James Patterson - Private London

I was wrong about that, as it turned out. But not in the way I expected.

I looked down at Chloe. Her eyes still closed. Her breathing even. ‘Have there been any developments?’ I asked Annabelle.

The professor shook her head. ‘The registrar was just here with Chloe’s mother. Chloe is stable but still in a coma.’

‘Where is Barbara now?’

‘She’s gone to get us some tea.’

Barbara Lehman, nee Smith, had driven down overnight from North Scotland, where she had moved a year ago. She’d set out as soon as she had heard what had happened to her daughter. Her new husband Martin Lehman worked in the petrochemical industry and was moved around the country every few years or so. Martin Lehman didn’t like me and I wasn’t, to tell the truth, too disappointed that he hadn’t accompanied his wife.

‘I just thought I’d check in on Chloe.’ Annabelle gestured sadly at some fruit in a bowl on the bedside cabinet. ‘Bit of a cliche, I know.’

‘I’m sure she’ll be grateful when she wakes up.’

The professor nodded and stood up. She was still dressed casually in jeans and a jumper. Still looked a million dollars.

‘I’d better leave you to it. I don’t think the ward sister will like a crowd in here.’

‘It was good of you to come.’

Annabelle shook her head. ‘Chloe’s one of our students. I’m her tutor.’

‘Even so.’

‘She’s a very bright girl. Very brave too, from what I hear. She nearly fought them off.’

‘They weren’t playing by the Queensberry Rules.’

‘No.’

She leaned down to smooth Chloe’s hair.

‘I take it you have no news yourself,’ she said.

‘No,’ I said. Lying as smoothly as a politician. ‘But Hannah Shapiro’s father will be here tomorrow morning. Maybe the kidnappers will make contact then.’

‘Annabelle looked at me, a little surprised. ‘You still think that this is what it was, then? A straightforward kidnapping? Why haven’t they been in contact? Made a ransom demand?’

‘I don’t know.’

That’s the trouble with lying: once you start you’ve got to keep doing it – and I didn’t like lying to Annabelle. I could see how distraught she was.

‘What?’ she said.

I guess I had been staring. ‘Her father has got money,’ I said. ‘That’s what it usually comes down to. Money.’

Money or sex, I thought to myself but didn’t articulate the thought.

‘I didn’t realise she came from a wealthy background.’

Saying Harlan Shapiro had money was a bit like saying a forest has a tree or two in it. ‘Yeah. Her father is pretty well off,’ I said, not telling her that he had already agreed to pay the ransom and I had the diamonds already stashed in the safe at our offices.

‘That’s good, then, isn’t it? Like we said. I mean… better that the motive is money.’

I couldn’t keep the image of Hannah Shapiro stripped to her underwear out of my mind and couldn’t help agreeing.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s better than the alternative.’

‘You’ll keep me posted if there are any developments?’

‘Of course I will.’

Annabelle seemed to hesitate, looking up at me with those almost fey turquoise eyes. There was a definite charge. Then she seemed to catch herself, blushing just a little, but on her alabaster skin it made her look almost unbearably vulnerable.

‘Tell Barbara I’ll come back tomorrow,’ she said and hurried out of the room, leaving behind a faint trail of a sweet floral perfume. I looked back at my comatose god-daughter and told myself to snap out of it. Like I said, I didn’t have time for distractions.

A few minutes later the door opened again and Chloe’s mother walked in. Barbara Lehman was in her early forties and still had the figure of a woman half her age. She was slim, tanned, beautiful. Her hair every bit as dark, curly and lustrous as her daughter’s. Her large expressive eyes brimmed as she saw me.

She put the cups of tea she was holding down on a side table and rushed into my arms.

‘Oh, Dan,’ she said unable to hold back the tears.

I pulled her to me, hugging her as tight as I dared, patting my arm on her back as she sobbed against my shoulder.

Soho in the late evening is always a busy place.

Plenty of the pubs remained open and the many restaurants were still alive with chatter and laughter.

I walked along Shaftesbury Avenue, turning left into Dean Street. I had left Barbara some forty minutes ago after giving her as much reassurance as I could. But I was no medical man. Someone was going to pay for it, though, I had told her. Making it a mantra for myself. As if saying it a lot of times would make it so. Coming good on the promise might be a different matter, but I meant every word I said.

Jack Morgan was going to hold me to it, too. This was every bit as personal to him and it was killing him not to be over here working the case with me. But it wouldn’t help me, Hannah or Jack himself if he were arrested. A Supreme Court judge gets sent down for a crime she didn’t commit because Jack Morgan skips a subpoena and the consequences for Private in the States didn’t bear thinking about. So Jack was stuck between a rock and a hard place, so were we.

And time was running out.

I had assumed earlier that there was no connection to the States with Hannah’s kidnapping. That it was a local operation. Lightning striking twice and her captors lucking onto a jackpot.

But now I wasn’t so sure.

Brendan Ferres going into Chancellors. It was conceivable enough that he did have business there. His lot dealt in drugs. Students used drugs. This wasn’t news. But the black-suited man sitting at the table with Ferres and Allen was old school Mafia, I’d put money on it. The first time that Hannah Shapiro had been kidnapped it was by a couple of hoods recently fired from an East Coast outfit. Like I said, I don’t like coincidences. If this was all leading back to the States it put a whole new complexion on things. And it was a complexion I didn’t much care for.

I strolled past the French House and then the Pitcher and Piano and up to the front door leading into the building where my flat was.

I looked across at the Crown and Two Chairmen. A group of young men and women stumbled out. Drunk, happy, not a care in the world. I toyed with the idea of going in for a bottle of beer but shrugged the notion away. I had to be up early tomorrow, I had an exchange to make and I needed to have my wits about me. Too much was at stake.

I walked up the three flights of stairs and jiggled the keys into the lock of my front door.

As soon as I walked into the small hallway inside I knew that something was wrong.

I was pretty sure I hadn’t left my lounge light on.

But there was light coming through the gap at the bottom of the closed door. I picked up an old left-handed five-iron that I kept in a walking-stick holder in the hallway and kicked the door open.

I wasn’t expecting laughter.

‘You got any idea how ridiculous you look, Dan?’

My ex-wife. Sitting on the sofa, sipping on a generous glass of my Remy Martin Louis XIII Grande Champagne cognac. Retailing at about twelve hundred pounds, depending where you bought it. I didn’t much care: I hadn’t bought it, and I didn’t drink brandy very often. It was a gift from a grateful client.

I turned around, put the golf club away and crossed to my small kitchen. I opened the fridge, took out a bottle of Corona and popped the cap with a bottle opener I had mounted on the small work surface. With a metallic tingle, the cap tumbled into the litter basket I kept underneath. There were plenty more in there and when the basket was full I’d take it to the recycling centre. I’m almost a model citizen. I took a long pull on the cold beer, sighed, then went back into my lounge.