8

A Word To The Wise

“You’re a fucking asshole.”

This wasn’t a good start to the day. It was just after seven, and Kelli was on the phone, responding to a text I’d sent the night before. And it was definitely ‘asshole’, the American way. Even after living here for fifteen years, she always sounded more Brooklyn than Brit when she was ‘pissed’ at me.

“Liam, you’re the most unreliable son of a bitch on the planet. Jesus! I need to be at Gatwick by eleven and I was depending on you meeting Danny at Victoria. He was all set to take the train – he was looking forward to it.”

When we first met at Middlesex, Kelli was a sublime runner. Her long black legs could carry her through a 400m with such elegance that everyone – definitely every male – was mesmerised, whether she won or not. It was a time when my own athletics career was having a second wind. I was running well and learning to coach, and she found my obsession with the sport charming. If I was late, tied up at an event, it was okay because I was this absent-minded Londoner of her dreams, a Hugh Grant-like character, who’d swept her off her feet. It didn’t last.

Danny’s birth brought us both down to earth. It was not long after she’d finished her MBA, when she was starting to race up the ladder at the bank. She bore the brunt of it: beaten-up by a difficult pregnancy and long labour, then sleep deprivation and trying to breast feed the hungry beast while pursuing a career. My charm was in tatters.

The breaking point came in 2006, the year of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. I was 34 and desperate to make one final effort to be selected for a major championship, thinking I had a chance because England has a separate Commonwealth team – so no Welsh or Scottish rivals to worry about.

Right through the winter and spring I trained twice a day – weights, circuits, hills, track – driving myself mad with lactic and exhaustion. But I still didn’t make the team and I’d missed Danny’s second birthday to run in the trials. And Kelli had had enough: a few weeks later, I came home to an empty flat and a terse note.

So I had form, and there didn’t seem much point now in mentioning the Olympic trials or my troubles with Megan. She must have seen the newspapers and already decided they were no excuse.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m in Newport and, well, I just completely forgot.”

“Hell, Liam! When are you going to think of anyone but yourself?”

I knew this was an argument I was never going to win. We’d been taking lumps out of each other for years.

“What are you going to do?” I said.

“Don’t worry, the child-minder’s on standby. I had a hunch this would happen. But that’s not the point – Danny wants to see you, not a goddam child-minder.”

I could hear Danny in the background saying something about Megan.

“Can I speak to him?” I said.

She sighed. “No, not now. We’ve got to go. You can see him Sunday. And don’t forget this time.”

***

Even before the call from Kelli, I had decided I needed a run to clear my head. As I jogged across the hotel car park, cajoling stiff and weary limbs, the air was so thick I seemed to have to inhale twice as much as normal just to keep going. There had been no rain for weeks, and the air was dry and still.

The receptionist had pointed me in the direction of a footpath just beyond the hotel gardens that, she said, would take me past the remains of a Roman barracks. It sounded like inflated tourism talk, but as I pounded along the path, there it was, neatly laid out like a stone maze stretching out across an area the size of a football pitch. On any other day I might have stopped for a closer look, but I had more pressing things on my mind.

It had been a bad night: I hadn’t had any trouble getting to sleep. Mimi’s kiss had left me with a warm glow, but when I woke, barely three hours later, it was too warm and the only glow was an irritating light on the DVD.

The thing really nagging at me was Terry’s dig about Marion Jones. I’d handled it calmly at the time, but the more I dwelt on his words, the angrier and darker my mood became. I was boiling at his smugness. What did he really know about Megan and how hard she’d worked for the success that was coming her way? The idea that she could have taken a short cut – and deceived me – didn’t square with my experience of her. I couldn’t think of a single thing, until now, that made me suspicious, even with hindsight. But, equally, I couldn’t escape the reality that Marion Jones had lied shamelessly for years before she was eventually cornered into confessing the truth. I couldn’t escape the image of her in handcuffs, humiliated, her duplicity laid bare after she’d been caught – after she confessed she’d been a fraud all along.

Through much of the night, I’d been turning the Jones saga over and over in my mind, trying to piece together what had happened and when. I remembered the Sydney Olympics in 2000. I was there, called-up to help out with coaching the British team. And I’d seen Jones at close quarters warming-up for the 100m final. Watching her, I was enthralled. She seemed such a natural athlete, so powerful yet graceful. Her sparkling eyes and gummy smile charmed everyone. It didn’t occur to me for a second that she might be chemically enhanced. Why would she need to be? She won that final so comfortably that one commentator said, “This is the Olympics – you’re not supposed to win by that much”.

But then the news broke about C J Hunter. A shot putter failing a drugs test was no longer a great surprise, but he was Jones’s husband – and her coach. Rumours about them spread through Sydney like a forest fire in a drought.

