Private Royals: BookShots (A Private Thriller) (2 page)

‘Jane Cook,’ the beautiful woman introduced herself, putting out her hand.

Morgan had seen a lot of stunning women in his time, but he didn’t know if he’d seen any so attractive when wearing the drab green uniform of the military, and with no make-up.

‘Jack Morgan.’ He smiled, taking her hand, and quickly ran his eyes over the insignia and decorations of her uniform – she was
Major
Jane Cook of the Royal Horse Artillery, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, and recipient of an OBE.

‘I know who you are, Mr Morgan,’ she told him. ‘I invited you.’

‘Jane is a friend of mine,’ Knight announced. ‘I need to check in with the office. Back in a tick.’

‘That’s very nice of Peter,’ she smiled as Knight took his leave, ‘but I’d also like to think of myself as a candidate. I leave the service at the end of the year, Mr Morgan, and I’d like you to be my next employer.’

Realising that the attention towards him was due to business and not pleasure, Morgan almost laughed aloud at his own ego.

‘Peter will take care of you, Major, and we’ll see if you’re the right fit for Private. I’m afraid I’m only here to watch a show. My company has no stake in the celebrations.’

‘De Villiers,’ Cook said, casting an icy glance towards the man. ‘The closest he ever came to combat was an air-conditioned office in Bahrain. I’m sorry you were screwed by him on the contracts, Mr Morgan. I can tell you from personal experience that I know what an institutionalised old boys’ club the British security forces can be.’

‘Call me Jack. And it is what it is. Believe me, there are cliques and fraternities in the American hierarchy too.’

‘So what brings you here to London, if not work?’ she asked.

‘Heading back from Europe across the pond, so I wanted to see how my guys are getting along here. I’ve always wanted to see the Trooping the Colour parade, so when Peter told me that he had invitations, I could hardly refuse.’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ll get to experience something new here in London.’ Cook’s eyes gave the slightest suggestion that marching soldiers were not all the city had to offer. ‘Home is LA?’

‘The Palisades. It’s the bit between LA and Malibu.’

‘Malibu? Do you surf?’

‘It’s the second-best way I know to clear my head.’ Morgan smiled.

Cook fought a losing battle to stop herself from doing the same. ‘I surf. In Cornwall,’ she managed, on the edge of blushing.

Morgan said nothing. His own smile was gone.

Because Knight was on his way back in a hurry, and Morgan recognised the look on his friend’s face.

‘They need us at headquarters,’ Knight informed his boss. ‘Now.’

WITH MORGAN ON
his shoulder, Knight pushed open the door to his office in Private London’s headquarters.

Neither of them were surprised to see the grey-haired gentleman inside.

He stood at the window, looking out over the city, his hands clasped behind a bespoke tailored suit. His outward appearance suggested calm and confidence, even when standing alone inside a stranger’s office. It was an appearance that would fool almost anybody.

But Jack Morgan and Peter Knight were not just anybody, and they could see the tension in the man’s posture and hear his exaggerated breathing.

They knew who he was, of course – no one could waltz into Private, let alone Knight’s office, without the say-so of someone in a position of authority. Knight had granted his because his workspace was sterile, all files deeply encoded on drives that were unobtainable unless the man at the window had been a master hacker.

And he was not. He was the ageing Duke of Aldershot, and a member of the royal family.

‘Sir,’ Knight said simply, and the man turned towards them.

On the journey from Horse Guards, a quick Internet search had revealed the Duke to be sixty years old. However, with his red eyes and pale skin, the royal looked closer to a hundred.

‘Please, sir, take a seat,’ Knight offered, worried that the man was moments from collapse. Without a word, the Duke complied.

Morgan hung back by the door as Knight poured the Duke a glass of water and pulled his own chair forward so that he was at arm’s length from him.

‘I can get tea or coffee if you like, sir?’ Knight asked. The Duke shook his head and the water remained untouched, trembling in his hands.

‘Your Grace,’ Knight began, patiently, ‘we know who you are, and whatever the problem is, we can help you with it. Why are you here?’

The Duke’s haunted eyes showed the first signs of life.

‘Abbie,’ he mumbled.

‘Your daughter?’ Knight asked, recognising her name from his Internet search on the Duke. ‘Is she in trouble?’

