CHAPTER 14
There was no sign of Kyle Guernsey or Drew Heseltine.
I stood up and stretched my legs, walking back and forth the short width of the room.
Frustrated at their tardiness, I pulled up my contacts and called Kyle.
“Ma'am,” he said.
“Kyle, where are you?” I demanded.
“We're in my office, ma'am.”
“I'm in my office, Kyle.”
“We're waiting for you.”
“The meeting was set for my office,” I insisted. “I'm waiting for you.”
But Kyle had already hung up.
I stood, swiped my phone into my purse and stomped out the door, already rattled.
I brought my stilettos to a stop outside Kyle's office, my mind weighed with memories of times behind that door with the previous occupant.
I knocked, then entered without invitation.
Kyle was stood with another man, a long-haired individual. “Ms Liu,” Kyle began, “this is Drew.”
“Drew Heseltine,” the man said, holding out his hand.
I was struck with how familiar he looked, yet I couldn't quite place him. “Hi, Drew,” I said, and threw out my hand.
He shook it. Firmly.
I was pleased when he released it, and saw how my hand was shaking. Not from the handshake, but from something instinctual about this man. My alarm bells were ringing. And loud.
“I'm pleased you could make it,” he said. “It's a relief to finally meet you.”
I noticed two newspapers on Kyle's desk, both open on articles relating to the club. One revolved around a photo of DeShaun and I coming back from our holiday. The other suggested protests over my ownership may be set to return.
“I see you've been away,” Drew added.
Where did I know his face from?
“Yes,” Kyle said. “Well, Ms Liu's back now.” He sounded uncomfortable too. “Perhaps we should get down to business.”
Drew made no move to sit.
Kyle uneasily clicked his tongue. “Ma'am, perhaps you'd like to start.”
I found myself lost for words.
“You asked for the meeting, ma'am.”
“I wanted to meet your new assistant, Kyle,” I said. “Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself, Drew?”
He shrugged. “What do you want to know?”
“What's your background?”
He looked at me in a manner which barely masked revulsion. “I've lived in Broxburgh all my life.”
I tried to reason that was why he seemed familiar, guessing we were of similar ages. “What's your managerial background?”
“Youth level, mainly.”
“Mainly?”
He looked at me, as if he wanted to look through me.
Kyle parted his palms. “His credentials are quite extraordinary, ma'am. He's worked within the community for close to twenty years. He's very respected among locals.”
I stared back at Drew. “Is this your first job in professional football?”
His demeanour was so relaxed. “Has Broxburgh turned professional, Kyle?”
I felt my body tense from my heightened heels to my calves, to my hips and to my chest, flooding with anxiety at the rudeness of this man.
“We will be next season,” Kyle said, pausing to take a drink of water. “As you've seen in training, we already have several professionals on our books.”
The sound of the old stand outside being demolished reverberated around the room.
“Does the terms of turning professional depend on Broxburgh's league status next season?” Drew asked.
Neither Kyle nor I spoke.
“In other words, does it depend on promotion?”
“We'll be professional, regardless,” I said.
Drew grunted. “I don't think the players should know this. It might demotivate them in regards to the promotion push.”
“Agreed,” Kyle said.
“And I've witnessed enough demotivation in my time here already.”
I felt like a bystander as this stranger dissected both my personal and professional lives.
“Kyle and I'll take care of any concerns you might have there,” he said.
“Starting today, training will be more rigorous and competition for places in the starting line-up more competitive. From now on, no-one will be guaranteed a start. Too many of these players have been resting on their laurels.”
Kyle nodded, yet looked down.
Drew ran his hand through his long hair. “But that was the old regime, things are different now.”
I looked at Kyle.
He glimpsed my glance, then shied away.
“Yes,” I said. “It's a new start.”
Kyle dug his hands into his pockets.
Drew checked his watch, then turned as if to leave. “We should probably get to training.”
I turned too.
There were no footsteps following behind me.
My heels clicked on the floor. “Good to meet you, Drew,” I said, looking back. “Kyle.”
“Ma'am.”
Drew nodded.
I walked out, and pulled the door over but not shut behind me as realisation dawned that Drew hadn't once addressed me as Ms Liu, ma'am or as anything at all. Paranoid or not, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone in that room – whether it was myself or Kyle – had just got hustled.
“Okay?” I overheard Kyle say inside his office.
Drew grunted.
“It's fine.”
“Tell me,” Drew started quietly, “do you think she recognises me?”
I was frozen on the spot.
Neither spoke.
I felt I had to go back in and confront them. I hadn't just taken back control from Joe to hand it over to some unknown outsider.
My mobile rang suddenly in my purse. For once, it wasn't on silent. I raced to answer it, digging it out from amongst the rest of my purse's contents. Then stopped.
Joe was calling me.
I hadn't heard from him since I'd thrown him out. I hadn't expected to either. And this really wasn't the time to answer.
“Sasha,” said a male voice, exiting the physio's room just next to me.
I looked up and saw Blair McKay. “Oh, hi.” I cursed myself immediately for expressing the same rudeness I'd just taken offence to from Drew.
The door to Kyle's office opened.
I silenced Joe's call and slipped my phone back into my purse.
Kyle and Drew acted like they hadn't expected me to still be standing here.
“How's Jill?” I asked, ploughing straight into the awkwardness and ignoring the other two.
Kyle and Drew walked between us and down the corridor.
Blair half-turned to watch them. “She's worried.”
“Oh no, what's happened?”
He looked to me again. “She's worried about you, Sasha.”
I forced on my bravest face. “I'm fine, Blair. I miss Jill... Do you think she'd be ready to talk if I phoned her?”
He pursed his lips. “Jesus, Sasha, you know her well, but no one knows her better than me. Even I don't understand what happened between you two, I just know she doesn't want to speak to you. I'm sorry, I don't want that to cause any hassle between us.”
