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Cars honked and blasted their horns as they had to find a way around the woman’s car, and then fell silent when they saw her lying in the road.
The woman crouched beside her, and Gabriella slowly sat up and accepted a hand up.
“You’re going to have quite a bruise on your back and shoulder,” the woman said.
Gabriella lifted up a hand to touch her arm, and then turned as she finally registered the shouting and yelling from the pavement.
“Those boys, are they all right?” she asked.
They both turned, and Gabriella could see one boy was lying on the pavement, surrounded by his friends, and the moped lay nearby.
The driver was gone.
chapter
eighteen
James stared down at the two sheets of paper in front of him.
He had a few minutes alone while Hartridge got them lunch, and he picked up the phone and called Layman.
“You need to come over to Harry’s office,” James said after they’d exchanged greetings.
“You found something?” Layman’s voice dropped.
“Four somethings. I’ve only opened two, and it’s . . . going to complicate things.” James felt his lips twist at the understatement of that. “I’d rather not discuss it over the phone.”
“Right.” Layman sighed. “I just got word from PS Yates that some letters were found on the streets in Holland Park that have to have come from the bags that were stolen yesterday. I was about to go out and get them, but I’ll send someone else on my team and come to you.”
“I think that would be best,” James said.
By the time Layman arrived, he and Hartridge had eaten their lunch, downed a few cups of tea, and James had opened the other two envelopes.
Hartridge had glanced over the information and then winced. “That’s . . .”
“Yes.” James didn’t think he needed to say much more.
As Layman stepped into the room, he raised his brows at the sight of them leaning on either side of Harry’s big desk.
“Take a look,” James invited him, stepping back and gesturing with a hand.
Layman sat in Harry’s chair and pulled the first set of documents and photos toward himself, and then slowly lifted his eyes. “Taken from a safe, do you think?”
James nodded. “And likely worth more that whatever jewels Harry got that night.” Information showing that a sitting member of the House of Lords was being blackmailed by the Russians was invaluable.
Layman blew out a breath. “A friend of mine works for the Home Office. I’m going to call him to come and take a look at this.”
Unspoken between them was the fact that the correct procedure would be to tell one of their superior officers. James was interested in the fact that Layman was going to skip that step.
“It would certainly be a good thing to have a professional opinion on these documents in case it turns out they’re fakes,” James said.
Hartridge blinked, as if he hadn’t considered that. “That would be . . . very bad,” he said.
“That’s why we’re going to sit on these until Layman’s friend can make it over.” James tapped the second pile of documents. “You’ll be relieved to know that the other three envelopes we found contain less incendiary information—more in the line of tax evasion for two of them, and a photographic inventory of gems and jewelry in the third. So maybe we should get someone from Fraud out to look at them.”
“Agreed.” Layman looked positively giddy that there weren’t three other bombshells in the form of blackmail threats to a member of the House of Lords on the table.
“You said that letters had been found in the street that were from the stolen bags?” James said after Layman called his friend and someone from the Fraud unit.
