Love Game - Season 2012 (40 page)

The German sat down on a chair and watched
Amanda, who had placed her hands over her head and had grabbed the heating. It
looked funny, but Elise couldn’t smile.

“So, we won’t spend the off-season
together?” she asked quietly.

“Actually I had hoped that you would come
with me,” Amanda replied. “And not just for the off-season.”

Elise frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I want us to move in together.”

***

Martina Rodriguez stroked Antonia’s long
dark hair. The Italian girl had closed her eyes while Martina ran the brush
through the strands.

“Hold still,” the Argentine whispered. She
had pulled back three tails and was plaiting them into one braid.

There was still time as Antonia’s singles
match would start in one hour. The Italian was scheduled first on center court
as they would also play their doubles match later that day. If they won it,
they would have booked their ticket to Istanbul for sure.

Martina sighed. More than anything she
wanted to go to Istanbul with Antonia. The Italian would be going as an
alternate in the singles competition, as she had climbed the rankings steadily
in the last few months and was ranked No. 9 at the moment. Martina was still
stuck in the Top 20 and without a seed in the doubles competition she would
have to accompany Antonia as a guest.

Martina finished braiding and put a tie on
the end.

“Knock, knock,” a voice behind them said.

They both turned around. Ted had stuck his
head inside the girls’ locker room.

“Come in,” Antonia said. “Nobody’s here
yet.”

“Not that I was interested in your assets
anyway.” He winked and closed the door behind him.

He took a look around anyway before he sat
down.

“I wanted to talk to you about our picture
quest,” he stated.

Antonia and Martina raised their eyebrows.
It had been one year since they had received their picture in Luxembourg.
Nothing had happened since and Martina had to admit that they had almost
forgotten about the matter, especially since Antonia was doing so well and was
kept busy with sponsorship and publicity duties. They didn’t want to spend the
sparse time they had left for themselves worrying about old pictures. Even
though they should.

“What about them?” Martina asked.

“Well, after we ruled out Anastasia as a
suspect Tom and I went through the list again,” Ted explained. “The only one we
couldn’t eliminate as a suspect was Bernadette.”

“Bernadette?” Antonia shook her head.
“She’s far too busy bossing Polly around.”

Ted nodded. “I don’t want to jump to
conclusions. We’ve done that and we were completely wrong in Anastasia’s case.
But Bernadette has behaved suspiciously of late. She obviously keeps an eye on
the young couples.”

“She
is
a bit weird,” Martina
remarked and Antonia nodded. They looked at each other and shrugged, still not
convinced about Tom’s suspicion.

Ted’s cell phone buzzed in his trousers.

“Excuse me, girls,” he said and answered
the call.

Martina and Antonia watched him. First he
frowned, then his eyes grew wide.

“Yes,” he whispered a couple of times. He
began making hand gestures pointing to the phone, then switching his finger as
if he was taking a picture. Antonia looked at Martina and shrugged.

“When?” he finally said. Having gotten an
answer he nodded and hung up.

“Who was that?” Antonia asked.

Ted opened his mouth in dramatic fashion.
“You will not believe it! It was the picture thief. She wants to meet. She said
she had the pictures and that I surely want them back.”

“Was it Bernadette?” Martina and Antonia
both blurted out.

“No, I don’t think so.” Ted shook his head.
“The voice was much younger. But – the woman
did
have a Canadian
accent.”

***

Lynn squeezed into the row and quickly sat
down on an empty seat.

It was 5-2 for Antonia in the third set and
the umpire hoped that this was the last changeover of the match. She looked at
her colleague, Anastasia Stea, who was sitting high in the umpire’s chair.

“Time,” the Romanian said into the
microphone and Antonia Sapore and Ukrainian player, Yelena Kovalenko, got up
from their chairs.

Three minutes later the match was decided
by a beautiful backhand winner by the Italian.

Lynn stood up and waved to Anastasia when
she climbed down the high chair.

“Hungry?”

The Romanian nodded and they headed to the
exit to get a cab that would take them to Yuri’s bar in the heart of Moscow.
When they entered the cozy restaurant they were the first to have arrived.
Anastasia checked the scores of the ongoing matches and shook her head.

“Probably another hour before the others
arrive,” she informed Lynn.

“Let’s have drinks then.”

They both ordered Moscow Spring Punches.
When the drinks arrived and they had taken a sip, Lynn closed her eyes for a
moment, enjoying that fact that she had her feet on the ground.

“Holy shit!” The muffled yell from
Anastasia made her jump.

“What?” she asked. The older umpire turned
her head to the left – and raised her eyebrows. At a table near the window,
hidden from view when you entered the restaurant, were Sasha Mrachova and
Gabriella Galloway. It had to be Gabriella, as Lulu was playing the smaller
tournament in Luxembourg.

“So, Sasha and Gabriella,” Anastasia
whispered. “And there was me thinking she didn’t like the Galloways.”

Lynn watched the younger umpire, who seemed
astonished to see the pairing. The Romanian umpire was still looking at the two
Grand Slam champions, shaking her head.

“I’m not surprised to see them together,”
Lynn chuckled.

“What do you mean?” Anastasia turned back
to Lynn. “What do you know that we don’t?”

“I don’t
know
,” Lynn vetoed. “But I
see things.”

Anastasia leaned forward. “What did you
see?”

“Have none of you noticed that Sasha was
constantly following the Galloways around last year?”

