FOX FIVE: a Charlie Fox short story collection

by Zoe Sharp

  FOX FIVE

  a Charlie Fox short story collection

  by

  Zoë Sharp

  For Andy, Derek, and Jane,

  the people who made this happen

  This e-thology was gently coerced into the digital domain by the book-loving geeks at

  www.ZACE-eBookConversion.com

  Cover design by www.NuDesign.co

  www.ZoeSharp.com

  Fox Five is a collection of stories by the highly acclaimed crime thriller writer, Zoë Sharp. All feature her ex-Special Forces soldier turned self-defence expert and bodyguard, Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox.

  ‘Ill-tempered, aggressive and borderline psychotic, Fox is also compassionate, introspective and highly principled; arguably one of the most enigmatic − and coolest − heroines in contemporary genre fiction.’ Paul Goat Allen, Chicago Tribune

  In A Bridge Too Far, we meet Charlie before she’s become a professional in the world of close protection. When she agrees to hang out with the local Dangerous Sports Club, she has no idea it will soon live up to its name.

  Postcards From Another Country has Charlie guarding the ultra-rich Dempsey family against attempted assassination – no matter where the danger lies.

  A finalist for the CWA Short Story Dagger, Served Cold puts another tough woman centre stage – the mysterious Layla, with betrayal in her past and murder in her heart.

  Off Duty finds Charlie taking time away from close protection after injury. She still finds trouble, even in an out-of-season health spa in the Catskill Mountains.

  And finally, Truth And Lies puts all Charlie’s skills and ingenuity to the test as she has to single-handedly extract a news team from a rapidly escalating war zone.

  Contents

  The Stories – each with brief intro:

  A Bridge Too Far

  Postcards From Another Country

  Served Cold

  Off Duty

  Truth And Lies

  Bonus Material

  Don’t miss the bonus material at the end of FOX FIVE:

  Meet Zoë Sharp

  Meet Charlie Fox

  excerpt from KILLER INSTINCT – the very first Charlie Fox novel (now with two previously deleted scenes and introduction by Lee Child)

  The other Charlie Fox novels

  Want to know more?

  Sign up for the Zoë Sharp e-newsletter

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  A Bridge Too Far

  This was the very first short story I ever wrote featuring Charlie Fox.

  The story is set at roughly the same point in her life as the opening book in the series, KILLER INSTINCT, when Charlie is living in Lancashire in the UK and making a living teaching self-defence to local women.

  She has been out of the Army for several years by this time, but has not yet plunged into a new career in close protection. Such a possibility is a long way from her mind, even though she already demonstrates the cool-headedness in a crisis that makes her so well suited for the job.

  A Bridge Too Far came about because I was invited to submit a story for the UK Crime Writers’ Association short story anthology, GREEN FOR DANGER: CRIMES IN THE COUNTRY, by the editor, Martin Edwards. (I did not tell him that I had never attempted a short story before until after he had accepted it for publication.) But as soon as Martin mentioned the requirement of a rural setting, a true story sprang to mind.

  Some years ago a friend told me about being a member of a local Dangerous Sports Club. Bicycle abseiling was one of their pursuits, if I remember right – and yes, that is just as crazy as it sounds.

  Bridge swinging was another speciality, which did take place from an old disused railway viaduct that stretched across a farmer’s field. And the farmer did indeed object to their activities for exactly the reason stated.

  But after that, all bets were off and I let my imagination take hold!

  As well as the original CWA anthology, A Bridge Too Far also appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

  I watched with a kind of horrified fascination as the boy climbed onto the narrow parapet. Below his feet the elongated brick arches of the old viaduct stretched, so I'd been told, exactly one hundred and twenty-three feet to the ground. He balanced on the crumbling brickwork at the edge, casual and unconcerned.

  My God, I thought, He's going to do it. He's actually going to jump.

  “Don't prat around, Adam,” one of the others said. I was still sorting out their names. Paul, that was it. He was a medical student, tall and bony with a long almost roman nose. “If you're going to do it, do it, or let someone else have their turn.”

  “Now now,” Adam said, wagging a finger. “Don't be bitchy.”

  Paul glared at him, took a step forwards, but the cool blonde-haired girl, Diana, put a hand on his arm.

  “Leave him alone, Paul,” Diana said, and there was a faint snap to her voice. She'd been introduced as Adam's girlfriend, so I suppose she had the right to be protective. “He'll jump when he's ready. You'll have your chance to impress the newbies.”

  She flicked unfriendly eyes in my direction as she spoke but I didn't rise to it. Heights didn't draw or repel me the way I knew they did with most people but that didn't mean I was inclined to throw myself off a bridge to prove my courage. I'd already done that at enough other times, in enough other places.

  Beside me, my friend Sam muttered under his breath, “OK, I'm impressed. No way are you getting me up there.”

