James Patterson - Private London

Adrian shook his head. ‘It’s not a trick of the light.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘It’s an object. It was here in this street when the police SOCO unit were there. And it wasn’t there an hour or so later when we took our photos.’

‘So what is it, then?’ I repeated.

‘I don’t know.’

Adrian clicked on the mouse again, dragging a dotted line around the small area and releasing it to blow up the image. The picture became pixelated, even more blurred.

‘Still none the wiser, Adrian,’ I said.

‘We can do something about that,’ he replied.

He typed on his keyboard and bounced the image across to Sci in the Los Angeles headquarters.

Within minutes, a message pinged back across the Atlantic and Adrian opened the attachment. Our American associate had run the image through a powerful image-enhancement system. The kind of technology that analyses space-telescope imagery of landscapes on Mars.

What we had was the corner and a fold or two of a blanket. Dark brown and red, in a chequered or tartan pattern. One edge of the blanket was folded across but there was part of a label visible, with the letters Q and U on it.

‘Doesn’t tell us much, I’m afraid, Dan,’ said Adrian apologetically.

See, Adrian was good with the detail. He hadn’t even taken the photograph and yet he remembered the smallest discrepancy between the two images. But me? I knew a goddamned clue when I saw one!

‘Shit!’

DI Kirsty Webb kicked the tyre of her car. But it did little to ease her frustration.

She had thought she’d made a breakthrough in the case but now that she had arrived in Chesham it seemed extremely probable that she was looking at another dead end.

Literally.

The house she had come to had had a sizeable chunk blown out of it. Debris strewn all around. The windows smashed in the small station across the road from it.

She checked the address on the open page of her notebook as she walked up to the Police – Do Not Cross line. No mistake about it. It was the last known address of Adriana Kisslinger.

She ducked under the tape and flashed a quick, humourless smile to the young uniformed officer who approached her. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, flashing her warrant card. ‘DI Webb. So, what have we got?’

‘There’s been an accident.’

He would have said more but DI James appeared in the doorway. ‘Inspector Webb,’ she said, a little puzzled to see her.

‘Natalie.’

‘Have there been some developments? On the Colin Harris case? Is that why you’re here?’

‘It looks that way,’ said Kirsty.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Whatever this was… I’m guessing it wasn’t an accident,’ Kirsty gestured at the house.

‘We were working on the assumption that it was.’

DI Natalie James led Kirsty through the house into a kitchen, the far wall of which was missing. A third of the ceiling was gone, with beams and plaster hanging down and debris strewn across the floor.

Kirsty looked up a little suspiciously. ‘Is it safe?’

The Buckinghamshire DI smiled reassuringly. ‘Come through.’

Kirsty followed her through what would have been a back door to the garden patio off the kitchen. A brick wall had been blown into the next-door neighbour’s garden, with metal wreckage strewn around both. A number of white-suited SOCO officers were working the garden.

‘They’re mainly looking for the rest of his body,’ she explained.

‘Who was it?’

‘Local optician. Peter Chappel. Wasn’t he who you were here to see?’ she asked, puzzled.

Kirsty shook her head. ‘This was the last address I could find for my Jane Doe discovered on Friday night.’

‘With the finger missing?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you know who she is now?’

‘A tip-off from a collar. Information to barter. Vice Squad alerted us. Her name is Adriana Kisslinger. Romanian. Busted back home for prostitution.’

‘And here?’

‘Working as a contract nurse. Dropped off the radar some months back. She was working at Stoke Mandeville.’

‘So Serious Crimes aren’t going away any time soon.’

‘They won’t when they find this out, no.’

‘You haven’t told them?’

‘I didn’t know, did I? Anonymous tips have to be checked out. I was just following up an old address on a possible ident. You know how it works. So what happened here, exactly?’

‘Peter Chappel had a barbecue planned for this afternoon. Came home from his shop after sorting out some paperwork. Put the wine to chill in the fridge and came out here to get the grill going.’

‘It was a gas barbecue?’

‘Range-style, three-burner. Propane gas cylinder in the metal oven. He turned the dial, pushed the ignite button. And… Boom!’

‘There was a leak?’

‘Looks that way. Like I said, we thought it was accidental.’

‘Think again,’ said Kirsty Webb.

Chloe, Laura and Hannah all shared a three-bed apartment in a student-accommodation block.

I nodded at the security guard we’d had placed at the entrance to the building. She wasn’t in uniform and I was discreet about it. The authorities still didn’t know that we had Hannah back safe and we wanted to keep it that way. Time enough for explanations and recriminations later.

Priority one was getting Harlan Shapiro back. His daughter’s rooms were on the ground floor. I keyed in the entrance code at the door and walked into a brightly lit warm corridor with rugs on the floor, flowers on a side table and modern artwork on either wall between the doors to the student apartments. To the right as I walked in was the students’ kitchen. Far fancier than the one I remembered from my student days.

Sitting at the table was Suzy, drinking a cup of tea, and Sam Riddel doing likewise. Herbal for him, no doubt.

I threw Suzy a slightly critical look. ‘I thought I said to stay with Hannah?’

‘She had a visitor.’

‘Laura?’

‘No.’

I knew they hadn’t let Chloe out. I had the hospital on speed-dial. With Chloe things were going well. They were talking of moving her out of intensive care. Which was good. But no way were they letting her home yet. Which was bad.

I snapped back to the present. ‘So who?’

‘Her tutor. Professor Kidman.’

I smiled, briefly. Not like Suzy to be jealous. But then I realised she wasn’t being jealous. It was a good call – the professor did look like the actress.

‘Annabelle,’ I said.

‘Annabelle?’

‘How did she know?’

‘I guess Hannah called her.’

‘You let her use the phone?’

‘Didn’t say not to,’ Sam joined in.

They were right. I hadn’t. ‘Could make things complicated, word gets out,’ I said.

Suzy smiled, but her eyes were deadpan. ‘Maybe you could have a word with Annabelle? Buy us some time.’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

I knocked on the door and, after a pause, walked in. Hannah was dressed in a bathrobe. Her hair was wet.

She was being hugged by Professor Weston who smiled gratefully at me as I entered. Hannah didn’t move for a while, her head nestled against the older woman’s shoulder.

Annabelle gave her back a reassuring pat. Like a surrogate mother, which I guess she was in some ways. Apart from her age. A surrogate older sister, maybe.

‘Thanks for bringing her back to us,’ Annabelle said.

‘De nada,’ I replied. And I was right, it was nothing. All I’d achieved was to swap one hostage for another and pay the kidnappers five million pounds for the privilege.

Hannah straightened herself and moved away from the professor. ‘Thank you, Mister Carter,’ she said.