Private Games (Private 3)

‘Yah, mon,’ the driver said. ‘Hey, it’s you!’

Knight did a double take, realising it was the same driver who’d chased the taxi that had tried to run him and Lancer down.

‘Cronus has my kids.’

‘De crazy guy who blew up Mundaho?’ the Jamaican cried.

‘Go like hell, man,’ Knight said.

They roared north-west towards Brompton Road while Knight tried Pottersfield’s number again. It did not go through, but he’d no sooner ended the attempt than the iPhone buzzed, alerting him to a text.

It was from Hooligan and read: ‘AT YOUR HOUSE. YOUR COMPUTER AND PHONE BUGGED. ASSUME YOUR MOBILE BUGGED 2. MAYBE TRACEABLE. CALL.’

Traceable? Knight thought. They’ve been tracking me?

‘Pull over,’ he yelled.

‘But your kids, mon!’ the taxi driver said.

‘Pull over,’ Knight said, forcing himself to calm down. He glanced at the beating hearts on his screen. They’d gone into an address on Porchester Terrace.

‘Do you have a mobile?’

‘My old lady’s phone died this morning,’ the driver said, stopping at the kerb. ‘I gave her mine to use while hers be fixed.’

‘Son of a …’ Knight said. He looked at the screen one last time and memorised the address where the twins were being held.

Then he handed the phone to the driver along with two fifty-pound notes. ‘Listen carefully, mate. I’m going to leave this phone with you, and you’re going to drive it out to Heathrow.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t argue,’ Knight said, now scribbling on a business card. ‘Drive it to Heathrow and then circle back to this address in Chelsea. You’ll see police there. Ask for Inspector Pottersfield or Hooligan Crawford – he’s with Private. Give them the phone. There’ll be a reward in it for you.’

‘What about your kids, mon?’

But Knight was already gone, running across Brompton Road towards Montpelier Street, heading north towards Hyde Park, thinking that the last thing he wanted was to have police arrive in force, surround the place, and force Marta’s hand – or Cronus’s hand, for that matter. It could cost Luke and Isabel their lives and Knight could not survive that. He’d scout the place out, and then find a phone to alert Elaine, Jack, Hooligan, Pope, and everyone else in London.

Knight was gasping for air by the time he reached the trail that paralleled the west shore of The Serpentine. His lungs were on fire when he left the park ten minutes later and crossed Bayswater Road, across from Lancaster Gate Tube station.

He went west along Bayswater Road, passed a crowd of revellers at the Swan Pub still celebrating England’s’ come-from-behind victory over Brazil, and finally took a right onto Porchester Terrace. The address he sought was on the west side of the street towards Fulton Mews.

Knight stayed on the east pavement, moving methodically north until he’d got as close to the address as he dared in case the street was being monitored. He desperately wished he’d had his binoculars with him, but could see that the white apartment building had balconies on every floor and iron bars on the ground-floor windows.

There were identical apartment buildings on either side of the building Knight was targeting. Every window in the building was dark except for a light that glowed from French doors leading to the balcony of a flat on the north-east corner of the third floor. Was this where Marta was holding his children?

Rain began to fall again, hard enough for Knight to decide he would not look out of place if he put up the hood on his raincoat and walked past the building on the east side of the street.

Were Isabel and Luke inside? Cronus? Was this their hideout? Knight walked past, taking what he hoped would look like casual glances at the doorway, wondering if he should risk crossing to the other side for a closer look before he went to one of the hotels over on Inverness Terrace to call Elaine.

Then he noticed how close that balcony was to the balcony immediately to the north, which was attached to a wholly separate building. It appeared to Knight that anyone would almost certainly be able to see from that balcony on the adjacent building into the apartment where he thought Luke and Isabel might be being held.

Hell, you could probably jump from one balcony to the other.

Knight slowed and studied the facades of the apartment buildings, trying to figure out how to climb up there. But then lights went on behind the French windows of the adjacent balcony. Someone was home there.

Instantly a plan hatched in Knight’s mind. He’d ring their bell, explain what was going on, and ask to use their phone to call Pottersfield and to access the balcony for surveillance purposes. But then he thought to go to the rear of the two buildings to see if any other lights were on. It took him three minutes. No other lights. He returned to Porchester Terrace just as a woman came out through the front door of the apartment building he wished to enter.

Knight bolted past her, smiled at her as if they were old friends, bounded up the steps, and caught the security door before it could shut. Even better. He’d go straight up and knock at the door of the flat on the south-east corner of the third floor. When they saw his Private badge they were sure to let him in.