Hard Knocks (30 page)

If only they knew the kind of trouble I might be in.

As it was, my lame piece of invention was rewarded by looks of disbelief and even of reproach from both women. Jan
would
keep asking insistent questions about where exactly I’d been, and what exactly I’d been doing, as if she was deliberately trying to increase Elsa’s suspicion of me. I did my best to ignore them. After all, I had other more pressing things on my mind.

Eventually we turned out the lights again. I lay awake in the darkness and listened to their breathing soften and slow, but my own sleep didn’t come easy.

The panic was a trapped beast inside me, thrashing to get out. Keeping it caged took all my concentration as I forced myself to face up to the possibility that I might have killed a man.

And it wasn’t the first time.

The first time I’d been under intense pressure, intense threat. It wasn’t so difficult to convince anyone that I’d acted in self defence on the most primitive level. Kill or be killed. I wasn’t quite so optimistic of getting away with the same plea twice. Not in these circumstances.

The guilt and the sheer weight of what I’d done settled slowly onto me. I could feel it crushing down, layer upon layer. Weight without measure, like rock. I buckled under the force of it.

The thoughts swam round and round as the digital figures on my alarm clock marched inexorably on, out of one day and into the next. It was only then that I finally surrendered into fitful slumber.

Hardly surprising then, that I was wasted during the morning run. Mind you, so was everybody else. The ones that hadn’t decided to quit, at any rate. Another two people had taken the night’s events as the last straw. I gathered from a disgruntled Romundstad that Gilby had given them all the third degree in the wee small hours, despite protests somewhat more vehement than Elsa had put forward.

It went to show, I thought grimly, that he hadn’t really believed a woman capable of inflicting Rebanks’s injuries. The bile climbed up the back of my throat, burning brightly when I swallowed it down again.

Todd was in charge of phys, as usual, but for once he didn’t push us to our limits, which was unusually lenient of him. I suppose what had happened to Rebanks, coming on top of watching Blakemore die down in the ravine the day before, was an experience that would have a subduing effect on anyone.

Or maybe he was taking it steady because he had O’Neill out with him. The scarred instructor ran with a grimace of stony determination twisting his face further out of kilter. Every now and then I caught him with a hand to his ribs, like he’d got a stitch. But when Todd jogged back and threw him a single enquiring glance, it was met with an angry glare.

“So, what do you reckon’s gone on then?” said a panting voice by my shoulder, and I turned to find Declan running alongside me.

I shrugged. It required less breath than speech.

“Old Gilby was going spare last night,” he went on. “I don’t know what’s happened to Rebanks, but it can’t be good if he can’t even describe who clouted him, can it?”

“No,” I managed, “I suppose not.”

Declan paused. “You know, of course, that Hofmann was outside last night.”

That broke my stride. “Hofmann? What on earth was he doing?”

“Said he’d gone out for a last cigarette,” Declan gasped. “But he came bolting in when those alarms went off, I can tell you.”

We ran another dozen strides or so in silence while I let that sink in. Then I ventured, “How did Gilby react to that?”

Declan grinned at me. “Ah now, girl, d’you think we’d rat on the man?” he demanded, adding, “Even if he is a big numb German.”

This morning, Todd didn’t put us through any extra tortures on the dew-misted grass in front of the house. Instead, when we got back we were allowed to fall back to a walk and trudge wearily straight across the gravel to the main doorway.

My eyes searched for Hofmann’s broad figure and found him almost immediately. As if aware of my scrutiny, he glanced round, his gaze sweeping across me as he did so. Surely, if it was Hofmann who’d been watching outside and who’d followed me into the armoury, he must have seen enough to know my identity, mustn’t he? But there was no hint of recognition on his face.

Then I remembered that flash of cunning I’d seen in him after I’d confronted McKenna, and I couldn’t be sure.

Major Gilby was waiting for us inside the hallway. Waiting and watching. He didn’t move at our approach, so we were forced to part and flow round him, keeping our heads down, trying not to be noticed. He was like a stockman eyeing up the herd for the weak and the slow.

There was that stillness to him again, that single-minded ruthlessness unveiled now. I could well believe that here was a man who’d marched his prisoners across a minefield without a second thought and had satisfied himself that it was the logical thing to do.

As for me, I daren’t make eye contact. I had a nasty feeling that I wouldn’t be able to hide what he might see written there. The urge to break down under that scrutiny and confess what I’d done was almost overwhelming.

***

Breakfast was a solemn affair. The students were still shell-shocked from the events of the last couple of days. Rebanks’s abrupt and apparently unexplained departure was just the latest in a catalogue of events designed to make even the most dedicated trainee bodyguard begin to doubt his or her calling.

None of the depleted group of instructors was any more chatty. I noticed that the dining hall staff had used a smaller top table, so the two empty places were not so glaringly obvious.

When the Major came in with amendments to the day’s schedule, he couldn’t help but take in the lack of focus within the group. The apathy was coming off everyone in waves.

“This morning we’ll be doing a little team building exercise on the assault course,” he announced. “You’ll need to present yourselves at the front entrance at oh-eight-hundred.” For a moment he looked about to say more, but he closed his mouth with a snap and stiffly left the room.

I knew that I should really have used the intervening time to call Sean and update him on the latest events before we went out on the assault course, but when the Major’s deadline rolled round I hadn’t plucked up the courage to do so. How could I tell him what I’d done now without also having to reveal what had gone before?

Besides, I don’t know if Jan and Elsa had made a pact between them to stop me getting into any more trouble, but one or other of them seemed to be there whenever I turned around.

