“Mr. Ritchie,” says Chris. “We meet at last.”
32.
Chris had asked Jason if he wouldn’t mind stepping outside for a photograph, to make use of the natural light.
Donna is taking the photo. The two men are smiling happily, arms around each other’s shoulders, leaning against a decorative fountain shaped like a dolphin.
Poor Chris, they had really done a number on him. Donna wonders if Chris truly understands that he’s one of the gang now.
It had been useful, though. They had talked to Ron and Jason, and to Joyce about what they saw. It had been a row, that much was clear. None of them could shed a light on what the row was, but they had all thought it significant, and as Ron and Jason were fighting men, Chris and Donna had listened.
Ron was very proud of his boy. It was natural, of course, but something to be careful about. Just in case the photo left by the body hadn’t been a red herring.
Donna tells Chris to move to his left a little.
“This is very kind of you, Jason; you must have to do it a lot,” Chris says as he moves to his left a little.
“Price of whassname, innit?” agrees Jason.
Donna has been doing her homework on Jason Ritchie. Hadn’t needed to do much, to be honest; her dad had been a boxing fan.
Jason has been famous since the late eighties and would now, it seemed, be famous forever. He had been the hero, sometimes the villain, of a series of iconic fights that captivated the whole country. Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank, Michael Watson, Steve Collins, and Jason Ritchie. It was boxingas soap opera. Sometimes Jason was JR Ewing, and other times he was Bobby.
The public loved Jason Ritchie. The brawler, the bruiser, tattoos running up and down each arm, long before that was mandatory for a professional sportsman. He was charming and conventionally handsome, becoming more and more unconventionally handsome as his career took its toll. And of course he had his famous firebrand dad, Red Ron, always good for a quote. The chat shows loved Jason too. He accidentally knocked out Terry Wogan while showing him how he’d knocked out Steve Collins. Donna had read that that clip still brought him in steady royalties.
It never got better than the third Benn versus Ritchie fight. The body had slowed a little, the reflexes dulled. This didn’t matter while he was still fighting the guys who were aging alongside him, but one by one they started retiring. Jason had found out, many years later, that he’d made less money than the lot of them. Problems with his manager. To this day, a lot of his money was in Estonia. The opponents got younger, the paydays smaller, and the training harder, until one Atlantic City night in 1998, fighting a last-minute Venezuelan stand-in, Jason Ritchie hit the canvas for the final time.
A few years in the wilderness followed. A few years that were never mentioned in the profiles Donna had read in the papers. A few years when Jason made his money in a very different way. When he was being photographed with Tony Curran and Bobby Tanner. The years that Donna and Chris were interested in.
The wilderness years didn’t last, though. As a new century dawned, there was almost endless demand for a man who exuded menace and charm in equal parts. From the lad mags to the mockney film directors to the reality shows and the adverts for gambling companies, Jason started making more money than he ever had in the ring. He came third inI’m a Celebrity, he dated Angie Watts fromEastEnders, he starred as a washed-up fighter in a film alongside John Travolta, and one alongside Scarlett Johansson, also as a washed-up fighter.
This new career fairly quickly followed the same trajectory as his boxing career, however. You only had so many days at the top of the bill. These days there were no films, fewer adverts, and you’d see him turning up on all sorts of things.
But no matter, Jason Ritchie is now famous forever, and he appears to be grateful too. His smile, in front of the fountain shaped like a dolphin, seems to Donna to be entirely genuine.
She puts down the big blue file Elizabeth has given her, and holds up her phone for the photo. “Say cheese, or whatever two men are comfortable saying.”
Jason starts, “I duck and I dive,” and then Chris joins him for the shouted “and I always survive!”
The two men both instinctively punch the air with their free arm and Donna takes the photo.
“That was his catchphrase,” Chris explains to Donna. “I duck and I dive, and I always survive!”
Donna pockets her phone. “Everyone always survives until they die. It’s meaningless.” She thought of adding that Rodolfo Mendoza had knocked Jason out in the third round on the East Coast, so he hadn’t exactly survived then. But why upset two middle-aged men unnecessarily?
“They’ll love that at Fairhaven, Jason. Thanks, mate.”
“No problem. Hope the old man was useful.”
Donna knows Chris will never show the photo to any of his colleagues. He already has a much more interesting photograph of Jason Ritchie.
“Very useful,” says Chris. “Anyway, what’s your thinking, Jason? About Tony Curran? You must have known him a bit, from around Fairhaven?”
“A bit, yeah. I knew of him; not really, though. He had plenty of enemies.”
Chris nods, then steals a glance at Donna, who steps up and offers Jason her hand.
“Thank you so much, Mr. Ritchie,” she says.
