Princess: A Private Novel Read online

  “Can he do that?” Cook asked.

  “Enough of the bigger companies are run by former SAS that he only needs to bring a few onside. The others will fall in line because they don’t want to piss off the big boys.”

  “We can do this without their help,” Cook assured him.

  “We can,” Morgan agreed, no trace of doubt in his voice as he pushed the subject from his mind and addressed Lewis. “You have anything more to tell me about Sophie?”

  Lewis did not.

  “So tell me about the Princess. Tell me who would want to hurt her.”

  “The Princess?”

  “Right now, we have no reason to suggest why someone would want to hurt Sophie. My guess is that there are plenty of people who want to hurt the Princess.”

  Lewis nodded. There was a pistol in her shoulder holster for a reason. “Terrorists are the biggest and most obvious threat. They’d love to take out a politician or a royal.”

  “But they’ve stopped going after hard targets,” Cook put in.

  “That’s true,” Lewis agreed. “Recent terrorist attacks have been more focused on soft targets—driving into crowds of defenseless civilians and so on. They know their chance of success is small if they come after high-profile targets. We’re bloody good at what we do.”

  “The best,” Cook acknowledged, deeply proud of her country’s security services.

  “Then who else?” Morgan asked.

  “There are anti-royalists, but they don’t tend to be violent,” Lewis explained. “Of course, there are always lone wolves. Weird little bastards who just get obsessed with the Princess, try to sneak into places to see her, or steal her laundry.”

  “You’ve seen that?” Cook asked.

  “I’ve seen bloody everything. There are some very strange people on this planet.”

  “It’s the dangerous ones I’m concerned about,” Morgan told her.

  “As you well know, there are plenty of those too. So where do we start?”

  Morgan had no concrete idea. He only knew that, in a missing-persons case, time was everything.

  And theirs was running out.

  Chapter 22

  PETER KNIGHT RUBBED at his eyes. It had been a long night, and the stress of having to deliver bad news to a family member always sapped his energy levels. Now he was in Hooligan’s lab, and hours of staring at bright computer screens was threatening to turn his eyes the color of tomatoes.

  “I don’t know how you can look at these all day,” he said to the man beside him.

  On the screens in front of them were long lists of numbers, files, and all kinds of digital code that Knight could only guess at. He was an intelligent man, but Hooligan’s explanations went over his head.

  The men—mostly Hooligan, Knight admitted to himself—were looking into the digital records of Sir Tony Lightwood. As next of kin, Eliza had granted them permission, and now they were searching the man’s digital footprints for anything that could be useful—contacts, payments, patterns. In the modern world, it is impossible to live a life without leaving a trail of digital data behind, and Hooligan followed the path like a bloodhound. It was down to him to find the patterns in the data, and it was what he was most brilliant at.

  “Here’s another one.” Hooligan pointed at the screen.

  Knight leaned forward. He was looking at a receipt. It was the sixth one they’d found for the same boutique hotel—the Mistral in Kensington.

  “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.

  Chapter 23

  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.”

  Chapter 24

  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?”

  Morgan said nothing, and Caroline shook her head, the laughter gone. “Hurting Sophie is the last thing on my mind. I just want her found, Jack. Please, find her.”

  “I’ll find her,” Morgan promised. Then, as he walked from the stables and out beneath a gray sky, he made another promise to himself.

  He would find out why Princess Caroline was lying.

  Chapter 25

  SHARON LEWIS WAS there to meet Morgan as he left the stables.

  “Are you here to help me, or spy on me?” he asked.

  Lewis simply gave a small shrug of her shoulders.

  “Can you take me to Cook?” the American then asked.

  “Of course,” she replied. Morgan caught a trace of disapproval in her words. They found Cook at the kitchen table, where she was exchanging pleasantries with one of Princess Caroline’s staff.

  “Jane,” Morgan said, “I need to talk with you. Alone.”

  Lewis half rolled her eyes as the pair left the room.

  “She thinks we’re…” Cook suggested as they found a quiet corner.

  Morgan quickly changed the subject. “What are the rules of engagement for SAS operatives? Can they take out British citizens, on British soil?”

  Cook shrugged. “They can. That’s what Northern Ireland was, wasn’t it? But their operations are better hidden now than ever before. There are hundreds of would-be terrorists in the country, but only a few attacks a year.”

  “Taking out terrorists is one thing, but would they kill to silence a scandal? Would they kill for the Princess?”

  Cook shook her head. “I really don’t think so. The armed forces are furiously loyal to the Crown, but that would be flat-out murder. Soldiers are used to seeing politicians throw them to the wolves at the first hint of a rule being bent, even in combat, so I doubt volunteers would be lining up to commit such a high-profile crime, even for her.”

