Hard Knocks tcfs-3

by Zoe Sharp

  Rebanks and Gilby, on the other hand, had apparently never left the Manor. And they weren’t the only ones.

  “It’s fortunate the police caught that gang of criminals who attacked us yesterday, isn’t it, Major?” I said, keeping my face level as I fed his own invention back to him. “Otherwise you might almost suspect they were to blame.”

  “Mm, quite,” Gilby muttered, looking as rattled as I’d ever seen him. Where were you, Major, when Blakemore was being murdered?

  Up to that point Rebanks himself hadn’t spoken. Now he took advantage of the death of the conversation to lever himself out of his chair. He moved casually in front of the desk with his back towards me.

  “I don’t suppose you can shed any light on this, can you?” he asked. And when he moved aside there was a single 9mm Hydra-Shok hollowpoint standing on the polished wooden surface.

  I knew, don’t ask me how, that the round was the very one I’d found on the range and given to Blakemore. If they’d had me wired up to a heart monitor it would all have been over at that point, because my pulse rate went storming off into cardiac arrest territory.

  Outwardly, I tried to stay calm. Inwardly, my mind went totally blank, which I suppose is another kind of calm. I tried to figure the innocent response, but couldn’t find one.

  Then, with a mental lurch, my brain reconnected and started running again. Deny everything. Nobody was close enough to know for sure that you gave the round to Blakemore. Unless they were watching you through binoculars . . .

  I shook off that last unwelcome thought and looked Rebanks straight in the eye. “Why should I be able to?” I asked pleasantly. “Munitions are your field, aren’t they?”

  A quick flash of something chased across his narrow face too fast for me to identify.

  “All right, Miss Fox,” Gilby said then. He sat on the edge of his desk, suddenly looking as tired as he had done earlier that day, when he’d realised that Blakemore was dead. “That will be all.”

  I nodded, grateful of the chance to escape. He let me get the study door halfway open before he called me back, the frozen relief at almost making it out of there in one piece grabbing me by the throat.

  “Just one last thing,” the Major said with that deceptive quiet. When I turned back I found him watching me with the dispassionate stare of a stone-cold killer. “The police will be investigating the crash and they will present their findings in due course. In the meantime I will not have anyone shooting their mouth off about what happened today that will unsettle the staff or the students here. Is that quite clear, Miss Fox?”

  People have made that kind of mild threat to me before and it’s never ended well. I didn’t think this was the time to say so, so I nodded meekly. “Yes sir,” I said, not nearly as smartly as Todd had done, and made my exit.

  I was out of the study and had almost reached the end of the corridor when a voice behind me made me stop.

  “Charlie, can I speak with you?”

  I turned to find Rebanks had followed me out and was hurrying after me. Without waiting for an answer, he took my elbow as he came past and hustled me towards the hallway, as though afraid Gilby would appear and call back both of us.

  I let him walk me well out of earshot before I twisted my arm out of his grasp.

  “What’s this all about, Rebanks?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”

  “Why did you ask about hollowpoints the other day?” he said, ignoring my question to pose one of his own. “You asked if you’d be firing them. Why?”

  “Just something somebody mentioned,” I said, wary enough to be deliberately vague.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  He let his breath out, exasperated. For a moment he regarded me with his head slightly cocked, as though he couldn’t quite make up his mind if I really was innocent, or whether I was just stalling him.

  “Look, Charlie, there’s stuff going on here that you can’t begin to understand,” he said suddenly then, speaking low and urgent. “Blakemore was into it and look what happened to him. You and I both know that crash wasn’t an accident, but the Major’s stonewalling.” He glanced over his shoulder, just to make sure the corridor leading to Gilby’s study was still empty.

  Surprised by this unexpected confidence, I said, “Surely the local police will turn up evidence of the other vehicle.”

