“Up here.” De Villiers pointed over Morgan’s shoulder. Morgan brushed by the armed man as he made his way through the cramped corridor and up the narrow staircase. Behind him, De Villiers stooped so that his head avoided the ceiling.
When Morgan reached the top of the short flight he turned and found himself in what amounted to a studio apartment, the walls thick with books, the antique wooden desk piled high with papers.
There was a woman sitting at it.
“Your Highness,” Morgan greeted Princess Caroline, his outward appearance giving away nothing of his surprise. He had expected De Villiers to be taking him to some intelligence briefing—or to detain him, had he developed cold feet. Instead, Morgan now found himself in the top-secret hiding place of Princess Caroline. Hearing footsteps behind him as De Villiers walked back down the steps, it became apparent that this reception was to be for Jack Morgan alone.
Princess Caroline turned to face the American at the top of her tiny staircase. Her initial expression was one of grief, mourning the loss of her beloved Sophie, but then he saw something else in her face, too—shock. Perhaps fear.
“Jack.” She rose to her feet and removed her reading glasses. “Jack, you look like a different man.”
Morgan said nothing and stood as still as the Tower’s bayonet-carrying soldiers while Princess Caroline crossed the small room. She stopped in front of him and embraced him. It was the embrace of someone who had experienced the deepest pain of loss, and who could see that same emptiness of grief in him.
“I’m so sorry,” the royal told him, her words muffled by Morgan’s windbreaker. “I’m so very sorry.” In her words, he could feel the Princess expressing her sadness and regret for her own loss as much as his. They had both had the woman they loved taken from them. Perhaps, that night, there were no two souls more alike than the British royal and the American investigator.
Morgan hugged her back.
There was no awkwardness in the moment. They were two people. Two people trapped in grief. Consumed by it. United by it.
“I’m reviewing grant applications,” Caroline said suddenly, breaking the embrace and moving back to her desk. “I need some good to come from today, Jack. When I close my eyes tonight, I want to know there’s good in the world, and not just evil.
“Here.” She picked up a sheaf of papers. “This one’s for a well in Africa.” She picked up a second proposal. “This one for a girls’ school in Pakistan. Do you think it will make a difference? I hope so. The thought of improving the lives of children struggling in such impoverished conditions is the only thing that could possibly help me sleep tonight.”
Morgan said nothing. They both knew that a good night’s sleep was impossible for either one of them.
“I didn’t even know about him,” said Princess Caroline, taking a seat on the room’s small bed and gesturing that Morgan sit beside her. “Mayoor Patel. I’d never even heard that name before, and now it will be with me forever. What does he look like?”
Morgan told her.
“I picture this ogre in my head,” she said. “Is he the monster I picture him to be?”
Morgan shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But I don’t think he ever intended to kill Sophie. It was a crime of passion, a situation he lost control of. It wasn’t planned or calculated. Some people kill when they don’t mean to. Others do it because they’re sick.”
“You’ve met a lot of people like that,” Caroline guessed.
“Too many.”
“I suppose Sophie kept secrets from everyone. Even from me. I think she knew that, had I known she had a love for someone else, it would have broken my heart. I’m telling myself that she kept her relationship with him a secret so that I didn’t get hurt.”
“She loved you,” Morgan assured her, his eyes telling her that it was the truth. “Patel told me as much. He tried to make her blackmail you, but she wouldn’t do it. That’s when he realized it was love.”
“And that’s when he killed her.”
There was nothing Morgan could say to that.
“People will say that we were lucky to have loved, even if for a short time,” she tried, desperate to be stoic.
Morgan didn’t answer in words, but he couldn’t hide the answer on his face.
“Fucking bullshit, isn’t it?” Caroline uttered with a sad laugh. “Absolute bullshit. I would die on the spot to bring Sophie back.”
“But it wouldn’t,” Morgan replied.
“No. It wouldn’t.”
“I should go. It was good to see you, Your Highness.”
“Whatever help I can give. Whatever help my people can give. It’s yours, Jack.”
As Morgan reached the bottom of the narrow staircase, he found the proof of that vow: De Villiers was waiting for him.
“I found something,” said the Colonel.
Chapter 89
MORGAN FOLLOWED DE Villiers down a stone staircase and into a cellar. The air was cold and dank, and Morgan sniffed at the smell of mothballs. The cellar was now a storeroom for tables and chairs draped in dust sheets, and a home for spiders, their cobwebs littering the space, clinging to the ceiling’s wooden beams like the torn sails of some battered warship. De Villiers frowned at the unkempt space, then turned his attention to the American.
“I cross-referenced Flex’s record with the SAS men on the Princess’s security detail,” the Colonel explained. “I started with the oldest first, as they were most likely to cross paths.”
“And you found one?” Morgan asked.
“Second name I tried. I’ve got my most trusted people checking the others, but until then, I told Corporal Joyce to meet us down here, so that we can have a chat.”
Corporal Joyce, of the Special Air Service Regiment, arrived in the cellar a few minutes later. Having been called from rest, he was unarmed, wearing only a tracksuit and a frown.
“Colonel De Villiers down here?” he asked the room’s sole occupant, Jack Morgan.
“He’s not,” Morgan said simply.
“Oh. All right. Wrong bloody room.” The man was about to turn away when Morgan’s words stopped him.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” he asked. “I saw it in your face. You know who I am, and now you’re about to run upstairs, to tell your boy Flex.”
Joyce tried to snort at such a ridiculous notion, but his shifting feet and awkward posture paid testament to his guilt. “I don’t know who you are, mate. And I don’t care.” He turned, coming face to face with Colonel De Villiers.
Who held a dusty chair by its legs.
“Bastard!” the Colonel roared, swinging the piece of furniture down on the treacherous man. Joyce raised his arms to protect himself, but the Colonel was tall, and his swing fierce. The blow smashed against Joyce’s arm with the sound of cracking bone.
“Jesus!” the man gasped, dropping to one knee.
“Colonel!” Morgan shouted, shocked at the attack. “Colonel! Stop!”
But De Villiers would not stop. He brought the chair down on the man again, this time over Joyce’s back. He was about to swing the remnants of the now-broken chair a third time, but Morgan wrestled it from his grasp. Denied, De Villiers settled for delivering a kick into Joyce’s stomach.
“He did it! It was all over his face, Morgan! You piece of shit, Joyce! I’ll beat you to death for this!”
Morgan held the Colonel back, and spoke evenly into his ear. “Colonel. We need him to talk. We need him in one piece, so he can talk. That’s how we find Flex. That’s how we get justice for Lewis, Perkins and Cook.”
“You’ll talk,” the Colonel growled at the man on the floor.
Morgan, knowing the SAS’s training to withstand interrogation, did not expect the man to give it up easily.
He was wrong.
“I didn’t know he was gonna do what he did!” the soldier spat between gritted teeth. “I didn’t know, sir!”
“What did you do?” De Villiers hissed. “Why were you helping him?”
“He said this one had tried to kill him over money,” Joyce replied, pointing a hand at Morgan. “He came into Flex’s gym and attacked him, but Flex beat him off. I was helping him get even.”