Killer Instinct

by Zoe Sharp

  Eventually, we pulled up on the quay outside the flat. While Marc finished his last call I sat for a few moments, staring out of the window. My eye rested briefly on the wreckage of the small table the Scouser had thrown over the balcony at me, still lying in a splintered heap on the pavement. I wondered vaguely what had become of the knife I’d sent spinning out of reach into the night.

  Marc switched his mobile off and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket. I started fumbling with the release for my seatbelt when he reached across and undid it, along with his own. I glanced up at him in surprise.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like?” he quizzed with a touch of impatience. “You don’t think I’m going to let you go up there alone, do you?”

  “I hardly think they’ll still be hanging around,” I pointed out. Mind you, after what I’d done to his kneecap, the smoker would have probably needed assistance to make it down the stairs. I was disconcerted to find the thought cheered me immensely.

  “I’ve seen half of what they’ve done,” Marc said, his glance flickering down my body. “Now I want to see the rest.” He spoke in a quiet tone, but I knew that arguing would have been futile.

  I shrugged and heaved myself out onto the pavement. I was feeling the after effects good and proper. There didn’t seem to be a part of me that didn’t ache, and I never realised bruises drew from such an inventive palette of colours.

  A sudden thought struck me, and before we went in I tottered round to check on the bike. I admit I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief when I saw it, still chained and covered. Whatever else they’d done, at least the Suzuki had escaped unmolested.

  By chance, I’d still got my keys in my leathers, but I wasn’t too surprised, when I finally managed to stagger to the top of the wooden staircase, to find my front door standing wide open.

  In daylight, the mess looked a lot worse. I stood in the living room, staring round me, feeling detached. Marc prowled through the rooms, head down, jaw clenched, simmering.

  Finally, he came back into the living room. “Bastards,” he said tightly. “Pointless bastards! What the fuck did they think they were doing?”

  I glanced at him, a half-smile twisting my lips. “You need a reason to be a psycho?” I asked.

  He came and put his arms round me, but I stepped out of his embrace and moved away from him, uneasy. I knew I didn’t want his comfort, nor his pity, but I wasn’t sure what I did expect from him.

  We seemed to have bypassed the first few stages of normal courtship, moved too fast into intimacy. We’d become lovers when we hadn’t even had time to become friends.

  I wandered through into my bedroom. It hadn’t escaped their attentions, either. The Scouser had sliced his way through my mattress, the curtains, and even taken the knife to every pillow. One of them was from my mother’s, a feather one. The stuffing was now scattered all over the room like confetti at a full church wedding.

  The ingredients of my drawers had been turned into a novelty carpet. He’d taken particular care to rip his way through what seemed to be my entire stock of underwear. It was symbolic, somehow, too personal, and it sent a prickle of apprehension through me.

  Marc had followed me through. Now he gripped my shoulders and turned me to face him. This time I didn’t pull away.

  “Charlie, listen to me,” he said urgently. “Whatever it is you’ve been doing, stop it. Let it go. Whoever these people are, they’re obviously deadly serious. Don’t take any risks.”

  I broke eye contact and let my gaze slide across my ransacked home. “But there’s a connection to your club,” I argued.

  He cut me short, curtly. “If there’s anything going on at the New Adelphi, I’ll take care of it,” he said grimly. “I don’t want to see anything like this happening to you again. Understand?”

  I bristled under his glare, wavered for a moment, then gave in. I let my shoulders slump.

  “Yes,” I said at last, wearily, “I understand.”

  ***

  When he'd gone, promising to call me, I sat on the remnants of my sofa for a long time without doing anything other than thinking. I hadn't recognised the two men who were responsible for my new line in interior decor. It certainly wasn't anyone who I'd met, or they would have known that in this case Charlie wasn't a man's name. So who were they and, more importantly, who had sent them?

  I thought, briefly, about calling the police, but decided against it, for a number of reasons. I tried to tell myself that my reluctance to involve the authorities had nothing to do with the men's threats, but I'm not entirely sure I believed me.

  In any case, what did I tell them about Terry's computer? I was pretty sure it had been nicked from the New Adelphi, which meant I'd been handling stolen goods. And the last time our paths had crossed they'd as good as accused me of beating up the two boys at the club. Somehow, I couldn't see my current predicament interesting them greatly, especially after the desultory response they'd made to Ailsa's call from the Lodge.

  Shelseley. The name almost made me start. I'd just assumed the prowler there had some link with the residents. An ex-husband or boyfriend maybe. That it was just coincidence he'd first appeared right after Terry had given me the lap-top. Was there a connection there?

  I turned this idea over a few times, then dismissed it. The men who'd come after me were too professional to go in for such half-hearted scare tactics. They knew what they wanted, and they'd gone straight for it.

  I'd had time to conduct a quick search, and discovered the lap-top had definitely gone. Either the Scouser had come back for it, or the smoker had hopped away with it under his arm.

