Chapter 32
JUST AFTER NINE that evening, not long after Karen Pope’s article appeared on the Sun’s website, London radio stations began to pick up the story, focusing on the Cronus angle and rebroadcasting the flute music.
By ten, shortly after Knight had read the twins a story, changed Luke’s nappy, and tucked them both into bed, the BBC was whipped into a frenzy, reporting on the allegations about Sir Denton Marshall and the Olympic site-selection process, as well as Guilder’s dying confession that it had all been his swindle.
Knight cleaned and vacuumed talcum powder until eleven, and then poured himself a beer and a whisky, swallowed more pain medication, and crawled into bed. Jack Morgan called, distraught over Joe Mascolo’s death, and insisted on Knight describing in detail the gunfight that had unfolded at One Aldwych.
‘He was fearless,’ Knight said. ‘Went right after the shooter.’
‘That was Joe Mascolo all the way,’ Jack said sadly. ‘One of Brooklyn’s finest before I hired him away to run protection for us in New York. He only got here a couple of days ago.’
‘That’s brutal,’ Knight replied.
‘It is, and it’s about to get worse,’ Jack said. ‘I have to call his wife.’
Jack hung up. Knight realised that he had not told Private’s owner that he, Knight, had lost his nanny. Better that way, he decided after several moments’ worry. The American already had too much on his plate.
He turned on the television to find the Marshall and Guilder slayings splashed all over the nightly news and cable outlets, which were luridly portraying the broader narrative as a scandalous murder-mystery, a shocking allegation about the Byzantine world behind the Olympics site-selection process, as well as a slap against London and indeed the entire UK on the eve of the Games.
Despite Guilder’s dying words to the contrary, the French in particular were said to be very unhappy with Cronus’s allegation about Olympic corruption.
Knight switched off the television and sat there in the silence. He picked up his whisky glass and drank deeply from it before looking at the framed photograph on his dresser.
Very pregnant and sublimely beautiful, his late wife Kate stood in profile on a Scottish moor lit by a June sunset. She was looking across her left shoulder, seeming to peer out from the photograph at him, radiating the joy and love that had been so cruelly taken from him almost three years before.
‘Tough day, Katie girl,’ Knight whispered. ‘I’m badly beaten up. Someone’s trying to wreck the Olympics. My mother is destroyed. And the kids have driven another nanny from the house and … I miss you. More than ever.’
He felt a familiar leadenness return to his heart and mind, which triggered a sinking sensation in his chest. He wallowed in that sensation, indeed let himself drown in it for a minute or two, and then did what he always did when he was openly grieving for Kate late at night like this.
Knight turned off the television, took his blankets and pillows and padded into the nursery. He lay down on the couch looking at the cots, smelling the smells of his children, and was at last comforted into sleep by the gentle rhythm of their breathing.