  He gave me a withering look. “The local plod will toe the line,” he said. “What they turn up is immaterial. Gilby’s got influence. If he wants it kept quiet, that’s the way it will stay. Trust me on this.”

  And how would he know that? Of course, Gilby had done it before. Kirk had died in the most suspicious of circumstances, but the school had not been put under the microscope, hadn’t been closed down. The whole matter had been dusted under the carpet.

  I feigned puzzlement, tried to push aside everything Blakemore had told me right before he died. “But why the hell would the Major want to cover up the man’s death?”

  “Ah,” Rebanks said, giving me a bleakly knowing look. “Isn’t that the question? Maybe what you should be asking is why he wanted him dead in the first place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh come on, Charlie,” he said. “You said yourself it wasn’t an accident!”

  “No,” I said carefully, dismissing the doubts I’d shared with Elsa and Jan. “That’s not what I said. It could very well have been an accident. I meant it wasn’t simply down to rider error. The other driver could just have panicked and run, that’s all. And now you’re telling me that Major Gilby wanted Blakemore dead. What possible reason could he have had for that?”

  Rebanks stepped back away from me abruptly, staring, and a combination of thoughts flitted across the screen of his face too fast for me to unravel any of them.

  “I thought—” he began, then stopped, shook his head. “Never mind, forget it.” He turned and started away from me, but I grabbed his arm, pulled him back.

  “Hang on a minute, Rebanks,” I said. “You can’t just drop that one on me and then walk away. What the hell are you talking about?”

  Rebanks shook his head again, more forcefully this time, his mouth compressed as though I wasn’t going to force another wrong word out of it. “Forget it, Charlie,” he repeated, urgently. “I mean it. If you value your safety, you won’t pursue this any further.”

  ***

  That evening we handed in our reports on the fleshpots of Einsbaden village, which Gilby warned us he would mark and return the following morning, like junior school homework. I wondered who’d be getting a gold star and who’d be getting a “See me.”

  I was aware, also, when I’d finished mine that it was a shoddy piece of work and unlikely to earn me particular praise, but that was just too bad. I had other things on my mind.

  Why would Gilby have killed one of his own men? And why choose such a hit and miss fashion to do it? There was always the chance that Blakemore might have avoided the ambush. Kirk’s death had been much more certain, much more precise.

  Maybe Gilby had realised that he wouldn’t get away with two such obvious executions. It made it all the more important to find out what he was up to.

  Just after supper McKenna had walked out of Einsbaden Manor, as he’d said he would, to meet a taxi down at the main gate. I watched him go from the dormitory window, but didn’t feel inclined to go down and indulge in any kind of fond farewells. Not many of the other students did, although I was surprised to see Jan talking to him outside the front door. Maybe she had a softer heart than she’d like us all to think behind that sharp exterior.

  McKenna hadn’t tried too hard to make friends during his short spell in Germany. I doubt he was going home with answered questions. Still, at least he was going home in a seat in Economy, rather than a box in the hold.

  Elsa came into the dormitory then and disappeared into the bathroom announcing her intention to soak in the bath before turning in. I didn’t want to risk being overheard, so I g
rabbed my jacket and the mobile, and headed back out to the woods where I’d collared McKenna that afternoon.

  It took me a while to wind myself up to call Sean, but even so I had no clear idea what I was going to say when he picked up the phone. In the end I needn’t have worried.

  “I know about Blakemore,” he said as soon as he came on the line. “Madeleine called me.”

  I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. “Did she tell you about McKenna’s uncle as well?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Do you think he could be our boy, or do you think the Russians took Blakemore out?”

  “Neither,” I said, and I told him what had happened since I’d got back to the Manor.

  “So McKenna’s claiming he saw another of the Audis near the scene, and Rebanks is hinting that Gilby’s responsible?” Sean said and there was no mistaking the incredulous note in his tone. “And you believe either of them?”

  “I don’t disbelieve them,” I said. “It’s a moot point as far as McKenna’s concerned anyway. He’s packed up and left.”

