Neil White - FALLEN IDOLS

So, if there’s nothing going on, report the press watching nothing happening. I framed the collection of cameras and frustrated reporters against the luminous jackets of the police manning the tape. I ran off ten shots and then looked towards the crime scene. I wondered about the shooting, as if the answer might be pasted on a hoarding somewhere. I wondered about a crazed fan. I remembered queuing for an age in a February snowstorm a couple of years earlier for a signed autobiography of some England player I had once admired. An age in the snow for a ghost-written collection of anecdotes, a shake of the hand, and a rushed scrawl on the inside cover. How far was it from that to this?

I shut my eyes for a second and let the sounds drift in. I could hear sirens and car horns, movement from the streets nearby, the cordon choking up traffic for a mile all around, but nearer to me I sensed just anticipation, a poised stillness. It seemed strange to have that calm enveloping me. It didn’t seem like the city.

I needed a break. I looked around again. The tale of Henri Dumas would dominate the papers for the next week. There’d be no space for my hard-luck tales from the gutters of old London town.

I was about to sit down when I noticed that there were more police officers than before. I zoomed in on a group of people around a table, their hands on their hips, talking intently. I zoomed in more, just to make sure. When I had confirmed it to myself, I smiled. I didn’t need to stay up to get the story. It had just come to me.

FOUR

David Watts walked into his flat and paused to look in the mirror. He felt tired, still torn up by the Henri Dumas shooting. His eyes looked red.

He turned away and walked into the kitchen, going to the fridge to pull out a beer. The cap snapped off with a pop. At least he was alive.

He looked out of his window, his apartment on the top floor of a complex overlooking Chelsea Bridge, a glass and cedar block sandwiched between two bridges, with wooden boards lining a chrome balcony and sunshine streaming inside through large glass panels. The lucky ones get the Thames, the light. The others get Battersea Power Station.

David Watts, midfielder, the biggest football star in England. He had been on the other side of the city, at the training ground, when the news broke about Henri Dumas. The changing room was in shock when he left, queuing for the television cameras to make their feelings public. David hadn’t done that. He couldn’t find words for himself, so he wasn’t going to try for the cameras.

As he looked away from the river, he saw billboards, his own face gleaming back at him, the face of a new razor campaign. His trademark stubble was shaved on one half of his face, pink and clean, the other side dark and rough. On the hoarding next to him was Dumas, advertising sportswear with moody looks into the camera. He felt his stomach turn. He had met Dumas countless times, at award ceremonies, photo shoots, charity events. They had even gone drinking together after a game. Henri Dumas had been a good man.

He turned on the television, flicking through to Sky News, to footage of an armed police unit storming a building, shot from the news helicopter. Things were happening.

David turned round when he heard footsteps. He saw Emma standing there, dressed in one of his shirts, running a towel over her long hair.

‘I didn’t know you were around today,’ he said. He should have been pleased to see her, but the news about Dumas had left him feeling empty.

Emma smiled, her eyes full of regret. She walked over to him and put her arms around his chest. Her wet hair made a dark patch on his clothes. ‘I thought I had some time off and I didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘I don’t.’

She sighed. ‘One of the girls has called in sick, so I can’t stay.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I’m on the overnight to JFK, so I need to be back at Heathrow for six. I should get a quick turnaround though, so maybe I’ll only be gone for a couple of days.’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘Too long.’

She squeezed him and then pulled away.

David turned back round to the window, looking out over the river. Everything looked so perfect. He could see the trees of Battersea Park. The Thames slid past, moving slowly, catching sparkles of sunshine as it went.

Emma, the air stewardess. They’d met a few months earlier. She’d walked into a bar in her uniform, pulling a small black case behind her, cool and distant, that airline arrogance, smart and made-up, with a long, athletic body and trailing blonde hair. Most of all, she seemed unimpressed by his fame. That had been the attraction. He was young, good-looking and famous, and so he had done the easy sex circuit. But Emma had reminded him of how much he enjoyed the chase. He was a winner, and to win there has to be a contest.

‘I suppose you heard,’ said David.

Emma stopped drying her hair and put down her towel. ‘I heard.’

He exhaled and roughed-up his hair. ‘He was a decent bloke, you know, a good player.’ He bent down to put his beer on a table and then leant against the window.

‘What happens now?’ asked Emma.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe a minute’s silence on Saturday. They can’t cancel games; the season’s just started.’

‘Do you think you should play?’

‘No reason why not.’

‘Is it worth getting shot over?’

David bristled at that. He knew what the ‘it’ was. It was football. Just a game. David is paid for playing a game. He had heard that before, too many times.

‘It’s not about what’s worth getting shot over,’ David responded, his irritation showing. ‘It’s about me doing my job well. And that job gets me all of this.’ He waved his hand around the apartment, every room filled with designer furniture, every window looking out on one of the most expensive views in the city.

‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry.’

‘You got that right.’ He sighed, not wanting to argue. ‘Look, Emma, it’s a business, not a game.’

‘Should it be?’

David turned back to the window and picked up his beer, looking back down to the river. ‘No, maybe not.’

He sounded rueful. He remembered his childhood, when football wasn’t about money. It was about muddy shirts and the feel of the grass beneath your boots. Messing around with your friends, Saturday morning kickabouts, swapping cards.

‘If they cancel the games, come to my parents. They would love to meet you. My dad’s got a new boat and he’ll want to show it off.’

David nodded. ‘Maybe it’s time to say hello.’

He stayed by the window for a while, and then he turned around as Emma began to get ready, watching her shrug off his shirt so that she was naked. He turned back to the window. That’s what he’d miss when she was gone for a couple of days.

But then she’d be back and he’d get on a bus to the next away game, maybe a plane to Europe. That was their life. He played football. Emma flew around the world. When they connected, they made sparks, but most of the time it felt like they’d hardly met.

Most of all, he liked her because she was so unlike all the other players’ wives and girlfriends, who were greedy and predatory, all with a hunger in their eyes that frightened him. And it used to be just about money. Now it was a route to their own fame.

He looked out of the window and drank his beer. Emma was different. She avoided publicity. Didn’t ask for money. Hadn’t done a magazine shoot.

Maybe that’s why he liked her.

Laura was one of the first into the flat, Tom just behind her. When she saw the bodies, she stopped. She didn’t need to get any nearer to know that they were dead.

She stepped back out of the flat and blocked the way in. ‘We’re too late. Save it for crime scenes.’