Hard Knocks
Charlie Fox book three
by
For Andy, who’s stopped me giving up altogether on occasions too numerous to mention . . .
This book was carefully shepherded into the digital domain by the book-loving geeks at
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HARD KNOCKS
is the third in Zoë Sharp’s highly acclaimed Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Fox crime thriller series, now available in e-format for the first time, complete with author’s notes, excerpt from the next Charlie Fox – FIRST DROP – and a bonus excerpt from Libby Fischer Hellmann’s PI Georgia Davis/Ellie Foreman novel, DOUBLEBACK.
‘Perhaps if the army had known what was inside me, what I would eventually turn into, they might not have been so keen to let me go.’
Charlie really didn’t care who shot dead her traitorous ex-army comrade Kirk Salter during a bodyguard training course in Germany. But when old flame Sean Meyer asks her to go undercover at Major Gilby’s elite school and find out what happened to Kirk she just can’t bring herself to refuse.
Keeping her nerve isn’t easy when events bring back fears and memories she’s worked so hard to forget. It’s clear there are secrets at Einsbaden Manor that people are willing to kill to conceal. Some of the students on this particular course seem to have more on their minds than simply learning about close protection. Subjects like revenge, and murder. And what’s the connection between the school and the recent spate of vicious kidnappings that have left a trail of bodies halfway across Europe?
To find out what’s going on, Charlie must face up to her past and move quickly before she becomes the next casualty. She expected training to be tough, but can she graduate from this school of hard knocks alive?
‘If you only know Charlie Fox from
First Drop
,
Second Shot
, and
Third Strike
, you don’t know Charlie. What you’ve got in your hands is a rare and special treat. It’s like finding some lost Jack Reacher novel or a couple of non-alphabet Kinsey Millhones that nobody knew existed. Don’t let anyone tear it from your hands without drawing their blood.
‘These early Zoë Sharp books haven’t been a secret, but they’ve been harder-to-get than Charlie Fox in your bed. Think of these as the early years of Charlie Fox – she’s lethal and relentless, but still raw from the military experience that made her the kick-ass, take-no-prisoners bodyguard that she’s become.
‘But there’s more going on in these books than breakneck action and adventure. Charlie has heart, maybe too much for a woman in her profession . . . and it’s that caring, that humanity, that makes her much more than a killer babe on a motorbike. These books are your chance to discover Charlie Fox as she discovers herself, her strengths and her weaknesses, and sustains the scars to her body and soul that make her such a unique and compelling character.’ US crime author and TV producer,
Lee Goldberg
Don’t miss the bonus material at the end of HARD KNOCKS:
The other Charlie Fox novels and short stories
Excerpt from FIRST DROP: Charlie Fox book four
Excerpt from the PI Giorgia Davis/Ellie Foreman novel from Libby Fischer Hellmann – DOUBLEBACK
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One
It rained on the day of Kirk Salter’s funeral. Hard cold rain, close to sleet. Driven down off the moors by a frenzied wind, it rampaged through the gravestones of the bleak little Yorkshire churchyard and buffeted the sparse group of mourners clustered round the open grave.
I stood a respectful distance back from the family, listening to the droning voice of the vicar, nasal with ‘flu. The rain stung my face, plastering my hair flat to my scalp. As I tried desperately to stop my teeth from chattering I wondered, not for the first time, what the hell I was doing there.
It was two days after Christmas. Yesterday morning I didn’t even know that Kirk was dead. We hadn’t kept in touch since our army days, and I’d had absolutely no wish to do so.
The last time I’d seen him all I remember was being scalded by a white-hot rage, an impotent fury at his actions – or lack of them. He was a fucking coward, I’d yelled at him. A traitor. I hoped he died screaming.
Be careful what you wish for.
***
It was Madeleine who’d broken the news that Kirk had been shot dead in Germany. She turned up quite out of the blue at my parents’ house where I was reluctantly spending the holidays. That was what surprised me most about her unexpected appearance. I hadn’t told anyone I was going to be there.
