Just sacrifice? Knight thought bitterly. Three people dead. For what?
As he and Pottersfield searched the lavatory, he wondered why Pope had not called him. She must have received another letter by now.
Twenty minutes into the search, Knight found the loose seat-cover dispensary and tugged it out of the wall. A minute later he fished out a platinum-blonde wig from inside, handed it to Pottersfield, and said, ‘That’s a big mistake there. There has to be DNA evidence on that.’
The inspector grudgingly slipped the wig into an evidence bag. ‘Well done, Peter, but I’d rather that no one else should know about this – at least, not until I can have it analysed. And most certainly not your client, Karen Pope.’
‘Not a soul,’ he promised.
Indeed, around three that morning, shortly before Knight left the O2 Arena, he’d found Jack again and not mentioned the wig. Private’s owner informed him, however, that a guard at the gate where all Game Master volunteers cleared security distinctly remembered the two chunky cousins who came through the scanners early, one with diabetes, both wearing identical rings.
The computer system remembered them as ‘Caroline and Anita Thorson’, cousins who lived north of Liverpool Street. Police officers sent to the flat found two women called Caroline and Anita Thorson, but both of them were sleeping. They claimed not to have been anywhere near the O2 Arena much less being accredited Game Masters for the Olympics. They were being brought to New Scotland Yard for further questioning, though Knight did not hold much hope for a breakthrough there. The Thorson women had been used, their identities stolen.
The taxi pulled up in front of Knight’s house just before dawn with him figuring that Cronus or one of his Furies was a very sophisticated hacker and that they had to have had access at some point to the arena’s electrical infrastructure.
Right?
He was so damn tired that he couldn’t even answer his own question. He paid the driver and told him to wait. Knight trudged to his front door, went in, and turned on the hallway light. He heard a creaking noise and looked in the playroom. Marta yawned on the couch, dropping the blanket from her shoulders.
‘I’m so
sorry,’ Knight said softly. ‘I was at the gymnastics venue and they were jamming mobile traffic. I couldn’t get through.’
Marta’s hand went to her mouth. ‘I saw it on the television. You were there? Did they catch them?’
‘No,’ he said despairingly. ‘We don’t even know if they’re alive or not. But they’ve made a big mistake. If they’re alive, they’ll be caught.’
She yawned again, wider this time, and said, ‘What mistake?’
‘I can’t go into it,’ Knight replied. ‘There’s a taxi waiting for you out front. I’ve already paid your fare.’
Marta smiled drowsily. ‘You’re very kind, Mr Knight.’
‘Call me Peter. When can you be back?’
‘One?’
Knight nodded. Nine hours. He’d be lucky to be able to sleep for four of them before the twins awoke, but it was better than nothing.
As if she were reading his mind, Marta headed towards the door, saying, ‘Isabel and Luke were both very, very tired tonight. I think they’ll sleep in for you.’
Chapter 65
SHORTLY AFTER DAWN that morning, racked with a headache that felt like my skull was being axed in two, I thundered at Marta: ‘What mistake?’
Her eyes exuded the same dead quality I’d first seen the night I rescued her in Bosnia. ‘I don’t know, Cronus,’ she said. ‘He wouldn’t tell me.’
I looked around wildly at the other two sisters. ‘What mistake?’
Teagan shook her head. ‘There was no mistake. Everything went exactly according to plan. Petra even got off the second shot on Wu.’
‘I did,’ Petra said, looking at me with an expression that bordered on delirium. ‘I was superior, Cronus. A champion. No one could have executed the task better. And on the river, we jumped off the boat well before it hit the wall and we timed the tides right on the money. We were a perfect ten all round.’
Marta nodded. ‘I was back at Knight’s home almost two hours before he came in. We’ve won, Cronus. They’ll shut down the Olympics now, for sure.’
I shook my head. ‘Not even close. The corporate sponsors and the broadcasters won’t let them stop until it’s too late.’
But what mistake could we have made?