by Zoe Sharp
Yelling from the base of my screaming lungs, I burst suddenly upright, ramming my feet into the floor to lift my body off the stage as my arm straightened.
I hit Dave just under the tip of his nose with the heel of my open hand, but I was aiming for a spot about eight inches further on. It was a deadly punch to throw, and I was fully aware of the fact. I put everything I had left into it, every scrap and ounce of energy. The forfeit for failure was an ugly, prolonged, and vicious death.
It didn't fail. The force and the angle of the blow caused Dave's nasal bone to shatter just at the bridge of his nose, between his eyes, as I'd prayed it would. The sheered end was driven onwards and upwards, slicing deep into the frontal lobe of his brain.
According to the police pathologist, he was dead before his body finished falling.
He splayed backwards, landing hard on the dance floor, head cracking hollowly against the polished wooden surface. His body continued to jitter, trying to evade the creeping paralysis that slowly enveloped it as his heart finally gave up the fight.
It took a while for him to stop twitching. The lifeless fingers relaxed. The mic stand rolled out onto the floor, rocked a little, and lay still. It was only then I could bear to look.
There was a dribble of saliva stringing from the corner of his slack mouth. His eyes were still open in his flattened, distorted face, frozen with the momentary surprise that had been his final expression, right in the instant before I killed him.
For a while I was too exhausted to move. I don't know how long I sat there, shivering. It seemed an age. Finally, I dragged myself shakily to my feet, edging round Dave's sprawled corpse, and swayed drunkenly over to Clare.
At first I thought she was unconscious, but when I touched her shoulder she jolted like I'd stung her. She looked up, her pupils pin-point dots in her unfocused eyes.
“Charlie?” she murmured, her voice thready. “You're all covered in blood.”
“I know,” I croaked. I reached up tentatively to my throbbing neck, suddenly realising that I could still breathe and talk. My fingers touched ragged ends of flesh and I dropped them away. If it wasn't that bad, I didn't need to worry about it, and if it was, I didn't want to know.
Besides, my left arm and my face were yelling at me through the central nervous system equivalent of a megaphone. I felt light-headed, and freezing cold. I couldn't stop my teeth clattering together like a flamenco dancers' convention. In a detached way I registered that my body was shutting down, going in to shock. I knew if I didn't do something soon, I was in big trouble.
One-handed, I couldn't manage to undo the zip-ties round Clare's wrists and had to give up trying. “I'll get help,” I muttered.
It seemed a hell of a long way across the dance floor to the bar, where the nearest phone was, but I managed to get there by sheer bloody determination.
I had to dial the number of the police station three times before I got it right, and when they answered I asked them to put me straight through to MacMillan. There was only a short pause before he came on the line.
“Superintendent, it's Charlie Fox,” I said, my voice wavering.
“Charlie! What the hell do you think you're up to?” he demanded.
“Angelo didn't kill Susie and Joy,” I told him, launching straight in without preamble. “It was Dave Clemmens and I missed it, all along. He raped and killed them, and he's just tried to kill me.”
“Charlie, listen to me. Stay right where you are.” His voice became terse, persuasive. “I'll send a car to pick you up straight away. I give you my word that you'll be quite safe.”
“OK,” I said meekly, “I'm at the New Adelphi Club.” He relayed the information to someone alongside him. I suddenly felt unutterably tired. I slid to the floor, cradling the phone with my good hand. When he spoke again I said, “There's no need to rush – the bastard's dead.”
Epilogue
In the end I didn't go to trial for the murder of Dave Clemmens. They didn't even charge me with his manslaughter, which was a bit of a surprise really, considering the technique I'd used. I suppose if I'd waited until later and stabbed him to death with a pair of pinking shears, they would have sent me down for life.
Ironically perhaps, the only charges I did face were for assaulting a police officer. I think WPC Wilks's ego had been more bruised than her jaw. They let me off with a caution, though. MacMillan delivered my stern lecture himself, with only the barest hint of a smile.
The thing I regret most about this whole business is the effect it's had on my friends. Physically, Clare emerged from the encounter relatively unscathed, but the road back from the mental trauma she'd suffered looked like being a long and tortuous one.
Any attempts I made to offer comfort seemed to make things worse. Eventually I just had to leave her be and hope that, when she'd recovered enough to view things with a clearer perspective, she didn't hold me entirely responsible for what had happened.
It's bad enough that I blame myself.
Ailsa sent me a short little note telling me she didn't feel it was appropriate for me to continue my classes at the Lodge. She was divorcing Tris on the grounds of gross mental cruelty and, with the facts as they were, I doubted there was a judge this side of senility who wouldn't come down heavily in her favour. She had already announced her intention of selling the house to a local property developer and moving the refuge to somewhere on the north Wales coast.
I had a feeling Tris would mourn the loss of his family home more than the disintegration of his marriage, but I don't know for sure how he took the news. He never contacted me again.
The police picked up Angelo a couple of days after the raid on the New Adelphi. He'd gone to ground with an old mate of his from Liverpool. I couldn't ignore the possibility that the man was probably one of the pair who'd ransacked my flat, but there wasn't the evidence to pursue it. There was enough forensic to bind Angelo to Terry's killing, though, and that was the main thing.