  If that was the case, if my manic burglars were solely connected with Terry's damned computer, and they hadn't been trailing me round to Shelseley, then how the hell had they known where to look for it?

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

  I remembered the smoker's words. What last time? I thought of Susie, and shivered, trying to push the sudden irrational fear out of my mind.

  It wasn't the same man, I told myself. It couldn't be the same man. I closed my eyes with the effort of forcing a return to calm, and order. I would not let myself be terrified by what had happened.

  People lock themselves away, turn their homes into fortresses when the possible risk simply doesn't demand such precautions. Their own sense of panic imprisons them. Marks them out to be victims. If I let myself become incapacitated with fright, I was halfway lost before I began.

  I dredged up enough energy to stir myself off the sofa, climbing stiffly to my feet. Despite my resolution not to be scared into retreat, my first action was to sort out the busted lock on the front door. I rang a local firm who said they were stacked out, but promised to be round at four that afternoon.

  I tried Terry's mobile number again, but it was still switched off, and his home number rang out without reply. I couldn't face starting on the clearing up, and I didn't want to sit around and mope all day. Besides, I needed to do something about my mobility. I stuffed some surviving clean clothes into my tank bag and headed out.

  I pulled the front door closed behind me and left it at that. Everything of value I owned appeared to have been trashed anyway. I didn't think any opportunist burglar could do anything more than had been done already. Maybe they'd even tidy things up a bit.

  The Suzuki was reassuringly familiar as I cruised out along the quay, even if riding it made me wince. My back and shoulders felt as though they were wired tight, and every pothole and undulation in the road surface jerked the breath from my lungs.

  I needed time to think, and some mindless activity to keep the rest of me occupied while I was doing it. I rode round the one-way system and up to the gym I use. It was once a dubious auto salvage yard, but that went by the wayside years ago. The graffiti-decorated corrugated iron fencing that used to keep the guard dogs in is still up, though. It tends to discourage the posers, but
the hard-core of people who go there to train don't do it for the image.

  I sometimes do a bit of work for the owner, a strapping German whose real name had been lost in the mists of time. For as long as I'd known him, I'd never heard anyone call him anything but Attila.

  He was into body building of serious proportions, and was constantly being offered doorman jobs. This was despite the fact he was as soft as they came. He confided to me once in a reflective moment that he actually fainted at the sight of blood.

  I hadn't been in to the gym for ages, and was feeling guilty about it. Right now, it was the nearest place I could think of that had a decent steam room.

  I spent the next two hours sweating. The first hour it was caused by trying painfully to force some flexibility back into my screaming muscles. The second it was brought on by the eucalyptus-scented wet heat from the sauna.

  As I sat, wrapped in a towel and dripping, I had time to consider what had occurred with Marc. I've always been attracted to bad boys, and he definitely had that air about him. Physically, we were certainly compatible.

  The only thing that bothered me was that I'd thought he would be more aloof with his one-night stands. The last response I'd expected from him was to cling. He was good company, but that didn't mean I wanted commitment from him. Did it?

  I shook my head, feeling the sweat drop from my hair. There was no way I was going to open up on an emotional level. Not to Marc. Not to anyone. Not again.

  I comforted myself with the thought that his base of operations was Manchester. He'd soon be itching to get back there. I was never going to be more than a mildly interesting diversion for him.

  Which was OK, because that's all he was to me.

  Afterwards, I stood in the shower, letting the water run as hot as I could stand it. I didn't think I was kidding myself by claiming I definitely felt easier. I dressed again and walked – OK, hobbled – out to say goodbye to Attila.

  “You want to go and get yourself a decent massage,” he told me, eyeing my stiff movements critically, like a vet watching a horse trot up that's severely lame all round.

  A picture of Tris and his array of soothing essential oils popped into my mind so suddenly I'm amazed a lightbulb didn't blink on over the top of my head.

  I borrowed Attila's phone and called Shelseley. Tris, bless him, said he could slot me into his schedule right away, if I could get there inside a quarter of an hour.

  “No problem,” I said gratefully. As I put the phone down I silently blessed the bike's ability to slide through town traffic.

  ***

  In fact, it took me less than ten minutes to get to the Lodge. Tris was already in the drawing room, sitting reading a faded little book. When I stuck my head round the door he closed its fragile covers with great care and went to return it to its place on the shelves.

  The ceilings are high in all the downstairs rooms at Shelseley, and two huge bookcases in the alcoves on either side of the fireplace took full advantage of the fact. Tris even had one of those short wheeled ladders so he could reach the ones at the top.

  “What were you reading?” I asked, unwinding my scarf and dumping my helmet and gloves on the rattan sofa.