“It won't,” I insisted, yet I felt like it already had. “Listen, Blair, you're captain. I'm sorry to put you in an awkward position...”
“But?”
“Do the players blame DeShaun?”
He ran his hand over the back of his neck, his face all scrunched up. “I'm not gonna lie to you, it's a bit of a mess.”
“They shouldn't, Blair. What Joe did, telling the media about him and I being together on live TV, was wrong. We were about to split up.”
“You were?”
“Yes. He just used DeShaun as a fall guy.”
“But the papers, Sasha?”
I felt my body tense up again. “Yes, DeShaun and I are together... Now.”
He looked away from me, as if he couldn't look me in my eye when I lied.
“We're trying to take things slow... He hasn't even been to my house... Yet.”
Blair cast his glance down the corridor as Kyle and Drew turned out of sight. “There's something you should know,” he said. “That new guy...”
“Drew Heseltine?”
“Yeah... Jill saw him last week.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She recognised him.”
Oh my God. “Where from, Blair?”
He cleared his throat. “You remember you two went clubbing in Glasgow at Hogmanay?”
I nodded, remembering well how it was the night she'd drank while unknowingly pregnant and how she blamed me for her miscarriage.
“She says she saw Drew with Kyle that night. She placed him instantly from his long hair.”
“I guess it is quite distinctive,” I said, recalling how Jill had told me the next morning Kyle had witnessed me leave with David and that he'd been with another guy. A guy with long hair.
“We thought you should know.”
“We?” I asked, reasoning I'd probably seen Drew at some stage that evening and that was why he seemed familiar.
“She still cares about you, Sasha.” He tapped his foot on the floor. “Listen, I'd better get going. Training.”
“Okay, Blair, good luck for Saturday.”
He exhaled through his nostrils. “That's if they even pick me.”
I watched him jog off down the corridor.
That's if they even pick me.
He was our captain. Yes, he'd injured DeShaun and, yes, he'd been sent off and suspended for four matches. And, yes, I'd argued with Joe about why he shouldn't be picked. But something about the way he said they, implied so much about Kyle and Drew's roles. Perhaps about Drew's, in particular.
I might've been able to place him, but so much about him still niggled me.
“No way,” I said firmly.
“Where better to get your viewpoint across?” he suggested.
“Eddie, seriously, DeShaun and I are not doing an interview with you. These things have nothing to do with the club. It was a mistake for me to sit down with Joe in my house for the last one.”
“I can't change your mind?”
“No, sorry. You'll have to find something else for your feature this week.”
“Okay, Ms Liu, no worries.”
I ended the call, then looked over the dashboard to Willie McGlinchey's house. I'd already tried the front door and no one had answered. It was a pity, I really could've done with some of his wife's moral support about now.
I started the engine and drove off.
I parked the car at the bottom of a path which led to an old, derelict fort. I got out and started to walk up, hoping to clear my head.
Yet my thoughts only became more clouded the higher I got.
I looked at my mobile again, wondering why DeShaun had been so quiet, and returned to the list of my missed calls.
Joe's stood out as the only one I hadn't returned.
I didn't know if I was about to do something daft, but I hit call.
It rang for several seconds.
I considered hanging up, reasoning he may well have been drinking all night and phoned me early while still drunk. Considerably drunk.
“Hello,” he said, sounding sober.
“Hi, Joe.”
A gust of wind blew my precious hair out of place.
“How are you?” I asked.
“Like you'd fucking care.”
I sighed. “Joe, was there a point-”
“I saw the photos in the paper of you and Wilkesboro coming back from your holiday!”
I could see the fort in the distance.
“How d'you think that makes me fucking feel, eh? It wasn't enough that you let him fuck you in the hotel in Broxburgh, you had to swan off together to Portugal, then come back to show him off to the paparazzi?”
“Joe, it wasn't like that.”
“Oh yeah, sure. They just happened to be there. You forget I know you, Sasha. I know you learnt how to manipulate the media years ago in your modelling days in Thailand and everywhere else you took your kit off.”
“Right, Joe, I'm going. I don't have to listen to this-”
“Wait, I'm not done.”
“Joe, you've ten seconds and then I'm hanging up.”
“I've been thinking about how you sacked me, going on Twitter and making it all official.”
“Yes, Joe.”
“You wouldn't have done it if I hadn't uncovered your affair.”
“Joe, I didn't have an affair-”
“You already admitted he was fucking you!”
“Right, Joe, that's about ten seconds-”
“Wait.”
My thumb was hovering over the button.
“Sasha, I think I might have a case for unfair dismissal.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You were the one who cheated. And if you hadn't, I'd still be your employee.”
I felt a tension headache rolling in to set up shop with all the tension in the rest of my body.
“So, d'you wanna make me an offer to stop this thing going to court?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Joe, are you kidding?”
“I'm deadly serious.”
“You're unbelievable. No, Joe. The answer's no. Your dismissal was long overdue. Don't you read the papers?”
“Yeah, I saw you and DeShaun splashed all over them yesterday morning.”
I started walking again, shaking my head.
“Make me an offer, Sasha.”
“No.”
“Don't you even want to hear what I want?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I'll tell you-”
“Joe, tell me this, do you know a guy called Drew Heseltine?”
“Why?”
I hesitated.
“Oh, wait a minute... So, it's started then?”
“What?”
“Kyle's running your club into the ground. Don't say I didn't warn you, Sasha.”
“Joe, wait, I'm sorry about what happened. Really, I am. Can you just tell me if Kyle's maybe got himself in trouble somehow? Like, would he owe money to someone? For gambling or anything like that?”
“No.”
“No, he hasn't? Or, no, you won't tell me?”
Joe ended the call.