Princess: A Private Novel Read online

  “Do you believe in second chances, Jack?” she asked, her eyes on the path that wound ahead through the trees.

  “I do,” he answered, his eyes to the trail’s flanks—some fifty meters away, armed men moved parallel to the royal who was third in line to the British throne. They were her deadly shadow. The guardians who protected her at all times.

  “There are things in Sophie’s past—things in her life—that should not be public knowledge,” she explained. “I live life under a microscope, Jack, because I was born into it. I wouldn’t change that. But for Sophie? She hasn’t lived with it. She hasn’t trained for it.”

  “And what are these things in Sophie’s past?” Morgan asked.

  She walked on in silence for a few moments before giving her answer. “Sophie is a young woman who’s lived her life, and in doing so—like all people—she’s made some bad decisions.”

  Suddenly she stopped. She turned to face Morgan, her expression earnest. “She doesn’t deserve to have those bad decisions made public as a consequence of being my friend. Do you understand, Jack?”

  Morgan did. He also understood that those under the closest scrutiny became guilty of the sins of their company, and guilt by association was never more magnified than in the scandal-hungry media of the twenty-first century. Morgan knew that Princess Caroline was a reflection of the time she had been born into—a people’s royal who connected to the country on all levels, leading a life that seemed as close to their own as was possible, given her position—but the same machine that had built her reputation could savage her overnight.

  Caroline read his thoughts. “It’s in the country’s interest that the monarchy avoids scandal, Jack. We’re the benchmark. The example. I should be someone whom people look up to.”

  “And you’re not?” Morgan asked directly.

  It was a long time before she replied.

  “I’m human, Mr. Morgan. De Villiers will give you everything you need. I hope to see you again soon.”

  She turned away from him then and continued to walk further into the woodland. Out in the trees, her armed shadows moved with her.

  “I didn’t say I’d take the job,” Morgan said to her back.

  “You didn’t need to,” Princess Caroline replied without breaking step. “Your eyes did. You should learn to be a better liar, Jack.”

  Morgan said nothing, because she was right.

  He would take the job.

  He would find Sophie Edwards.

  Chapter 5

  ALONE IN THE woodland, Morgan pulled his phone from his pocket. He was surprised to see he had such good reception, but then reasoned that residents of one of the wealthiest regions of England would be unlikely to put up with poor service.

  His call was picked up on the first ring.

  “Hello, Jack,” Peter Knight answered in his London office. The head of Private London, Knight had been side by side with Morgan through some of their toughest scrapes. He was also the American’s friend. “The office told me you diverted here. Business or pleasure?”

  “Business, Peter. Let’s get together and talk about it. I’m going to send you my location.”

  “What’s the case?” Knight asked, knowing that their calls were encrypted to government levels and stood no chance of being monitored.

  “Missing person with connections.”

  “I might need to send you a team in my place, Jack. I had a case come in a few days ago. A man named Sir Tony Lightwood was found hanged in his home a few days ago, and his daughter wants us to take a look into it.”

  “What have the police found?” Morgan asked, disappointed that it appeared he would be working without his British right hand.

  “Said it looks like a straight-up suicide. Daughter wants a second opinion.”

  “Why?”

  “Says suicide doesn’t fit her dad.”

  “Everyone says that. The truth’s hard to accept.”

  “True,” Knight mused, “but the Sunday Times did list him at number fifty-two on their Rich List.”

  “You’d better run with that case,” Morgan agreed. “Money doesn’t buy happiness, but…”

  “It does give people a good reason to want you dead,” Knight finished.

  Morgan was about to follow up, but then movement along the trail caught his eye.

  De Villiers.

  “I’ll meet you at your site,” Morgan told Knight, then hung up and walked over to join the tall figure of the Guards officer.

  “Did you get everything you needed from the Princess?” De Villiers asked.

  “She said Sophie had some things in her past, and that she made bad decisions. Can you be a little more specific?”

