Hard Knocks tcfs-3

by Zoe Sharp

  I listened until she set the shower running again, then quickly unpacked my stuff. In the bottom of my bag was the mobile phone Sean had given me before I left. It would work all over Europe, he’d explained, and if I kept it switched off when I didn’t actually want to make a call the battery would last for quite a while without needing to be recharged.

  He’d programmed the number of his own mobile into the memory and told me to call him any time, night or day, if I needed to. He wouldn’t contact me unless it was absolutely necessary. There was a answering service for when the phone was off that would automatically activate and replay the message as soon as I next switched it on again. He would keep in touch that way.

  I flipped the phone open, hit the power button, and then hesitated. Finally, I switched it off again, hid it away in the cabinet. I hadn’t enough to report to make the call worth while. With a final glance round to make sure my stuff was all out of sight, I left the room and headed back for the stairs.

  On the way I looked for the quietest bits of the floor. I had a feeling that I might need to do some sneaking about and it was good practice. The edges of the carpet were much less worn than the middle and if you took it slow and careful the boards under them could be walked on without making enough noise to drown out a thunderstorm.

  As I crept onto the open landing I saw a man about halfway down the staircase and I recognised the reddy-coloured hair of our friendly weapons’ handler. He’d just reached the lower treads when he was halted by a harsh whisper from one of the doorways on the ground floor.

  “Rebanks! Where the hell have you been?” It was Major Gilby who stepped out into the light, hands tight by his sides.

  The man shrugged, on the sidelines of insolent. “I’ve been helping the ladies settle in,” he said lazily. “I think I might be in with a chance there.”

  I peeled back my sleeve and checked my watch. It was thirty-five minutes since he’d delivered us to our door and disappeared.

  “Oh for God’s sake, Rebanks, take this seriously!” Gilby snapped. He looked up then and I shrank back behind the nearest wall, just peering round the corner through the balustrade. He lowered his voice again, but the tiled floor of the hallway ensured that it carried up to me. “You know how things stand at the moment. No one goes anywhere on their own. Not for any reason! Understood?”

  “Yes sir!” Rebanks said, but there was laughter in his voice.

  Gilby went white. His fingers clenched briefly and he took a step nearer, pushing his face in close to Rebanks.

  “Until this thing is over, you follow orders,” he said tightly. “I don’t have to remind you of the consequences of—”

  He broke off, and I heard it, too. Creaky footsteps from the corridor opposite my hiding place, which led into the other wing. I hopped back a few strides, then began walking normally. The floorboards under my feet crunched noisily like packed-down snow. I’d just got to the head of the stairs when Declan appeared from the direction of the men’s quarters.

  “Charlie, me darlin’! Have you been waiting for me?” he greeted me. He seemed to have recovered his bounce. “Are you ready to eat? After all that pillocking about in the woods, I’m starving.”

  We walked down together, passing the two school men with only a short nod of acknowledgement. I tried to act casual, but I found Gilby watching us with a narrowed stare. Perhaps it was my guilty conscience, or maybe he just didn’t like Declan’s cheek.

  The dining hall had the same high ceiling of the rest of the house. It was huge, with a massive ornate fireplace at one end that cried out for a pair of sleeping wolfhounds in front of the blazing logs.

  There were two long tables laid up, one on the main floor and the other up on the dais which ran across the opposite end of the room from the fireplace. The instructors, naturally, were taking their places at the high table. It was interesting that they felt the need to emphasise their elevated position with such heavy-handed lack of finesse.

  There was a hot buffet to one side where people were already helping themselves. Declan and I joined the end of the queue.

  Seeing that Einsbaden Manor was being run on military lines, I’d expected the worst of the food, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was more like the fare in a decent pub carvery. Three large cuts of meat and plenty of vegetables that actually hadn’t been cooked long enough to lose all structural integrity. I piled my plate high.

  More by accident than design, Declan and I drifted together towards a couple of empty chairs at the nearest end of the long table that was set for the pupils. There didn’t seem to be a seating plan. You just found a space and got on with it.

