Love Game - Season 2012

by Gerard, M. B.

  “What’s going on?” Agnes asked from behind. She was sitting up in bed and watching Candice and Tom who had folded his hands before his mouth.

  “It looks like we need an alternate for this tournament,” Candice whispered.

  “Candice,” Tom said with a pressed voice. “Listen!”

  The communications manager turned around to Tom.

  “Listen, please,” Tom repeated. “I need your permission to do something. It’s utterly important.”

  Candice shook her head. “What do you want?”

  “I need to go to Bernadette’s room and take her computer.”

  “What?” Candice almost had to laugh.

  “I know it sounds horrible right now, but I know with the utmost certainty that Bernadette is in the possession of pictures that should never get into anyone else’s hands.”

  “What are you talking about? I can’t let you do that, Tom.” Candice shook her head.

  “Candice,” Tom blurted out. “Ted and I have been trying to retrieve photos I took over a year ago and we believe that Bernadette has them. We have been observing her for the last several weeks. The pictures show some of the players in – well, in very explicit situations. It wouldn’t be good at all if they fell into the hands of the police or the press.”

  Police. Candice gulped.

  “It wouldn’t look good at all,” Tom said again. “Especially now that she is – dead.”

  “Well, we don’t know what happened to her yet,” Candice started but then fell silent. Whatever had happened to Bernadette – and Candice had seen enough movies to understand that drowning in a pool with all your clothes on simply had to be filed under ‘death by unnatural causes’ – the police would ask questions. Unpleasant questions. About the past. About foes. She threw Agnes a side glance. Her girlfriend had grown tense.

  “Where is her room?” she eventually asked.

  “Number 438. Down the hall.”

  Candice looked up and squinted her eyes. “You know that by heart?”

  Tom nodded. “I told you I was observing her.”

  You were not the only one, Candice realized. Again she looked at Agnes who had gotten up and was putting on jeans and a shirt.

  “Let’s go,” Candice said and began to dress, too.

  Silently, they followed Tom to Bernadette’s room and Candice wondered what shocked her more – the fact that Tom was capable of opening a door with a self-made picklock or the fact that she didn’t object to breaking into a player’s hotel room. She observed the red-haired photographer while he inserted the small device into the keyhole, fumbling and carefully turning it. Why had he asked her for permission, Candice wondered. He could have done that without Agnes and Candice’s help.

  The lock clicked and with a little smile Tom pushed the door open. They stepped into the room and froze.

  “Mon Dieu,” Agnes whispered.

  The room looked ravaged. Bernadette’s suitcases and bags were scattered on the floor and the bed, opened and ransacked. The lamp from one nightstand lay broken on the floor.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Candice hissed, and Tom backed off from grabbing the edge of the table. They all thought the same. The whole scenario screamed ‘crime scene’. Bernadette’s computer was lying on the table, plugged in but not running. Candice hesitated. Breaking into the room was bad enough, but abstracting a crime victim’s computer was an indictable offense itself. If they did that, there was no way back. She wished she could ask Monica what to do. Their friend was an expert on how to dig oneself out of seemingly unsolvable situations. But Monica wasn’t here. In fact, now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember having seen Monica at the party last night. But then again, she couldn’t remember that much from last night.

  Fucking booze! Candice closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Standing behind her Agnes’s hands clutched Candice’s arms and pressed them tightly. Was Agnes trying to comfort her? Or did she want to drag her away?

  The thought of Bernadette’s arms skidded into Candice’s mind – the swaying hands spread over her head, the fingers bloated.

  With a jolt she pushed Agnes’s hands away and opened her eyes.

  “Take it,” she nodded to Tom. “Take the laptop suitcase, too. We don’t want them to know that something is missing.”

  Tom grabbed the suitcase that was lying on the floor and packed the computer and the cable. Then they headed to the door and carefully shut it. Nobody was in the hallway. Candice and Agnes began heading back to their room, but Tom was lagging behind. When Candice turned around Tom had put the laptop down and pulled his shirt out of his jeans.

