HARD KNOCKS: Charlie Fox book three

by Zoe Sharp

  Lunch was a sober and almost silent affair. The only noise that accompanied the meal was the clink of cutlery on china. Even Ronnie had forsaken his usual tuneless whistling as he served up dollops of pasta with meatballs.

  McKenna made a reappearance towards the end of the meal, pale and subdued. He sat at a table as far away from me as he could manage, but after I’d dumped my plate onto one of the plastic waste trays I swung by where he was sitting. I quickly realised from his vague answers to the others’ questions that he was trying to make out he’d never left the Manor all morning.

  “So you’ve heard about Blakemore?” I challenged.

  He looked at me warily. Maybe because I could call him a liar in front of everybody else and know it was the truth. He shook his head even though it could have been the only topic of conversation.

  “He’s dead. Got knocked off his bike and went off the road,” I said bluntly. “It was a long way down.”

  McKenna turned paler still. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Craddock raise his eyebrows at me.

  “Are you trying to make the boy faint, Charlie?” he said in that mild voice of his.

  It made me pause, blinking. Then I turned and walked away.

  I walked out of the dining hall and slowly upstairs, almost blindly. What was I trying to do? Take out my anger at the wilful waste of a life on the nearest person who wasn’t going to hit back?

  I needed to talk to someone. More than that, I needed to talk to Sean.

  I picked up the pace and hurried along the faded corridors to the dormitory. It was empty when I walked in. I went straight to my locker and switched on the mobile phone, but before I could dial a number, it rang.

  A generated voice at the other end told me I had one new message and I obligingly pressed the right buttons to retrieve it.

  “Hi Charlie, it’s Madeleine.” On the recording she sounded hesitant and almost breathless. “Look, I’ve got some information you asked for, some things you ought to know about McKenna and that fight he had with Blakemore. It’ll probably explain a few things. I should have told you this morning but, well, other things got in the way. Call me as soon as you can, OK?”

  I sighed, suppressing my irritation. She seemed to have plenty of time to interrogate me about my relationship with Sean, so why had something like this taken a back seat?

  I dialled in the number she’d left and she picked it up almost right away, as though she’d been waiting for my call.

  “Charlie! Thanks for getting back to me so quick. It’s about McKenna and Blakemore—”

  “He’s dead,” I interrupted.

  “Oh,” she said, coming to an abrupt halt. “What do you mean? Which one?”

  “Blakemore.”

  “My God. How?”

  “He crashed his bike,” I said, “and before you ask, no, it wasn’t entirely an accident.”

  Of course, she wasn’t going to let things go at that. I explained, as briefly as possible, what we’d found by the ravine, my suspicions about the men in the Peugeot, and about the conversation I’d had with Blakemore just before he died.

  “That doesn’t mean he was killed deliberately,” she said when I’d finished. I could hear the frown in her voice. “It just means somebody else was involved.”

  “So why didn’t they stop?”

  “People often don’t,” she said, almost gently. “That’s why it’s called hit and run.”

  “OK,” I allowed, trying not to take offence at her moderate tone. “But it seems a hell of a coincidence that the guy admits to involvement in the kidnapping, tells me he can get me answers about who shot Kirk, goes off and then just happens to get himself accidentally knocked off his bike and killed by a complete stranger. Don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” she agreed slowly. “It does seem a bit unlikely, I’ll grant you that.”

  There was a pause while we both considered the implications.

  “Anyway,” I said, “what was this news about Blakemore and McKenna’s argument the other night?”

  “Well, it hardly seems relevant now, but actually young McKenna had a very good reason for taking against Blakemore.”

  I went very still. “Which was?”

  “Well, McKenna had an uncle who was in the Paras. He was only about six years older than McKenna, as it happens. When he came out earlier this year he decided to train to be a bodyguard. So, he signed up for a course at Einsbaden Manor and managed to get himself killed in a car crash during the first week of the course.”

  Memory arrived like a camera zoom, hitting me flat in the face out of nowhere. Sean’s words back in that pub came back to me, hard and fast. “They had a pupil killed in a driving accident six months ago, and there were rumours that it wasn’t quite as accidental as it could have been.”

  Suddenly, all McKenna’s edgy behaviour fell into place. His almost unhinged reaction when we were all buzzed by the men in the Peugeot that first time and his attack on Blakemore in the Einsbaden bar.

  “Of course,” I murmured. “That’s how McKenna knew Blakemore used to be in charge of the driving, not Figgis.”

  “What?” Madeleine said. “Oh, yes, according to the reports, Blakemore was supposed to be responsible for the class at the time. He claimed that McKenna’s uncle was using one of the school cars on his own time, without permission. It all got very messy, but the Major managed to slide out of any suit for negligence. Looking at the financials for the time, it probably would have been enough to finish him.”

