Killer Instinct

Six

The class I taught late that afternoon was packed, mainly with Lodge residents. It seemed that just about all the women at Shelseley had suddenly decided that self-defence was a subject they could no longer afford to ignore.

I had planned to teach them how to escape from a pinned-down potential rape situation on the ground, and had dragged out the heavy crashmats ready, but at the last minute I changed my mind. Something told me that particular lesson would have been a little too emotive right now. I went through wrist locks instead, and came away vaguely regretting that I'd chickened out.

Afterwards, I stuck my head round Tris and Ailsa's door to find Ailsa alone, poring over what looked like books of accounts. She invited me in for a cup of chamomile tea. I accepted more to be sociable than because I especially like the stuff.

“It was busier than I was expecting,” I said as she poured the straw-coloured liquid from a chipped Wedgwood teapot.

“Well, love, I suppose I can't say I'm surprised,” she said, but her eyes had drifted back to the books in front of her. Distracted, she brushed a hand through her spiky hair.

I put my head on one side and regarded her. “What happens if they all leave?” I asked quietly.

Her hand stilled, then dropped. “We struggle,” she said briefly, closed the book and sighed. “When old Mrs Shelseley died she left us some money to maintain the house for as long as it remains a refuge, but we had to re-roof the entire place about four years ago, and that ate up most of the capital. We get grant money, and some charity funding, but the bulk of it comes from social services, and to be honest, Charlie, that's what pays the bills. We can't afford to lose them.”

She looked about to say more, but a commotion had kicked up in the hallway outside, and Ailsa paused as she worked out if it was serious enough to warrant her intervention. Years of experience had tuned her senses to the point where she could instantly recognise the difference between the screams of a playfully violent children's game, and those which greeted the unexpected arrival of a drunken ex-husband and father.

It was soon clear that this was neither. After only a moment's hesitation, Ailsa was on her feet and moving for the doorway with the sort of speed you wouldn't expect from a woman of her size. Slower in mind, if not in body, I was half a stride behind.

We weren't alone in recognising an emergency in progress. Doors were opening all along the hallway, and up on the landing as well. There were already half a dozen women in the hall itself, clustered round a dark-haired girl in her late teens or early twenties. She was slumped on her knees by the bottom of the stairs, clutching at the ornate newel post like a drowning swimmer, and wailing.

“Oh God,” Ailsa muttered. She hurried forwards and bent close to the girl. “Nina, love, what is it? What's happened?”

The girl turned her face in the direction of the voice, but her eyes had that thousand-yard stare of deep shock.

“O-outside,” she managed at last. She swallowed a couple of times, her throat working convulsively. “There w-was a man. Outside.”

Ailsa threw me a single pleading look over her shoulder. I gave her a slight nod, knowing immediately what she was asking of me. This wasn't the time to argue, and besides, the girl, Nina, had started to shudder and shake. I thought there was more than a fair chance she was going to throw up, which didn't make me eager to hang around here.

I stepped round both of them, heading for the open doorway, and the darkness beyond it. The group melted back to let me through. Nobody offered to walk with me, but then, I hadn't really expected them to.

I went down the stone steps and moved quickly to the side of the house. I stood there for a minute or so, out of the sweep of light flooding from the un-curtained windows, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and my nerves to steady.

The pause gave me chance to listen for the sounds of movement, but there was nothing apart from the rattle of wind across bare branches, the hum of traffic from the main road, and the jump of my own heart.

I was mildly surprised to find that I wasn't scared, though. Not that mind-numbing fear that freezes your blood. Instead, I could feel my senses dilating, my instincts reaching out into the night. Rather than dulling my responses, apprehension was serving to give me a sharper edge.

I had no doubts that if the girl said she'd seen a man lurking out here, she was probably right. His intentions might be sinister, but I was determined that I was not afraid of him, whoever he was.

I'd been down that road once before, and had returned coated with the bitter grime of pain and experience. I had so nearly not come back at all. It was interesting to know some good had come of the journey.

I eased myself away from the wall and tried to walk quietly across the gravel, which was an impossibility even in bare feet, never mind in the heavy-soled bike boots I'd changed into after the class. Every few strides I had to pause to clear the echo of my own footsteps from my ears.

I spent a quarter-hour moving as silently as I could through the area surrounding the drive. I wasn't stupid enough to force my way deep into the undergrowth. It would have been asking for trouble.

Even so, I found no trace of an intruder. Nothing.

By the time I got back into the hallway, the crowd had mostly disbanded. One or two of the hardier ones were lurking on the stairs. They asked me if I'd spotted anyone, and took my negative answer with sceptical smiles. Whether that was because they doubted there was anyone to find, or because they thought I was just trying to allay their fears, I couldn't be sure.

