He was in his gangsterish coat, unbuttoned, the pale green lining the colour of dry grass. Dyer had seen him the day before, on a bicycle racing through traffic lights. Marvar was so deep in thought that he had failed to register Dyer waving.

He had only just arrived. ‘Please,’ dropping his voice to a dramatic whisper, ‘who is winning?’

Dyer told him.

Marvar nodded, then bent to do up his laces. He still had sand on his shoes.

‘Can Phoenix rise from the ashes?’ Marvar said sonorously, standing up.

‘Possibly,’ smiled Dyer, glad to see him. ‘They don’t like to lose to Horris Hill.’

With some people you could feel friends straight away. A bond had sprung up between them beside the sandpit.

But this Marvar was not the subdued person Dyer recalled talking to on Tuesday evening. He was excited, carefree, drunk – except that he was sober. ‘Go on, Samir!’ he flung in a loud, almost hysterical voice, after Samir received a pass from Leandro through the legs of the Horris Hill striker.

His father’s shout burned through Samir like a thrill. He straightened his back, lifted his elbows like wings in the cold air. In an electrifying sequence of quick, deft moves, he trapped the ball with his left foot, dribbled it past one defender, then another, flicked it onto his right foot and booted it between the goalkeeper’s outstretched hands into the back of the net.

Instinctively, Marvar and Dyer embraced. A dog was barking. Unfamiliar with touchline protocol, Marvar was punching the air and emitting loud whoops.

Dyer did not remember afterwards what he thought of at that moment, but he was aware that Marvar radiated with an extraordinary energy. He was having a moment in the sun.

‘See what happens when you come and support him!’ laughed Dyer.

His earlier conversation with Updark had filled Dyer with a powerful desire for Phoenix not to lose this match against Horris Hill. It was important in a way that he had not felt before. Not merely to justify Leandro’s position in the team – and to have his talent recognised alongside the achievements of Beatrice bleeding Updark – but to justify Dyer’s belated defence of his son against Vasily.

He almost wished Katya was watching. His eyes kept sliding to the second XI pitch, until someone told him they were playing away; that was the third XI.

It hadn’t gone anywhere. Not even a drink.

The whistle again. One of the Horris Hill players was down. The play paused while both teams stood in a circle around the boy, and the referee checked that he was unhurt.

Over Marvar’s shoulder, Dyer saw Gilles Asselin glancing in his direction. He had the furtive look of a man who wanted to slip away and make a call. He lifted a hand on noticing that Dyer was staring at him.