Killer Instinct: Charlie Fox book one

by Zoe Sharp

  “What interests me,” Jacob put in slowly, “is why they came round to see you at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, why didn't this Len and Angelo back up your story? I thought you bouncer types were supposed to stick together,” he said with a bit of a grin. “It doesn't sound like they've tried to help you at all. In fact, it sounds more like they're actively trying to drop you in it.”

  I thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I know Marc said afterwards that he'd told them to let me handle something on my own, just to check me out, but I would have thought it should have been obvious to someone of their experience straight away that it was serious.”

  “Exactly,” he said, downing the last of his wine as he stood up. “Perhaps you should be asking yourself what you know that could be so important, Charlie. Or what you might find out when you're there. It might tell you why someone seems to want to get you out of the way.”

  “That's ridiculous,” I argued. “I didn't go after them for a job at the place. Marc made me an offer last Saturday night when Susie had a go at Clare. Why on earth would he do that one week, then try and get rid of me the next?”

  “Maybe he didn't have a choice,” Clare put in. “If I remember right it was actually that bar manager chap – Gary is it? – who first suggested they employ you. Maybe Marc couldn't say no without it appearing suspicious.”

  “Suspicious to whom?” I asked, idly scratching the terrier's head. Beezer wriggled her muscular little body with delight. “He could have shot Gary down in flames instantly and it wouldn't have looked anything out of the ordinary. No,” I shook my head, “he seemed quite keen then.”

  “So,” Jacob said, “what happened between then and yesterday to make him change his mind about you?” He moved stiffly over to the door. “Do you want to come through to the kitchen, by the way? I'll see if anything of my culinary masterpiece can be salvaged at this late hour.”

  Clare grinned at me behind his back as I stood up, tipping the disgruntled terrier off my knees. We followed Jacob's halting steps back along the hallway. He walks with a permanent limp, his legs more steel than bone in places.

  Jacob used to race bikes when he was younger, with more courage than was good for him. If he travels abroad he jokes that he has to take his X-rays with him to avoid being strip-searched going through the airport metal detectors.

  Once we were settled round the kitchen table and Jacob had retrieved an absolutely perfect beef and baby onion stifado out of the oven in the Aga, he repeated his earlier question. “So, come on – what's happened to warrant this man Quinn's sudden reversal of opinion of you?”

  “Susie Hollins was murdered for a start,” Clare supplied, getting carried away with the idea. “Hey, that could be it! She'd just been in his club, and we've only got his word for it that he actually threw her out.”

  “Clare,” I said, tearing off a hunk of crusty bread to shamelessly sop up my gravy with. “Marc was sitting down talking to us just after that. I hardly think he'd had time to do Susie in, change into an identical set of clothes so there'd be no bloodstains, and get back upstairs to chat, all within the space of about ten minutes, do you?”

  She looked crestfallen. “Oh. No, I suppose you're right.”

  I recalled the incidents at the Lodge, but I didn't mention them to Jacob and Clare. I don't know why. I suppose I just didn't want to admit that since Susie's rape and murder someone had been taking rather too much of an interest in other vulnerable women. It was as if putting voice to my fears would make them more real.

  Jacob got up to replenish our drinks, giving Clare's shoulder a reassuring squeeze as he went past. “Anything else you can think of?”

  “Well, Terry did come round last Sunday with a computer he said he'd picked up from someone at the club as part of a debt,” I said uneasily, remembering he'd been supposed to be collecting the lap-top this weekend, but he hadn't been in touch.

  “Hang on a minute – who’s Terry?” Jacob said, sitting down again.

  “He’s the local mobile video man,” Clare put in promptly. “He comes round to the office every Friday. Or he usually does, but this week he didn’t show up.”

  “And he gave you a computer as part of a debt?”

  “No, no,” I explained. “He told me that someone at the club owed him money, and they’d given him a lap-top computer instead, but they’d password protected it, so Terry couldn’t use it.” I forked a chunk of meat into my mouth and savoured it as it dissolved on my tongue. If I believed all the scare stories that I was going to get mad cow disease from eating British beef, I reckoned it was probably worth it.

  “So why did he come to you?” Clare asked. “You don’t even own a computer.”

  “No,” I agreed, “but I have friends in low places. You remember Sam Pickering, with the Norton? He’s a bit of a whizz with the things and he managed to get round it, no problem. The only thing was, when we got into the machine, there didn’t seem to be anything on it, so I don’t know if it was one stolen recently from the club itself, or if it just happened to belong to somebody who worked there.”

  “How did Sam get round the password?” Clare wanted to know, elbowing Beezer who was trying to sneak onto her lap to beg food from her plate.

  I shrugged. “I’ve no idea.” Under the table, Bonneville decided I might be a softer touch and dumped her greying muzzle on my knee, sighing noisily. If she thought I was going to share Jacob’s cooking with her, she had another think coming.

  “More to the point, what was the password?” Jacob asked.

