Killer Instinct: Charlie Fox book one

by Zoe Sharp

  “If you harm her . . .” I began, my own tone quiet but frozen. He didn't reply to that one. There was just a soft click, and he'd gone.

  I put the phone down slowly, and turned to find Wilks at my shoulder, looking suspicious.

  “That was him, wasn't it?” she demanded. When I nodded numbly, she turned up her lapel mic to her mouth and started to call her HQ.

  It was enough to shake me out of my stupor. I grabbed her hand. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Let go of me, Charlie. I've got to call it in,” she said.

  “You don't understand. He'll kill her if your lot show up!”

  She gave me a patronising look. “We are trained for this sort of thing, you know,” she said. “Did he tell you where he was?”

  Anger star-burst behind my eyes. Without realising I'd done it, I'd shifted my feet into a stance, gauged the distances. “Please,” I said. “Let me handle it.”

  She disregarded my final plea, so I hit her, just under her chin with my upswept elbow. Her teeth clacked together alarmingly, then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she started to crumple.

  I half-carried, half-dragged the unconscious policewoman over to the sofa and left her lying on it. I suppose part of me was hoping she wouldn't hold it against me for ever, but part of me didn't care.

  Within seconds I'd grabbed my jacket and helmet and pelted down the stairs to the street. The rain lashed down over my back, sliding under my collar. WPC Wilks's panda car was still parked three cars down, where she'd left it last night, but behind it, rear wheel slanted in towards the kerb, was Clare's Ducati.

  When I looked, I found the bike's keys were still in the ignition.

  Oh God, I'd never heard her arrive. He must have been waiting around outside the flat. Unwilling to come in and get me because of the obvious police presence. So he'd been waiting for me to come out. And he'd grabbed Clare instead.

  Just for a second, I debated on taking the Ducati. It was far faster than the Suzuki, but an unknown quantity as far as handling went. I couldn't risk it.

  I ran round to my own bike and slipped the chain. My only thought was that if I didn't get to the New Adelphi in time, Clare would be dead. And it would be all down to me.

  I jammed my lid on, wincing as the side padding squeezed the swollen flesh round my eye, and kicked the Suzuki into life.

  Usually I'm religious about letting the bike warm up, but this time it was in gear and moving the moment the motor caught and fired. I snapped the throttle wide open in the first three gears as I roared along the quay, short-shifting as the Suzuki squealed its outrage, the cold engine stuttering without revving freely to the red line.

  There was hardly any traffic as I joined the main road and I gassed it again. As I hit the long tight left-hander over Greyhound Bridge on the river, I realised just how greasy the roads were.

  The back end started to slide out. I daren't touch the brakes. I had to try and desperately control it on the power, feeding the throttle in evenly to compensate. By the time the road straightened out under the railway line, the speedo needle was wavering round ninety miles an hour.

  By the college the cars were thicker, people on their way to the ferry terminal at Heysham, the supermarket or the Drive-Thru. I skimmed down the outside, slithering over the slick white lines, kicking up rooster-tails of spray like a water-skier.

  I squinted through the rain blurring my visor, overtaking on the wrong side of a pedestrian refuge in the middle of the road when a truck blocked the left lane.

  I braked hard for the first of the roundabouts, feeling the compression up through my arms, the pain in my hand. I ignored it, blanked it out. The Suzuki hit a trace of diesel on the second one, and shied sideways, damned near high-siding me into the back end of a lumbering Volvo saloon. It would have made an ironic change for a biker to have wiped out a Swedish tank, I suppose. I don't think the driver even noticed.

  Come on, faster, faster! There's no clock on the bike, and the last thing I was going to do was take one hand off the bars to fumble for my watch. I had no idea how long it was since the phone call. It seemed like it had taken me hours to get this far.

  I nearly didn't make it at all. A car on one of the side roads off Broadway misjudged the speed of my approach and pulled out in front of me. For once I didn't bother stabbing my thumb on the horn button, or gesturing rudely at him. I just swerved within a foot of the bumper and whacked the throttle against the stop, fighting to keep the front end in contact with the tarmac.

  By the time I hit the car park at the New Adelphi, my heart was slamming like I'd just run a marathon and stinging beads of sweat were running into my eyes.

  I kicked the side-stand down and jumped off the bike, yanking off my helmet. My left knee complained bitterly at the exercise as I ran for the main entrance on legs that trembled perilously.

  When I reached it, the front door was firmly bolted and draped with “police – do not cross' tape.

  I stood back, wheezing, cursing, then jogged round to the back entrance. The tape had been pulled aside here, and the door was propped open with half a breeze block again, revealing a dark aperture beyond. The lion's den.

  I took a deep breath, and stepped through the doorway, moving quietly along the corridor until it opened out into one of the main dance floors. My breath was coming in gasps now, my heart about to burst. I bent and deposited my helmet on the floor, putting it down without a sound.

  As soon as I moved out onto the darkened floor, the big lights in front of the stage blazed on. I flinched back, couldn't help it, shielding my eyes with my hand.

