Careful Who You Park Next To

Every Monday she sends London a report. Every Monday there is less of him in it.

Martha Kirkby notes where people park: who is in, who is next to whom, who has backed in so they can leave in a hurry. She spent six years as an investigator for a small unit in London that looks into how British athletes are chosen.

In October she walks into a sportswear brand on the river at Henley as its new head of athlete relations, and is given one athlete to look after. Kyle Dutton is thirty-one and rows in the GB eight. He is polite to everybody, close to nobody, and in bed by half past nine every night of his life. Rowing has thought the worst of him for six years, and he has never said a word to change its mind.

Her job at the brand is to make him likeable before the Games. Her other job is to watch him.

In ten seasons the brand has asked him for everything, and the only things he has ever said yes to are boats.

By February she is in his house and in his bed, and she still hasn't told him why she came.

The Olympic eight is named in May.

She has until they name the boat.

He gave back his seat in the Olympic eight and gave no reason. She knows the reason. She can't say how she knows.

The sportswear brand at Henley has paid Kyle Dutton for ten seasons, and its chief executive is sure he will want it all back by July. Kyle sends the money back. The brand sends him a bench with his name on it in brass, and he refuses that too.

Martha Kirkby is the brand's head of athlete relations, and he is her athlete. She is also an investigator for a small unit in London that has the brand in its sights, and every Monday it gets her report. Her orders are to stay exactly where she is.

He rings her at seven every morning to say nothing much. By June she is back in his bed. Her reports to London have started to lie.

In a log she isn't meant to see, her own unit has begun keeping things from her.

The brand has one last offer for him: the pair, the boat he has wanted since the day it signed him.

He doesn't explain himself, to anybody. She has decided to explain herself to him before somebody else does. It will cost her the job, and perhaps the case.

She has one secret left, and she owes it to him.