Джеймс Паттерсон: Private Princess

“Four hundred quid a night?” Hooligan snorted at the price. “Do they pay someone to sleep for you?”

“It’s another Wednesday,” Knight noted. “They’ve all been Wednesdays.” Then something in what Hooligan had said triggered a thought in his mind. “Do you think you can access their CCTV footage from those nights?”

“You mean steal it? ” Hooligan exclaimed in mock horror. “Yeah, no problem. You’re the boss. I was just following orders, your honor, that was all...”

It took Hooligan less than twenty minutes to find what he was looking for. “Didn’t even have to do anything illegal.” He shrugged. “The Mistral needs to fire whoever runs their security. OK, here it is.”

CCTV footage came up onto one of Hooligan’s screens. Using the check-in time shown on the receipts, they were able to quickly find Sir Tony’s arrival. For Knight it was a bizarre, eerie feeling to see the now-dead man run up the steps, all smiles as he shook the hand of the hotel’s porter. That he could go from this bag of joy to dead by his own hand within weeks...

“I’ll take close-ups and screenshots of everyone who enters,” Hooligan told him, freezing the frame on a pair of wealthy-looking men. “Who are you expecting?” the East Ender asked, stopping the film to screenshot the next person.

Knight opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out.

Because on the screen was the face of Sophie Edwards.

The Range Rover moved at speed along the winding Welsh roads.

“You know we have speed limits here?”

Jack Morgan ignored Sharon Lewis’s comment.

Peter Knight’s caller ID appeared on the car’s system.

“Peter. What’s the ETA on the chopper?” Morgan asked.

“Thirty minutes, Jack, but I’m not calling about that. Am I on speaker?”

“You are.”

“Then you may want to take me off.”

Morgan looked for a quiet stretch of road to pull over. Leaving the engine running, he told Cook to get behind the wheel. “If you see that black BMW, hit the horn.” He left the back door wide open so he could jump inside if they needed to make a quick escape.

He walked away from the car and held his phone to his ear. “What is it, Peter?”

When Knight told him about who had followed Sir Tony into the plush London hotel, Morgan thought that he’d misheard.

“Sophie Edwards,” Knight confirmed. “We went over the footage for every night Sir Tony stayed there. Sophie arrives after him within thirty minutes, every time. We even checked the nights that Sir Tony wasn’t a guest. There’s no sign of her unless he’s there.”

Morgan thought over the inevitable conclusion. “It has to be her. She’s our blackmailer.”

“I agree,” Knight told him. “There are seven instances. It isn’t a coincidence.”

“And she’s been missing longer than Sir Tony’s been dead. He killed her then couldn’t live with the guilt.”

“Ties up nicely, doesn’t it?” Knight agreed.

Morgan looked out over the rolling hills and mountains. The highest of them was now in cloud. The rain was coming. A British summer could never be perfect.

And neither could a crime.

“I don’t know, Peter. Sophie graduated with a first from the London School of Economics. If she was a prostitute, why? She could have been making an easy six figures with that education.”

“She could,” Knight agreed. “And then there’s the shooting.”

“Exactly.” Morgan’s thoughts were gathering speed. “If Sir Tony is responsible for her disappearance, then how is he sending shooters after the investigators from the other side of the grave?”

“It doesn’t tie up that nicely after all,” Knight conceded.

“It will,” Morgan promised. “We just don’t have all the pieces yet.”

The two men lapsed into silence. Knight knew that his boss was thinking, and gave him his time.

Morgan eventually spoke. “The shooters are the best lead we have, Peter. We get them, we find out who wants to put us out of action. We get that, we know who took Sophie.”

“But we can’t get you a protection team, Jack—” Knight began.

“I don’t need one,” Morgan cut him off, friendly but firm. “I’ve got an armed police officer and a decorated soldier.”

“If you’re sure, Jack...”

“I’m sure, Peter. Call back the chopper. You keep digging in London, and I’ll find our shooters.”

The men said their goodbyes, and Morgan walked back to the Range Rover’s open door. “We’re staying in Wales,” he told the two women, before focusing on Lewis. “I need to talk to the Princess.”

Jack Morgan entered the stables of Llwynywermod, the acidic tang of dung and straw thick in his nostrils. Three beautiful horses stood proudly in their stalls. Tallest amongst them was a magnificent chestnut mare — Princess Caroline was lifting a polished saddle onto its back.

“Tennessee Walker.” Morgan smiled, recognizing the breed. “She looks fantastic.”

“You know horses?” Princess Caroline moved the saddle into position. “Come out with me, if you like. You can take Felix here. He’s a great ride.”

Morgan held his tongue, and she took that as him thinking over the offer.

He wasn’t. “I’d rather we just get to the truth, Your Highness. Sophie Edwards is a prostitute, and a blackmailing one at that.”

If Morgan had harbored doubts about this dark side of Sophie — and he had — those doubts were dispelled by the look on the royal’s face. It was not a look of shock, but one of being caught — a child with a hand in the cookie jar.

“She was,” Caroline admitted. She let go of the saddle’s strap she was tightening and stood upright. “She was ,” she said again, putting emphasis on the past tense.

Morgan shook his head. “A man killed himself last week, Your Highness. Private have been investigating his death, and we found evidence of blackmail. We believe Sophie is behind it.”

“Sir Tony Lightwood,” Princess Caroline said quietly.

“You knew him?”

“No. I... I read about it in the papers.”

“He killed himself in shame over videos that we believe were, and still are, in Sophie’s possession. And now she’s missing. Did she do that to hide and protect herself, or has someone else made her disappear?”

“That’s why I hired you, Mr. Morgan, to find these things out. The reasons aren’t important. She just needs to be found .”

In their stalls the horses began to twitch with nerves. Empathetic animals, they could sense the building charge of tension between the two people.

“The reasons are everything, Your Highness, and I need to know yours. Was Sophie blackmailing you?” Morgan asked bluntly.

“No!” she replied, offended.

“Then just what is your relationship with her?” he pressed, his gut telling him there was more. Much more.

“ Friendship , Jack.”

“There’s enough horseshit in here already, Caroline. Please don’t waste my time.”

For a moment the Princess was silent. “Is it that you’re not used to conversing with royalty,” she finally managed, “or that you just don’t care about protocol?”

Morgan put a calming hand on the horse’s nose. “I’m here to find Sophie, and I can’t do that if I’m kept in the dark.”

“I swear, Jack, Sophie was not blackmailing me.”

“But if she was, it would suit you to have Sophie found, and silenced.”

To Morgan’s surprise, she let out a bark of laughter. “Half of my bodyguard are SAS, Jack, and they are devoted to me. If we lived in this fantasy where I want people silenced, don’t you think I’d go to them?”