6.

  Tuesday, November 30

  While the Brig whizzed me down to Norfolk to talk the police into releasing Owen Elmham, or to pay his bail, I prepared for my role. My job was to appear the exact opposite of how I felt; I would pretend to be sombre, mature, and deeply concerned. 'Yes, officer, you can remand him into my custardy. I'll make sure he gets his just desserts. Straight to bed with no pudding.' My stomach rumbled.

  "Brig," I said. "I'm hungry. Have you got any treats?"

  "No, sir."

  "You're always packing tartlets."

  "I'm out of tartlets, sir. We could stop somewhere, if you like."

  "No, let's power through. I can use my hunger in the scene; when I get a pang I'll look at Owen in a disappointed way. The police will lap it up."

  "Very good, sir."

  My stomach rumbled again and I opened my phone's map. There were clusters of fast food outlets everywhere you looked, growing like little forests. "Brig, have you noticed that the same kinds of shops often shoot up in the same locations? There was a street in Manchester that had three carpet centres. Three in one little road. Don't you think it's weird?"

  "It's either entirely weird or utterly sensible," he said.

  "That's an interesting thing to say." I scrolled all the way to the police station and looked around. "Loads of pubs in that area. Little forest of pubs. I wonder what they put in the soil?"

  Despite the Brig's commando training, it took four hours to get to our destination - no sooner had we crossed into Norfolk than we got stuck behind a combine harvester. And when we got to the police station, the Brig tapped his phone, said huh, set a new target, and we drove for another couple of minutes to a local pub.

  We went inside and I took the Brig by the arm. "Hold on," I said, in a low voice. "The fuck's happening there?"

  We moved closer to the scene, where Owen Elmham, the goalie who had fired a shot that was heard all around the UK, now appeared to be taking a shot at a raven-haired woman who was wearing a dark, tight-fitting suit. Her hands were in his; he was acting like he was trying to centre himself. In a hypnotic voice, he said, "Now imagine you're writing a letter."

  "What should I imagine I'm writing?" said the woman, who was by far the most attractive person I had seen in the last four hours.

  "Write me a note," said Owen. "I get home from training, I see the note. It tells me where you are and what you're wearing." I had to pass a column to get closer, so I didn't see how she reacted, but I saw the moment Owen took his hands away from hers. "You're right-handed."

  The woman's hands lingered in place for a couple of seconds before she drew them back. "Ninety percent of people are."

  "Yeah," said Owen, giving her both barrels of eye contact. "But less than one percent know how to spell lingerie." I stepped closer. Owen glanced at me, looked back at his date, then did a comedy double-take. He shot to his feet. "Gaffer!"

  I stretched my arms out. "What the fuck is going on? Why aren't you in prison?"

  His eyebrows rose. "Prison? For what?"

  "For exploding a phone. Affray. Reckless endangerment. Grievous telephonic harm. I don't know the words!"

  The woman was giving me a strange look. "It's not illegal to discharge a firearm on private property. The shot itself might well have been the safest ever fired in this country."

  "Tell me about that," I said.

  Owen used his hands to describe the scene. "There's a stone wall with nooks for, you know, lanterns and that sort of thing. Put the phone in there, stand to the left, safe as anything. Behind the wall's a rosehip hedge - it didn't even sway."

  "Rosehip?" I said, unable to hide a smile. "Guns n' rosehips?"

  The woman said, "Mr. Elmham's mother doesn't want to take it further. If the neighbours weren't nosy as fuck, the police would never have become involved." She picked up a drink and took a sip. "Are you Max Best?"

  That floored me. At my level of fame, I wasn't recognised when I shopped in Manchester. How did a rando in East Anglia know me? "No. My name's Cliff Daps."

  The Brig appeared next to Owen, causing another bout of surprise. The Brig said, "Are you Owen's solicitor?"

  "I acted for him in this matter, along with a colleague. We were engaged by Sebastian Weaver. I think you know him, Mr. Daft."

  "Yeah, he's the real Max Best's future father-in-law," I said, thinking four hours back. I had fired texts to MD, Brooke, Secretary Joe, and yes, Sebastian. "Okay, so Seb just sorted it out. One phone call to get the local heavies on the case was all it took."

  "I've never been called a heavy before."

  I tilted my head. "Is your colleague left-handed?"

  "No."

  I shook my head. "That's bad squad-building. If you're sending two goons, you want one left-handed, one right. It helps you progress the paperwork up the pitch faster."

  "Up the court," she said, with a slightly twisted smile.

  "No, that's tennis. Owen, didn't you tell her what sport you play?" Before he could answer, I put my hands up and said, "Hang on. I came all this way to rescue my player and he's fine."

  The solicitor shook her head. "He's fine in a legal sense, but there is tremendous media interest in the incident and there will be a sanction from the Football Association. My colleague went to school with someone from the FA, and that person has been asked to sit on a disciplinary panel as a matter of urgency. They would like to resolve this quickly because of the political implications."

  "Political implications?" I said, amazed. I punched Owen on the arm. "What else did you do, you dick?"

  "No, boss," he said, rubbing the area. "It's because the government want to make it harder for farmers to get shotgun licences. It's a political hot potato. Don't you follow the news?"

  "I'm too busy to read about potatoes!" I said. I pinched my nose while I tried to assess the second-order effects of Owen shooting his mum's phone. "I don't get it."

