Final Whistle Read online

  Final Whistle

  An Alex Carter Novel

  J Jackson Bentley

  Published by Fidus Publishing at Smashwords

  Copyright 2011 Fidus Publishing

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Write to Fidus Publishing at: Fidus Books, PO Box 304, Rossendale, BB4 0FP

  Email us at: [email protected]

  Visit the company website below for information on current and future publications

  http://www.fidusbooks.co.uk

  Cover Design by Altered Images, original photo by Brent Flanders altered and used under Creative Commons License Deed/attribution see license at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/proforged

  CHAPTER 1

  It was no surprise to me that Roy Bennett died young. It was, however, a shock to see him blown to pieces before my very eyes.

  I had walked out onto the sidewalk from the Hotel lobby with a group of friends, talking and laughing. Roy squeezed my shoulder as he walked by.

  “Goodnight, Alex, take care,” he said his easy, friendly manner warming me as it did everyone he spoke to. I smiled and touched his arm as he departed. I watched him as he crossed the road to his parked car. Often drunk at this time of night, the former soccer star had shown great willpower by drinking nothing stronger than Perrier. He opened the door to the shiny BMW which bore his personal number plate and climbed inside. I raised my hand in salute to the apparently robust, secretly fragile figure. In many respects I felt sorry for him. He had a thousand friends and yet he was still the loneliest man I knew.

  Roy Bennett smiled and waved, as he turned the ignition key and blew himself up.

  ************

  The blast was at the same time deafening and yet curiously muffled. The harsh thunderous explosion I might have expected simply did not happen. An invisible wave of immense pressure forced me back against the wall, forcing air into my face. My nostrils flared and my cheeks puffed out until they became painful. Then, as quickly as the air hit me, it was sucked away again and I felt my lungs voiding. Gasping for breath I watched as the car lifted and rocked before settling down onto its still inflated tyres. The formerly clear windows were now blackened and bulbous, ballooned out by the forces present within the saloon. Surprisingly, only the windscreen was blown out entirely and it lay frosted and misshapen on the bonnet, like some dead lifeform with a tail of neoprene.

  Within a second the scene changed from chaos and noise to a surreal and eerie quiet, which was so unnatural it unnerved me. Breath came more easily now and people started to look at each other in puzzlement, but only after checking themselves for signs of injury. Miraculously, or so it seemed then, no one else was hurt. Most of us stood frozen to the spot. I tried to move but my body refused to obey the message sent from my brain. Brian, the doorman, was first to the car. He looked inside and slowly removed the smart grey and red overcoat so prevalent among London’s commissionaires. The old soldier laid the coat gently, perhaps even reverently over the driver’s side of the windscreen and shook his head from side to side.

  Brian had seen carnage and dismemberment before and he stood guard over the wretched scene to prevent others from seeing what was left of Roy, and thereby suffering the same vivid nightmares that had plagued his earlier years. Sirens sounded in the distance, getting ever louder and ever closer.

  ************

  I sat on a hard, but allegedly padded, chair in the famous West End Police Station finalising my brief, factual statement on the death of my long standing friend. The interview room was painted and carpeted in calming pastel shades but it failed to have a settling effect on me. A complete absence of windows gave the room a claustrophobic atmosphere, enhanced by the stale body odours that had insidiously pervaded the furnishings and consequently hung heavily in the air, despite vain attempts to mask it with air freshener. The vinyl leatherette that covered the desk top was pock marked with tiny craters of melted plastic where cigarettes had carelessly or maliciously been stubbed out. This was not a place to be spending the early hours of the morning, especially when the evening had been so celebratory. I looked at my watch, a twenty pound gift from my daughter that was more valuable to me than my Rolex. It was almost two in the morning.

  My statement outlined the important parts of the Roy Bennett story but it left out so much of the man to whom I was once a close friend. Trying to concentrate I cast my mind back to the early evening of yesterday. I had to remind myself that the whole grisly incident had taken place only a few hours before.

  Having been voted ‘Footballer of the Year’ in the previous year, I was assigned a privileged seat at the top table. Sitting amongst men who run football, both the famous and the blandly anonymous, I listened to the after dinner remarks of former soccer wild man Roy Bennett.

  Roy Bennett was a child of the Seventies but his era was undoubtedly the Nineties. In his prime he had been adored by screaming teenage girls with an intensity usually reserved for pop stars. An idol to those who avidly supported football, he was equally familiar to those with no interest in the game whatsoever. With his handsome features and his long hair styled to perfection he played his stylish and skilful soccer alongside those other icons of his era; Paul Gascoigne, Tony Adams and Glenn Hoddle. Unquestionably talented, he was sought after both on and off the pitch. He gained increasing stardom in the world of men’s fashion in a era before WAG’s were footballers favourite fashion accessories. Roy Bennett was famous and his face beamed out from every magazine and tabloid newspaper as if to confirm it.