  Declan took the chair to my right. To my left was a big man with fair hair cropped close at the sides and gelled into a flat-top. He ate single-mindedly, resting his elbows on the table and shovelling it in. He had arms that were nearly as thick as my thighs, straining the sleeves of his T-shirt. He glanced at me as I sat down and I gave him a brief nod and a smile.

  He didn’t smile back. His pale blue eyes flickered over me once, then he turned his attention back to his plate, as though I wasn’t worth the effort. With a shrug, I dug into my own food and ignored him. Another of life’s charmers.

  Declan, however, wasn’t so easily deflected. He looked around at the faces nearest to us, and instantly struck up an easy conversation.

  I stayed quiet, letting them talk around me, but kept my eyes open. The instructors were drifting in now, filling up their plates and taking their seats on the dais. Now that they’d washed off their cam cream and hung up their woolly hats for the day, they looked human for the most part.

  Rebanks arrived with Gilby still glowering after him, although the Major’s expression settled into cool command as soon as he was among the students, like the professional smile of a politician.

  I picked out another face I recognised. The scarred Irishman who’d greeted us at the gate. As I watched him climb the steps onto the dais I caught him pause fractionally and grimace in pain. It was only a small gesture, quickly covered. If I hadn’t been watching him, I probably would have missed it. But the Major had seen it, too, and there was something darker and deeper in his eyes than the incident should have provoked.

  It seemed that the scarred man wasn’t the only one of the Einsbaden team who was below par. Another of the instructors entered the dining hall. A tall, wide-shouldered man with a slight but distinct limp. Half of the pupils at the table watched his progress across the room.

  Or we did until he turned and glared at us, at any rate. He had sunken eyes under full black eyebrows that met as a single feature across the bridge of his nose, emphasising the slightly Neanderthal bulge of his forehead.

  But something about the way he moved reminded me of Sean. They shared the same kind of cohesive control. I marked him out as dangerous without quite knowing why.

  “Now there is a man whose lessons we will not enjoy, I think,” said the beefy man next to me, suddenly breaking his silence. He had a deep voice with a trace of a German accent.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  The German didn’t look inclined to answer until he saw a couple of the others also waiting for his reply. “His name is Blakemore. Apparently he will be teaching us unarmed combat,” he said then, shrugging. “It was probably not a wise move to antagonise him so early in the course.”

  For a moment my heart jumped. He’d seemed to direct that last comment in my direction.

  “Who’s been antagonising the man?” Declan asked. He raised his eyebrows at me. “Did he not like the way we fell in the mud at his feet?”

  But the German nodded across the dining hall towards Elsa, who had just entered, freshly showered with her immaculate bob dried into place. She looked fit and self-confident.

  “When they picked the three of you up I understand that she put up quite a fight,” the man said. He went back to his food, spearing three or four carrots onto his fork. “Mr Blakemore has an old knee injury that has been aggravated an
d he is not a happy man.”

  I remembered the shape that had swung at me and the blow I’d managed to land. When I glanced up, I saw Blakemore studying Elsa with bleak interest that I didn’t like the look of. I could only hope that the unwitting German woman wasn’t going to get too much stick for my actions. But if I wanted my cover to stay intact there was no way I was going to hold my hand up.

  ***

  The next morning we started our training in earnest. At five o’clock the next morning, to be precise, when Gilby’s merry band of instructors came rampaging through the dormitories. They made a point of producing twice the quantity of noise that was required to get us out of our beds. And at three times the volume.

  I was shocked into wakefulness as the overhead lights were slapped on and by the nastily cheerful voice of Todd, who had been introduced after supper the night before as the head physical training instructor.

  He was short, almost stocky, with hair clipped razor-thin to his scalp. Not because he still hankered after his undoubted previous army career, but because he spent half his life in the shower after exercise. He had the air of someone who’s fitter on a daily basis than you’ll ever be in your life. And knows it.

