by Nick Hale
‘I swear,’ Jake said. ‘I saw him the other day too.’
‘If this is some sort of joke, it’s not funny.’
‘But –’
‘Enough,’ his dad said. He lowered his voice. ‘Not here. We can talk about this later.’ He turned back to the diving coach.
As Jake rejoined Veronika, his eyes kept searching the stands. Popov was definitely gone. If he was ever there, thought Jake. Perhaps the punch to the chin had messed with his head.
BeBe called over to them from the top of the ten-metre board. ‘Hey, guys, I will show you how to do it?’
‘Is it just me,’ Jake said, ‘or is BeBe a little bit annoying? I’d like to see her take a corner.’
‘Or serve and volley,’ Veronika laughed.
BeBe bounced on the balls of her feet once, twice, three times, then sprung upwards, a good four feet.
She’s too close to the board, Jake thought. She turned a half-pike in the air, but as she came down her head hit the diving board with a crack that sounded across the hall and made Jake’s stomach turn. BeBe lost all shape in the air and slammed into the water side-on, her limbs sprawling. Someone screamed.
Jake was in the pool without thinking, swimming as fast as he could towards where the Brazilian was floating face-down. He swam through red-tinged water, and turned BeBe upright, doing his best to support her neck. Her eyes were closed, and blood poured over her face from a cut under her hairline.
‘Don’t touch her!’ the coach shouted. ‘Let the paramedics handle this.’
Jake waited, carefully cradling BeBe until the paramedics took over. They pulled BeBe from the water, and Jake pulled himself out, feeling numb.
Veronika rushed to his side. ‘Not again,’ she muttered.
The paramedics started mouth to mouth, and more people gathered in a hushed circle. BeBe was limp, her skin already bleached white. As her blood drained off over the slick poolside tiles, Jake knew she was dead.
13
Veronika’s eyes filled with tears as Jake put his arm round her: Dr Chow knelt beside the body with the paramedics, feeling for a pulse. The towel under BeBe’s head was soaked pink with blood and water. They’d tried to resuscitate her for close to a quarter of an hour, but now Dr Chow shook her head.
‘I’m sorry, Mandy,’ she said to the diving coach. ‘She’s gone.’
The diving coach wailed, and placed a hand over her mouth.
‘I need everyone to leave,’ Dr Chow said. ‘Now.’
Jake and Veronika filed away to the changing rooms. At the door, she mumbled, ‘This can’t be happening.’
‘It is happening,’ Jake said, coming to his senses. ‘And I know who’s to blame. Igor Popov.’
‘Not that again,’ Veronika said. ‘You talk about that guy like he’s Satan.’
‘As close as,’ said Jake. ‘If sport has an underbelly, he’s there – trust me. I saw him at the pool today. He’s a gangster, a murderer . . .’
‘Hey, chill out,’ she said. ‘He’s just a sports fan. I think you’re getting a bit James Bond on me and, honestly, it’s a bit immature. Let’s deal with the facts and not some crazy conspiracy theory.’
She walked off into the female changing room, leaving Jake feeling like an idiot. Immature? Where had that come from? She didn’t know Popov like he did. She hadn’t seen what that bastard did to people who got in his way. Olympic Advantage was becoming more dangerous by the hour.
Following the events at the pool, Krantz had convened an emergency meeting in the gym hall and had broken the news that everyone had already heard: another athlete was dead. He had looked harassed as he told of the latest ‘tragedy’ to befall the camp.
His face was lined with worry, and he announced that forthwith the guards at the front gate had been instructed not to let anyone enter or leave the camp except for police. It was complete lockdown until investigations had run their course, and they’d be called up one by one to make statements.
‘I’m sure it’s just procedure,’ Krantz added. ‘And, needless to say, I want you all to cooperate entirely.’
Jake raised his hand. ‘Do the police have any formal suspects?’ he asked.
Krantz’s face darkened and he gave an uneasy smile. ‘I think I’ve made it perfectly clear, Mr Bastin, that the events at Olympic Advantage are tragic accidents, and nothing more.’ He addressed the crowd again. ‘And now we’ll have a minute’s silence in memory of those we’ve lost.’
