There was silence on the line for a minute while Cullen and Foster were thinking.

‘I’ve been imagining a betting syndicate trying to scare Kirsten into the result they want,’ Foster said. ‘Or maybe a tennis rival or another coach playing with her mind, and the whole thing getting seriously out of hand.’

‘Which one’s your money on?’

‘I don’t know, Ruth. But none of them really sound like they’d have a good reason to kill Rosario. Not to me, anyway.’

‘Well, me neither,’ Cullen said, then sighed. ‘You know we’ll have to talk to Kirsten at some point? As a witness, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

Foster hung up and headed back to the locker room to break the news to Keller.

CHAPTER 15

THE POLISHED WOODEN door of the locker room opened at the exact moment Foster arrived. Another player was on her way out, fresh from the shower and weighed down by an oversized racket bag.

‘Are you the guy with Kirsten Keller?’ She had a heavy Eastern European accent that Foster guessed was Polish or Slovakian. ‘You’d better go in. She’s a real mess.’

Foster’s skin prickled and he headed past the player, calling Keller’s name. She didn’t reply, so he moved further into the lockers, and further into the steam, which was billowing from the showers the same as the last time. He raised his voice, quickened his step, his mind full of images of Kirsten slashed or stabbed, blood flowing across the shower-room floor. But she hadn’t made it as far as the shower. She hadn’t even made it out of her clothes.

She was crumpled on the floor, but there was no blood. Instead she was surrounded by an explosion of black rose petals, tinged red at their edges and scattered around her collapsed frame. One fist clutched a thick bunch of smashed rose stalks, and her other hand was holding her head. Her hair was covering her face and she was breathing hard.

He sat down next to her in the steam, and for a long while neither of them said anything. Rosario had her faults, but she had been fiercely loyal to Keller and they had travelled the world together for three tough years. They were family. Foster was surprised Kirsten had held it together for so long. So he let her sob, and in the end it was Keller who spoke first, her breathing slowing as she lifted her head to look at Foster.

‘Marta Basilia was here.’

Keller ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it from her face and revealing bloodshot eyes.

‘What did she want?’

‘She brought flowers and said she was sorry about Maria. Maybe she was trying to get into my head. I don’t know. The flowers just made me realise that Maria is gone and she’s never coming back. This locker room feels so fucking empty without her.’

Foster took a breath.