Hard Knocks

Fourteen

The full effect of my dramatic if rather flouncy exit from the café was somewhat spoiled by my immediately colliding with a person who’d been hurrying along the pavement outside. I spun round without caution from slamming the outer door shut behind me and my momentum nearly sent both of us sprawling.

On a reflex, I grabbed at their jacket. It was only when we’d steadied that I realised who it was I’d got hold of.

“McKenna?” I said, my voice sharp and incredulous. “What are you doing here?”

But the youngster just threw me a panicked glance, jerked himself free, and hurried away. I watched, puzzled, until he’d turned the corner. He looked dreadful, his skin grey and clammy. He hadn’t come across as the type dedicated enough to the course to drag himself from his sick bed to take part in a group exercise.

I shrugged and let it go. I had other things on my mind as I stalked across the square with my shoulders hunched down into my jacket and my anger bubbling away under the surface.

Blakemore was just the unlucky one. He was the first of the instructors I came across, but even so, he was the one I suppose I had the most faith in. Maybe it was just fate that it happened that way. I caught him just as he was climbing onto the FireBlade, with the engine already fired up and ticking over.

He nodded when he saw me approaching, unconcerned, but when I reached across the tank and hit the kill switch his eyes narrowed under the open visor of his helmet. I stood there and stared long enough and hard enough for him to slowly sit back, undo the chinstrap and pull off his lid. He put it down on the tank, folded his arms and regarded me, stony, one eyebrow raised.

Temper is never the best thing to wear to a confrontation. It has a nasty habit of disintegrating into tatters just when you need its protection most and the colour has never suited me.

Ah well, nothing ventured . . .

I said, “Tell me about Kirk Salter.”

Blakemore’s eyebrow shifted up another few millimetres. “How do you know Salter?” he hedged. He flashed a quick, almost nervous smile. “What’s he to you? Old boyfriend?”

“Old comrade,” I said, adding deliberately, “We trained together.”

It took a moment for that one to track from starting point to logical conclusion. Blakemore looked up. “He was ex-Special Forces,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“He was,” I agreed.

He made a small snorting sound through his nose. His gaze turned calculating and then he nodded. “It figures,” he said.

“So why did you kill him?” I pushed, ignoring the fact that it was probably unmitigatingly stupid to blow my cover like this, on Gilby’s home ground, with only Madeleine for back-up. “Did he find out what you were up to and try to stop it?”

“Stop us what?” Blakemore asked. After the initial shock of my opening gambit he’d relaxed slightly. Did that mean he was an accomplished liar, on top of his game now, or that I was so far off the right track he felt secure?

“From grabbing the kid.”

He laughed. “Oh no,” he said, “he was with us all the way. Salter wasn’t the one who threw a spanner in the works.”

I could have – should have – pursued that one in any number of directions, but I was blinkered by anger at his amused denial. “So why did you shoot him?” I demanded.

“We didn’t,” Blakemore said, still grinning at me. “What makes you think that we did?”

“Nine-mil hollowpoints fired from a machine pistol,” I said. “That’s what killed him.”

“Sorry, Fox,” he said quickly, “but we don’t use full autos – or hollowpoints for that matter.”

He reached for his helmet, but before he could put it back on I brought the round I’d shown to Madeleine out of my pocket and held it up to him.

“So what’s this?”

He stopped reaching for the helmet. Instead he took the Hydra-Shok round out of my fingers, examined it carefully. “Where did you get this?” he asked and any trace of laughter had been sucked right out of his voice, leaving a dustiness behind that was almost arid.

“I found it on the indoor range,” I said. “I picked it up the first time we shot there.”

“That’s against the rules,” he said, but he was only going through the motions of rebuke.

“It is,” I agreed. “But last time I checked, so was killing people.”

Blakemore glanced up then, pinned me with a straight look. “And you would know all about that, would you, Charlie?” he said softly.

I swallowed, pushed it aside and went on doggedly. “Why did you kill him?”

Blakemore sighed. “I didn’t,” he said. “I thought I knew who was responsible, but now I’m not so sure.” He regarded me for a few seconds, that brooding, drawn-down stare he had as though he was mentally walking through his options and not finding any of them to his liking. Eventually he held up the round. “Can I hang onto this?”

“Why?”

“I want to plant this in front of someone, like you’ve just done, and see what it shakes loose.”

I found a half-smile from somewhere. “Didn’t work too well on you,” I said.

He grinned again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah,” he said, “but that’s because I’ve got nothing to hide.”

He tucked the Hydra-Shok round into his jacket pocket and fired the ‘Blade up again. I caught his arm.

“What’s going on, Blakemore?”

