Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

“Think about your own safety, Jack. It wasn’t me who ended up in the ceiling.”

Morgan was thinking of his own safety, fully aware that if Lewis had been the one to shoot up the hotel room, then he could be dead before he ever reached Sophie’s parents’ house. Prepared for such an eventuality, he was ready to hit the brake hard if he saw the officer move to draw her weapon. He hoped that would buy him the split second needed to pull out the steak knife he had liberated from Princess Caroline’s kitchen, and which now resided inside his right boot. It was risky, but it was all he had. That, and putting his trust in Princess Caroline and her appointed officer.

“Have you met Sophie?” he asked Lewis as they drove on.

“I have.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She was the Princess’s friend, not mine.”

“You’re a police officer. You’re observant. What did you observe?”

Lewis held her reply for a long moment, instead turning her eyes to the green hillsides that surrounded the town and the growing clouds above them. “It’s going to rain. So much for the good weather.”

Morgan suppressed his frustration and kept his tone neutral. “Sophie, Lewis. What did you observe about her?”

The police officer shook her head. “That she got what she had coming,” she told him.

“Why do you say that?” he pressed, but Lewis would offer no detail to back up her statement. Instead, the GPS announced their arrival at the home of Sophie’s parents.

Frustrated and more wary of Lewis than ever, Morgan told her to wait in the car while he headed for the front door of a light-brick home set in a quintessential British middle-class estate.

Morgan rang the bell. He saw shapes moving behind the glass, and then the door opened to reveal a short woman with jet-black hair, and large eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.

“Mrs. Edwards?” Morgan guessed.

“Yes?” she replied, eyebrows raising in wonder at his American accent.

“Is Sophie home?”

“Sophie?” Mrs. Edwards sounded confused by the question. “She hasn’t lived here for years. Can I ask who—”

“My name’s Jack Morgan, Mrs. Edwards. I’m a private investigator.”

The woman in the doorway said nothing, but her face said it all. Morgan saw the first traces of fear and placed a calming hand on her shoulder.

“May I come in?”

Peter Knight was searching for a parking spot on a busy London street when the call came through his car’s system. He saw Morgan’s name and answered.

“Go ahead, Jack.”

“I talked with Sophie’s parents.”

Morgan’s tone suggested that the meeting had not proved fruitful, but Knight asked how it went anyway.

“According to them,” Morgan answered, “Sophie went missing when she left for university. They said that she never got tired of telling them how much she hated it in Brecon.”

“Any suspicion of the parents?” Knight asked.

“No,” Morgan answered, trusting his gut. “They looked worn down by her, but that was about it. Both schoolteachers. Not the kind of people to have the connections to set a shooter loose.”

“So they’re a dead end?”

“They’re a dead end. Have you broken the news to Sir Tony’s daughter yet?” Morgan asked. Knight had forwarded him the contents of the USB stick. “That took some watching,” the American added. “It was hard to hold down my bacon and eggs.”

Knight sighed as he finally found a place to park. “No. I’m just arriving now.”

“I don’t envy you this one, Peter.”

Knight let out a long sigh as he slotted the car into position and pulled on the handbrake. “It won’t be easy. Stay safe, Jack.”

“Good luck.”

Knight ended the call and stepped out into the street. One look at the clouds told him that the good weather was close to breaking. Complaining under his breath about the British summer, he walked the short distance to the home of Eliza Lightwood. He had called ahead, and she was working from home to accommodate his visit. The security guards in the apartment building buzzed him inside and escorted Knight to the lift.

“Hello, Peter,” Eliza greeted him at the door. Her handshake was firm and she looked optimistic. “You have something?”

“I do,” Knight confirmed. “Better I tell you in private.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. Then she led Peter inside her penthouse apartment.

“Is it bad?” she asked, the slightest tremor of doubt in her voice.

Knight nodded. There was no way to soften what had to be done, and so he came right out with it. “Eliza, your father was being blackmailed by a prostitute. The USB drive we found in your father’s room contained a graphic video that the blackmailer was threatening to share publicly.”

If he had been expecting a dramatic reaction at the revelation, he didn’t get it.

“Oh” was all that Eliza said.

“I’ve seen it before with blackmail,” Knight said. “People don’t think they have a way out, so they choose death over—”

“Shame?” Eliza finished for him, taking a seat as the dam of her strength finally showed signs of cracking. “That stupid old fool. I couldn’t have given a shit if he was sleeping with every prostitute in London. He was my dad .”

Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. Knight could see that the realization of her father’s suicide was finally hitting home. “Stupid old fool.” She sighed again.

“I’m sorry, Eliza.”

“It does seem clear now, doesn’t it?” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I suppose you can put me in with all those other deluded people who just couldn’t accept the truth staring them in the face. I still can’t believe it. That he’d take his life over... a whore.”

“Blackmail is a terrible crime. It pushes people into a corner.”

“Who was it?” Eliza asked, her voice hardening.

“We don’t know. The face of the woman in the video was obscured and there are no obvious clues.”

She shook her head angrily. “You did your job, Peter. You proved to me my father committed suicide. You can close this case. Close this one, and open another... Find the bastards who blackmailed my father.”

Jane Cook had mixed memories of Brecon. As a soldier she had often trained in the mountains, and those memories were of being cold, wet, hungry and tired — no, exhausted. But then there were the good memories. Memories of camaraderie. Memories of shared challenges, and shared victories. That was what Cook had loved about being a part of the army, and that was what she loved about being a part of Private.

Cook had approached the Welsh market town as she would an Afghan one. That was not to say she sought out traps and ambushes — though she was vigilant — but that she talked in a friendly manner to shop owners, police officers and anyone who was happy to give her their time. She did not question these people directly on Sophie, but used her as bait, telling them she was visiting Brecon based on the recommendation of a university friend who had been born there. Inevitably, in such a small town, people would ask for the name of that friend.

“Sophie Edwards,” Cook would tell them.

“We know Sophie!” the two girls serving in the coffee shop told her, excited.

“Such a small world, isn’t it?” the taller of the pair said.

“We were in the same school year,” the shorter one explained. “Haven’t seen her since leaving day,” she added without prompting.

“That must have been about the time she went off to London, and met you?”

“I suppose it was,” Cook replied. “She didn’t waste any time leaving here, did she?”