Private Games Read online

  With no good answer to any of it, Knight examined the presents and was surprised to see that they were from his mother, the gift tags signed: ‘With love, Amanda’.

  He smiled and tears brimmed in his eyes; if his mother had taken the time from her isolation, grief, and bitterness to buy her grandchildren presents, then maybe she was not allowing herself to retreat as completely as she had after his father’s death.

  ‘I’ll go home, then, Mr Knight,’ Marta said, coming out of the kitchen. ‘They are asleep. Kitchen is clean. Fudge made. Luke made an unsuccessful attempt at the big-boy loo. I bought party bags, and ordered a cake too. I can be here all day tomorrow through the party. But I will need Sunday off.’

  Sunday. The men’s marathon. The closing ceremony. Knight had to be available. Perhaps he could talk his mother or Boss into coming one more time.

  ‘Sunday off, and you really don’t need to be here before noon tomorrow,’ Knight said. ‘I usually take them to Epping Forest and High Beach Church on the morning of their birthday.’

  ‘What’s there?’ Marta asked.

  ‘My late wife and I were married at the church. Her ashes are scattered in the woods out there. She was from Waltham Abbey and the forest was one of her favourite places.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Marta said uncomfortably, and moved towards the door. ‘Noon, then.’

  ‘Noon sounds good,’ Knight said and shut the door behind her.

  He shut off the lights, checked on the kids, and went to his bedroom.

  Knight sat on the edge of his bed, gazing at Kate looking out from the photo at him, and remembering in vivid detail how she’d died.

  He broke down, sobbing.

  Chapter 85

  Saturday, 11 August 2012

  ‘I’M THREE!’ ISABEL yelled in her father’s ear.

  Knight jerked awake from a nightmare that featured Kate held hostage by Cronus – not the madman stalking the Olympics, but that ancient Greek figure carrying a long scythe and hungering to eat his children.

  Dripping in sweat, his face contorted with dread, Knight looked in bewilderment at his daughter who now appeared upset and was stepping back from her father, holding her blanket tight against her cheek.

  His senses came back to him, and he thought: She’s fine! Luke’s fine! It was just a horrible, horrible dream.

  Knight breathed out, smiled, and said, ‘Look at how big you are!’

  ‘Three,’ Isabel said, her grin returning.

  ‘Lukey three, too!’ his son announced from the doorway.

  ‘You don’t say,’ Knight said as Luke bounced up onto the bed and into his arms. Isabel climbed up after him and cuddled him.

  His children’s smells surrounded him and calmed him and made him realise again what a lucky, lucky person he was to have them in his life, part of Kate that would live on and grow and become themselves.

  ‘Presents?’ Luke asked.

  ‘They’re not here yet,’ Knight said, too quickly. ‘Not until the party.’

  ‘No, Daddy,’ Isabel protested. ‘That funny man bring presents yesterday. They’re downstairs.’

  ‘Mr Boss brought them?’ he asked.

  His son nodded grimly. ‘Boss no like Lukey.’

  ‘His loss,’ Knight said. ‘Go and get the presents. You can open them up here.’

  That set off a stampede as both children scrambled off the bed. Twenty seconds later they were running back into the room, gasping and grinning like little fools.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Knight said.

  Giggling, they tore into the wrapping and soon had the presents from Amanda open. Isabel’s gift was a beautiful silver locket on a chain. They opened the locket to find a picture of Kate.

  ‘That mummy?’ Isabel asked.

  Knight was genuinely touched at his mother’s thought-fulness. ‘Yes – so you can take her with you everywhere,’ he said in a hoarse voice.

  ‘What this, Daddy?’ Luke asked, eyeing his present suspiciously.

  Knight took it, examined it, and said, ‘It’s a very special watch, for a very big boy. You see – it has Harry Potter, the famous wizard, on the dial, and there’s your name engraved on the back.’

  ‘Big-boy watch?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Knight said, and then teased: ‘We’ll put it away until you’re bigger.’

  Outraged, his son shoved out his wrist. ‘No! Lukey big boy! Lukey three!’

  ‘I completely forgot,’ Knight said, and put the watch on his son’s wrist, pleasantly surprised that the strap was a near-perfect fit.