The Duke nodded slowly, a pair of tears racing down his pale cheeks. ‘Yes,’ he gasped.

‘How do you know, sir?’ Morgan asked from the doorway.

The Duke’s eyes widened as he turned towards the American’s voice.

‘I will show you.’

CHANGED INTO HIS
street clothing of jeans and a roll-sleeved shirt, Knight pulled the Range Rover to a stop at Chelsea Harbour, the Duke and a hoody-wearing Morgan emerging from its back seat. The ride had been quiet, the investigators wanting to hold their questions for the Duke until they had set eyes on what he assured them was the scene of a crime.

‘Nice place,’ Morgan said quietly to Knight, casting his eyes across the rows of moored boats. ‘He says hers is the centre penthouse.’ He pointed at a block of luxury apartments.

‘Wonder what the rent is on that,’ Knight said.

‘About seven million to buy.’

Knight was about to ask Morgan how he knew, but the confident smile of the handsome man told him the full story.

‘Leave some for the rest of us, will you?’ Knight grinned, turning to see a white transit van pull up behind the Range Rover.

‘The cavalry has arrived,’ the van’s driver announced from its window in an east London accent.

‘Good to see you, Hooligan.’ Morgan smiled, extending his hand to the man who was the guru when it came to all things forensic, scientific and technological at Private London.

‘Good to see you too, Jack.’

‘Your Grace, this is Jeremy Crawford,’ Knight introduced the scruffy man more formally.

‘Call me Hooligan, Duke’ he insisted. Red-haired and freckled, the self-confessed geek had earned the nickname for his love of all things West Ham, and wore the moniker as a badge of honour.

The Duke said nothing, and seemed to shrink at the sight of the building in front of them.

‘It’s OK, sir. The sooner you take us inside, the sooner we can make sure your daughter’s safe.’

Morgan wanted to reassure the Duke. But once they’d entered the building and gone into the penthouse apartment, he feared he may have spoken too soon.

The room was awash with blood.

‘Bloody ’ell,’ Hooligan exclaimed before catching himself. ‘I’ll get to work on some samples then, shall I?’

‘Do it,’ Morgan agreed, then turned to Knight. ‘Peter. Elaine still at Scotland Yard?’ Elaine was the sister of Knight’s deceased wife, and was a well-respected inspector on London’s Metropolitan Police Force.

‘Want me to call it in?’

‘No police!’ the Duke said urgently, coming alive. ‘He’ll kill her!’ He pointed a shaking finger at the kitchen countertop.

Morgan stepped carefully to it, and cast his eyes over the granite.

A message had been scrawled in blood:

‘I HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER.’

MORGAN AND KNIGHT
stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked the rows of moored boats beneath them, millions of pounds’ worth of pleasure craft sitting gently on the water.

‘He’s right about the police,’ Morgan sighed, leaning against the railing. ‘We bring them in, Abbie’s chances of making it out alive go down big time.’

‘Maybe,’ Knight mused. ‘But this isn’t Mexico, Jack. Nobody’s going to tip off the kidnappers.’

‘It’s not our call to make, Pete.’

‘This doesn’t hit me as a normal kidnapping though.’ Knight shook his head. ‘A royal gets taken the night before Trooping the Colour? Seems like more than a coincidence. But why not take a royal who’s more prominent? Abbie’s pretty distant to the throne.’

‘Did you see some of those photos inside?’ Morgan asked. Abbie’s apartment was full of frames of her on the arms of A-list celebrities. ‘She’s had the media attention to make her as known to the public as the inner circle of the royal family, but she only has a fraction of the security. Her dad says she has one bodyguard, and he’s not even with her twenty-four–seven.’

‘Kidnapping a royal the easy way,’ Knight summed up.

The pair lapsed into silence, minds churning over the reasons why Abbie Winchester would be the target of a kidnap, and the solutions to retrieve her safely.

‘The Duke was explicit that he didn’t want the police involved,’ Knight thought aloud, ‘but Trooping the Colour is the army’s baby. We can keep them in the loop, in case this is all connected, without breaking our contract to him.’

‘A liaison.’ Morgan nodded, liking the idea, and then smiling as the candidate for the position became clear. ‘You know who I’m thinking of, don’t you?’

