“My name’s Jack Morgan, Mrs. Edwards. I’m a private investigator.”
The woman in the doorway said nothing, but her face said it all. Morgan saw the first traces of fear and placed a calming hand on her shoulder.
“May I come in?”
Chapter 18
PETER KNIGHT WAS searching for a parking spot on a busy London street when the call came through his car’s system. He saw Morgan’s name and answered.
“Go ahead, Jack.”
“I talked with Sophie’s parents.”
Morgan’s tone suggested that the meeting had not proved fruitful, but Knight asked how it went anyway.
“According to them,” Morgan answered, “Sophie went missing when she left for university. They said that she never got tired of telling them how much she hated it in Brecon.”
“Any suspicion of the parents?” Knight asked.
“No,” Morgan answered, trusting his gut. “They looked worn down by her, but that was about it. Both schoolteachers. Not the kind of people to have the connections to set a shooter loose.”
“So they’re a dead end?”
“They’re a dead end. Have you broken the news to Sir Tony’s daughter yet?” Morgan asked. Knight had forwarded him the contents of the USB stick. “That took some watching,” the American added. “It was hard to hold down my bacon and eggs.”
Knight sighed as he finally found a place to park. “No. I’m just arriving now.”
“I don’t envy you this one, Peter.”
Knight let out a long sigh as he slotted the car into position and pulled on the handbrake. “It won’t be easy. Stay safe, Jack.”
“Good luck.”
Knight ended the call and stepped out into the street. One look at the clouds told him that the good weather was close to breaking. Complaining under his breath about the British summer, he walked the short distance to the home of Eliza Lightwood. He had called ahead, and she was working from home to accommodate his visit. The security guards in the apartment building buzzed him inside and escorted Knight to the lift.
“Hello, Peter,” Eliza greeted him at the door. Her handshake was firm and she looked optimistic. “You have something?”
“I do,” Knight confirmed. “Better I tell you in private.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Then she led Peter inside her penthouse apartment.
“Is it bad?” she asked, the slightest tremor of doubt in her voice.
Knight nodded. There was no way to soften what had to be done, and so he came right out with it. “Eliza, your father was being blackmailed by a prostitute. The USB drive we found in your father’s room contained a graphic video that the blackmailer was threatening to share publicly.”
If he had been expecting a dramatic reaction at the revelation, he didn’t get it.
“Oh” was all that Eliza said.
“I’ve seen it before with blackmail,” Knight said. “People don’t think they have a way out, so they choose death over—”
“Shame?” Eliza finished for him, taking a seat as the dam of her strength finally showed signs of cracking. “That stupid old fool. I couldn’t have given a shit if he was sleeping with every prostitute in London. He was my dad.”
Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. Knight could see that the realization of her father’s suicide was finally hitting home. “Stupid old fool.” She sighed again.
“I’m sorry, Eliza.”
“It does seem clear now, doesn’t it?” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I suppose you can put me in with all those other deluded people who just couldn’t accept the truth staring them in the face. I still can’t believe it. That he’d take his life over… a whore.”
“Blackmail is a terrible crime. It pushes people into a corner.”
“Who was it?” Eliza asked, her voice hardening.
“We don’t know. The face of the woman in the video was obscured and there are no obvious clues.”
She shook her head angrily. “You did your job, Peter. You proved to me my father committed suicide. You can close this case. Close this one, and open another… Find the bastards who blackmailed my father.”
Chapter 19
JANE COOK HAD mixed memories of Brecon. As a soldier she had often trained in the mountains, and those memories were of being cold, wet, hungry and tired—no, exhausted. But then there were the good memories. Memories of camaraderie. Memories of shared challenges, and shared victories. That was what Cook had loved about being a part of the army, and that was what she loved about being a part of Private.
Cook had approached the Welsh market town as she would an Afghan one. That was not to say she sought out traps and ambushes—though she was vigilant—but that she talked in a friendly manner to shop owners, police officers and anyone who was happy to give her their time. She did not question these people directly on Sophie, but used her as bait, telling them she was visiting Brecon based on the recommendation of a university friend who had been born there. Inevitably, in such a small town, people would ask for the name of that friend.
“Sophie Edwards,” Cook would tell them.
“We know Sophie!” the two girls serving in the coffee shop told her, excited.
“Such a small world, isn’t it?” the taller of the pair said.
“We were in the same school year,” the shorter one explained. “Haven’t seen her since leaving day,” she added without prompting.
“That must have been about the time she went off to London, and met you?”
“I suppose it was,” Cook replied. “She didn’t waste any time leaving here, did she?”
The shorter girl snorted. Her body language told Cook that although she knew Sophie, she might not have cared too much for her. “Well, she wouldn’t, would she? All we heard through school was how shit this town is, and how she was going to move to London and not come back.”
“Really?” Cook said. “She always said how beautiful this place is.”
“Not in school she didn’t,” the taller woman replied, adding the finishing touches to Cook’s coffee. “One pound fifty please.”
Cook paid with a five and put the change in the tip jar.
“Do you guys keep in touch with her?” she asked.
The two young women shared a look. The taller one answered. “I don’t think anyone’s seen her since she left.”
The other one shook her head. “She didn’t want anything to do with her life here. She wouldn’t even accept my Facebook friend request.”
Cook’s first instinct was to smile at that statement, but then a thought hit her like a cold slap to the face. Where else would you search for a young woman in her twenties?
Chapter 20
JACK MORGAN PULLED the Range Rover to a stop outside the coffee shop. To avoid being a static target on the street, Cook had waited inside, her eyes on the door, an emergency exit route planned through the back, behind the counter. At a gesture from Morgan, she moved to join them.
“Tell me something good,” the American asked of her, pulling out into the light traffic.
“Sophie’s a ghost here,” she told him, confirming Morgan’s own experience at the parents’ house.
Morgan nodded. “If she ran away from London, she didn’t come here. We’ll head back to…”
“Llwynywermod,” Lewis finished, pronouncing the name of the royal residence for the American.
“We’ll have the helicopter meet us there, and take us back to London.”
“London?” Cook asked.
“She’s not here. Next step is to see if she’s hiding, or being hidden, under everyone’s noses.”
“I’m going through her social media to see if there are any clues on there,” Cook informed him.
“HQ have already done that. There was nothing. No movements. No recent updates.”
“I know,” she replied, “but there could be something else. A pattern, maybe. Something.”
“OK,” Morgan allowed. “Follow your nose—”
He was about to add more when he saw Lewis looking anxiously behind them. “What is it?”
“Black BMW. I’ve seen it three times today.”
“Can you make out the plates?”
“No. Too far back.”
“I’ll pull over. See if you can get the plates as they go past.”
Lewis nodded. Morgan noticed that her hand was on her pistol.
He pulled the car onto the side of the road.