Chapter 314: The Top II

At 5 we stopped at a petrol station outside Grantham. Raj went in to pay for diesel and ring Sunny, and I stood by the air machine in the cold and rang Felix.

"Yes," I said.

"Monday at 9," he said. "Have your laptop ready on Thursday."

I put the phone back in my pocket and stood by the air machine a minute longer, with the lorries going past on the A1 and the cold coming up through my shoes.

Raj came out with 2 coffees and his phone still in his hand.

"He will move mine tomorrow," he said. "Not his. He says I have gone soft."

It was a cold night at the Keepmoat. Our end was a block of breath in one corner, and they scored on 11 minutes when Braithwaite could not hold a shot from distance.

Just before half-time their centre-half rolled a back-pass that was never going to reach his keeper. Jamie was on it before either of them moved, round the keeper while he was still on his knees, and our corner went up, WHOOAH.

With 10 minutes left one of their midfielders went off for a second yellow card. 4 of ours stood and watched him walk the whole way to the tunnel.

Their full-back took a throw quickly, ran in behind all 4 of them for the return, and put it in off the inside of the near post, ping.

Sadler stood in the corridor afterwards with his back against the wall by the physio’s door.

"The 4 who stood still," he said. "My office, 9 o’clock Monday. One at a time."

Raj drove me home through the night with a football phone-in on the radio till we lost the signal near Huntingdon. 19 points from 16. We were back on the sea front by 2.

On the Monday at 9 Felix rang my mobile while I was in Maureen’s office.

"740," he said. "Fixed."

"Fixed."

"Thursday."

The solicitor in the City sent the confirmation at 11. The fax machine in Maureen’s office pushed it out, whirr, and she read it twice and locked it in her drawer.

CONFIRMATION · Monday 25 November 2013 Purchaser: a private client, Hong Kong · Seller: S. Mercer Price fixed at 09:00 GMT: 740 US dollars, paid in sterling Amount: 2,000,000 pounds, into the account of Tilbrook Town FC Ltd on Thursday 28 November, on delivery

On the Thursday morning, while we waited for Felix, Maureen read it off her screen.

"It went through 1,000 in Tokyo yesterday."

She wrote 1,000 in pencil at the edge of her blotter, next to the 740 she had written there on Monday, and drew a line between them.

Felix rang at 10. "They are in," he said. "Send."

I sent it from Maureen’s spare chair. Margaret stood at the window. Maureen did the post.

At 20 past 12 Maureen pointed at a new line on her screen.

"2,000,000," she said. "Felix’s solicitor again."

By the Friday the footings for Robbie’s block were dug out inside the fence panels, and the scholars had stopped filming it and started arguing about which changing room would be theirs.

The quiet man’s last call of the month came that morning, at the usual time.

"That is the 10, Mr Mercer," he said. "Do you want me next week?"

"No. That is the last."

"Then I will wait for you to ring."

His 10th morning landed at 10 to 11. Maureen took the folded sheet out of the back of the green book, flattened it on her desk and wrote the last 2 lines under the others.

"The quiet man, 10 mornings. 1,000,000. Hong Kong. 2,000,000." She drew the line and added it up. "7,000,000."

She looked at the figure she had written at the top in June, and at the one at the bottom.

"In June I did not think I would ever write anything under that line," she said. "The steel and the stand together are 6,951,000. 49,000 over."

"What do you want to do with 49,000?"

"Keep it for May. There will be something we have not thought of." She folded the sheet and put it in the file with the steel order.

Then she tilted her other screen towards me.

"It says here that one of them was worth more than an ounce of gold today," she said. "At the top of the day. 1,242, in Tokyo."

In the life before, after that winter, one of them was not worth more than an ounce of gold again until March 2017. For most of those years it was worth less than half what it was that Friday.

At 1,242, the coin I had fixed at 740 on the Monday was worth more than 3 million pounds.

Margaret had come through from her office.

"One more piece," she said. "At this price it is Craig’s wages to the end of next season."

"No."

"Not even one?"

"I said I would sell for the block and the steel and the stand. I am not selling for the price."

She wrote on her pad: Chairman declined to sell further.

The trust came to see the stand that night, 40 of them, in the boardroom in 2 sittings.

Margaret had the engineer’s card model on the table, with the clear plastic roof on its matchsticks and the new columns under it in white card. Beside it she had put a sheet of paper with 2 figures on it, the steel and the stand, and IN THE ACCOUNT written under each.

Ted sat at the end of the table nearest the model. He leaned in close to it.

"Is that the roof we have got now?" he said.

"The same roof. Higher, and further back."

"Good," said Ted. "I like that roof."

Kelly’s lad stood at Ted’s shoulder in his school coat and counted the rows in the middle behind the goal with his fingernail, under his breath.

Priya had her list with her, 4 pages now, held together with a bulldog clip. 214 names had rung in for a piece of the old end. People turned the pages to look for names they knew. A woman found her brother’s name on the second page and ran her finger along it.

When the second sitting was in, she said her piece.

"A car dealer on the Southend road will pay 60,000 a year to put his name on the new end. For 10 years. That is 600,000, Sam. Ask them."

"No," I said. "It stays the Bovril End."

"It is 3 months of a player every year."

"Yes. It is. And it stays the Bovril End."

Terry Brennan was by the door. "Good," he said.

A man in a postman’s jacket, with his cap in his hand, asked where the money had come from.

"It is the chairman’s money, put in as shares," Margaret said. "None of it is a loan. The bank will write to say it is there, and you can read that in my office on Monday."

"I can see it is there," the man said. "I would like to know where the chairman got it."

Ted turned his head and looked at me. Danny wrote it down.

"From something I paid for a long time ago, out of my savings," I said. "I sold it this autumn, a piece at a time."

"Sold what, Mr Mercer?"

"Things I had held for years."

"The trust holds the share," he said. "If the money comes from somewhere, we should be allowed to see where. I am not saying anything else."

"Monday at 9," said Margaret. "My office."

The second sitting got up, scrrk, chairs going back all round the table, and went out talking in the corridor.

Danny took a picture of the model for the Gazette on his way out, pop, and the flash went off in the plastic roof.

Margaret put her coat on when the boardroom had emptied. She stood by the door with her bag over her arm.

"He will be at my door at 9 on Monday," she said. "What do I show him?"

The solicitor’s letter was 11 pages long, and the coin was on nearly every one of them. What could she show a postman that was true, and not the whole of it?