To make it in the business world, you had to be pragmatic about things. And like any other deal, not just ones of this astronomical scale, there were always flies in the ointment. In this case it happened to be the Popovs. Mikhail was a sneaky bastard, and he evidently knew all the ins and outs of the Silvertown deal, thanks to his various spies. He was adept at seeing the big picture.

In fact, Mikhail Popov had been shadowing David Carter’s every move from the very beginning of the Silvertown project. He had been circling overhead like a vulture, just waiting for a whiff of carrion.

One of Popov's hobbies was chess, and he happened to be engrossed in a game via correspondence when Ian Bream was brought into the study at his country home. This was a week before the fateful Mile End-Chiswick match. Bream was a middle-manager in the Silvertown local council, and he was naturally up to his neck in the Carter deal at the moment. But he had an ex-wife and two kids to feed, and so he could hardly say no to a payday from the Popovs.

With one hand, Mikhail stroked at his grey beard, and with the other he slowly moved the knight to rook-five. He had not yet looked at Ian Bream, who stood on the other side of the desk, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot and wondering desperately if he should say something. Eventually, Mikhail broke that terrible silence. "I like chess," he began, "because I like control. My sons tell me I’m a ‘control freak’. And what is chess but a battle for control? In that respect, it is very similar to business. Can you see that?"

"Yes! Yes, I can. Mm-hmm," Ian nodded eagerly.

"And I love business. Business is my life. Perhaps you feel the same way?"

"Mm, yes..."

"This Silvertown deal... you are heavily involved, yes?"

"Me? Yes, I'm..."

"Please. I do not wish to know details. What I want is the answer to a single question. Will the deal go through?"

Ian Bream coughed awkwardly. "Well, I mean there are always other facts to be taken into consideration, nothing's ever a sure thing..."

"Spare me your tedious caution. I want an answer."

There was a look in Mikhail Popov's eyes that discouraged any further prevarication. "Yes," said Ian.

"All the signatures are in place?"

"Yes."

"Then the deal will go through. Very well. This is good." He looked up at Ian for the first time and evidently perceived a certain curiosity in the middle-manager's expression. "You wonder, perhaps, why I am pleased about this? After all, the Carter family are my rivals, are they not? Well..." he tapped the side of his nose with a spindly index finger. "That is for me to know.”

For too long now a kind of uneasy stalemate had existed between the Carters and the Popovs. Neither had been willing to make the next move, which could prove to be the final one. But now there was a definite reason for David Carter to behave himself and strive to keep his nose clean. After all, who could say no to five billion pounds? With that in mind, it was time for the Popovs to reassert themselves. After all, Mikhail had an empire to maintain. He had spotted a weakness in David Carter’s armour, and what sort of a man would he be if he did not take advantage?

This brought him to the next question: where exactly to strike? Where was David Carter's weakness? The answer was obvious. The son. Mikhail thought of his own two sons, and reflected on what he might do if anything were to happen to them. Fortunately, that was unlikely. No one would dare. But getting to Wayne Carter was a perfect way to get to David and force him to relinquish the control he had established in the West End of London. David had gone to great lengths to keep himself out of reach. Untouchable. But Wayne was a footballer, for God's sake! A midfielder in the first team! Parading himself on the pitch in front of sixty thousand people every week. David Carter might well be untouchable, but his son was anything but.

"And when is the announcement to be made?" Popov spoke softly but with crisp precision and authority.

"Monday, sir."

"At what time?"

"I... I don't know."

Popov smiled. "No matter. So Mr. Carter will be going public on Monday. That’s fine. That still leaves us with plenty of time to make a move. The money has been transferred to your account, Mr. Bream. Please leave."

Ian Bream did so with a few mumbled thanks. He resisted the temptation to bow as he backed out of the room. When he got out of the house and back to his car, which was waiting for him at the roadside, he felt an inexplicable urge to be sick.

While the success of the Silvertown deal was certainly not something Mikhail Popov had wanted, he was adept at rolling with the punches. And he had enough experience to know that he could turn most situations to his advantage if he approached them laterally. So David Carter had managed to secure the Silvertown development – very well. But until the deal had gone through, and the whole thing was in black and white, he would naturally exercise a degree of caution in the other areas of his business. He would be unwilling to indulge in the splashy, vulgar displays of power with which he had managed to secure his position at Mile End. Yes, in some respects Mr. Carter was caught between a rock and a hard place. The Silvertown deal might be untouchable, but everything else was on the table. In that respect, Carter was more vulnerable than he had ever been. West London hung in the balance.

*

When David received that phone call from his son, telling him about the note which the dodgy security guard had handed over, the news came at the worst possible time. Silvertown was not good for David’s blood pressure. Now the site was humming with industry once again. Things were in motion. It was the deal David had been waiting for all his life and he wasn't going to let anything, especially not the fucking Popovs, get in the way.

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Of course he saw what Mikhail was up to when he sent Wayne that note, but what was he supposed to do about it? If anything happened – anything out of the ordinary – it might throw the whole deal out of whack. David had to make a choice, and Mikhail Popov could not have made it much more clear-cut. It was Wayne, or it was Silvertown.

To the locals – and there were plenty of them, in spite of the degradation the place had suffered – David Carter was the white knight. The working class hero, come to rescue them from the mire. Once the deal went public, he would be sure to capitalise on the PR – when he wasn't counting his money, that is.

