Fatal Error Read Free

covering the major European leagues? What about the e-commerce? What about the ten million quid Orchestra Ventures have put on the table? Yesterday you were more fired up about this than anyone.’
    ‘I know. Yesterday I was acting as if Ninetyminutes was my company. I was ignoring my father, ignoring the meeting today, pretending they didn’t exist. But I was deluding myself. They do exist. I can’t hide from the reality.’
    ‘We’ve faced obstacles like this before and you’ve never quit. You’ve always found a way over them or under them or through them. If it was just me, I’d have given up long ago, you know that.’
    Guy smiled.
    ‘I’ve learned a lot from you,’ I went on. ‘I’ve learned to believe in you. Don’t tell me I was wrong.’
    Guy shrugged. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Is it because it’s your father? If it was anyone else you wouldn’t just roll over.’
    ‘I’m not just rolling over!’ Guy snapped. Then he got a grip of himself. ‘No, you’re right. It is because it’s my father. I know him. He’s determined to turn Ninetyminutes into myfailure and his success. And he has all the cards. As usual.’
    ‘Don’t give up.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Davo. I already have.’
    I looked at him. He meant it.
    We sat in silence. I could feel the edifice that we had all worked so hard to create over the last few months crumbling around me, as though Tony Jourdan had removed a vital keystone that kept the whole thing up. It was so bloody unfair!
    ‘We have to tell them back there,’ I said.
    ‘You do it. I can’t face them. Go on ahead. I’ll stay here.’
    So I left him, shrouded in his own darkness.

2
    There was no sign of Guy in the office the next day, Tuesday. I called his flat in Wapping with no reply. My contact at Orchestra Ventures rang me three times but each time I avoided talking to him.
    I was drumming my fingers on my desk, wondering what to do next, when Ingrid joined me. Ingrid Da Cunha had known Guy almost as long as I had, but she had been with Ninetyminutes for only two months. She had joined as publisher of the website, and she had been the final ingredient that had made the team work together. I liked her. And I respected her opinion.
    ‘So, we’re going into the glamour business, are we?’ she said.
    ‘You are. Not me.’
    ‘You should stick around. Chartered Accountant of the Month. Mr October. We could really use you.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Of course, with my ancestry this should be the perfect job for me. Copacabana babe. Swedish au pair. I could do it all.’
    I couldn’t help smiling. Ingrid had big pale-blue eyes, a wide friendly smile and thick chestnut-brown hair. But I had seen her in a bathing suit, and although she didn’t look bad, she was hardly page-three material.
    She caught me. ‘What are you laughing at? Sure, my bum’s too big. And my thighs. But I could get cosmetic surgery on the company now. It’s just a question of moving things around a bit. Tony will pay for it. I’m sure my father couldfix me up with a surgeon in Rio. You wouldn’t recognize me.’
    ‘What about growth hormones?’
    ‘What do you mean? I’m five foot two. Five foot five in the right pair of shoes.’ She punched me on the arm.
    ‘Ow!’ When Ingrid hit, she hit hard. ‘Don’t get too excited. I think all Ninetyminutes will be doing is providing the links to some seedy little studio in Los Angeles. You’ll have to keep focusing your talents on the football.’
    ‘Arbroath nil, Hamilton Academicals nil,’ Ingrid said, in an appalling imitation of the results announcer on Grandstand . Ingrid had an accent like none I had ever heard before, although she probably spoke like every other woman in the world with a Swedish mother, a Brazilian father and a British education. Her tone became serious. ‘I just wanted to say that you don’t deserve this.’
    ‘None of us do.’
    ‘Tony isn’t going to give in, is he?’
    ‘I don’t know. I doubt it somehow. But it has to