He shook his head. “It’s too complicated to go into right now,” he said. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

I hesitated again, then stepped back. He nodded, rammed his helmet on and toed the bike into gear, as though afraid I’d change my mind. It was only as he ripped out of the square that I relayed the conversation through my mind and cursed myself for all the gaps I’d left unplugged with questions.

By the time our allotted research period was up, Blakemore still hadn’t returned. I hung around by the back of the truck, hoping that he would still show, until Todd impatiently herded me in with the others.

I scanned the phys instructor’s broad face for some sign that I was walking into a trap by allowing myself to be taken from a public place to a private one without a struggle, but there was nothing to alert me there beyond his usual arrogance.

Even so, as we rumbled out of the square I was aware of a tightness in my chest, a prickling in my hands that made me clench them together in my lap hard enough to turn the skin white around the knuckles.

Had Blakemore been telling the truth? Or had he just been stalling for time, putting me off my guard? His denial when I’d first mentioned the hollowpoint had seemed genuine. But faced with the evidence, there’d been something missing. Now, in the back of that lurching truck, it took me a while to work out what it was.

Surprise.

Whatever I’d triggered in Blakemore, whatever I’d said to him that had acted as a spur, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t suspected already. Suddenly, I remembered the little drama they’d organised for us on the range with Craddock. “So that’s how you did it,” Blakemore had said. Did what? And how was it done?

Behind us I could see Todd at the wheel of the second truck, trying to steer with his elbows while he lit his cigarette. When he caught me watching him he threw me a cocky salute that only served to increase my uneasiness.

Then, without warning, our truck braked hard, swerving to the right.

The students were thrown against one another as the heavy vehicle skidded slightly. Declan’s shoulder hit mine and I grabbed on to the tailgate to stop myself pitching out over it.

My first thought was that it was another ambush. That the men in the Peugeot had brought in reinforcements and come back for a return match. I strained for the sound of gunfire, realising with a sick dread that the thin canvas tilt sides of the truck would be sliced like butter in a firefight.

Figgis managed to bring us to a jerky halt, but Todd had been following too close and not paying attention. I saw him rise in his seat as he stamped hard on the brake pedal. Smoke puffed from the offside front tyre as he locked it solid. For a moment I thought a collision was inevitable. When he finally wrestled the truck to a standstill his front bumper was less than half a metre from the tailgate. I could look straight into his startled eyes.

It was only once we’d all stopped that I heard the frantic voices. A man and a woman. It took a few seconds to tune out the panic and latch on to the vocab. I caught it in snatches. Accident. Mobile phone. Ambulance.

I pushed out of my seat and scrambled over the tailgate, just as Todd jumped down from his cab. As we ran forwards I was aware of other people following.

The couple who’d flagged Figgis down were elderly. Both were talking at once, gesturing towards the edge of the road. The woman was crying.

We’d stopped just before a sweeping left-hand bend. As corners went it was a beauty. A long continuously curving entrance and a tightening fast exit. It slanted towards the inside like a banked circuit. A corner designed for speed. And misjudgement.

To the outside, slightly past the apex, was a lay-by just about wide enough for a single vehicle to pull off the road. Indeed, it was where the old couple had stopped their Westfalia camper van. The road surface broke up there into gravel that had been scraped and scuffed towards the safety barrier in a long ominous twin gouge.

Beyond the barrier was nothing. Open space.

Because Todd stopped to find out from Figgis what was going on, I was the first to reach the barrier and lean out over it. There was a rocky drop on the other side that went down almost sheer for twenty metres before it levelled out into a stream at the bottom, and then away into the trees.

I suppose, if I’m honest, I already knew in my heart what I was going to see down there.

But it still came as one hell of a shock.

Alongside me I heard Declan whisper, “Holy Mary, Mother of God.”

I don’t know just how fast Blakemore had been going when he hit the barrier, but his trajectory had taken him fifteen metres or so out from the incline. He’d landed a little way from the bike, on his back, with his torso half-submerged in the stream. From this height I could see the current creating whirlpools and eddies around this unexpected obstruction to the flow.

His body was bent and twisted, his limbs contorted inside his leathers. A good set will keep you together, but that doesn’t mean it will keep you whole. The darkened visor of his helmet stared up blankly at the sky.

Shards of plastic debris were scattered around his body, splashes of harsh colour against the grey rocks. The faring of the Blade had detached itself in the crash and splintered into fragments, leaving the aluminium box frame exposed.

I was certain he was dead, and then I saw the flutter of one gloved hand.

I’ve seen dead bodies twitch before, little more than the nervous system shaking out the last few drops of life, but this was different. A controlled movement. A weak signal.

I turned. The two instructors were still trying to get sense out of the elderly couple. “It’s Blakemore,” I shouted, cutting them short. “And he’s still alive.”

Todd reached my shoulder first and stared down at the drop. “You’re fucking joking,” he muttered, stepping back, shaking his head. “Forget it, Fox, nobody could have survived that fall.”