The two of them gave a press conference. Both were tearful. I watched Jones weeping on a big screen in the athletes’ village. Hunter blamed the failed test on a nutritional supplement and Jones said she supported him. But Hunter eventually admitted using steroids, and Jones disowned and divorced him – to save herself – still insisting she was clean.

A few years later, she hooked up with Tim Montgomery, another sprinter – the men’s world record holder – but investigations, allegations and rumours continued to swirl around both of them. For a coach, it was soul destroying. At the time, it felt like everyone in the world of athletics was working under a thick and putrid cloud of suspicion that wouldn’t go away.

But Jones persisted with her fraud. By Athens, she was a declining force on the track, and she knew she would have to pay back millions in prize money and sponsorship deals if her cheating was exposed. She threatened to sue her accusers. She even started legal action against one of them. Then it all imploded. Montgomery admitted using steroids. He was banned and stripped of his world record. He started pushing heroin to pay-off debts. Apparently, he roped Jones into laundering the money. And, seven years after Sydney, she was caught depositing a dodgy cheque into her own account and confessed everything. That picture of her in handcuffs going to jail was in my head now.

I had followed the path and run across a railway bridge and past a neat, modern housing estate. Ahead was a lush flat meadow dotted with poppies, glistening in the early sun. But still, I couldn’t shake off the darkness. I felt empty and disheartened. Surely this wasn’t happening again? Was history repeating itself, but with me right in the middle of it? Okay, Meg hadn’t married Will, but they were lovers, or partners, and he was a proven drugs cheat. Did Terry have a point?

My running slowed to barely a brisk walk. The path had reached a river that wound around Caerleon, its wide muddy basin filling with a tide coming in. I stopped and watched the water surging upstream, its power carrying everything with it.

I checked the time. It was eight o’clock. I was probably no more than a mile from the hotel, but I had no enthusiasm for going any further. I turned and forced myself into a running stride again, trying to suppress the doubts and dark thoughts. It seemed a long way back to the hotel.

***

Mimi was sitting by glass doors that opened onto the garden when I arrived for breakfast. The sun was catching the side of her face, creating a glow around her profile. Seeing her gave me a boyish pulse of excitement. I couldn’t help grinning foolishly.

“So here we are in Newport,” I said, inanely, sitting down.

“Wonderful,” she replied.

After ordering coffee and helping myself to cereal, I told her about my run and the Roman barracks and the lovely meadow and the river changing direction, as if we were on a romantic weekend break. I was trying to be cheery, but she seemed subdued and preoccupied.

Finally, she said, “Well, Liam – what’s the plan? Because I have no idea where we frigging go from here?”

The truth was, I had no plan either – beyond trying again to make contact with Megan – and a vague idea I wanted to see the gym Terry had told us about.

“The official itinerary says Megan is supposed to be working on her start with me today,” I said, still trying to keep it light.

Mimi threw her head back dismissively. Levity wasn’t working.

“I’d like to see this gym, the one Terry mentioned in Newport; Grange Road,” I continued.

Mimi looked disdainful. “What, just walk in?” she said, leaning forward, her voice almost a whisper, “and say ‘Gimme the steroids?’ Hey, why don’t you just ask them if they supply Megan? Are you kidding? What’s that going to achieve?”

Her anger took me back. “I’ve no idea,” I said. “I suppose it’s just curiosity, and the fact I don’t want to spend the whole day waiting by a phone for her to ring.”

“It’s too risky. Megan’s coach going to a gym that sells steroids. How’s that going to look?”

“No worse than how everything else is looking. And it’s not as if I’m going to give them my own name. I’ll go there like any other punter looking for a workout. I’ll say I’m in Newport, on business or something.”

Mimi laughed, louder and longer than was polite. “Face it Liam, you don’t look like a bodybuilder any more. If you ever did.”

I looked down at my torso. Her comment seemed a tad harsh, but there were a few flabby folds there, and I straightened up to stretch them out.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll say I’m trying to get back in shape, and at least I won’t look like a novice...”

Mimi raised her eyebrows sceptically, but before I could respond my phone started to vibrate on the table, crawling towards the toast. I grabbed it and hit the answer button.

“Liam, she passed!” Jackie shrieked.

“Passed what?” I said.

“The test, you idiot. She passed the drugs test, at the trials. It all came back clear. I’ve just had a call from UK Athletics. They were fretting about it because of all the gossip. But she’s clear.”

I had completely forgotten about the automatic test she’d have had after the final. They were so routine now you didn’t give them a moment’s thought.

“She passed,” I said to Mimi.

Mimi was holding both hands out flat, palms down, motioning them up and down like a conductor who wants the orchestra to play more softly.

“I heard,” she whispered, raising her eyebrows towards the dozen or so people still having breakfast. “And so did most of the frigging restaurant.”

