to find that the players weren’t warming up as usual on the field. Instead, they were sitting in the dressing room, and the mood was extremely subdued.
‘What’s the matter, lads?’ she asked.
‘You need to go in and see Mr Fincham in his office,’ Billy said. ‘Archie and Jared are already there.’
Mr Fincham? Why would the football club’s chairman of directors want to see her? ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘I can’t say.’ He bit his lip. ‘But there’s trouble, Bailey.’
Worried, Bailey hurried along to the office. Mandy, Lyle Fincham’s PA, was typing furiously on her keyboard. ‘Mandy, what’s going on?’ Bailey asked.
Mandy shook her head. ‘That’s for Mr Fincham to say, not me.’ She inclined her head towards the door. ‘They’re in there, waiting. You’d better go in.’
Bailey knocked on the door out of courtesy and walked in. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late. There was a delay on the Tube.’
Then she saw Darren sitting between Archie and Jared. And Jared was looking every inch the dour, unsmiling Scotsman.
‘It’s in all the papers this morning,’ Lyle said, indicating the stack of newspapers on his desk. ‘And all over the Internet.’
‘What is?’ she asked.
‘The video of laddo here.’ Lyle jerked his head towards Darren. ‘In a club, getting drunk. Underage.’
She looked at Darren, who was white-faced and looked utterly guilty. So much for making the most of his second chance. Or maybe they just hadn’t given him enough support. After all, Jared had originally wanted to talk to her last night about the boy; they hadn’t got round to discussing the situation, because she’d been in meltdown.
And yet … something didn’t quite stack up. The last couple of weeks, since she’d picked up Darren’s underperformance and she and Jared had persuaded Archie to give the boy another chance, his stats had all been back to normal. ‘When did all this happen?’ she asked.
‘Last night,’ Archie said grimly.
Darren shook his head. ‘I wasn’t out last night. You can ask my mum. She’ll tell you.’
‘Actually, my stats show that Darren’s performance has been normal ever since we talked to you, Archie,’ Bailey said. ‘If he’d still been drinking, it would’ve shown up on my graphs.’
‘Graphs, schmaphs,’ Lyle Fincham said, flapping a dismissive hand. ‘Archie should never have let that box of tricks of yours cloud his judgement. This is a total mess, and I can’t afford to let this affect the club. As from today, you’re out, Dr Randall. I don’t care how much of your research project’s wasted. It’s over.’
‘Actually, I agree with Bailey,’ Jared cut in. ‘It would show on the graphs. And if she goes, I go.’
No. No way was she letting Jared risk his career. For her, this was a research project. Yes, there would be repercussions about the way it had ended, but it would eventually blow over. For Jared, it would be his whole career on the line. This wasn’t fair.
‘I was the one who talked Archie into giving Darren another chance, so don’t take this out on Jared,’ she said swiftly. ‘Don’t make him leave because of me.’
‘And that video’s from weeks back, I swear. I haven’t touched a drop since you said I could stay, Mr McLennan,’ Darren added desperately, giving Archie a beseeching look. ‘I know I was stupid to do it before.’
‘But you’ve still dragged the club’s name into disrepute.’ Lyle shook his head. ‘No. You’re out, boy, so go and pack your things.’
‘That’s not fair—he’s owned up to his mistakes, and this is just bad timing,’ Bailey said. ‘Nobody’s perfect. Can you honestly put your hand on your heart and say that you’ve never, ever made a decision you haven’t later regretted?’
Lyle gave her a speaking look.
‘We all have the potential to make the wrong choice somewhere along the way. It’s hard to own up to it. But Darren admitted his mistake and he’s doing something about it.’ Bailey grimaced. ‘Look, can Darren just go and wait in another room while we talk about this like the professionals we are? It’s horrible, all of us standing round like vultures pecking at the poor lad.’
‘I agree,’ Jared chipped in. ‘And I also think we can turn this around so the club can make this a positive. We’ll need your PR manager to help us, but we can do it.’
For a moment, she thought Lyle Fincham was going to refuse, but then he tightened his mouth and nodded. ‘Darren, go and wait next door with Mandy. You don’t move a muscle, you don’t phone anyone or talk to anyone and you don’t go anywhere near the Internet, do you hear? Leave your phone with us.’
Looking hunted, the boy handed over his phone and went to wait with Lyle’s PA next door.
Lyle picked up his phone. ‘Max? My office. Now. There’s a situation that needs handling.’ He put the phone down again. ‘Right. So we’ll sort this out between us.’
‘Darren’s only seventeen. He’s still just a kid, really. He’s not going to think things through properly, the way someone more mature would do. Instead of coming to you to ask about extra training, Archie, he got drunk to blot out how he felt. You agreed to give him a second chance. He’s stayed clean since then—and I bet if you ask any of the other lads they’ll be able to tell you that, too,’ Bailey said.
‘I let you persuade me into giving him another chance, yes,’ Archie said. ‘But if one player goes wrong, then all the players get tarred with the same brush. You know what the press is like about how much money is in football. They’ll have a field day with the kid—and with the club. This isn’t fair to the rest of the players, or to the fans.’
‘Or the shareholders,’ Lyle added. ‘His behaviour’s put everything at risk.’
‘But we can turn this round,’ Jared said. ‘Really.’
There was a rap on the door and Max Porter, the PR manager, came in. ‘So what’s this situation?’
‘Darren. There’s a video of him drunk and underage.’ Lyle’s colour was dangerously high again, and Bailey was really beginning to worry that the chairman of directors was about to have a heart attack or a stroke.
‘Right,’ Max said calmly. ‘Talk me through it.’
‘We picked it up on Bailey’s system,’ Jared said. ‘He admitted he’d been drinking. Archie agreed to give him another chance.’
‘And he hasn’t touched anything since,’ Bailey said. ‘All his stats since we talked to him about it match his average. And it would show up if he was still drinking.’
‘I’ve analysed the way he plays and designed a training programme to help him improve his weak spots,’ Jared added.
‘So you both obviously think he should stay,’ Max said. Then he looked at Archie and Lyle. ‘And
