‘Does he?’ Rosario asked. ‘He hasn’t done anything yet.’
Foster turned to get a better view of her. She wore her straight dark hair loose and consequently it fell over fiery dark-brown eyes. Every few seconds she brushed the hair back with her fingers, and Foster wondered why she didn’t just tie it back.
‘You haven’t asked me to do anything yet,’ Foster replied. Their eyes locked for a moment, neither of them aggressive and neither friendly. Just two confident people evaluating each other.
Foster wasn’t a huge tennis fan, but he knew Maria Rosario had been a decent player until her late twenties. Never a champion, but always a contender. And now she was coaching the hottest talent on the tour. Although at that moment it didn’t seem to be making her very happy.
Abbot sat down next to Maria. ‘With respect, Maria, Chris has protected Prince Harry and the British Prime Minister in the past. You don’t need to worry about his credentials.’
Keller looked at Foster while Abbot was talking.
‘He saved King Abdullah from an assassination attempt last year,’ Abbot continued, and Foster held up a hand.
‘Look, I’m not a salesman. People come to me because they need me. If you don’t think you need me, that’s fine.’
‘I think we need you,’ Kirsten Keller said, speaking for the first time. Her voice was soft but held an air of uncompromising authority. It was a trait Foster always noticed in people who had found success early. ‘I haven’t slept for days.’
Foster studied her face. Her eyes were rimmed in red, and faint blue shadows were smudged below them. In that moment she looked terrified.
He had watched Keller’s career highlights via YouTube on the Eurostar train. She was impressive. Her explosive power made her look untouchable on the court. Not like the woman sitting in front of him today. She bent down and reached into an expensive-looking clutch bag, pulling out a folded sheet of white paper.
‘This is why I need your help,’ she said, her hands shaking as she put it on the table between them.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got.’
He was less than careful with the paper, making a point of creasing it slightly as he handled it. All designed to say to Keller, It’s just a piece of paper.
The page contained a small, neatly typed message: Good luck in the final. I’m coming. There was also a loose memory stick along with it. It had been attached to the note and there was a tear where Keller had pulled it off. Next to that, a lock of hair was crudely taped onto the paper.
‘What’s on the memory stick?’ Foster asked.
‘A video of my parents’ house,’ Keller said.
Foster studied the words. Not much to go on.
‘It’s horrible, isn’t it?’ Keller said quietly.
Foster looked at her and smiled softly. ‘I promise I’ve seen a lot worst. Do you think they were in the grounds when they recorded the video?’
Keller looked surprised by the question, then thought about it. ‘No, I think they were filming from the street. But you can see my mom in the window.’
Foster nodded. ‘And the hair?’
‘My dog,’ she said. ‘The police tested it and it’s definitely dog hair. There’s no way I could bring a dog out on the tour, so Benji lives back home with my parents. Someone took a chunk out of his fur back in the States and then brought it over here with them. We found a patch cut out of his coat, when we checked.’
Foster glanced at Abbot. ‘Have you watched the tape?’
Abbot nodded. ‘There’s nothing there, though, Chris. Half a shadow across a windscreen, but I couldn’t even tell you if it was a man or a woman.’
‘Okay,’ Foster said. ‘And there’s been nothing else?’
Keller shook her head slowly. Foster guessed her life was pretty routine: a series of arrivals lounges, hotel rooms, training days, match days and then departure lounges, before the whole process started again in a brand-new city. Same meals. Same staff. Same old, same old. If there had been anything unusual, he believed she would remember.
‘Did all of this come through the post?’
Keller shook her head.
‘It appeared in my kit bag. Like magic.’
‘Like magic?’
‘During my first-round match at the French Open. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in my bag when I went out to play, but it was there when I got home. That’s what scares the shit out of me. Whoever did this must have been able to get access to restricted areas.’
Foster nodded. ‘I can’t think of many places that are truly private, in this day and age.’