Knight did. He flicked through the contacts in his phone and handed it over to Jack. ‘She can be the army’s eyes and ears, but if she wants to come work for us, then we don’t need to worry about her stepping on our toes.’

Morgan nodded in agreement as he dialled the number and spoke into the phone. ‘This is Jack Morgan. Are you ready for your assessment?’

THE DUKE SAT
alone in the Range Rover’s back seat, gazing through the window at nothing. Up front, Morgan powered up a tablet as Knight drove them back across the city to Private HQ.

‘The office has sent us the packet on Abbie,’ Morgan said quietly to Knight. This was the initial dossier Private staff had compiled on the victim. A quick glance at the content told Morgan it was best he share the rest with Knight when they were not in the presence of the girl’s father, and so he read on in silence.

Twenty-five-year-old Abbie Winchester was cousin to the popular future king of the United Kingdom, and had once been the model royal, heavily involved in charity work the world over. Then, three years ago, Abbie’s mother had died from breast cancer, and the daughter had quickly slid into the role of the party girl, pictured blitzed drunk from St Tropez to Dubai. The tabloids loved her in the way that they loved all train wrecks, and Abbie soon became synonymous with excess and hedonism, leaving a trail of rock- and sports-star lovers in her wake.

Naturally, the charities with which Abbie had done so much good work had ditched her quickly to avoid tarnishing their own images. The royal family had been more discreet in their handling of matters but, slowly and surely, they had distanced themselves from the wayward young woman.

Morgan asked the Duke if he and his family had been invited to the Trooping the Colour ceremony.

‘Yes,’ the Duke replied, turning to face him, his distraught mind still sharp enough to read the unspoken question in the American’s eyes. ‘They can’t keep us away from everything. That’s why I had gone to her apartment, to see that she was all ready for the morning.’

‘You said she had a bodyguard, sir?’ Morgan asked.

‘Bodyguard and chaperone. He was supposed to be there tonight, to keep an eye on her. He’s been off a lot recently, some kind of virus that left him ghastly and weak, but he called my secretary this evening to check in, and to confirm that he would be with her.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Aaron Shaw. He served under me as troop sergeant. Household Cavalry.’

‘You were in the army?’ Morgan asked.

‘It’s expected. In my bloodline,’ the Duke answered with a shrug, finding some focus with the distraction of conversation. ‘Shaw’s a fine man. Never let me down, not once. He’d die for my family.’

Morgan managed a weak smile. ‘I hope it won’t come to that, sir,’ he told the Duke.

But remembering the amount of blood in the apartment, Jack knew that may have happened already.

ABBIE OPENED HER
eyes.

She knew instantly that she was on a comedown. Her skull felt as if it were packed with candyfloss; her lips were dry and cracked. She pushed herself up on her elbows, hoping she might find some kind of fruit juice and vodka to take away the edge – her usual comedown cure.

Instead, she found herself somewhere she didn’t recognise.

There were four walls, but no windows or doors. The walls, ceiling and floor all seemed to be covered in the same swirling pattern. Abbie laughed, happy that she must still be tripping. The comedown could wait.

She looked more closely at the content of her lucid dream. She was on a single bed with a thin mattress. It was the only furniture in the room, but on the floor was a collection of bottles, a tray of sandwiches and a silver plate. Abbie moved towards it and was glad to see that it was loaded with powder. She took a noseful, and the tang of it hit her in the back of the throat. She sank back onto the bed and noticed a black object on the swirling ceiling.

As she drifted into the comfort of the ketamine, she had no idea that the black object was a camera.

HAVING LEFT THE
Duke at his central London residence under the watch of two Private employees, Knight pulled the Range Rover to a stop outside Private HQ. No sooner had they climbed out than Jane Cook appeared from within and strode purposefully towards them.

‘I’m ready,’ she told Morgan.

‘You’re not,’ he answered with a smile, taking in Cook’s trouser suit.

‘Why?’ she asked, and Morgan paused before answering – Cook looked fantastic, but he brought his mind back to the task at hand.

‘You look like a cop,’ he told her, then pointed to his own outfit of jeans and a dark hooded jacket.

‘Pays to not stand out,’ Knight added, knowing that Cook would turn heads regardless of what she wore.

‘I’ll go change,’ she said.