  The solicitor explained. "The farming community believes the government is anti-farming and the proposed changes to the firearms laws have been politicised. Mr. Elmham, being a famous sportsman, has put himself in the middle of that particular storm. His friend who allowed him to use the firearm will lose his licence, which will reignite the story after it has initially died down. The FA want to take swift action to distance themselves from the whole mess."

  I pulled at my lip. "Right. Er... I don't care about any of that. From Owen's point of view, there's no crime. No crime, only punishment. Is that it?"

  "You may very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment."

  A pair of middle-aged men with ruddy faces came over and shook Owen by the hand. "Well done, mate!" said the first.

  "You show 'em, Owen, lad! Stand up for our rights!"

  "Oh my God," I said. "Owen, you're the poster boy for East Anglian gammon!"

  "Excuse me?" said the second guy, his complexion veering towards purple.

  The Brig put himself next to Owen and gave him a firm push. "Exit, stage left."

  The four of us went outside into the cold evening air. I rubbed my hands. "Owen, I need to talk to you. Miss, can you give him your phone number, please?"

  She smiled. "I don't go in for bad boys and troublemakers."

  "What?" I spluttered. I put my hand on Owen's shoulder. "This guy's a freedom fighter! He's basically William Tell but he shot an Apple instead of an apple. He's freeing us from the tyranny of surveillance capitalism while pushing back against our pesky government's clumsy overreach. Tell her, Owen!"

  Owen frowned, looked around the car park, looked at the front of the pub, then from me to the Brig. His gaze rested on my suit. "You came to rescue me?"

  "Oh my God," I said. "Miss, you're gonna have to make the next move. Owen, make sure she gets to her car safely, at least." She pressed her key fob and the car right next to her flashed. I clapped him on the back. "Good job, Owen!" The solicitor bit back a smile and walked round to the driver's-side door. I leaned over the roof and said, "Hang on. Your mate has that mate in the FA. Do you think you could find out what Owen's punishment is going to be and let me know ahead of time so I can, er, be prepared?"

  She said, "So you can inform Max Best, you mean, Cliff?"

  "That's exactly what I meant, yes." I looked up at the nearest street lamp as though it was a star. "Max Best," I sighed, propping myself up on my elbow, letting my palm cradle my cheek. "He's so kind. So generous. All he wants is to make the world a better place. I try to help where I can because in my own small way, I like to play my part. That's why I became a solicitor. To make the world a better place, one phone call at a time."

  Her eyebrows went up, and I knew I had overdone it. "You're a solicitor, Cliff?"

  "Not a very good one. When there's a crisis, Sebastian Weaver doesn't say: send for Cliff!"

  "He would ask for me, though, would he? What's my name, Cliff?"

  "Let's hold hands and I'll work it out."

  She laughed hard, slipped into the driver's seat, and started the engine.

  The Brig said, "Nice try, sir."

  "She's fun," I said. "Right, first things first. Where's a hotel the Brig and I can stay?"

  "Hotel?" said Owen.

  My sudden appearance had frazzled him, it seemed. "Big rectangle with beds inside. Sometimes there's a restaurant."

  "Max is on the verge of hangry," said the Brig.

  "You can stay at mine," said Owen.

  "Your hotel?" I said. Annoyed with myself, I mumbled, "That's terrible. Cut that."

  "My house. I've got spare rooms."

  "How many?"

  "Seven."

  "What the fuck!" I felt shadows moving on the periphery of my vision. "Look, that sounds good. You cool with that, John?"

  "Yes," said the Brig. "Owen, where's your car?"

  I groaned. "John! After all we've been through! Say it properly."

  "I will not."

  "I saved like twenty Exit Trial kids! You owe me."

  Owen said, "What's going on?"

  I explained. "I want him to say, 'Dude, where's your car?' That's all. One simple little thing that would make me so, so happy. It's tradition."

  "My car's at my mum's house," said Owen.

  "Well," I said, "we're not going there. You sit in the front and tell the Brig where to go."

  The solicitor's car hadn't moved, and now the passenger-side window slid down. I went to it and bent. The raven-haired woman said. "Four-match ban for bringing the game into disrepute. He'll be expected to do some community service, take a course, that sort of thing. They're going to announce it tomorrow morning before the radio phone-ins."

  I blinked my eyes at her. "You're one of my top five favourite lawyers." I jerked my head to the left. "Do you want to exchange deets so you can meet him again?"

  She smiled. "It's Owen Elmham. Everyone around here will tell you I'm not his type. I'm English, and I'm sane."

  With that, the window rolled up and she eased the car out of its space and onto the street.

  ***

  A quarter of an hour later, the Brig and I were giving ourselves the tour of Owen's mansion, while the big man himself sat on a stool in his kitchen and caught up with the headlines.

  "Shit," he said, looking at an iPad.

  "Shit," I said, looking at his triple-height entrance. The house was large, modern, miles of black steel and massive windows. "This is quality. I love it."

  "Do you?" said Owen, looking up from his screen.

  I couldn't see any radiators. "Has it got undersoil heating?"

  He smiled. "Underfloor heating, boss."

  "Right, yeah. I always say that wrong."

  "You've got football on the brain."

  "Says you. You live in a football museum." Much of the internal space was given over to display cases of Owen's memorabilia. The gloves he had worn to make his debut, his first Wembley appearance, his first training session with the England team. He owned a pair worn by the great Peter Shilton, one from Dino Zoff, one from Oliver Kahn. There were some replica kits, and plenty of photos. Most were football themed - including one taken with Oliver Kahn which made them look like father and son - though there were many of him with exotic-looking models at glitzy parties and showbusiness events. In amongst them was a photo I found totally incongruous. "This guy," I said, tapping the frame. "Isn't this Kevin thingy? From that TV show about crazy people building insanely complicated houses they can't afford?"

