Authors: James Patterson
He changed Luke’s nappy, then bathed and fed them both before getting Isabel into a dress and his son into blue shorts and a white collared shirt. With admonitions not to get their clothes dirty, Knight set himself a record time showering, shaving and dressing. They left the house at nine, went to the garage nearby, and retrieved a Range Rover that they rarely used.
Knight drove north through the streets with Isabel and Luke in their car seats behind him, listening to the news on the radio. It was the last full day of Olympic competition with many relay-race finals to be decided that afternoon.
The announcers talked of the heavy criticism being heaped on Scotland Yard and MI5 over their inability to make any kind of a major breakthrough in the Cronus investigations. No mention was made of the war-criminal’s hands though. Pottersfield had asked that it should be kept quiet for the time being.
Many athletes who were finished with the competition were already leaving. Most others, like Hunter Pierce, had vowed to remain at the Olympic Park until the end, no matter what Cronus and his Furies might try.
Knight drove to Enfield, then east and south of Waltham Abbey towards High Beach and Epping Forest.
‘Lots of trees,’ Isabel said when they’d entered the forest proper.
‘Your mummy liked lots of trees.’
The dappled sunlight shone through the foliage that surrounded High Beach Church, which sat in a clearing not far into the woods. There were several cars parked, but Epping Forest was a popular place to walk, and Knight did not expect anyone else to be here specifically for Kate. His mother was lost in her own grief, and Kate’s parents had both died young.
They went into the empty church where Knight got the children each to light a candle in their mother’s memory. He lit one for Kate, and then lit five more for his colleagues who had died in the plane crash. Holding Isabel and Luke’s hands, he led them from the church and out along a path that led into the woods.
A light breeze rustled the leaves. Six or seven minutes later, the vegetation thinned and they passed through a tumble-down stone wall into a sparse grove of ancient oaks growing in long untamed grass that sighed in the summer wind.
Knight stood a while looking at the scene, hugging his children to him, and struggling to control his emotions for their sake.
‘Your mummy used to go to that church as a little girl, but she liked to come out here,’ he told them softly. ‘She said the trees were so old that this was a blessed place where she could talk to God. That’s why I spread her …’
He choked up.
‘It was a perfect choice, Peter,’ a woman’s emotion-drenched voice said behind them. ‘This was Kate’s favourite place.’
Knight turned, wiping tears from his eyes with his sleeve.
Holding tight to his trouser leg, Isabel asked, ‘Who’s that lady, Daddy?’
Knight smiled. ‘That’s your Aunt Elaine, darling. Mummy’s older sister.’
‘I KNEW I
couldn’t make the party,’ Knight’s sister-in-law explained quietly on the ride back into London while the children slept in the back of the car. ‘And, anyway, I thought meeting them there would make me feel better.’
They were nearing the garage where Knight kept the Range Rover.
‘Did it?’ Knight asked.
Pottersfield nodded and her eyes got glassy. ‘It seemed right, as if I could feel her there.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘I’m sorry. The way I treated you. I know it was all Kate’s decision to have the twins at home. I just …’
‘No more talk of that,’ Knight said, parking. ‘We’re beyond all that. My children are lucky to have you in their lives.
I’m
lucky to have you in my life.’
She sighed, and smiled sadly. ‘Okay. Need any help?’
Knight looked over his shoulder at his sleeping children. ‘Yes. They’re getting too big to carry that far by myself.’
Pottersfield took Isabel and Knight hoisted Luke, and they walked the short distance to his house. He heard the television playing inside.
‘The new nanny,’ he said, fishing for his keys. ‘She always arrives early.’
‘You don’t hear that much any more.’
‘It’s brilliant, actually,’ Knight admitted. ‘She’s a miracle, the only one ever to tame them. She’s got them helping to clean up their room and going to sleep at a snap of her fingers.’
He opened the door and Marta appeared almost instantly. She frowned to see Luke fast asleep on her father’s shoulder. ‘Too much excitement, I think,’ she said, took him from Knight and looked curiously at Pottersfield.
‘Marta, this is Elaine,’ Knight said. ‘My sister-in-law.’
‘Oh, hello,’ Pottersfield said, studying Marta. ‘Peter speaks highly of you.’
Marta laughed nervously, and bobbed her head, saying, ‘Mr Knight is too kind.’ She paused and asked, ‘Did I see you on the television?’
‘Maybe. I work at Scotland Yard.’
Marta looked ready to reply when Isabel woke up grumpily, looked at her aunt, and whined, ‘I want my daddy.’
Knight took her from Pottersfield, saying, ‘Daddy has to go to work for a few hours, but he’ll be back in time for the party.’
Marta said, ‘We’ll go and get cake soon. And balloons.’
Isabel brightened and Luke woke up. Pottersfield’s mobile rang.
The inspector listened closely, began nodding, and then said, ‘Where are they taking her?’
She listened while Marta came and took Isabel from Knight and shepherded the children down the hall towards the kitchen, saying, ‘Who wants apple juice?’
Pottersfield snapped shut her phone, looked at Knight and said, ‘A constable just picked up Serena Farrell wandering incoherent, filthy, and covered in her own excrement somewhere inside the ruins of the old Beckton Gas Works. They’re bringing her to St Thomas’s Hospital.’
Knight glanced back over his shoulder at Marta, who held Isabel and Luke’s hands tightly.
‘I’ll be back by five to help you put up decorations,’ he promised.
‘Everything will be under control by then,’ she replied confidently. ‘Leave everything to me, Mr Knight.’
‘ARE YOU SURE?’
I demand, doing everything in my power not to scream into my mobile.
‘Positive,’ Marta hisses back at me. ‘She was found wandering around the Beckton Gas Works, not far from the factory. Who was there last?’
