Private Royals

Chapter 19

Seeing Grace Beckit’s corpse had shocked Sadie Wilkinson to a point of near collapse for the second time that night. Having sat her down and brought her water, Knight had decided he should take the publicist home.

The drive to Wilkinson’s house had been quiet at first, the woman withdrawn into herself, her eyes wide with shock. Then Knight had remembered the publicist’s earlier comments about his exploits at the Olympic Games. Though a modest man, he was anxious to get her talking, and out of her own head.

‘So you saw what happened at the Olympics?’ he asked, and, slowly but surely, Wilkinson was pulled from her trance. By the time she opened the door to her stylishly decorated home, she was explaining in detail how she would have capitalised on Knight’s moment in the spotlight.

‘You really love your job,’ he told her.

‘I do,’ she agreed, seeming to be pained by her answer.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ he offered. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

Wilkinson shrugged and sat heavily on a sofa, her chin resting in the cradle of her hands.

‘Grace is dead,’ she stated simply.

‘I’m sorry you had to see that,’ said Knight.

‘I’m not. I needed to.’

Knight wasn’t sure what to say, but Wilkinson wasn’t finished in any case.

‘Life and death. It makes decisions easy, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose it does. Or at least forces you to make decisions,’ he said, not enjoying the conversation, but knowing he should let the woman talk out her thoughts.

He finished making the tea and moved to sit beside her, placing the cups on the glass table in front of them. With the keen eye of an investigator, Knight noticed the small grains of cocaine that Wilkinson had failed to clean from the table’s surface.

‘I don’t want tea,’ Wilkinson said after a moment of silence. ‘Sorry, Peter.’

‘That’s OK,’ he told her with a friendly smile. ‘What can I get you?’ He hoped she wasn’t about to begin snorting lines in front of him.

‘Nothing,’ she said instead.

‘Well, is there anything I can do for you?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, turning to face him. ‘I want you to fuck me.’

Knight’s eyes widened. Looking into Wilkinson’s, he could see hers were ablaze — looking into death’s face had filled her with lust. He sat immobile, so she made the decision for him, grabbing his head with both hands and pulling him towards her, pressing her lips against his and forcing them apart with her tongue.

‘I can’t,’ Knight said, breaking away, his hands on her shoulders.

‘Why?’

‘It’s unprofessional.’

Wilkinson stared at him. Looking into her eyes, he could see a woman caught between rage and sorrow.

‘Fuck you, then,’ she spat, before bursting into tears.

He held her and she sobbed into his chest. She cried for a long time, Knight soothing her. As a single father of two children, and head of Private London, it wasn’t often that he enjoyed any kind of physical intimacy. Feeling Wilkinson pressed against him, Knight wondered if he needed the physical contact of another adult as much as she did.

She lifted her red eyes to meet his.

‘I’m going to take a bath,’ she said.

She got to her feet and left the room. Knight collected the cups of tea and threw their stone-cold contents into the sink. He felt terrible for the woman, whose relationship with Abbie and Grace obviously crossed the threshold from professional to friendship. With little idea of what else he could do to ease her suffering, he opened the kitchen’s fridge — perhaps bathed and with a hot meal inside of her, Wilkinson could find some rest before sunrise.

Knight found a packet of chicken and the ingredients to make a stir fry. He looked around for a knife, but the long chopping blade was missing from the knife block. Assuming it must have been misplaced with the cutlery, he began to open drawers.

The first gave him nothing.

The second caused his brow to knit in surprise. Knight reached inside and took out a business card.

It was the card of Michael ‘Flex’ Gibbon.