  "Grand Designs, yeah," said Owen. "This was one of those."

  "Soz, what?"

  "This house, boss. We were on season 18. Me and my ex."

  Owen Elmham as one of the nutjobs who did a literal grand design as their first ever building project? I pointed both index fingers at him. "That makes a lot of sense." I glanced at the wall. "Which one is she?"

  "She's not there," he said, dryly. "That doesn't stop her haunting me."

  "She died peacefully in her sleep, I imagine, right?"

  He gave me a strange look. "She's not dead, boss. She left me for a midfielder from Ipswich."

  "Oof," said the Brig.

  Norwich City were the big club in Norfolk (home of the north folk), and Ipswich Town were the big club in Suffolk (the south folk). Their rivalry was intense, and running off with an Ipswich player was a dagger through the heart of a Norwich lad. "Was it the construction of the house that drove you apart?"

  "No," said Owen. "The build was messy and complicated and we ran into every problem you can imagine, but if anything, the project kept us together longer. Emotionally, the process was harmonious. It was a joint dream, a shared vision, and we put equal amounts of ourselves into it. I love the house; I feel at peace here. But the garden was all hers." He looked towards the patio doors leading to the back. "Sometimes I just want to take a chainsaw to the whole thing. Rip it all up."

  "Shame it's dark," I said. "I'll see it in the morning, I guess."

  Owen went to the side of the doors and pressed a button, lighting the entire back garden.

  It had been done in the Japanese style, with sandy gravel, rounded boulders, lush, bright green plants, and acers. Lots of acers, but spaced out harmoniously, their remaining leaves a deep coppery red.

  "Christ," I said. "That's awesome. That's really amazing. Owen, you take a chainsaw to those trees and I'll fucking batter you."

  He said, quietly. "Everyone loves it. It's so peaceful, they say. So tranquil. But not to me. It has the opposite effect on me."

  "I can understand that," I said. I let my gaze drift around, carried along by the carefully-designed curves. "It's not the garden I'd want in my home. Maybe at a spa or something like that."

  "What would you do?"

  "When it comes to gardens," I declared, "I'm pretty Brexity. Native plants to attract native insects. Most of the things in my garden had a sticker on saying 'bee friendly!' You get insects, bees, butterflies, and then you get all the other stuff sort of automatically. Your place is beautiful but in ecological terms it's sterile. I barely know what I'm doing but in the second year I had quite a lot of cheeky sparrows, which was fun, and this summer I've had birds from around the world." I pushed my teeth together, forcing myself to stop talking.

  "What?" said Owen. "Go on, say it."

  I spat it out in one quick go. "I had birds from all around the world same as you. There, I said it."

  "Max," complained the Brig.

  "What?" I said. "Look at his photos! He's a footballer, a troublemaker, and a bad boy in one go. He's the complete package. Catnip for foreign models and stewardesses and when he tells them that Norfolk is an important cultural centre, they have no reason to disbelieve him." I turned for one last look at the garden. "Owen, seriously, if you decide you want to change this, let's talk, because the club would buy it from you."

  "What?" he said.

  I moved towards the kitchen island and sat on a stool. Owen and the Brig did the same, but then the Brig got up and checked what was in the fridge. "May I?"

  "Oh, food," said Owen. "Of course. Sorry, I'm a bit out of it. Help yourself to anything."

  "Thank you, Owen."

  While the Brig rummaged, I outlined my idea. "I'd love to fill Bumpers with bee-friendly plants and all that, but the sensible part of me says that maybe I don't want bees and wasps right by the pitches. They can go in the new woodland, right? Or whatever. Just not by the pitches. But you know what would be perfect? Your garden. Acers are slow-growing, aren't they, so I'd want to buy more established ones. Ones like these. And sorry to give your ex a compliment but the whole design is awesome, it's cool, it is relaxing and zen, and the fact that it doesn't interest insects is suddenly an advantage. If we had one section of Bumpers where a player could go and just be in that space and decompress... It would be top. Put some acoustic fencing around so that it was really like stepping into a garden in Japan. It could be quite magical if we did it right."

  Owen's expression was quite hard to read, so I brought up his player profile.

  His Morale had been going crazy the whole day, but there wasn't much in the Future section. Nothing like 'Is angry with his manager' or 'Dislikes Max Best'. The main thing in there was 'Thinks Wilfred Banks is a talented player.' I had noticed that players often had good scouting skills when it came to their own position.

  Owen's CA was 140, and his cap was 164. He was thirty-six years old so it seemed unlikely he would ever get to his peak. He'd had a very, very good career but my instinct was that if he had ever actually hit his cap, he would have played more and achieved more. He had been called up into a few England squads but had never come close to getting on the pitch. That suggested to me that he had never gone much farther than CA 150.

  "Sir," said the Brig, looking from a packet of beef to some chicken. "We have options."

  "I'll eat anything," I said. "But will you come and join us for a little bit and make sure I don't screw this up?"

  "Of course, sir."

  He sat to our right. I was facing Owen.

  "Cool," I said. "Owen, in recent times, you and I have had a minor amount of beef. Oh!" I said, amazed at how delicious words could be.

  The Brig nodded. "Beef locked in, sir."

