Love Game - Season 2012 (44 page)

“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.