the cylinder into the man’s face. The gas exploded into the man’s eyes, temporarily blinding him. Alex brought the cylinder down, then up again. The metal rim clanged into the guard’s head, just above his nose. Alex felt the jolt of solid steel against bone. The guard reeled back. Alex took another step forward. This time he swung the cylinder like a cricket bat, hitting the man with incredible force in the shoulders and neck. The guard never had a chance. He didn’t even cry out as he was thrown off his feet and sent hurtling forward into the open fridge.
Alex dropped the cylinder and groaned. It felt as if his arms had been wrenched out of their sockets. His head was still spinning and he wondered if his nose had been broken. He limped forward and looked into the fridge.
There was a curtain of plastic sheets and behind it a mountain of cardboard boxes, each and every one of them filled to the brim with strawberries. Alex couldn’t help smiling. Strawberries and cream was one of Wimbledon ’s greatest traditions, served at crazy prices in the kiosks and restaurants above ground. This was where they were stored. The guard had landed in the middle of the boxes, crushing many of them. He was unconscious, half buried in a blanket of strawberries, his head resting on a bright red pillow of them. Alex stood in the doorway, leaning on the frame for support, allowing the cold air to wash over him. There was a thermostat next to him. Outside, the weather was hot. The strawberries had to be kept chilled. He took one last look at the man who had tried to kill him. “Out cold,” he said.
Then he reached out and twisted the thermostat control, sending the temperature down below zero. Out colder. He closed the fridge door and limped painfully away.
THE CRIBBER
It had taken the engineer just a few minutes to take the water dispenser apart. Now he reached inside and carefully disengaged a slim glass phial from a tangle of wires and circuit boards.
“Built into the filter,” he said. “There’s a valve system. Very ingenious.”
He passed the phial to a stern-looking woman who held it up to the light, examining its contents. The phial was half filled with a transparent liquid. She swilled it round, applied a little to her index finger and sniffed it. Her eyes narrowed. “Librium,” she announced. She had a clipped, matter-of-fact way of speaking. “Nasty little drug. A spoonful will put you out cold. A couple of drops, though… they’ll just confuse you. Basically knock you off balance.”
The restaurant, and indeed the entire Millennium Building, had been closed for the night. There were three other men there. John Crawley was one. Next to him stood a uniformed policeman, obviously senior. The third man was white-haired and serious, wearing a Wimbledon tie. Alex was sitting to one side, feeling suddenly tired and out of place. Nobody apart from Crawley knew that he worked for MI6. As far as they were concerned, he was just a ballboy who had somehow stumbled on the truth.
Alex was dressed in his own clothes now. He had phoned Crawley, then taken a shower and changed, leaving his ballboy uniform back in his locker. Somehow he knew that he had worn it for the last time. He wondered if he would be allowed to keep the shorts, shirt and Hi-Tec trainers with the crossed racquets logo embroidered on the tongue. The uniform is the only payment Wimbledon ballboys and girls receive.
“It’s pretty clear what was going on,” Crawley was saying now. “You remember, I was worried about that break-in we had, Sir Norman.” This to the man in the club tie. “Well, it seems I was right. They didn’t want to steal anything. They came here to fix up the water dispensers. In the restaurant, in the lounge and probably all over the building. Remote control… is that right, Henderson?”
Henderson was the man who had taken the water dispenser apart. Another MI6 operative. “That’s right, sir,” he replied. “The dispenser functioned perfectly normally, giving out iced water. But when it received a radio signal-and that’s what our friend was doing with the fake mobile phone-it injected a few millilitres of this drug, Librium. Not enough to show up in a random blood test if anybody happened to be tested. But enough to destroy their game.”
Alex remembered the German player. Blitz, Leaving the court after he’d lost his match. He had looked dazed and out of focus. But he had been more than that. He had been drugged.
“It’s transparent,” the woman added. “And it has virtually no taste. In a cup of iced water it wouldn’t have been noticed.”
“But I don’t understand!” Sir Norman cut in. “What was the point?”
“I think I can answer that,” the policeman said. “As you know, the guard isn’t talking, but the tattoo on his arm would indicate that he is-or was-a member of the Big Circle.”
“And what exactly would that be?” Sir Norman spluttered.
“It’s a triad, sir. A Chinese gang. The triads, of course, are involved in a range of criminal activities. Drugs. Vice. Illegal immigration. And gambling. I would guess this operation was related to the latter. Like any other sporting event, Wimbledon attracts millions of pounds’ worth of bets. Now, as I understand it, the young Frenchman-Lefevre-began the tournament with odds of three hundred to one against his actually winning.”
“But then he beat Blitz and Bryant,” Crawley said.
“Exactly. I’m sure Lefevre had no idea, personally, what was going on. But if all his opponents were drugged before they went onto the court… Well, it happened twice. It could have gone on right up to the final. Big Circle would have made a killing! A hundred thousand pounds bet on the Frenchman would have brought them thirty million.”
Sir Norman stood up. “The important thing now is that nobody finds out about this,” he said. “It would be a national scandal and disastrous for our reputation. In fact we’d probably have to begin the whole tournament again!” He glanced at Alex but spoke to Crawley. “Can this boy be trusted not to talk?” he asked.
“I won’t tell anyone what happened,” Alex said.
“Good. Good.”
The policeman nodded. “You did a very good job,” he added. “Spotting this chap in the first place and then following him and alt the rest of it. Although, I have to say, I think it was rather irresponsible to lock him in the deep freeze.”
“He tried to kill me,” Alex said.
“Even so! He could have frozen to death. As it is, he may well have lost a couple of fingers from frostbite.”
“I hope that won’t spoil his tennis playing.”
“Well, I don’t know…” The policeman coughed. He was clearly unable to make Alex out. “Anyway, well done. But next time, do try to think what you’re doing. I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt!”
To hell with the lot of them!
Alex stood watching the waves, black and silver in the moonlight as they rolled into the sweeping curve of Fistral Beach. He was trying to put the policeman, Sir Norman and the whole of Wimbledon out of his mind. He had more or less saved the entire All England Tennis Tournament and although he hadn’t been expecting a season ticket in the royal box and tea with the Duchess of Kent, nor had he thought he would be bundled out quite so hastily. He had watched the finals, on his own, on TV. At least they’d let him keep his ballboy uniform.
And there was one other good thing that had come out of it all. Sabina hadn’t forgotten her invitation.
He was standing on the veranda of the house her parents had rented, a house that would have been ugly anywhere else in the world but which seemed perfectly suited to its position on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Cornish coast. It was old-fashioned, square, part brick, part white-painted wood. It had five bedrooms, three staircases and too many doors. Its garden was more dead than alive, blasted by salt and sea spray. The house was called Brook’s Leap, although nobody knew who Brook was, why he had leapt, or even if he had survived. Alex had been there for three days. He had been invited to stay the week.
There was a movement behind him. A door had opened and Sabina Pleasure stepped out, wrapped in a thick towelling robe, carrying two glasses. It was warm outside. Although it had been raining when Alex arrived-it nearly always seemed to be raining in Cornwall -the weather had cleared and this was suddenly a summer’s night. Sabina had left him outside while she went in to have a bath. Her hair was still wet. The robe fell loosely down to her bare feet. Alex thought she looked much older than her fifteen years.
