Dead if You Don’t

11

Saturday 12 August

15.00–16.00

Kipp Brown shot a glance over his shoulder at Mungo, feeling a little bad about his rudeness to his son today. Mungo had been affected, in his own way, just as he and Stacey had been, when his older sister had died tragically. He smiled at him, but Mungo didn’t notice. Dressed in skinny jeans, white socks, sneakers and a checked shirt with a Seagulls scarf wrapped round his neck, and that ridiculous topknot, Mungo lagged some distance behind him, engaged in Snapchatting — or Instagramming — or whatever he did on his new phone that he complained didn’t do anything.

Kipp waited for him to catch up, then put an arm round him. ‘I didn’t mean to snap at you, Mungo, I’m just a bit stressed at the moment.’

‘At the moment? You and Mum — you’re both, like, stressed all the time. It’s all about Kayleigh, all the time, like all you care about is her. What about me? Just sometimes.’

‘Hey, come on, your mum and I love you very much, you’re everything to us.’

‘Really?’ Mungo broke free of his father’s arm and walked silently beside him as they joined the throng of casually dressed people, many wearing team scarves, hurrying through the brilliant sunshine towards the queues for the Amex Stadium entrances.

Mungo suddenly waved a hand at a tall, handsome teenage boy with gelled black wavy hair and called out, ‘Hi, Aleksander!’

Almost at the same moment, Kipp saw the figure of one of his clients, accountant Barry Carden, striding past.

‘Hey, Barry!’

‘Kipp!’

‘Good to see you,’ Kipp said.

‘You too.’

‘What do you think of Albion’s chances — do you think we’ll win?’

‘Hey, we’ve come this far, Kipp. Let’s think positively.’

‘Totally agree!’

They chatted for a couple of minutes, then Kipp glanced anxiously at his watch. ‘I’d better get going.’

‘Me too.’

As Carden hurried off, Kipp turned, but could not see his son. He looked all around but there was no sign of him.

For a moment, he hesitated. Shit, the kid was in a foul mood today. He had his ticket, so he’d probably gone on without waiting, up to the box.

He hurried to the South Stand reception, grumpily endured the extra security check, standing patiently as he was wanded, then hurried up the stairs and along the corridor to the hospitality suites. He entered the door marked KIPP BROWN ASSOCIATES and apologized to his invited group of clients for being so late, relieved to see they all had glasses in their hands. He began to work the room. Dan Fox was there with his partner, Liz, and his twin teenage daughters.

‘Where’s Mungo?’ one of the girls asked.

‘He’ll be here in a minute,’ Kipp replied. Then he turned to a very tanned Graham Batchelor and his stunning partner, Sarah Casson. ‘You guys look well!’ he said.

Graham beamed. ‘We’ve just got married, in Santorini, five days ago, Kipp.’

‘Wow, hey! Congratulations! Married life seems like it suits you!’ He grabbed a glass of Ridgeview bubbly and toasted the newlyweds, before moving on to another couple, Fraser and Kim Edmonds, also deeply tanned, who told him they were just back from Dubrovnik.

‘If you’ve never been, Kipp, you absolutely must, it’s beautiful!’ Kim said.

Kipp privately thought that anywhere would look pretty good when you visited it, as they had, on a ten-million-pound yacht.

‘How’s business, Kipp?’ Fraser asked.

‘Yep, good.’ He forced a smile. ‘I thought you guys were always away for the whole of August?’

‘Had to get back for this game — today’s one of the highlights of my life!’ Fraser said.

Kipp glanced around. Still no sign of Mungo.

Where was he?

A waitress served poached salmon salads. Kipp dug into his with a fork, whilst talking animatedly to Dan Fox, before paying special attention to a particularly important guest, the courtly, dapper, wheelchair-bound octogenarian businessman and very public philanthropist Edi Konstandin. He had a large paunch and was dressed every inch the English country gentleman, apart from several vulgar jewelled rings on his fingers.

The Albanian, who was one of the largest employers in the city, owned an empire of businesses that included one of the UK’s biggest property development companies, a portfolio of rental flats, car washes, launderettes, coffee bars, cafés and kebab takeaways around the county, and many interests abroad. Kipp suspected that Konstandin used these businesses to launder the much bigger money he made controlling part of the city’s drugs and prostitution trade. But he wasn’t in the business of making moral judgements about his clients. He’d long ago told Stacey that if he did, he probably wouldn’t have any clients at all.

Then music blared out. The fans began singing and waving flags. The atmosphere rapidly became electrifying.

Still no sign of Mungo.

Where are you, kid?