  “Good morning ladies,” he barked, swivelling his bull neck to survey the room’s occupants with just a little too much attention. “Outside in your running kit in fifteen minutes, if you please!”

  The door slammed shut behind him and for a moment I continued to lie still, concentrating on slowing down my heart and preventing its imminent explosion. I’ve never liked loud alarm clocks and this was worse. It can’t be good for you to surface from sleep with such suddenness and ferocity. The wake-up equivalent of the bends.

  “Come on then girls,” Shirley said briskly, sitting up in her bed opposite mine and reaching for her sweatshirt. “We can’t let the boys think we’re not up to the job.”

  Shirley Worthington was from Solihull, the archetypal bored housewife. She was a bouncy woman who wouldn’t see forty again except in the rear-view mirror. Within five minutes of our meeting last night, she’d been handing round photographs of her grandchildren. Not exactly the kind of person I’d expected to find studying to be a bodyguard.

  To my left I heard a quiet groan, and then Elsa pushed back her bedclothes and sat up wearily. The German woman looked like death, but I had a feeling I was probably seeing a fairly accurate picture of myself. Only Shirley seemed irritatingly alert.

  I glanced over towards the room’s fourth occupant, who was little more than a vague outline under the blankets. Even Todd’s violent incursion hadn’t made an impact.

  Elsa heaved herself out of bed and padded across the squeaky floor. “Jan,” she said loudly, shaking the lump by what appeared to be a shoulder. “It is time for you to be waking up now, please.”

  Jan King made a muffled comment that probably contained at least four expletives. I’d never come across a woman with such a wide vocabulary of swear words. Or a man, for that matter. And I was used to hanging out around bikers.

  Judging from her dulcet tones, Jan was from the East End of London. She was small, sallow-skinned and intense, with the stringy skinniness of a long-distance runner and very bad teeth. She didn’t look much like a bodyguard, either.

  By the time the four of us had scrambled into our clothes and got down the main staircase, the men were already outside on the gravel. They stood in a huddled group, their collective breath rising like steam from winter cattle under the floodlights.

  The stars were still glittering above us. By my reckoning we were still a good two and a half hours away from sunrise. Why, I wondered bitterly, couldn’t Kirk have got himself killed on a summer course?

  “Ah, so good of you to join us at last, ladies,” Todd’s voice was sneering as he jogged up in a dark blue tracksuit. “Too busy putting your make-up on, were you?”

  Jan’s response was short and to the point, but I don’t think the reaction she got was the one she was hoping for. If she’d thought it through that far.

  “Physically impossible, I would have thought,” Todd said mildly, then his face tightened. “Get down and give me ten press-ups.”

  Jan’s face mirrored her surprise. She put her hands on her hips. “Or what?” she demanded.

  “Or you can pack your bag right now and bugger off back home, love,” Todd said. He gave her a nasty smile. “Better make that fifteen press-ups.”

  “You can’t order me about like that,” Jan said, but there was a note of uncertainty in her voice now, underlying the belligerence.

  “You didn’t read the small print when you signed up for this, did you?” Todd asked. He raised his voice, speaking to the group of us. “We need hundred per cent effort from you lot. Anyone who isn’t prepared to put the graft in and you’re straight out.” He waved an arm towards the edge of the gravel, where it faded out into the gloom in the direction of the forest track we’d come in on.

  He turned back to Jan. “It’s a long walk out of here, but you can use the time to reflect on what a failure you are. On how you haven’t got the guts and the dedication to make it.” He shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. So, what’s it to be – twenty press-ups, or the next flight back home?”

  They continued to stare each other out for a moment longer, then Jan dropped slowly and reluctantly to the frozen gravel.

  Todd watched her complete the first three, then turned away. How many press-ups she actually managed to achieve was immaterial, I realised, it was the capitulation he’d been after.

  Oh God, one of those . . .