  "Top. I need to talk to you with two hats, Owen."

  He nodded. "As long as you don't talk out of one."

  "What?"

  "That's a phrase. You're talking out of your hat. Means you're talking shit. You don't know that one?"

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  "No. Is it a Norwich thing?"

  The Brig said, "No, sir. But you would never talk out of your hat, so no-one has ever needed to use that saying around you."

  As ever when I heard a new idiom, my brain went haywire while I tried to work out where it had come from. I refocused. "First up, it's Max Best the manager. When I heard what you had done, I rejoiced. Absolutely deliriously happy. Here's a player, I thought to myself, who really wants to be part of this team. Here's a player I have misunderstood. I love being wrong, Owen. People don't know that about me. When someone goes to extreme lengths to say, hey, I want to be part of this, I mean, that works on me. That works massively. I'm all in on Owen Elmham. When I heard the news, I thought, Christ, why can't I marry him?"

  "Sir," complained the Brig.

  "It's true!" I said, so truthfully that they both definitely believed me. "And I got excited about the team. You know I'm not all that fussed about where we finish in the league, Owen, but you saw our FA Cup Third Round draw."

  "Forest Green Rovers," he said.

  "Right," I said. "Bottom half of League Two. We don't take things for granted but we should win that. So we're in the Fourth Round. There will still be some low-ranked teams in there. We could get Chelsea away or we could get, er, I don't know, Aldershot."

  "That would be enjoyable," said the Brig. Aldershot had a very strong connection to the Army.

  I looked at Owen. "I'm thinking that with you in goal, and because we would prioritise the cup games, we could go pretty deep. Quarter final? Semi? It would need crazy luck with the draw but maybe we would get West Ham during one of their regular crisis periods or if we did draw a top six team, it would be squeezed in between two mega matches they had. Do you know what I mean? I feel that we're a little bit short of being able to beat anybody on our day, but we're getting to the stage where we could beat anybody who has an off day. But that scenario very much has you in goal. Do you get me?"

  "Yes."

  "So that's Max Best the manager. He loves you. He'll ride four hours to yell at some police for you. He'll miss his West versus Best exhibition match for you. He'll literally starve himself half to death even as he drives past hundreds of Burger Kings to get here as soon as poss." I changed to a lower, more serious tone. "But then there's Max Best, Soccer Supremo, pillar of the community, role model, saviour of football. And he has to approach this from another point of view. One that doesn't involve me cackling and going, 'how fucking great is this? I love him, John, I fucking love him'."

  Owen did a tiny smile. "Yeah."

  "It was on your land and whatever, but you took a gun and shot it in anger and scared your neighbours. That's scary. Now, again, Max the manager is thinking, fuck, next time a striker goes through one-on-one with Owen, there's no way he's gonna score! He'll be shitting himself! But that's not relevant." I closed my eyes and daydreamed the scenario I had just described. Owen was intimidating at the best of times, but now?

  The Brig said, "Max, stop smiling."

  "Yes, yes. Ahem. You shot a gun in anger. We don't want that in this country. I fucking don't, anyway. There's no way I can defend you on that, right? Most football fans will think it's pretty funny, but we're not going to lean into that at all. We're going to be sorry. We're going to be contrite. The FA are going to ban you for 4 matches, and the club are going to suspend you for 5."

  "More than the FA?" he said. For the first time, Owen was unhappy.

  "Yep. I mean, it could be 7, 8, 9, couldn't it? Because you're secretly going to get your wrist fixed. Like, the day after tomorrow."

  "Oh," he said, calming down.

  The Brig said, "Sir, are you choosing a number one higher than the FA to tweak their nose?"

  "Of course I am. It'll make them look weak. But I can't get too giddy about it, because it'll ruin the message. Owen, let me put it to you like this. I need parents to feel safe sending their kids to Bumpers Bank. I want kids to feel safe. I want sponsors to give us millions of pounds knowing that we won't trash their brands. If you make me choose between youth team kids, Exit Trialists, sponsors, or you, that's not going to go well. We have to play this one by the book. You'll accept your punishment from the club, you'll put out a sponsor-friendly apology message, you'll meet some kids and parents and assure them you're not a crazy person. I'm not an expert in this kind of thing but maybe you'll meet someone who lost a relative to gun crime or something like that. Maybe you'll go to 3 R Welsh and they'll give you a gun safety lesson. We're going to surround you with a thick forest of apology and good works." I checked his reaction; he was listening. "You won't go paintballing. You won't play Call of Duty in the common room. When you're walking towards a car, you won't say, shotgun!"

  Owen eyed me. "Really?"

  "Really. You have associated the club - and me - with something we don't want to be associated with." I frowned. "And you made me say that sentence. Ugh."

  Owen looked left and right. "Will there be a fine?"

  "A fine? From the club? I don't see why it merits a fine, no. I think I used to fine my players all the time in Soccer Supremo, when they pissed me off, which was often. This thing? It's not nice but... no."

  "And if I do everything you said, what happens?"

  "Then we smash shit up," I said, with no little exuberance. "Cup run, win the second half of the season, finish above Wrexham. I have to say," I said, leaning forward, "that it's not completely in our control. We can't control perception and what you've done is basically a crime against perception, right? If you do all the things but there are still protests when I try to name you in the squad, I mean..."

  Owen had been getting more miserable since I voiced my fear that the kids would be afraid of him, but the Brig said, "It won't come to that. People have recovered from much worse negative publicity than this. Owen, it will be all right. Chester FC have an employee called Max Best; they are quite well versed in crisis management."

