I was flabbergasted.
‘What could be more necessary than this?’ I asked, waving my arms at the room and the wider stadium beyond. The fire had gone out of my voice now. I sounded helpless. An immovable object had met with an irresistible force, and the irresistible force had won. The dream had died.
‘So, that’s that then?’ I asked, getting to my feet and trying not to pout. ‘After all you and I have been through?’
‘Well,’ she said, sounding a little surprised, ‘I mean, we’ve only worked together for a year.’
I gestured to the framed photos on her desk – happy scenes of a man and two young children, taken years ago on Earth. The bloke was, by any estimation, quite the looker. Ordinarily I’d have assumed these were pictures of family or friends but Gillian didn’t have any of those. Although she was a confident, gregarious person in her working life I had noticed that she was a solitary, closed-book of a person with few apparent friends beyond her professional capacities – it was entirely likely that the pictures in the frames were the placeholder templates and she hadn’t got around to putting anything in them yet. (Pride of place on my own desk at the stadium is a photo of the 2003 Man City youth team squad, signed by Ronan Keating. I forget how that came about.)
‘Your family must be so proud of you – I hope you tell them all tonight what you’ve done today,’ I said bitterly, knowing it was a low blow. Gillian looked like she’d been punched in the gut and I instantly regretted what I’d said. She didn’t respond and, stubbornly, I pressed on. ‘I really did think you were better than this, you know. Gerry said you were a tight-fisted penny-pincher but I always stuck up for you. And yet here we are.’
I reached for the door handle to leave Gillian’s office for surely the final time. Maybe Gerry was right – a fresh start was the best way. My hand stopped in mid-air at what Gillian said next.
‘There’s a L’zuhl spy in the Compound, Kevin. And by hook or by crook, Leigh is going to flush them out. Until that happens… everyone on Palangonia is a suspect.’
THE SPY
I stepped into Mr O’s Place, feeling tired and dejected. The café owner was the enigmatically named Andy O – he was sitting in his usual spot on a stool by the side of the counter, reading the Compound Chronicle and muttering to himself about the recent increase in overheads for businesses in the square. He was always fairly hands-off as an owner, delegating the day-to-day running of the place to a man with an enormous head whose name I’d never managed to catch. I had a lot of time for Andy; he was a regular at our games (well, I’d seen him there once – though thinking about it, it might have been a pile of training cones) and he had even once generously provided emergency catering on a match day after Gerry’s sleepwalking flared up again the night before and he wolfed down the contents of four chest freezers before dawn.
‘Morning, Pete,’ Andy said to me as I approached the counter. I rolled my eyes and sighed heavily.
‘Aye, morning, Andy, lad,’ I replied. ‘Though as I said yesterday, and the day before, and basically every morning for the past year, my name is Kev.’
‘Right you are,’ Andy said, winking as though I’d just let him in on some elaborate joke. ‘What’s new with you?’
‘Actually, I’ve got a lot on my mind today. I’m not allowed to say what. Politics, you know.’
‘Say no more,’ Andy said, holding up both hands agreeably. He rapped on the counter to attract the attention of one of his team, a spotty young lad who looked like he ought to be in school, who sidled over to take my order.
‘It’ll all come out eventually anyway,’ I sighed as I put my wallet away. ‘Let’s face it, you can’t keep news of a spy under wraps for long.’
Andy straightened up in his seat and stared at me intently.
‘A spy?’ he asked urgently. ‘Here, in the Compound?’
Buggeration.
‘No, no,’ I said, clearly flustered but trying to play it cool. ‘I think you misheard me, son. I said… Fry. Stephen Fry. Yeah, apparently he’s coming to Palangonia on a book tour or something. It’s all very hush-hush.’
Andy looked at me sceptically.
‘Stephen Fry,’ he said, eyes narrowed. ‘Right. But you said the news had left you with a lot on your mind. So how does that work?’
‘Well, he uses all those big words, doesn’t he?’ I explained as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘It stresses me out, if I’m honest. Anyway, I’ll let you crack on. Have a good one, yeah?’
I took my breakfast and hurried over to a seat by the far window and sat there watching life in the square outside go by. The fried-egg sandwich tasted like ashes in my mouth – and not just because the head chef, Alf, chain-smoked over the pan while he was cooking. A spy in the Compound – could it really be true? Who would ever want to sell mankind out to the bloody L’zuhl? Oh, sure, there had been some notable defectors – not least the Great Betrayer, Richard Madeley, the popular TV host who had decided, as the horde of alien lizard men laid siege to Earth, that he would be better off joining the winning side. Prat. Last I heard he’d been appointed to the role of L’zuhl propaganda minister. For me, you just don’t do that.
Who could it be? Gerry? Surely not – no one would ever hand over state secrets to a man with hair like that. Then my heart stopped – could it be me? Was I the spy? I quickly batted the idea away. The only notable thing I’d been able to observe during my time on Palangonia was the complete lack of forward thinking from the club hierarchy. And anyway, I’m not cut out to be a spy. Not a real one. James Bond though? That’s a different matter.
In 1994, I’d thrown my hat into the ring to replace Tim Dalton after he unexpectedly quit the role. I was managing Newcastle at the time and things were going great guns, but nevertheless, the role of Bond is not one you pass up when the opportunity presents itself. The producers kindly offered me an audition, after I put together a little video of celebrity testimonials endorsing me for the part, with contributions from footballing heavyweights like Tony Parkes and Howard Wilkinson, all the way up to Hollywood A-listers like Griff Rhys Jones and Chris Tarrant. I decided that Bond needed a fresh approach so I outlined my vision to them during the meeting.
‘The way I see it,’ I told them, ‘the whole MI6 thing is a bit old hat. I propose that, instead of a super spy, Bond is a fully CRB-checked under-11s football coach who leads his team to glory while also defeating corruption within the highest echelons of the junior league structure.’
I could tell they were interested – they said, ‘Well, let’s get this over with,’ which was a clear indicator of how keen they were: the sooner my audition was in the can, the sooner the announcement could be made that Kevin Keegan was the new 007. (Oh – and that was another condition: I asked them if we could change his codename to just ‘7’, in keeping with my old shirt number.)
Anyway, as soon as the audition was in the bag I headed over to St James’ Park to break the news to the chairman, Sir John Hall. He was stunned by the revelation, coming as it did in the middle of a league campaign, but he said he would not stand in the way of such an opportunity. Cracking bloke, Sir John. He began to draft a press release and I went downstairs to break the news to my lads. I bumped into Andy Cole, my top man, and – knowing what a huge fan he was of the series – I wanted him to be the first to know.
‘Heard who the new James Bond is, Andy?’ I said cheerfully.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, Pierce Brosnan apparently. Heard it on the radio on the drive in. Should be good.’
Horrified, I