Free Death in a Far Country by Patricia Hall Page A

way to one side where glass doors gave access to the offices and other facilities of Bradfield United’s administration. Security guards looked at the invitation Jenna Heywood had sent to the office and one of them guided her inside the building to the boardroom, where another club official studied her credentials again before opening the imposing panelled doors for her and ushering her in.
    ‘Miss Heywood’s over there by t’window,’ the man said, gesturing vaguely across a throng of burly men in suits to the far side of the room, where picture windows gave ontothe main stand and the so far empty green pitch beyond. Everyone was clutching a glass, and to judge by the heat and the noise, everyone had had their glass filled more than once already, although there was still more than an hour to go before kick-off. Laura dodged her way through the crush and joined the group around Jenna, who noticed her arrival with an unexpectedly warm smile.
    ‘Laura,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you could come.’
    ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ Laura said. ‘A chance of glory like this?’
    Jenna’s eyes lost their warmth for a second as she glanced out onto the pitch, which was being lashed by a sudden squall.
    ‘We hope so,’ she said quickly, glancing at a well-tanned, dark-haired man at her side wearing what Laura guessed was a casually elegant Armani suit and a slightly strained smile. ‘Right, Paolo?’ she said.
    ‘We can ’ope,’ he said, and Laura realised, even before Jenna introduced them, that this must be Paolo Minelli, the Italian coach who had been unexpectedly lured to the club by Jenna’s father. Minelli nodded in Laura’s direction and just for a second his expression switched from anxious to interested as the melancholy brown eyes in a crumpled face flickered over Laura’s trim figure. She had chosen her black trouser suit and emerald shirt carefully to set off her copper hair and was inevitably flattered by their effect.
    ‘And this is Angelica Stone, Paolo’s girlfriend,’ Jenna had continued smoothly. ‘And her brother Stephen, who runs the new nightclub in Northgate. I haven’t made it there yet, but I hear it’s very good.’ The Stones nodded briefly in Laura’s direction with little interest until Jenna added that Laura wasfeatures editor of the
Gazette
.
    ‘Are you here to write something?’ Angelica asked. She was thin enough to verge on the anorexic and wore a revealingly low-cut silk top that did not meet her designer jeans and exposed a tanned midriff and a pierced navel. Her expression, Laura realised, was somewhat less than friendly.
    ‘No, I’ve already written about Jenna taking over the club,’ she said. ‘If you saw the
Gazette
yesterday you might have read it. The sports editor will do the rest of the coverage. Football’s not something I know much about, to be honest. This is a new experience for me.’
    ‘Ah, you wrote that article, did you?’ Minelli asked, also looking at Laura with even greater interest and practised eyes that travelled again from her cloud of loosely swept back hair to her new high-heeled red boots in seconds. ‘I thought that was very good, very nice.
Simpatico, si
. So much writing about football is fantastic – is that the right word in English? I mean not true, made up?’
    ‘Sorry, I should have called to thank you for the article,’ Jenna said quickly. ‘It was quite a pleasure to read something that wasn’t having a go at me for being female, which is what’s happened on most of the sports pages. You wouldn’t think this was the twenty-first century, the way some of the tabloids go on. But that was a good piece. I liked it.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Laura said.
    ‘Now, will you excuse me for a minute,’ Jenna went on quickly. ‘Paolo and I need a word before he goes downstairs to join the team. Perhaps Steve will get you a drink and introduce you to some more people. I won’t be long. You’re sitting next to me in the