  Overpaid, and only tolerated by his directors because of his precocious talent, he was seldom seen without a famous model on his arm. In desperation his club chairman tried to buy his loyalty by partnering him in a local wine bar. It proved to be a poor decision. Within days of opening, Bennetts was considered the ‘in place’ to be and Roy could always be found there propping up the bar, even on the nights before a big match. Soon Roy was spending more time on his social life than on his career. Missed training sessions became the rule rather than the exception and eventually he walked out on his club just before he was thrown out.

  Roy spent some time playing in the US, first embracing and then fighting alcohol addiction. He tried to make a top level comeback with a loan spell in Italy but sadly it ended when a sympathetic judge encouraged him to enter a drug rehabilitation centre for treatment after a street fight. Over the intervening years Roy played in charity matches and testimonials, always able to attract a large, if curious, crowd. Now he was back amongst his peers as a self deprecating and entertaining after dinner speaker.

  As he finished speaking the gathered good and great of soccer stood and gave him a warm ovation. Roy grinned widely at their approbation and made modest but insincere remarks about the inadequacy of his presentation. He saw me clapping and smiled. When the clamour died down he sought me out.

  “Alex Carter, as I live and breathe. How are you?”

  “Very well, thank you Roy,” I replied.

  He paused and appeared to be searching for a word or a phrase. He found it and blurted it out.

  “I was devastated to hear about V
icki.”

  He reached out and touched my arm in a compassionate show of feeling. I looked directly at him and was deeply touched. There was real distress behind the clear steel grey eyes. It was Roy who had introduced me to my late wife almost ten years previously. It was also Roy who persuaded me that I should continue to pursue her, even when I was ready to give up. If nothing else I owed Roy Bennett a debt of gratitude that I could never repay. I owed him for nine years of exquisite joy with my lovely wife.

  “I’m fine now,” I lied as I found my voice. After eight months the trauma of my loss was almost as great as the day she passed away and left me alone. Counselling had helped, as had getting on with my life. But, every now and then a stray memory would pierce my soul like a sharp knife, and the pain and sadness would encapsulate me like a shroud, until I was strong enough to cast it off once more.

  We talked for a while, recollecting the days when I was the apprentice responsible for cleaning his boots. We recalled the dark days when, dropped from the youth team, I wanted to give it all up only to find this so called ‘prima donna’ spending hour after hour coaching me until I regained my confidence, and my place in the team. We worked our way back to the present and Roy promised that he would soon repay the two hundred pounds he had borrowed some months before. I believed him. He always paid me back before asking to borrow twice as much next time. The President was beckoning him and so we shook hands. As we parted I wished him luck with his speaking career and all the best for the future, not knowing that he had no future at all.

  I watched my mentor and teenage hero as he made great play of refusing his cheque, only to allow himself to be persuaded before taking it greedily and tucking it safely into his embarrassingly empty wallet.

  I could see how someone might become frustrated with Roy, how he would annoy them with his constantly broken promises. But how could anyone kill this sporting Peter Pan whose only real crime was to refuse to grow up and behave like an adult?

  *************

  I was shaken from my nostalgic reverie by the interview room door being opened. The gangly young detective who entered almost had to bow his head to get through the doorway before taking his place. He was sitting down in front of me when he spoke.

  “Apparently it was an improvised explosive device,” he said, stating the obvious. “In terrorist terms it was very small but it was placed directly under the driver’s seat.”

  He took the papers I had in front of me on the desk.

  “Let me read your statement out to you and if you are happy with it you can go,” he continued.

  The next ten minutes were spent reading and editing my statement and once I had signed where instructed the young detective rose, effectively dismissing me. I felt that I needed the answer to the question that burned inside of me and so I asked,

  “Who did this and why?” I heard the pleading tone in my own voice. The young man sat down, looked at me kindly, smiled weakly and shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t really know, but it’s rumoured that he had reneged on some pretty heavy debts.”

  “Debt collectors don’t kill people,” I responded.

  “These ones do,” he said solemnly. “Mr Bennett had large sums outstanding with some pretty nasty loan sharks.”

  “But where would a loan shark get the expertise to blow someone up?"

  He looked at me, clearly wondering how much I should know.

  “Listen. Since the Good Friday Agreement, the bomber’s hard earned skills have been made redundant. They simply don’t know anything else and we think they may be selling their skills on the open market.”

  There was a period of silence as I absorbed the information.

  “Roy’s loan shark may not have been paid on time but by killing him they have guaranteed that they won’t get paid at all,” I said, still puzzled.

  “Perhaps not,” he whispered. “But when the word gets around, a lot of their other customers will be keen to pay up as soon as they can.”

