Private Games (Private 3)

I raise an eyebrow. Private? Knight? They’ve almost foiled my plans twice today. Is that fate, coincidence, or a warning?

‘He’s dangerous,’ says Marta, always the most perceptive of the three, the one whose strategic thoughts are most likely to mirror my own.

‘I agree,’ I say, before glancing at the clock on the wall and looking at her ginger-haired sister, still primping in front of the mirror. ‘It’s time to leave for the reception, Petra. I’ll see you there later. Remember the plan.’

‘I’m not stupid, Cronus,’ Petra says, glaring at me with eyes turned emerald green by contact lenses bought just for this occasion.

‘Hardly,’ I reply evenly. ‘But you have a tendency to be impetuous, to ad lib, and your task tonight demands disciplined adherence to details.’

‘I know what I have to do,’ she says coldly, and leaves.

Marta’s gaze has not left me. ‘What about Knight?’ she asks, proving once again that relentlessness is another of her more endearing qualities.

I reply, ‘Your next tasks are not until tomorrow evening. In the meantime, I’d like you both to look into Mr Knight.’

‘What are we looking for?’ Teagan asks, setting her empty glass on the table.

‘His weaknesses, sister. His vulnerabilities. Anything we can exploit.’

Chapter 28

IT WAS ALMOST eight by the time Knight reached home, a restored red-brick town house that his mother had bought for him several years before. He was as exhausted and sore as he’d ever been after a day at work: run over, shot at, forced t

o destroy his mother’s dreams, not to mention being grilled three times by the formidable Inspector Elaine Pottersfield.

The Metropolitan Police inspector had not been happy when she arrived at One Aldwych. Not only were there two corpses as a result of the shoot-out, she’d heard through the grapevine that the Sun had received a letter from Marshall’s killer and was incensed to learn that Private’s forensics lab had had the chance to analyse the material before Scotland Yard.

‘I should be arresting you for obstruction!’ she’d shouted.

Knight held up his hands. ‘That decision was made by our client, Karen Pope of the Sun.’

‘Who is where?’

Knight looked around. Pope had gone. ‘She was on deadline. I know they plan on turning over all evidence after they go to press.’

‘You allowed a material witness to leave the scene of a crime?’

‘I work for Private, not the court any more. And I can’t control Pope. She has her own mind.’

The Scotland Yard inspector responded by fixing Knight with a glare. ‘Seems as if I’ve heard that excuse before from you, Peter – with deadly consequences.’

Knight flushed and his throat felt heated. ‘We’re not having this conversation again. You should be asking about Guilder and Mascolo.’

Pottersfield fumed, and then said, ‘Spill it. All of it.’

Knight spilled all of it: their meetings with Daring and Farrell as well as a blow-by-blow account of what had happened in the Lobby Bar.

When he finished, the inspector said, ‘You believe Guilder’s confession?’

‘Do dying men lie?’ Knight had replied.

As he climbed the steps to his front door, Knight considered Guilder’s confession again. Then he thought of Daring and Farrell. Were they part of these killings?

Who was to say that Daring wasn’t some kind of nut behind the scenes, bent on destroying the modern games? And who was to say that Selena Farrell wasn’t the gunman in black leather and a motorcycle helmet? She’d been holding an automatic weapon in that picture in her office.

Maybe Pope’s instincts were spot on. Could the professor be Cronus? Or at least involved with him? What about Daring? Didn’t he say he’d known Farrell from somewhere in his past? The Balkans back in the 1990s?

Then another voice inside Knight demanded that he think less about villains and more about victims. How was his mother? He’d not heard from her all day.