Chapter Two: The One-Pound Club

Old Dock Stadium was worse than its photographs. Sea wind had bleached half the east-stand seats. Plywood covered the ticket-office window. Knee-high weeds grew behind one goal. When Lin parked outside the rusted gate, an old man was on the main-stand roof, weighing blue tarpaulin over a leak. “If you're from the insurers,” he shouted down, “tell them I'm dead.” “I'm Lin Che.” The old man squinted. “Then you died younger. Saw it on the news.” Oscar Bell was Greyport's manager, groundskeeper, kit man, and occasional bus driver. Sixty-one years old, with a coaching résumé that fit on one page and a face that could fill a book. “Mara's inside. Third stair bites.”