James Patterson - Private London

I watched her studying the menu, multicoloured reading glasses perched delicately on the end of her shapely nose like an exotic butterfly ready to take flight. Her large, brown eyes as she considered the entrees as intent as if she had been scrutinising a million-pound contract.

‘I’ve heard the prawn cocktail is good here,’ I said.

She didn’t laugh. ‘How about you make yourself useful and order some wine? Something with bubbles in it,’ she said instead.

I held a finger discreetly in the air and beckoned a waiter across. He smiled professionally as he approached and then for real as he saw Alison.

She has this effect on men. Even gay men. Especially gay men, come to think of it. And this in a restaurant where three tables across Liz Hurley was sitting with some actress whose name I couldn’t place. But she was tipped to be Doctor Who’s next travelling companion and was wearing a skirt even shorter than that worn by the current one.

I notice details like that. It’s my job. I’m a detective.

‘Could we see the wine list?’ I asked the smiling waiter. ‘And what beers do you have?’

Alison Chambers tutted pointedly. ‘I don’t need the wine list,’ she said. ‘Do you still have any of the Henriot Enchanteleurs 1990?’

The waiter positively beamed. ‘Indeed we do, madame.’

‘Then I’ll take a glass of that.’

‘I’m afraid we only sell it by the bottle.’

‘We’d best have the bottle, then,’ she said.

‘And a bottle of Corona for me,’ I said. ‘If you’ve still got it?’

A short while later the waiter returned with a chilled bottle of three-figured fizz for the lady and a bottle of ice-cold beer for me. I poured it into a glass, at least.

‘How’s the honeytrap case coming along?’ she asked me.

‘Let’s not talk shop, Alison. This should be about pleasure, not business.’

She pointedly held up the ring finger of her left hand.

Did I mention that she was married? Alison and I have been best friends since university and flirt with her I might, but I’d never do anything to jeopardise that friendship.

I pulled out a digital voice-recorder that Suzy, one of our operatives, had given me earlier and pushed the play button. Suzy was speaking, her voice husky. The honey in the trap smoked with hickory chips. Whatever she was selling men were going to buy it.

Alison listened to Suzy working the guy. She was good.

A couple of minutes later and she had heard all she needed to.

‘The video footage has already been emailed to you.’

‘Good. Let’s celebrate,’ she said. ‘I’m going to start with something to go with the excellent fizz. My friends tell me the beluga is very good here with blinis and sour cream.’

‘What about a drop scone and a dollop of jam?’

Her smile broadened. ‘What say we go with the fifty grams?’

My own smile held, just about. Six hundred smackeroos in and she hadn’t even got to the main course yet. But dinner was on Private so what the heck, we could afford it. I flashed her a couple of kilowatts of smile. I could afford that as well.

The weekend was definitely getting better.

Chloe put a hand out to the bar and steadied herself, brushing away the arm of one of the rugby players who had come across to help her up a minute or two earlier.

‘I’m okay now,’ she said, irritated. ‘Was just a bit dizzy, is all.’

The rugby player held his hands up in the air and moved aside.

Chloe fought her way through the crowds to try and catch up with her friends. They were at the other end of the room now. Arm in arm and singing ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ at full volume, as if the ale-fuelled rugger buggers in her way needed any more encouragement! A group of them had linked arms too, and were joining in the song at full volume, blocking her way through to the door. It took her a while to fight past. She had to slap away one highly amused prop forward who took the opportunity to push up against her in a manner that was just a shade short of criminal assault in her book. Another day she would have done more than just slap the idiot, but she wanted to get out and get some air.

She finally made it to the entrance and closed the door firmly behind her. The noise thankfully muted as she walked up the steps leading to the quad above. The cool night air clearing her head a little. Her friends’ raucous singing, some distance ahead of her now, was echoing loudly around the quad. No doubt setting the ghost of the Cardinal spinning in his grave.

‘Hang on. Wait for me,’ Chloe called out, but her voice was hoarse now from all the shouting she’d done in the bar and her friends showed no sign of having heard her. She shook her head a little to clear the vodka cobwebs from her brain and quickened her pace as she climbed the stone steps. She was glad at least that she didn’t have high heels on. At five foot ten she didn’t need them. In the main men didn’t like her towering over them – she had found that out at fifteen years old when she was the same height as she was now.

Out on the quad she could see her two friends turning right into one of the passages that linked the warren of buildings. Chloe stumbled a little as she started to run to catch up with them and had to take a moment to steady herself. But she soon came up to the turning and moved quickly round the corner. It was darker as the lights from the quad fell behind her. The lane dog-legged after a few yards and cut off the lights from the college quad entirely. One of the Victorian street lamps that dotted the lanes in seemingly random fashion was out at the elbow of the bend. Chloe looked up at it unhappily. The university had a duty to keep the area lit. The tall buildings on either side of the narrow street made it darker than it would otherwise have been. A muffled scream ahead snapped Chloe out of her thoughts, sobering her in an instant. She charged round the next corner, breathing quickly to pump some oxygen into her blood.

Ahead of her was a group of five hooded and dark-clothed men, three of whom had grabbed her friends. Two had hold of Laura and one had a chokehold on Hannah. The remaining two were leaning against a black van.

‘Let them go, you bastards,’ Chloe tried to scream, but her voice came out in a hoarse, painful croak again. Adrenalin kicked in. She ran towards them. One of the men turned to face her. A disdainful sneer on his lips, although she couldn’t see his eyes that were shaded by the hood he was wearing. She kicked him hard in the groin and the sneer vanished as he crumpled, groaning, to to the ground.

She felt an arm pulling her back and she spun round, knocking the arm away, spearing a hard fist into her assailant’s sternum and then uppercutting him as he doubled forward. But she was sluggish, far more sluggish than she should have been. The uppercut was off target, and the man moved aside so that her punch only grazed the side of his head. He snapped a blow straight back at her. But Chloe had anticipated it – she stepped inside his swing, grabbing his arm and using the momentum of the missed punch to pull him forward towards her. She lowered her head as she did so and smashed her forehead into the bridge of his nose. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage. The man squealed like a stuck pig and dropped to his knees, hands cradling his wrecked nose that was now spilling blood.

Chloe breathed deeply and turned towards the van. Two of the remaining three men moved towards her – more cautiously than their colleagues had. One of them holding Laura tight to his body with a muscular arm wrapped around her. She saw the flash of steel as that man pulled a long-bladed knife from his jacket, watched Hannah stumble, heard a scream. Laura fell down and was yanked rudely up.