Keller’s coach snorted. ‘We’ve been here thirty minutes,’ she said suddenly. ‘You don’t take a single note. You write down nothing. Not very professional, I think.’
Foster kept his eyes on Kirsten. ‘I don’t need to write things down. I notice things, and remember them. It’s my job.’
Rosario snorted again.
‘You bit your nail when the rest of us were looking at Kirsten’s letter,’ Foster said. ‘You snapped the acrylic right off, by mistake. You thought nobody noticed and you slipped it into the left pocket of your tracksuit. It’s there right now.’
On instinct, Tom Abbot and Kirsten Keller glanced at Rosario’s fingers. A flicker of embarrassment played across her eyes for half a second, but then she shrugged and said nothing.
‘You also thought I didn’t notice you texting a taxi firm under the table three minutes ago, because you think this meeting is almost over. But before you go, let me give you some advice. If you ever meet a close-protection officer who needs to write things down, for God’s sake don’t hire him.’
Abbot suppressed a smile.
‘It’s a good trick,’ Rosario said coldly.
Foster’s face was impassive.
‘Which bit?’
Rosario shrugged, gathering up her things.
‘The eyes under the table.’
‘I learned it at sniper school,’ Foster said. ‘Back in the day.’
‘What else did you notice while you were spying on me?’
Foster smiled. ‘Surely you don’t want me to say in front of everybody else?’
He held Rosario’s angry gaze. After a few uncomfortable seconds she swore and then pushed up from the table. Keller stood up, too, and put a restraining hand on her coach’s arm.
‘This is not helpful,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you wait downstairs?’
Without another word, Rosario walked to the door, opened it and slammed it shut behind her.
‘You said you don’t do a hard sell,’ Keller said. ‘And I’m glad. But tell me what you think? Should I be worried?’
‘If you’re worried, you’re worried. That’s neither right nor wrong. But is there a credible threat? My gut says no. People who genuinely want to kill you usually get on with it. They don’t send notes. If someone wants you dead, they sneak up on you instead of giving you a heads-up.’
‘I guess,’ Keller said.
‘I know,’ Foster said. ‘But Tom will give you my number. You can call me day or night.’
‘So maybe I’ll see you soon,’ she said.
‘Maybe you will.’
CHAPTER 3
TWO DAYS LATER, Chris Foster was lying face-down in a small white room, pain etched across his face. His jaw clenched as the woman in the nurse’s uniform pulled at his arm, twisting and manipulating his bones and muscles.
‘You’re supposed to be a tough guy,’ she said.
Foster smiled and grunted all at once. It was true that in the force he had gained a reputation for toughness, but this five-foot-nothing woman in her white cotton top and combats had a medical file that told her exactly where to hurt him.
‘Seriously, is it too much?’
Her voice was gentle, girlish almost, and her fingers felt soft and cool on his skin.
‘It’s fine,’ he told her.
‘It’ll be worth it tomorrow.’
He gritted his te
eth. Eventually her soft fingers found an area worthy of investigation, and she firmed her fingers up and pushed blistering heat into him, like twisting a knife between his bones.
In the three years she had been treating him, Foster had noticed it was rare for her to ask him about the pain. He presumed it was to preserve his dignity.
They were almost done when Foster’s phone rang in his jacket pocket.
‘Take it, if you need to,’ the nurse said, and she slipped her hand inside his jacket and passed the phone to him.
‘Thanks,’ Foster said, looking at an unfamiliar international number on the screen.
‘Hello?’
Foster heard Kirsten Keller’s voice on the other end of the line. He made an apologetic gesture to the physio and said, ‘What’s up?’
‘I’ve had another letter,’ she said. ‘It arrived in the post today.’
Foster could hear traffic noises in the background.
‘Why are you outside? Are you on your own?’
Keller paused. Paris rumbled on behind her.
‘Tom Abbot is with me,’ she said eventually, as if she’d made up her mind to trust him. ‘I wanted some privacy for us to talk. My coach thinks you’re a bad idea. She thinks we should ignore the threats and concentrate on my game.’
