Private Games

Chapter 9

‘LANCER SAYS YOU saved his life,’ Elaine Pottersfield said.

A paramedic prodded and poked at a wincing Knight, who was sitting on the bumper of an ambulance on the east side of Sloane Street, a few feet from the Rasta’s parked red cab.

‘I just reacted,’ Knight insisted, aching everywhere and feeling baked by the heat radiating off the pavement.

‘You put yourself in harm’s way,’ the inspector said coldly.

Knight got annoyed. ‘You said yourself I saved his life.’

‘And almost lost your own,’ she shot back. ‘Where would that have left …’ She paused. ‘The children?’

He said, ‘Let’s keep them out of this, Elaine. I’m fine. There should be footage of that cab on CCTV.’

London had 10,000 closed-circuit security cameras that rolled twenty-four hours a day, spread out across the city. A lot of them had been there since the 2005 terrorist bombings in the Tube left fifty-six people dead and seven hundred wounded.

‘We’ll check them,’ Pottersfield promised. ‘But finding a particular black cab in London? Since none of you got the licence number plate that’s going to be near-impossible.’

‘Not if you narrow the search to this road, heading north, and the approximate time she got away. And call all the taxi companies. I had to have done some damage to her bonnet or radiator grille.’

‘You’re sure it was a woman?’ Pottersfield asked sceptically.

‘It was a woman,’ Knight insisted. ‘Scarf. Sunglasses. Very pissed-off.’

The Scotland Yard inspector glanced over at Lancer who was being interviewed by another officer, before saying, ‘Him and Marshall. Both LOCOG members.’

Knight nodded. ‘I’d start looking for people who have a beef with the organising committee.’

Pottersfield did not reply because Lancer was approaching them. He’d wrenched his tie loose around his neck and was patting at his sweating brow with a handkerchief.

‘Thank you,’ he said to Knight. ‘I am beyond simply being in your debt.’

‘Nothing that you wouldn’t have done for me,’ Knight replied.

‘I’m calling Jack,’ Lancer said. ‘I’m telling him what you did.’

‘It’s not necessary,’ Knight said.

‘It is,’ Lancer insisted. He hesitated. ‘I’d like to repay you somehow.’

Knight shook his head. ‘LOCOG is Private’s client, which means you are Private’s client, Mike. It’s all in a day’s work.’

‘No, you …’ Lancer hesitated and then completed his thought. ‘You shall be my guest tomorrow night at the opening ceremonies.’

Knight was caught flat-footed by the offer. Tickets to the opening ceremony were almost as prized as invitations to the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton had been the year before.

‘If I can get the nanny to cover for me, I’ll accept.’

Lancer beamed. ‘I’ll have my secretary send you a pass and tickets in the morning.’ He patted Knight on his good shoulder, smiled at Pottersfield, and then walked off towards the Jamaican taxi driver who was still getting a hard time from the patrol officers who’d pulled them over.

‘I’ll need you to make a formal statement,’ Pottersfield said.

‘I’m not doing anything until I’ve spoken with my mother.’