Not good, said the rest of her. But that part was quieter right now.
Helena Ward stood at the monitor bank, her red hair pulled tight, her uniform as crisp as ever despite the hours that had passed. She was coordinating with the team in London via a secure video link, her voice a steady stream of updates and instructions. Erin had been watching her since the crisis began. Helena was composed, professional, efficient. She answered questions directly and volunteered information without being asked. She was, by all observable measures, doing her job exceptionally well.
Erin didn't trust her gut when it came to Helena. Her gut had too many other things to process right now. So she was watching instead. Filing.
"Walk me through it again," Erin said. "From the beginning. Both of you."
Vic flinched. "Erin, I've already?—"
"Again."
Vic took a breath. Her hands were flat on the table, fingers spread, and she spoke in a voice that was carefully controlled. "Florence and I left the stables at approximately ten-forty. Jennings followed on the grey mare. We took the south bridle path into the woodland. Florence was on Percy. We werewalking, not trotting. I wanted her to warm up properly before we picked up the pace."
"How far into the woods?"
"About fifteen minutes. Maybe a mile. We'd just passed the stream crossing when the car appeared on the service road ahead of us, the section that runs parallel to the bridle path through the south woodland. It pulled over and the driver got out."
"Describe him."
"Male. White. Average height, average build. Dark cap, high-vis vest, dark jacket underneath. I couldn't see his face properly. The cap was pulled low and he kept his head slightly turned. He was polite. Professional. His voice was calm, no accent I could place. He said there'd been a change of schedule and that Princess Florence was needed back at the house immediately. He showed Jennings a radio, or something that looked like a radio, and said he'd been dispatched by the control room."
"And Jennings didn't challenge any of this."
"No." Vic's voice went thin. "He checked the car's credentials: windscreen sticker, plates, the driver's ID badge. Everything matched. Jennings said he'd ride back with Florence in the car and escort her to the house. He guided Florence off Percy and put her in the back seat. She waved at me." Vic's voice broke. "She waved and said she'd see me after lunch."
Erin closed her eyes briefly. Florence waving from the back of a car that was about to disappear with her. Trusting. Unconcerned. Because the adults around her were unconcerned, and eight-year-olds took their cues from the adults.
Helena stepped forward. "There was no dispatch order from the control room. No one here authorised a vehicle to intercept the riding party."
"Which means the radio was fake," Erin said. "Or hacked."
"Or the driver had access to our frequencies." Helena's voice was neutral. "Which brings me to something I need to share with you."
The room went still. Vic looked up. Even the officers at the monitors turned their heads.
Helena tapped her tablet and a series of documents appeared on the wall screen: security protocols, authorisation codes, a flow chart of digital access permissions that Erin recognised as the estate's vehicle clearance system. "The credentials on the car were genuine. Not forged. Genuine credentials, issued through a legitimate authorisation pathway. When I traced the pathway, I found it was activated using a legacy access code that should have been decommissioned two years ago."
"Whose code?"
"The code belonged to the private office of Prince Arthur."
The name landed in the room like a grenade with the pin pulled. Vic's head snapped up. The officers at the monitors exchanged glances. Erin felt the blood drain from her face and then rush back in a wave of heat that prickled along her scalp and down the back of her neck.
Arthur. Alexandra’s uncle. The late King George’s brother.
"There's a caveat," Helena said quickly. "The code is linked to his office, not to him personally. Anyone with access to his office systems could have used it. A PA, a secretary, a member of his household staff. There's no direct evidence that Arthur himself authorised or had knowledge of its use."
"Bollocks." The word was out of Erin's mouth and into the room. She pushed off the table and paced to the far end of the room, her boots loud on the concrete floor. "Arthur's legacy code, used to generate genuine credentials, to intercept the heir to the throne? And we're supposed to believe he didn't know?"
"I'm telling you what the evidence shows, ma'am."
"The evidence shows that my daughter was kidnapped using the private authorisation pathway of a man who has spent the last twenty years trying to destroy my wife." Erin spun back to face Helena, and she could feel the rage building now, the hot, dark pressure that had been simmering since Vic burst through the terrace door. It was rising from somewhere deep in her chest and it was filling her head with a clarity that was almost violent. "Arthur endorsed Lord Hugo. Arthur worked with Cecilia to deliver a million pounds in cash to to bribe me into leaving Alexandra. Arthur has been suspected of involvement in at least two previous plots against the Crown. His authorisation pathway was used to create the credentials that took my eight-year-old daughter, and you're standing there telling me you can't prove he knew?"
Helena's jaw tightened. A muscle moved beneath the skin, the only sign that the captain's professional composure was costing her anything. "I'm telling you that we need to be careful. Accusing a senior member of the royal family without proof would create a constitutional crisis on top of a kidnapping investigation."
"I don't care about constitutional crises. I care about Florence."
"And the best way to find Florence is to follow the evidence, not the anger."