  "Oi," I said. "I never shot a poor old woman's phone."

  Owen slumped. "You think I'm stupid, don't you?"

  The Brig answered first, which was probably for the best. "Of course I do," he said, smoothly. "None of this would have happened if you had used a sledgehammer."

  ***

  The Brig and Owen cooked dinner while I made some calls. There was a formal dining area, but we ate on the kitchen island. It was cosy, intimate, and the drinks were close by. Owen poured himself a scotch and asked me if I wanted one.

  "No, thanks," I said, with perhaps a little bit of heat. "I'm a professional football player." Owen, with a show of great patience, turned to his other guest. I said, "The Brig would like a Four Thingies."

  "What?"

  "Four Jays. All starts with J."

  The Brig smiled. "Four Horsemen. I'll take a shot of what you're having, thanks."

  Owen slid the bottle towards him. "Knock yourself out, John. I just want one. Maybe two."

  "Do you drink loads at home?" I said, cutting into my beef.

  "Not during the season, normally. Sometimes when I got home from a match where I had been on the bench for the tenth game in a row and I thought, what the fuck am I doing all this training for?" He paused. "In the past, Max. I don't mean at Chester. I've been ready to come on and it hasn't been as depressing because you've always explained the plan. I play this week, Swanny's next, and so on. It's easier to work with that and there's always a match on the horizon."

  "You don't mind the rotation, then?"

  Instead of answering, he shoved loads of food into his mouth, then pointed to it.

  The Brig said, "Has everything been arranged, sir?"

  "Yeah, more or less. Brooke's absolutely loving this. She's in full shoulder pads mode."

  "What's that?" said Owen, through a tiny part of his mouth.

  "You know, like in the 80s where people wore those big suits with the massive shoulder pads. Loads of CEOs walking around like Robocop. Owen will have to agree to the wording of the statement she's writing for him but it's gonna be smooth sailing. Owen? You're on the Brooke truck. You're in the PR car. You're in the..." I put my cutlery down so I could rub my forehead, trying to push more rhymes to the surface.

  "Did I hear you speaking German?" said Owen.

  "A little bit, yeah. To Bochum."

  The Brig looked surprised. "The club or the person?"

  "The club. I made a not serious bid for Pascal that they actually seem to be taking seriously."

  "Not serious?" said Owen.

  "Yeah, I was gonna bid 600, then next week I'd go back with 590, 580, and so on."

  "Interesting technique," said Owen. "No wonder most of your players come on free transfers."

  I ignored the jibe and eyed the scotch. I wasn't much into spirits but a glass of red would have gone down nice. "It's unexpected but, yeah, maybe we could get Pascal back." I drank some water. "You never saw him, did you, Owen? Imagine a Soccer Supremo profile. His ceiling might be, say, 130." In fact, it was 133. "So you think, well, he can't play in the Premier League, then. But I wonder. He's lightning fast, super intelligent, gets into space, he can press, he's tactical, makes good decisions. I'd be amazed if his Anticipation score wasn't high. But then you've got no points in strength, heading, tackling. Does it matter?"

  "Yes," said Owen. "The Prem's hard. You need athletes, boss."

  "I wonder," I said. Now that the food was hitting, I was slowing down, relaxing, enjoying the idea that I would have a lazy evening with no responsibilities. "The tactical zeitgeist is for big, tall, strong runners. Free kicks, corners, long throws. I mean, Jesus Christ, it's so ugly and teams take a full minute to set up their corner routines. The ball's barely in play." I summoned a daydream I'd been having more and more often. "Dan Badford is not huge but he gets the ball and slips away from all the oppo's beefy boys. Pascal's small but he outwits people. This kid Emiliano arrived today and he's not small but he's not huge. He's the same height as Wibbers, I reckon, who also doesn't exactly have your modern Premier League physique. Neither does Youngster.

  "I'm a tactical contrarian, Owen. I see opportunity in doing the opposite. You come at me with loads of cavemen, I want to put out a team of little technicians with a low centre of gravity. We'll evade your press, pass until you're dizzy, and if you close our passing lanes we'll dribble you." I stabbed a chunk of beef. "I keep thinking about the match against Norwich. The triangle of me, Peter, and Dan was incredible. I felt like we could pass the ball between us non-stop for 90 minutes if we wanted. I haven't felt that powerful since we got to the Championship and it wasn't me, it was the combination. You could base a title-winning team around that triangle." I grimaced. If only I knew Dan Badford's PA!

  The Brig took a bread roll and ripped it in half. "Sir, you have often mentioned wanting to keep a lid on the size of the squad. It's why Chester couldn't sign more Exit Trial lads. Can we really bring Pascal back? Can we even afford him?"

  I put my fork down and leaned back. "Three amazing topics." I chewed, swallowed, and thought. "First thing, it's hard with the Exit Trial boys because it won't be long until Chester are in the Prem. Very few lads have quite that level of talent, right? Making sure they're in the best place at every year of their development is tricky. When West are in League Two, that'll be much easier." I took a bread roll and pulled off a tiny bit that I popped into my mouth. "Second point, money. I've got a bit of a war chest for the January transfer window. It's about 2 and a half million, but I'm over budget on wages already so if I add more wages, that's coming out of the war chest. If I sign players on loan with an option to buy or an obligation to buy, I can defer the transfer fee payments until the summer."