  “Hmm, either lost his nerve or accomplished his mission,” Sean murmured. “Take your pick.”

  “I keep coming back to the fact that Blakemore admitted they had some involvement with the kidnapping and that Kirk was in on it, too.”

  “We’ve been through this before, Charlie,” Sean said, rather tiredly, “he couldn’t have been.”

  “Yes, he could,” I said. “He just couldn’t have been shot by Heidi’s bodyguards, that’s all.”

  “He was with us all the way,” Blakemore had said of Kirk. “Salter wasn’t the one who threw a spanner in the works.”

  What kind of a spanner? “Supposing Gilby’s not the one who planned the kidnapping?” I demanded then. “Supposing it was his staff who did it, and when Gilby found out he went ape-shit, and that’s when Kirk was killed?”

  For a while there was silence at the other end of the line. I could almost hear the gears whirring. “It’s close,” he conceded, and just when I’d begun to feel pleased with myself he added, “But how do you explain the money Gilby’s been banking over the last six months?”

  I swore under my breath.

  “Quite,” Sean said. “Sorry, Charlie, but Blakemore must have been spinning you a line.”

  “I didn’t get that feeling from him,” I insisted, stubborn.

  “And you can tell when somebody’s lying to you?” Sean said, and there was just a hint of taunting there. “Just like that?”

  “Sometimes, yes,” I threw back at him, stung. “You remember you once told me you’d never hit on one of your trainees before? Well, I believed you. I didn’t ask for evidence, I just knew.”

  Oh God, where did that come from? It was the last thing that had been in my mind, but as I said it I realised it had never really been away.

  A full five seconds went past before Sean spoke again.

  “Well, I have to hand it to you, Charlie,” he said dryly, “you certainly know how to stop a guy in his tracks.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I don’t know why I said that, I just—”

  “Don’t,” he cut in, fierce enough to surprise me. “Don’t ever apologise for having faith in me. Christ knows I didn’t think you’d ever want anything to do with me again when I’ve meant nothing but pain for you. Why do you think I sent Madeleine to fetch you from your parents’ place?”

  It was my turn to be speechless, to feel my mouth working but no words waiting behind it to emerge. My tongue was dry and empty.

  I leaned back against a tree and listened to the quiet rustling of the forest around me. It was almost soothing.

  So, where do we go from here? I had no idea. A picture had unfolded suddenly in front of me that was too big to see the end of it. I needed time to digest, for Sean’s words to sink in.

  “But you were over in Germany,” I said, forgetting completely for a moment which countries we were both in.

  “I didn’t have to be,” he admitted. “I’m hoping you won’t need to be for much longer. How’s Gilby taking Blakemore’s untimely demise?”

  “Badly,” I said. “He’s feeling the pressure and he’s starting to suffer for it.”

  “And you think that’s more likely to be guilty conscience because he’s bumping off his own men,” Sean said, back on track, “rather than the more natural anger and frustration because somebody else is doing it and he’s powerless to stop them?”

  “But why is he powerless?” I shot back. “If he’s nothing to hide then why doesn’t he bring in the authorities and let them clear it up? Why is he letting people ambush his students with machine pistols and run one of his instructors off the road? Gilby’s up to his neck in this kidnapping somehow. I’m waiting for him to show now, to see if he might lead me to anything interesting on his nightly walkabout.”

  Gilby hadn’t turned out for the last couple of nights. Either that or I’d missed him. It was difficult to maintain an effective watching brief single-handed. It was when you had to be up and running your guts out at five o’clock the next morning, at any rate.

  “You just be damned careful, Charlie,” Sean warned.

  “I will,” I promised.

  “At least wait until I get out there tomorrow before you go confronting anybody else.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll take it easy.”

