Private Royals

Chapter 15

The sentry saluted Major Jane Cook as she led Morgan clear of the security perimeter and towards Whitehall. Even at the late hour, gaggles of tourists mixed with the civil servants who emerged bleary-eyed from the magnificently appointed buildings that had once been the heart of the world’s most powerful empire.

Cook caught Morgan’s appraising eye on the many poppy wreaths and memorials that lined the route to the Ministry of Defence.

‘Miss it?’ she asked. Morgan didn’t need to be told that she was asking after his own service.

‘Every day,’ he answered honestly. ‘I loved my job, and I loved my people. I do now…’

‘But it’s different?’

‘It is different.’

‘Now you’re the general,’ Cook observed with a smile.

‘A general is nothing without his troops.’ Morgan brushed the compliment aside. ‘And I have great troops. The best.’

‘You were never tempted to re-enlist?’

He smiled. ‘Getting cold feet about leaving?’ he asked, not unkindly.

‘Of course.’ Cook shrugged. ‘It’s the only job I’ve ever known. I was sponsored through university, and at Sandhurst at twenty-one. The whole of my adult life I’ve worn the uniform, but times are changing. We can’t afford more wars, and the public wouldn’t back them even if we could.’

‘You think you’ll be bored if you stay on?’

‘I know I would be. War is a terrible thing, of course, but it’s what you train for. I had that off the bat, and I don’t want to spend the next ten years overseeing exercises on tighter and tighter budgets while the real action goes on without us.’

‘So you’re a war junky?’ Morgan teased.

‘I’m a soldier, Jack, and I live for a challenge.’ Cook smiled back, and Morgan’s pulse quickened with the knowledge that he was a part of that thrill-seeking.

He opened his mouth to reply, Cook’s pace slowing, expectantly, but Morgan’s chance to speak was lost as his and Cook’s mobile phones began to ring simultaneously.

‘Go,’ Morgan answered, having seen the number of Private London’s HQ on his screen.

‘It’s another call coming into the Duke’s line,’ Hooligan informed them.

‘Trace?’

‘Blocked. Great encryption.’

‘OK. Patch us in.’

Seconds later, the phone’s speaker emitted the metallic rasp of the kidnapper’s altered voice. ‘How are you sleeping, Duke?’ he seemed to cackle.

‘How’s my daughter?’ Morgan heard the Duke plead.

‘Well enough, but just to show you I’m not playing games, you’ll find a present in the old furniture warehouse on Kingsmill Road.’

‘Kingsmill Road?’ the Duke repeated.

‘Battersea,’ the kidnapper said. ‘And don’t bother calling the filth. You can send your friends from Private along to collect it and clean this one up. You hear that, Mr Private Investigators? I’m sure you’re listening. Looks like you’ve branched out into sanitation now.’

‘What do you mean?’ The Duke stumbled over his words. ‘Private? I don’t—’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ snapped the kidnapper’s harsh voice. ‘Next call will be the last, tomorrow at ten to arrange the drop. Out.’

The line clicked dead.

‘We’re clear from the Duke,’ Hooligan informed the investigators.

‘He said “out”, ’ Cook observed. ‘That’s ingrained voice procedure. He has to be long-term military.’

‘What did he mean by “don’t bother calling the filth”?’ Morgan asked the group, the American not recognising the slang.

‘It means the police,’ Knight answered. ‘So what now?’

‘Everyone meet at Kingsmill Road, but wait three hundred yards to the south. We go in together in case there are any surprises. Hooligan, bring your full set of forensics gear.’

‘Will do, boss. What are you expecting to find?’

Morgan thought back to the pool of blood in Abbie’s penthouse apartment.

‘Our donor.’