  I stood up. I was finished here. It was a different world and I was a stranger in it. It was a world where men callously took a human life and extinguished it to set an example. I felt a growing revulsion for the men who loved money more than life. The young detective held out his hand, I shook it and walked out of the room into a long grey corridor.

  I numbly glanced at the coat hanging over my arm and decided to wear it for the short walk to the hotel. As I was slipping it on, I caught sight of a grey haired man staring at me from the office opposite. His face was strained and taut with concentration, he wore a bright tartan lumberjack shirt and bore all the signs of someone who had just been dragged out of bed. He saw me looking and slowly closed the venetian blinds until I could no longer see into the room.

  Stepping out from the overheated building the cold night air chilled me. I pulled my coat tightly around me, as much for comfort as for warmth. There was a BMW parked on the far side of the road and I was reminded of my old friend Roy. My eyes filled with tears, perhaps it was the cold.

  CHAPTER 2

  The hot Lanzarote sun warmed my skin as I lay on the straw beach mat and massaged sun cream into the golden back of the famous model who was my wife. She turned over to face me, lifting herself off the mat and pulling herself up onto her knees. She swept back straying wisps of long blonde hair with finely boned and delicate hands. Her eyes twinkled with mischief. As she thrust her perfect bosom towards me she began to loosen the yellow bikini top that restrained her full breasts.

  “Now for the front,” she said provocatively.

  “No,” I shouted a little too loudly, retying her strap. She laughed at my embarrassment, no doubt wondering why I was so bashful when all around us every other woman was sunbathing topless.

  “Prude,” she teased, grinning widely.

  “I want you all to myself,” I said, meaning it. She leaned over me pressing her sweetly fragranced body onto mine. I put my arms around her and she kissed me hard on the lips. Her delicate tongue teased mine as the familiar cooling breeze crept in from the ocean to stir fine grains of sand up all around us. Vicki pushed herself up onto her knees again, pinning my arms into the soft beach. I stared in awe, as always, at the perfect symmetry of her face, partly curtained by the golden hair translucent in the bright afternoon sun. She looked so beautiful and so serene against the background of gently swaying green palm leaves.

  “Come on,” she said, leaping up, her lean athletic body breaking into a jog. “Let’s swim.”

  I watched her, lithe and long legged, lope towards the inky blue sea. She turned and beckoned to me. I clambered to my feet and ran after her. She had become silhouetted against the shimmering water and the glistening rocks. She ran into the sea, lifting her legs high to maintain her momentum until it became impossible and she was obliged to wade into the deeper water. I followed closely behind and she shrieked like a schoolgirl as I closed on her. Vicki turned and splashed the cold water over the warm, dry parts of my body making the breath rush from my lungs. I gasped and grabbed her, we both fell down into the water, giggling and laughing. When we came to the surface again her hair was flat against her scalp and salt water washed down the contours of her face. She blinked droplets of water away and her eyes softened.

  “I love you” she said. Suddenly I felt strange, without moving she appeared to be receding in the distance like some artistic movie shot. Within a couple of seconds it was like looking at her through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. As she receded into the distance I cried out to her.

  “Vicki, Vicki....”

  My croaky words reflected back at me from the bedroom wall as the vision transfigured from dream to reality. The dream was life with Vicki, full of loving, full of hope. Reality was a twenty nine year old widower fighting a desire to join his wife in oblivion. I hadn’t had that nightmare for some time. It must have been prompted by the brief encounter with death I had experienced just two nights ago.

  I picked up the photograph of my wife that I kept on the
bedside table and looked into the untroubled eyes. Even the imminent threat of death had failed to quell her spirit. I had relived every minute of that last holiday a thousand times, as they cut away parts of her sculpted body to eliminate the cancer. But it was too late and all too soon she lost her hair and then her life, and I could do nothing. That was the hard part, watching her die and feeling so helpless.

  “Dad, are you decent?” a voice piped from the door. I looked down to remind myself that I was wearing pyjama trousers.

  “Yes, come on in.” A fifteen year old clone of my late wife bounded across the carpet and leapt onto the bed. Throwing the continental quilt over herself, she snuggled down with her arm across my stomach. Her head was resting on my chest. Without looking up she spoke.

  “I heard you calling Mum’s name again.” She fell silent, waiting for a reaction.

  “Mmm, you did. It was only a dream.” She held me tightly.

  “I miss her too.” There was a pause. “But now we’ve got each other and that will have to do.” The matter of fact intonation was too strained to ring true.

  “Dad,” she went on. “Tell me about when you and Mum met.”

  I had rehearsed the story to her a thousand times since she was small. It was her favourite story. I looked down at her and she was like a little child again. I knew that she wanted the story because it always cheered me up too and I admired her precocious amateur psychology.

  “OK, if you insist.” I crooked my arm around her shoulders and felt her body relax as I related the romance almost word for word.