When it came to Dave, after reviewing all the facts, the powers that be decided my claim of self-defence was justified. They judged that I didn't have a case to answer, and I walked away free. The police were able to lay the three recent attacks firmly at Dave's feet without question. It looked like I'd done everyone a favour.
But that doesn't make it any easier to forget.
The doctors at the hospital told me I'd been lucky, that wrenching my head away had caused the knife blade to slice into the side of my neck rather than across my throat, missing by fractions the trachea and vital arteries, which had slid back behind my neck muscles. They stitched me up again and set and plastered my arm. The ribs and the cheekbone, so they told me, were best left to sort themselves out, given time.
They sent me to see a community psychiatric nurse for counselling about coming to terms with what I'd done, but I have a feeling the bones will be mended long before my conscience.
Like I said, the worst part is knowing that, if I was ever in the same situation, I'd do exactly the same thing again. No doubt about it.
It doesn't sit well with me, that – the realisation that I have not only the knowledge, but the instinct to kill. It sets you apart from the other people you pass in the street, makes you feel alone, less human than they are.
I proved Dave wrong, though. Given a straight fight between a man and a woman, neither with any particular advantage in skill over the other, it isn't a foregone conclusion that the man will always win. I suppose then, right at the end, I could have said to him, “I told you so.”
Just as long as I'd said it fast enough.
Afterword
This Afterword was originally written for the Busted Flush Press US trade paperback edition of KILLER INSTINCT, published in 2010. Publisher David Thompson planned similar editions of RIOT ACT, HARD KNOCKS and ROAD KILL, but he tragically died, suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of thirty-eight, shortly before the second book was due to go to print. This was a huge loss to everyone who knew him – one from which we are a
ll still reeling.
When David asked me to write an afterword for the new edition of KILLER INSTINCT, it made me think afresh about this, the very first Charlie Fox book, and why I chose to join her story at this point.
This is not, after all, the beginning of Charlie’s journey, but I look back on it as the major turning point in her life. The events covered during the course of the book change her forever from having been a victim, to not only fighting back on her own behalf, but as a protector for others. It sets her out, whether she is aware of it at the time, on the path she will subsequently follow into the world of close protection.
Ironically enough, it was Charlie’s first official job as a bodyguard, in the events of book four in the series, FIRST DROP, that brought her to US shores for the first time in more ways than one. Setting FIRST DROP in Daytona Beach, Florida over the Spring Break weekend caught the eye of a New York editor, who decided that’s where the story should start for American readers, and the title mistakenly gave the impression there was no history to Charlie before then.
But there is, and KILLER INSTINCT is the first instalment.
I wrote this story at a time when I had just been the target of a number of death-threat letters through my work, and I probably identified with Charlie more closely during the course of this book than any other. Of course, those letters never escalated to anything like the level of threat that my protagonist faces here, but they planted the germ of the idea. And it did inspire me to go out and learn a lot of self-defence techniques, which have stood me in very good stead ever since.
I chose the northern English city of Lancaster for the setting because it was not only an area I knew well, but because I was intrigued by the dual-edged personality of the place. By day it’s an attractive university town, filled with history and the kind of elegant Georgian architecture that has seen it called the Bath of the North.
But by night the number of pubs and clubs give the city an altogether darker feel. At one point it had one of the highest violent-crime rates per head of population in the country. And although one or two people asked if the events described in the book could really happen in a place like Lancaster, my answer is . . . they did, more or less.
In one of those weird twists of fate, shortly after KILLER INSTINCT was published, one of the local nightclubs was shut down after a drug-dealing scandal, in which the owner and half the door staff were allegedly involved. (And if you’re cheating, and reading this afterword before you’ve read the book itself, you better just forget that bit!)
So, how does it feel to finally have the beginning of Charlie’s story out there again? Bloody marvellous, if you must know . . .
Acknowledgements
First of all, I have to thank those people who patiently let me pick their brains; especially PC Michael Wilkinson for his inside information on police procedure; James for filling me in on what really happens behind club doors; Ian ‘this won’t hurt’ Cottam and Lee Watkin for teaching me the basics of self-defence; Colin and Jane Greenhalgh for their extensive bar experience; and remedial therapist Wendy Seabrook. Any mistakes are strictly by my own introduction.
A few people trawled through the initial drafts and pointed out the major plot-holes. My grateful thanks for this dedication go to Peter Doleman, Claire Duplock, Sarah Harrison, Tim Winfield, and all the members of the Lune Valley Writers’ Group, particularly Clive Hopwood, whose criticisms were the most painful, but the most accurate. You were all brilliant.
The biggest thank yous of all belong to my husband, Andy, who has suffered with me all the way; to Derek and Jill for encouraging me to write in the first place; to the staff at Piatkus Books who first gave me a chance; to my gracious copyeditor Sarah Abel; to David Thompson at Busted Flush Press, who took Charlie under his wing, and to Jane Hudson at NuDesign who came up with the terrific new e-covers. And also to all the authors and online writing community who encouraged me to get these early books out there into the e-niverse.