Todd, O’Neill and Figgis were all waiting for us on the gravel when we went back outside, but for once they didn’t give us a hard time for being late. It wasn’t hard to understand why.

Pulled up just about where the Major’s new car had been delivered was another transporter, but this held a very different load.

The remains of Blakemore’s FireBlade had been retrieved from the site of the accident and had been brought to Einsbaden Manor. For what purpose I can only guess. I don’t know how the police work in Germany, but I would have expected them to want to hang on to the wreckage of the bike to examine it for evidence of another vehicle’s involvement in the crash. Looks like the Major had managed to successfully fudge the verdict to suit his own purposes.

We watched in silence as the driver dragged out the ramps and removed the webbing straps that had held the bike’s carcass onto the load bed. Not that it was going anywhere. The buckled front wheel was bent right back into the radiator, the forks twisted well out of true.

Gilby appeared at this point, rapping out sharp commands in German that the driver should drop his load off in the car park at the rear of the building. With a sigh the driver lifted the ramps again, muttering that the bike would not even push, he’d had to winch it on to the truck, and he would need a hand to unload it.

The Major hesitated, as though he realised that using any of the students for such a task wasn’t in the best possible taste, but he had little choice. He commandeered Hofmann and Craddock, the biggest of the lads, to help the instructors assist the driver.

We didn’t need to, but the rest of us followed round to the rear parking area to watch the process. The driver had been right about the immobility of the bike. The clutch and gear levers were gone, snapped away, so there was no way to free up the transmission which was locking the rear wheel tight.

The men had to practically carry the dead Blade off the truck and over into the corner with the damaged Audis. Todd even tucked a corner of the tarpaulin over it, like a shroud. He turned away, wiping his hands, and caught sight of me.

“So, d’you still think those bastard machines are better than a car then, Charlie?” he demanded with surprising bitterness.

I shrugged, aware I had the attention of the others, but pride was at stake. I’d ridden bikes for enough years to know the risks. Blakemore would have known them, too, but that wasn’t what had killed him.

“Well, everybody’s birth certificate expires sometime,” I said.
Yeah, but sometimes it’s earlier than they expected . . .

Todd shook his head in disgust and came stalking past me. “You’re one hard-faced bitch,” he said under his breath. “That attitude’s going to win you no friends here.”

The instructors had been expecting us to be spending the morning in a nice warm classroom and they hadn’t looked too happy about the change of plans. Maybe that partly accounted for Todd’s sour mood. What the hell, he’d never liked me anyway.

By way of retribution they fast jogged us the half-kilometre or so through the forest to the assault course location. It turned out to be not far from the CQB range, out of sight of the Manor house itself.

We were split into four teams of four, which accounted for all the survivors of the course so far. I remembered the number who’d started out, and wondered how many more we were destined to lose before the full fortnight was up. Only a few days to go now. I’d found out plenty of answers in the time I’d been here, but I realised I just wasn’t sure I knew what the questions were.

Todd split the three women up between the teams. I ended up with Craddock, Romundstad, and Declan. Hofmann was in the one team without a female constituent and looked smug at the prospect of not being lumbered with such a weak link. That self-satisfied air didn’t last long, though, when Todd explained the purpose of the exercise.

“You will designate one team member as your injured principal,” he announced. “They are unconscious and must be carried to safety over the assault course.” He grinned nastily at our consternation. “Preferably without causing them any further injury. If we spot any of them lending a helping hand, or generally not behaving like dead weights, you go back to the beginning and start again.”

Three pairs of eyes swivelled in my direction.

“Now hang on a moment, lads,” I protested, backing away. “Declan’s skinny. Why can’t we carry him?”

Craddock smiled and swept me up easily off the ground. He didn’t even grunt with the effort, which was kind of flattering, I suppose. “He is,” he agreed, “but he’s not nearly so much fun.”

“OK,” I muttered as he set me down again, “but I warn you now, boys, if I feel anybody’s hands where they shouldn’t be, you’ll get them back minus a few fingers, all right?”

Todd was setting the teams off at two-minute intervals. We watched Jan’s lot go first, getting themselves well knotted up in the climbing net. They bundled her over the six-foot wall like she was a sack of potatoes. For an unconscious VIP her language was loud and colourful. Then Elsa’s team was away.

By dint of the fact that Elsa was what might politely be termed statuesque, a smaller bloke had been designated as the principal. Even so, they were struggling by the time they reached the rope swing.

Hofmann’s mob made a better job of the net. He was clearly the powerhouse of the team and even though his principal was much bigger than the others, he seemed to be managing to carry him without immediate danger of herniating himself. Or maybe he was and it was just taking a long time for the message to fight its way through the muscle to his brain.

An image of Kirk sprang to mind. He’d had been blessed with that same casual strength. It had made him inclined towards bravado. He’d had a tendency to show off, carrying more and more weight in his bergen for cross-country runs, completing high numbers of one-handed or even one-fingered press-ups. Stupid stuff that had made us all laugh.

“If you’re
quite
ready, Miss Fox?” Todd’s voice snapped me back to the present. We stepped up to the start line. Craddock hoisted me over his shoulder and held me steady with a meaty hand perilously high up the back of my thigh.

I reached down his back and grabbed hold of a fistful of the elasticated waistband of his jogging trousers, then pulled up, twisting hard.

“Let’s not hurt each other here,” I hissed.

The Welshman’s hand immediately dropped six inches further down my leg and I let go cautiously.

“OK, go!” Todd shouted, clicking his stopwatch, and we were off.