Premier Deception
Premier Deception
By
S J Crabb
Also By S J Crabb
The Diary Of Madison Brown
The One That Got Away
(Part 1 of The Hardcastle Saga)
A Matter Of Trust
(Part 2 of The Hardcastle Saga)
Payback
(Part 3 of The Hardcastle Saga)
Falcondell
(The Devil's Son)
Scarlett
(The Devil's Daughter)
sjcrabb.com
Copyrighted Material
Copyright S J Crabb 2016
S J Crabb has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.
Published by S J Crabb at Smashwords
Thank you for downloading this e book. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favourite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Note From The Author
Scarlett
Prologue
Charlotte Dawson looked around her in disbelief. How on earth had this happened? Only a few hours previously she had been a university graduate looking for a summer job, and now here she was about to make history as the first female manager of a Premier League football team.
She was sitting in the club’s boardroom surrounded by people that she had only just met a short time ago. Her head was spinning and she felt confused and apprehensive as she took in the scene around her. To the left of her sat one of the owners of the club, Mitchell Maloney. She guessed that he was in his early fifties, although by the look of him he could pass as a lot older, time hadn’t been kind to him. He was rather a large man with what her mother would have called, “a lived in face.” He was beaming at her and looked very comfortable with his arm casually draped along the back of her chair.
To the right of him sat his brother and co owner, Maurice Maloney, a nervous looking man a few years younger than his brother and looking every bit as apprehensive as she was. He kept on looking at his watch and then throwing worried looks her way. It wasn’t helping calm her nerves she thought, shifting uncomfortably in her chair.
Next to him sat the team coach, Luke Sandor, an angry looking man with dark hair and dark eyes to match his equally dark mood. He had not said two words to Charlotte throughout and looked venomously toward the owners, who both steadfastly refused to look in his direction.
And then there was the Captain of the team, Ronnie Tyler. He looked at Charlotte with an air of arrogance, which just about summed up the impression that she had formed of him. He looked to be in his early thirties with brown hair and shifty eyes. Something about him unnerved her, which she couldn’t quite put her finger on. At least he wasn’t sitting next to her, she thought gratefully, which meant that she could avoid conversation with him, for the last thing she needed right now was anything else to occupy her mind at this life changing moment.
In fact there was no conversation in the room at all. The only sound that could be heard was coming from the large clock on the wall which was ticking away, highlighting the countdown to the drama that was about to unfold, with her in the lead role.
Suddenly the door swung open making her jump and an efficient looking lady stepped into the room, who Charlotte knew to be Elsie Baker the secretary to the owners. She looked at the two men and said briskly. “They are ready for you now,” and then stood to one side to reveal the doorway behind her, which Charlotte knew that once she passed through, there would be no going back.
Chapter One
Earlier that morning Charlotte awoke to the sound of the birds singing outside and the sun breaking in through the cracks of the curtains. Strange sounds were emanating from the chimney breast in her room, long ago boarded up but reminding her of its existence by way of the birds that were nesting in the chimney.
She smiled as she thought of her fabulous dream. Normally she didn’t remember her dreams but this one had been particularly vivid. Johnny Depp had come to her university and seeing her sitting cross legged on the grass making a daisy chain had fallen in love with her. He whisked her away in his hot air balloon to the envy of everyone- in particular Rebecca Cousins, Charlotte’s arch enemy and nemesis whose mission in life appeared to include being mean to Charlotte at all times. They had landed on a Caribbean Island where they were stranded and decided to set up home there and marry. They built a mansion out of twigs and grass that turned into a Kardashian style mansion. Whilst she was knitting them clothes out of ribbons there was a knock at the door and her mother was standing there asking what she would like for tea. It was at this point that she woke up.
Still surrounded by the haze of contentment that was the legacy of her dream she thought about the situation she was now in. The day, if not her life, now stretched out in front of her like a blank notebook waiting for the pages to be filled in, full of uncertainty and hope with a tinge of sadness for what had now gone and would never be again. She had just finished studying sports science at Dorminster University and had bid farewell to her home of the last two years the day before. She had shared a room with a mad girl called Zoe, who was studying politics, and despite their differences they had actually become good friends. Zoe had crazy red hair that swirled around her like a ginger afro and green eyes that made you squirm whenever she looked at you in a certain way. She had a habit of making you feel really stupid and uncomfortable if you questioned her and also wouldn’t answer a question with a straight answer, so would make the perfect MP one day. Charlotte thought of this possibility and laughed to herself, Jeremy Paxman look out! Zoe was spending the summer working for her local Conservative party on a voluntary basis, council elections were looming and it was all hands on deck. Charlotte had resisted the offer to help out as politics left her cold.
It wasn’t as if she had never helped, there was the time that she had helped out on, Zoe’s campaign to become the leader of the debating society. There were endless leaflet drops and forms to hand out. She had to attend various meetings and canvas the people as they left. Despite her efforts nobody wanted to know and in one instance somebody threw an egg at her head! Zoe wasn’t at all sympathetic and said that these were the perils of democracy and you didn’t win wars without a fight.
Charlotte personally thought that there were better wars to fight than being crowned queen of the debating society but knew better than to answer Zoe back, she had learned that it wasn’t worth arguing with her as it was unlikely that you would win anyway, Zoe could argue that there were actually twenty five hours in the day and win! A door slammed and the sound of footsteps could be heard coming upstairs.
Her bedroom door swung open and Charlotte saw the familiar sight of her mother enter the room. Her mother could be a very formidable person and took no prisoners when on a mission, which by the looks of things she was on one now. She looked at Charlotte, lying in bed weak from the effort of sleeping, and said in a brisk tone. “Don’t think that you can lay around in bed all day my girl,” and she strode over to draw the curtains, allowing the sun to explode into the room. She carried on. “Last night whilst you were sleeping I was surfing the web looking for opportunities for you and came across something right up your street on the surrey mother’s website.”
Charlotte groaned inwardly. Her mother was a very determined person who didn’t let the grass grow under anyone’s feet for a second. Even Zoe was in awe of her mother’s organisational skills and became very docile and irreverent around her much to Charlotte’s amusement. Oh this wasn’t fair! she hadn’t even had one day to get used to life after uni and her mum was making plans for her. She had wanted to spend the morning watching TV in bed followed by a long hot bath and possibly an afternoon shopping. The sales had started and she knew that there would be things that she needed in town, what they were yet she didn’t know but as soon as she saw them the need would be overwhelmingly obvious.
Her mother carried on not even drawing breath. “I found out that there is an open day at Kingsbridge United today and there will be lots of summer jobs going. You may even get a job in the player’s bar, or even better on reception which may
lead onto a permanent position. You could start at the bottom and work yourself up.” She started tidying the room as she spoke - in true Stepford fashion, Charlotte thought that her Mum had OCD tendencies and they came out in force when she had an idea. “I have done your research for you and found out information that you can read beforehand so that you can speak knowledgably about the club. They like to know that you have done your homework.”
Charlotte sat up slowly. “But I haven’t had time to think about it, I mean I don’t even have anything suitable to wear,” she said exasperatedly, spying her crumpled jogging bottoms and sweatshirt on the floor. There you go, she thought suddenly, that’s what I need to go to the sales for, smart Interview wear, I knew I needed something!
“Don’t worry about that,” said her mother, sweeping away her objections with ease.
“ I have laid out the Chanel Jacket and Louboutin heels in the spare room so when you have showered, washed your hair and brushed your teeth you can go and get dressed.” As she started to leave she shouted over her shoulder, “breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes and we can talk strategy then. Now get a move as there is no time to waste.” With that she swept out of the room as quickly as she had entered it.
Charlotte stifled a laugh as she took it all in. She couldn’t be annoyed with her mother as she had become accustomed to her strange ways over the years. Mary Jane Dawson, or Maisie, as she was known by her friends, was a dynamic woman. She moved in the surrey mum’s circle of Pilates, coffee mornings and voluntary work. When employed by a bank she had met Charlotte’s father Michael and they had married and moved to the surrey hills, as her mother called it. She didn’t work as her father earned a good salary so spent her time busily running the home and selling items on eBay.
She was a very organised person. Her father joked that she had lists for her lists and folders for her folders. The sense of satisfaction that she obviously felt on striking things from her to do list was second to none. Books on organising and planning littered the bookcase and nothing was left unplanned or unorganised.
They had got used to her ways and never batted an eyelid when she was on one of her missions. It had its uses, such as the time that Charlotte had forgotten that her science project was due in the next day. She remembered at 9pm the night before and had a complete breakdown over it. She was to build an erupting volcano by first period the next day. Her mother stayed up until it was finished whilst Charlotte had to have an early night to get over the stress. Unfortunately all she had at her disposal was a bottle of her grandfather’s elderflower wine. Undaunted she painted it black and attached orange tissue paper, sellotaped on in ribbons to signify lava.
Charlotte’s instructions were to uncork the bottle and watch the lava, or in this case the wine, flow out. The only trouble was that it was a bumpy ride to school on the bus and when the time came to unleash the volcano the cork decided to uncork itself and flew out of the bottle like a bullet from a gun and got lodged in the suspended ceiling.
Cameron Mcpartlin thought that he had been shot and dived for cover and the rest of the class got covered in elderflower lava. The school had written a letter home stating that it had been irresponsible to give a 13 year old alcohol, which really wound her mother up. She wrote them a stiffly worded letter back saying that if they had carried out a proper risk assessment on the project they would have seen it coming, and as they had not specified the materials to use they couldn’t then complain after the event. In future she would recommend they do so otherwise Ofsted may have to become involved. Needless to say volcano projects were suitably controlled after that.
It wasn’t only her mother who was good at her projects she thought remembering the time that she had to make a sword for RE. Her Dad had got quite into it and spent the weekend fashioning an incredible sword out of wood and tin foil. It looked fantastic and when she drew the sword out from her bag - It was like the pulling out of the sword in the stone - there was an audible gasp of reverence from all of the boys. The only way the girls would have been impressed was if she had pulled it out from the latest Michael Kor’s handbag, she thought smiling to herself. Charlotte sat on the side of her bed and thought about what her mother had said. A job at the local football club may not be such a bad idea. It was nearby and there would be lots going on. Having studied sports science she would find it interesting to see how life worked at a football club and it may, as her mother had suggested, lead onto other things.
Getting out of bed she went and duly did as her mother had asked. She then went into the spare room and surveyed the outfit that her mother had laid out for her.
The Chanel jacket had been a charity shop find that her mother never tired of speaking about. She regularly shopped in the local charity shops near the training ground as that was where the footballers wives and girlfriends lived, or WAGs as the press called them. There was many a bargain to be found, mainly to sell on eBay but the jacket was a particular find and had been worn many times for special occasions. The Louboutin heels were possibly not the real deal but had the trademark red sole so were referred to as such. Alongside these couture gems was a white shirt and black skirt with some natural tights. Typical Interview wear but as Charlotte suspected not the usual attire worn to apply for a summer bar job. Most girls her age and even considerably younger would never entertain their mother’s interference on this scale, but Charlotte was an easy going girl who loved and respected her parents. She knew when to go with it and when to fight her corner and this was not worth the aggravation that it would cause if she went against her mother this time. Quickly she got dressed and applied a conservative amount of make up. She pulled her long blond hair into a ponytail and grabbed her large bucket bag to house the necessary interview tools. Oh my God, thought Charlotte, as she spied a list placed carefully beside the bag. Her mother had even written an interview checklist like she did for holiday packing. It read:
1: Notebook
2: Pencil
3: CV
4: Mobile Phone (switch to silent/ meeting mode)
5: Mouth spray/ mints
6: Hairbrush
7: Tissues
8: Make up
9: Folder with research - to study on journey
10: Change for drinks - suggest bottled water (avoid water fountains, who knows what germs they may harbour)
Charlotte smirked. Picking up the bag she went about gathering the relevant articles, then grabbing the jacket she headed off downstairs.
Chapter 2
As she opened the door she could smell the bacon cooking under the grill and hear the radio playing in the background. Her father was sitting in his usual place at the table reading the Financial Times, or at least pretending to. Charlotte knew that he would be more interested in the racing pages as little did her mother know he always had a sneaky bet on the horses every Saturday morning. Looking up he caught her eye and gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Looking good gorgeous,” he said jovially, “off to conquer the world I see.” They both laughed. “Not before she has a good breakfast and goes over the background information, you know it’s not just a case of turning up these days, you have to stand out from the crowd,” interrupted her mother who was frying eggs and keeping an eye on the toast. “Help yourself to cereal and there is some home made compote on the table,” she said. Charlotte and her dad grinned at each other. Her mother always prided herself on her weekend breakfasts, they were to rival any B&B and like everything she did were planned down to the very last freshly squeezed orange juice, courtesy of the juicer that she had to have after seeing a simply must have deal on the shopping channel.