Lastly my grateful thanks to the inimitable Lee Child, for being such a big supporter of my work and all-round nice guy.
if you’ve enjoyed KILLER INSTINCT, why not try Zoë Sharp’s Other Works:
the Charlie Fox crime thrillers
(KILLER INSTINCT)
RIOT ACT
Excerpt from RIOT ACT
HARD KNOCKS
FIRST DROP
ROAD KILL
SECOND SHOT
THIRD STRIKE
FOURTH DAY
FIFTH VICTIM – out in e-format Spring 2012
Short stories – eBook exclusive
FOX FIVE: a Charlie Fox short story collection
A Bridge Too Far
Postcards From Another Country
Served Cold
Off Duty
Truth And Lies
RIOT ACT
Charlie Fox book two
by Zoë Sharp
“I am a violent man, Miss Fox,” Garton-Jones said, without bravado or inflection. “I can – and will – do whatever is necessary to control this estate. Remember that.”
A self-defence expert with a motorbike and an attitude, Charlie Fox doesn't need to go looking for trouble. It generally finds her. House-sitting for a friend seems like an easy favour at first but the house in question is in the Lavender Gardens estate. Teenage gangs are running riot and Charlie's desperate neighbours have been forced to employ an expensive – and ruthless – security firm to apply rough justice where the legal kind has failed. The situation gets even uglier when a young Asian boy is fatally wounded in what appears to be a racially motivated shooting.
Caught in the middle of an urban battlefield, Charlie's more than able to take care of herself but then she comes face to face with a spectre from her army past. As the tensions rise, lives will depend on Charlie working out just who she can really trust . . .
‘Sharp's first novel, Killer Instinct was a good read, but within the first few pages of Riot Act she surpasses herself. She succeeds in bringing the characters alive and Charlie Fox makes a powerful and attractive heroine. Equally, her other characters work well and she succeeds in creating snappy dialogue and mixing it well with action.
'At times, Riot Act feels slightly reminiscent of Minette Walters' 'Acid Row'. . . (Sharp) takes her Lancashire setting, throws in a great deal of action and creates a fast-paced novel that is guaranteed to build on the reputation created by her debut novel and make her known as an up-and-coming talent in the crime world.' Luke Croll, Murder & Mayhem Book Club
RIOT ACT
Charlie Fox book two
excerpt
Chapter Five
As I turned in to Kirby Street a big man carrying what looked like a baseball bat stepped out of the shadows into the road in front of me.
My first thought as I grabbed for the front brake was that Roger had somehow already got wind of my intention to go the distance, and had sent the boys round. Timing and logic didn't come into it. This was straight gut-reaction fear.
The Suzuki's tyres slithered on the wet greasy tarmac as I locked the wheels up tight, stepping the back end out. Somehow, I managed to bring the bike to an untidy halt within about six feet of him, slanted across the road. I put my feet down, shaky, heart bouncing against my ribs.
The man had made no move to get out of my path. Arrogance made him confident that I would stop in time. That I wouldn't dare run him down. I wondered if he tried the same tactic with buses and trucks.
For a couple of beats, nothing happened. Then he swaggered forwards to meet me, and I saw that the baseball bat was actually one of those oversize torches. The type so favoured by jumped-up security guards without the authority to carry a weapon for real.
He came right up to the fairing, crowding me, tall enough for me to have to crick my neck up to make eye-contact with him through my visor. His was a face that had seen some action, the bridge of the nose lumped with scar tissue. There was the line of an old knife wound cutting through his moustache stubble from nostr
il to upper lip.
He was a sizeable bloke, wearing the black bomber jacket and dark cargo trousers of the professional bruiser. I've come across enough of them in my time to recognise the type without needing a diagram. I was reminded strongly of the local vigilante leader, Langford.
It was only when he spoke that my preconceptions took a knock. “OK, sonny, where do you think you're going?” he demanded, surprising me with the genuine cut-glass accent that came out of his thuggish mouth.
I didn't bother to correct his mistake. Even in these enlightened times nobody expects a girl to be riding a motorbike. “Home,” I said shortly, my voice muffled by my scarf. “What's it to do with you?”
“You'd be wise not to take that tone with me, my lad,” he warned with a grim smile. He thrust his chin forwards, showing me his teeth and the whites of his eyes all the way round the irises. The skin of his face was stretched over wide cheekbones that protruded through it, revealing the shape of his skull.
Close up, he was older than I'd first thought. Even under the streetlighting, I could see that the hair cropped short to his scalp was silver, not blond. The lines were etched deep into his face like penknife graffiti in an old school desk.
“Come on,” he said, roughly now. “Let's have that helmet off and have a look at you.”
“What? You've got to be kidding?” I managed, appalled. “Who the hell d'you think you are?”
At that moment another figure appeared from a ginnel between two houses and joined the first. He was younger, shorter, not so broad in the shoulder, but the haircut and the uniform was the same. This was starting to get creepy.
