Private Games (27 page)

She heard a crash from above her on the old production floor. Voices laughed and jeered before another crash echoed through the abandoned factory. She froze, thinking.

Teagan had been in the factory a dozen times in the last year, and she’d never once encountered another human being inside and did not expect to. The building was contaminated with solvents, heavy metals and other carcinogens, and the exterior fence carried multiple hazardous-waste warning signs to that effect.

Her initial reaction was to go on the attack. But Cronus had been explicit. There were to be no confrontations if they could be avoided.

She switched off her torch, spun around, felt for the door of the storeroom and shut it. She groped in her pocket for the padlock, found it finally, and set the hasp through the iron rings on the door and the jamb. A bottle bounced down the staircase behind her and shattered on the basement floor. She heard footsteps coming and drunken male voices.

Teagan reached up in the darkness to snap the lock shut and felt the hasp catch before she ran a few steps and then paused, unsure. Had it locked?

A torch beam began to play back towards the staircase. She took off without hesitation this time, up on her toes the way sprinters run. She had long ago committed the layout of the factory to memory and dodged into a hall that she knew would take her to a stone stairway and a bulkhead door.

Two minutes later, she was outside. Dawn threw its first rosy fingers of light across the London sky. She heard more crashing and hooting inside the factory and decided it was probably a mob of drunken yobs bent on vandalism. She told herself that once they got a whiff of that basement they wouldn’t be doing any further exploring. But as she crawled back through the hole in the fence, all Teagan could think about was the padlock, and whether it had clicked shut after all.

MID-AFTERNOON THAT SECOND
Friday of the Games, the third from last day of competition, Peter Knight entered the lab at Private London and hurried gingerly to Hooligan, holding out a box wrapped in brown paper and parcel tape.

‘Is this a bomb?’ Knight asked, dead serious.

Private London’s chief scientist tore his attention away from one of the
Sun’s
sports pages, which featured a piece on England’s chances in the Olympic football final against Brazil. He looked uneasily at the package. ‘What makes you think it’s a bomb?’

Knight tapped a finger on the return address.

Hooligan squinted. ‘Can’t read that.’

‘Because it’s ancient Greek,’ Knight said. ‘It says, “Cronus”.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Exactly,’ Knight said, placing the box on the table beside the scientist. ‘Just picked it up at the front desk.’

‘Hear anything inside?’ Hooligan asked.

‘No ticking.’

‘Could be rigged digitally. Or remote-controlled.’

Knight looked queasy. ‘Should we clear out? Call in the bomb squad?’

The scientist scratched at his scruffy red beard. ‘That’s Jack’s call.’

Two minutes later, Jack was standing inside the lab, looking at the box. The American appeared exhausted. This was one of the few breaks he’d had from running security at the Olympic Park since taking over on Monday. There had been no further attacks after the Mundaho incident; and that was, in Knight’s estimation, largely due to Jack’s herculean efforts.

‘Can you X-ray the box without blowing us up?’ Jack asked.

‘Can always try, right?’ Hooligan said, picking up the box as if it had teeth.

The scientist took the box to a work table at the far end of the lab. He started up a portable scanner similar to those being used at the Olympic venues, set the box outside the scanner, and waited for it to warm up.

Knight watched the box as if it could seal his fate. Then he swallowed hard – suddenly wanting to leave the lab in case there actually was a bomb in it. He had two children who would be three years old tomorrow. Somehow, he felt, he still had his mother. So could he risk being in a closed room with a potentially explosive device? To get his mind off the danger, he glanced at the screen showing the news highlights and image after image of gold medal-winning athletes from all over the world taking their victory laps, waving the flags of their nations and that of Cameroon.

It had all been spontaneous, the athletes showing their respect to Mundaho and defiance of Cronus. Scores of them had taken up the Cameroonian flag, including the English football team after it won its semi-final against Germany two evenings before. The media was eating it up, selling the gesture as a universal protest against the lunatic stalking the Games.

The American diver Hunter Pierce remained at the fore-front of the protest against Cronus. She had been interviewed almost every day since Mundaho’s tragedy, and each time she had spoken resolutely of the athletes’ solidarity in their refusal to allow the Games to be halted or interrupted.

Mundaho’s condition had been upgraded to ‘serious’: he had third-degree burns and wounds over much of his lower body. But he was said to be alert, well aware of the protests, and taking heart from the global outpouring of support.

As encouraging as that all was, Knight still tore his attention away from the screen in Private London’s lab, believing that the assault would not stop simply because of the athletes’ protests. Cronus would try to attack again before the end of the Games.

Knight was sure of it. But where would he strike? And when? The relay races tomorrow afternoon? The football final between England and Brazil at Wembley Stadium on Saturday evening? The men’s marathon on Sunday? Or the closing ceremony that night?

‘Here we go,’ Hooligan said, pushing the box received from Cronus onto a small conveyor belt that carried it through the scanner. He twisted the scanner’s screen so that they all could see.

The box came into view and so did its contents.

Knight flinched.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Jack said. ‘Are those real?’

THE WOMAN’S DEATHLY-PALE
hands had been severed at the wrists with a blade and a saw that had left the flesh smooth and the bones ragged and chipped.

Hooligan asked, ‘Should I fingerprint her?’

‘Let’s leave that to Scotland Yard,’ Jack said.

‘No matter,’ Knight said, ‘I’m betting those hands belong to a war criminal.’

‘Andjela Brazlic?’ Jack asked.

Hooligan nodded. ‘The odds are definitely there, eh?’

‘Why send them to you?’ Jack asked Knight.

‘I don’t know.’

The question continued to haunt Knight on his way home later that evening. Why him? He supposed that Cronus was sending a message with the hands. But about what? The fingerprint she’d left on the box? Was this Cronus’s way of displaying his ruthlessness?

