Private London

by James Patterson

  ‘I’ve applied for a job in Manchester,’ she said.

  I nodded, although I had absolutely no idea where she was going with this.

  ‘I figured, get out of town,’ she continued. ‘You and me won’t keep bumping into each other. Take a spade and bury the past where it belongs.’

  ‘You always were the romantic one.’

  ‘Yeah – it wasn’t me taking text messages from your girlfriend when you were supposed to be marrying me.’

  I took another slug of beer. Kept me from talking, at least, and this was one argument I was never going to win. I swallowed and said, ‘So you’re going to move to Manchester. What do you want me to do, help you pack?’ I was being a regular Jack Benny that night.

  ‘It’s a new position. They’re setting up a serial-killers unit. Worldwide coordination. Profiling. The whole shebang. Bit like the FBI have out at Quantico.’

  I gestured with the beer bottle for her to continue.

  ‘I’m in with a chance, but there’s a lot of competition.’

  ‘So why do you need my help, Kirsty?’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I need Private’s.’

  Chapter 63

  I GUESS THAT put me back in my box.

  ‘Lay it out for me,’ I said.

  ‘We’re working on a couple of cases. May or may not be linked. Private have already given a forensic assist on one of them. The Jane Doe we found last night in King’s Cross.’

  ‘Yeah, Adrian Tuttle and Wendy Lee were on it.’

  ‘Two women. Both killed. Both had organs removed. Both had half of their wedding-ring fingers removed.’

  She ran the fingers of her right hand over her own now bare wedding-ring finger. She had bounced the ring that used to adorn it off my face quite a few years ago. Nearly blinded me. I wasn’t sure if she was aware what she was doing with her fingers. Either way she stopped doing it.

  ‘We thought there was a pattern. A serial monster preying on women.’

  ‘Seems a fair deduction.’

  ‘Except we were wrong.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Earlier today I had a shout. Called out to Stoke Mandeville hospital over in Aylesbury. Division thought it was a waste of time. Turned out it wasn’t.’

  ‘Another woman?’

  ‘No. This breaks the pattern. It was a man in his late twenties. Colin Harris. A primary-school teacher. His car was parked on the railway line and an InterCity express hit it full tilt.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Exactly. The train was travelling at well over one hundred miles an hour. Weighed four hundred metric tonnes. And even if the driver had slammed on the brakes as soon as he saw the car – it would have taken the train a mile and a half to stop. The Honda Accord had no chance and neither did Colin Harris.’

  I took another swallow of my beer.

  ‘He was choppered into Stoke Mandeville hospital where a transplant patient was waiting. The incident had left him brain-dead. He was on the organ-donor register so when he had been certified as officially so, his heart was removed, transplanted and the life-support mechanisms were switched off.’

  ‘Suicide by Network Rail?’

  Kirsty shook her head. ‘Somebody wanted us to think that. He had taken sleeping medication, left a note. But it turns out he didn’t commit suicide. He was put there and left to die.’

  ‘So what’s the connection with your Jane Doe times two?’

  ‘The third finger of his left hand was cut off at the second knuckle. Post-mortem.’

  ‘Which means it was done at the hospital?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The same guy?’

  ‘Or group of them. It was a group who took Hannah Shapiro remember, Dan. What if the two cases really are connected?’

  I shook my head. Given the exchange that was scheduled for tomorrow morning I thought it extremely unlikely.

  ‘It doesn’t feel connected to me. Seems like two different things going on here.’

  ‘What if someone is harvesting organs? People rich enough not to want to go on a waiting list?’

  ‘The old urban myth.’

  Kirsty shrugged. ‘If people think of things, Dan, it can usually be done. You know that.’

  I did know that but I didn’t want to think about it.

  Kirsty finished her brandy and poured herself another healthy slug. By my reckoning, you got fourteen ordinary pub doubles out of a seventy-centilitre bottle of spirits. The one she had just poured was probably double that again. So I guessed that so far she had helped herself to about five hundred bucks’ worth of my brandy.

