Free Break Point: BookShots by James Patterson

bowl. Three women were working in swivel chairs in front of a huge illuminated mixing desk. They wore the same headsets as the runner and seemed so engrossed in their pictures that they didn’t notice the invasion. The runner tapped one of them on the shoulder and she turned round and slipped one earphone off.
    ‘Hey, Bethan,’ he said, smiling nervously. ‘These guys need your help.’
    She was a thin woman with tight lips that looked as if they’d forgotten how to smile. She looked at the runner like she might rip his skin from his body.
    ‘Half of Africa needs my help, according to Save the Children, but I’m a bit fucking busy at the moment.’ Her cold eyes moved from the runner to the group of strangers in her gallery and she said, ‘No offence.’
    ‘None taken,’ Foster said. ‘Come on, Kirsten, we’ll head back to the hotel.’
    Even in the strange light, Foster could see colour draining from Bethan’s face as Keller stepped out from the shadows. Good, let her squirm. His codeine hit was wearing off and the left side of his body was beginning to throb again and he was starting to feel irritable.
    ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Bethan muttered, mostly to herself. ‘What do you need?’
    ‘Whatever pictures you’ve got, from the end of the match,’ Foster said. ‘Every camera. Every angle. I’m looking for someone in the crowd.’
    ‘And you want this when?’ Bethan said in a disbelieving tone. ‘Now?’
    Foster explained the deal, the same way he’d explained it to the runner, and Bethan rolled her eyes and started punching time-codes into her computer. The runner breathed a sigh of relief and led Keller out into the studio, with Tom Abbot following close behind.
    Soon the screens in front of Foster were alive again, and Bethan was scrolling through images until they found what he was looking for. There were two cameras that had caught the scene. The first was useless, showing nothing but a brief glimpse of the guy’s baseball cap in the middle of the scrum. The other angle was better, filmed from the far side of the court, over Keller’s shoulder. It was a wide shot, with Keller small in the middle of the screen. The excited faces of the people in the crowd were smaller still.
    ‘Can you zoom in?’ Foster asked.
    Bethan pressed buttons and the frame tightened around Keller. But the closer they got, the grainier the quality of the shot became.
    ‘Can you loop that bit?’ Foster said, as he saw the arm emerge from the crowd. ‘And slow it right down?’
    Bethan did, and the shot played through on the screens in front of them. The grainy arm punched through, and Keller’s hand came forward. And then it repeated, again and again, the arm staying grainy and the guy’s face staying blurred.
    Foster leaned forward until he was cheek-to-cheek with Bethan, his lips next to her microphone.
    ‘Time’s up,’ he said.
    ‘Did you find anything?’ Abbot asked as they all headed back down the glass-and-steel steps. Foster was quiet and brooding.
    ‘Nothing,’ he said distantly. ‘Just an arm disappearing into the crowd. Dead end.’
    ‘CCTV?’ Abbot asked.
    ‘Cullen’s going to get hold of it, but I don’t expect they’ll find anything. There are too many people moving around the grounds, and we haven’t had a good enough visual on this guy to pick him out in such a massive crowd.’
    They walked in silence back to the Range Rover, Foster’s strong hand gentle but persistent in the small of Keller’s back. When they reached the car, there was a note waiting for them on the windscreen. It was typed on cheap white paper, folded once and tucked under the wiper blade. Foster skimmed it and then handed it to Keller while he started up the car.
Soon it will all be over. You deserve what’s coming. And if you don’t know why, then you deserve it even more
.

CHAPTER 21
    THE HEAVENS OPENED as Foster drove back towards the hotel. Plump raindrops smashed onto the Range Rover’s roof like meteors,