by Zoe Sharp
For the first time since he came round and found himself tied to a chair, he begins to hope that all is not quite lost.
“And you’ve broken my bloody arm, you bitch,” he blurts, finding both voice and bravado. “I ought to sue.”
“You put a knife to my throat.” She pins him with a dead eye. “So, I ought to have ripped your arm off at the shoulder and beat you to death with the wet end. Sad, isn’t it, how we can’t always have what we want.”
“So, what are we going to do with him?” the dark-haired woman, Madeleine, asks.
“How many has he taken, do you think?”
A frown. “Four in the last year—that we know of, anyway. Could be more if he has some secondary method of selection.”
He goes hot and then cold as his body primes for flight. There’s a hollow feeling beneath his ribs. “You can’t prove anything…”
“Prove? Maybe not.” Fox moves in front of him, forcing his neck to crane as he looks up into her face. “But know, that’s something else again. Because my friend here is an expert with computers. And you are not.”
She leans a little closer. He tries not to cringe back but he’s afraid now. Seriously afraid. Of what he sees in her eyes. And of what is missing. He sees that same look—that same lack—when he stands in front of the bathroom mirror every morning. He recognises it in others.
There seems no point in further denial. He asks, almost in a whisper, “How did you know?”
She glances across at her companion, a ‘do you want to tell him or shall I’ kind of a look. Madeleine shrugs.
“When you’re at work, your phone connects to the company Wi-Fi network. Any photos you take during working hours, it automatically backs up to the cloud. And when I was brought in to run a cyber-security audit. I found those pictures.”
He lets his eyes close briefly, rallies his bravado for a last stand. “Fuck you. You’ve got nothing.” He hates how desperate he sounds, even so.
“It would be difficult, but not impossible,” Fox allows. “Prosecutors don’t like to chance having the ‘victim’ resurface after a guilty verdict’s been handed down. Still, there have been murder convictions in the past without a body.”
He says nothing, swallows and knows she registers his fear.
“But somehow I don’t think any of your victims are going to reappear, are they?”
“What victims? You attacked me here. It’s your word against mine.”
“He has a point, Charlie,” Madeleine says. “I just hate to think, after everything…there’s a chance he might walk.”
Her voice holds indecision he doesn’t immediately understand. And when he does, the fear starts to tingle across his shins again, to roil in his gut.
Charlie Fox simply regards him, flatly. The knife is still held lightly between her gloved fingers.
“He might,” she agrees. “Except…”
His eyes swivel from one to the other and back again. He wants to wait her out, but can’t stand the tension. “Except what?” he demands.
“Look around you, Drew. You’re the one tied to a chair. I’m the one with the knife. You’ve already lined the back of your car with plastic. You even brought your own shovel.” She smiles. It is not reassuring. “Do you really think I’d let all that effort go to waste…?”
More to Read!
If you liked this, then you may also like the later Charlie Fox novels, where she is in full-blown professional bodyguard mode. Why not take a look at Charlie Fox: Bodyguard eBoxset of books 4, 5, and 6? And please check out the rest of the series here, including Bad Turn, which sees Charlie again faced with doing the wrong things for the right reasons.
9
Hounded
I grew up reading the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so it was a real treat for me to be approached by the editors of the For The Sake Of The Game anthology, to write a story inspired by the Conan Doyle canon.
The contributors were told they could approach this from any direction, from inserting Holmes into an alternative setting, reworking an existing story with a new slant, or simply writing something ‘in the style of’. I chose to attempt my own version of one of my favourite tales, Hound Of The Baskervilles. It was probably the closest Conan Doyle came to casting his characters into the world of close protection, which is the particular expertise of my main protagonist, Charlie Fox, so I knew she could have a major part to play.
And when I re-read the original, I realised the sub-plot was just perfect as the main strand of the story for Charlie. So, I brought that to the fore, and left all the business with the ‘hell hound’ to Holmes and Watson, which is only as it should be.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, is anyone sitting here?”
The men looked up from their table with the resigned irritation of travellers who thought they’d managed to get three seats together in a First Class compartment, without having to endure the company of a stranger.
One of them—youngish and tall, with a nose he could have used to spear pickles out of a jar—peered rather pointedly over his gold-framed spectacles at the adjacent table across the aisle. It had only a middle-aged, middle-class couple in occupation, although they’d sprawled their iPads and iPhones and papers across the surface to stake their claim.
I followed his gaze and produced a rueful smile.
“I don’t go by train very often,” I confided as I slid into the remaining seat. “But when I do I’m afraid I really can’t face backwards. Gives me motion sickness.”
“Ah,” said the man. “Have you thought of taking hyoscine hydrobromide of some kind? It’s available at any pharmacy without a prescription.”
Before I could answer that, one of the others—an older man with a bushy moustache and the upright spine of the ex-soldier—cut in with, “Or antihistamines? A little less effective, perhaps, but fewer side-effects. Hyoscine may make you drowsy, my dear.”
Instinctively, I glanced at the third man. He was small and sturdy, his hands and face tanned as much by wind as by sun. He grinned at me from under thick black eyebrows.
