Private Games

Wednesday, 1 August 2012

THE STORM HAD passed and it was four in the morning by the time Knight climbed into a taxi and gave the driver his address in Chelsea.

Dazed, damp, and running on fumes, his mind nevertheless spun wildly with all that had happened since the Furies had run their boat into the river wall.

There were divers in the water within half an hour of the crash, searching for bodies, though the tidal currents were hampering their efforts.

Elaine Pottersfield had been pulled off the search of James Daring’s office and apartment, and had come to the O2 Arena as part of a huge Scotland Yard team that had arrived in the wake of the triple murder.

She’d debriefed Knight, Jack and Lancer, who’d been rushing to the arena floor when the lights went out and the venue erupted in chaos. The former decathlon champion had had the presence of mind to order the perimeter of the arena sealed after he’d heard Knight’s shots in the hallway, but his action had not come in time to prevent the Furies’ escape.

When Lancer ordered electricians to get the lights back on they found that a simple timer-and-breaker system had been attached to the venue’s main power line, and that the relay that triggered the backup generators had been disabled. Power was restored within thirty minutes, however, which enabled Knight and Pottersfield to study the security video closely while Lancer and Jack went to help screen the literally thousands of witnesses to the triple slaying.

To their dismay the video of the two Furies showed little of their faces. The women seemed to know exactly when to turn one way or another, depending on the camera angles. Knight remembered spotting them leaving the lavatory after the chubby Game Master disappeared and before the medal ceremony began, and said, ‘They had to have switched disguises in there.’

He and Pottersfield went to search the loo. On the way, Knight’s sister-in-law said she’d found flute music on Daring’s home computer as well as essays – tirades, really – that damned the commercial and corporate aspects of the modern Olympics. In at least two instances, the television star and museum curator had remarked that the kind of corruption and cheating that went on in the modern Olympics would have been dealt with swiftly during the old Games.

‘He said the gods on Olympus would have struck them down one by one,’ Pottersfield said as they entered the lavatory. ‘He said their deaths would have been a “just sacrifice”.’

Just sacrifice? Knight thought bitterly. Three people dead. For what?

As he and Pottersfield searched the lavatory, he wondered why Pope had not called him. She must have received another letter by now.

Twenty minutes into the search, Knight found the loose seat-cover dispensary and tugged it out of the wall. A minute later he fished out a platinum-blonde wig from inside, handed it to Pottersfield, and said, ‘That’s a big mistake there. There has to be DNA evidence on that.’

The inspector grudgingly slipped the wig into an evidence bag. ‘Well done, Peter, but I’d rather that no one else should know about this – at least, not until I can have it analysed. And most certainly not your client, Karen Pope.’

‘Not a soul,’ he promised.

Indeed, around three that morning, shortly before Knight left the O2 Arena, he’d found Jack again and not mentioned the wig. Private’s owner informed him, however, that a guard at the gate where all Game Master volunteers cleared security distinctly remembered the two chunky cousins who came through the scanners early, one with diabetes, both wearing identical rings.

The computer system remembered them as ‘Caroline and Anita Thorson’, cousins who lived north of Liverpool Street. Police officers sent to the flat found two women called Caroline and Anita Thorson, but both of them were sleeping. They claimed not to have been anywhere near the O2 Arena much less being accredited Game Masters for the Olympics. They were being brought to New Scotland Yard for further questioning, though Knight did not hold much hope for a breakthrough there. The Thorson women had been used, their identities stolen.

The taxi pulled up in front of Knight’s house just before dawn with him figuring that Cronus or one of his Furies was a very sophisticated hacker and that they had to have had access at some point to the arena’s electrical infrastructure.

Right?

He was so damn tired that he couldn’t even answer his own question. He paid the driver and told him to wait. Knight trudged to his front door, went in, and turned on the hallway light. He heard a creaking noise and looked in the playroom. Marta yawned on the couch, dropping the blanket from her shoulders.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Knight said softly. ‘I was at the gymnastics venue and they were jamming mobile traffic. I couldn’t get through.’

Marta’s hand went to her mouth. ‘I saw it on the television. You were there? Did they catch them?’

‘No,’ he said despairingly. ‘We don’t even know if they’re alive or not. But they’ve made a big mistake. If they’re alive, they’ll be caught.’

She yawned again, wider this time, and said, ‘What mistake?’

‘I can’t go into it,’ Knight replied. ‘There’s a taxi waiting for you out front. I’ve already paid your fare.’

Marta smiled drowsily. ‘You’re very kind, Mr Knight.’

‘Call me Peter. When can you be back?’

‘One?’

Knight nodded. Nine hours. He’d be lucky to be able to sleep for four of them before the twins awoke, but it was better than nothing.

As if she were reading his mind, Marta headed towards the door, saying, ‘Isabel and Luke were both very, very tired tonight. I think they’ll sleep in for you.’