Killer Instinct (4 page)

I turned back to the stage. Clare was standing with her hands over her face, sobbing.

Tony was glaring furiously. He started forwards as soon as Susie and the man disappeared. I backed off rapidly, but he swept straight past me, muttering, “The stupid, dozy
bitch
!”

Dave suddenly seemed to recover his powers of speech. “Hey Tony, looks like Susie really goes for the caveman approach,” he called after him.

Tony spun round, eyes blazing. “And you can shut up an' all, you dickless little shit!” he yelled at him. “It's all a bloody fix, anyway!” and he stormed off.

“Oh excuse me! What's the matter, love, haven't you been milked yet?” Dave returned, and laughed. After a brief hesitation, the crowd joined in, but they were laughing to cover their own uneasiness. There was no humour there.

I went and gave Clare a hand down from the stage, finding her trembling. I cut dead Dave's solicitous remark and led her upstairs to one of the quieter bars. I left her at a corner table while I went away and came back with a non-diet soft drink.

“Here, drink this,” I said. “It's only lemonade, but you need the sugar.”

She took the proffered glass with a shaky smile. “I thought it was supposed to be brandy for shock?” she managed.

“Yeah, well. For one thing I can't afford brandy in here, and for another I don't think Jacob would appreciate me letting you get nicked for drink driving in his motor on the way home.”

We sat for a few moments in silence while she emptied the glass and set it down. She touched a hand to her face gingerly.

“You're going to have a hell of a black eye in the morning, but the skin isn't broken,” I told her. “Some decent make-up should cover up the worst of the damage.”

“Thanks,” she said ruefully. Even bruised she still looked glamorous, like someone out of one of those made-for-TV movies about marital abuse.

“How do you do it, Charlie?” she asked suddenly, taking me by surprise.

“Do what?”

“One minute there was this loony grabbing at me, the next she was on her nose on the floor. Every time she came at you, you just knocked her straight back down again. She just came at me so fast I panicked, but you made it look easy. Maybe I should enrol in one of your classes. I could do with knowing how to throw the bad guys lightly over one shoulder.”

“That's only a very small part of what self-defence is all about, Clare, and you know it,” I said hurriedly. “You are far more likely to be injured if you stand and fight. The best idea is to learn to spot trouble at a distance and then get well out of the way.”

“Yeah,” she said with some asperity, “like you've just done, you mean?”

I sighed and said nothing. I'd broken my own rules with Susie, and it didn't sit well with me. Once you decide that you have no choice but to fight someone, you have to go in hard and fast and finish it quickly.

If she'd had any sort of training – and any sort of wits about her – I would have had big problems just by messing about with her the way I had done. I'd given her more than enough time to get the measure of me. Time to realise that she had to look past the surface illusion.

To most opponents I don't seem like much of a threat. I just look ordinary. Nondescript shaggy hair, average height, medium build. Most of the time I don't set out with a confrontational stance; that's almost as bad as appearing weak. If you go looking for a fight, you'll probably find one, and you shouldn't be surprised about it if you do.

I view self-defence like wearing an expensive watch. You don't keep flashing it about trying to impress people. Instead, you keep it up your sleeve, but in the back of your mind you have the confidence of knowing that you have the exact time whenever you need it. I felt I'd been waving my timepiece under Susie's nose, and it ruffled me.

“Hey, Charlie! I can't leave you alone for five minutes before you're getting into trouble again, can I?”

I twisted in my seat as Gary approached and sat down. He grinned at me, then noticed Clare's face.

“Oh Christ, I didn't realise that little cow had actually managed to land one on you,” he said. “From what Dave's just told me I thought Charlie had got to her before she had a chance. Are you OK?”

Clare drummed up a brave smile and nodded. She aroused this immediate, instinctive desire in the male of the species to protect and pamper. I wondered if she was even aware that she was doing it.

“Look,” Gary said, “I'm really sorry about what happened tonight. I hope you won't let it spoil your view of the club. Things like that just don't happen here very often.”

“Come off it, Gary,” I snorted. “You've got real security problems, and you know it. This place is a rabbit warren. Oh, you've got plenty of cameras dotted around the place, but it's no use having that kind of surveillance if either nobody's watching the screens, or they just don't react to what they see.

“When it comes to keeping a lid on any trouble you're way understaffed. You haven't even got a man on every floor, and the guys on the door are so hyped up on testosterone they're more likely to start a fight than stop one. If Susie had been packing a knife she could have had Clare cold and melted away into the crowd before your lads got their act together enough to get their fingers out of their arses.”

From up on my high horse I'd ignored the way Gary's eyes had started to bulge when I'd launched into my speech. The reason soon became apparent.

“You seem to have a pretty low opinion of my club, Miss Fox,” said a deep voice from behind me. I didn't have to turn round to recognise the man in black who'd disposed of Susie for me. Oh shit. Ah well, attack to defend.

“There you go,” I said to Gary, without breaking stride. “This is exactly my point. You've even got the boss man reduced to playing chucker-out. Now is that the best use of his time?”

I heard the man chuckle as he moved into my line of sight, sitting down at the same table. It was starting to get crowded. Gary fidgeted nervously, like he didn't know whether to stay or go.

“You have a certain style, Miss Fox,” the man said. He offered me a well-manicured hand, adorned with a signet ring. Fire flashed from the whole carat diamond set into the gold. “My name is Marc Quinn.” His grip was firm, but light. Obviously Marc was sure enough of himself not to feel the need to clasp hands like he was trying to crush a billiard ball. “I'm delighted to meet you properly, in slightly more conducive circumstances,” he added.