‘Easy for her to say.’
‘Exactly. Another video came, too.’
‘On a memory stick?’
‘Yes. I’m scared, Chris.’
‘The same type?’
‘Yes. How am I supposed just to ignore this shit and focus on my game?’
‘Do what you want to do,’ Foster said.
‘You’re the boss.’
‘Tell that to Coach Rosario,’ Keller said bitterly.
‘Maybe you should.’
The physio handed Foster a glass of cold water. He gave her a thumbs up and another apologetic look, and she left the room to give him some privacy.
‘Tell me about the video,’ Foster said when she had gone. ‘What’s on it?’
Keller’s voice twisted, half in fear and half in anger.
‘Me,’ she said. ‘He was behind me, filming me on his phone.’
Foster thought about it.
‘Easy to do these days,’ he reasoned. ‘Most people would just assume he was texting. Or checking his mail.’
The line scratched and muffled and the traffic noise became faint. Foster guessed Keller had the receiver under her chin while she spun around, checking nobody was behind her.
‘He had a knife hidden inside his jacket, Chris. He kept panning the camera from me to the knife and back again. Taunting me.’
‘Take a breath,’ Foster said. ‘A big one.’
He heard her do it.
‘Can you get Tom Abbot to rip the video off the memory stick and mail it to me?’
She composed herself.
‘Sure. It scares the hell out of me to know he was right there and I had no idea.’
Still the traffic rumbled on behind her. Foster checked his watch. Rush hour. A busy Paris street. She was safe enough, for now.
‘If you’re calling to ask for my help, I can protect you.’
‘Yes, I’m calling for your help,’ Keller said.
‘Well then, you’ve got it.’
CHAPTER 4
KIRSTEN KELLER AND her small personal team arrived into Heathrow Airport early on Thursday morning. She knew the ungodly hour wouldn’t stop the sharks from circling, but at least she had the satisfaction of knowing they’d had to haul themselves out of bed in the dark.
Keller and Rosario spilled off the Airbus A320 along with every other passenger. ‘This is our best chance of avoiding the paparazzi ambush,’ Keller said.
‘Says who?’ Rosario asked.
‘Says Chris.’
Rosario said nothing. She was still smouldering in general about the decision to hire a bodyguard, and fuming in particular about the fact that Keller had chosen Foster. They waited for an eternity by the carousel, eventually grabbing their cases and racket bags in frosty silence.
‘You know what?’ Keller said as she pulled the case onto an aluminium trolley. ‘I listen to everything you tell me on the court. Everything. But this is not tennis. It’s my life. It’s my decision. And I’ve made it, so you need to get on board.’
They wheeled their small mountain of kit through Customs, Keller pacing a few steps ahead of Rosario and wondering how her coach would react to her firm words. She took a breath before stepping through the doors and out into the real world.
The sharks were waiting, and they closed in around Keller before the security doors slid shut. Rosario pulled up close and both women used their luggage trollies like a makeshift snowplough, bulldozing their way through the intimidating crowd. Shutters snapped and flashlights strobed all around them, and gradually the reporters boxed them in and slowed them down.
Welcome to England.
‘Are you looking forward to Wimbledon, Miss Keller?’ one of them shouted. ‘Do you think we’ll see you in the final?’
She ignored the question and kept walking, and from every direction hungry photographers shouted, ‘Kirsten, over here.’
She turned her head towards the loudest voice and caught a glimpse of a balding man in his late forties, who seemed to be made entirely of sweat and stubble and malevolence. His eyes glinted as he realised Keller was looking his way.
‘What happened in Paris, Kirsten?’ The bald guy’s cockney accent came ringing through. ‘Did you bottle it in Paris?’
The floodgates opened.
‘Did you have a bet on Basilia?’ another one shouted. ‘Did the bookies pay out?’
‘Are you pregnant?’
