Break Point: BookShots Read online

  Foster could smell the vodka on the guy’s breath.

  ‘Fuck off, mate,’ he slurred, as Foster’s huge fist closed around his shirt collar.

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ Foster said, and he walked the drunk guy away from Kirsten and away from the photographers. He came back to Keller and put a protective arm around her waist, which in all honestly was no hardship, and noticed the smell of her perfume again as he walked her calmly inside the restaurant. Keller looked at him, wide-eyed.

  ‘Everything alright?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Foster said, pulling his jacket back into shape as they walked.

  ‘That wasn’t the guy?’

  ‘No. Just a random drunk.’

  A waiter showed them to a discreet table near the ornate bar. Keller ordered avocado with sweet potato and Foster ordered sea bass. He ate while she pushed hers around, hardly making a dent in it. Not good for an athlete.

  ‘What’s up?’

  Keller looked across the table at him, her smoky eyes warm in the candlelight.

  ‘I guess I just keep thinking about the closeness of it all,’ she said. ‘You know, someone has managed to leave messages in my bag, and in the locker room. Someone knows where my family lives. I can’t help thinking: it’s going to be someone I know, isn’t it?’

  CHAPTER 10

  FOSTER AND KELLER said nothing as they entered the Shangri-La. The small talk had petered out as their taxi crossed the Thames, and Keller had taken to resting her head on Chris Foster’s shoulder as they drove through the dark London streets.

  Foster told himself it was part of the job to get her safely into her room, but neither of them really believed that was the reason he was there.

  ‘Do you check under the bed as part of the deal?’ she asked as they headed into the confines of the lift. Her delicate perfume swirled around him again, heady and intoxicating. That she had reapplied it in the lobby told Foster everything he needed to know, because after all, who was left to smell it except him?

  ‘I check everything,’ he said. ‘I don’t like taking chances.’

  Keller smiled.

  ‘Never?’

  She slipped her hand into his as they emerged from the lift and walked beside him to her room. Foster smiled without turning towards her, and when they got to her door he took the spare keycard out of his pocket and swiped it. He took his work seriously and swept through the outer room, the bedroom and the opulent bathroom with complete focus and concentration, before turning back to his client.

  Keller had already kicked off her heels and she padded barefoot across the deep carpet towards him. Behind her, the glass wall looked out onto London’s bright lights twinkling forty-two floors below. They were orange and yellow, warmer than the ice-white stars in the black sky above.

  The smoky make-up around Keller’s eyes had faded, or maybe Foster had become accustomed to it. Either way, as she stood in front of him she looked healthy and wholesome and vivacious.

  ‘The trouble with this dress,’ she said, as if she had read his mind, ‘is that I can get the zipper up all by myself, but I can never get it back down. Would you mind?’

  Foster looked at her. He preferred her without the mascara and the lip gloss. She looked naturally beautiful.

  ‘What happens if there isn’t a guy around to help you out?’

  ‘That’s what Maria’s for, of course.’

  Foster smiled.

  She turned gracefully so that he could get at the back of the dress, lifting her blonde hair and arching her back slightly. He lowered the zip down slowly between her bare shoulder blades and only stopped once he reached the small of her back. The first swirls of underwear looked as perfect as everything else she was wearing: classic black lace bordering satin.

  She turned to face him and her eyes were suddenly alive, searching for answers in his. They stayed there for a long moment, halfway between the streetlights and the starlight, both waiting to see what would happen next. Keller smiled and padded off to her bedroom, then returned wearing one of the hotel’s robes a minute later. She looked as alluring as any woman Foster had seen in the past three years.

  ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she said. ‘Will you stay? I don’t want to come out and find a message written on my mirror.’

  ‘You won’t,’ Foster said. ‘I promise.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Will you stay anyway?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She thanked him and headed off to the bathroom with its marble walls and vertigo-inducing shower. He heard the water start to flow, and soon enough the sound of her splashing around underneath it. He turned and soaked up the view outside. Foster could never get tired of a view like that. He got lost in it, watching it long enough for Elaina to finally walk up beside him and slip her hand into the same hand Kirsten Keller had held earlier. And rest her head on the same shoulder that Kirsten had rested hers on.