“Me too,” I said. I introduced Clare and Marc made a gracious apology. He assured her that Susie was currently cooling her heels in the gutter outside, then strangely switched his attention back to me. Those pale eyes were disturbingly intense.

“It's a few weeks since I was last here and I don't get round each of my clubs as often as I'd like,” he remarked. “Have you been to the New Adelphi before?”

I laughed. “Oh come on,” I said. “You must be able to think of something better than the old "do you come here often?" line!”

He allowed himself a tight smile. “If that's what I'd meant, then yes I probably could,” he returned coolly. “I was merely trying to find out if you'd noticed these problems with my club security over a period of time, or picked up on it all this evening.”

I took a mental step back. “This is my first time at your club,” I said, making my tone as businesslike as his own. It would probably be my last, I didn't add.

“In that case, you're very astute, Miss Fox,” he said. That incline of his head again, regal. He had his hair cut by a stylist, not a barber, but at least they hadn't managed to make him look like a football player.

“I reckon we need someone like Charlie working here, Mr Quinn,” Gary put in eagerly, only to be silenced by a barbed glance from Marc.

“It might not be quite up Miss Fox's street to throw out drunken troublemakers in a nightclub,” he pointed out dryly.

“It should be. She teaches self-defence. Used to hold a class here before the place was altered. Isn't that right, Charlie?”

I agreed that it was and could see Marc reassessing.

“Really? I thought you handled yourself pretty well back there,” he said. “Ever done any of this kind of work before?”

“The odd time or two, nothing heavy,” I said. Just keeping the druggies out of the ladies' loo on disco night at a local pub. I'd learned some illuminating new swear words and a respectful caution when it came to dealing with fired up girls who had long fingernails.

He sat back in his chair, considering. As he moved the silk shirt flowed like liquid. It would have cost me a week's money.

“I'll be frank with you, Charlie,” he said, coming to a decision. “We do seem to be having trouble recruiting staff here. I try to use people I've worked with before, but getting them to stay in this area is proving difficult, to say the least. The ones I am getting simply aren't the right calibre. I came up yesterday to personally take care of two people I suspected were stealing from me.” He made it sound like they were now reinforcing concrete in a motorway bridge support somewhere.

“Stealing from you?”

“That's correct. A hand in the till, some computer equipment, wine from the restaurant.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gary's Adam's apple give a convulsive jerk at that. Marc went on without a flicker. “When they started getting blatant about it I decided the time had come to let them go. Now I find that the safety of the customers is compromised, and I have to act quickly. Would you be interested in meeting with me to discuss a possible part-time job here? Just Saturday evenings for now, Fridays later if it works out?”

“OK,” I said. I couldn't see the harm in talking to the man further, whatever the final outcome. I didn't kid myself that the money wouldn't come in useful. Besides, he intrigued me.

He reached into the single front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a business card with a designer look to it. There was a handwritten phone number on the reverse, local, by the first three digits, and a mobile. “That's where I can be reached for the next week or so. Call me – and don't leave it too long.”

That slow smile again. He stood up, shook Clare's hand and mine, then got in one last shot at Gary. “By the way, when it says no denims in the dress code, it means it. If you work for me, you don't break my rules – not for anyone,” he said, and walked away across the bar.

Gary waited until he was out of earshot, then let his breath out in a gush of relief. “Wow, Charlie, he must have really taken a shine to you.”

“Hmm.” I looked at the card he'd left with me again, and stuffed it into the back pocket of my offending jeans. If I'd any idea of the trouble it was going to cause, I'd have borrowed Gary's lighter and set fire to the damn thing instead.

I slept in until eight the next morning, but made up for it by working out before breakfast. I was inspired to take up weight training again when I moved into my current flat, which was once a gym. It stands on the increasingly fashionable St George's Quay – rented, I might add – overlooking the River Lune.

When it had been a gym, it had never been a frilly sort of a place. Apparently the only women who used to go there were the owner's girlfriend, and a strapping wench who went in for Miss Great Britain competitions. It was a place for people seriously interested in building their bodies, not posing in a leotard.

When I moved in all the previous owner had done was to haul out the fixed weight machines and benches. The walls are still peeling whitewash, except the one still covered full length in mirrors. The light bulbs and the floorboards are bare. I'd taken down the posters of oiled muscular men and women demonstrating the visible benefits of vitamin supplements, ripped out the urinals in the gents' changing room and put in some old kitchen units I bought cheap from the second-hand furniture place two doors along.

The rest stayed more or less as it was. What was the office now houses my bed, and the main gym area has become my living room. I'd even hung my punchbag on the hook in the ceiling that had been put there for that purpose anyway. It swung elegantly in a corner, lending a certain sophisticated something to the place.

People usually comment admiringly about the size of the flat, and how lucky I am to live there. They don't notice the creeping damp patches, or the collection of buckets for when the wind is driving the rain under the roof slates from just the right angle.

I pay a pittance in rent, but with no written agreement. I knew full well when I moved in that the whole building was under sentence, and the landlord could chuck me out at any moment. Still, having viewed an increasingly depressing range of rat-infested bedsits when I first came to Lancaster, I figured that on the whole, it was worth the risk.

When I'd had enough of the weights I dropped them in a corner and headed for the shower, stripping off my jogging pants and T-shirt as I went.

While the roomy gents' changing room has since become my kitchen, the smaller ladies' room I use as a bathroom. I'm the only person I know with no bath but three showers. It still has the sign of a muscular female in a typical body builder's pose on the door. The only way you can tell the sex is that she has a bikini top stretched round her rippling upper torso. I leave her there to encourage me not to go over the top with the training.