by Zoe Sharp
Adam’s suicide note was brief and to the point. He couldn’t face the prospect of the future, it said. He couldn’t face the dreadful responsibility of what he’d knowingly inflicted on his friends. He was sorry. Goodbye.
He did not, I noticed, express the hope that they would forgive him for what he’d done.
I folded the note up again as the lead Discovery reached us and a uniformed sergeant got out, adjusting his cap. Sam was in the passenger seat.
The sergeant advanced, his experienced gaze taking in the shotgun still leaning against the brickwork, Izzy’s blood-soaked trousers, and the array of staggered faces.
“I understand there’s been a murder committed,” he said, businesslike, glancing round. “Where’s the victim?”
I waved my hand towards the surviving members of the Dangerous Sports Club. “Take your pick,” I said. “And if you want the murderer, well”—I nodded at the parapet where Adam had taken his final dive—“you’ll find him down there.”
More to Read!
If you enjoyed this story, then you may also like the earlier Charlie Fox novels, when she is still teaching self-defence in a northern English city. Why not take a look at Charlie Fox: The Early Years eBoxset of books 1, 2, and 3? And please check out the rest of the series here.
2
Postcards From Another Country
This was the second short story I wrote featuring Charlie Fox.
This story follows my ex-Special Forces turned bodyguard heroine fairly early in her close-protection career, working as part of a security detail for the affluent Dempsey family. Tension is high among Charlie’s team after an attempt is made on the life of one of the family, but sometimes the threat comes from an unexpected source, with equally unexpected consequences.
I wrote this story specially to go into the back of the US paperback edition of the fourth Charlie Fox novel, First Drop, as an added extra. This is the only place it has been available previously.
It always bothered me slightly that Postcards From Another Country stood apart from the novel, rather than linking into it in some way. However, when I wrote the ninth book in the series, Fifth Victim, I was finally able to do something about this by using the character of the Dempseys’ wayward daughter, Amanda, as one of the integral players in that story. In fact, Charlie’s previous history with her made their subsequent relationship far more complex and interesting.
Somebody once said that the rich are another country—they do things differently there. It didn’t take me very long working in close protection to realise that was true. Hell, some of them were a different planet.
The Dempsey family were old money and that put them at the outer reaches of the solar system as far as real-world living was concerned. Personal danger came a distant second to social disgrace, which was always going to make life tough for those of us tasked to keep them from harm.
The family didn’t seem bothered so much by the attempted assassination—and that was how they referred to the botched hit that sparked my involvement—so much as the fact it was carried out with no regard to the correct etiquette.
So, they put up with the motion sensors in the grounds and the increased numbers of staff who regularly patrolled the boundaries, but they baulked at having the infrared cameras I’d recommended to blanket the exterior of the house, and absolutely dug their heels in about closed-circuit TV coverage inside. It was my job, I was told firmly, to stop anyone from getting that far. No pressure, then.
The radio call came in at just after 3:00 a.m., when I was in the east wing guest suite I’d commandeered as a temporary central control.
“Hey, Charlie, we just apprehended someone in the summer house,” came the crackling voice of one of the new guys. “I think you’d better, um, come take a look.”
“Stay where you are, Pierce,” I said, alerted by the hesitation when he’d been well-briefed on how to handle a situation of this type. “I’m on my way.”
The summer house was an architectural flight of fancy writ large. Just goes to show what happens when the wealthy get bored and start doodling.
As I made my way across the lawn and skirted the swimming pool the summer house was lit up like a beacon, lights blazing from every window. I jogged up the steps that led to the ornate entrance and pushed open the door.
As soon as I saw who Pierce had cornered, I understood his reaction. The girl was eighteen but could have passed for twenty-one, and she was utterly beautiful, wearing a mask of blasé bravado and a top that was barely legal. She sat sprawled on one of the cane sofas, one long leg dangling with apparent negligence over the arm. Only the nervous swing of her foot gave lie to her insouciance.
She’d been practising her best sultry pout on Pierce and did not look pleased when I arrived to spoil her fun. Another few minutes and she’d probably have wheedled her way loose. If the scowl she shot in my direction was anything to go by, she realised it, too.
“OK,” I said grimly. “I’ll deal with this.” As he hurried past me, looking flustered, I added quietly, “Stick to procedure, Pierce. And wake the boss.”
“Oh…really?” His eyes flicked longingly over the girl before he caught my eye and mumbled, “Yeah, OK, no problem.”
As the door closed behind him I turned back and found the girl watching his departure with glittering eyes.
“You’ve obviously made quite a hit there,” I said dryly.
“Hmm,” she agreed, letting a secret little smile briefly curve her lips that died when she switched her gaze back to me. “I get the feeling you’re not quite so easily impressed, though.”
“No, I’m not,” I said, and for nearly half a minute we stared each other out. Then I sighed. “It was foolish to think you could get past us, Amanda,” I said, voice mild. “Your father hired us because we know what we’re doing.”
