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“No.”
“You look very similar,” Holms commented.
“Ah, that's your modern game for you,” the young man replied, “They're breeding the individuality out of the players.”
“I see. Now, tell me about Jimmy Henderson.”
“Young Jimmy? Part of the new regime. Maybe made captain too young, should have been an older head.”
“Such as yourself?”
“I've been in the first team over ten years, but it's not my place to tell the gaffer …”
There was a sourness about the response which obviously intrigued Holms. “And did you get on well with him?”
“Fine, I suppose, considering he was one of the new breed of individualists and not one of us clones.”
“Did he have any enemies?”
“None that I know of.”
“Any character flaws? Drink, drugs,
gambling?”
Balfour shook his head. “Nothing you would really call a major flaw, just Jimmy always had a notion for older women.”
This caught me by surprise and I could not stop myself from exclaiming, “Aha!”
Holms kept a cooler head. “But you can give no reason why he should have disappeared?”
Balfour curled his lip. “Young fella, who's to say? Maybe didn't have the stomach for the fight.”
It was obvious that Holms had taken a dislike to this surly creature as his tone was frozen. You expected this Liverpool game to be particularly physical then?”
“Title decider, couldn't be anything else.”
This seemed to satisfy the great man for he waved the fullback away. “I see, please send over the next player.”
Balfour shrugged and wandered off to rejoin his comrades.
“The jealousy positively oozes out of that man,” I commented.
Holms could say nothing but agree. “I noticed.
“I'd wager he's had a hand in young Henderson's disappearance,” I continued.
“It's possible,” Holms concurred. “ That's why I dismissed him so rapidly, I didn't want him to suspect that I might be on to him.”
Again our musings were interrupted by the arrival of the next player to be interviewed, but whereas the previous two had been as alike as two peas in a pod, this one was of an altogether different stamp. He was slim, swarthy and moustachioed and announced himself grandiosely with a struggling grasp of the English tongue. “Hai ham Rodrigo de la Cerveza Montoya. You want autograph?”
“Not one of the clones, I see,” I commented, which drew a disparaging glance from Holms.