  ‘Chris?’ Elaina said after a minute.

  Her voice. God, he missed it.

  ‘You do know I’m cool with all of this, don’t you?’

  He didn’t know what to say back to her, so they watched the stars for a while, and watched the planes gliding into Heathrow one after another in the clear night sky.

  ‘I miss you,’ he said eventually. The words slipped out as he exhaled, no more than a whisper carried on his breath.

  In his mind Elaina let go of his hand and turned to face him – the same questions dancing in her eyes that he’d seen in Kirsten Keller’s a few moments earlier. She smoothed down the collar of his jacket, the way she used to. And then she kissed him tenderly.

  ‘I miss you, too.’

  He could still feel her warmth on his lips as Kirsten Keller returned from the bathroom, pink-skinned and radiant in the white Shangri-La robe. Foster watched as Elaina brushed past her, evaporating into the steam from the shower.

  ‘Do me a favour and stay for a drink,’ Keller said, alive and reinvigorated by the water. ‘Maria won’t let me have one. Watching someone else is about as good as it gets.’

  She poured Foster a Scotch over ice, without asking what he’d like, and he drank it. Keller told him she’d have to report him to the police if he made any attempt to drive home. Then she poured him another.

  She slipped off his jacket and led him to a chair. Keller handed him the second Scotch and walked around behind him, so that she could rub his shoulders as if they’d been married a hundred years. Foster could not think of a good reason to stop her.

  ‘Are you allowed any vices?’ he asked, tasting the Scotch. Both of them smiled as the question hung in the air. She answered by slipping a hand inside his shirt and across his strong chest. Her fingers smoothed over his shoulder until they reached the ridge of scar tissue that ran across the top of his arm.

  ‘I cut myself shaving,’ Foster said, before she could ask the question that would ruin the moment. Her hand continued to glide under his shirt and, before they knew it, they were in bed. It turned out that Keller was a quiet lover, clenched and breathless, with no sign of the earthy grunts and ecstatic screams she displayed on the tennis court.

  By the time they were spent, the first smudge of diesel-brown light was breaking on the jagged horizon. They watched it kindle and bloom into the new morning. Foster ran the tips of his fingers idly across her skin, exploring her hollows and curves. She purred and sighed, more relaxed than she’d felt for weeks. She re-traced the scar on his arm that she had found earlier.

  ‘When was it?’ she whispered. He could feel her breath in his ear.

  ‘Three years ago,’ he said. ‘Here in London.’

  ‘Were you working?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ he sighed. ‘A high-profile client invited us over for dinner one evening.’

  ‘Who’s “us”?’

  Keller was young, and Foster could hear a note of jealousy in her voice.

  ‘Me and my wife,’ Foster said.

  ‘Where were you?’ she asked, regrouping.<
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  ‘It was just a quiet night at his palace.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Keller said. ‘That kind of high-profile client.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Foster said. ‘We took a stroll after the meal, just in time for some guy to get a home-made explosive over the gates.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Keller sighed. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I did what I would have done if I was on duty,’ Foster said. ‘I reacted by smothering the client. I took the brunt of the explosion on my arm.’

  ‘That’s so brave,’ Keller said. ‘How was the client?’

  ‘Not a scratch.’

  Keller turned on her side and twisted around him like a question mark.

  ‘You should be so proud of what you did,’ she told him.

  ‘Well, I’m not.’

  Keller scanned Foster’s face in the half light, trying to make sense of him.

  ‘Why not?’

  Foster took a breath and watched the planes travelling across the sky into Heathrow, but before he could explain, Kirsten Keller’s mobile phone began to ring. The phone never rings at 4 a.m. with anything but bad news, and twenty seconds later Keller gasped and dropped the phone.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ she breathed, wide-eyed and gulping for air. ‘Maria’s dead.’