  I’d come across enough of Todd’s type – the control freaks and the macho bullshitters. First in the army, and then in the brief period I’d spent working the doors in a local nightclub. I’d found out early that I didn’t like playing the game their way. Sean had warned me to keep a low profile, but if this was their attitude, it wasn’t going to be easy. Perhaps it was a good job there was someone as bolshie as Jan to do the answering back.

  “OK people, listen up,” Todd shouted. “We’re going to start out nice and easy with a straightforward little jog . . .”

  His idea of a little jog, we quickly discovered, involved several klicks of rough forest tracks, at a pace he must have known hardly any of us could hope to sustain. The ground was frosted hard enough to concuss your joints with every stride. If it had been wet, the mud would have been impassable.

  As it was, within the first kilometre we became widely strung out. I was thankful that I’d spent most of the previous year working at the gym, and so was fit enough to keep up with the middle of the field, at least. I didn’t have to put the brakes on in order to stick to the inconspicuous position Sean had recommended.

  Two of the other instructors played sheepdog. Todd showed off his superior stamina by roaming up and down the line, goading us on. Sometimes he fell back almost to the rear and sometimes he’d sprint past to harangue those at the front.

  I was surprised to see Blakemore lead off at the head of the group, despite the comments of the big German the night before. Blakemore was quick enough but he moved with a slight awkwardness, compensating for his damaged knee.

  Bringing up the rear was the Belfast man, whose name I’d learned was O’Neill. I remembered his unguarded gesture last night at supper and wondered how he’d come by the hurt he was so obviously trying to mask. It surprised me that these two were the ones out running with us. If the Major didn’t even allow for injury time among his instructors, how was he going to treat the rest of us?

  Without breakfast, my body had just about used up its available reserves after around five klicks. My thigh muscles were blocky and buzzing and I could feel my pace weakening with every stride. The cold air was murderous as I sucked it down into my lungs, burning my chest from the inside out.

  When the man in front of me started to slow, I couldn’t have been more grateful at that point. More and more of us fell back to a walk, then tottered to a stop. I bent over, hands braced on my k
nees, and tried to drag air into my system through tubes that suddenly seemed totally inadequate for the job.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” Todd demanded as he came pounding up from giving them hell at the back. He didn’t seem to be out of breath and was barely sweating. “Have you pathetic lot given up already?”

  For a moment there was a silence that was almost fearful, then someone dragged up the courage to speak. “We’re not sure of the path, sir,” he said.

  “What?” Todd roared. “Who’s that? Where’s Blakemore?”

  “Erm, I’m McKenna, sir,” the same man supplied. “Mr Blakemore, he, erm, just sort of dropped back.” He spoke hesitantly, in case he was blamed for the bad news. “I think his knee might have been giving him some trouble.”

  Todd swore under his breath. “Come on then,” he said sharply, and led off at a furious pace. I dragged in a final lungful of stationary air and forced my quivering limbs back into a jog. It was worse starting up again than if I’d kept running.

  When we got back to the Manor, Todd and O’Neill had us doing ten minutes of star jumps and sit-ups just off the gravel, on the icy grass. We were doing full army sit-ups, which I never recommended to anyone when I was working at the gym. I didn’t think it was a point worth mentioning to these two.

  It was only then that Blakemore reappeared. As he came past me I noticed he was moving the same as he had been when he set out, with no apparent increase in his limp.

  O’Neill must have seen that, too, because he broke off shouting vicious encouragement and grabbed Blakemore’s arm, spinning him to a standstill. “Where the fuck have you been?” he said, keeping his voice low. “Todd’s been doing his fruit.”

  “Don’t panic,” Blakemore said calmly. His mouth twisted into a derisive smile. “He’s just mad ‘cos he didn’t think of it himself. “

  O’Neill skimmed his eyes over the nearest of us to see if anyone was obviously listening in. I forced a bit more effort into my latest sit-up. “You know what the old man said about us sticking together,” he went on, speaking quietly through clenched teeth. “He’s going to go ballistic if he finds out you’ve been off on your own.”