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We sat and Alexander, resting his hands on his knees told all he knew. “Well, as I told you, Jimmy was one of our new deprivation regime of rickets and malnutrition, taken from his family at the age of six and thoroughly deprived to turn them into ambitious and talented footballers.”
Holms sighed impatiently. “Yes, yes, we know of the boy, but tell us of the man.”
“What can I say? First team at eighteen. First cap at nineteen. Captain of United at twenty one and England shortly thereafter.”
But this did not feed Holms’ appetite for information. “His personal life,” he demanded. “What films did he like? What music?”
I chimed in with, “Old singers perhaps. What about Lulu?”
But Alexander demurred. “No, he just liked the modern stuff, as far as I know. And I'm not the one to be asking, there's always a necessary barrier between players and their manager.”
“Did he have any particular friends at the club?” Holms asked.
“McCusker and him were close, I'd say.”
“Ah, McCusker, we met him at the beginning of this investigation. Have him call on me at his earliest convenience.”
As it happened I was not present when young McCusker appeared for I had gone for a stroll in the park.
Holms told me later of the events that transpired and I have refrained from adding anything save what he imparted. He began the interview by asking if he truly was a friend of the missing captain
“I suppose. He's going out with my sister.”
“Your sister is Miss Cynthia La Crème then?”
“Yeah, she changed her name when she became a WAG.”
“And did you approve of the match?”
“Well, Cynthia wasn't threatening to be a brain surgeon.”
“So you were glad that she was bettering herself?”
“Jimmy wasn't due for Mastermind either, they suited each other.”
“Had they plans to marry?”
“Cynthia did.”
“And did you socialise with them?”
“Not really. We had different friends.”
“I had thought that the football fraternity was small and close.”
“Yeah, but I'm gay.”
“Oh.”
“When I came out I could clear the dressing room in two seconds.”
“Young men can be so cruel.”
“It's just a lack of knowledge, Mr Holms, I don't blame them. They think the sight of their spotty arses is going to drive me wild.”