  A look of distaste passed over the Colonel’s face. “Sophie was a good friend of your pal Abbie Winchester, if that helps,” he revealed, referring to the hard-partying royal whom Morgan and Knight had rescued from murderous kidnappers.

  “I need more than that,” Morgan told him, but the officer shrugged, enjoying the moment.

  “You’re the world’s greatest investigator, Mr. Morgan.” De Villiers smiled. “So let’s get you back to London. Then you can begin investigating.”

  Chapter 6

  MORGAN DECLINED COLONEL De Villiers’ offer of being driven to London. Instead, he asked to be taken to the nearest helicopter landing site. There he was collected by a flight chartered by Private and flown back into London. Morgan’s mind was full of questions, but after asking his team to come up with a background file on Sophie Edwards, he forced himself to sleep on the short flight—experience told him that such luxuries would be in short supply during the investigation, and he needed to be sharp.

  Collected by car from the heliport, Morgan peered at the London streets as he was driven to Eaton Square, one of the many homes of business tycoon Sir Tony Lightwood. Eaton Square was one of the most expensive places to live in the UK, with an average house price of £17 million, and Morgan could see why. The buildings’ white stucco facades gleamed in the sunlight, and Bentleys and Rolls-Royces lined the street. Everything about the area screamed opulence. Only one thing seemed out of place.

  It stood in the street, all smiles beneath a mop of red hair, a West Ham United football shirt tucked into skinny jeans.

  Morgan stepped from his car and greeted the man. “Good to see you, Hooligan. Really good.”

  The men shook hands. Jeremy “Hooligan” Crawford was a double Cambridge graduate turned MI5 tech guru turned Private London legend. He was also a diehard Hammers fan, and a man who had helped save lives several times over for Private—Morgan’s amongst them.

  “Good to see you too, boss,” the East Ender replied, still shaking Morgan’s hand. “The rest of them are inside.”

  Morgan turned and followed Hooligan toward the entrance of the home. The building wasn’t large, and was adjoined at both sides to its neighbors, but its colossal price could buy someone an entire village in the north of the country.

  “Sir Tony wasn’t shy about flashing his cash,” Morgan noted.

  “You can say that again, boss,” Hooligan agreed. “Inside looks like the Saatchi Gallery.”

  “Contemporary art a passion of yours, Hooligan?” Morgan asked, trying to hide his surprise.

  “Bloody hell, no.” The Londoner laughed as they stepped inside. “I heard her say it.”

  “Her” was Jane Cook, former British Army major, and newest agent of Private London. Astute and striking, Cook had worked alongside Morgan as they’d raced to save Abbie Winchester’s life before the Trooping the Color parade, two years previously. Their mission had ended with Abbie’s release, but their time together in London had not. Morgan had delayed his flight back to the U.S. twice before a critical case had finally pulled him from Cook’s bed.

  “Jane.” He smiled.

  “Jack.”

  Hooligan opened his mouth to speak and excuse himself, but quickly realized he had already been forgotten. Chuckling to himself, he moved away along the ric
hly appointed hallway.

  A moment of silence held between Cook and Morgan.

  “Peter here?” Morgan finally managed.

  “Upstairs. I’ll follow you up,” Cook said softly.

  Morgan was forced to brush by her in the narrow entrance. It was the slightest touch, but he felt as though he’d been shoved into a flame.

  “After you, boss,” Cook teased, adding fuel.

  Morgan walked on, glad to have the beautiful woman out of his vision. He had been recovering from a deep knife wound at the time of their brief affair, but not even the pain from his injuries had held them back in their passion.

  With such sexual tension in the air, he was almost relieved to enter Sir Tony’s study. Surrounded by mahogany furnishings, Peter Knight was on his hands and knees, fastidiously working every inch of the room for a clue that would suggest the rich man’s death was suspicious.

  “You don’t have to kowtow,” Morgan joked. “A simple bow would be enough.”

  “Good to see you, Jack!” Knight grinned as he got to his feet and took Morgan’s outstretched hands. “It’s been too long!”

