Death in a Far Country Read Online Free PDF

do.’
    ‘Well, maybe it’s no bad thing on a local paper,’ Jenna said easily. ‘The public expect their paper to be partisan for the local team. But you? If you don’t do sport, what’s all this about? Why have I attracted your particular attention? I like to know where I stand.’
    Jenna’s stock-in-trade was attention, Laura thought wryly, and how it could be manipulated to the best advantage, and she knew that she was playing in the big league here.
    ‘I’m intrigued by a woman taking over a football club,’ Laura said. ‘Or rather, taking over this particular football club. I know it’s not unheard of these days, but United is such a basket case. Why bother?’ She knew she was being provocative, but was interested to see how Jenna would react to such a frontal assault. But Jenna Heywood just threw back her head and laughed.
    ‘A bloody good question,’ she said. ‘It’s one I ask myself in the small watches of the night when I wake up from a nightmare about the balance sheets I’ve seen. I reckon my father was barmy to keep pumping money into the club, and I must be even more barmy to follow suit.’
    ‘But like Tony, you’re a fan?’
    ‘Oh, I was always that,’ Jenna admitted. ‘If your sports editor wore blue and gold Babygros in his pram, I think I got the bug even earlier. My mother always said she went into labour in the directors’ box at one particularly fraught game when United scored a winning goal in the ninety-first minute. She leapt out of her seat to cheer and the next thing she knew they were sending for the ambulance. There’s no logic in mytrying to rescue United, any more than there was for my poor old dad. It’s an emotional thing. We’ll have to see how it goes. Just at the moment, with the Cup run, things are looking up. But I expect Chelsea will thrash them eight-nil on Saturday and it’ll be back to our normal gloom and doom on Monday – and that’s not for quoting by the way. We don’t want the players suspecting me of lack of confidence before a game like that.’
    She glanced over her shoulder. ‘There are a couple of them in here, as it goes, certain to be taking a close interest in what I’m up to.’ She gestured at a group of young men in the latest smart-casual gear by the bar, accompanied by a couple of young women in short skirts and abbreviated tops, and strappy sandals with heels so high they looked in imminent danger of toppling off them.
    ‘The black lad is our star, “OK” Okigbo. I hope he’s not spending too much time in here with the big game coming up. I’m surprised the coach hasn’t got them out training today. I’ll have to have a word with him about that.’
    ‘You’re going to be a hands on boss, then?’ Laura asked.
    Jenna grinned. ‘I’ve been running my own business for ten years,’ she said. ‘I’m not likely to take a back seat in this one. They haven’t seen anything yet.’
    ‘But some of the directors don’t like it?’
    ‘There’s still a lot of men who don’t like working for a woman,’ Jenna said. ‘I don’t know what it’s like in newspapers.’
    Laura smiled faintly at the idea of Ted Grant knuckling under to a female boss.
    ‘Some editors don’t even like women on their staff let alone giving the orders.’
    ‘Yes, well, I’ve come across plenty like that, not so muchin my own profession, but amongst the clients. Companies that hire a PR firm and are then taken aback when a woman turns up with a critical report on how they do things. I don’t imagine Bradfield United will be any different.’
    ‘Not different, but quite possibly worse,’ Laura said, with a smile. ‘Your unreconstructed Yorkshireman can be an intransigent fellow. They don’t take happily to change, especially in their hallowed sanctums like football and cricket clubs. I think you may be in for an interesting time.’
    ‘I control the club,’ Jenna said, her mood darkening slightly. ‘She who pays the piper, and all that. There