As Jake bowed his head along with the other athletes, he almost found himself feeling sorry for Krantz. If what Veronika had found out was true, this could be the end of the road for the camp director. No wonder he was doing everything he could to focus attention away from the murderer in their midst.
Jake could’ve lived without seeing Detective Merski’s face again. The guy looked as if he hadn’t slept or changed his clothes since the last time they met at the swamp.
‘Well, what a surprise,’ he said. ‘Take a seat, Jack.’
‘It’s Jake.’
‘Park it,’ said Merski.
Jake took a seat in the makeshift interview room in the complex’s admin buildings.
‘So, Jake,’ said Merski. ‘How’s it feel to be the chief suspect in a homicide investigation?’
‘What?’ Jake said.
Merski clasped his meaty fists on the table, and Jake got a whiff of body odour.
‘Look at it from my point of view,’ the detective said. ‘We have three people dead, and you’re the nearest thing to a connection I got. You were at two of the deaths, and you miraculously stumbled across the third. Looks suspicious, doesn’t it?’
Jake could tell Merski was trying to get a rise out of him. What was this guy’s problem?
‘Only if you’re the suspicious type,’ Jake muttered, though as he said it he realised something else: Veronika had been at all the crime scenes too. In fact, she’d been up to Saddleback Swamp before they’d visited together. He pushed the thought away. Now who’s getting suspicious?
‘Don’t get smart with me, kid,’ Merski snapped. ‘I got enough to take you in.’
‘Then why don’t you?’ Jake asked. ‘I’ll tell you why. Because you know it’s ridiculous. It’s taken you guys five days to work out there might be something going on here.’
Merski’s face broke into an ugly grin. ‘I suppose you have a theory?’
Jake wanted nothing more than to mention Popov’s name, but he couldn’t. His dad, and MI6, would go mad if he brought heat on to the Russian. The best thing to do would be to keep the detectives off his case so he could keep investigating the deaths himself, with or without his dad’s help.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t.’
‘I heard you were friends with this BeBe kid?’ said Merski, leaning back in his chair.
‘Not really,’ said Jake. ‘I’ve spoken to her a couple of times.’
‘That’s not what I heard,’ the detective said. He looked at a pad of paper covered in illegible handwriting. ‘Says here that you might have had a little crush on our victim.’
Jake didn’t know if he was lying or not. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
Merski raised his eyebrows. ‘Do I look like the kidding type? One of your footballing buddies told me.’
Oz! It had to be. He couldn’t believe that Oz was willing to dump him in the middle of a murder investigation. This was way beyond sporting rivalry.
‘Well, they told you wrong,’ Jake said.
Merski sighed. ‘We’re going to need to talk with you again,’ Merski said. ‘So don’t go getting itchy feet.’
Jake nodded, but he knew he wasn’t just going to wait around until someone else died or the murders got pinned on him.
Next morning as he left the dorm, Jake saw that security had been stepped up. Two-person patrols were making their way around the camp, and he was even asked to show his ID to a guard he’d seen a dozen times already.
‘I’ve been here since day one,’ he said.
>
‘I’m afraid it’s the new regulations,’ the guard said. ‘We had a couple of reporters trying to sneak in last night over the back fence.’
Jake pocketed his camp ID, and headed to the canteen. The noticeboard outside said the track practice and a couple of the scheduled circuit sessions had been cancelled at short notice. It seemed some of the trainers had decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Whether they meant to themselves, or to the athletes, Jake didn’t know.
The mood over breakfast was subdued. Some of the South American athletes, friends of BeBe, were already talking about packing up and going home. But most people in the canteen thought the police investigation was a waste of time over ‘a massive coincidence’, or so Jake heard more than once.
Veronika came in late, looking tired, and Jake scooted along his bench to give her somewhere to sit. She walked straight past him with her tray carrying a half-finished bottle of Olympic Edge, and went to sit instead with Maria. Suit yourself, he thought.