  CHAPTER 11

  LONDON WAS STILL waking up as Foster drove the Range Rover back towards Wimbledon, with Kirsten silent and ashen-faced in the passenger seat. The low sun glinted off the sides of the glass buildings flanking the Thames, and every second car was a cab. The house that Keller had hired with Rosario was cordoned off and bathed in blue police lights.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Keller breathed as they drove into the street. A uniformed officer recognised her and waved the Range Rover through. The house was halfway along a poplar-lined street, a spacious old red-brick pile surrounded by a hundred other spacious old red-brick piles. The photographers were gathering on the street outside, and the residents had come out to see what was happening.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Foster asked as they pulled up outside. Keller shook her head, barely lifting her eyes from the footwell.

  ‘I’m not sure about anything right now.’

  ‘You want to stay in the car?’

  ‘No,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I want to find out what happened to Maria.’

  Foster took a breath and turned off the engine.

  ‘I’m not sure they’ll tell us that.’

  But Keller was already opening the passenger door, which was a mistake, because she was walking straight into a crowd of people. Foster clicked open his seatbelt and rolled out of the driver’s door, so that by the time she’d rounded the car, he was by her side.

  ‘What’s happened, Kirsten?’ the reporters called. ‘Are you going to make a statement?’

  A police officer standing guard on the door ushered them both inside, and then closed the door quickly behind them as the cameras started clicking. The entrance lobby was impressive, with thick walls and a corniced ceiling as sharp and flat as a billiard table. The place had been modernised, stripped back to white walls and oak floors.

  ‘How are you, Chris?’ a woman with sergeant’s stripes on her shoulders asked, as she walked into the hallway. She shook his hand for a moment too long and he knew she was looking for the scars. He didn’t blame her. Everyone at the Met knew the story.

  ‘It’s the other one,’ he said.

  The sergeant nodded half an apology and let go, then ushered them through to a bright kitchen at the back of the house.

  ‘How is it?’ she asked, pulling up a chair at the oak dining table and inviting Keller and Foster to do the same.

  ‘It’s still attached,’ Foster said.

  ‘It’s really good to see you,’ Cullen told him. ‘Apart from the circumstances, obviously.’

  ‘It’s good to see you too, Ruth.’

  Keller looked dazed, and the policewoman softened her voice as she spoke to her.

  ‘I’m Ruth Cullen,’ she said. ‘I’m a sergeant with the Metropolitan Police.’

  Keller just nodded an acknowledgement.

  ‘You weren’t home last night?’ Cullen asked.

  When Keller didn’t answer, Foster said, ‘Home is a hotel right now. I moved her three days ago.’

  Ruth Cullen looked intrigued.

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because of some threatening letters,’ Foster said. ‘Stalker stuff. Someone seemed familiar with Kirsten’s routine, so we changed it.’

  ‘Fair enough. But I’m trying to get a sense of Rosario’s last movements.’

  Inside Cullen cringed at her own words. It was crass to refer to the victim by her surname in front of a friend, but the slip didn’t register with Keller.

  ‘What happened to her?’ Keller asked.

  Cullen took a moment to make sure she got her words in order.

  ‘Sometime last night Maria decided to take her own life.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She attached a cord—’ Cullen began.

  ‘She hanged herself?’ Keller said, suddenly coming to life. ‘No way – she wouldn’t. Not in a million years.’

  Foster couldn’t imagine it, either.

  ‘She hadn’t had any bad news from home recently?’ Cullen persisted. ‘Or had her mood changed?’

  Keller shook her head. She would have noticed if her coach was suicidal. She looked to Foster for reassurance and got it, in the look on his face.

  ‘Chris, I’ll call you later and fill you in on some of the details,’ Cullen told Foster. ‘Now’s probably not the time.’

  Her eyes came to rest on Keller, and Foster wondered what it was that Cullen didn’t feel she could say in front of her. Soon they were walking back to the front of the house.