  While Luke paraded around admiring his watch, Knight hung the locket around Isabel’s neck, closed the chain clasp and oohed and aahed when she looked at herself in the mirror, the spitting image of Kate as a little girl.

  He changed Luke’s nappy, then bathed and fed them both before getting Isabel into a dress and his son into blue shorts and a white collared shirt. With admonitions not to get their clothes dirty, Knight set himself a record time showering, shaving and dressing. They left the house at nine, went to the garage nearby, and retrieved a Range Rover that they rarely used.

  Knight drove north through the streets with Isabel and Luke in their car seats behind him, listening to the news on the radio. It was the last full day of Olympic competition with many relay-race finals to be decided that afternoon.

  The announcers talked of the heavy criticism being heaped on Scotland Yard and MI5 over their inability to make any kind of a major breakthrough in the Cronus investigations. No mention was made of the war-criminal’s hands though. Pottersfield had asked that it should be kept quiet for the time being.

  Many athletes who were finished with the competition were already leaving. Most others, like Hunter Pierce, had vowed to remain at the Olympic Park until the end, no matter what Cronus and his Furies might try.

  Knight drove to Enfield, then east and south of Waltham Abbey towards High Beach and Epping Forest.

  ‘Lots of trees,’ Isabel said when they’d entered the forest proper.

  ‘Your mummy liked lots of trees.’

  The dappled sunlight shone through the foliage that surrounded High Beach Church, which sat in a clearing not far into the woods. There were several cars parked, but Epping Forest was a popular place to walk, and Knight did not expect anyone else to be here specifically for Kate. His mother was lost in her own grief, and Kate’s parents had both died young.

  They went into the empty church where Knight got the children each to light a candle in their mother’s memory. He lit one for Kate, and then lit five more for his colleagues who had died in the plane crash. Holding Isabel and Luke’s hands, he led them from the church and out along a path that led into the woods.

  A light breeze rustled the leaves. Six or seven minutes later, the vegetation thinned and they passed through a tumble-down stone wall into a sparse grove of ancient oaks growing in long untamed grass that sighed in the summer wind.

  Knight stood a while looking at the scene, hugging his children to him, and struggling to control his emotions for their sake.

  ‘Your mummy used to go to that church as a little girl, but she liked to come out here,’ he told them softly. ‘She said the trees were so old that this was a blessed place where she could talk to God. That’s why I spread her …’

  He choked up.

  ‘It was a perfect choice, Peter,’ a woman’s emotion-drenched voice said behind them. ‘This was Kate’s favourite place.’

  Knight turned, wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeve.

  Holding tight to his trouser leg, Isabel asked, ‘Who’s that lady, Daddy?’

  Knight smiled. ‘That’s your Aunt Elaine, darling. Mummy’s older sister.’

  Chapter 86

  ‘I KNEW I couldn’t make the party,’ Knight’s sister-in-law explained quietly on the ride back into London while the children slept in the back of the car. ‘And, anyway, I thought meeting them there would make me feel better.’

  They were nearing the garag
e where Knight kept the Range Rover.

  ‘Did it?’ Knight asked.

  Pottersfield nodded and her eyes got glassy. ‘It seemed right, as if I could feel her there.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘I’m sorry. The way I treated you. I know it was all Kate’s decision to have the twins at home. I just …’

  ‘No more talk of that,’ Knight said, parking. ‘We’re beyond all that. My children are lucky to have you in their lives. I’m lucky to have you in my life.’

  She sighed, and smiled sadly. ‘Okay. Need any help?’

  Knight looked over his shoulder at his sleeping children. ‘Yes. They’re getting too big to carry that far by myself.’

  Pottersfield took Isabel and Knight hoisted Luke, and they walked the short distance to his house. He heard the television playing inside.

  ‘The new nanny,’ he said, fishing for his keys. ‘She always arrives early.’

  ‘You don’t hear that much any more.’

  ‘It’s brilliant, actually,’ Knight admitted. ‘She’s a miracle, the only one ever to tame them. She’s got them helping to clean up their room and going to sleep at a snap of her fingers.’