And then Wayne had to bring him that fucking note. Why couldn't things just go according to plan? David had taken every possible precaution, but this had still slipped through the cracks. So just this once, David had no choice but to let it go – and to let go of his security chief, too. It pained him, but he gritted his teeth.

If he hadn't been so distracted by the deal, he would been even more fucking angry than he already was. Still, there would be time for that later. When the deal was done. When the match was over. He would be able to make things up to Wayne. Soon he would have both the time and the energy to put things right.

*

The night before the Chiswick-Mile End match, Stanislaw tapped on the door of his father's study.

"Come," said Mikhail.

Stanislaw stepped inside and found his father where he always was: at his desk, poring over the chess board. "Pop, it's about tomorrow."

"Oh yes?" there was a glimmer of hopefulness in Mikhail's eyes. Had they received word from Carter at last? Ever the pragmatist, Mikhail would have been happy to negotiate.

But Stanislaw shook his head. "So, you want me to go ahead?"

There was a pregnant pause. Mikhail got to his feet and strode over to the window. He peered out at his vast estate. His own private empire. "It is regrettable," he said. "I have underestimated David Carter. I had thought he would simply roll over, like a good little puppy, and submit to me. But that does not appear to be the case. In a way, I respect it. We have given him a choice between his empire and his son and he has chosen his empire. I admire decisiveness in a man. You could learn a lot from him, Stanislaw."

Stanislaw ignored this. "So, do you want me to go ahead?" he repeated.

"Naturally. I respect the man, but he must be forced to take his medicine. So the plan goes ahead. Call Ronnie Vincent."

"Yes, pa."

And Stanislaw left the office, fishing his phone out of the pocket of his designer leather jacket. It was funny, but for all his "party animal" reputation, Ronnie Vincent always answered the phone when he saw it was the Popovs calling. Maybe he had more brains than people gave him credit for.

*

The whole thing was arse about face. Wayne tried to imagine it the other way around, and he couldn't. What if David had tried to get at one of Popov's sons? It wouldn't happen. It just wouldn't. Mikhail Popov was famously cautious, he took every conceivable measure to ensure that he and his family were protected at all times. And David, well... the recent events spoke for themselves, didn't they?

His dad was weak. It was a painful realisation, but an inescapable one. David Carter was weak, and Mikhail Popov was strong. Simple as that. And if Wayne wanted to make any changes to his own personal situation, he could no longer rely on David to sort things out. It was time to make his own way.

In spite of everything, Wayne couldn't bring himself to be angry at the Popovs. He knew they had arranged the incident, that they had crippled him and robbed him of his career. But they would never have done it if not for David. They had given fair warning, and it was all just part and parcel of the business for them. It was David who had made the conscious decision not to take it seriously. In Wayne's mind, it was David and David alone who was the agent of his present misfortune.

At long last, the depression he had been suffering from for weeks began to recede. He felt as though he were coming through the other side and was now able to channel that negative energy into righteous anger. He could focus his destruction outward instead of inward.

Of course, on the surface, things went back to the way they always had been. Wayne cowtowed to David in just about every respect. He answered fan mail and he started making media appearances again. It was now roughly three months since the fateful match, when Ronnie Vincent's boot brought an undignified end to Wayne's ambition. He was up on his feet again now, still walking with the aid of a metal cane, and still attending regular physical therapy sessions. But he was slowly getting back to the real world.

However, whenever he was interviewed by a pundit, or quizzed by a fan, he refused to answer the question: would he ever play again? He wanted to keep them guessing for a bit. He had an ace up his sleeve, and he was going to play it for all it was worth. There was nobody he could trust. Nobody. His father – his hero, his boss, his leader – was now his enemy. He had no girlfriend, no friends to speak of – save for his teammates, who had been conspicuously quiet lately. He was alone. But that gave him an inestimable advantage. It meant that he owed loyalty to nobody but himself.

"Hello, Mile End Media Support, Rochelle speaking?"

"Hiya Rochelle." Wayne spoke with self-conscious cheerfulness to match Rochelle's crisply professional telephone voice.

"Oh, Wayne! Lovely to hear from you. How are you feeling? On the mend, I hope?"

"Ah, you know, not too bad. Can't complain."

"Is it your dad you're after? He’s been out of the office for a few days, actually. He’s over at Silvertown, I think…"

This was music to Wayne’s ears. Things would go a lot smoother with Dad out of the way. "No, no, it's you I want to talk to." He was sitting at home, in his kitchen, which had become the base of operations for his plan. He plotted things out meticulously, as though it were a heist or a military campaign. He knew exactly what he needed to do to ensure things went his way. He knew what to say and how to say it.

"In fact, I wanted to run something by you."

"Oh yes? And what's that?"

"A press conference. Could you set one up for me?"

There was a smile in her voice as she said: "You're going to have to give me a bit more info than that."

"It's an announcement I want to make. I want to... go public with something. Can you put it together?"

"Of course. But you're being very secretive. What's it about?"

"Well... if you really want to know, I'm going to announce my retirement."

"Oh, Wayne..." Now she was putting on professional melancholy. Rochelle must have a rolodex of emotions, from which she plucked the correct one for each moment. "I'm very sorry to hear that. But I think a lot of us saw it coming. You know that we'll all miss you."

"Aw, bless you, thanks Rochelle. But I want to do it on my terms, hence the press conference.”

"I understand. When did you have in mind?"

"As soon as possible.” Considering who he was planning on inviting, it was best that he didn’t give his father much time to find out. "I want to make a clean breast of things. How about tomorrow?"