out to the L’zuhl like that?’
‘Not me, that’s the main thing,’ I reiterated. Still, my realisation that the spy was real had somewhat dampened my mood. I’d been utterly convinced it was a ploy to get at me. Now I had to face up to the reality that my football club had in actuality been chucked on the scrapheap for legitimate reasons.
‘That really is it, then,’ Gerry said glumly, picking a strawberry from a cheesecake on the table. ‘If the spy is legit, we’re not getting our funding back.’
Later, as Gerry showed an appalled Gillian his taser battle scars, Rodway came over and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.
‘Gaffer,’ he said. ‘Are we still on for… for the plan we discussed? About getting out of here to move to that new club? Once the lockdown is lifted, I mean.’
This was something to which I’d been giving a great deal of thought myself during my incarceration – and seeing my lads huddled in the kitchen of my tiny flat to welcome me home had only confirmed and vindicated the decision I had privately made. (A decision which, by the way, was in no way influenced by the fact that Moyesie’s team had secured an emphatic midweek win in Galactic League D during my time inside and his job was suddenly less precarious than it had been.)
‘Palangonia is our home, Rodway,’ I said. ‘We can’t walk away from what we’ve built here.’
‘But—’
‘I’ll admit I got carried away and perhaps spoke to you about it when I should have still been weighing up my options. But it’s the coward’s way out. We have to stay. We have to stand and fight.’
‘I do admire your dedication, Kevin, I really do,’ Gillian said, wandering over. ‘But while this spy is at large, there’s no prospect of the club’s funding being restored. And, as you’ve witnessed for yourself first-hand, the guards have nothing to go on. He, or she, is out there somewhere. But they clearly have no idea where to start looking. The bottom line is, short of you going out and finding that spy yourself, Palangonia FC is not coming back any time soon.’
In a flash, a light bulb was suddenly illuminated above my head.
‘That still playing up, is it?’ Gerry said, squinting at the ceiling. ‘Mine does that sometimes. I’ll see if I can get someone in to fix that for you.’
‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘Gillian, you’re a genius.’
‘Am I?’ she said, bemused. ‘That’s not exactly the tune you’ve been singing this past year, I must say.’
‘I’m going to save Palangonia FC. And if it helps win this stupid war at the same time, then so much the better.’
‘You’ve lost me,’ Gerry said blankly.
‘First thing tomorrow,’ I said, ‘I’m going out into the Compound. And I’m not coming back home until I catch that bloody spy myself.’
TO THE LIBRARY
At dawn, I rose quickly and, after a handful of stale crisps from the half-eaten buffet in the kitchen (which no bugger had stayed behind to help me clear up, by the way), I headed out. It wasn’t the most nutritious breakfast given the big day I had ahead of me, but then again Gary Lineker has been contractually obliged to eat Walkers crisps for every meal since 1995 and look at him. The man’s an Adonis.
I went down to the ground floor of Accommodation Block 8-B. The blocks were a proper Upstairs, Downstairs arrangement – the bigger-name celebrities and important public figures were housed in the swanky upper floors and even had a special lift that bypassed the riff-raff on the lower floors. The hierarchical system was disgraceful and I wanted no part of it. Having said that, I was on the twenty-second floor of sixty in Block 8-B and it was my life’s quest to get myself moved higher up. No disrespect to people like Jimmy Carr or Michael Portillo, but do they really outrank a genuine public servant like Kevin Keegan? Exactly.
With a spring in my step for the task ahead, I headed to the Compound Square.
*
‘Right then,’ Gerry said as we sipped the hot chocolates he’d bought from the Costa on the corner. I noticed that he’d added marshmallows to his and not mine. I’d remember that. ‘Where do we start?’
‘To catch a spy,’ I said, trying to sound like I had the first clue what I was talking about, ‘you have to think like a spy.’
‘Agreed,’ Gerry said. ‘So how does a spy think?’
‘Dunno,’ I said eventually.
‘Sorry we’re late!’ came a voice from behind us.
‘All right, Rodway?’ Gerry said. ‘Not often we see you up and about this early.’
My star striker brushed off Gerry’s dig and breathed on his hands to warm them up. Behind him stood Barrington12, looking around vacantly, as per.
‘Come to join the hunt?’ I asked, feeling proud that they had both stepped up to the plate. The other boys were notable by their absence, but then again, we couldn’t exactly stake out any suspects with fifteen people in tow.
‘WE ARE HERE TO HELP CATCH AND TERMINATE THE SPY FOR HIS CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY,’ Barrington12 announced in his foghorn voice.
‘No, no, no, son,’ I told him. ‘We’re not terminating anybody. You’re like the killer robot in that film who goes around terminating people; what’s it called again, Gerry?’
‘Gorillas in the Mist, I think,’ Gerry said, scratching his chin.
‘Listen, Barrington12, we’re not here to kill anyone. I can’t emphasise that enough. Violence is never the answer. I’m on record about that – it once cost me and Nigel Martyn victory at the FA’s end-of-season quiz night, but I stand by it.’
‘I AM SORRY, KEVIN KEEGAN,’ Barrington12 said sadly, lowering his head with a mechanical buzz. ‘I WILL ADJUST MY OBJECTIVES ACCORDINGLY.’
‘Good lad,’ I said. ‘Glad to have you both on board.’
‘We were just discussing where we should start,’ Gerry told them. ‘I was thinking of maybe handing out flyers – “Are You the Spy?” – and then seeing if anyone says yes. If they do, I think that’s our guy.’
‘No, that won’t work,’ I said. ‘This spy is clever – they’ll see right through that. We need to think… what does a spy want?’
‘Money,’ Gerry suggested.
‘Well, yeah,’ I shrugged. ‘That’s probably the ultimate objective. But I mean, in order to obtain secrets and learn about their environment, what would they need?’
‘Information,’ Rodway said. I nodded affirmatively. Gerry looked disappointed.
‘That was going to be my next guess,’ he muttered dejectedly.
‘Correct,’ I said. ‘Information.’
‘So… where do we go?’ Gerry asked.
‘It’s like Graeme Le Saux said in the dressing room after my England boys qualified for Euro 2000 and wanted to celebrate in style. Gentlemen: to the library! Though let’s grab an early lunch first. I’m starving.’
As we entered the vast and musty old library building with its high glass-domed roof and stacks of shelving stretching as far as the eye could see, I decided we’d be better off splitting up.
‘It’s a big old place,’ I said, ‘and we’ll cover more ground that way. Plus, we need to remain inconspicuous. For all