  “So why does McKenna now want to be a bodyguard? And why has he come to the same place that might have been responsible for the death of his uncle?” I wondered aloud, although as I said it, I realised there were two possible answers.

  Justice. Or revenge.

  “Well, he certainly doesn’t seem interested in this as a long-term career,” Madeleine said. “He’s actually a driving instructor back at home, and before he left for the course he put in an order for a new car, which he’s having modified to dual controls for when he gets back. Hardly the action of the man looking to chuck it all in and become a full-time bodyguard, is it?”

  “A driving instructor?” I queried. He’d never shown any particular spark during the driving lessons. In fact he’d been awful. But then, I’d tried not to show any in the unarmed combat, either. If he was hiding his abilities, he had to have a reason.

  I don’t know what Madeleine said next, I wasn’t paying enough attention. Instead I was remembering those skid marks at the crash site. There was something precise about them. Something measured. A driving instructor.

  I wonder.

  “McKenna was in the village today,” I said. “I bumped into him after I left the café but, when we got back, he was here waiting for us.”

  “I thought you said he had concussion and he’d stayed at the Manor?”

  “That’s where he was supposed to be, yes,” I said.

  “So how did he get there – and back, for that matter?”

  I didn’t answer straight away. None of the students had brought a vehicle of their own to Einsbaden Manor, but that didn’t mean there weren’t plenty available at the school. The Audis we used every day, for example, always had the keys left hanging in the ignitions. Anyone could take one, if they wanted to.

  But if they had . . .

  “Listen Madeleine, I’ve got to go,” I said hurriedly. “I need to check on something.”

  Madeleine did her best not to appear offended at my sudden departure. She just told me to keep in touch and let her know if I needed anything.

  I tried not to run back downstairs, but I didn’t have to field any awkward questions in any event. I moved quickly across the tiled hallway out of the front door, skirting round the edge of the house to the parking area at the rear.

  The school Audis were lined up along the far side, as always, and I took a casual turn along the backs of them. Spotting broken glass wouldn’t have been difficult, but only if there’d been any.

  I made
a return pass along the fronts, but there were no new dents or scratches anywhere. I felt my shoulders slump a little. So I’d been wrong. I started back across the car park for the Manor again, when a flutter of bright blue plastic caught my eye.

  Over in the corner, half hidden behind the trucks, were the remains of the three cars we’d wrecked in the forest. They’d been dragged back and covered over with a tarpaulin sheet. I’d assumed they were all written off.

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the house, but nobody was visible at the windows or on the terrace. I moved quickly behind the trucks, out of sight, and lifted the nearest corner of the cover.

  The car I’d been in – the one Hofmann had been driving – was a mess, completely undrivable. All the glass was gone and the body had deformed sufficiently from the roll that the doors were no longer capable of closing, even if all of them had been still attached.

  The lead car, with Declan at the wheel, was also out of the running. When it had bounced off the track it had hit a tree hard enough at the front to fold the metalwork into a sharp vee, splitting the radiator in two. The rad had sheared right off its mountings and half of the core now dangled out from under the front spoiler on the end of a single piece of rubber hose.

  But the last of the three, the one Craddock had run into the back of us, had escaped remarkably unscathed. I worked my way round to the front end. He’d hit us with the right-hand front corner, which was crumpled out of shape and already showing the first tint of rust. All the glass in the headlights and indicators was smashed on that side.

  The other corner, though, should have been undamaged. It hadn’t even been exposed to the gunfire from the men in the Peugeot. So how had the lights on that side been broken? And what had caused those shiny new gouges in the paintwork along the wing just above the front bumper? I wiped the dirt from my hands and I stood up slowly.

  As I did so I heard a sound very like a gasp.

  I turned quickly. McKenna was less than half a dozen strides away from me and had obviously been heading for the damaged cars. He stopped dead when he saw me appear, took one look at my glowering face, then turned and ran.

  Not towards the house, but out towards the woods that surrounded us. He had no genuine reason to be running unless it was from guilt. There was only one way to find out.

  I set off after him. I’ve never been that fast as a sprinter, but the memory of Blakemore’s senseless death was a stark incentive. Still I might not have caught up to McKenna, had he not tripped over a root as he reached the tree line and gone sprawling.

  He started to scramble up straight away, but I dug deep for a final spurt of energy and tackled him before he’d made it to his feet. My momentum bowled him over, sending both of us tumbling. He came to rest with his back thumped against a trunk, winded.

  I rolled to my feet. Even with the ache in my breastbone that the rough contact had set off, I had my breath back first. When McKenna had recovered enough to focus on me I realised he wasn’t just breathless, he was terrified.

