Stolen. Paul Finch

sufficient life left under its bonnet to get him quietly and unobtrusively back to the lock-up garage he rented in Styal, where he’d swap it for his black-and-red Range Rover Evoque.

      Seventy-five big ones, that beauty had cost him. Even if he hadn’t thought it would attract undue attention, he couldn’t have risked bringing it to this neighbourhood. And perhaps it was ironic he was thinking this, because he now turned left through the gate into the alley, and the first thing he saw was a man loitering in the narrow space between the wall and the Honda’s front nearside door.

      Dean halted, but more through puzzlement than fear.

      Lights shone from the windows of some of the surrounding houses with just enough strength to show that, whoever this guy was, he didn’t look threatening. He was about average height, average build, with neatly combed silver hair over a thin, pinched face, and a trim silver-grey moustache. He wore a buttoned-up Burberry trenchcoat, and underneath that a shirt and tie. Dean glanced down, spying well-pressed trousers with proper creases in them, and leather shoes.

      He ventured forward, fishing the car keys from his jacket pocket, but then he spied a second man standing behind the first. This second guy was about the same height as the other, but twice the width. He too wore a jacket and tie, but it bulged around a massive body, while his collar hung open on a neck the girth of a tree-trunk. He had cauliflower ears, a dented nose and small eyes beneath heavy bone brows. He was younger than the first guy, probably somewhere in his mid-forties, with a dense, matted beard and moustache.

      ‘If it isn’t Black Lightning,’ the guy in the trenchcoat said. By his accent, he was a Manchester man, but it was modified, refined.

      ‘Do I know you?’ Dean replied.

      Trenchcoat looked worried. ‘Sorry, that isn’t racist, is it – Black Lightning? Isn’t that what they call you on the Stretford End?’

      ‘That’s what they call me, yeah.’

      ‘Good. Thought so.’

      ‘If you don’t mind …’ Dean pointed his key at the Honda, but Trenchcoat stayed where he was.

      ‘Your footwork’s seriously amazing,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen you dance through defences like … well, like no one did since the days of Georgie Best.’

      Dean glanced again at the Neanderthal visage of the bearded guy behind him. Then he became aware that a third character had circled into view around the other side of the car. This one too was in his forties; he also wore a suit and tie, but was rangy of frame, with a hatchet nose and a messy thatch of dirty blond hair. He now stood directly behind the footballer, blocking any possible retreat.

      ‘Okay, listen …’ Dean backed into the brick wall. ‘You fellas surely realise I don’t carry money round with me? I mean, I’ve got a few quid.’ He dug into his jeans pocket. ‘You can take that.’

      ‘I’m surprised you’ve got any left after tonight,’ Trenchcoat said.

      Dean offered him a tightly wound roll of twenties. ‘Just take it, yeah?’

      ‘Relax, Lightning. We’re not here to rob you.’

      ‘Yeah?’ Dean’s nervous gaze flicked back and forth between them. ‘Well, I’m sure this isn’t a welcome-to-the-neighbourhood party.’

      ‘More like welcome-to-the-jungle round here,’ the bearded one said. He was Mancunian too, though much more obviously. ‘Ideal for the kinds of tricks you get up to, eh?’

      ‘Look,’ Dean said. ‘I don’t know what you fellas think you know.’ He thumbed at the house on the other side of the wall. ‘I’m just doing this place up.’

      ‘Yeah, we’ve heard,’ Trenchcoat said. ‘Your little retirement plan, isn’t it? You’ve been buying run-down houses all over the Northwest, doing them up till they’re spanking new and selling them on at considerable profit.’

      ‘Nothing illegal about that,’ Dean ventured.

      ‘Course not,’ Trenchcoat agreed. ‘But I’d like to bet that none of the houses you’ve officially bought so far are quite as run-down as this one, eh?’

      ‘I’ve officially bought this one.’

      Trenchcoat half-smiled. ‘When I say “officially” … I mean, as in your lovely wife, Lydia, knowing about it. Oh, I’m sure she’s well aware and totally approves of this safety net you’re putting together for when your playing days are over. But the problem is, Lightning … she thinks it means houses round Knutsford, Didsbury and Altrincham, doesn’t she? I bet she’d be stunned to know you’ve got a new pad in the backstreets of Withington.’

      ‘Okay, it’s a shed.’ Dean shrugged. ‘But we’ll still make money when we’ve done it up.’

      ‘You’re a great footballer, Dean,’ the blond guy said, speaking for the first time; his accent was more Cheshire than Manchester. ‘But you’re not too smart if you seriously think we don’t know what’s going on here.’

      ‘You believe in quality, I’ll say that for you,’ Beard added. ‘That Clarissa bird. Bloody hell … you’d never know she was a bloke. And Raimunda! Some dong, that. John fucking Holmes in drag.’

      ‘John Holmes, Lightning,’ Trenchcoat said. ‘Remember him? No, course you don’t. Too young. There are similarities between you and him, nevertheless. For example …’ He drew a leather-gloved hand from his pocket; it contained an iPhone. ‘You’ve both been immortalised in naughty films.’

      An MPEG began running. It had been shot from several different angles, all of which were most likely covert, but it was in full colour and painfully clear. It was also full of action, a ‘highlights reel’, snippets of different sessions involving either Dean and Raimunda, Dean and Clarissa, or more usually Dean and both of them, each sequence trimmed to the bare essentials and then edited together.

      Fleetingly, the footballer was too numb to respond.

      ‘All right …’ he finally said. ‘All right, you’ve caught me. But I’m not sure this’ll be quite as damaging as you fellas seem to think. Raimunda and Clarissa are trans women. Yeah … so what? It’s not so shocking these days.’

      ‘That’s true.’ Trenchcoat pocketed his iPhone. ‘We live in a very inclusive age. But the problem is, Lightning … you’re a married man. And your wife, Lydia, well … she’s been wondering for some time where you’ve been disappearing to for two or three nights a week. So she asked us to find out.’

      ‘You’re saying you’re private detectives?’ Dean wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or even more horrified.

      ‘Good job it doesn’t take you that long to get to the back of the net,’ Beard chipped in. ‘Otherwise, no one’d give a shit what you get up to in this secret nookie nest of yours.’

      ‘She doesn’t trust you, pal,’ Hatchet Nose said. ‘She never has.’

      Trenchcoat smiled again. ‘When Lydia married you, Lightning, she knew she’d landed on her feet … and she was in it for the long haul. She was going to milk it for everything she could … even if it ended up in the divorce court—’

      ‘Wait a minute,’ Dean interrupted, glimpsing hope. ‘Just wait … you’re saying she doesn’t suspect anything specific? She’s just watching me?’

      ‘She half suspects,’ Trenchcoat said.

      ‘You must admit, you’ve been away from home a lot recently,’ Hatchet Nose added.

      ‘And if she’s not getting it in the bedroom, which she presumably isn’t,’ Beard said, ‘she’s going to wonder.’

      ‘On top of that, she’s never been entirely convinced that you’re doing these houses up yourself,’ Trenchcoat said. ‘She doesn’t believe you know the first thing about DIY. Isn’t that why