  I nibbled at the bread roll. The deal I'd agreed for Emiliano made me slightly uncomfortable. He would play for us from January until the end of the season, and if we decided to sign him permanently, we would pay 1 million in July ‘28 plus 2 million the following summer. That would be followed by another 2.5 million when he played his 40th game for Chester. There would be another 2.5 million if he played twice for Italy. Potential cost: 8 million pounds. Potential future value: 80 million. A no-brainer, but the timing of some of the fees would be out of my control, and I wasn't overly keen to make the little shit my highest-ever transfer.

  Emiliano had seven months to persuade me to sign him. I had seven months to persuade MD to let me.

  I dropped the bread roll and launched into the fun part of the discussion. "Squad size. It's pretty universally agreed that the optimal squad size is 23 to 26. Different managers have different preferences."

  "What's yours?" said Owen.

  "I don't have one in the conventional sense," I said. "If you're Pedro Porto, you want 23 guys that you see every day, that you get to know, that get to know your methods and learn to follow your instructions to the letter. If you're someone who asks a lot from your full backs, like they have to go flat-out for 90 minutes, you will need four top-level guys, plus their backups, so you'll end up with a beefier squad. When it comes to tactics, I use what I have. I'm not all that fussy - for now. What I most care about is progress. What's the size that gives me the greatest aggregate of personal improvement?" I took another little nibble of bread. "Something like 25 does seem about right. You can play 11 versus 11 training matches, you've got cover for injuries, and if the squad's a good mix of ages you can keep dissent and whinging to a minimum."

  "So there's no room for Pascal," said the Brig. "We have 26 in the squad, plus Magnus Evergreen. Plus Alfie Clitheroe and Sunday Sowunmi. Plus Emiliano. And Banksy."

  "Ah," I said, looking around. "I wish I had a flipchart for this. I'm about to get meta. So, do you know the farmland that goes from Bumpers most of the way to CH1?" They nodded; they drove there all the time. "I'm going to buy all that land. The first part will be our academy, then I want to fill the rest with woodland. Very possibly with a jogging track through it. They have it in Europe where there's a track and every couple of hundred metres there's a pull-up bar or a wobbly platform that tests your balance. You can just jog past those things if you want, or you can do the whole range of exercises. People love it, they love jogging in nature, and that space would be something that everyone in Chester could use. I'm not sure about adding the jogging track but I definitely want to put a woodland and I know that it's not just as simple as planting loads of trees. You get schemes that fail. I read about one motorway project where 98% of the trees they planted by the side of the road didn't survive and I'm just, like, that can't be us. Every so often I do some research on it, just for a break from football, really, because when we actually do anything I'll get some experts."

  Owen had filled a fork and had started to bring it to his mouth. He said, "You're learning about tree-planting schemes in your spare time?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I started by looking at rewilding. That's where you get some land and basically leave it alone. Stop messing about with it and it will regenerate over time. It's really fascinating and I love it but I'm in a hurry. One thing some rewilders do is create seed pods, which is where they fence off a small area of land and plant some baby trees and let them get established before deer and rabbits can eat the shoots, then they take the fence away and that little zone starts to seed the land around it. Cool, but again, still too long-term. So then I discovered this thing called the Miyawaki Method that lets you create a forest from nothing in no time at all."

  "Is it named after Mr. Miyawaki?" said Owen.

  "Yes."

  "I love The Karate Kid."

  "Um, no," I said. "Don't do that. Okay, what's his method? You er, let me get this right. You need to prepare the soil. Dig it down to about a metre, turn it over. That's to aerate it. Then you want to get some fungi action going, so you can put loads of dried leaves on it. Loads of compost. Then you plant your trees, but instead of having one tree per square metre, you have three or four. You fucking flood that area with stuff. And it's not just trees. This guy Miyawaki was like, if you want a forest, plant a forest. So you've got four layers of vegetation. The low stuff, shrubs, bigger trees, your canopy trees. I think I'm saying that right."

  "More vegetation," said the Brig, "at different levels." He squinted. "The trees will block the light going to the shrubs."

  "When it's developed, maybe, but if they can survive in a real forest with a full canopy, they can survive in Chester."

  "But what's the point?" said Owen. "What's the point of it all? There's so much work."

  I smiled. "The things you plant have to compete with each other for light, water, and food. They're born in a nursery, right? They're pampered. Pampered little sapling princes. You put one of those on his own in your garden, you'll need to fluff his pillow, read him poetry, all that. You put him in the middle of fifty trees of all species, he's gonna go, holy shit! It wakes him up. He has to fucking grind and graft if he wants to survive." My phone was near the kettle, charging. "Owen, mate, in a bit I'll show you a picture. It's a circle. Half planted using normal methods. The other half, Miyawaki. One's got barely anything there, the other's high and dense. I'll let you guess which is which. It's absolutely fascinating."

  The Brig was intrigued. "Planting trees close together to encourage competition. I've never heard of that."

  "It gets better," I said. "You know the way tree roots are supported by fungi? They give the trees nutrients and the trees give them sugar. Then the fungi spread out, connect with other trees. When one tree's struggling, the network helps it out, and when he's doing better, he chips in to help the rest. That's Chesterness." I jabbed my fork into my final piece of beef. "That's why I want Pascal."

  I popped the meat into my mouth, and nearly coughed it straight back out when I saw the faces of the others. Owen exchanged a look with the Brig and spoke to me. "Max, what are you talking about?"

