Private Games

Chapter 84

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.