“Damn watchdogs,” Amanda Dempsey said with a sneer. “I’ve been evading people like you, sneaking out, sneaking in, since I was thirteen years old.”
“Well, we caught you this time, didn’t we?”
“Yes, you did,” she drawled and something flashed through the back of her eyes, quick and bright. Then it was gone. She shrugged. “Well, you can’t win them all.”
She sat up, suddenly restless, and reached for the inlaid ivory antique cigarette box on the glass table in front of her. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Yes,” I said, slamming the lid shut before she had a chance to reach inside, and leaving my hand there. Open-mouthed, she thought about making an issue of it, but took one look at my face and decided not to, shrugging like it was of no importance.
“You know that someone tried to kill your father less than a week ago,” I went on, allowing some of the exasperation I was feeling to leak through into my voice. “Is this all just a game to you?”
“What if it is?” she said. “Just because someone’s decided to take a pot-shot at the old man—and the number of likely suspects must be legion—and he’s chosen to shut himself off like some old hermit, it doesn’t mean I have to be a virtual prisoner in this mouldy old place, too, does it?”
The house had every modern convenience. As well as the outdoor swimming pool and the indoor swimming pool, there were tennis courts, stables, a home gym that made the pro place I used seem positively under-equipped, and a dozen full-time staff to pander to the family’s every whim. I knew ordinary people who paid a fortune for weekends away somewhere like this. I shook my head. What was that about familiarity and contempt?
“You want to go out, you’re free to go by the main gate,” I said mildly then. You don’t have to scale the back wall.”
“Yeah, right.” She gave a cynical snort of laughter and threw me a challenging stare. “So I can go out, huh? Alone?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Not a chance.”
“OK, so who’ll come out with me and spend the nightclubbing? You?” She let her eyes flick me up and down, deliberately insulting. “What if I get lucky? Are you going to wait outside
the bedroom door like a good little watchdog while I—”
“Only if you let me strip-search the guy at gunpoint first,” I said easily. “Mind you, some of the guys you’ve been hanging around with lately are used to that kind of thing, aren’t they?”
“How dare you check up on me,” she gritted out, her cheeks flushing, a dull red that did nothing for her porcelain skin.
“We checked up on everyone.”
She jumped up. For a moment she just stood there, trembling with anger that had her on the verge of tears.
“I should have known you wouldn’t take my side,” she said, sounding much younger, almost petulant. “My father says ‘jump’ and the only thing you spineless wimps give a damn about is how high.”
“You have to admit that your old man’s money has come in very useful for getting you out of a few scrapes over the years,” I said cheerfully. “Drug possession and drunk driving, to name but two.”
“How much trouble do you reckon I would have got into,” she said bitterly, “if I hadn’t spent half my life trying to live up to Daddy’s impossible ideals?”
“You could have got out from under,” I pointed out. “He doesn’t exactly keep you locked in the basement.”
She laughed, as though I’d suggested something ridiculous. “And done what? Gone where?”
I refrained from rolling my eyes. “You’re young and moderately bright. You didn’t have to be a lapdog all your life,” I said, unable to resist getting my own back for her earlier jibe. “You could have gone anywhere and done anything you set your mind to. Most people,” I added, “have to work for what they want in life. They don’t get it handed to them on a hallmarked silver platter by a flunky wearing white gloves and a tailcoat.”
Amanda paced to one of the windows even though the lights made it impossible to see anything outside except her own reflection in the glass. Maybe that was all she was after. Eventually, she turned back.
“You don’t come from money, do you, Charlie?”
I thought of my parents’ affluent country home in the stockbroker belt of Cheshire and laughed. “My folks aren’t quite down to their last farthing, thank you very much.”
I shifted slightly so I was between her and the open doorway, just in case, glancing through it as I did so. Lights had come on in the main wing of the house and I could see figures moving across the lawn. Pierce might be new and green, but it seemed he had remembered what he had to do, at least. “I certainly don’t go running to my father,” I went on, “to bail me out every time I hit a problem.”
“If that’s what I’ve done,” she said, lip twisting, “it’s because I’m just doing what Daddy taught me from the cradle.”
“Which is?”
“That money is the answer to everything.”
Into the silence that followed, my walkie-talkie crackled into life.
“Hey, Charlie,” came Pierce’s voice, loud and clear, “you were right. We got him. Some punk kid with a sawn-off. Southwest corner. The situation’s contained and the police are on their way.”
“Good. Thank you.” I put the walkie-talkie back in my pocket and glanced across at the girl. “Sorry, Amanda,” I said with no regret in my voice. “Your diversionary tactic didn’t work. Who was he, by the way—your latest bit of rough? Did you really think he’d get to your father before we could stop him?”
I put my head on one side and watched her as she turned away from the window and staggered back to the sofa, dropping onto the cushions like her legs would no longer support her. But when she looked up, her eyes were wild, defiant.
“You’ll never prove anything,” she said. Fine words, spoilt only by the shaky tone.
“She doesn’t have to.”