I glared at him, then inwardly recoiled. Blakemore had suspected somebody of being responsible for Kirk’s death. It might be rather convenient for Todd if Blakemore never came out of that ravine alive. Too convenient, perhaps . . .

Figgis came up on Todd’s other side in time to hear that last remark. He threw Todd a disgusted glance.

“Let’s find out for certain, shall we?” he said and climbed over the barrier.

Todd didn’t try and stop him from going. Maybe he was as surprised as the rest of us by the driving instructor’s actions. Figgis crabbed across the face to an area where the incline of the rocks was at its most mild. From there he half-climbed, half-slithered his way down, sending a rash of pebbles skittering in front of him like a bow wave.

His agility surprised me. He made it look easy, but no one else volunteered to follow him down.

At the bottom we watched him pick his way across the rocks and reach Blakemore. I couldn’t imagine that the unarmed combat instructor looked any better close up. However strong and fit you are, you’re never going to win in a straight fight with inertia, gravity, and impact.

Figgis stepped round the other man’s blasted limbs and crouched in the stream alongside him. Carefully, he flipped open the visor of his helmet, but didn’t attempt to remove it. He undid the velcro cuff on Blakemore’s left glove and pulled it off with a gentleness I wouldn’t have given him credit for. Then he pinched the inside of his wrist, looking for a pulse. He seemed to take a long time to find one. Long enough for me to suspect I’d imagined that feeble wave.

Finally, he stood up and looked back up to the road, shielding his eyes. By this time we were all hanging over the safety barrier, staring down. I hoped briefly that the force of the FireBlade slamming into it and catapulting over the top hadn’t weakened its foundations or things were going to get crowded down there.

“He’s still alive,” Figgis’s voice floated up. “We need an ambulance – now.”

“They’re on their way,” Todd shouted down, “but we’ve got some ropes in the trucks. We can use one of the tailgates as a stretcher and haul him up ourselves. It’ll be faster.”

“I wouldn’t move him if I were you,” Figgis called. He glanced back at Blakemore for some sign that he had any sense of cognition, but he was patently oblivious. When Figgis spoke again his voice was calm, devoid of emotion. “I think his back is broken.”

People’s reaction to this piece of news was interesting. Some pressed forwards more fully, stretching their necks for a better look. Declan went and perched on the front bumper of the lead truck and lit a cigarette with hands that weren’t quite steady. I was one of those who moved back from the barrier. I’d seen enough, and grisly voyeurism was never in my line.

Elsa turned away, too and belatedly realised that we’d been shuffling our feet across the gravel where Blakemore’s bike had skidded off the road.

“Get back,” she said sharply, waving a hand towards the road surface. “The police will need to investigate the scene and all of you are destroying the evidence.”

Todd snapped his head round, moved in until he was crowding the German woman. “And just what evidence are you expecting them to find here?” he demanded with a quiet vehemence. “Blakemore’s been riding his fucking bikes like a lunatic with half a brain for years. We all of us knew that sooner or later it was going to catch up with him.” He registered the startled looks, swallowed down his anger and shrugged. “Today was the day, that’s all.”

Elsa edged away from him, uncomfortable. Jan moved up to her shoulder, glaring at the phys instructor, but his attention was already elsewhere.

“Dumb bastard,” Jan muttered under her breath. “Of course the bloody police are going to want to investigate the scene. What does he think they’re going to do?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Elsa said, but giving her a grateful smile, nonetheless. “He is upset.”

I wondered when I’d missed out on the bonding process that had gone on between these two. When had they excluded me, or had I excluded myself?

I eyed the area Elsa had been trying to protect. Casually, I walked a little way back along the road in the direction Blakemore must have been travelling when he’d come to grief, judging from skid marks.

I tried to work out just how he must have ridden that final corner. How I would have ridden it.

I would have approached, braking hard, out to the far right of my lane. It was blind. I wouldn’t have cut the apex onto the opposite side of the road and I wouldn’t have turned in and laid the bike down into it, wouldn’t have creamed in the throttle, until I could see my exit was clear.

The road surface was dry, the day was clear. How on earth had he miscalculated so badly? How had someone of his experience overrun so far that he’d ended up on the marbles and slithered into the safety barrier hard enough to launch him into orbit?

I shook my head, moved back further. OK, so Todd had claimed that Blakemore was a lunatic. How did that change the perspective? I suppose if I’d had that kind of absolute faith in my own invincibility I might have gone in a lot hotter, braked a lot later, and committed to the corner before my arc of visibility opened up.

I paced it out. There was no traffic on the road and I could walk my proposed line without having to dodge other vehicles. As I hit what would have been my perfect clipping point, right on the apex of the bend, something sparkled at my feet. I bent to examine it.

“What is it?”