  ‘Hannah has disappeared into the ether. It’s been over twenty-four hours. If it was a kidnapping for ransom we would have heard something by now and we haven’t,’ she said.

  I shook my head. She looked up at me sharply.

  ‘Unless you have heard something?’

  I shook my head again – I was turning into one of those nodding dogs you see in the backs of cars. ‘No. All I know is her father gets here tomorrow morning. If they have contacted him, I don’t know about it.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, not sounding a hundred per cent convinced.

  ‘He lost his wife to kidnappers, Kirsty,’ I said. ‘She was raped and murdered in front of his daughter. If her abductors have told him not to speak to the authorities, I for one wouldn’t blame him if he just paid what they wanted and took her home. Would you?’

  She took another hit of brandy. ‘I guess not.’

  ‘So where does Private come in?’ I asked. Changing the subject.

  ‘We’re running a DNA analysis through the system on the second Jane Doe. The first one came back with one nothing, but it took over three weeks to do it. I haven’t got three weeks. Whoever is doing this needs to be stopped. And it seems to me he’s escalating.’

  ‘You want to use our labs?’

  ‘Yeah. And in return I’ll get you everything we’ve got on the Hannah Shapiro case. Off the record.’

  ‘I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘Chloe means a lot to me too, Dan.’

  And she did. Chloe’s father had been my best man and Kirsty had loved him as much as I did. His death had sent me off the rails and I didn’t see at the time that she was grieving too: I’d been too selfish to share my own grief. She hadn’t been to Iraq, she hadn’t seen what I had. I’d been too wrapped up in my own self-pity to see how much I was hurting her. I was destroying our marriage but I didn’t care. Caring meant feeling.

  We talked some more. I don’t know for how long. Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? Kirsty drank more brandy and I had a couple more Coronas. I lost count.

  I remember opening the fridge door and taking the last bottle off the shelf. I turned round to open it and there she was, in the small kitchen with me, and I had nowhere left to run.

  Somehow she was in my arms, our lips were on each other’s. Our breath hot. Her tongue flicking in my mouth. She fumbled loose my belt and undid my trousers so that they pooled around my ankles. She reached in and took hold of me with her familiar, knowing hand. She bit into my neck as I cupped my hands on her perfectly toned buttocks and pulled her against me. I was already rock-hard.

  I hadn’t expected to be making love to my ex-wife on our wedding anniversary.

  It turned out that was the least of my problems.

  Part Four

  Chapter 64

  I OPENED MY eyes with a start.

  The clock on my bedside cabinet read 05:59. I watched it for a few seconds and it clicked over to 06:00. The radio alarm switched on. I tapped the button to turn it off and closed my eyes again.

  I did that most mornings. I don’t know why I bothered with the alarm. Since my army days I could pretty much tell myself when I wanted to wake up. And I did.

  My head didn’t feel as bad as it should have done. I had drunk far too many beers. Maybe the workout had compensated.

  I smiled a little. Little bit guilty. Little bit pleased with myself. Little bit co
nfused about what I was feeling, if I’m honest.

  Kirsty had gone at about four o’clock. She had been groaning when she awoke. She didn’t kiss me goodbye when she left. In fact, she didn’t say a word. I remember her picking up her boots and almost tiptoeing out of my bedroom like a naughty adolescent. I smiled briefly again but couldn’t afford the luxury of letting my thoughts linger. I opened my eyes again. Time to go to work.

  I swung my legs out of bed and yawned, turning it into a shout and shaking my head as I did so. I wasn’t feeling as bad as I should have been, but there were a few cobwebs to shake loose.

  An hour and fifteen minutes later and I was on the treadmill at the gym. I had already done a full workout – weights and cardiovascular – and was warming down.

  Sam Riddel was on the treadmill next to me. He hadn’t had as long a workout, but then again he probably hadn’t drunk a shedload of Corona beer. Far as I knew you don’t get hangovers from mineral water. We hadn’t spoken. He’d just nodded at me and gone through his weights routine.