  I grinned at him. It was Sam who'd told me about the local Dangerous Sports Club who trekked out to this disused viaduct in the middle of nowhere. There they tied one end of a rope to the far parapet and brought the other end up underneath between the supports before tying it round their ankles.

  And then they jumped.

  The idea, as Sam explained it, was to propel yourself outwards as though diving off a cliff and trying to avoid the rocks below. I suspected this wasn't an analogy with resonance for either of us, but the technique ensured that when you reached the end of your tether, so to speak, the slack was taken up progressively and you swung backwards and forwards under the bridge in a graceful arc.

  Jump straight down, however, and you would be jerked to a stop hard enough to break your spine. They used modern climbing rope with a fair amount of give in it but it was far from the elastic gear required by the bungee jumper. That was for wimps.

  Sam knew the group's leader, Adam Lane, from the nearby university, where Sam was something incomprehensible to do with computers and Adam was the star of the track and field teams. He was one of these magnetic golden boys who breezed effortlessly through life, always looking for a greater challenge, something to set their heartbeat racing. And for Adam the unlikely pastime of bridge swinging, it seemed, was it.

  I hadn't believed Sam's description of the activity and had made the mistake of expressing my scepticism out loud. So, here I was on a bright but surprisingly nippy Sunday morning in May, waiting for the first of these lunatics to launch himself into the abyss.

  Now, though, Adam put his hands on his hips and breathed in deep, looking around with a certain intensity at the landscape. His stance, up there on the edge of the precipice, was almost a pose.

  We were halfway across the valley floor, in splendid isolation. The tracks to this Brunel masterpiece had been long since ripped up and carted away. The only clue to their existence was the footpath that led across the fields from the lay-by on the road where Sam and I had left our motorbikes. The other cars there, I guessed, belonged to Adam and his friends.

  The view from the viaduct was stunning, the sides of the valley curving away at either side as though
seen through a fish-eye lens. It was still early, so that the last of the dawn mist clung to the dips and hollows, and it was quiet enough to hear the world turning.

  “Hello there! Not starting without us, are you?” called a girl's cheery voice, putting a scatter of crows to flight, breaking the spell. A flash of annoyance passed across Adam's handsome features.

  A young couple was approaching. Like the other three DSC members, they were wearing high-tech outdoor clothing – lightweight trousers you can wash and dry in thirty seconds, and lairy-coloured fleeces.

  The boy was short and muscular, a look emphasised by the fact he'd turned his coat collar up against the chill, giving him no neck to speak of. He tramped onto the bridge and almost threw his rucksack down with the others.

  “What’s the matter, Michael?” Adam said, his voice a lazy taunt. “Get out of bed on the wrong side?”

  The newcomer gave him a single, vicious look and said nothing.

  The girl was shorter and plumper than Diana. Her gaze flicked nervously from one to the other, latching onto the rope already secured round Adam's legs as if glad of the distraction. “Oh Adam, you're never jumping today are you?” she cried. “I didn't think you were supposed to—”

  “I’m perfectly OK, Izzy darling,” Adam drawled. His eyes shifted meaningfully towards Sam and me, then back again.

  Izzy opened her mouth to speak, closing it again with a snap as she caught on. Her pale complexion bloomed into sudden pink across her cheekbones and she bent to fuss with her own rucksack. She drew out a stainless steel flask and held it up like an offering. “I brought coffee.”

  “How very thoughtful of you, Izzy dear,” Diana said, speaking down her well-bred nose at the other girl. “You always were so very accommodating.”

  Izzy's colour deepened. “I'm not sure there's enough for everybody,” she went on, dogged. She nodded apologetically to us. “No-one told me there'd be new people coming. I'm Izzy, by the way.”

  “Sam Pickering,” Sam put in, “and this is Charlie Fox.”

  Izzy smiled a little shyly, then a sudden thought struck her. “You're not thinking of joining are you?” she said in an anxious tone. “Only, it's not certain we're going to carry on with the club for much longer.”

  “Course we are,” Michael said brusquely, raising his dark stubbled chin out of his collar for the first time. “Just because Adam has to give up, no reason for the rest of us to pack it in. We'll manage without him.”

  The others seemed to hold their breath while they checked Adam's response to this dismissive declaration, but he seemed to have lost interest in the squabbles of lesser mortals. He continued to stand on the parapet, untroubled by the yawning drop below him, staring into the middle distance like an ocean sailor.

  “That's not the only reason we might have to stop,” the tall bony boy, Paul said. “In fact, here comes another right now.”

  He nodded across the far side of the field. We all turned and I noticed for the first time that a man on a red Honda quad bike was making a beeline for us across the dewy grass.

  “Oh shit,” Michael muttered. “Wacko Jacko. That's all we need.”

  “Who is he?” Sam asked, watching the purposeful way the quad was bearing down on us.

