Private Games

Chapter 85

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.

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.’