Private Princess

Chapter 38

Knight wasn’t sure where he expected Eliza Lightwood to go when she left Private headquarters, so he wasn’t caught by surprise when her distinctive red umbrella marked her as taking a detour from the shortest route to her home, instead joining dozens of other Londoners as they bustled into an Underground station, umbrellas snapping closed with sighs of relief as they found sanctuary from the rain.

Like any investigator or law enforcement agent, Peter Knight hated the London Underground. It made what was an already difficult job so much harder — a sprawling warren of tunnels, staircases, barriers, carriages, escalators and lifts, not to mention the thousands of people that could be inside the busier stations. Each one of these factors was an obstacle that had to be overcome again and again. Get too close, and the target of the tail would see you — in this case, shattering any trust that Eliza had in Knight should she be innocent. If she was guilty, well... then Knight knew that any chance of Eliza slipping up would be gone — she was too intelligent to make mistakes twice.

He pushed back the hood of his jacket as he entered the station and replaced it with a cap he kept in its pocket — the “disguise” wouldn’t save him from a direct look, but on the crowded levels of the Underground, it was enough to protect against a target’s peripheral vision, or sweeping gaze as they sought out platforms, lines and train times.

There were no such looks from Eliza. She cut through the station like a missile, leaving in her wake a trail of angry looks and muttered curses. It made Knight’s work as a tail a hundred times easier, but there was always the chance that Eliza could stop and turn quickly, catching him out and ending a game in which Knight hoped he was the only witting player. To counter this, he had a plan.

In fact, he had a plan years ago, and he had been working on it ever since. Like any true professional, Peter Knight had prepared and he had practiced. Every member of Private London’s staff had taken turns trying to lose their co-workers in London. The Underground was a particular favorite place to do this, and Knight had made it a priority that he and Private’s agents honed their tracking skills whenever their investigations allowed. Seeing the Underground as one great maze to be understood and mastered had led to great competition developing amongst Knight and his agents, and it became impossible for Knight to take even the shortest trip with his family without finding himself seeking out the best vantage points, the quickest turnstiles and the most covered approaches.

He used this accumulated knowledge of the system now as he passed through the other travelers with as little fuss as possible. Peter Knight was a much bigger person than Eliza Lightwood, and he would not be able to get away with the same kind of barging approach that the petite woman had — while Eliza’s behavior had drawn shaking heads and disgusted looks from some men, it could mean a punch for the six-foot man.

Knight held back as Eliza neared the top of an escalator. He was not surprised at all to see that she went straight to the left, and shuffled down the moving stairway quickly. Knight loitered at the top and watched until she was almost at the bottom — he would make up the gap soon enough.

Eliza cleared the escalator, and broke left. Knight followed, offering hushed apologies as he squeezed by commuters and tourists. He checked his speed at the bottom, moving the opposite way to the route of most tourists — he knew from his training exercises that the only route left then turned right onto a platform. He could bypass the left turn by going right, along that platform, and then use an adjoining foot tunnel that connected the two platforms at their heads. Then he could work his way closer to Eliza. Close enough to keep his eye on her, at least.

Of course, all this had to be done before Eliza had a chance to board a train. Knight remembered the average time between them at this station to be about three minutes. Watching on the escalator, he had not seen the hurried sprints and shuffles of passengers as they rushed to catch the closing doors, so he figured that at least a minute had gone by since the last, giving him two minutes at best to find Eliza. He ran the length of the platform on his right, sidestepping a wide-eyed old man who was also taking the least busy route — Knight wasn’t the only one who had spent time on the Underground and knew its shortcuts.

Exiting the short connecting foot tunnel onto Eliza’s platform, Knight saw that it was busy but not crowded. Looking up, he also saw from the information board that the next train was now due in.

He had less than one minute to find her, but the moment for rushing and recklessness had gone. Instead, like dozens of others on the platform, Knight pulled his phone from his pocket. With his head down, but eyes up, he began to work his way along the back wall.

Eliza’s red umbrella was the first thing to catch his eye, its color picking it out amongst the black trousers and boots of other passengers as she held it down by her side. Knight chanced a look at her face and saw that she was staring across the empty tracks with a fixed look of single-minded purpose. As the train came in, she was the first to enter a carriage. He noticed that she took no seat, instead standing by the open door. Knight stepped onto the train in the next carriage along, his height allowing him to make out the top of Eliza’s head through the windows. He prepared himself to clear the closing doors quickly should it all be a ruse to send him off her path, but Eliza’s head was motionless as the doors slid into place and the train heaved its way from the station.