But as he was leaving, he decided to stop by her table.
‘Hey, Vron,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy going for a jog later?’
‘We’re playing later,’ Maria interjected.
‘I wasn’t asking you,’ Jake said. ‘Veronika?’
She faced him wearily. ‘Like she said, we’ve got a match later.’ Veronika stood up, grabbing her bottle of Olympic Edge. ‘Just leave me alone, Jake.’ She walked out of the canteen leaving the rest of her breakfast untouched.
Jake heard a snigger behind him, and saw Oz leaning against the wall, rolling a toothpick between his teeth.
Leave it, Jake said to himself, following her out. He could do without Oz this morning.
Near the stadium, he came face to face with his dad.
‘Hey, Jake, some of the other players are already inside. I want to have a practice, see if we can’t breathe some life back into the camp.’
‘Great choice of words, Dad,’ Jake muttered.
His dad gave them all a talk before they split into teams, casting doubt on the end-of-camp game versus the US team. Apparently with the shadows hanging over Olympic Advantage, the sponsor wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. That brought groans from the players, but Jake found he hardly cared. This was turning out to be the summer camp from hell.
Oz’s team members were their usual bullish selves, pulling Jake’s shirt, or tripping him off the ball when his dad was looking the other way. Even when Oz raked his studs down the side of Jake’s leg, he managed not to react, and just picked himself up.
After forty minutes, Jake’s team was 2–0 down. Rafe slid a perfect through ball between two defenders and Jake was all clear on goal, one on one with the keeper. He stepped over twice, then tried to feint left. Somehow the ball got stuck under his feet, and rolled to the keeper.
‘Wake up, Jake!’ his dad shouted. ‘That should have been two-one.’
Jake held up a hand to apologise to his team-mates, and jogged back upfield.
His team was down to 4–1 by the time ninety minutes was approaching, and Jake missed a header from close-range, bringing another round of cursing from the other players.
‘A headless chicken could have put that in,’ Rafe said.
When the final whistle went, Jake traipsed off with the rest of the team.
A hand caught his shoulder.
‘Hold it right there, mister,’ said his dad.
Jake shrugged the hand off. A couple of the other players had turned to stare.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ said his dad under his breath. ‘You’re playing like this doesn’t matter.’
‘Does it?’ said Jake. ‘Dad, three people have died, in case you haven’t noticed. Popov’s hanging around, but you seem more interested in pulling me up for off-side.’
‘Not Popov again,’ his dad said, rolling his eyes.
Jake started to walk away, but his dad jogged up alongside him. They reached the edge of the gym block. Jake glared at the couple of players who’d stuck around to watch and they disappeared inside.
‘OK,’ said his dad. ‘It’s true that Popov’s an investor in the camp, but this time you’re barking up the wrong tree, Jake. Popov just happens to own a controlling stake in a major sponsor called Ares Sports.’
Jake took a moment to process what his dad was telling him. If Popov ran Ares, then he had a hold over Krantz. The pieces of this jigsaw puzzle had just been thrown in the air.
‘And I suppose you being here is just a coincidence,’ Jake said. ‘You must think I’m really thick, Dad.’
His dad took a deep breath and cast a quick glance left and right. ‘OK, I’ll be straight with you. My superiors have got me here in an observation role, but nothing more. With so many up-and-coming athletes in the same place, there’s a lot of international scrutiny.’
‘So I’m just your cover,’ Jake blurted. ‘I knew it.’
His dad sighed. ‘No, you’re my son and, for the last time, I had nothing to do with you being invited. My bosses told me to come out here, and they aren’t the kind of people you say no to. But that was after you were approached in Milan.’
Jake thought about what Veronika had said about Krantz, and how much pressure he was under from Ares Sports. He thought about Phillips and his dodgy offers, the kiss with Dr Chow, and Garcia showing up dead after an argument. If anyone had been keeping things to himself, it was Jake. Perhaps it was time to get the pros on board.
‘You’re wrong,’ he told his dad. ‘There is something going on.’