Behind me, the door pushed open and her father stepped into the summer house. He wore a silk robe over pyjamas, but he was still a commanding figure.
Amanda stiffened at the sight of him, then dived for the cigarette box on the table in front of her, scrabbling inside it.
“If you’re looking for that nice little semiautomatic you hid in there,” I said, regretful. “I found it this afternoon.”
Her colour fled. She gave a shriek of rage and flew out of her seat. I was never quite sure if it was me or her father she intended to attack, but I didn’t give her the chance anyway. Before she’d taken more than two strides I’d grabbed her arms, spun her round, and dumped her back onto the sofa again. I was tempted to get a punch in, but she was my principal’s daughter, after all.
I settled for a verbal blow instead. “Not so much watchdog, Amanda,” I said. “More guard dog.”
She snatched up the cigarette box and hurled it instead. It never came close to target, hitting the wall next to the door and cracking in two, scattering filter tips across the Italian tiled floor. Then she began to cry.
Her father regarded this display of temper without expression, while I received another message from Pierce to say the police were at the main gate.
“Let them in,” I said. I looked across at Dempsey. “Do you want them to take her, too?”
Dempsey pursed his lips briefly before shaking his head. “That won’t be necessary. He motioned with a vague hand. “We’ll get her…help of some kind.”
“Your decision, sir, of course.”
He hadn’t taken his eyes off his daughter. “Why, Amanda?” he asked softly. “What do you possibly gain from my death?”
Her lip curled. “My freedom.”
He frowned at that. “But you’ve had everything you could possibly wish for.”
“No. I’ve had everything money could buy,” she said in a brittle voice, throwing her head back. “And if you don’t know the difference there’s no earthly point in my trying to explain it.”
There was a long pause. Dempsey finally broke his brooding survey and flicked his eyes at me.
“I’m not dealing with this tonight,” he said like it was some minor irritation. “Just get her out of my sight, would you.” And with that, he turned on his heel and stumbled from the summer house. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got if your children hate you enough to try and kill you. Either for or because of it.
I moved over to his daughter. She rose from the sofa. “Not quite such a game now, is it, Amanda?” I said.
“On the contrary,” she said, eyes glittering, head high. “Now it gets interesting.”
Like I said: the rich are a whole ’nother country—they do things differently there.
More to Read!
If you enjoyed this story, 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 Fifth Victim, in which a character from this story makes a return.
3
Served Cold
In this collection of short stories featuring Charlie Fox, this story is unusual as it is not written in first person—in Charlie’s voice. Instead, the story is that of a waitress and stripper called Layla, who has reached a rock-bottom turning point in her life and has made a momentous decision.
This story came about when Megan Abbott invited me to contribute to the anthology of female noir, A Hell Of A Woman, which she was editing. The theme of the anthology was to celebrate the girlfriends, secretaries, sisters and other female characters who normally play sidekicks and walk-ons in noir fiction. This was their chance to shine.
While I was thinking about what to write for A Hell Of A Woman, I had a trip planned by ferry from Scotland across to Northern Ireland. It was a long drive to the ferry port at Stranraer, and traffic was slow and heavy. In brief, I just failed to make the boat, arriving at the port as the security gates were closing and I had no choice but to hang around in Stranraer for several hours until the next boat.
This was how I ended up sitting in a little café, drinking a pot of tea and idly watching the waitresses moving mostly ignored between the crowde
d tables. And that’s when the character of Layla first began to form.
She’s seen life from the seamy underside, found and lost love, been discarded, betrayed and abandoned. But now she has a plan…
Served Cold was nominated for the Crime Writers’ Association Short Story Dagger in 2009, and was chosen to appear in The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, edited by Maxim Jakubowski.
Also, I revisited one of the characters from this story, who once again becomes Charlie’s principal in Die Easy.
Layla’s curse, as she saw it, was that she had an utterly fabulous body attached to an instantly forgettable face. It wasn’t that she was ugly. Ugliness in itself stuck in the mind. It was simply that, from the neck upwards, she was plain. A bland plainness that encouraged male and female eyes alike to slide on past without pausing. Most failed to recall her easily at a second meeting.
From the neck down, though, that was a different story and had been right from when she’d begun to blossom in eighth grade. Things had started burgeoning over the winter, when nobody noticed the unexpected explosion of curves. But when summer came, with its bathing suits and skinny tops and tight skirts, Layla suddenly became the most whispered-about girl in her class.
A pack of the kind of boys her mother was usually too drunk to warn her about took to following her when she walked home from school. At first, Layla was flattered. But one simmering afternoon, under the banyan and the Spanish moss, she learned a brutal lesson about the kind of attention her new body attracted.
And when her mother’s latest boyfriend started looking at her with those same hot lustful eyes, Layla cut and run. One way or another, she’d been running ever since.
At least the work came easy. Depending on how much she covered up, she could get anything from selling lingerie or perfume in a high-class department store to exotic dancing. She soon learned to slip on different personae the same way she slipped on a low-cut top or a demure blouse.