“Hey, no use looking to me for advice. These two guys are the physicians. The ginger tea my mom used to make whenever I got sick, that’s about all I could suggest.”
My first thought was American, but the slightly Scottish inflection on the word “about” tipped him farther north.
“Is that a Canadian accent I hear?”
The bushy eyebrows wriggled like two hairy caterpillars on his forehead, and his grin, if anything, widened.
“Good call,” he said. “Most folks over here mistake me for a Yank.”
“Ah, well, I shouldn’t let it worry you.” I returned his smile. “Some folk over here mistake me for a lady.”
He laughed out loud at that, and after a moment the two doctors allowed themselves a small twist of the lips that might have passed for amusement. The Canadian, meanwhile, leaned across the table with a weathered hand outstretched. “Henry Baskerville.”
I took his hand, not without caution, and received a robust shake that threatened to bounce my shoulder out of its socket. Still, at least there were two professionals nearby who could have put it back for me.
“Charlie Fox,” I said. “Nice to meet you, Henry.”
The beaky-nosed doctor cleared his throat, murmured, “It’s Sir Henry, actually.”
“Really? Should I curtsey?”
“Oh, not on my account, I assure you. A few months ago I was farming in Alberta province. Then my uncle, Sir Charles Baskerville, died suddenly, and now I find myself a baronet with a country estate in Devonshire.”
“I thought your last name rang a bell. There was something unusual about your uncle’s death, wasn’t there? Enough to make the national news, anyway.”
“Ah, you’re referring to the pet story of my family—the hell hound.” Sir Henry smiled again at his own pun. “I’ve heard of it ever since I was in the nursery, but I never thought of taking it seriously until now.”
The doctors’ eyes flicked towards each other. Only a tiny movement, but I caught it nonetheless.
“Sir Charles died of dyspnoea—difficulty breathing—and cardiac failure,” the beaky-nosed doctor said. “The post-mortem examination showed long-standing organic heart disease. Indeed, as his medical practitioner I had urged him to seek specialist advice about his health. But…” He gave a shrug.
“I’m sure you did everything you could for your patient,” I offered. “Urging him is one thing, but I don’t suppose you could exactly truss him up like a Sunday roast and deliver him to Harley Street, could you?”
He unbent enough then to introduce himself as Dr James Mortimer. That left the older of the men, who quickly followed suit, even though recognising him was the reason I’d begged the spare seat at their table in the first place.
“Dr John Watson.”
I manufactured a reasonable facsimile of surprise. “Of course,” I said. “I follow your blog. The exploits of Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. If even half of it is true, it makes fascinating reading.”
“If anything, I tend to play down some of the more sensational aspects of Holmes’s cases,” Watson said, looking almost sheepish.
A firm nudge against my leg beneath the table had me looking down, to find a curly-haired spaniel eyeing me dolefully. I stroked the dog’s ears, and said, “Do I take it there might be a hint of the sensational going on in Devon?”
“Indeed not,” Watson denied quickly. “Or Sherlock Holmes himself would be travelling with us.”
“Which, plainly, he is not,” Mortimer added, trying for an air of nonchalance that he failed to pull off.
“Even so, to bring along not one but two doctors, Sir Henry, you must be wary of something serious happening to you?”
“I guess it might look that way,” said the baronet. “And there have been a couple of interesting occurrences since I got to England. I don’t mind admitting I feel safer in company.”
Aware of a certain relief, I opened my mouth to ask more about that, but Watson jumped into the gap with a question about my own reason for heading down to Dartmoor.
My turn to shrug. “Oh, I’ve booked a week away in one of those little holiday cottages on the moor,” I said, still fussing the spaniel under the table as an excuse not to make eye contact. “It’s more a yurt than a cottage, from the pictures I’ve seen. A bit basic, but the season’s just about over, so I’m told I’ll have the whole development to myself.”
“I know the ones. They are rather remote,” Mortimer said. “Are you sure you’ll be all right out there on your own?”
“I needed a get-away-from-it-all break.” The story tripped convincingly from my tongue. “Having no internet and no cellphone coverage sounded like a blessing rather than a curse.”
I didn’t think it necessary to mention the military-grade GPS unit tucked into my rucksack. Nor the 9mm SIG Sauer lying snug in a concealed-carry rig at the small of my back.
If they weren’t here to interfere in my business, at this stage of the operation I had no intention of interfering in theirs.
The station was tiny, little more than a roadside halt, bordered by a white fence from which hung flower boxes overflowing with late blooms. Sir Henry, the two doctors and I were the only passengers to climb down when the train made its brief stop.
Two vehicles waited outside the gate, but neither of them was for me—or at least I hoped not, because as well as a Land Rover Discovery there was also a liveried police BMW with two officers in tactical black standing by. They eyed us with suspicion as we passed.
The Discovery driver hopped out and opened the rear doors to take his party and their bags. Mortimer lifted the wriggling spaniel into the rear luggage compartment.
I hovered, looking up and down the deserted road and frowning, until Sir Henry, who’d taken the front passenger seat, called to me through the open window.
“Hey, Miss Fox, you need a ride?”