  Quickly, he wiped off his fingerprints from the door handle.

  ***

  How a person could be any paler, she didn’t know. A long-cultivated tennis tan had disappeared over night. Perhaps it was the slight bruise that was beginning to shine through on the left cheek that made the rest of the skin look lighter than usual.

  Mint softly stroked Polly’s hair and swallowed down the tears that were trying to creep up every minute. The Canadian girl was huddled in her arms, her body shaking with sobs.

  “Nobody saw you with Bernadette,” Mint whispered. “Nobody will know.”

  Polly shook her head, but didn’t open her eyes. “I’m sure there are cameras everywhere.”

  Mint swallowed hard. “You didn’t mean it,” she said, but it didn’t come out very convincingly.

  “I killed her, Mint,” Polly sobbed.

  Mint swallowed back the tears again and grabbed Polly a little more tightly.

  “You didn’t push her into the pool or anything. She was alive when we left her.”

  “She must have tried to get up and then fallen into the water,” Polly whispered in horror.

  “That’s not the same as killing someone,” Mint argued again, but her voice had grown just as small as Polly’s. If that was not murder, it was manslaughter. A good lawyer could probably argue for a case of self-defense with fatal consequences. But no matter how they twisted it, they couldn’t deny that Polly had dealt Bernadette a heavy blow to the skull. Mint had been quick-witted enough to pick up the old wood racquet and take it with them as she had dragged Polly away from the pool. But the mark would show on Bernadette’s head in the autopsy. And what if Polly was right and the whole dispute and assault was caught on tape?

  Mint placed a soft kiss on Polly’s hair.

  Only a few hours ago their lives had looked quite wonderful even though they didn’t know it then. After running back to the hotel room, they had even worried about how to deal with Bernadette slapping Polly across the face. Cuddling in each other’s arms Polly and Mint had contemplated whether they should bring Bernadette’s tantrum forward to the player representative, probably causing a minor disruption at the tournament, or keep quiet about it. But how could Polly play doubles with a person who had assaulted her? They finally had decided that it was probably for the best to talk things out with Bernadette in the morning, in order to play the matches and finish the year in a decent manner. After waking up, Mint had offered to run down to the breakfast room and grab some food before the buffet was cleared away at 10 a.m.. It was then that Mint learned the terrible news from Antonia and Martina.

  Mint was still stroking Polly’s hair and the Canadian had begun to breathe more deeply. That was good. They needed to stay calm. From the corner of her eye she looked at the muted television.

  “Polly, sweetheart,” she said quietly. “It’s 2 p.m. now. They have begun play.”

  Polly didn’t react.

  “This can only mean that they don’t consider Bernadette’s death a crime. The police would have begun to question everyone already, including all the players.”

  Polly opened her eyes. “Perhaps they don’t need to question anyone, because they already know it was me.” She almost sounded angry.

  “Bernadette was found this morning,” Mint argued. “The first thing they would do is check the CCTV. It’s been five, six
hours now. It can’t take that long to go through them.”

  Polly looked up at Mint. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you are not caught on tape, Polly.”

  “They might still come and ask questions,” Polly mumbled.

  Mint nodded grimly. “I’m certain they will. We need to be prepared.”

  “What do you mean? I can’t lie about this!”

  Mint straightened up and grabbed Polly’s shoulders. “You have to, sweetheart.”

  “They will find out,” Polly gasped. “If I lie and they find out – .”

  “They won’t!” Mint had flung her arms around Polly and grabbed her tightly. Nobody would take Polly away from her. Not Bernadette, and not the police of Istanbul. She wouldn’t let Polly be thrown into a Turkish prison. No. In this moment they heard a knock on the door. They looked up and waited. Another knock, this time louder.

  “Polly?” The familiar voice of Candice Crantz was muted by the door.

  “I’m in bed,” Polly shouted back. They waited for another second, holding their breath.

