Private Games

Chapter 61

KNIGHT’S ATTENTION ROAMED over various split images on the security monitors in front of him, all showing camera views of the upper hallway off the O2 building’s sections 115 and 116, where fans were hurrying back into the arena.

Two women, one slender with stylish sandy hair and the other equally svelte with short ginger hair, came out of the women’s lavatory and merged with pedestrian traffic returning to the inner arena. Knight considered them only briefly, still searching for a brassy, beefy blonde in a Games Master uniform.

But something about the way the redhead had walked when she left the toilet nagged at Knight, and he looked back to the feed on which he’d seen them. They were gone. Had she been limping? It had looked that way, but she was slender, not fat, and a redhead, not a blonde.

The medal ceremony began with the awarding of the bronze medals. Knight trained his binoculars north from the security station, looking for the redhead and her companion among the fans still hurrying back to their seats.

Knight’s efforts were hampered by the announcement of the silver-medal award to Great Britain. That sent the host-country crowd up on its feet, clapping, whistling and catcalling. Several lads at the north end of the arena unfurled large Union Jack flags and waved them about wildly, further obscuring Knight’s view.

The flags were still waving when the Chinese team was called to the high spot on the podium. Knight temporarily abandoned the search and looked for the Chinese coaches.

Ping and Wu stood off to the side of the floor-exercise mat beside a short, stocky Chinese woman in her fifties.

‘Who is she?’ Knight asked one of the men manning the video station.

He looked and replied, ‘Win Bo Lee. Chairman of the Chinese Gymnastics Association. Bigwig.’

Knight kept his binoculars on Ping and Wu as the Chinese national anthem began and the country’s red flag started to rise. He was expecting an emotional outpouring from the Chinese head coach.

To his surprise, however, he thought Ping looked oddly sombre for a man whose team had just won its Olympic event. Ping was looking at the ground and rubbing the back of his neck, not up at the Chinese flag as it reached the arena rafters.

Knight was about to turn his binoculars north again to look for the two women when Win Bo Lee suddenly wobbled on her feet as if she were dizzy. The assistant coach, Wu, caught the CGA chairman by the elbow and steadied her.

The older woman wiped at her nose and looked at her finger. She appeared alarmed and said something to An Wu.

But then Knight’s attention caught jerky movement beside the older woman. As the last few bars of the Chinese national anthem played, Ping lurched up onto the floor-exercise mat. The victorious head coach staggered across the spring-loaded floor toward the podium, his left hand clutching his throat, and his right reaching out to his triumphant team as if they were rope and he was drowning.

The anthem ended. The Chinese girls looked down from the flag, tears flowing down their cheeks, only to see their agonised coach trip and sprawl onto the mat in front of them.

Several girls started to scream.

Even from halfway across the arena, Knight could see the blood dribbling from Ping’s mouth and nose.