I tilted my head up, and found both Jan and Elsa standing over me, frowning.

For a moment I mentally juggled the effects of telling them what was on my mind, or keeping it to myself.

“Broken glass,” I said at last. When I followed the skids to the barrier they tracked back to the position of the glass like leading lights to a harbour entrance. “It’s shaped, patterned – headlight or sidelight, most probably.”

It was Elsa, the ex-policewoman, who put it together fastest.

“He was hit by a car,” she said. She looked further down the road and her gaze narrowed. She strode away.

“What?” Jan demanded, and we both hurried after her.

“Look at this,” Elsa said. “More skid marks, a car this time, not a motorcycle, leading away from the initial point of impact.”

“Wait a minute,” Jan said. “You both think this was a hit and run, don’t you?”

I nodded. It wasn’t so hard to put it together, not once you followed the parallel black lines that swept across the road. The car driver, whoever he was, had braked hard enough to lock all his wheels solid and start to broadside, scrubbing off speed along with rubber from his tyres.

“Yes, look at this. He hits Mr Blakemore, loses control and makes a complete one hundred and eighty-degree slide,” Elsa said. I don’t know how long she was in the police, but she must have been called out to enough road traffic incidents to have learned to read the signs. “He comes to a stop there – see – over on the other side of the road. He was lucky he didn’t hit the far barrier.”

“Lucky – or skilful,” I said, my voice thoughtful. They looked at me sharply, but it wasn’t such a wild leap. After all, we’d all spent the previous week watching the likes of Figgis performing just such a move as this. A rapid change of direction after your vehicle came under attack. Viewed from that perspective, suddenly that chaotic slide became a textbook manoeuvre.

“He could just have been lucky,” Elsa said. There was a hint of mild censure in her tone, but it was laced with doubt, too.

“So why didn’t he stop?” I said. “Why didn’t he call the police himself?”

She paced across to the point where the car must have come to a halt, her brow furrowed in focus. “He is horrified that he has clearly hit someone. Maybe he sits there for a moment. He might have stalled his engine. His heart is thundering in his throat at what he has done.”

Jan threw me a sideways look at this flight of deductive fantasy. Elsa didn’t seem to notice her scepticism.

“Maybe he even gets out of his car, runs over to the barrier, and looks down at the wreckage he has caused. He looks and, like Mr Todd, he too assumes Mr Blakemore is already dead.”

Caught up in her snapshot of a life balanced on the edge of instant ruin, the picture began to unfold in my mind. “He thinks briefly of calling an ambulance, and the police, of facing the consequences of his momentary lapse of concentration,” I put in. Jan rolled her eyes as if to say, “Don’t you start.” I ignored her.

“Then it comes to him just how deserted is this stretch of road,” Elsa went on, nodding. She was right about that. During the time we’d been stopped not a single other car had passed us. “And he realises—”

“—There are no witnesses.” It was Jan who finished it, seeming to surprise herself as much as us. We turned to stare at her and she shrugged, embarrassed.

We walked back to where I’d first found the broken glass. There wasn’t much of it. Elsa nudged it with the toe of her boot.

“The damage to his car cannot have been severe,” she said. “He would still have been able to drive it away.”

“It wouldn’t have taken much to knock Blakemore off his line,” I said. “A glancing blow.” That was all it took to deflect something as narrow and jittery as a bike. To send it careering to disaster.

“So,” Elsa went on, her voice carrying contempt now for Blakemore’s unknown assassin, “he jumps back behind the wheel of his car and he runs like a rabbit.” She scanned the area again. “Haste makes him heavy-footed.” I followed her gaze and found two thick black lines to suggest that, in his efforts to escape the locality along with the blame, the scared driver had dumped the clutch and lit up his tyres like a drag racer.

We fell silent for a few moments while we replayed the scene, shaping it to fit the scenario we’d just created. It did fit, after a fashion. More off-the-peg than made-to-measure.

“We’re all assuming, of course,” I said quietly, “that this was just an accident.”

I felt their disbelief in the way they stiffened beside me. “What are you suggesting, Charlie?” Elsa asked. I tried to read an argument into her voice, but could only find surprise and not a little interest. Should I risk it?

“If you had to pick a good spot for an ambush along this road, where else would you go for?” I said. I paused while they thought about it.

We’d all driven this way several times during our rides out with the school instructors, who’d asked us all just such a question.

I couldn’t help the eerie feeling that somewhere along the line the men in the Peugeot had received the same training we had, and probably a good deal else besides.

They’d certainly seemed to know all about ambushes yesterday in the forest, even though that one had blown up in their faces. Perhaps they’d decided that taking the school men out one at a time was a less risky proposition.

But what about Blakemore’s threat?

Maybe they hadn’t taken his warning seriously. Or maybe they’d taken it very seriously indeed.