Private Games

Chapter 52

KNIGHT WATCHED PIERCE reach the three-storey-high platform, and then he glanced over at Pope to find that the reporter was looking shocked.

‘Were you? Responsible?’ she asked.

Knight sighed. ‘Kate had problems during the pregnancy, but wanted the delivery to be natural and at home. I knew the risks – we both knew the risks – but I deferred to her. If she’d been in hospital, she would have lived. I’ll wrestle with that for the rest of my life because, apart from my own feelings of loss and remorse, Elaine Pottersfield won’t let me forget it.’

Knight’s admission confused and saddened Pope. ‘Anyone ever tell you that you’re a complicated guy?’

He did not reply. He was focused on Pierce, praying that she’d pull it off. He’d never been a huge sports fan, but this felt … well, monumental for some reason. Here she was, thirty-eight, a widow and a mother of three about to make her fifth and final dive, the most difficult in her repertoire.

At stake: Olympic gold.

But Pierce looked cool as she settled and then took two quick strides to the edge of the platform. She leaped out and up into the pike position. She flipped back towards the platform in a gainer, twisted, and then somersaulted twice more before knifing into the water.

The crowd exploded. Pierce’s son and daughters began dancing and hugging each other.

‘She did it!’ Knight cried and felt tears in his eyes and then confusion: why was he getting so emotional about this?

He couldn’t answer the question, but he had goose bumps when Pierce ran to her children amid applause that turned deafening when the scores went up, confirming her gold-medal win.

‘OK, so she won,’ Pope said snippily. ‘Please, Knight. Help a girl out.’

Knight had an angry look about him as he yanked out his phone. ‘I’ve got a copy of the complete inventory of items they found at Farrell’s flat and her office.’

Pope’s eyes grew wide. Then she said, ‘Thanks, Knight. I owe you.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘It is over, then, really?’ Pope said, with more than a little sadness in her voice. ‘Just a manhunt from here on out. With all the beefed-up security, it would be impossible for Farrell to strike again. I mean, right?’

Knight nodded as he watched Pierce holding her children, smiling through her tears, and felt thoroughly satisfied. Some kind of balance had been achieved with the American diver’s performance.

Of course, other athletes had already shown remarkable fortitude in the last four days of competition. A swimmer from Australia had come back from a shattered right leg last year to win swimming gold in the men’s 400-metre freestyle race. A flyweight boxer from Niger, raised in abject poverty and subjected to long periods of malnourishment, had somehow developed a lion’s heart that had allowed him to win his first two boxing matches with first-round knockouts.

But Pierce’s story and her vocal defiance of Cronus seemed to echo and magnify what continued to be right with the modern Olympic Games. The doctor had shown grace under incredible pressure. She’d shaken off Teeter’s death and had won. As a result the Games no longer felt as tainted. At least to Knight.

Then his mobile rang. It was Hooligan.

‘What do you know that I don’t, mate?’ Knight asked in an upbeat voice, provoking a sneer from Pope.

‘Those skin cells we found in the second letter?’ Hooligan said, sounding shaken. ‘For three days, I get no match. But then, through an old friend from MI5, I access a NATO database in Brussels. And I get a hit – a mind-boggling hit.’

Knight’s happiness over Pierce’s win subsided, and he turned away from Pope, saying, ‘Tell me.’

‘The DNA matches a hair sample taken in the mid-1990s as part of a drug-screening test given to people applying to be consultants to the NATO peacekeeping contingent that went to the Balkans to enforce the ceasefire.’

Knight was confused. Farrell had been in the Balkans at some point in the 1990s. But Hooligan had said his initial examination indicated that the skin cells in the second letter from Cronus belonged to a male.

‘Whose DNA is it?’ Knight demanded.

‘Indiana Jones,’ Hooligan said, sounding very disappointed. ‘Indiana Fuckin’ Jones.’