“Have you spoken to her?” I asked Jackie, making a point now of not mentioning Meg by name.

“Not a dickie-bird,” said Jackie. “I’ve tried about four times this morning. I eventually gave up and left a message about the test.”

“Hopefully some good news will help,” I said.

Mimi looked at me sceptically and leaned forward to within a few inches of the phone, close enough for Jackie to hear.

“But why wouldn’t she expect anything other than a clear test?” she said. “It’s only us that should have reason to feel relieved. Isn’t it?”

She had a point. Megan had no reason to be concerned about the test if she was clean. And maybe she wasn’t concerned – maybe this was a non-event for her. But this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to continue now.

“We’re still having breakfast,” I said to Jackie. “Best if we call you later.”

Jackie hung-up. Mimi sat back in her chair, looking out through the double doors at the trees and yellow lawn stretching towards a field beyond where two horses were munching on the dry tufts of grass.

“I guess it’s something though,” she said, ruefully, as much to herself as me.

I sensed someone at my shoulder and looked up to see first a navy zipper-jacket and then the face of a man in his forties with a pink complexion and thinning brown hair.

“Inspector Richards,” he said, putting a business card down on the table. “Sorry to interrupt your little breakfast… Liam McCarthy?”

“Yes, that’s me,” I said. “I recognise you from Celtic Manor.”

Richards smiled and sat down, uninvited, on the chair next to Mimi, facing me.

“Yes, I think we were looking for the same person. Any joy?

I shook my head. “You?”

He shook his.

“So you know we’re not journalists, right?” Mimi said, pushing her plate away and sitting upright, arms folded, like she was waiting for an apology for being thrown out of Celtic Manor at his instigation. She was being optimistic.

“Yes, Miss Jacobs,” he said. “You do the PR and he does the coaching.”

“I guess your pals told you where we were staying,” I said, but he looked puzzled. “The officers who stopped us last night…?”

“For what?”

“Apparently, Mimi was driving too slowly.”

The inspector gave another little shake of his head. “That’s news to me, I’m afraid,” he said, sounding uncomfortable. “Must have been routine.”

Mimi almost laughed out loud and shot him a ‘don’t-give-me-that-bullshit’ look.

“Let’s find somewhere to talk,” he said.

I sensed Mimi was ready to object, but this was a conversation with a police officer I wanted to have. We might learn something. I stood up, leaving my cereal half-eaten.

“I’d really like to see the Roman amphitheatre while I’m here,” I suggested.

We walked without speaking along the hotel drive, the gravel crunching noisily under our feet, and turned left onto a road that led to the amphitheatre. It was a proper arena, big enough for a tennis match. The centuries had reduced the stands to six grassy mounds held in place by the original stone walls, but you could easily imagine it crowded with spectators watching some gory Roman spectacle.

We stopped for a moment to read the potted history; how six thousand legionnaires had gathered there two thousand years earlier for their sport.

“Not quite the Olympic stadium in Rio,” Richards said, “but I’m sure it had its moments.”

There was nothing I could say to that, and I sensed Mimi flinching next to me.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the reports,” he continued, speaking with almost theatrical intonation like he was imitating Richard Burton. “We’ve reopened the investigation into the death of Matt Davies, and I’ve been asked to lead it. And with all due respect to the Olympics, it’s a very serious matter. I need Megan to help me with my inquiries.”

Mimi was still prickly. “Why?” she said. “What’s it got to do with her?”

“To be fair, I don’t actually know. You might say that’s the whole point. I need to find out, because I owe it to the family to leave no stone unturned. I’m revisiting everything. The family wasn’t satisfied with the first inquiry, and my chief constable wants it all looked at again.”

He stared intently at each of us in turn as if wanting to emphasise how serious this was, and how determined he was to get to the bottom of what happened.

“Megan was one of the boy’s friends,” he continued. “She may know something that could help. I don’t know until I speak to her.”

Mimi and I exchanged looks, not sure what to say. The truth seemed simplest.

“We appear to be in the same boat, inspector,” I confessed. “We’d also like know what this is all about. But Meg seems determined to deal with it herself.”

“So it seems,” he said.

“How come you didn’t see her at Celtic Manor?”

“She checked-out… well, to be honest, she didn’t even check-out. She just disappeared. We understand she was with Driscoll, who we also want to interview again. And you don’t need me to point out they are not doing themselves any favours by avoiding me.”

He was right: I didn’t need him to point that out.

“Mr McCarthy, Miss Jacobs,” he said sternly. “A word to the wise. If you see Megan before I do, tell her to give me a call. You have my number now. The sooner I speak to her, the sooner we can clear this up and she can get back to winning a gold medal. I’m sure we’d all like to see her do that.”