  “W.H. Auden,” he said, eyes still roaming the shelves with the affection of any collector. “It was my father's. A first edition. He—”

  Whatever else he was going to say was lost as the door burst open and three small boys came tussling into the room. They were bound up in some violent game of tag, the rules of which seemed to demand the forcible removal of a quantity of the taggee's hair.

  Whatever, the two taggers had the smaller of the trio in a pretty effective headlock and were attempting to comply with enthusiasm. They danced further into the room, clanging off items of furniture as they went. Tris only reacted when they came perilously close to his collection of essential oils.

  “Now, now lads,” he said nervously, trying to intercept them. “Calm it down a bit, hey?”

  One of the taggers raised his head enough to give him a single stare that said clearly, “You have to be kidding.” Then they carried on with their game as if he hadn't spoken.

  Tris jumped in front of his oils with his hands out, jigging from one foot to the other like the smallest school team goalkeeper, faced with the other side's biggest striker. Eventually, inevitably, the ball was going to come smashing into the back of the net. It was just a matter of time.

  I sighed, moving over to the boys. It only took a moment to visually unravel them enough to identify the taggers. I dived into the scrimmage, and came out with a hard grip on the back of a pair of grubby necks.

  The two boys wriggled briefly, then went limp in my hands like cats. The taggee took the opportunity to bolt, letting the door swing wide on his way out.

  I bent down enough to be able to look straight into two sullen faces. They must have been about eight. “That's a great game you're playing,” I said conversationally. “Now go and play it somewhere else.”

  I let go and watched them disappear rapidly into the hallway with the heavy footsteps of someone twice their size. It would have been too much to expect them to close the door behind them. Tris did it instead, taking a key out of his pocket and locking it firmly behind them.

  “Thanks,” he said, relief in his voice. “I wish I could deal with them so easily.”

  “They just need a firm hand,” I said. “Well, strong fingers, anyway.”

  “I have to be so careful, you see,” he explained, anxiety underwritten by just a thread of annoyance. “With half this lot you only have to raise your voice and they threaten legal action.”

  I briefly considered telling Tris he ought to call their bluff, but thought of Ailsa's reaction, and re-considered again.

  He turned as I shrugged my way out of my jacket. “Now then, what have you been up to?” He looked at me properly, and frowned. “What happened to your face?”

  “I lost an argument,” I said.

  He looked about to push it further, but changed his mind. “Do I take it that's why you're here?” he said instead. I grimaced. “I've felt better,” I agreed.

  He asked where the problem areas were, and I listed them. It would probably have been quicker to tell him which bits didn't hurt.

  He nodded a couple of times, moved over to the shelves, and took down several of his little bottles without seeming to hesitate over the choice. It was strange to see the normally abstracted Tris so focused.

  “I'll just go behind there and mix these up for you,” he said, indicating the old-fashioned concertina screen that stood in front of the bay window. “If you'd like to slip out of your things and lie face down on the couch. There are warm towels on the heater. Help yourself.”

  In fact, the couch in the centre of the room was surrounded by four small free-standing electric radiators like a heated corral. I left my clothes draped over the arm of the sofa and struggled into a prone position as instructed.

  Tris seemed to know when I was ready, and he popped out from behind the screen rubbing his hands together briskly to take the chill off them. He covered me in another couple of hot towels, then placed his hands quietly on my back for a few moments, rocking me gently.

  I hadn't had a massage for years, but even so I could remember enough to tell that Tris had a real talent for it. After the first five minutes I felt my muscles begin to unlock themselves and I allowed myself to fully relax.

  “I'm using frankincense for calming, and eucalyptus and rosemary for the aches and pains,” he said, sliding his hands long and slow up the nape of my neck and into my hairline.

  He worked his way down my spine slowly, easing the loops out of my trapezius, sensitive to my nervous twitches when he went in too keenly. “You've got good muscle bulk,” he told me, “but you probably need to stretch more.”

  He hesitated altogether when he reached the badly discoloured hip I'd landed on. “Are you sure you want me to work on this?” he asked.

  I gritted my teeth. “Keep g
oing. I'll let you know when I can't stand it any more.”

  “Well, if you're sure,” he said doubtfully. I heard him lift another bottle down from the shelf and unscrew the lid. “I'll add in some lemongrass, then. It should help with the bruising.”

  He started in, tentatively at first, while I bit back the odd groan. I searched my mind for a subject to take my mind off it. “Any more sign of your prowler?” I asked, almost on a gasp as Tris's fingers plunged unexpectedly deep into torn and knotted muscle.

  “Sorry,” he murmured. “You really should have seen a doctor for this, Charlie.” When I remained stubbornly silent, he went on, “Anyway, no, we haven't had any more unexpected visits.”

  “How's Nina?”

  “She's still very upset,” he said, and I could hear the distress in his voice. “Hardly comes out of her room, poor kid. Ailsa's worried about her, but she's got a lot on her plate anyway at the moment,” he added. “Another of the girls has left, did you know?”