  “Polly, I need you to open the door,” Candice shouted from outside. “Something has happened and the police need to talk with you.”

  Mint and Polly looked at each other. Then Mint put her hand on Polly’s wet cheek.

  “Don’t panic,” she said quietly. She jumped out of bed and peeled herself out of the jeans she had put on when she had gone downstairs to get breakfast.

  “What are you doing?” Polly asked in disbelief.

  “Trust me,” Mint said and gave Polly a kiss. She wiped away the last tear stains from Polly’s face, then tugged at her shirt. “Take this off. Now.”

  Polly wasn’t convinced but finally pulled her shirt over her head.

  “Trust me,” Mint said again, then turned to the door and opened it.

  In the hallway were Candice and three Turkish policemen.

  “Oh no,” Mint stammered, looking at the group with wide open eyes. “Have we been that loud?”

  “Mint? What are you doing here?” Candice was confused.

  “I’m sorry,” Mint tried to sound gutted. “This is terribly embarrassing.”

  Candice opened her mouth but then shook her head. “Where is Polly?”

  “Still in bed.”

  Mint saw how the policemen threw each other a look and raised their eyebrows.

  “We need to talk to Pauline Duke,” the oldest of them said, reading the name from a list.

  They walked into the room, but when the policemen realized that Polly was undressed they didn’t approach her but stayed in the corner close to Mint who was leaning against the window sill.

  “Polly, listen,” Candice began stepping to the bed in which Polly had sat up. “It will come as a bad shock but I have to tell you that Bernadette has had an accident.”

  Mint glanced at Polly, who had pulled the blanket firmly around herself.

  “An accident?” Polly asked. For a second she locked eyes with Mint. Accident. That was good. Accident was great, Mint jubilated silently.

  “This morning Bernadette was found in the hotel pool,” Candice explained quietly. “She is dead.”

  Mint watched Polly who stayed quiet and looked away from Candice, slightly shaking her head. Good, Mint thought. No outcry, no wailing. Initial disbelief was much more believable. She herself had put her hand over her mouth to display her distress. Everyone had fallen silent, giving Polly and Mint a moment to digest the bad news. Finally, the highest ranked officer stepped forward and cleared his throat.

  “I need to ask you this. Where were you last night between 3 and 4 a.m.?”

  An alarm bell was ringing in Mint’s head. If they asked what they had done at a certain time, it could only mean that something was wrong. They were looking for suspects. They didn’t believe it was an accident at all.

  “Here,” Mint said as calmly as possible. “Polly and I were here.”

  “Doing what?”

  Mint hesitated and threw Candice a look as if looking for help of what to say. Then she turned back at the police officer who first looked Mint over, standing in front of them in pyjama shorts and a shirt, then at Polly holding the blanket around her naked chest. Mint hesitated a little longer trying to look increasingly uncomfortable and giving the policemen a little more time to examine the situation. And thank goodness for Polly’s haircut. It wasn’t possible to look more lesbian than that.

  “Well,” Mint slowly said. “We were in bed.”

  Everything began to seem crystal clear to the policemen, and they were all shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Mint wondered how often these guys were confronted with two girls in bed together.

  In fact, Mint realized now, that was actually the truth. 3 a.m.? Polly and her had long been back in the hotel room by then. Sound asleep. It had been around 11 p.m. when Mint had looked for Polly and had found her fighting with Bernadette near the pool.

  The officers looked at each other and then coughed awkwardly. Apparently they didn’t plan on asking more because they nodded briefly to each of them, including Candice, then quickly left the room.

  “I’m deeply sorry,” Candice said quietly. Then she got up.

  “You take care of Polly,” she addressed Mint and squeezed her arm before she left the room. Letting out a deep sigh, Mint returned to bed and slipped under the covers.

  Yes, I will, she thought while putting her arms around Polly. She wouldn’t let anybody harm Polly. She would take care of this girl.