  “Bacchus,” I said, spelling it.

  “Bacchus,” he repeated, almost to himself. “Hmm. Someone’s into Greek mythology with a twist.”

  “You know what it means?” I asked, surprised. “My dictionary didn’t include it.”

  “It’s the Latin name for Dionysus, who was the son of Zeus and the god of wine,” Jacob said promptly, raising his glass and grinning at me. “Your education is sadly lacking, Charlie.”

  “That’s a bit obscure, isn’t it?” Clare demanded. “And anyway, apart from the wine bit, what’s the connection with the nightclub?”

  Jacob held up a finger to silence our questions and left the table. After half a beat, both the dogs scrabbled after him. Bonneville cannoned off the door frame on the way out.

  Jacob returned a few minutes later, carrying a book on Greek mythology. The dogs circled him expectantly. He sat down and pulled out a pair of delicate half-moon glasses. They should make him look like an old man, but they actually have a magnifying effect on his sex appeal.

  “Ah, here we are. Bacchus. Also known as Bromius the Boisterous, which gives you some idea what he got up to in his spare time. Married Ariadne. He was also god of tillage, law-giving and intoxicating herbs like ivy and laurel. And,” he looked at me, “he was worshipped at Delphi.”

  I felt a shiver ripple across my back.

  “But Delphi isn’t the same as Adelphi,” Clare protested.

  “True,” he allowed. “Adelphi isn’t mentioned by the ancient Greeks at all, but it would be an easy mistake to make.”

  “Particularly,” I said slowly, meeting Jacob’s dark gaze, “if your education was sadly lacking.”

  ***

  In the afternoon we had a ride up to the local bikers' meeting spot at Devil's Bridge near Kirkby Lonsdale, stayed there until about three, then headed back towards Caton.

  I was easily persuaded to stop off at Jacob and Clare's for another quick coffee, and we ended up slouched in the lounge watching the Superbike racing on Eurosport. It was past five o'clock and pitch dark outside by the time I dragged myself reluctantly away.

  The lack of cloud cover meant the ground was crystallised with frost. I rode back into Lancaster very cautiously, taking corners strictly upright and feeding the brakes in gently. The Suzuki's pathetic headlight, even on high beam, would have made hurrying a reckless exercise, in any case.

  Town was quiet
as I stooged through and I was soon chaining the bike up outside the back of the flat. I pulled the cover over it and set the alarm, then ambled round to the front of the building.

  I jogged up the wooden staircase without any thoughts of stealth, my bike boots clattering loudly on the treads. My mind was on nothing more than a bite of supper and trying to catch up on some of my lost sleep from the night before.

  I was right up to the flat door before I noticed that it wasn't locked any more. Wasn't even shut, in fact. Before it dawned on my sluggish and outrageously slow brain that getting away from the place very quickly was possibly the best idea I'd had in a long time. Maybe I just wasn't having a logical day.

  Of course, in that sort of situation the last thing you actually want to do is walk away. I was filled with anger that someone had broken in, gone poking through my things while I'd been away. Pawed all my belongings. I thought all too briefly of bringing in reinforcements, then pushed open my front door.

  I only took a couple of steps inside the door of the flat when I froze. Almost literally. It was like an ice box in there. I realised I'd been so irritable when I'd left that morning, I'd forgotten to close the shutters to the balcony. Now the night air cast an arctic chill over the interior. Damn.

  The second thing was the smell of cigarettes.

  Not only do I not smoke, but I don't let anyone else who does do so in my flat. My heart lurched in my chest. I turned to flick the overhead lights on and that's when they jumped me.

  Something very hard, moving very fast, landed with a sickening crunch just over my right ear. I remember starting to fall, but there the recollection ends.

  By the time my floorboards had rushed up to meet me, I was out of it.

  Eleven

  My awareness returned slowly, and not without discomfort. It brought with it an irritating headache like pins and needles, as though from the release of a constricted limb.

  I was still lying face down on the floor, presumably right where I'd fallen. There was an annoying tickle round my right eyebrow. It took me a moment before I vaguely registered it was probably blood. By the feel of the dull throbbing, there was a lump behind my ear the size of a closed fist.

  I mentally retraced my steps. I remembered chaining the bike up, and walking up the stairs. Then what? Oh yeah, the busted lock and the smell of cigarettes.

  I could smell them again now, stronger and fresher, if that's the right word to describe the sickly choking odour. Whoever had decided to lamp me over the head had obviously lit up shortly afterwards. A sort of debonair Neanderthal.

  I could hear lowered voices, arguing somewhere in the middle distance. I struggled to orientate my thoughts. It all seemed unconnected with me, somehow. As bizarre as a dream.

  Without opening my eyes I could tell that somebody had got round to completing my last manoeuvre and switched on the lights. No need for stealth now they'd got me right where they wanted me.

  Footsteps approached, causing the floorboards to bounce under my cheekbone. I struggled not to wince at the vibration it set up through my head. I kept my eyes shut, trying to regulate my breathing so they didn't realise I was conscious.

