FALLEN IDOLS

‘The lab coats have been looking at the hairs,’ he continued, his voice deliberate. ‘It’s too early for a DNA analysis, although they have promised to prioritise it. However, they have had the chance to examine the hairs, and they have made some findings.’

The rest of the squad looked expectant.

Tom looked around, almost as if going for the drama, before he continued.

‘The analysis carried out suggests one thing.’ He paused, sighed, and then raised his eyebrows.

He said it simply, but it made it no less surprising. He looked around the room, into the eyes of everyone, and then said, ‘The shooter is a woman.’

When David Watts stepped away from the lurid sofas of breakfast television, away from the glare of the lights and into the grubby darkness behind the line of cameras, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He winced when he saw the caller ID.

He thought about not answering, but then just like he always did, he clicked the answer button.

‘Morning, Karen.’

‘David, you were wonderful. Just the right amount of remorse. Not too gushy. You don’t want to be embarrassed by this in a year’s time.’

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ he answered, although he didn’t sound grateful.

‘Exposure, exposure. You can never get enough.’

He took the phone away from his ear, not wanting to hear her obsession with his earning power. She had told him too often that she wanted to earn enough so that she could retire at thirty. She was only a year away from that, but David couldn’t see her retiring. She loved the power games too much. And from what he had heard, she loved the footballer parties too much as well.

When he was far enough from the studio microphones, he put the phone back to his ear and said, ‘Someone died, Karen. You’re coming across like a vulture. And if you do, I might come across the same.’

‘Bullshit. You’re the face of football for the next few days. I’ve spoken to the major news networks, and I’ve promised them you’ll be interviewed whenever they request, just to give the players’ perspective.’

‘Why me, for Christ’s sake?’

‘Because you’re one of the few footballers who can string a proper sentence together. And because you’re the most senior English footballer living in the capital. They can have a camera round at your apartment in no time, and you can make it into the studio.’

He sighed. He felt like he was being dragged under by the current.

‘You’ve got some sponsorships coming up for renewal at the end of this season. You’ll be twenty-nine by then, maybe only a couple of seasons left in an England shirt, and companies will shy away from a long investment. It’ll do you no harm if you’re an English saint by the end of the season.’

‘I thought you were going away for a few days,’ he said, sounding irritated.

She laughed. He pulled the phone away from his ear, grimacing. Then he heard her say, ‘I am, but I’ll stay in touch. And by the time I return, you’ll be a fucking hero.’

And you’ll be getting richer, he thought, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned off his phone and wondered whether this was what he had dreamed about when he was a child, when he was sticking his Panini stickers in the albums or shouting at the hand of God as it sent England out of the World Cup. It was supposed to be about football, that’s all.

Laura was as surprised as anyone. A woman? Women don’t kill like that. If women kill violently, they do it out of passion, like a woman who catches her partner in bed with someone else. Laura remembered that sickening rage herself. If women kill cold-bloodedly, they do it quietly, non-violently. Women kill out of passion or greed. Like nurses who overdose their patients, or the scheming old widows who poison every new rich man they meet. Passion or greed, but not a cold-blooded assassination.

‘Are they sure?’ Laura heard herself ask, and felt the eyes of the room on her.

Tom looked at her. Thankfully, he smiled.

‘The answer is no, they cannot be sure, not yet. The lab should know by tomorrow, but the early indicators are that it is a woman. It is long, blonde, but treated. It’s been straightened recently. It has all the characteristics of a female hair, but they have still got some more tests to run on it.’

Laura thought she knew what they would be. The DNA would confirm it, but they would also do a sex chromatin test, as the results would be cheaper to obtain, and quicker.

‘Woman scorned?’ someone shouted from the side of the room. Some people laughed, but Laura noticed that Tom didn’t.

‘We might have to consider that.’

‘But what about the gay angle?’ came another shout. The meeting was turning into what Tom wanted, an exchange of ideas. ‘Dumas was in a pretty gay part of town. Is that something to do with it?’

Tom considered how to answer that, and he did it by walking over to a television and turning it on.

‘We’ve got the evidence from Dumas’s phone,’ he said. ‘There are some texts.’ He went back to where he had left his papers. He shuffled through them until he found what he was looking for. ‘They make interesting reading, and for now we want the press off them.’

He looked down at the piece of paper he was holding, and then began to read from them. There were some giggles, some chuckles. They were intimate, sexual. And it was immediately apparent that Dumas was having affairs with a number of women around the country.

The worst part was the names given by Dumas in his phone address book. It wasn’t by name, but by location, as if he had ready company wherever he played. Liverpool. Manchester. Newcastle. And the texts these women sent made it clear that he had slept with them. Sometimes they weren’t alone. Laura felt that she was learning more than she needed to know about the sex life of a footballer.

‘How do we know these people are women?’ said a voice. As Laura looked, she saw it was the same person as before, pursuing the gay angle.

Tom gave a small smile. ‘My eyes are getting old, but there’s no mistaking some of these.’

And then he pressed play on a machine below the television.

‘These are all the pictures and video files from his phone.’

The room went silent as the screen lit up with images. Then Laura could hear nervous shuffling as Tom scrolled through them.

‘This is Manchester.’ And onto the screen came a young brunette, shapely and naked. She was smiling, and it would have looked almost innocent had she not been naked and with her legs open for the camera.

‘And this is Newcastle,’ and it was much more of the same, except that there were pictures of her with a man, presumably Dumas. ‘There’s some moving footage of her,’ and then Tom flicked onto some grainy footage of a blonde rolling around on a bed, giggling and laughing, enjoying the party.

Then Tom grew serious. ‘We have pictures and some movies for every contact in his address book, and we can see the face of every one, and we have a number for every one.’ Tom flicked forward to a picture of a naked girl. ‘Except for this girl.’

As everyone looked at the image, Laura could sense the tension in the room.

The image was of a naked woman, explicit and sexual, the image just from the shoulders down, her legs open, a sex toy in her hand. Laura guessed she was older than a teenager; her body was well-formed, with good shoulders and strong legs, but she didn’t have the spread of a woman in her thirties. The skin was still young and taut; it was obvious that she looked after herself.

‘We think these are more of the same woman,’ and more images flashed onto the screen. They were all similar, except that sometimes the sex toy was being used, sometimes it wasn’t.

Laura thought there was something mechanical about the pictures, compared to the others. The other pictures were of young women having a good time, either posing for the camera or taking part with Dumas. It was a little black book, in digital, and it seemed that Dumas never went lonely. But the headless girl stopped anyone from telling whether she was enjoying it or not, and her poses looked stiff, formal.

‘There’s some video footage as well,’ and Tom forwarded to some more grainy footage.

There were three sets, and it was obvious that this woman did not know she was being filmed. Laura guessed that she wouldn’t have said yes to it if Dumas had asked, and that made her different from the rest on the phone.

The first was footage looking down Dumas’s body, at the top of a blonde head, and it was obvious what she was doing, her head moving backwards and forwards in rhythm. It looked like Dumas had grabbed the chance for a memento while her eyes were engaged elsewhere.

The second was another shot down Dumas’s body, except this time the woman was facing away from him, on all fours, the rock of her body making it plain to everyone that they were having sex.

The third was less sexual, and it lasted the longest.