  The photographers started shouting as soon as the front door opened. Keller and Foster stepped out into the morning sun to face the growing crowd, but Ruth Cullen put a hand on Foster’s arm and held him back.

  ‘We’re pretty certain it’s suicide,’ she said. ‘But if the pathologist finds anything different, I’ll let you know.’

  Foster thanked her and then turned to see that Keller had not waited for him. She was only a few yards away, but the crowd had surged to meet her. They pushed forward around her and she began to stumble back towards Rosario’s car, which was still parked in the driveway. She hadn’t eaten or slept, and Foster could see that her world was spinning. He had almost reached her when she slumped blindly onto the car bonnet and rolled. Foster dived at full length and got his hands between her head and the pavement, cushioning the blow. The crowd surged forward, as he scooped her up in his arms and bundled them both through the mass of bodies pressing in on them.

  She regained consciousness as they reached the car, her eyes confused and searching.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Foster told her. ‘I’ve got you.’

  He lifted her gently into the passenger seat, clicked her seatbelt and then turned towards the press, slowly shepherding them backwards until there was room to close the car door. He turned back to Kirsten and saw that she was holding out her hand, her face bewildered.

  ‘My pocket,’ she whispered, horror jarring at the edges of her voice. ‘I just found …’

  In her hand was a memory stick, identical to the one she’d shown him in the British Embassy in Paris.

  ‘Shit!’ Foster said, and he closed the door and headed round to the driver’s side, scanning the crowd as he went. Nobody running. Nobody wearing a baseball cap.

  ‘Kirsten, who gave it to you?’

  It was no use. She couldn’t focus on the palm of her hand, let alone the crowd outside. Foster slammed the Range Rover into first, taking her away from the scene.

  ‘Can you remember what happened?’ he asked after a while. She couldn’t, so he leaned over and took the memory stick from her. He turned it over in his fingers. Someone had used something sharp to scratch two angry words into the soft plastic casing: You’re next.

  CHAPTER
12

  IT TOOK AN hour to get back across London, the rush-hour traffic bunching up at every junction. Foster stopped once along the way, at a petrol station on the A3 to pick up Haribo and Evian, which he gave to Keller. At the hotel, he settled her on the sofa and made her hot, sweet tea. Keller sat listening to the hum of the kettle rippling through the otherwise silent air and said nothing. He sat next to her and asked her nothing until she was halfway down the cup and a reasonable amount of colour had come back to her cheeks.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Better for the tea,’ she shrugged. ‘Thank you.’

  She nestled into the nook of his arm, which he didn’t think was a good idea, but he could hardly push her away right at that moment.

  ‘I fell onto the car, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I remember the fresh air hitting me as we walked outside, and I remember the crowd closing in. And somebody caught me as I fell.’

  ‘Me.’

  She smiled and all of a sudden she was back in the room.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Foster said nothing, but he saw warmth returning to Keller’s eyes.

  ‘Well, we know something,’ Foster said. ‘The guy who’s been stalking you was at Maria’s place at some point.’

  Some of the new-found colour drained from her cheeks.

  ‘Oh my God! He must have been right there in front of me.’

  Foster shook his head.

  ‘Maybe. Best not to dwell on it.’

  ‘He was there,’ Keller said firmly. ‘And Maria’s dead. That’s a pretty big coincidence, don’t you think? I told you Maria wouldn’t kill herself.’

  ‘We have to let the police do their job on that,’ he said. ‘Ruth Cullen’s a good police officer. I worked with her for a few years. She never got a case wrong that I knew. So if there’s anything to find, she’ll find it.’

  ‘Shall we see what’s on the memory stick?’ Keller asked suddenly.

  ‘You need to sleep,’ Foster replied.

  ‘I need to practise. I’ve got a match tomorrow.’

  ‘All the more reason to sleep. I’ll drive you to the courts this afternoon. Do you have to reschedule your court booking?’