Knight called Elaine Pottersfield and told her that Hooligan was bringing the hands to Scotland Yard. He laid out his suspicions about their identity.

‘If they are Andjela Brazlic’s, it shows dissension in Cronus’s ranks,’ the inspector said.

‘Or Cronus is simply saying that it’s fruitless to track this particular war criminal. She made a mistake. And now she’s dead.’

‘That all?’ Pottersfield asked.

‘We’re going to Kate’s forest in the morning,’ Knight said. ‘And the party is at five-thirty.’

The silence was brief. ‘I’m sorry, Peter,’ she said, and hung up.

Knight reached home around ten, wondering if his sister-in-law would ever come to terms with him – or with Kate’s death. It wasn’t until he was standing at his front door that he allowed himself to realise that three years before, right about this time, his late wife had gone into labour.

He remembered Kate’s face after her waters had broken – no fear, just sheer joy at the impending miracle. Then he recalled the ambulance taking her away. Knight opened the door of his home and went inside, as deeply confused and heartbroken as he’d been thirty-six months before.

The house smelled of chocolate, and two brightly wrapped presents sat on the table in the hallway. He grimaced, realising that he hadn’t yet had the chance to go shopping for the kids. Work had been all-consuming. Or had he just let it be all-consuming so that he would not have to think about their birthday and the anniversary of their mother’s death?

With no good answer to any of it, Knight examined the presents and was surprised to see that they were from his mother, the gift tags signed: ‘With love, Amanda’.

He smiled and tears brimmed in his eyes; if his mother had taken the time from her isolation, grief, and bitterness to buy her grandchildren presents, then maybe she was not allowing herself to retreat as completely as she had after his father’s death.

‘I’ll go home, then, Mr Knight,’ Marta said, coming out of the kitchen. ‘They are asleep. Kitchen is clean. Fudge made. Luke made an unsuccessful attempt at the big-boy loo. I bought party bags, and ordered a cake too. I can be here all day tomorrow through the party. But I will need Sunday off.’

Sunday. The men’s marathon. The closing ceremony. Knight had to be available. Perhaps he could talk his mother or Boss into coming one more time.

‘Sunday off, and you really don’t need to be here before noon tomorrow,’ Knight said. ‘I usually take them to Epping Forest and High Beach Church on the morning of their birthday.’

‘What’s there?’ Marta asked.

‘My late wife and I were married at the church. Her ashes are scattered in the woods out there. She was from Waltham Abbey and the forest was one of her favourite places.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Marta said uncomfortably, and moved towards the door. ‘Noon, then.’

‘Noon sounds good,’ Knight said and shut the door behind her.

He shut off the lights, checked on the kids, and went to his bedroom.

Knight sat on the edge of his bed, gazing at Kate looking out from the photo at him, and remembering in vivid detail how she’d died.

He broke down, sobbing.

Saturday, 11 August 2012

‘I’M THREE!’ ISABEL
yelled in her father’s ear.

Knight jerked awake from a nightmare that featured Kate held hostage by Cronus – not the madman stalking the Olympics, but that ancient Greek figure carrying a long scythe and hungering to eat his children.

Dripping in sweat, his face contorted with dread, Knight looked in bewilderment at his daughter who now appeared upset and was stepping back from her father, holding her blanket tight against her cheek.

His senses came back to him, and he thought: She’s fine! Luke’s fine! It was just a horrible, horrible dream.

Knight breathed out, smiled, and said, ‘Look at how big you are!’

‘Three,’ Isabel said, her grin returning.

‘Lukey three, too!’ his son announced from the doorway.

‘You don’t say,’ Knight said as Luke bounced up onto the bed and into his arms. Isabel climbed up after him and cuddled him.

His children’s smells surrounded him and calmed him and made him realise again what a lucky, lucky person he was to have them in his life, part of Kate that would live on and grow and become themselves.

‘Presents?’ Luke asked.

‘They’re not here yet,’ Knight said, too quickly. ‘Not until the party.’

‘No, Daddy,’ Isabel protested. ‘That funny man bring presents yesterday. They’re downstairs.’

‘Mr Boss brought them?’ he asked.

His son nodded grimly. ‘Boss no like Lukey.’

‘His loss,’ Knight said. ‘Go and get the presents. You can open them up here.’

That set off a stampede as both children scrambled off the bed. Twenty seconds later they were running back into the room, gasping and grinning like little fools.

‘Go ahead,’ Knight said.

Giggling, they tore into the wrapping and soon had the presents from Amanda open. Isabel’s gift was a beautiful silver locket on a chain. They opened the locket to find a picture of Kate.

‘That mummy?’ Isabel asked.

Knight was genuinely touched at his mother’s thought-fulness. ‘Yes – so you can take her with you everywhere,’ he said in a hoarse voice.

‘What this, Daddy?’ Luke asked, eyeing his present suspiciously.

Knight took it, examined it, and said, ‘It’s a very special watch, for a very big boy. You see – it has Harry Potter, the famous wizard, on the dial, and there’s your name engraved on the back.’

‘Big-boy watch?’ Luke asked.

‘Yes,’ Knight said, and then teased: ‘We’ll put it away until you’re bigger.’

Outraged, his son shoved out his wrist. ‘No! Lukey big boy! Lukey three!’

‘I completely forgot,’ Knight said, and put the watch on his son’s wrist, pleasantly surprised that the strap was a near-perfect fit.

While Luke paraded around admiring his watch, Knight hung the locket around Isabel’s neck, closed the chain clasp and oohed and aahed when she looked at herself in the mirror, the spitting image of Kate as a little girl.