Princess: A Private Novel(30)

Chapter 46


ALL WAS QUIET in interview room number four of the Staines police station. Mayoor Patel sat on one side of the cheap metal table, Jack Morgan on the other. In the room’s corner stood the stern-faced police officer who had placed Patel under arrest.

“I’m charged with assault?” Patel addressed the officer, who only nodded back. “Nothing else?”

“Nothing else,” the officer confirmed.

“Then I think I want my—”

Morgan’s fist slammed onto the table to cut off Patel’s request for a lawyer, the violence sending the Londoner shooting back in his seat.

“Before that, I have a few things for you to consider.”

Patel swallowed what seemed to be a football in his throat. Morgan’s face was a blank mask, but his eyes burned into Patel’s like dry ice.

“Who are you?” the arrested man finally managed.

“My name is Jack Morgan. I’m a private investigator.”

“You’re here because I hit your friend,” Patel mumbled.

“I’m here because you killed Sophie Edwards,” Morgan corrected him. “And I need to know why.”

Patel’s eyes widened and he quickly looked to the officer in the corner of the room, then back to Morgan, but said nothing.

“You see, Mayoor, you’re in here because you were arrested for the assault of Peter Knight, my colleague. Nothing else. There are no other witnesses, so if Peter drops his charges against you you’ll be a free man. Free to go. Free to walk the streets, where bad things can happen.”

“You’re threatening me,” Patel managed, beginning to sweat.

“I’m just telling you how things are out there.” Morgan shrugged. “Bad things happen to good people.” He smiled. “And really bad things happen to bad people.”

“What do you want?” Patel almost whimpered.

“What happened to Sophie?” Morgan asked, his voice as calm as a dead sea. “You’ll be charged with her murder, Patel, but prison can be a safe place with the right people looking out for you. Or prison can be a very, very unsafe place.”

It was too much for Patel. He was an intelligent man, and he could see he was out of choices. He burst into tears.

“What… what happens if I tell you?” he muttered between sobs.

“That’s up to the system, not me,” Morgan told him. “The truth is all I want. Tell me what happened, Mayoor. Take the easy way out of this, and talk.”

“I’ll talk,” Patel promised.

And he did.

He told Morgan how he had met Sophie, the life and soul of the party. He told him how he had fallen for her, and the pair had begun to see each other outside of house parties and clubs. The rules of their relationship were looser than most, but it was London in 2018, and Mayoor Patel enjoyed his own freedoms.

“I didn’t have a problem sharing her physically,” the man admitted. “It’s just sex, yeah? But when I thought she was seeing someone else. When I thought it was emotional…”

“You got jealous?”

Patel had, and had begun to trail Sophie, eventually leading him to Sir Tony Lightwood and the Mistral hotel.

“Soph told me that it was strictly business. The truth is, the fact that she was an escort hurt me a lot less than if she was in love with someone else.”

“But you needed to make sure?” Morgan pushed. “You needed to know she was loyal only to you.”

“The blackmail was my idea,” Patel admitted, his head hanging on his chest. “I didn’t need the money, I just needed to know she would do it for me. That she was mine where it mattered,” he said, touching his heart, “and no one else’s.”

“But she wasn’t, was she?”

For a moment there was only the sound of crying. Then Patel looked into Morgan’s face, tears thick in his red eyes.

“A fucking princess, yeah?” He shook his head. “At first I thought Soph was a genius. How much would they pay to cover that up? But then she… she…”

“She wouldn’t blackmail her,” Morgan finished for him.

“She was in love!” Patel screamed out. “With a fucking woman! Not me!”

“So you killed her,” Morgan said gently. “You got angry because she loved someone else, and you killed her.”

“I did.” Patel sobbed. “I didn’t mean too, believe me! I think her neck broke.”

“Is that why you tried to stage the hanging?”

“Yes,” the man admitted, wiping tears from his face. “I knew that she always loved that place. I didn’t want to kill her, please believe me. I just wanted her to be mine. I wanted her to love me like she loved her.”

Morgan had heard enough. He looked back over his shoulder to the officer in the corner of the room. The man nodded.

“Where’s he going?” Patel asked as the officer left the room. “Where’s he going?”

“This conversation is just for us.” Morgan sat unmoved in his chair. “You’re going to tell me who you hired to kill me and my team.”

Morgan watched as confusion replaced the fear and guilt that had been etched into Patel’s face. “What are you talking about?” he managed.