Private London

Chapter 33

Professor Annabelle Weston was older than Hannah but every bit as striking.

I’d have placed her in her mid-thirties if I’d had to guess. Five seven or eight, give or take the heels on a pair of court shoes. Long strawberry-blonde hair, lively, almost turquoise eyes. A light splash of freckles across her shoulders but her face was alabaster-clear with high cheekbones. Her teeth wouldn’t have looked out of place in a San Diego beauty pageant – and she certainly wasn’t dressed like any professor from my day!

She was wearing skintight jeans, cowboy boots and a pastel-blue cashmere sweater that did nothing to distract from her womanly figure.

Her hair was tied back in a loose kind of scarf, and she had a pair of glasses perched on the end of her nose, just the way Alison wore them. These were tortoiseshell, giving her an academic look, which I guess she was entitled to. The eyes behind the lenses of those glasses were deadly serious.

‘You’re not working with the police on this, then?’ she asked.

Her voice was as English as her strawberries-and-cream complexion. Home counties. Money. Pound to a penny she had polo ponies featuring somewhere in her childhood.

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said leaning forward and handing her my card. ‘We often work with the police in an official capacity, but in this instance we are pursuing a separate investigation.’

‘I don’t understand. We have had the proper authorities talking to everyone here already. What is your interest, specifically?’

She glanced at my business card, then looked at me challengingly. There was steel behind the beauty. I wouldn’t fancy my chances if I was one of her students trying to bluff my way to an extension on an overdue assignment.

‘We’re representing Hannah’s family,’ said Sam Riddel who was sitting beside me.

‘And we have a personal interest too,’ I added.

‘And what would that be?’

‘You were Hannah’s tutor, is that right?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I was.’ She caught herself. ‘That is to say, I am her tutor.’

‘And likewise Chloe Wilson’s?’

‘Yes. Both of them.’

‘Chloe Wilson is my god-daughter, Professor Weston.’

‘Oh…’

She reacted, taking it in, and the hardness in her eyes softened to genuine concern. ‘How is she? Has she regained consciousness?’

‘She’s stable but still critical. They are keeping an eye on her round the clock.’

‘If there’s anything I can do…?’

‘That’s why we’re here, professor. Whoever did this isn’t going to get away with it. I can promise you that, and I can promise we will find Hannah and bring her home unharmed.’

I don’t know why I said that last part. Or rather I did – I wanted to impress the woman, I guess.

‘Poor Hannah. I can’t bear to think what she is going through.’

‘She will be safe for the moment, professor. I know that much.’ I almost believed it myself.

‘Call me Annabelle, please.’

I resisted the urge to say it was a pretty name. But it was. ‘They will be keeping her safe, Annabelle,’ I said instead. ‘She’s precious goods to them. Until we hear their demands I am pretty certain they won’t harm a hair on her head.’

‘There has been no contact with the family, then? No ransom demand?’

I shook my head.

I didn’t tell her the other possibility that Adrian Tuttle had raised in the morning’s briefing. That she had been taken for body parts and for all we knew was already dead.

‘I’m sure we’ll hear something soon,’ I said. ‘And the entire resources of Private worldwide are at my disposal to get her safely home.’

‘Shouldn’t the police be left to handle it?’

‘The police will be doing everything they can. But sometimes we can do more.’

‘How so?’

‘Each year in London alone there about one hundred and seventy homicides,’ I said. ‘That’s more than one every three days. And that’s just homicide. If you take into account every other crime, from theft and assault to rape, that occurs in this city, never mind the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks that have to be investigated – if you think about that, then you can see that we can bring to bear on this case something the Metropolitan Police could never hope to.’

‘Which is?’ the professor asked.

‘Absolute focus.’ I said

And it was true.

Professor Weston looked down at my business card for a moment and then nodded, lifted her head and looked me straight in the eye.

‘Just tell me what you need.’