Private London (Private 4)

‘You’ve got to remember that Jack didn’t have the resources of Private behind him at the time, Lucy. When he got there he was too late for Jessica but at least he saved Hannah.’

‘What happened to the kidnappers?’

I smiled bleakly. ‘Let’s just say they didn’t make it to trial.’

‘You reckon the two cases are connected?’ asked Brad Dexter.

Chapter 32

I SHOOK MY HEAD.

‘I can’t see how. Cabrello and Santini were operating independently. Their ties to the East Coast were cut. This was their cock-up, pure and simple. So whoever has her now has nothing to do with that first abduction. That’s the one thing we can be a hundred per cent sure of.’

‘Still no ransom demands?’ asked Sam.

‘Not so far.’

Adrian held up his hand.

‘You don’t have to put your hand up, Adrian.’ I gestured at him to spit out his thoughts.

‘Maybe it isn’t a kidnapping as such.’

‘Go on?’ I prompted.

I knew where he was going with this and I didn’t like it one bit.

‘Maybe it’s not a kidnap for ransom as such, like the last time was. The murder scene I was called out to last night. A young woman … she maybe had organs harvested from her.’

‘Maybe?’

‘We’re waiting on the post-mortem,’ added Wendy Lee.

‘The tip of her wedding finger was missing,’ added Adrian Tuttle.

‘And this relates to Hannah Shapiro how?’ asked Sam.

‘Because it’s not the first time, Sam,’ I said. Facing the fact that it might already be far too late for Hannah.

Wendy Lee nodded and put it out there. ‘It looks like there’s a serial killer,’ she said. ‘In the city. Targeting healthy young women.’

‘Women like Hannah,’ said Adrian Tuttle, looking at the picture of the beautiful young American woman that filled the video screen.

Chapter 33

PROFESSOR ANNABELLE WESTON was older than Hannah but every bit as striking.

I’d have placed her in her mid-thirties if I’d had to guess. Five seven or eight, give or take the heels on a pair of court shoes. Long strawberry-blonde hair, lively, almost turquoise eyes. A light splash of freckles across her shoulders but her face was alabaster-clear with high cheekbones. Her teeth wouldn’t have looked out of place in a San Diego beauty pageant – and she certainly wasn’t dressed like any professor from my day!

She was wearing skintight jeans, cowboy boots and a pastel-blue cashmere sweater that did nothing to distract from her womanly figure.

Her hair was tied back in a loose kind of scarf, and she had a pair of glasses perched on the end of her nose, just the way Alison wore them. These were tortoiseshell, giving her an academic look, which I guess she was entitled to. The eyes behind the lenses of those glasses were deadly serious.

‘You’re not working with the police on this, then?’ she asked.

Her voice was as English as her strawberries-and-cream complexion. Home counties. Money. Pound to a penny she had polo ponies featuring somewhere in her childhood.

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said leaning forward and handing her my card. ‘We often work with the police in an official capacity, but in this instance we are pursuing a separate investigation.’