  “He's the local farmer,” Paul explained. “He owns all the land round here and he's dead against us using the viaduct, but it's a public right of way and legally he can't stop us. That doesn't stop the old bugger coming and giving us a hard time every Sunday.”

  “Mr Jackson's a strict Methodist you see,” Izzy said quietly as the quad drew nearer. “It's not trespassing that's the problem

  it's the fact that when the boys jump, well, they do tend to swear a bit. I think he objects to the blasphemy.”

  I eyed the farmer warily as he finally braked to a halt at the edge of the bridge and cut the quad's engine. The main reason for my caution was the elderly double-barrelled Baikal shotgun he lifted out of the rack on one side and brought with him.

  Jackson came stumping along the bridge towards us with the kind of rolling, twitching gait that denotes a pair of totally worn-out knees. He wore a flat cap with tar on the peak and a tatty raincoat tied together with orange bailer twine. As he closed on us he snapped the Baikal shut, and I instinctively edged myself slightly in front of Sam.

  “Morning Mr Jackson,” Izzy called, the tension sending her voice into a high waver.

  The farmer ignored the greeting, his eyes fixed on Adam. It was only when Michael and Paul physically blocked his path that he seemed to notice the rest of us.

  “I've told you lot before. You've no right to do this on my land,” he said gruffly, clutching the shotgun almost nervously, as though suddenly aware he was outnumbered. “You been warned.”

  “And you've been told that you have no right to stop us, you daft old bugger,” Adam said, the derision clear in his voice.

  Jackson's ruddy face congested. He tried to push closer to Adam, but Paul caught the lapel of his raincoat and shoved him backwards. With a fraction less aggression the whole thing could have passed off with a few harsh words but after this there was only one way it was going to go.

  The scuffle was brief. Jackson was hard and fit from years of manual labour but the boys both had thirty years on him. It was the shotgun that worried me the most. Michael had grabbed hold of the barrel and was trying to wrench it from the farmer's grasp, while he was determined to keep hold of it. The business end of the Baikal swung wildly across the rest of us.

  Izzy was shrieking, ducked down with her hands over her ears. I piled Sam backwards, starting to head for the end of the bridge.

  The blast of the shotgun discharging stopped my breath. I flinched at the pellets twanging off the brickwork as the shot spread. The echo rolled away up and down the valley like a call to battle.

  The silence that followed was quickly broken by Izzy's whimpering cries. She was still on the ground, staring in horrified disbelief at the blood seeping through a couple of small holes in the leg of her trousers.

  Paul crouched near to her, hands fluttering over the wounds without actually wanting to touch them. Sam had turned vaguely green at the first sign of blood, but he unwound the cotton scarf from under the neck of his leathers and handed it over to me without a word. I moved Paul aside quietly and padded the makeshift dressing onto Izzy's leg.

  “It's only a couple of pellets,” I told her. “It's not serious. Hold this against it as hard as you can. You'll be fine.”

  Michael had managed to wrestle the Baikal away from Jackson. He turned and took in Izzy's state, then pointed the shotgun meaningfully back at the shaken farmer, settling his finger onto the second trigger.

  “You bastard,” he ground out.

  “Michael, stop it,” Diana said.

  Michael ignored her, his dark eyes fixed menacingly on Jackson. “You've just shot my girlfriend.”

  “Michael!” Diana tried again, shouting this time. She had quite a voice for one so slender. “Stop it! Don't you understand? Where's Adam?”

  We all turned then, looked back to the section of parapet where he'd been standing. The lichen-covered wall was peppered with tiny fresh chips but the parapet itself was empty.

  Adam was gone.

  I ran to the edge and leaned out over it as far as I dared. A hundred and twenty-three feet below me, a crumpled form lay utterly still on the grassy slope. The blood was a bright halo around his head.

  “Adam!” Diana yelled, her voice cracking. “Oh God. Can you hear me?”

  I stepped back, caught Sam's enquiring glance and shook my head.

  Paul was already hurrying towards the end of the bridge to pick his way down beneath the arches. I went after him, snagged his arm as he started his descent.

  “I'll go,” I said. When he looked at me dubiously, I added, “I know First-Aid if there's anything to be done and if not, well—” I shrugged “—I've seen dead bodies before.”

  His face was grave for a moment, then he nodd
ed. “What can we do?”

  “Get an ambulance – Izzy probably needs one even if Adam doesn't – and call the police.” He nodded again and had already started back up the slope when I added, “Oh, and try not to let Michael shoot that bloody farmer.”

  “Why not?” Paul demanded bitterly. “He deserves it.” And then he was gone.

  It was a relatively easy path down to where Adam's body lay. Close to, it wasn't particularly pretty. I hardly needed to search for a pulse at his out flung wrist to know the boy was dead. Still, the relatively soft surface had kept him largely intact, enough for me to tell that it wasn't any shotgun blast that had killed him. Gravity had done that all by itself.