  The voice spoke from the other side of the lights, mocking. “Ah, Charlie! Just in time. I do so love a woman who's punctual!”

  The voice was undisguised and in a moment the tumblers of my mind turned, the lock shifted into perfect alignment, and the door swung open to reveal all the dark secrets that slithered inside.

  “Hi Dave,” I said, admirably calm, coming further forwards. “What have you done with Clare?”

  “Oh she's here,” he said, disembodied in the shadows. “I'm sure she'll be very relieved that you've come to give yourself up for her sake. Greater love hath no man – or no woman, in this case – than he will lay down his life for his friend. Isn't that the saying? Mind you, I thought there was something going on between you two the first time I saw you. I thought if I got lucky you might invite me to join in.”

  I ignored the shudder of revulsion that twitched my shoulder blades. “Dream on, Dave,” I said, my voice thick with contempt. “That sort of thing only happens in the sick videos you used to hire out from Terry. Oh, I missed it at first. I was looking for DC, but he used to identify you by your job, not your initials, didn't he? Terry's client book was filled with references to DJ and I didn't spot it. I doubt the police will be so slow.”

  He advanced then, jumped down off the stage with a supple agility that made the hairs rise on my arms. He had forsaken his polo-necked jumper in favour of a T-shirt. Where I expected to find the bruises round his neck from Marc's punishing grip, instead I saw two deep scratch marks, scabbing over. Oh Christ, Joy . . .

  I'd missed that one, too.

  He came towards me, menacing. I forced myself not to take a stance. I couldn't afford to provoke him without knowing where Clare was. What he'd done with her. To her.

  Besides, gripped in his fist – his left fist, of course – was a survival knife with a metal-topped rubber handle, and a wicked eight-inch blade. I tried to avoid staring at it, but it pulled my gaze like a magnet.

  “What's the fascination with me, Dave?”

  “We're alike, you and me. Soul mates.” He circled me. “I saw the way you dealt with Susie – so casual, so easy. And when I saw you fight those two lads that night in the club I knew, then,” he purred. “I knew that you were just the same as me, Charlie. You had the power over them, and you revelled in it.”

  I shook my head. “I did what was necessary, Dave, and I didn't e
njoy it,” I stated calmly. I turned to glance at him. At him, not the knife. “You're forgetting a major difference between us. I didn't kill them. And I didn't rape them first.”

  “You're a woman. Women are weak, stupid, vain,” he threw back at me. He paced then. Quick, short strides, agitated, speaking almost to himself. “They promise everything with their come-to-bed eyes and their come-on bodies. Dressed up like whores, most of them. I see them!”

  He spun back to me, his eyes fired. “Every night, they come in here, flaunting themselves in front of me. Teasing. Look don't touch. They pretend they're going to come across, then they dance back out of reach. Make you beg for a touch, a taste. Well I wasn't going to let those little bitches taunt me any longer! I showed them who was in control!”

  “So first you raped that young girl,” I said. “Then you decided she didn't light your fire, so you raped and killed Susie. What made you pick her out, hmm?”

  He flushed, his cheekbones turning a dull red. “She led me on, let me down, and then told that bastard boyfriend of hers all about it,” he complained. “They were laughing at me!”

  I remembered the insult Tony had thrown at Dave as Susie was dragged away. “You can shut up an' all, you dickless little shit!” I wonder if he ever realised those careless words would be the cause of her horrific death.

  “What's the matter, Dave, wasn't she very sympathetic when you couldn't get it up? Oh she probably promised you a quick one if you'd keep her winning the karaoke, but you couldn't do it without a fight, could you? So you waited until she'd been thrown out of the club and then you raped her instead. Nobody noticed you disappearing on your break, and you always changed clothes between sets anyway. It was the perfect opportunity. That was much more like it, wasn't it Dave?” I allowed a sneer to creep in. “Bit more of a thrill? Made you feel more of a man, did it?”

  I saw his hand clench convulsively round the handle of the knife. Dare I push him any further? Oh, I dared!

  “Joy put up more of a fight, didn't she, Dave? Caught you unawares, marked you, but even that wasn't enough was it? So then you came looking for me. Taking my voice changer threw me,” I admitted. “I thought the thugs had lifted it, that it could only be Angelo threatening me. I didn't realise it was a little runt like you.”

  Stupidly, I'd missed the fact that Dave had been inside the flat the morning after Marc's boys had turned it over. I remembered his exaggerated surprise at the damage. He was over-reacting because he'd already seen it . . .

  “You think it can't happen to you? Your over-confidence is your weakness,” he hissed. “I've watched you for a while, Charlie. You think you're equal to a man, but you never will be. Don't forget, I've had a private lesson. I know all about your feeble abilities. You're just like those other bitches, and you'll scream like them when I'm fucking you. You'll scream and you'll beg me to stop, just like the rest.”

  “I wouldn't bet on it,” I said tautly.

  “No? How about I just let you watch while I do your friend? She's a looker, all right. I bet she'll scream.”

