“Nothing but class and finesse here,” Hooligan concluded.
“You have stains on your shirt,” Knight smirked, proud of his technician.
“That was Perkins’ fault!” Hooligan shouted. “He told me Millwall would win the FA Cup this year and I spat me brew out!”
Knight began to laugh, but the sound died in his throat as Hooligan tapped at his keyboard and the contents of the USB stick flashed up onto a big screen.
“Not good, is it?” Hooligan said.
Knight shook his head. “No, it’s not.”
“It gets worse.”
Hooligan hit play on a video. Knight’s jaw dropped.
Revealed on the screen, in graphic detail, was the reason for Sir Tony’s death.
Chapter 16
JACK MORGAN SHOWERED quickly, feeling underdressed as he pulled on a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. The American wasn’t certain what you were supposed to wear to breakfast with a princess, but he was fairly certain that it wasn’t the rumpled clothing from his travel bag.
Morgan found Sharon Lewis waiting on the other side of the door. “You didn’t tell me she was here.”
“It’s your job to tell me things, Morgan, so that I can pass them on to her. This is a one-way system until she says otherwise.”
Morgan didn’t bother to press the issue. He could see that Lewis was dedicated and loyal to Princess Caroline to a fault—unless the royal said jump, Lewis would stand in front of an oncoming truck.
“Have you been with her long?” he asked as they walked through the barn conversion. Aside from the cameras and bulletproof glass, it could have been any other home in the countryside.
“Five years,” Lewis answered proudly.
“That’s a long time to be in the same detail.”
“I asked to stay.”
“Why?”
“I’ve worked with a lot of politicians, and a few royals. Princess Caroline’s different.”
“Different how?”
Lewis came to a stop. “The kitchen’s in there. Go ahead.”
“Do I bow?”
Lewis laughed, but said nothing. Morgan walked inside. If he was expecting silverware, waiters and a stuffed boar on the table, he was to be disappointed. Princess Caroline stood at a breakfast bar. She wore yoga pants and a hoody, and was pouring herself a bowl of cereal.
“Morning, Jack.” The royal smiled. “Help yourself to cereal, or there are bacon and eggs in the fridge. I could make you some, if you’d like?”
Morgan’s appetite had been stoked by his workout, but even had he been full, he would not turn down the chance to eat bacon and eggs cooked by the potential future monarch of the United Kingdom.
“Bacon and eggs sounds great, Your Highness. Thank you.” Morgan wondered if anyone had ever uttered those words before, thinking of what a story this would make for his grandchildren—should he live to have any.
Perhaps Princess Caroline read his thoughts. “You had an eventful night,” she said simply, laying the bacon into a pan where it sizzled and spat.
“Not the greatest room service,” Morgan said, trying to make light of it.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Jack. I really have no idea why.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t.”
Morgan held his tongue. The kitchen was quiet but for the sound of the bacon frying.
“Do you still want the job?” Caroline asked eventually.
Morgan was taken aback. Despite the danger, he had not for one second thought about backing away from the mission. “Of course.”
Caroline appeared relieved. “Then I’m sending Lewis to work with you. She’s a Welsh speaker, Jack, and that could be useful. She can also legally carry a firearm.”
After last night’s attack, a firearm on Morgan’s side could be more than useful.
“How do you like your eggs?” she asked.
“Scrambled,” Morgan answered, before pulling the conversation back on course. “Your Highness, somebody fired seventeen bullets into my room last night.”
“The police are investigating,” she assured him quickly.
“I’m sure they are, but people don’t get shot at because they’re out looking for a young woman who liked to party a little too much—even if she is the friend of a princess.”
He let the statement hang in the air, and with it the implied question—what wasn’t he being told?
The Princess broke her eyes from the American and turned back to the cooker top. For a few quiet minutes she stirred eggs in a pot, then slid the bacon and eggs onto a plate, which she placed on the breakfast bar in front of her guest.
“Eat up, Jack. It’s going to be a long day.”
Chapter 17
THE DRIVE TO Brecon was quiet. They took the Range Rover, Cook behind the wheel with Lewis riding shotgun, where she would be in the best position to react to any attack. In the back seat, Morgan regularly looked over his shoulders, but saw no sign of a tail—the winding roads of the Brecon Beacons, combined with the light traffic, made it difficult terrain to follow and remain inconspicuous. It would be different once they reached the town. That would be where they were at their most vulnerable, but it was where they had to go.
Despite the attack of the previous night, the team would still split into two: Morgan and Lewis to meet Sophie’s parents on the town’s outskirts, and Cook to track down possible friends in the town center. Morgan considered changing the plan and keeping everyone together, but Cook convinced him not to.
“They took a swipe at you in a quiet hotel in the middle of the night,” she explained. “I’m going to be in a town center with witnesses and police around. I served in Afghanistan,” the former soldier reminded him, “I can handle Brecon.”
Morgan relented. The truth was, in a missing-persons case, every second was vital. Keeping the team together meant doubling the time to work the same leads, and that time was a luxury Sophie Edwards may not have.
The Range Rover came to a halt and Morgan took Cook’s place behind the wheel. “You don’t leave the town center,” he repeated to her.
“Think about your own safety, Jack. It wasn’t me who ended up in the ceiling.”
Morgan was thinking of his own safety, fully aware that if Lewis had been the one to shoot up the hotel room, then he could be dead before he ever reached Sophie’s parents’ house. Prepared for such an eventuality, he was ready to hit the brake hard if he saw the officer move to draw her weapon. He hoped that would buy him the split second needed to pull out the steak knife he had liberated from Princess Caroline’s kitchen, and which now resided inside his right boot. It was risky, but it was all he had. That, and putting his trust in Princess Caroline and her appointed officer.
“Have you met Sophie?” he asked Lewis as they drove on.
“I have.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She was the Princess’s friend, not mine.”
“You’re a police officer. You’re observant. What did you observe?”
Lewis held her reply for a long moment, instead turning her eyes to the green hillsides that surrounded the town and the growing clouds above them. “It’s going to rain. So much for the good weather.”
Morgan suppressed his frustration and kept his tone neutral. “Sophie, Lewis. What did you observe about her?”
The police officer shook her head. “That she got what she had coming,” she told him.
“Why do you say that?” he pressed, but Lewis would offer no detail to back up her statement. Instead, the GPS announced their arrival at the home of Sophie’s parents.
Frustrated and more wary of Lewis than ever, Morgan told her to wait in the car while he headed for the front door of a light-brick home set in a quintessential British middle-class estate.
Morgan rang the bell. He saw shapes moving behind the glass, and then the door opened to reveal a short woman with jet-black hair, and large eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.
“Mrs. Edwards?” Morgan guessed.
“Yes?” she replied, eyebrows raising in wonder at his American accent.
“Is Sophie home?”
“Sophie?” Mrs. Edwards sounded confused by the question. “She hasn’t lived here for years. Can I ask who—”