First Petra and now you, Teagan, I think murderously as I glance at Marta’s sister next to me behind the wheel of her car. My thoughts are boiling again. But I reply cryptically to Marta: ‘Does it matter?’
‘I’d go and clean that factory out if I were you,’ Marta says. ‘They’re right behind us.’
It’s true. Over the homicidal buzz I’ve got going in my ears, I can almost hear the baying of dogs.
What a blunder! What a colossal blunder! Farrell wasn’t supposed to be freed until tomorrow morning, a diversion that would draw all police attention to her while I completed my revenge. I should have just killed Farrell when I had the chance. But no, I had to be clever. I had to pile deception upon deception upon deception. But this one has backfired on me.
My fingers go to that scar on the back of my head and the hatred ignites.
My hand has been forced. My only hope is ruthlessness.
‘Take the children,’ I say. ‘Now. You know what to do.’
‘I do,’ Marta replies. ‘The little darlings are already fast asleep.’
THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS,
and smells of St Thomas’s Hospital unnerved Knight in a way he did not expect. He hadn’t been back in a medical facility of any sort since Kate’s body had been taken to one and it made him feel disorientated by the time he and Pottersfield reached the intensive-care unit.
‘This is what she looked like when they found her,’ the Metropolitan Police officer guarding the room said, showing them a picture.
Farrell was dressed as Syren St James, filthy in the extreme, and looking as dazed as a lobotomy patient. An IV line hung from one hand.
‘She talking?’ Pottersfield asked.
‘Babbled about a body with no hands,’ the officer said.
‘No hands?’ Knight said, glancing at Pottersfield.
‘Not much of what she said made sense. But you might have a better chance now that they’ve given her an anti-narcotic.’
‘She was on narcotics?’ Pottersfield asked. ‘We know that for certain?’
‘Powerful doses, mixed with sedatives,’ he replied.
They entered the intensive-care unit. Professor Selena Farrell lay asleep in a bed surrounded by monitoring equipment, her skin a deathly grey. Pottersfield went to her side and said, ‘Professor Farrell?’
The professor’s face screwed up in anger. ‘Go away. Head. Hurts. Bad.’ Her words were slurred and trailed off at the end.
‘Professor Farrell,’ Pottersfield said firmly. ‘I’m Inspector Elaine Pottersfield of the Metropolitan Police. I have to speak with you. Open your eyes, please.’
Farrell’s eyes blinked open and she cringed. ‘Turn off lights. Migraine.’
A nurse closed the unit’s curtains. Farrell opened her eyes again. She gazed around the room, saw Knight, and looked puzzled. ‘What happened to me?’
‘We were hoping
you
could tell
us
, professor,’ Knight said.
‘I don’t know.’
Pottersfield said, ‘Can you explain why your DNA – from your hair, to be exact – was found in one of the letters from Cronus to Karen Pope?’
The information was slow to penetrate Farrell’s fogged brain. ‘Pope? The reporter?’ she said to Knight. ‘My DNA? No, I don’t remember.’
‘What
do
you remember?’ Knight demanded.
Farrell blinked and groaned, and then said: ‘Dark room. I’m on a bed, alone. Tied down. Can’t get up. My head is splitting open, and they won’t give me anything to stop it.’
‘Who are “they”?’ Knight demanded.
‘Women. Different women.’
Pottersfield was beginning to look irritated. She said, ‘Selena, do you understand that your DNA links you to seven murders in the last two weeks?’
That shocked the professor and she became more alert. ‘What? Seven …? I haven’t killed anyone. I never … What, what day is it?’
‘Saturday, 11 August 2012,’ Knight replied.
The professor moaned, ‘No. It felt like I was only there overnight.’
‘In the dark room with women?’ Pottersfield asked.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘No,’ Pottersfield said.
Knight said, ‘Why did you fake getting sick and flee your office when Karen Pope played the flute music to you?’
Farrell’s eyes widened. ‘It made me sick, because … I’d heard it before.’
I TERMINATE THE
call to Marta and look over at Teagan, feeling as if I’d like to rip her head off right now. But she’s behind the wheel and an accident is out of the question at this late stage of the game.
‘Turn around,’ I say, struggling for calm. ‘We’ve got to go to the factory.’
‘The factory?’ Teagan replies nervously. ‘It’s broad daylight.’
‘Farrell escaped. She was picked up inside the gasworks. Knight and the Scotland Yard inspector Pottersfield is with her at the hospital right now.’
Teagan loses colour.
‘How could that have happened?’ I demand softly. ‘She wasn’t supposed to be freed until tomorrow morning. It was your responsibility to see to that, sister.’
Panic-stricken, she says, ‘I should have told you, but I knew how much pressure you were under. There were drunken lads inside the factory when I was there yesterday morning. I figured the smell would keep them from the room. They must have broken the lock and let her go or something. I don’t know.’
‘We’ve got to clean the place,’ I say. ‘Get us there. Now.’
We don’t talk during the rest of the drive, or during our entry into the toxic factory grounds, or as we sneak inside the basement. I have only been here once before, so Teagan leads. We both carry rubbish bags.
The smell coming from the open storage room door is obscenely foul. But Teagan goes inside without hesitation. I glance at the iron rings on the door and the frame, unbroken, and then let my gaze travel across the floor.
The lock’s in the corner, its hasp open but not busted.
I crouch, pick it up, and loop the hasp around my middle finger like a brass knuckle, hiding the lock inside my palm. Inside, Teagan is already gloved and stuffing used IV equipment into the rubbish bag.
‘Let’s get this done,’ I say, and move towards her before squatting down to pick up a used syringe with my left hand.
Rising, feeling the urge to vengeance enfolding me like an old lover, I move the needle towards the rubbish bag as a feint before letting go with an uppercut, with the hasp leading.