  Of what? Of what he’d done? Or of being caught?

  “Why?” I bit out. “Why did you do it, McKenna?”

  He swallowed, twisting his head from side to side as though he could escape the blame that way. I grabbed hold of his chin and held his face straight, but he just allowed his gaze to slide away from mine.

  “You talk to me now, or you can explain it to the Major,” I threw at him. “It’s your choice.”

  That got his attention. His eyes snapped open fully, then began to fill with tears.

  I let go and stepped back from him, disgusted with both of us.

  For a while he sat there willing his emotions into submission, then he glanced up at me, sheepish.

  “I know you’re only here because of your uncle,” I said, more gently this time, ignoring his surprise. “Want to tell me about it?”

  It took McKenna a little while to find a way into his story. His hands curled into fists of frustration in his lap. Eventually he burst out with, “He would never have just taken that car like they said. He wouldn’t!”

  “Like you wouldn’t just take one of the school cars without asking, you mean?” I said.

  He flushed, turned away. “That’s different,” he said, sulky.

  “How is it different?” I said, and without waiting for a reply I added, “Oh yes, I know – he didn’t set out intending to kill anyone, did he?”

  McKenna’s face crumpled again, folding in all the way this time. I remembered, too late, that his uncle had indeed ended up killing someone. Himself.

  Damn, I thought, and let him cry.

  “OK, McKenna, let me fill in some blanks for you,” I said at last. “You played on your concussion from yesterday to avoid going into Einsbaden today, then when we’d all gone you came down here and helped yourself to one of the damaged Audis and set off after us. Don’t try and deny it,” I warned as his mouth opened. How could he even try, when I’d practically tripped over him in the street?

  “OK, so you leave before Blakemore and you wait for him on the road back, at a point where you know one good clout will have him over the barrier. Then you scarper back here, stick the car back, and make like you’ve never been away. How am I doing so far?”

  The boy was shaking his head with vigour. “No,” he muttered, “you’ve got it wrong. I didn’t kill Blakemore – even if the bastard deserved it.”

  I leaned against a tree, folded my arms and indicated with a raised eyebrow that I was still listening.

  “Yeah, I took one of the Audis, but I didn’t know any of the damaged ones would still run. I just took the first one I came to that had enough fuel in it. I drove down to the village because I needed to talk to Blakemore before I left.”

  His eyes flicked up to mine, daring me to disbelieve him. I kept mine neutral. “You’re leaving?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, the taxi’s on its way. I’d already had enough before any of this happened, but now I just want out of here while I’ve still got the chance.”

  “What did you want to talk to Blakemore about?”

  “Why they covered up my uncle’s death. Why they hinted that he’d stolen the car he was driving. We all know they do driving drills on the road. We’ve seen them and we all know how bloody dangerous it is. Look at yesterday!”

  “That wasn’t quite on the open road,” I pointed out. “And the circumstances were a little different.”

  “Yeah,” he burst out, “but how do we know something similar didn’t happen then?”

  I glanced behind me. The afternoon light was turning dull, dropping from pale blue towards a darker shade. Lights were already coming on in the house and the view back across the grass to the car park was hazy with twilight.

  “So what did Blakemore say?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” McKenna muttered. “I never got the chance to speak to him alone. There was always someone else around.” He threw me a reproachful look and I realised that I’d been one of those someones.

  “So after we bumped into each other you decided you wouldn’t talk to him at all,” I said, my voice cold, “you thought you’d kill him instead.”

  “No!” he squawked, pushing himself to his feet and looking poised to flee. “Look, you’re not going to pin this on me. No way! I got back into the car and I drove it straight back here. I passed another Audi on the road, parked up. I’m sure it was one of the school cars, but I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t get a good look at the driver. He had his head turned away from me. Why don’t you go looking for him instead, if you’re so desperate to know who killed Blakemore? Me, I don’t give a shit. I’m out of here.”

  “So why did you run just now?”

  “After everyone got back and they told me about what had happened, I wondered about the car I’d seen, that’s all, so I came to check,” he swallowed, embarrassed. “Look, I don’t know who was in that car. I didn’t see them clearly, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t see me. They could think I’m a witness, y
ou know? I don’t want to get caught up in that, and if it was someone from the school who’s responsible, well, I don’t want to become the next victim, either.”

  “What about your proof?” I asked. “Wasn’t that what you came here for?”

  “What good’s proof if I’m dead, too?” he threw back. “This place is a death-trap. I don’t know what game the Major’s playing, but he’s gambling with lives. I’m not going to hang around long enough to find out if he’s on a winning streak.”

  He pushed past me, started out across the grass. After only a few strides he paused and turned back to me. “If you had any sense, Charlie, you’d be doing the same.”