  Sam looked across at me now. There was a slight, questioning wrinkle on his forehead.

  ‘You seem in a particularly good mood this morning,’ he said.

  ‘I just got a call from the hospital. Chloe has come out of the coma. She’s still critical. Still in intensive care, but she spoke to her mother and is sleeping naturally now.’

  ‘That’s great news, Dan.’

  ‘Word,’ I said. I can be down with my homies when I want.

  He looked at me again, even more suspiciously. ‘You get your ashes hauled last night?’ he asked.

  ‘A gentleman never tells.’

  ‘Saying you did – who would the lucky lady have been?’

  ‘Ah …’ I said.

  ‘Ah?’

  ‘It’s a long story. And we haven’t got time,’ I said, all business now. The treadmill slowed to a walking pace and I picked up my towel and headed for the showers.

  Half past eight and back in the office, I watched as Alison Chambers parked her car on the double yellow line below, tossed her keys to one of her flunkeys to park it and headed towards the building.

  If she could see me watching her she didn’t show it. I wondered what she would make of what had happened with Kirsty last night. I didn’t figure I would be telling her. I also wondered what she was doing at work on a Sunday, but I guess some lawyers are like some private detectives. You stop when the work is done.

  I crossed to the safe built into the wall, spun the dial and opened it. I took out the small bag containing the diamonds and put it in my pocket. A million pounds’ worth didn’t take up a lot of space. I left the shotgun in the safe, but took out the pistol and shoulder holster, hefted the gun in my hands for a moment or two and then put it back.

  ‘Good move,’ Sam said from the doorway.

  ‘But is it?’ I replied. ‘These guys are going to be carrying. If things turn nasty maybe we should have some backup. They nearly killed Chloe remember.’

  ‘It’s Parliament Square, Dan. Anybody starts producing hardware and nobody’s going to get very far. You got any idea of the amount of security down there?’

  ‘Makes me wonder why they chose it for the exchange.’

  Sam shrugged. ‘It’s a big open space in the centre of London. Lots of exits, lots of entrances. They can have eyes on us from a hundred different places. We try anything and they’ll know it. There’s security all around the parliament buildings. We’re out in the open. It’s a perfect—’

  I held my hand up to stop him. I had a bad feeling he was going to say killing ground.

  Chapter 65

  I HADN’T FELT the hairs on the back of my neck prickle so much since my days in Iraq.

  Back then, marking out a minefield in the middle of no-man’s-land was like playing Russian Roulette every day. Sam was right. Parliament Square is a big open space located at the north-west end of the Palace of Westminster, or the Houses of Parliament as they’re called on the bottles of that old brown sauce.

  I was standing with my back to the Robert Peel statue, as ordered. Presumably they had picked that depiction of the founder of the first metropolitan police force in the world as some kind of ironic joke.

  If it was, then I wasn’t laughing. I was scanning the area. The man who gave his name to the British ‘Bobby’ was on the south-western edge of the large green that was in the middle of the square. Around it stood, among other buildings, the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster – or Westminster Abbey to you and me – the smaller Anglican church of St Margaret, the parish church of the Houses of Parliament, and 100 Parliament Street, headquarters of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

  And from where I was standing I could have picked up a stone and thrown it at the Middlesex Guildhall, which is home to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Like I said, I think Hannah Shapiro’s abductors were tweaking our noses a little. Still, you could understand why the area was so popular with tourists.

  Especially on a Sunday.

  There were four major roads into the square and a Tube station right by it.

  I looked at my watch. A couple of minutes or so to go.

  Sam Riddel was somewhere close by, but I couldn’t see him. Not that he was going to be able to do a great deal if something bad went down. In addition we had people stationed on each of the roads into the square and by the entrances to the Tube station.

  It was the second hot day in a row. Certainly breaking records for the time of year. I looked at my watch again. Showtime.

  My phone went. I checked the ID: Brad Dexter. ‘Yes, Brad?’

  ‘You got a big crowd marching down past me, Dan. Heading into the square. They just appeared from nowhere.’

  The phone beeped again, another incoming call: Suzy this time – different street, same message. And again. And again. All four watch stations saying the same thing.

  All hell broke loose.

  First came the noise. Megaphones and chants. Then the people. Random groups seemed to join together as hundreds started pouring in from St Margaret Street, Broad Sanctuary, Great George Street and Bridge Street. Banners were unfurled as they all headed towards the green.

  A group of black-faced Border-style Morris dancers were capering about in outlandish costumes, heading towards me as more and more banners were unfurled. The chanting grew louder.

  Until the summer of last year there had been a permanent protest camp set up on the green. A ragbag assortment of tents, flags and slogan banners, with straw bales used for toilets. The camp called itself the Democracy Village.

  Originally the protest consisted of just one man, Brian Haw. He set up the site in 2001 to protest against the suffering caused by the sanctions imposed on the Iraqis in the 1990s. However, as events unfolded in Iraq he stayed to protest against the invasion and occupation. The more recent self-styled Democracy Village was not aligned with him and when the people had been evicted a year ago they’d vowed they would be back.

  A number of smaller demonstrations had already taken place but this looked like a large-scale organised one. As this kind of protest was illegal in the square they obviously hadn’t made any public announcements about it.

  I looked at my watch again and my phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out, flicked the lock off and clicked on the incoming-message icon. It read: ‘Don’t forget to pay the piper.’

  I looked across the square.

  The black-faced dancers in black, yellow and green rags and with feathers in their hats were about fifty yards or so away now. People were milling around them. One of them was holding out a gaudy cap as if to collect money. But it was neither the time or place for that – unless they were looking to collect big, of course.

  I could see why they had picked this time and place now. It was absolute chaos. The dancers didn’t seem to be in any hurry, mind. They were dancing and twirling, shouting and clattering sticks.

  I’ve always hated Morris dancers. Now I wished I had packed so
me serious heat. Do the whole world a favour right there and then!

  I looked at them. None of them was big enough to be Brendan Ferres. That was for sure. The guy with the collecting hat was tall but nowhere near as wide as Ferres and he was wearing black-rimmed glasses. One of the dancers in the middle didn’t seem too enthusiastic. Smaller-framed than the others. Hard to tell from this distance, but my guess was that it was Hannah. She was surrounded at all times. As one dancer twirled away another jigged in. They were corralling her.

  Just as well I didn’t bring the shotgun. Like I said, I would have been sorely tempted to take them all down. Wasn’t my call, to make though, and the instructions from Harlan Shapiro through Jack Morgan had been explicit. No heroics. No improvisation. Just pay them the agreed amount and get Hannah home safe.

  I put my hand in my pocket, putting it around the bag of diamonds, clasping it tight.

  And then everything went to hell in a handcart.

  Chapter 66

  A LARGE GROUP of uniformed policemen came running past the dancers, heading straight for me.

  DI Kirsty Webb followed closely behind.

  The crowd milled past the dancers who had stopped dancing and were watching me. The lead dancer pointed his finger at me like the barrel of a gun and mimed pulling the trigger. Then they were lost in the huge crowd that surged around them. I tried to give chase but at that moment the riot police arrived and a wall of perspex shields and raised batons blocked my way.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Kirsty?’

  ‘We got a call!’

  ‘What are you talking about? Got a call from who?’

  Kirsty held her warrant card up and led me past the riot police who were attempting to ‘kettle’ the demonstrators behind us.

  ‘Division got an anonymous call. Telling us the missing package will be delivered at the Robert Peel statue here at ten o’clock. We got here as fast as we could.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you just might have served her a death sentence.’

  She glared right back at me. ‘You got the same message, I take it? Seeing as you’re here.’