  "The Miyawaki Method! Competition plus co-operation equals spectacular growth. Prepare the soil? Tick, done. From the squad I inherited, it's only Magnus left. Put loads of compost in it? I mean, Owen, why do you think I talk so much bullshit in our team meetings? I'm spreading fertiliser." I smiled. "Make sure there's enough fungi. I mean, Zach, Hamish, and Dazza are fun guys. Hey! Brig, did you hear that one?"

  "I did, sir, but my mother requested that I don't laugh with my mouth full."

  I drummed the countertop. "I don't think this will work with goalies, because if we go with the forest analogy, sunlight is probably game time, right? I can only use one goalie a game - most of the time - and if a kid concedes seven goals in ten minutes that's probably the end of his career. It might be hard with centre backs. But I'm intrigued by the idea of having a bigger squad.

  "Let's think of attacking midfielders slash forwards. Wibbers on his own will grow fast because he's Wibbers. But what if we chuck in Pascal and Emiliano? Get Cheb on loan? What if I play there a couple of times to let the lads know that hey, there's another fucking incredible guy in your position?" I grinned as I thought about what I was saying. "Imagine you're Wibbers. You're enjoying your career, you're the big dog, you're turning into one of the best forwards in the Championship, then suddenly your boss has a cheese fever and you wake up and everything's changed. Max Best is the canopy tree. You have to get to his level if you want to survive in this forest long-term. On the forest floor, we've got Adam B. Roberts, Tommy Thompson, Monty Holmes. They're way below your level - especially your own little brother! - but suddenly they're growing fast. What grows the fastest in a football squad? Noobs! Then there are the normal trees. Your Barks and your Lewises. You have to at least match their growth to make sure you get minutes, and then come January - holy shit! - two new trees who seem to be just as leafy as you!" I shook my head. "There's absolutely no way Wibbers doesn't improve faster when all that's going on."

  "But boss," said Owen. "There's... When the trees get too big, there's not enough space. There isn't enough food and water."

  "Right," I said. "In these fast-growing forests, you get to a certain point and then trees get out-competed and they die. When they do, they topple, and that wood feeds the ecosystem at floor level, plus suddenly there's light and air that can reach further down. You've got a healthy life cycle already, fifty years ahead of schedule." I picked up my water and smiled in a lop-sided way. "My trees don't die, they move to a new forest and get paid three times as much." I drained my glass and looked thoughtful. "I'm not sure if I'm, ah, barking up the wrong tree on this one. Heh. But it feels like a good time to experiment. Low-risk environment, right?

  "I still think it's unlikely that we'll get Pascal back but if he does come, I'll see what the effect is on the others. Bumpers will be crowded for six months, but we'll adjust training, split into groups, and I'll get some crazy valuable data. Pascal will have either six or eighteen months showing people that yes, in the right hands he's fucking incredible, and then I'll sell him again, this time for two million." I shook my head at how stupid this industry was. "He's not the only guy likely to leave. The youngsters will get loaned out next season and Cheb will be gone, so that'll give Wibbers more light and air. Give him a break from the intensity. Or," I said, slowly, "maybe I keep bringing in rivals to lift his levels. Maybe he never gets a break."

  "Sounds more like a jungle than a forest," said Owen.

  I rapped the counter top, considering his words. "You think? It's tough, it's survival of the fittest, but it's collaborative, too, because the health of the forest - the club - is the health of everyone. When we get to the Prem, it's more money for everyone. More compost, more fungi, more rain. So that underground network of support is gonna stay in place. It's Magnus Evergreen supporting Ash Bradley. It's Pascal and Wibbers exchanging tips they've picked up. It's both of them supporting Emiliano because while he's not sharing his nutrients yet, he has the potential to unlock some biodiversity achievements that spark a forest-wide growth spurt."

  Owen frowned. "How good is he?"

  "He's League Two level, but he's got a hugely high ceiling. Long shots, movement, flair, creativity, technique - what technique! High determination, which is obviously great, but bad decision-making and team work." I rubbed the countertop's surface, which I guessed was marble. Very possibly Italian marble. "Most of the time with these Miyawaki forests, you plant them and leave them alone. I think once there's enough biomass, you let nature take over. Nature's a better manager of nature than a human, right? Obviously, that's not quite how I manage my squad. One of my most important trees is growing wonky, I'm gonna get in there..."

  "With a chainsaw," said Owen.

  I looked towards his garden, but he had turned the lights off. "Yeah, but not the trunk. He needs to be shaped. Coaxed into growing straight up, then he's golden." I knocked the marble, wondering how much this one counter had cost. Ten grand on its own, I reckoned. Premier League money everywhere you looked. "That's my job. Chester's culture is the roots, game time is the sunlight. I'm the maverick forester who goes in hard but knows he's the tree's best chance. It looks harsh. It looks cruel. But in the end, it's beautiful."

  Owen reached out for the bottle of scotch, poured some more for the Brig... then screwed the top back on. He poured himself a glass of water from a jug. "I've never heard anyone talk about football like this."

  "Humans love finding patterns," I said. "Once I started thinking about the Miyawaki Method, I couldn't stop. Think about the football pyramid. Or you know what, just think about the football league. Tier five has been almost fully professional for a decade or more. Why don't we have five recognised professional tiers?" I lay my hands flat on the cool island. "Because forests have four layers. Four layers, four divisions. Why are there so many teams in each division? Why do we play so many matches? And cups? And league cups? Because competition drives us to improve. There's no Messi without Ronaldo, and vice versa. Think about the next two weeks for Chester's men's team. Five league matches in fourteen days. That's fucking bonkers!"