Keller knew that Tennis Ace Denies Pregnancy Rumour would probably sell even more copies than Tennis Ace is Pregnant, so she kept her mouth shut, her eyes forward and kept bulldozing the reporters slowly out of the way, not running, but walking, and dying inside a little bit with every step. The onslaught of questions continued. The flashbulbs subsided momentarily and she could make out the sweating bald guy again. He looked gleeful, pumped up and breathless.
‘Are you on drugs, Miss Keller? Did you get the wrong dose?’
He opened his mouth to ask a follow-up question, but before he got a chance his face screwed up in pain and confusion. His head was thrown forward and he cried out in pain. Someone had thumped him hard on the back of the head and he toppled over on the floor in front of Keller and Rosario. It could have been anyone in the middle of the crush. A dirty trick played on a dirty trickster. Kirsten Keller’s heart bled for him. Not.
She knew better than to stop her momentum, so she pushed the trolley hard into the bald guy’s shins until his prone body spun out of the way. She didn’t feel especially bad about it. In the gap vacated by the bald man, Chris Foster emerged. He wore his smart jacket and an impossibly crisp white shirt. He looked utterly unflustered. His face was inscrutable and Keller could not be sure if he had been responsible for the reporter falling to the floor. Not until his eyes locked with hers, at least. The twinkle in his eye made her smile, which made the camera flashes go crazy all over again. Then suddenly he was beside her and she noticed his frame properly for the first time. He was taller than she was, which was not true of all of the men she had known in her life. He was broad-shouldered; not muscle-bound, but stretching his suit in all the right places. He reached out an arm firmly enough to encourage the Gentlemen of the Press to back off.
Keller breathed for the first time in a minute.
Rosario looked as if she’d have been happier to be torn limb from limb by the paparazzi than be saved by Foster. Which he noticed, and registered, and stored for later. At that moment Maria Rosario was not his biggest concern. He was sharp-focused on every cameraman within twenty yards of Kirsten Keller and wondering if any of them had a knife in their pocket.
CHAPTER 5
CHRIS FOSTER FELT the warm moulded plastic on his back as he settled into a green chair at the si
de of Kirsten Keller’s practice court. The sky above them was a deep azure-blue and there wasn’t a cloud for a hundred miles. The breeze had dropped, and Foster could feel the sun on the back of his neck as he watched Keller going through her routines on the manicured grass. She was wearing her sponsor’s burgundy dress, fiery orange and yellow around the skirt so that when she moved it looked like fire was licking at her belly.
She worked on her serve, slamming ball after ball to the far end of the court. The smash of her racket pierced the still summer air with such ferocity that it reminded Foster of his own practice sessions on the firing range. Bullets, again and again – her intensity never dropping and her concentration unwavering. She was the opposite of the frightened woman he had guided through Heathrow. On the court she was in control, commanding and powerful.
As each ball exploded off her racket she let out a gasp or a grunt. She seemed to have no control over it. None of the players called it cheating exactly, but from what Foster had read in the newspapers over the past few days, Keller certainly hadn’t made any friends in the locker room over it.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Abbot, checking that Keller had settled in.
‘She’s fine,’ Foster said, scanning the other side of the court. ‘She can play tennis, that’s for sure.’
Another bullet smashed through the air.
Another grunt.
Foster smiled.
‘Did you get the video?’ Abbot asked.
‘Yep.’
‘What do you make of it?’
Foster’s eyes swept the court again.
‘Anyone who films himself with a hunting knife behind someone’s back is the real deal.’
‘Think he’ll show up?’ Abbot asked.
‘I’m sure he will. He started with letters and movies. Now it’s movies with knives. And he’s getting closer.’
‘Do you need anything?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Call me when you do.’
‘You know I will.’
Foster hung up and put his phone back in his jacket pocket.
He stretched out and waited for Maria Rosario to say something. He had sensed her on his shoulder for the past thirty seconds, half watching her player, half listening to his call.
Break Point: BookShots Page 2
