but for all we know you grassed on half of Scotland while you were up there.’
In contrast, Wheels seemed keen to work with James. ‘I’ll take you out and show you a few tricks,’ he said. ‘I could do with a dogsbody and you look as if you can handle yourself.’
‘Seriously?’ James grinned.
‘What about me?’ Junior whined. ‘I need money so bad.’
‘Yeah right,’ Savvas snorted. ‘With your mum driving a seventy-grand Mercedes and a two-million trust fund.’
‘I don’t need money when I’m twenty-one,’ Junior spluttered. ‘I need money for this weekend.’
Junior’s argument was going around in circles and Savvas was losing patience. ‘So go and speak to Sasha. Nobody’s gonna go against what he says.’
‘You’re all tossers,’ Junior moaned, as a football sailed over their heads. ‘You all want me wrapped in cotton wool. I’m not a baby.’
Despite his claims to maturity, Junior flounced off like a five-year-old who’d had his sweets taken away. Then he turned back, annoyed that James hadn’t followed.
‘Are you coming or not?’ Junior asked.
This was an awkward moment. James had to balance his friendship with Junior with the fact that Wheels was offering him some action.
‘Coming where?’ James said.
Junior pointed towards a row of terraced houses at the far side of the playing fields. ‘I might as well go over to Sasha’s house and get warm.’
James looked eagerly at Wheels. ‘Were you serious about putting some money my way?’
‘If you’re up for it,’ Wheels grinned. ‘But there’s no rush. You go over to Sasha’s with the spoiled brat and I’ll catch up later.’
James was slightly mystified. ‘Does everyone go over there?’
Wheels nodded. ‘Sasha’s got a big ol’ basement and the crew always hangs out there after football.’
‘Right,’ James said. ‘Guess I’ll see you over there.’
But as he started walking towards Junior he heard Sasha shout Bruce’s name.
‘Jesus Harold Christ,’ Sasha yelled. ‘Will you look at that little fella run?’
James turned towards the pitch, where a practice game had started between the under-fifteens and under-seventeens. Bruce was the smallest kid on the pitch and wore boots two sizes too big for him, but he was running on goal with a beanpole defender and the keeper to beat.
On campus Bruce rarely played football, but the speed and co-ordination he showed fighting in the dojo translated beautifully on to the floodlit pitch. The ball seemed glued to his foot as he spun around and delicately chipped the ball into the air, then vaulted the defender’s clumsy tackle.
The keeper closed down the angle, but Bruce kept his cool. He tapped the ball on to his knee and then volleyed into the right-hand corner of the net.
Junior had seen the whole thing and came running back to James on the touchline. ‘Holy shit,’ Junior yelled. ‘Did you see that? Your cousin walked the entire defence.’
James had heard kids on campus begging Bruce to join their team, but it was only now that he actually saw why. Bruce stopped running and gave a casual shrug as his muddy team-mates steamed down the pitch to hug him.
‘Genius,’ Sasha was yelling, as he jumped in the air. ‘That kid is pure genius.’
25. HOUSE
Most members of the Mad Dogs Football Club were regular guys who showered in the clubhouse after training and went home to their families. But the club was also the core of Sasha’s criminal gang, and the crew that went on to his basement consisted of a dozen hardcore criminals aged from their late twenties up to around fifty and a similar number of hangers-on: youngsters like Wheels and Junior who saw the gang as a way of having fun and making easy money.
Sasha had lived in the same row of four-storey houses his whole life. His elderly mother owned number forty-three, while Sasha lived next door with his wife and daughter. The basements of the two houses had been knocked together to make a gloomy hang-out with a nicotine-stained ceiling.
Whilst Junior and the younger lads held pool cues and drank supermarket-brand lager, Sasha, Wheels and the older gang members downed spirits and battled over the green felt of a poker table. To begin with it was low stakes, with the players coming and going and everyone talking, puffing cigars and telling stories as bottles of spirits drained away. But by eleven the casual players had drifted home and things started getting serious.
Sasha lost a couple of hundred pounds when Wheels beat him with three queens and he yelled at the kids around the pool tables to shut up and stop