  Owen looked to his left. "Five in fourteen? You sure?"

  I counted on my fingers. "This Saturday, the 4th. Away to Sunderland. Tuesday the 7th, home to Derby. Saturday 11th, away to Ipswich. 14th, Portsmouth away. 18th, Preston away. Fourteen days, three away trips, good fucking luck. The league's a test. An ordeal. Grow fast or die."

  Owen leaned to the side and eyed me. "You relish it."

  "I accept it," I said. "Maybe I would relish it if I had more resources but all of those clubs have bigger budgets than me. I try not to complain about it too much because I have other advantages."

  "Like what?"

  I showed my fingers again. "Sunderland, Derby, Ipswich, Portsmouth, Preston." I pulled my middle finger down. "Ipswich will beat us anyway, so we rest players in that match. 5-4-1, ultra defensive, painful to watch, who gives a shit? Not me. So now it's four games in fourteen days. We're miles better than Derby and Portsmouth, so we get a first-half lead and coast the second. If that goes well, we've brought it down to three games in fourteen days. Two plus two halves, right? That leaves Sunderland and Preston where we need to fight and scrap. Preston will have had the same schedule as us, but they'll be five times as tired. We'll probably beat them. One of my advantages is that I can think like this, but I can put it into action, too. Most managers are living from day to day. I have job security so I can look at a stretch of games and choose to bin one off in order to get more points in the end."

  Owen found my thought process baffling. "It's not a forest if you can pick and choose which days you want to grow."

  "If a tree had a brain and it could see that the guy next to him was about to keel over, it could save up its sugars, wait for the crash, then use its stored resources to shoot up."

  "Max, I'm a Norfolk boy. Any plan that involves letting Ipswich have an easy ride isn't gonna go down well. In fact," he said, shuffling awkwardly. "Um... I was gonna say, maybe if the FA ban doesn't come into effect right away, maybe I could play against them. Then get my surgery right after, of course."

  "Ipswich's squad cost something close to 150 million pounds. I've spent less than 8 million, total. We don't exist in the same bracket and I don't give a fucking shit about your rivalries. My job's to do what's best for Chester FC." I relaxed a little. "If you think I'm letting them have an easy ride, you're very welcome to come to the Youth Cup Third Round on the 16th. We're at home to Ipswich and we're going to thrash them." I nodded a few times. "Chester are still growing. My goal is to make us the biggest tree in Europe, but that means we have to pick our battles. The trees we compete with on our level, we obliterate. Next season, Ipswich will be in our sights, believe me." Something occurred to me. "If your surgery goes well and your ah, social rehab goes well, one of our final games of the season is against Ipswich. It will be at home and if the squad's in good shape, there won't be any reason for us to do anything but give it a proper good go. Who knows? That could be the defeat that drops them out of the automatic promotion slots and into the playoffs."

  He licked his lips. "Where we'll play them and beat them again."

  "We're not going to the playoffs!" I turned to the Brig. "What the fuck is wrong with everyone?"

  "I couldn't possibly say, sir."

  Owen said, "You've spent less than 8 million, total? What's your net spend?"

  Net spend was football-speak for transfer expenditure minus fees received. Net spend was a more useful data point than pure spending because you might spend loads on new players while making loads from selling old players. "Right now it's about 2.6 million."

  His eyes boggled. "You spent 2.6 million taking Chester from the sixth tier to the top half of the Championship?"

  "Yes, but about 1.6 million of that was stocking up on lads to win me the Youth Cup this season. Real net spend from the National League North to here? A million quid. Or in other words, what Wrexham spend a year watering their fake plants."

  "That's - " he started.

  "Mate," I said, getting up to go to the bathroom, via my phone. As I unplugged it, I saw I had loads of messages. "When it comes to squad building, I'm the best there's ever been. But if this guy Miyawaki is better than me, I'll bow down to the master. I'll learn from anyone, anywhere, anytime." I opened my phone and skimmed the first six texts.

  Before I could step away, Owen said, "Wait wait wait." He screwed his face up, trying to understand something. "If the Miyawaki Method did apply to goalkeepers, what would be the best thing for me to do?"

  "One," I said, "never get in the public eye again. Dangerous trees get cut down. Two, help me get Swanny to his ceiling as fast as possible. Use this time while you're out to improve his skills, build his confidence, and make him look good on the data."

  "Why?"

  I grinned. "Because then I can sell him and you'll have the forest all to yourself."

  He shook his head. "Until you sign another goalie. One who's even better than Ian."

  I walked around the island until I was close to him. I got in his face real good. "Soz, mate. Did you want an easy life?" I looked around at the architectural marvel wrapped around us, the one that had caused him years of heartbreak and pain. "No. I didn't think so." I gave him a push. "This is elite football like you've never seen before. Time to raise your levels, bro. You've got a high ceiling but I don't care if you get there or not. You're just as much use to me fucking collapsed on the forest floor, feeding the beetles, feeding the fungi." I showed him a message I had got from Charlotte.

  Max, sorry but I didn't shout at Emiliano. I can't tell what's showboating and what's pure talent. He's pretty dreamy, tbh. Sarah is pissed. 'Tell Max to stop signing geniuses, please. I want my day in the sun.'

  Owen's eyes widened slowly. I glared at him. "Players come and players go but the forest thrives. Welcome to Chester. Welcome to the jungle."

  ***

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