‘Go on,’ his dad said. ‘Tell me your theory.’
He told his dad everything, from his first day at the camp to seeing Popov at the pool the day before. In going over all the details again, he realised he still didn’t really know what was going on, other than money was involved, and lots of it. His dad kept a calm face, but when Jake got to the part about getting into Phillips’s car and driving out of town he shook his head.
‘Christ, imagine what you could have been walking into,’ he said. ‘You should have come to me.’
‘I didn’t want to worry you unless it was something important,’ Jake said.
‘This is my fault. Your mum was right. I shouldn’t have let you come. If I’d known about Popov –’
‘Well, I’m here now,’ Jake said. ‘What do we do next?’
‘We do nothing,’ his dad said. ‘I’m sorry, Jake, but I can’t let you stay at the camp.’
‘What?’ Jake couldn’t believe what he was hearing. After everything they’d been through together in the last few months. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I trusted you!’
‘This isn’t about trust,’ his dad said. ‘It’s about keeping you safe.’
Jake spun round, and saw a bottle of Olympic Edge upright on the turf. What a joke! He wished he’d never laid eyes on the disgusting stuff. It was a symbol of everything that was wrong with this money-driven world of sports, the pointless merchandising, the corruption . . .
Swinging his boot, Jake blasted the bottle against a wall. It exploded in a blue shower.
‘There’s no need to lose your temper,’ his dad said.
But Jake was staring at the dripping wall, and the bottle emptying out the last of its contents on the grass. Maybe it was his dad mentioning his temper, but the image of Tan getting in his face in the dorm sprang to mind. The guy had erupted like a volcano. This was the friend who up till then had done everything he could to avoid getting into fights.
‘Jake . . .’ his dad was saying.
‘Wait a minute,’ Jake said, picking up the busted bottle. Tan had guzzled the stuff, hadn’t he? And Veronika had snapped at him that very morning, right after drinking it. Most of the people at the camp seemed to like it – and with Phillips pressing it into every empty hand, it was hard to avoid. And, come to think of it, the other footballers had become more aggressive too.
Jake’s mind raced through the possibilities. Could there be something in the drink that messed with the chemical balance in your
body? Something that drove normal people to violence? Garcia’s car had been full of empty bottles, but the police had focused on the alcohol. What if they’d got it wrong? What if it was the Olympic Edge that had literally driven him over the edge and made him crash into the swamp?
‘It all adds up,’ he muttered, half to himself.
‘What does?’ asked his dad.
‘And Otto too,’ Jake continued. ‘He drank bottles of this stuff right before he dropped the barbell.’
‘What are you talking about, Jake?’
‘Dad, I think there’s something wrong with the drink.’ He went through his suspicions. The only one that didn’t add up was BeBe, but perhaps that was a genuine accident. He expected his dad to dismiss it out of hand, but instead he said, ‘It might be worth investigating.’
‘We’ve got to tell Dr Chow,’ Jake said. ‘Get her to tell people to stop drinking the stuff.’
‘Not yet,’ his dad said. ‘We don’t want to go ringing alarm bells.’
‘Well, we’d better find out pretty quick,’ said Jake.
His dad nodded. ‘I know just the place. Let me make a call.’
14
Jake and his dad waited at the back of the service buildings as the laundry truck pulled in. With police still interviewing everyone and security patrols tighter than normal, there was only one way out.
‘If we get caught now, it’s going to look really bad,’ his dad said.
‘You’re not prime suspect number one,’ Jake said. ‘Can’t you call someone at MI6 and sort something out?’
‘That’s not how it works, Jake,’ his dad said. ‘I’m not sure the Americans even know MI6 has someone here. We can’t jeopardise my cover for a hunch.’
Jake gave him a hard glare.
‘OK, an educated hunch, but still a hunch.’ Jake’s dad looked around again. ‘You ready?’
Jake nodded.
A Hispanic guy in a brown uniform jumped out of the truck and went to open the back doors. He waved to two maids, who were already wheeling out tall cage trolleys full of dirty laundry.
