‘Fuck off, mate,’ he slurred, as Foster’s huge fist closed around his shirt collar.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ Foster said, and he walked the drunk guy away from Kirsten and away from the photographers. He came back to Keller and put a protective arm around her waist, which in all honestly was no hardship, and noticed the smell of her perfume again as he walked her calmly inside the restaurant. Keller looked at him, wide-eyed.

‘Everything alright?’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Foster said, pulling his jacket back into shape as they walked.

‘That wasn’t the guy?’

‘No. Just a random drunk.’

A waiter showed them to a discreet table near the ornate bar. Keller ordered avocado with sweet potato and Foster ordered sea bass. He ate while she pushed hers around, hardly making a dent in it. Not good for an athlete.

‘What’s up?’

Keller looked across the table at him, her smoky eyes warm in the candlelight.

‘I guess I just keep thinking about the closeness of it all,’ she said. ‘You know, someone has managed to leave messages in my bag, and in the locker room. Someone knows where my family lives. I can’t help thinking: it’s going to be someone I know, isn’t it?’

CHAPTER 10

FOSTER AND KELLER said nothing as they entered the Shangri-La. The small talk had petered out as their taxi crossed the Thames, and Keller had taken to resting her head on Chris Foster’s shoulder as they drove through the dark London streets.

Foster told himself it was part of the job to get her safely into her room, but neither of them really believed that was the reason he was there.

‘Do you check under the bed as part of the deal?’ she asked as they headed into the confines of the lift. Her delicate perfume swirled around him again, heady and intoxicating. That she had reapplied it in the lobby told Foster everything he needed to know, because after all, who was left to smell it except him?

‘I check everything,’ he said. ‘I don’t like taking chances.’

Keller smiled.

‘Never?’

She slipped her hand into his as they emerged from the lift and walked beside him to her room. Foster smiled without turning towards her, and when they got to her door he took the spare keycard out of his pocket and swiped it. He took his work seriously and swept through the outer room, the bedroom and the opulent bathroom with complete focus and concentration, before turning back to his client.

Keller had already kicked off her heels and she padded barefoot across the deep carpet towards him. Behind her, the glass wall looked out onto London’s bright lights twinkling forty-two floors below. They were orange and yellow, warmer than the ice-white stars in the black sky above.