“Following them? Well, that would explain
things,” she said with a side glance to Sasha. Lynn didn’t understand the
mysterious remark but guessed Anastasia was referring to her fling with the
Czech player.

“And wasn’t it obvious that Sasha mishit
that ball on match point during the U.S. Open final on purpose?” she continued.

Anastasia shook her head. “I thought she
was perhaps distracted by the fact that Gabriella was lying on the ground.”

“Yes, I’m convinced she was,” Lynn smiled.
“She looked horrified when Gabriella didn’t get up. She believed Gabriella was
injured, and deliberately shoved the ball into the net.”

“But what is all this rivalry talk about?”

“The media needs something to talk about,”
Lynn shrugged. “They make up stuff just by looking at the results.”

“So, you are saying they are actually
close?” Anastasia wondered with a confused look.

“Close?” Lynn smugly looked Anastasia over.
“I’m saying they are lovers.”

***

Monica walked down the long hotel corridor
and plucked a blossom from the bouquet of flowers, which were arranged in a
vase on a table in the corner. Just to check if they were real. They were.
Monica wondered how long they would bloom, considering the fact that there was
no window in the corridor. Then she found the room she was looking for. After
knocking, Agnes opened the door and waved her inside.

“Candice is making drinks,” her friend and
doubles partner informed her with a wink.

“Is it that bad?” Monica chuckled,
following Agnes into the living room. Twenty minutes earlier Agnes had called
her and ordered her to the couple’s room. They had news.

“We don’t know,” Candice said. She finished
mixing the drink and handed it to Monica.

“Moscow Mule?”

Candice nodded.

“Even though I’m afraid we don’t need to
talk about mules, but moles.”

Monica knew who the communications manager
referred to. For the whole season, Morgana Doré had been digging up information
on some of the players’ pasts. And there was some reasonable suspicion that the
players she focused on were – amongst others – Monica and Agnes.

“Morgana is absolutely clueless,” Candice
sighed. “She honestly believes we are threatening people to shut them up.”

“What shall we do about it?” Monica asked.
She had taken a seat and put her feet up on the sofa.

“We have to convince her that the person
who writes those e-mails to her is not the real Larissa, making it clear that
the information she is receiving is not credible at all,” Candice stated. “The
question is, who is writing the e-mails? And do we want Morgana asking exactly
that question? Because if she finds out that somebody is trying to discredit
us, she will ask for the reason. And we don’t want that.”

Agnes and Monica shook their heads. No,
they didn’t want that.

 “So, what’s the news?” Monica asked.

“Alice said, Morgana’s almost finished with
her thesis and would have it done after the off-season.”

“We cannot let her publish it,” Monica
said.

“Well, I can’t believe Morgana would
publish without reassessing and questioning these claims her informant gives
her,” Agnes doubted.

“What if she verifies them?” Monica shot
back. “What if the claims are actually informative?”

“Only a handful of people know enough to
get us into trouble by speaking out.”

But Agnes’s argument did not calm the
others down.

“Yes,” Candice mumbled. “That’s what I’m
afraid of. That we are dealing with a mole.”

“Do you think it’s Bernadette?” she asked
gravely.

“Very likely,” Candice replied. “But it
could very well be someone else.”

Yes, Monica thought, the group hadn’t
exactly made a lot of friends back in the day.

She swallowed a mouthful of the ice-cold
vodka drink. Mole. Traitor. Defector. There were many names for renegades who
stepped outside the circle that had sheltered them – whether it was a state, or
a group of eight people. There were also many reasons to do so. Some were
noble, others not so much. Love. Freedom. Greed. Power. Monica clenched her
teeth. Two days ago, when strolling through the city, they had passed the
infamous Lubyanka building, which housed the headquarters of the KGB and its prison.
It didn’t take much that a shelter became a prison, Monica thought. Freedom was
a good reason to defect.

But the matter with Morgana’s source had a
different smell to it. Revenge.

***

The restaurant wasn’t too crowded and,
after a quick look, Polly decided to take the table at the end of the room
between the large window and the bar counter.

“Ted’s not here yet,” Mint whispered. They
came fifteen minutes earlier to find the best spot for the planned
interrogation.

“I think I should sit here, facing the
restaurant room,” Polly pondered. “This way Ted will have to sit with his back
to the room and you can observe us from the bar without him noticing you.”

Mint nodded. Polly could tell that the
American still wasn’t comfortable with the idea of confronting Ted Curry with
the pictures. She pushed Mint to the counter and sat her down on one of the bar
stools.

“A beer for the young lady here,” she
ordered, pointing at Mint. She squeezed Mint’s shoulders to buoy her up, then
sat down at the table and wrote Ted a text where to find her.

Punctually at 6 p.m. the British player
hurried around the bar counter with a bewildered look. She waved him over and
gestured him to sit down. But before Polly could start with her rehearsed
speech Ted had opened his mouth.

“Polly!” He shook his head. “Why you? Where
is Bernadette?”

Polly didn’t understand. Bernadette?

“What does she want with the pictures?” Ted
continued. “What have you done with them?”

“Ted, stop please,” Polly yelled. “I don’t
know what you are talking about. The question is rather what do you want with
the pictures.” She tried to get the conversation back on her track.

“Me? I want to save them, of course,” Ted
stammered.

“Save them from what?” Polly inquired.

“From being published,” Ted answered. “So,
please tell me what do you want? Money?”

Polly hesitated. “Wait a moment.
You
want to save them from being published?”