  He paused, as if trying to find a nice way to call me a liar then changed the subject with a teasing note in his voice. “So how are you getting on with the course, or has that all gone to hell in a hand cart?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “I’ve just handed in a very scrappy location survey that might just pull in a C-plus – if I’m lucky.”

  “You’re not there to pass the course, Charlie,” he pointed out.

  That took me aback slightly. Wasn’t I? I’d never liked failing, that was the trouble. Perhaps I hadn’t realised how much I’d hated that aspect of getting kicked out of the army. My relationship with Sean had been a failure, too.

  “You remember that chalet we stayed in, that first weekend in Wales?” I asked suddenly. Christ, I really was going to have to learn to keep my mouth shut. It was running away with me tonight.

  “Yes,” he said, with a quiet intensity. “I remember.”

  I wished, more than ever, that I could see his face as he spoke, could gauge him. Mind you, if we’d been face to face then probably this conversation would never have happened.

  “It was quite a place,” I ventured at last, mentally cursing my own cowardice.

  “Yes, it was,” he agreed. “All that wildness, that untamed element.” He paused. “I thought it would suit you.”

  I listened for, but couldn’t find, the ironic note in his voice. Instead I asked, “How did you know it was there?”

  “Is that a tactful way of asking me how many other girls I’d taken there?” It was the way he said “taken” that made my bones melt.

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Well if it was, the answer’s none – before or since.”

  I leaned my head back, stared up at darkened branches and past them, to the stars. My heart had started to thump painfully behind my breastbone, like I was preparing to run. I had to swallow before I could speak again.

  “So how did you know it was there?”

  “My mum knew about it,” he said. “I think my dear departed dad took her there in the happy days before he started to drink. She used to tell me about it and I remembered the name. What made you think about that?”

  How could I not think about that weekend in Wales? We’d run purely on instinct and feeling. No thought. No doubt. No regret. I’d remember it until I died.

  “Something Madeleine said, that’s all.”

  “Oh yes,” he said. What was that in his voice – surely not embarrassment? “I seem to remember her prising that information out of me one night. There were times when it was good to have someone to talk to.” About you. He didn’t say the words out loud, b
ut I knew they were there because I’d felt the same way.

  It’s amazing what people will admit to over the phone. Encouraged, I said, “She showed me a photo of her boyfriend.”

  “Dom?” Sean said and he sounded surprised. “Why would she do that?”

  “I think,” I said carefully, “that she was trying to tell me that she wasn’t a threat.”

  Sean said, “Ah,” as though a lot of things had fallen into place. There was a long pause, and when he next spoke there was something serious in his voice. “She never has been, Charlie.”

  I closed my eyes, felt the pull of a smile across my lips. “Good,” I said. “That’s all right, then.”

  Seventeen

  Major Gilby walked out of the Manor house about twenty minutes after I’d finished talking to Sean, and strode briskly along the path towards the ranges. He wore a heavy greatcoat that flapped around his legs as he walked.

  It was bitter out, just on the point of freezing. The ground was crystalline with a heavy frost that reflected the moon like a cut diamond.

  As for me, for once I didn’t feel the cold.

  I waited until he’d moved past my position, then slipped out into the darkness and followed. I clung to the edge of the trees, not only watching his progress, but also keeping an eye out behind me, just in case the Major’s mystery shadow had chosen tonight to make a reappearance. If he had, he was better at hiding than I was at spotting him.

  It didn’t take me long to realise that I’d picked a bad night to trail Gilby. His footsteps along the path showed as flattened prints on the concrete, plainly visible through the frost. Where I’d walked along the edge of the grass I left telltales that were clearer still. Crossing the open ground that lay between us was going to be impossible without leaving tracks a blind man wouldn’t need a Labrador to be able to follow. Was it worth that risk?

  I’d promised Sean I wouldn’t take risks, but I’d also promised him results just by being here. It was a wrench to know which to keep, but for the moment I settled for a watching brief, got as close as I dared and stayed in cover. It was a good job I didn’t break out of it.