  Morgan wasn’t so sure. “Maybe not when they’re serving, but you and I saw what Aaron Shaw and Alex Waldron did for money,” he told her, referring to the two former servicemen who had kidnapped Abbie Winchester two years earlier. “Shaw’s record was exemplary while he was in the service.”

  “People can lose their way when they leave the forces,” Cook acknowledged. “I’m sure there are more former soldiers like Shaw and Waldron out there—hired guns with no moral compass.”

  Jack Morgan had experienced enough of them in his time to know that such men were not in short supply.

  “There’s more to the Princess’s relationship with Sophie than she’ll admit. She’s keeping secrets.”

  Cook’s bright eyes narrowed. “You’re thinking she’d hire someone to protect them?”

  “No. She’s lying about something, but not that.” He shook his head. “You could see it in her eyes, Jane. She cares for Sophie, and she’s worried. Very worried.”

  Cook placed a hand on Morgan’s arm—the touch of it sent a thrill through his body, though her words sent worry to his stomach.

  Because they were a warning.

  “She’s a royal, Jack. She’s been trained her whole life how to act, and how to lie. Out of all the people involved in this, she’s the one we can trust the least.”

  Chapter 26

  THE SKY ABOVE London was thick with cloud, the air muggy. On the roof of Private London’s headquarters, Peter Knight looked at the city skyline, deep in thought.

  The case of Sir Tony Lightwood troubled him. Now that there seemed to be an irrefutable link between Sir Tony and Sophie Edwards, Knight was trying to decide if there could be a reasonable explanation for why both people kept appearing within thirty minutes of each other at the same hotel. If not, were both of Private London’s major cases actually one?

  He shook his head, thinking it over from the beginning. Sir Tony was wealthy; Sir Tony stayed at the Mistral hotel on seven Wednesday nights; Sir Tony was blackmailed; Sir Tony killed himself.

  Then there was Sophie. She graduated from LSE before becoming something of a party girl. She had arrived within thirty minutes of Sir Tony during each of his visits. She had been missing for days, but it was impossible to know exactly for how long—Private’s canvassing of friends, family and social media could only make a vague estimate, which put it around the same time as Sir Tony’s suicide.

  If Sophie Edwards was Sir Tony’s blackmailer, he could have killed her before taking his own life in remorse. That was possible, but why then the attempt on Morgan’s life? Who could have arranged the hit on Sir Tony’s behalf?

  Then there was the question of why Sophie had turned to prostitution and blackmail, if indeed that was the case. At least Knight had been able to make some headway there: despite graduating as a promising student, Sophie had never stuck at any
of the high-paying positions she had landed, her lifestyle getting in the way of doing the job. The salaries she’d been offered by companies had gradually diminished as she bounced from one hedge fund or financial institution to the next. As she’d become more and more embedded in London’s high-society party scene, it was very likely that Sophie’s expenditure had been outstripping her income. She wouldn’t be the first smart girl to turn escort in the Big Smoke. She wouldn’t be the first to get greedy, either, and find ways to exploit the men who paid thousands for a night with her—and would pay anything to keep that secret.

  The humanist in Knight wished it wasn’t that way, but the evidence was stacking up against the young girl. The CCTV footage had revealed Sophie leaving the Mistral hotel at eight every time she stayed. Sir Tony always left thirty minutes later. With some old-fashioned investigative backhanders to the hotel staff, Knight had discovered that there was nothing organized in the Mistral that would account for these regular timings—no backroom parties, poker games or secret clubs.

  Knight rubbed at his face. He was tired. Tired physically, and tired of seeing good people turn bad. He was the rare kind of person with a clean soul, and the dishonesty that he witnessed on a daily basis weighed on him heavily. The only thing that could possibly weigh on him more would be doing nothing about it.

  He would crack this case.

  “You’re not gonna jump, are you?” The familiar voice came from behind him.

  “Depends on what you’re here to tell me,” Knight replied. Hooligan walked over to him from the rooftop’s fire escape. “Did you finish the search of Sir Tony’s emails?” Knight had ordered the tech expert to comb through the data once Eliza Lightwood had given her permission.

  The redhead smiled. “I have.”

  “And?”

  “Hold on to something, mate, because this one’s gonna blow your socks off.”

  Chapter 27

  JACK MORGAN WAS at the kitchen table with Lewis, looking over potential sites to lure out and trap his would-be assassins, when Peter Knight’s call came in. The American stepped outside to take it.