Private Games (Private 3)

‘It’s for the twins, Elaine,’ Knight said in a pleading tone. ‘I’ve got an opportunity to hire them a new nanny who looks great on paper. I just want to make sure, and it’s the weekend and I have no other way to do it.’

There was a long silence before Pottersfield said, ‘Give me the name and passport number if you’ve got it.’

Knight heard the Scotland Yard inspector typing after he read her the number. He watched Marta get onto the slide, holding Isabel. His daughter on the slide? That was a first. They slid to the bottom with only a trace of terror surfacing on Isabel’s face before she started clapping.

‘Marta Brezenova,’ said Pottersfield. ‘Kind of a plain Jane, isn’t she?’

‘You were expecting a supermodel moonlighting as a nanny?’

‘I suppose not,’ Pottersfield allowed. ‘She arrived in the UK on a flight from Paris ten days ago. She’s here on an educational visa to attend City University.’

‘Graduate programme in speech-language pathology,’ Knight said. ‘Thanks, Elaine. I owe you.’

Hearing Luke shriek with laughter, he hung up and spotted his son and his sister running through the jungle gym with Marta in hot pursuit, playing the happy monster, laughing maniacally.

You’re not much to look at, Knight thought. But thank God for you, anyway. You’re hired.

Chapter 49

Monday, 30 July 2012

EARLY THAT AFTERNOON, Metropolitan Police Inspector Billy Casper eyed Knight suspiciously, and said, ‘Can’t say I think it’s proper for you to have access. But Pottersfield wanted you to see for yourself. So go on up. Second floor. Flat on the right.’

Knight mounted the stairs, fully focused on the investigation now that Marta Brezenova had come into the picture. The woman was a marvel. In less than two days she’d put his children under a spell. They were cleaner, better behaved, and happier. He’d even checked with City University. No doubt. Marta Brezenova had been accepted on their speech-language pathology programme. He hadn’t bothered to call the American University in Paris. That aspect of his life felt settled at last. He’d even called up the agency that had offered him part-time help and had cancelled his request.

Now Inspector Elaine Pottersfield was waiting for Knight at the door to Selena Farrell’s apartment.

‘Anything?’ he asked.

‘A lot, actually,’ she said. After he’d put on gloves and slipons she led him inside. A full crime-scene unit from Scotland Yard and specialists from MI5 were tearing the place apart.

They went into the professor’s bedroom, which was dominated by an oversized dressing table that featured three mirrors and several drawers open to reveal all manner of beauty items: twenty different kinds of lipstick, an equal number of nail-polish bottles, and jars of make-up.

Dr Farrell? It didn’t fit with the professor whom Knight and Pope had met in the office. Then he looked around and spotted the open closets, which were stuffed with what looked like high-end expensive women’s clothing.

Was she a secret fashionista or something?

Before Knight could express his confusion, Pottersfield gestured past a crime tech examining a laptop on the dressing table towards a filing cabinet in the corner. ‘We found all sorts of written diatribes against the destruction the Games caused in East London, including several poisonous letters to Denton—’

‘Inspector?’ the crime tech interrupted excitedly. ‘I think I’ve got it!’

Pottersfield frowned. ‘What?’

The tech struck the keyboard and from the computer flute music began to play, the same haunting melody that had echoed inside the Olympic Stadium on the night Paul Teeter was poisoned, the same brutal tune that had accompanied Cronus’s letter accusing him of using an illicit performance-enhancing substance.

‘That’s on the computer?’ Knight asked.

‘Part of a simple .exe file designed to play the music and to display this.’

The tech turned the screen to show three words centred horizontally:

OLYMPIC SHAME EXPOSED

Chapter 50

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

WEARING A SURGICAL hair-cap and mask, a long rubber apron and the sort of high-sleeved rubber gloves that butchers use to disembowel cattle, I carefully load the third letter into an envelope addressed to Karen Pope.