  He opened the door and Marta appeared almost instantly. She frowned to see Luke fast asleep on her father’s shoulder. ‘Too much excitement, I think,’ she said, took him from Knight and looked curiously at Pottersfield.

  ‘Marta, this is Elaine,’ Knight said. ‘My sister-in-law.’

  ‘Oh, hello,’ Pottersfield said, studying Marta. ‘Peter speaks highly of you.’

  Marta laughed nervously, and bobbed her head, saying, ‘Mr Knight is too kind.’ She paused and asked, ‘Did I see you on the television?’

  ‘Maybe. I work at Scotland Yard.’

  Marta looked ready to reply when Isabel woke up grumpily, looked at her aunt, and whined, ‘I want my daddy.’

  Knight took her from Pottersfield, saying, ‘Daddy has to go to work for a few hours, but he’ll be back in time for the party.’

  Marta said, ‘We’ll go and get cake soon. And balloons.’

  Isabel brightened and Luke woke up. Pottersfield’s mobile rang.

  The inspector listened closely, began nodding, and then said, ‘Where are they taking her?’

  She listened while Marta came and took Isabel from Knight and shepherded the children down the hall towards the kitchen, saying, ‘Who wants apple juice?’

  Pottersfield snapped shut her phone, looked at Knight and said, ‘A constable just picked up Serena Farrell wandering incoherent, filthy, and covered in her own excrement somewhere inside the ruins of the old Beckton Gas Works. They’re bringing her to St Thomas’s Hospital.’

  Knight glanced back over his shoulder at Marta, who held Isabel and Luke’s hands tightly.

  ‘I’ll be back by five to help you put up decorations,’ he promised.

  ‘Everything will be under control by then,’ she replied confidently. ‘Leave everything to me, Mr Knight.’

  Chapter 87

  ‘ARE YOU SURE?’ I demand, doing everything in my power not to scream into my mobile.

  ‘Positive,’ Marta hisses back at me. ‘She was found wandering around the Beckton Gas Works, not far from the factory. Who was there last?’

  First Petra and now you, Teagan, I think murderously as I glance at Marta’s sister next to me behind the wheel of her car. My thoughts are boiling again. But I reply cryptically to Marta: ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I’d go and clean that factory out if I were you,’ Marta says. ‘They’re right behind us.’

  It’s true. Over the homicidal buzz I’ve got going in my ears, I can almost hear the baying of dogs.

  What a blunder! What a colossal blunder! Farrell wasn’t supposed to be freed until tomorrow morning, a diversion that would draw all police attention to her while I completed my revenge. I should have just killed Farrell when I had the chance. But no, I had to be clever. I had to pile deception upon deception upon deception. But this one has backfired on me.

  My fingers go to that scar on the back of my head and the hatred ignites.

  My hand has been forced. My only hope is ruthlessness.

  ‘Take the children,’ I say. ‘Now. You know what to do.’

  ‘I do,’ Marta replies. ‘The little darlings are already fast asleep.’

  Chapter 88

  THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS, and smells of St Thomas’s Hospital unnerved Knight in a way he did not expect. He hadn’t been back in a medical facility of any sort since Kate’s body had been taken to one and it made him feel disorientated by the time he and Pottersfield reached the intensive-care unit.

  ‘This is what she looked like when they found her,’ the Metropolitan Police officer guarding the room said, showing them a picture.

  Farrell was dressed as Syren St James, filthy in the extreme, and looking as dazed as a lobotomy patient. An IV line hung from one hand.

  ‘She talking?’ Pottersfield asked.

  ‘Babbled about a body with no hands,’ the officer said.

  ‘No hands?’ Knight said, glancing at Pottersfield.

  ‘Not much of what she said made sense. But you might have a better chance now that they’ve given her an anti-narcotic.’

  ‘She was on narcotics?’ Pottersfield asked. ‘We know that for certain?’

  ‘Powerful doses, mixed with sedatives,’ he replied.

  They entered the intensive-care unit. Professor Selena Farrell lay asleep in a bed surrounded by monitoring equipment, her skin a deathly grey. Pottersfield went to her side and said, ‘Professor Farrell?’