  “It’s always too long,” Morgan agreed, having missed the company of his trusted British friend and colleague. “How are things looking here?”

  “Sir Tony was found hanging from this beam,” Knight began, pointing to the ceiling. “No note has been found, which is one of the reasons his daughter is certain it wasn’t suicide.”

  “What are the others?”

  “That he was happy, successful and wanted to continue to be that way,” Knight answered. “From the people we’ve interviewed, it does seem out of character.”

  “You never know what’s going on inside someone’s head,” Cook added.

  “You don’t,” Knight agreed, but he could make a good guess at what was going on inside Morgan’s and Cook’s—the pair seemed almost at pains not to look at one another, and so it was with a little surprise that Knight heard Morgan’s next words.

  “I’ve got nothing to start with on this missing-person case, Peter, so I’m taking Cook with me. Going to need to cover a lot of ground.”

  “I can handle Sir Tony’s case alone,” Knight agreed. “Where are you going to start looking?”

  Morgan hadn’t been given much to go on from Princess Caroline, so he drew on the initial information Private’s office had been able to gather.

  “Sophie moved here from the country,” Morgan explained. “And when someone comes to a big city and gets in trouble, there’s a good chance they run for home.”

  “And you think she’s in trouble?” Knight asked.

  “From what I can see so far, she doesn’t seem like the kind to just drop off the grid. She was a friend of Abbie Winchester’s.”

  Knight nodded. “Abbie Winchester was in the papers as often as the prime minister. If Sophie was in her circle, then it’s likely she tried to live her life on the grid as much as possible.”

  “So we start at her home?” Cook asked.

  Morgan nodded. “We’re going to Wales.”

  Chapter 7

  THE HELICOPTER CUT its way through the sky above a patchwork of fields and villages, the spires of local churches reaching up to Morgan and Cook like long-lost friends.

  “I love this country,” Cook said proudly, her eyes on the ribbon of a river that glimmered silver in the morning’s strong sunlight.

  Morgan glanced at Cook and smiled. “It has its charms.”

  Cook let the compliment hang in the air before pulling a tablet from a packed rucksack that held a few changes of clothes, wash-kit, and all manner of items that ranged from torches to bolt-cutters. Cook had learned in the army that she should always be ready to deploy on short notice, and this pre-packed kit had been waiting patiently in her Private London office for an occasion such as this.

  “Did you bring sandwiches?” Morgan teased.

  Cook rummaged in the rucksack and pulled out a packet of freeze-dried rations.

  “Close enough?”

  Morgan laughed and waved the food away. “Never again.” He smiled, thinking back on his military days. “Did the background come through on Sophie?”

  Cook gave a curt nod. She was all business now—the woman who had risen to become a major in the British Army, earning an OBE for her leadership in Afghanistan. “Sophie Bethan Edwards, born on the third of December ’89 in Brecon, Wales.”

  She went on to describe how Sophie had been raised in a middle-class family, and how she had excelled in school, winning a scholarship to the London School of Economics. No sign yet of the mistakes that Princess Caroline had alluded to.

  “What did the Princess’s protection team send us on her?” Morgan asked—he had pushed De Villiers further for information.

  “Not a lot that’s helpful.” Cook shook her head. “The Princess met Sophie at a closed-doors party in London. They became friends quickly, but due to Sophie’s reputation as a party girl, their friendship was kept behind closed doors as much as possible.”

  Morgan thought on that for a moment. Looking out of the window, he saw that the helicopter was approaching the wide mouth of the Severn Estuary. They would soon be in Wales.

  “What do you know about these ‘closed-door’ parties?” the American asked Cook, the former officer having spent many years in London.

  “You only go if you’re invited, and the only people giving out the invitations are celebrities, sports stars, movers and shakers, or in our case, a member of the royal family.”

  “And who gave you your invitation?” Morgan asked with a wry grin.

  “That’s not in the briefing,” Cook warned. “But what I will say is anything goes at these places. I’m not saying it’s one of Caligula’s orgies, but they’re private for a reason. I saw more than a few well-known celebrities and sports personalities with white noses.”

