Finch - Stolen

‘Nothing illegal about that,’ Dean ventured.

‘Course not,’ Trenchcoat agreed. ‘But I’d like to bet that none of the houses you’ve officially bought so far are quite as run-down as this one, eh?’

‘I’ve officially bought this one.’

Trenchcoat half-smiled. ‘When I say “officially” … I mean, as in your lovely wife, Lydia, knowing about it. Oh, I’m sure she’s well aware and totally approves of this safety net you’re putting together for when your playing days are over. But the problem is, Lightning … she thinks it means houses round Knutsford, Didsbury and Altrincham, doesn’t she? I bet she’d be stunned to know you’ve got a new pad in the backstreets of Withington.’

‘Okay, it’s a shed.’ Dean shrugged. ‘But we’ll still make money when we’ve done it up.’

‘You’re a great footballer, Dean,’ the blond guy said, speaking for the first time; his accent was more Cheshire than Manchester. ‘But you’re not too smart if you seriously think we don’t know what’s going on here.’

‘You believe in quality, I’ll say that for you,’ Beard added. ‘That Clarissa bird. Bloody hell … you’d never know she was a bloke. And Raimunda! Some dong, that. John fucking Holmes in drag.’

‘John Holmes, Lightning,’ Trenchcoat said. ‘Remember him? No, course you don’t. Too young. There are similarities between you and him, nevertheless. For example …’ He drew a leather-gloved hand from his pocket; it contained an iPhone. ‘You’ve both been immortalised in naughty films.’

An MPEG began running. It had been shot from several different angles, all of which were most likely covert, but it was in full colour and painfully clear. It was also full of action, a ‘highlights reel’, snippets of different sessions involving either Dean and Raimunda, Dean and Clarissa, or more usually Dean and both of them, each sequence trimmed to the bare essentials and then edited together.

Fleetingly, the footballer was too numb to respond.

‘All right …’ he finally said. ‘All right, you’ve caught me. But I’m not sure this’ll be quite as damaging as you fellas seem to think. Raimunda and Clarissa are trans women. Yeah … so what? It’s not so shocking these days.’

‘That’s true.’ Trenchcoat pocketed his iPhone. ‘We live in a very inclusive age. But the problem is, Lightning … you’re a married man. And your wife, Lydia, well … she’s been wondering for some time where you’ve been disappearing to for two or three nights a week. So she asked us to find out.’

‘You’re saying you’re private detectives?’ Dean wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or even more horrified.

‘Good job it doesn’t take you that long to get to the back of the net,’ Beard chipped in. ‘Otherwise, no one’d give a shit what you get up to in this secret nookie nest of yours.’

‘She doesn’t trust you, pal,’ Hatchet Nose said. ‘She never has.’

Trenchcoat smiled again. ‘When Lydia married you, Lightning, she knew she’d landed on her feet … and she was in it for the long haul. She was going to milk it for everything she could … even if it ended up in the divorce court—’

‘Wait a minute,’ Dean interrupted, glimpsing hope. ‘Just wait … you’re saying she doesn’t suspect anything specific? She’s just watching me?’

‘She half suspects,’ Trenchcoat said.

‘You must admit, you’ve been away from home a lot recently,’ Hatchet Nose added.

‘And if she’s not getting it in the bedroom, which she presumably isn’t,’ Beard said, ‘she’s going to wonder.’

‘On top of that, she’s never been entirely convinced that you’re doing these houses up yourself,’ Trenchcoat said. ‘She doesn’t believe you know the first thing about DIY. Isn’t that why you spent a million quid getting someone else to fit that new bathroom in your mansion down Alderley Edge?’

‘So you’ve been watching me for a few weeks,’ Dean said. ‘But you haven’t reported back to Lydia yet? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘That’s the sum of it,’ Trenchcoat replied. ‘Want to know why?’

‘I’m guessing it’s not because you like football.’

‘You guess right where I’m concerned,’ Beard replied. ‘I fucking hate it.’

‘I, on the other hand, do like it,’ Hatchet Nose said. ‘I’m even a Man U fan. But the Reds were great before you, Dean, and they’ll be great again after.’

Dean’s eyes flitted from one to the other. ‘So …?’

‘So we want to get paid twice,’ Beard said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your wife’s giving us two hundred grand to tail you for four months,’ Trenchcoat explained. ‘To find out exactly what’s been going on, and whether or not it’s dodgy … and if it is, to provide indisputable evidence. Now, we’ve got that evidence, as you’ve seen. But, you see, here’s the thing … we don’t like to ruin people’s lives. We only do it if we absolutely have to. So, our normal method, once we’ve collected said evidence, is to give the guilty party an opportunity to buy it back.’

‘I think I understand,’ Dean said, with a dull, sinking feeling.

‘Course you understand,’ Trenchcoat replied. ‘But do it our way, and it all works out beautifully. We go back to your missus, tell her you’re clean as a whistle. You then go home and get hugs and kisses instead of a solicitor’s letter. Everyone’s happy. And we get paid twice.’

‘And how much is this going to cost me?’ Dean asked.

‘Well, your wife’s paying us two hundred. We thought the very least it’d be worth to you, given that your kids won’t see Mummy and Daddy split up, and the Chelsea boot-boys won’t suddenly have a whole new generation of nasty names to call you … maybe four times that.’

‘Eight hundred grand?’ Dean was stung, but he could easily afford it.

‘Makes it a round million.’ Hatchet Nose grinned. ‘And we only get taxed on a fifth of it.’

‘You look surprised, Lightning,’ Trenchcoat said. ‘No doubt you thought, as someone who earns two hundred grand a week just for showing up, the cost would be a lot more. Well … the sad fact is there’s always a danger that something could slip out to the press at a later date. Not straight away, obviously. But we’ll still have your best interests at heart, so every so often it’ll be worth us checking in with you … just to ensure that it’s a false alarm.’

Dean nodded. It was unbearable of course, but he had no choice.

‘Okay.’ Trenchcoat’s tone lightened, almost became friendly. ‘Well, that’s it. There’s nothing else to discuss. We’ll be in touch shortly, about how and when this needs to happen.’

He turned and walked away, Hatchet Nose going with him. But the larger, bearded individual remained, hovering like an ape in the half-darkness – before lurching forward, coming close to Dean, nose to nose.

‘You got off easy,’ he grunted. ‘No one on this fucking planet thinks you and those other prima donnas are worth the fortune you earn. You may reckon they love you, superstar, but don’t be fooled. Away from the footy ground, if half of them saw you lying in a gutter burning, they’d rescue your wallet before even thinking about calling the Fire Brigade.’

Then he turned and lumbered away too, vanishing into the gloom.