  The professor’s face screwed up in anger. ‘Go away. Head. Hurts. Bad.’ Her words were slurred and trailed off at the end.

  ‘Professor Farrell,’ Pottersfield said firmly. ‘I’m Inspector Elaine Pottersfield of the Metropolitan Police. I have to speak with you. Open your eyes, please.’

  Farrell’s eyes blinked open and she cringed. ‘Turn off lights. Migraine.’

  A nurse closed the unit’s curtains. Farrell opened her eyes again. She gazed around the room, saw Knight, and looked puzzled. ‘What happened to me?’

  ‘We were hoping you could tell us, professor,’ Knight said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Pottersfield said, ‘Can you explain why your DNA – from your hair, to be exact – was found in one of the letters from Cronus to Karen Pope?’

  The information was slow to penetrate Farrell’s fogged brain. ‘Pope? The reporter?’ she said to Knight. ‘My DNA? No, I don’t remember.’

  ‘What do you remember?’ Knight demanded.

  Farrell blinked and groaned, and then said: ‘Dark room. I’m on a bed, alone. Tied down. Can’t get up. My head is splitting open, and they won’t give me anything to stop it.’

  ‘Who are “they”?’ Knight demanded.

  ‘Women. Different women.’

  Pottersfield was beginning to look irritated. She said, ‘Selena, do you understand that your DNA links you to seven murders in the last two weeks?’

  That shocked the professor and she became more alert. ‘What? Seven …? I haven’t killed anyone. I never … What, what day is it?’

  ‘Saturday, 11 August 2012,’ Knight replied.

  The professor moaned, ‘No. It felt like I was only there overnight.’

  ‘In the dark room with women?’ Pottersfield asked.

  ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘No,’ Pottersfield said.

  Knight said, ‘Why did you fake getting sick and flee your office when Karen Pope played the flute music to you?’

  Farrell’s eyes widened. ‘It made me sick, because … I’d heard it before.’

  Chapter 89

  I TERMINATE THE call to Marta and look over at Teagan, feeling as if I’d like to rip her head off right now. But she’s behind the wheel and an accident is out of the question at this late stage of the game.

  ‘Turn around,’ I say, struggling for calm. ‘We’ve got to go to the factory.’

  ‘The factory?’
Teagan replies nervously. ‘It’s broad daylight.’

  ‘Farrell escaped. She was picked up inside the gasworks. Knight and the Scotland Yard inspector Pottersfield is with her at the hospital right now.’

  Teagan loses colour.

  ‘How could that have happened?’ I demand softly. ‘She wasn’t supposed to be freed until tomorrow morning. It was your responsibility to see to that, sister.’

  Panic-stricken, she says, ‘I should have told you, but I knew how much pressure you were under. There were drunken lads inside the factory when I was there yesterday morning. I figured the smell would keep them from the room. They must have broken the lock and let her go or something. I don’t know.’

  ‘We’ve got to clean the place,’ I say. ‘Get us there. Now.’

  We don’t talk during the rest of the drive, or during our entry into the toxic factory grounds, or as we sneak inside the basement. I have only been here once before, so Teagan leads. We both carry rubbish bags.

  The smell coming from the open storage room door is obscenely foul. But Teagan goes inside without hesitation. I glance at the iron rings on the door and the frame, unbroken, and then let my gaze travel across the floor.

  The lock’s in the corner, its hasp open but not busted.

  I crouch, pick it up, and loop the hasp around my middle finger like a brass knuckle, hiding the lock inside my palm. Inside, Teagan is already gloved and stuffing used IV equipment into the rubbish bag.

  ‘Let’s get this done,’ I say, and move towards her before squatting down to pick up a used syringe with my left hand.

  Rising, feeling the urge to vengeance enfolding me like an old lover, I move the needle towards the rubbish bag as a feint before letting go with an uppercut, with the hasp leading.

  Teagan never has a chance. She never sees the blow coming.

  The impact crushes her larynx.

  She staggers backward, choking, purple-faced, her eyes bulging right out of her head, staring at me in disbelief. The second blow breaks her nose, hurls her against the wall, and makes her understand that I am an infinitely superior being. My third strike connects with her temple and she crumples in the grime.