I found Ailsa back in the sitting room, squeezed onto the sofa with her arm round Nina, who still seemed as distraught as she had been when I'd gone out. Tris had appeared by this time, and was perched on a chair on the other side of the room, hollow-eyed and anxious.

Ailsa glanced up at me sharply when I came in, but I shook my head. She looked relieved.

I moved round into Nina's line of sight, and crouched in front of her. “Whoever he was, Nina,” I said, speaking carefully, “he's gone now. You're OK.”

Nina had her arms folded round her body, and was rocking gently back and forth. “It's my fault,” she mumbled. “It's all my fault.”

Uncomprehending for a moment, I caught Ailsa's sorrowful glance, and I understood then why Nina was at the refuge. She'd been raped.

I remembered Ailsa telling me a few details when the girl had first arrived. She'd been raped by a friend of the family, and when she'd told her parents, their first reaction had been of disbelief, and denial. Betrayed, Nina had run, ending up at Shelseley.

I put my hands on her shoulders. “Nina, listen to me,” I said, my voice sharp enough to cut through the layers. “It's not your fault. Nothing that has happened to you is your fault. Don't let it destroy you, or he's won. Do you hear me? Is that what you want? To give up?” I ignored Ailsa's murmur of protest and plunged on. “Come out fighting, Nina, come back stronger. Stop giving him this power over you, otherwise you'll never be rid of him.”

She twisted weakly in my grasp. “You don't know what it's like,” she moaned.

“Oh yes I do, Nina,” I said, and my voice was grim enough to register. “Trust me, I know exactly what it's like.”

There were certain similarities. I'd also known the men who had raped me, all four of them. Donalson, Hackett, Morton, and Clay. The names ran through my mind like a mantra. They'd been on the same military training course and while they hadn't exactly been my friends, I was supposed to have been able to trust them with my life.

I still don't know why they picked me. There were only two other girls on the same course, so I suppose that cut down the odds a little. I spent months afterwards wondering what weakness in me they'd recognised. What had marked me out as a victim.

Eventually, I'd realised that I was not special, nor fatally flawed. I'd simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, it's easier to believe in fate. That the story lines of our lives are already written, you just follow the script. But maybe I just didn't want to believe that my whole reason for being was to be raped and beaten by a group of drunken squaddies.

People told me I'd been lucky to survive, but it took me a long time before I could begin to view that state of affairs with any sense of happiness. Fear had evolved very slowly into anger. A desire followed first to learn self-defence, and then to teach what I'd learned to others. It gave me back control of my own existence.

I stood up, letting go of Nina's arms, and watched the top of her bowed head. She'd stopped caring much about her appearance since the attack, never wearing make-up and letting her hair grow unstyled. It hung lankly around her face, so fine that her ears stood out through it. Her shoulders were rounded. I don't think I'd ever seen anyone look more utterly defeated.

Ailsa made “leave now” motions with her eyes. I nodded silently, and headed for the door, picking up my helmet and rucksack as I went. Tris got up to show me out.

“Don't you think you were a little hard on her?” he said quietly, once the living room door was closed behind us.

I shrugged my way into my rucksack. “She's had months of hand-holding and sympathy,” I said. “She's physically recovered, the memory's fading. What she needs now is pushing until she starts to push back. She needs to face what she's been through and deal with it, not bury it under layers of cotton wool and hope it all goes away.”

Tris considered that for a moment. “Not everyone responds the way you expect to that kind of stimuli,” he pointed out gently. “Not everybody has the strength of character to cope.”

“They have to,” I said, glancing at him as I turned to go. “What else is there?”

Despite my words, I looked around me carefully as I walked down the steps again and across the gravel to the bike. The screen of rhododendron bushes looked quiet, but to be truthful, for all I could see through it, it might as well have been one-way glass. I jammed my helmet on, feeling suddenly vulnerable as it cut down my peripheral vision.

The Suzuki started up first kick. For once I didn't linger to let the motor warm up fully, paddling it backwards out of its space and moving quickly towards the road.

All the while, I could just feel a set of eyes on my back. It might be paranoia, but I couldn't seem to shake it.

I rode straight home, taking the shortest route. On the way I passed Terry's video van parked up on his round. You couldn't fail to recognise that revolting colour-scheme, even in the dark.

When I reached the flat I had just enough time to hurriedly tidy my usual debris before Sam was due to arrive. As I passed the answering machine I noticed that the message light was blinking and I hit the rewind button.

It was Clare. “Hi, Charlie. I've got the details on that, er – story you were after. I can't give them to you over the phone, but if you want to call round, I'll let you know what I've managed to find out.” Her voice sounded strangely solemn as she added, “I hope you've got a strong stomach.”

I almost rang her there and then, but a glance at the clock told me there wasn't time. As it was, Sam rang the bell just after six, armed again with a box of computer disks and a big grin.

