Until the Final Whistle のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 61 - チャプター 70

UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---The courthouse was older than I expected.Stone walls. Tall windows. A wide set of steps leading up to a pair of heavy wooden doors that looked like they had been there for a hundred years. The kind of building that had seen a thousand verdicts and kept every one of them to itself.Luca parked around the corner and we walked the rest of the way on foot. Reporters were already gathered at the bottom of the steps. Photographers. Camera crews. A handful of fans who had come to show their support for the club. Kovac was waiting for us at the base of the steps with his hands in his pockets and his collar turned up against the cold."You ready?" he asked."No," I said. "But I'm here."He nodded once. He didn't try to make me feel better. He just fell into step beside me and walked up the steps with us.---The courtroom was smaller than the on

UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---The Monday after the verdict felt like the first day of a new life.I woke up before Luca for once. The light through the curtains was pale and gold and the flat was warm and quiet, and I lay there for a while listening to him breathe. He was on his back with one arm thrown over his head and the sheet tangled around his waist, and he looked younger than he had in months. The tension that had lived in his shoulders since the day I returned was gone.I got up carefully so I wouldn't wake him. I made coffee. I stood at the window and watched the city come to life below me, and I thought about how different everything looked from this side of the trial.The story was everywhere. Every newspaper. Every channel. Alistair Kane's face on every front page. My father's name in every headline. The club was under new management. The league was under review. The sponsors were cautiously returning. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, two people who had s

UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---I didn't sleep that night.Luca fell asleep around eleven with his arm across my waist and his breath warm against the back of my neck, and I lay there in the dark with my eyes open and the photograph burning in my mind. Nice hoodie. Does he know what you did at that party?The words looped. Over and over. In different tones. In different voices. Sometimes it was Julian Cross asking. Sometimes it was Victor Hale. Sometimes it was a voice I didn't recognise at all.I slipped out of bed at three in the morning and went to the kitchen and sat at the table with my phone in my hand. I read the message again. I saved the number to my contacts under a false name in case I needed it later. I took a screenshot. I sent it to no one.I thought about waking Luca. I thought about telling him everything. About the party. About Julian. About the parts of the story I had left out when I told him in the flat after the forecourt. About the parts I had told no one

UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---We left for Southampton at six on Saturday morning.Luca drove. He had insisted, the way he always did, and I had let him because arguing with him about anything involving my safety was a waste of both our time. The roads were quiet. The sky was grey. The rain had stopped for the first time in a week and the motorway stretched ahead of us in long, empty lines.Neither of us said much for the first hour.I watched the fields pass and thought about what I was going to say to Julian when I found him. He would be with the Brighton squad until kick-off. He would be warming up with the rest of the team. He would be in the tunnel or on the bench or on the pitch. He would be surrounded by people and cameras and everything that made a footballer impossible to reach on a match day.But before the match there was the hotel.Sarah had sent me everything. Brighton were staying at a hotel on the outskirts of the city. The squad would be having breakfast and a

UNTIL THE FINAL WHISTLE---EVELYN---The office was smaller than I expected.Two desks. Two chairs. A filing cabinet against the back wall. A window that looked out onto a brick wall and a fire escape. The kind of place where a man could work for years and never be noticed by anyone who wasn't already looking for him.The woman who had let us in gestured for us to sit and then disappeared through a door at the back. Luca stood by the window with his arms crossed. I sat down in the chair facing the empty desk and folded my hands in my lap and waited.Two minutes passed. Then three.Then the door at the back opened and Peter Rennick walked in.He was older than I expected. Late fifties, maybe sixty. Grey hair, thin face, glasses that sat halfway down his nose. He wore a shirt that had been pressed that morning and a jacket that had been cleaned too many times. He looked like a man who had spent most of his career in rooms like this one, watching other people's secrets and keeping his