  “So Sophie met the Princess there. I wonder who else she met,” Morgan said, speculating on who in such circles could wish harm against her. “Anything in the file about a boyfriend, or exes?”

  Cook shook her head. “Aside from saying that the girl likes a party, there’s nothing really in here. Maybe this is as straightforward as Knight’s suicide, and the girl skipped town?”

  “No,” Morgan said with certainty. “People don’t go missing without a reason.”

  Chapter 8

  “YOU WANT COFFEE?” Peter Knight asked Hooligan, looking up from the pathologist’s report into Sir Tony Lightwood’s death spread before them.

  “Soon as the boss shows up you get stars and stripes in your eyes!” the East Ender laughed. “I’ll take a tea, like a true Brit.”

  Knight got to his feet and crossed a lab that was filled with the most cutting-edge technology that money could buy, before stopping in front of a battered kettle that was probably older than he was—some designs just couldn’t be improved upon.

  He was about to pick up the finished brews when there was a knock on the lab’s door.

  “You must be Perkins,” Knight said to the squat man in the doorway. He gestured for him to come inside.

  “I am,” the man confirmed, shaking hands and making his introductions to both Private agents.

  Knight had been expecting the new arrival. Perkins worked for De Villiers in a similar role to Hooligan. He would act as a liaison between the Colonel’s team and Private.

  “You military or police?” Knight enquired.

  “Neither. I was in the navy, back in the day, but I’m a civvie contractor now.” He turned to Hooligan. “West Ham fan, are you?”

  “What gave it away?” Hooligan smiled, looking down at his West Ham shirt, steam rising from the West Ham mug in his hand.

  “Not sure we can work together then, mate.” Perkins smiled slyly. “I’m a Lion.”

  “I’ll have no Millwall supporter in my lab!” Hooligan barked.

  The two men laughed and launched into passionate speeches about why their chosen club was the greatest, and why the other s
hould be consigned to football’s toilet bowl.

  Knight gave a sigh, knowing he would be flying solo until they ran out of steam. Hooligan was a hard-working prodigy—two university degrees before the age of nineteen was proof of that—but he was also Hooligan, and nothing was more important to him than his beloved Hammers.

  And so, while Perkins reminded Hooligan of Millwall’s 7–1 defeat of West Ham back in 1903, Knight looked once more at the pathologist’s conclusion as to Sir Tony’s cause of death: strangulation caused by a rope tied around his neck. No signs of struggle or foul play. Verdict: suicide.

  Having read the path and police reports front to back, conducted exhaustive interviews with family, friends and business associates, and having worked over the scene of death himself, Knight found himself at the same conclusion.

  It was suicide.

  He pushed himself away from the desk and onto his feet. Beside him, the two football fanatics stepped down from their clubs’ soapboxes.

  “You all right, Peter?” Hooligan asked.

  Knight gave a brave smile. He didn’t look forward to what was to come. He could give the results of his investigation over the phone or via an email, but that wasn’t his style. “Sir Tony’s daughter doesn’t live far from here,” he explained. “I’m going to go and see her, and let her know that her father took his own life.”

  Chapter 9

  KNIGHT SAT ACROSS a pristine marbled table from a young woman. Her name was Eliza Lightwood, and following Knight’s conclusion that her father had taken his own life, she had said nothing. Instead, she stared with intelligent eyes at a point beyond Knight. There was not a tear or an emotion in sight, but he could sense the calculation that was taking place inside the impressive woman’s mind.

  And she was impressive. Knight remained still, but his own eyes took in the setting for their silence. The huge penthouse was modern in design, sleek and minimal in its furnishings. On their first meeting three days ago, Eliza had explained that she hadn’t taken a penny of her father’s money since graduating from university. The paper trail of that education sat proudly on the walls, an abundance of achievements from London’s prestigious colleges and financial institutions. Twenty-seven-year-old Eliza Lightwood was an investment banker, and even in that cut-throat industry she was proud to be known by her colleagues as a “killer.”