“Well, it looks like mine hasn’t turned up, for some reason. That’s very kind. Are you sure I won’t be taking you out of your way?”
“Dr Mortimer tells me we’ll pass the cottages on our way to Baskerville Hall.”
“In that case, I’d be very grateful to accept. I know I was hoping to do some walking while I’m here, but there are limits.”
As the smallest, I squeezed into the middle of the rear seat, between the two doctors. The driver placed my rucksack in with the luggage and the spaniel. The dog huffed down the back of my neck through the grille that separated us.
As we set off, I asked, “Why the police presence?” with as much innocence as I could muster.
The driver spoke over his shoulder. “There’s a prisoner escaped from HMP Dartmoor. He’s been out three days now and they watch every road and station, but they’ve had no sight of him yet. The farmers here about don’t like it, miss, and that’s a fact.”
“After three days in the outdoors without anything by way of food or shelter,” I said, “he’s unlikely to be much of a threat to anyone.”
“Ah,” the man said, “but it isn’t like any ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick at nothing.”
“Oh?” said Mortimer. “Who is he, Perkins?”
“It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.”
I’d spent a lot of time over the last few years living and working outside the UK, but the man’s crimes had been vicious enough to attract international coverage.
“And it will be dark by the time you reach your cottage tonight,” Mortimer put in with a dubious glance. “Perhaps you should delay until daylight tomorrow?”
I made a show of indecision. “Well, if I might borrow a phone so I can call the woman who was supposed to meet me with the keys, I should be fine.”
Perkins unhooked his elderly cellphone from its holder on the dashboard and passed it to me without hesitation. I dug the booking confirmation out of my pocket and dialled the number. A minute or so later I handed the phone back.
“It seems she mistook the time of my train and is shopping over in Exeter,” I said. “She’ll be on her way home shortly. If you’d drop me off by the cottage, I’m happy to wait there.”
“Out of doors, with a man like Selden on the loose?” Sir Henry said. “I won’t hear of it. Besides, the light will soon be gone, and the last thing Mr Holmes said to me when we left London was to quote one of the phrases from that queer old family legend: ‘Avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted.’ Come dine with us at the Hall and have this woman meet you there. I couldn’t live with myself if you fell victim either to this psychopath or the infamous hound!”
We saw the twin crenellated towers of Baskerville Hall long before we reached the intricate wrought-iron gates. The original gate lodge was derelict, but a new construction had been started on the other side of the drive. Sir Charles Baskerville, I recalled, had made a fortune in South Africa. Clearly, he’d been spending lavishly on his property at the point of his demise.
An avenue of trees lined the driveway, darker in the falling light. The Discovery’s headlights threw elongated shadows into the tunnel of thick foliage, creating an even more eerie effect.
“Was it here?” Sir Henry asked in a low voice. “That my uncle …?”
“No, no,” Mortimer said. “In the Yew Alley, on the other side.”
The avenue opened out onto a lawn area with the house centre stage. The central section was swathed in creepers, cut away from the odd window or coat of arms. The towers we’d seen protruded from the top, and a porch jutted out at the front. The wings at either side had to be later additions, in dark granite with mullioned windows. A few dingy lights showed through the glass, but overall it looked like someone had gone mad with low-energy bulbs and really needed to swap them out for much brighter LEDs.
We were met by the Barrymores, husband and wife, who had apparently looked after the Baskervilles for years. They didn’t bat an eye at my unexpected inclus
ion for dinner. Still, they didn’t have extra to cater for. Dr Mortimer made his excuses and disappeared with Perkins in the Discovery. Once I got inside, I discovered why he’d been keen to get home.
The interior of the Hall was as gloomy as it appeared from the exterior. The walls were hung with murky portraits of Baskervilles through the ages, painted by artists who’d evidently got bulk discount on tubes of Burnt Umber and Lamp Black.
The dining room, which opened out of the hallway, was even more depressing. It didn’t help that both Sir Henry and Watson had worn dark suits for the journey. I had on a navy blue fleece and felt positively gaudy by comparison.
After we’d eaten—a subdued meal with little conversation—we moved through to another dimly lit room, this time containing glass-fronted bookcases and a full-size billiard table. The wind had begun to pick up across the moor, rattling the windows as if seeking an unguarded place to enter.
“My word, it isn’t a very cheerful place,” Sir Henry said. “I don’t wonder that my uncle got a little jumpy, if he lived all alone in a house such as this.”
The sweep of headlights across the front of the house and the crunch of tyres on the gravel heralded the arrival of the caretaker of the holiday cottages. She was a large lady who bustled in with great energy, in a long skirt and unbelted raincoat, so she took on the appearance of a galleon under sail.
I said my thanks to the household before being whisked away to bump across a moorland track in her elderly Daihatsu 4x4. She was full of apologies and explanations, and never seemed to stop talking long enough to draw breath.
The cottage was one of a group that had once been peasants’ huts, huddled in a hollow on the moor to escape the worst of the winter gales. The sparse nearby trees all grew at extreme angles to show the direction of the prevailing wind. I reckoned that if I lived out here I’d soon develop a permanent lean from the force of it.