  I smothered my rising panic and shoved it viciously back down into the depths of my psyche. “That's always the way with you, isn't it, Dave? Taking the easy way out,” I taunted. “What challenge is Clare to you? She can't fight. There's nothing to stop you raping her, but I'm what you've really been after. Why waste time?”

  “This – is – my – game!” Dave spelt out, face white with sudden fury. “We play it my way!”

  I knew I'd gone too far. I backed down. “OK, Dave, whatever you say,” I murmured, holding my hands out, palms upwards, supplicant.

  I didn't move while he stepped smoothly back into the shadows. He'd dropped all pretence now, and was moving like a pro, sure and economical. How could I have missed it before? I hadn't bothered to look beneath the surface veneer, to see past the mirage he'd created and I was kicking myself for it. How many times had people made that very same mistake with me? So often I'd almost come to rely on it as part of my camouflage.

  When Dave reappeared, only moments later, it seemed, he was dragging Clare's weeping figure after him. I was horrified to see he'd bound her slim wrists together with one of the heavy duty plastic zip-ties he used to fasten his disco gear down. I knew that some police forces used them because the breaking point was phenomenal. It offered minimal chance of Clare being strong enough to force her way free.

  Never let yourself be immobilised. It was one of the basic rules of self-defence.

  When he reached the middle of the dance floor, Dave stopped and let Clare go. Without the support she collapsed, whimpering, cradling her wrists to her chest. The plastic had been snatched tight enough to dig cruelly through the skin. Now they left smears of blood on the front of her pale cream jumper.

  Instinctively, my legs took me forwards. Dave stepped fluidly to the side, grabbed a handful of Clare's hair to yank her head up, and slid the blade of the knife under her delicate jaw. She went rigid, eyes wide with terror.

  I froze, unable to take my eyes off the knife. Unable to move as Dave increased the pressure a fraction, so the razor-sharp edge just bit through the top layer of her skin and her blood began to weep down over the polished steel. I swallowed, my mouth abruptly arid, tongue swollen like a man too long in the desert.

  Dave tutted, grinning. “Oh no, Charlie, not so fast,” he warned. “Your reflexes might be passable, but even you couldn't get over here before I'd given your friend a second mouth to feed. And you won't be able to save her afterwards, will you? Remember Joy?”

  “So what happens now?” I asked, my voice a whisper.

  “You strip,” Dave said. “Get rid of that leather jacket, for a start.”

  I did as I was told without protest, dropping the offending piece of clothing onto the floor next to me. Stared at him. Tried not to concentrate on Clare's shock-glazed face.

  “And the boots. Take them off.”

  I bent to unfasten them, but as I did so I had a chance sighting of Dave easing the knife slightly away from Clare's throat, changing his grip.

  It was a chance, a slim hope, but it was there. There was nothing else I could do but grab it with both hands and pray.

  Arms outstretched, yelling, I drove my body upright and onwards, and launched myself at Dave.

  Twenty-five

  Dave knew all the rules of hand-to-hand. I found that out the hard way, but the surprise of my initial charge had the desired effect of making him move back, putting some distance between him and Clare. I hoped she'd take the opportunity to make a run for it, but catching a glimpse of her inert form slumped on the floor, it seemed unlikely.

  Dave and I circled each other, half-crouched and intent. He held the knife like an expert, with the pommel of the hilt upwards and the blade slanted down, protecting his forearm. It stopped me being able to get a grip on his wrist, putting a lock onto him that would force him to his knees and disarm him.

  I switched tactics. I blanked my mind of the knife, but at the same time was acutely aware of its position and direction. Instead I concentrated on the man behind it. He was focusing all his energies into the weapon he was carrying, relying on it to be both offence and defence. If I could just slip past his guard . . .

  I tried it, feinting right, then dodging left and lashing out with my boot to his kneecap. Dave's reactions were faster than I'd hoped. I caught him a mild blow, enough to hurt but not disable, and received a thin slicing cut across my bicep for my trouble.

  He only just nicked me. If I'd still been wearing my jacket, I doubt it would have pierced the skin, but the thin material of my T-shirt offered little armour.

  I made a big play of clamping my fingers over the wound and grimacing, but in fact the pain was little more than a twinge. Knife wounds are clean and straight, and unless they're deep enough to be serious, they heal quickly. A punch on the nose would probably have done me more damage.

  “You think you can defeat me,” Dave crowed now, “but you've got no chance. You know
what? I think I'm going to have you, then have your friend as well. She looks sweet enough to be dessert.”

  “You better be into necrophilia then,” I growled, “because you're going to have to kill me first, you sick bastard.”

  Dave straightened for a moment, and the look in his eyes was quite insane. “Oh by the end of this you're going to be dead, Charlie,” he said, his voice almost distant. “Even if I don't manage it today, you'll always know that one day I'll catch up with you, and when I do, you'll die.”

  He started to laugh, and as he did so, I shifted and sprang.

  I managed to dive under his guard, get past the first layer of defence, but he swung his fist round sideways and hit me hard in the face, with the steel pommel of the knife. It landed just under my eye and the noise of my cheekbone fracturing sounded disgustingly loud inside my head.