  “You shouldn't have hit her so fucking hard!” one voice said. It was harsh, raspy. I put him down as my smoker.

  “Well he never told us it was a girl, did he?” complained a second voice, with a strong Liverpudlian accent. I hazily wondered if men's skulls were generally considered thicker than women's. “Charlie's a feller's name, for Christ's sake!”

  “If you've killed her, the shit's really going to hit the fan after last time,” the smoker warned.

  “Look, she's not dead, all right? Let's finish what we came for and get the fuck out of here,” the Scouser said. “Have you got it?”

  “Yeah, for what use it is. We're going to have to bring her round, though, just to make sure.”

  “OK, get her legs and we'll stick her over there.”

  One pair of less-than-gentle hands grabbed my arms, while another got hold of my leather jeans. When they swung me off the floor and carried me across the room, it took more willpower than I thought I possessed not to go utterly berserk.

  I gritted my teeth. I knew I had to stay quiet for as long as possible, but having their hands on me was almost too much. A wave of pure panic washed down over me. I fought to keep it under control, but long term I knew I was onto a losing battle.

  Fortunately, after no more than a few yards, they stopped. I was dropped onto what felt like my own sofa, and rolled, half-sprawled onto my back. Still I kept my eyes shut, allowing my head to loll over to one side.

  I heard one of the men move away. The other one went very quiet for a few moments. All I could hear was his breathing.

  “Well, well,” he murmured, “aren't you the pretty one?”

  My skin crawled so hard it tried to turn inside out. That was it! I was going to have to make a move. I took in a last deep breath, preparing to tense my muscles before I struck.

  Suddenly, all the air was ripped out of my lungs as freezing cold water landed across my face and chest. I must have inhaled half a cupful, because I instantly started heaving and coughing, doubled over. I opened my eyes then, but could see nothing for wet hair plastered over them.

  Blinded and gasping, I spent what seemed like an interminable age fighting for breath, but it can only have been half a minute or so. When they deemed I'd had enough time to recover, a hand grabbed hold of my hair and yanked my head back.

  The sight that faced me then was of two men. Big, thickset, purposeful-looking men, wearing gloves and ski masks. The one who had hold of me had a cigarette poking out through the mouth hole of the fabric covering his face. The other still clutched one of my saucepans, which was what he'd used to tip a couple of pints of cold water over me. Hadn't these guys ever heard of smelling salts?

  The ski masks both terrified and reassured me. If whoever had sent these men wanted me dead, they wouldn't have bothered hiding their faces. If, on the other hand, whoever it was wanted me severely done over, I was going to be lucky to come out of this with my kneecaps intact.

  This was not a situation where looking strong was going to have any benefits. I let my face crumple, let my fear show. It didn't take much acting ability on my part.

  “Please!” I whimpered. “Don't hurt me!” I reached up to clutch at the wrist of the hand that was still buried in my hair. My fingers located three useable pressure points, but I hesitated from drilling deep in to them. Not yet, Fox, not quite yet . . .

  Even through the ski mask, I could see the twist of disgust on the smoker's face. He gripped harder and wrenched me off the sofa onto the floor. If I hadn't been taking my own weight by holding on to him, he would have torn my hair out by the roots. I gave a squeal of shock that I didn't really have to feign.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he roared. He slapped me across the face, making my eyes water. I slumped at the base of the sofa, my left cheek on fire. I couldn't work out which side of my head hurt worse.

  I don't know what they'd hit me with to start off with, but blood from the hole it had made was still running into my right eye, making me blink.

  “What do you want?” I sobbed.

  The Scouser moved in then. He grasped the back of my neck to jerk my head up, and pushed a flat square object under my nose, about the size of a telephone directory. I recognised the lap-top computer Terry had given me. Oh shit.

  “See this?” he demanded.

  I tried to nod, but the steely fingers digging into my neck gave me a very short range of movement. He shook me viciously. Like he was training a stupid dog that continually stayed when it should have sat, and rolled over when it should have come to heel.

  “Wrong!” he snarled as he rattled me. “You don't see it. In fact, you've never seen it. You don't even know it exists, right?”

  “O-OK,” I mumbled. He threw me back on the floor with a grunt of contempt.

  “She don't sound too sure,” the smoker observ
ed dispassionately. He sucked on his cigarette until the end glowed red. “She might do something stupid when we've gone, like call the filth. I think we might have to be a bit more persuasive, eh?”

  A cold fear gripped me then. Unless I did something drastic, and real soon, I was going to get a pasting. Sadly, it seemed that my assailants had overcome their initial squeamishness over gender. Now I was afraid they were going to go overboard to compensate.

  For the first time I noticed the state of the rest of the flat. It had been comprehensively and professionally trashed. My books had been pulled from the shelves and littered over the floor, my TV set had the tube put through. Even the sofa had its stuffing protruding from a dozen slashes in the fabric.