He was wearing his usual scruffy bike jacket and battered AGV lid, together with dusty black trousers and trainers. He had a long college scarf wrapped round his neck to keep out the wind, but no gloves and his fingers were white from the cold. I don't know how he stands it.

He presented exactly the sort of image that people like my parents hate so much about motorcycling. The fact that Sam has a very good degree in something to do with computers and could probably be earning a fortune as a programmer instead of tinkering at the Uni has nothing to do with it. A lout in a suit with a sharp haircut would get their vote every time. Even if, when you asked him a difficult question, someone else had to push his chest in and out.

Sam unfolded the lap-top on the coffee table and his fingers started dancing over the keyboard. I put the coffee on and left him to it. I had to admire his concentration. By the time the coffee had filtered and stopped making blocked drain noises, he was still tapping away. He barely turned his head when the mug went down beside him, just murmured his thanks and carried right on.

I was in the kitchen, staring moodily out of the skylight and thinking about Nina when Sam gave a sudden whoop of triumph. I moved back through to find him sitting back and taking a swig of his coffee, looking pleased with himself again. The Cheshire cat would have been a manic depressive by comparison. “OK, we're in,” he said. “What am I looking for?”

“Some clue as to the original owner of the machine,” I said.

Sam put his mug down and scanned the list of files that had appeared on the screen. “Of course, some of these are incomplete, but I should be able to find something,” he said.

“Great.” I hesitated, fought briefly with myself, then gave in. “Have you eaten? I was going to chuck some pasta together if you fancy it? Nothing outstanding.”

“Terrific!” Sam said. “I didn't know you could cook.”

“You shouldn't make rash statements like that until you've tasted it,” I warned and headed back to the kitchen. I dug out the dried tagliatelle, a tin of plum tomatoes, garlic, chilli, and the secret ingredient, a Hot Pepperami sausage. Not exactly cordon bleu, but then, I wasn't out to wow him with my cooking.

I threw the ingredients together quickly. It was my usual stand-by and I could do it in my sleep. I set the kettle boiling for the pasta and went back to see how Sam was getting on.

“I hope you don't mind breathing garlic fumes all over everyone at work tomorrow,” I said.

He looked up blankly. “Hmm?”

I shook my head. “Never mind. How're you doing?”

“Well, not as well as I'd hoped,” he admitted. “The most I seem to be able to get is some of the file names, but the contents might as well be Swahili for all the sense I can make of them. Look.”

He opened a file at random. All I saw was a string of smiley faces and the sort of squiggles that could have belonged to some complex algebra problem. He shut the file down again and tried another, with the same result.

“Here are the file names, if they mean anything to you – delivery dates, stock, distribution, contacts. It just looks like it's been used for standard accounts stuff. I assume they copied everything before they passed the computer on to your mate, otherwise somebody's going to have quite a bit of explaining to do to the tax man.”

“And there's no way of finding out anything else?”

He rummaged in the disk box he'd brought with him. “Well, if it's a very simple file I might have something here that would work, but it's a bit of a long shot,” he said doubtfully.

I heard the kettle click off and went back to the kitchen to pour the boiled water into a pan with the pasta. I stuck it on the hob and returned to the lounge.

By the time I got there Sam seemed to be having more success. “Here's what's in the delivery dates file, but it's not a lot,” he said. “Some of the data at the top of the screen is just totally corrupted. There's not much hope of getting anything out of that. Then we've just got a string of numbers. They could be dates, but it's not much to go on.”

I sighed, disappointed. “OK, Sam, thanks for trying anyway,” I said.

“No problem,” he replied, but didn't sound as though he meant it.

He was still frowning when I left him to go and see to the food. When I came back with two plates Sam had shut the computer down, in disgust presumably, and had left it on the desk. He was sitting on the sofa, chin in his hands, and looking deep in thought.

It didn't affect his appetite, though. He wolfed down the pasta making all the right appreciative noises. He ate with his fork turned round, scooping food onto it and into his mouth. My mother would have fainted at the sight.

Still, at least he was well trained enough to clear the plates away afterwards without being asked. He hadn't progressed past the stacking them in the washing-up bowl stage, but you can't have everything.

It was just after eight-thirty when he left. As soon as he'd gone I rang Terry. I tried his mobile number first. It was switched on and he picked up straight away. I told him we'd managed to get into the computer, and what Sam had found on it. It sounded pretty lame when I laid it out for him, but Terry seemed pleased.

“That's terrific! That should be just enough to worry the bastard!” he said, sounding devious. “Do me a favour and hang onto it for me for a few days, would you? I'll come and pick it up over the weekend. Cheers for that though, Charlie, you're an absolute doll!”

“Oh great,” I muttered as he rang off. “Now I'm inflatable.”.