In fact, until recently, I would have done just about anything rather than be found within a fifty-mile radius of the family fold in Cheshire. It certainly wasn’t the obvious place to start looking.
For various reasons, my relationship with my parents had fractured about the time I got kicked out of the army. It had taken the best part of five years before it had begun to knit back together again. If the warehouse building next to my Lancaster flat hadn’t caught fire in early December, it probably would have taken longer.
Still, it’s amazing what the prospect of being homeless at Christmas does to your pride. I’d swallowed mine dry and accepted my father’s coolly delivered invitation.
It hadn’t been easy. My mother, aware of how fragile was this truce, had greeted my return with a twitchy delight that was almost hysteria. By Boxing Day, if I listened carefully enough, I could almost hear her rack-tight nerves snapping quietly behind her apron strings. My own were not far behind.
And then, into this scene of agonising tension, had come Madeleine.
“There’s a funeral tomorrow that I think you might want to go to,” she’d said carefully, her face solemn.
She knew – I’m damned sure she did – whose death I’d instantly assume she was talking about. I’d had no contact with Kirk for nearly five years. Why on earth would I think of him? Besides, she was too good at digging out such information not to have known I’d be only mildly interested at best in his untimely demise.
No, I’d thought she meant Sean, and the shock of the blow I’d felt at that moment had quite literally taken my breath away. I’ve never fainted in my life, but I came pretty close to it then. It was only afterwards, when I caught her studying my reaction, that I realised she’d broken the news that way deliberately.
Sean Meyer. Madeleine’s boss. Now there was a name I’d spent so long conjuring with I was practically eligible for entry to the Magic Circle.
Madeleine worked for Sean handling electronic security and surveillance. When I’d first met her I’d believed there was a lot more to their relationship than strictly business. Bearing in mind my own shattered affair with Sean, a certain antagonism from that assumption still lingered. I couldn’t seem to put it aside.
I told myself it was a relief to have an excuse to get away from my family. That Sean’s relayed request for my presence at the service was no deciding factor, but maybe I was still feeling too shaky to put up much of a fight.
It would have been difficult to refuse in the face of Madeleine’s stubborn determination, in any case. Sean hadn’t dragged her away from her Christmas dinner to spend the best part of a day tracking me down, she told me grimly, to have me back out now.
She’d practically stood over me while I’d thrown some suitably sober clothing into a bag and borrowed a black coat from my mother that contrived to make me look bulky without actually keeping me warm. Then we’d headed north.
As we’d crawled across the Pennines in freezing fog, Madeleine had filled me in on how she’d come to be involved in Kirk Salter’s life and the aftermath of his death.
“He came into the office to see Sean in early November,” she explained. “He was back in civvy street and looking for a job.”
Somehow I wasn’t surprised at the news. Since he’d left the army himself, Sean had moved into close protection work. If you’re ex-Special Forces and you’re an expert in your field, there aren’t many alternative career choices open to you. Sean had, it seemed, found immediate success, and Kirk had certainly been big enough to have been useful as a bodyguard.
“So what was he doing in Germany?” I asked. When she’d initially told me the location and manner of his death, I’d automatically assumed it was military. “Was he on a job for Sean?”
“Sort of,” Madeleine said. “He’d gone to do a VIP protection course over there. Since they banned handguns in the UK most of the bigger training schools moved to either Holland or Germany, as you probably know.”
I hadn’t known it, but I wasn’t inclined to correct her. “So what happened?”
Madeleine flicked her eyes to the rear-view mirror before she pulled out round a slower moving truck in the centre lane. “We’re not entirely certain,” she said, off-hand. “I’m sure Sean will fill you in.”
I watched the gloomy humps of other cars appearing out of the fog alongside us and reflected idly that Kirk should have been too experienced a soldier to get himself shot so carelessly.
Well, hell, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke.