Road Kill tcfs-5 Read online

  Road Kill

  ( The Charlie Fox Series - 5 )

  Zoe Sharp

  ROAD KILL is the fifth 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 – SECOND SHOT.

  “If you stay involved with Sean Meyer you will end up killing again,” my father said. “And next time, Charlotte, you might not get away with it.”

  Still bearing the emotional scars from her traumatic first bodyguarding job in the States, Charlie Fox returns to her former home to try and work out both her personal and professional future.

  Instead of the peace for which she's been hoping, Charlie is immediately caught up in the aftermath of a fatal bike crash involving one of her closest friends. The more she probes, the more she suspects that the accident was far from accidental – and the more she finds herself relying on the support of her troubled boss, Sean Meyer, despite her misgivings over the wisdom of resuming their relationship.

  And Charlie's got enough on her plate trying to work out who suddenly wants her dead. The only way to find out is to infiltrate a group of illegal road racers who appear hell-bent on living fast and dying young.

  Taking risks is something that ex-Special Forces soldier Charlie knows all about, but doing it just for kicks seems like asking for trouble. By the time she finds out what's really at stake, she might be too late to stop them all becoming road kill . . .

  ROAD KILL

  Charlie Fox book five

  by

  Zoë Sharp

  For Andy, the reason I’m still here . . .

  ‘After the traumatic events that took place in First Drop, Charlie Fox is back in England to recuperate. But then an old friend is seriously injured after a motorbike accident (that kills the driver) and Charlie's lethal instincts kick in to find out what the real story is, and who the true target was. It's really quite impossible to put this book down, but what really makes this (and the whole series) shine is how Charlie's kickass skills are rooted in her own femininity and character. So why might this not be published in the US? “Too British.” More like too bad if it proves to be the case.’ Sarah Weinman, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

  Bonus Material

  Don’t miss the bonus material at the end of ROAD KILL:

  The other Charlie Fox novels and short stories

  Excerpt from SECOND SHOT: Charlie Fox book six

  Meet Zoë Sharp

  Meet Charlie Fox

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  ROAD KILL

  One

  I swung the sledgehammer in a sweeping arc over my shoulder and smashed it downwards into the wall in front of me, allowing the sledge’s own weight and momentum to do half the work. Every dozen blows or so I stopped to let the billowing dust subside and to take a breather.

  It was hard, hot, backbreaking work. Straightening up was something to be approached with caution, hearing the snap and pop as my spine realigned itself. The constant jarring through my hands was starting to make my left arm ache where I’d last had it broken, a year and a half before. I rubbed at it, feeling the calcified ridges on the bones of my forearm, and wondered if there was still a weakness there.

  It was a bright Sunday in early August. I’d been beating the hell out of the bedroom walls of my new home practically since sunrise and, as therapy went, it was doing me the power of good.

  I propped the sledge in a corner and gauged the time by the shadow the sunlight was casting into the room’s dirty interior. A little after twelve o’clock at a guess. My old wristwatch had clogged with grit and finally given up the ghost days ago and I hadn’t yet had the need, or the inclination, to venture out and get another.

  It was during one of these brief periods of inactivity that I heard the distinctive sound of a motorbike being caned up the long dragging hill towards the cottage.

  I crossed to the open first floor window, stepping carefully over lumps of fallen masonry and plaster that signified my morning’s work so far, and hung out across the sill. Easier said than done. The cottage was built somewhere towards the end of the nineteenth century with rubble-filled walls of local stone, a couple of feet thick.

  The road was almost straight but it dipped occasionally out of sight. Sure enough, as I looked out I caught the flash of a bike headlight as it rose and fell into the undulations and shimmered through the heat haze coming up from the tarmac.

  I leaned on my elbows, grateful of the slight breeze stirring my hair and cooling the sweat on my skin, and waited. The road past my new home went on for only another half mile and then became a farm track. The other two cottages in the same row had been recently revamped as holiday lets and were currently empty. If anyone was coming up here on a bike they were either very lost, or they were coming to see me.

  The bike drew closer, the tortured exhaust note rising to a thunder, driving out the peace and stillness that normally surrounded this place. In the field over the road a gaggle of fat half-grown lambs scattered before it, bounding stiff-legged to safety.

  The rider snapped into view over the last rise without appearing to slow his pace any. I recognised the distinctive shape of the Norton Commando as he thrashed past and waved my hand. The rider’s helmet ducked as he caught the gesture, grabbing a big handful of brake lever.

  I held my breath and waited for the inevitable disaster, but it didn’t happen. The rider kept the bike straight and upright and brought it to a fast halt. He described a neat turn in the narrow road without having to put his feet down and came to a stop outside my front door, reaching for the strap on his helmet.

  I’d already identified the rider by his leathers and by the bike, but it wasn’t someone I’d been expecting to pay me a visit. I’d known Sam Pickering for years but getting yourself caught up in the game plan of a murdering madman, as I’d done, has a tendency to put off even the keenest admirer and we’d drifted apart. I certainly didn’t know he’d got my new address, that’s for sure.

  “Hello Sam,” I called down, casual. “Long time, no see. What brings you up here?”

  Sam managed to extricate himself from his old AGV lid. Under it, his beard stuck out at angles and his straggly dark hair was plastered flat to his scalp. “Hell fire, Charlie,” he said, gasping for breath. “You’re a bloody difficult girl to track down.”

  The day changed at that moment, grew unaccountably cooler. “What is it?” I said.

  He looked up at me then. Perhaps it was because he was squinting into the sun that made him look so fearful. “It’s Jacob and Clare,” he said. “They’ve had an accident. A bad one.”

  “Bad?” I straightened. “What do you mean ‘bad’?”

  Sam screwed up his face, as though I might decide at any moment to shoot the messenger. “Jacob didn’t make it,” he said at last, heavily. “They’ve taken Clare to Lancaster but apparently she wasn’t looking good.”

  “Wait there,” I said.

  I ducked back inside, pulling the window shut after me and headed for the stairs, grabbing stuff as I went. My full leathers were hanging on the peg near the back door, but I ignored them. Suddenly I couldn’t hear over the thunder of blood in my ears.

  The lean-to off what used to be the cottage kitchen had a doorway just wide enough to squeeze a bike through, so it had become my integral garage. I wheeled my elderly Suzuki RGV 250 straight out into the small rear yard and kicked it into life, letting the two-stroke engine tick over just long enough for me to struggle into my old jacket, helmet and gloves, and slam the Yale behind me.

  I fumbled with the awkward latch on the back g
ate and my temper fizzed briefly, making me lash out at it with my fist. The pain the stupid action caused brought back a measure of sanity. I took a deep breath and tried to force calm on my rampaging heartrate. A morning’s hard physical labour hadn’t made the palms of my hands sweat. Sam had managed to bring that on with a couple of sentences.

  He was waiting as instructed as I wheeled the Suzuki out alongside him. He’d put his helmet back on and now he regarded me with some anxiety through his open visor.

  “Let’s go,” I said tightly. “Keep up or I’ll leave you behind.”

  He managed a half smile, as though I was joking. The Commando’s engine was three times the size of my little RGV, but on the kind of twisty country roads we had to cover there would be little to choose between them. Besides, I was in a hell of a hurry.

  Jacob dead.

  Clare badly injured.

  Jesus.

  ***

  I don’t remember much about the ride to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. Perhaps the only way I could push the bike anywhere near fast enough was simply not to think about what I was doing.

  Jacob Nash and Clare Elliot. I’d known them more than five years but never separately, couldn’t think of them any other way than together. Two halves of a whole.

  I’d been so caught up with the renovations to the cottage that the last time I’d seen the pair of them was nearly a month ago. They’d been the same as ever, teasing, happy, vibrantly alive. Thinking of either of them dead sent me reeling into panic and denial.

  Not that I was any stranger to death. I’d seen it, touched it and smelled it, more times than was good for me to remember. I’d even felt it come for me, for those I loved, and then swing away almost on a whim.

  Maybe that was why I couldn’t truly believe the news about Jacob. Why I was making this near-suicidal dash to the hospital. Until I knew for certain that it was hopeless and he was truly gone, I would try to bind him to this life by sheer effort of will.

  My mind kept running over and over what might have happened, but Sam had only arrived after the event, so he hadn’t been a direct witness. Clare had been asking for me, he’d been told, and he was the one who’d volunteered to try and track me down from scrappy bits of information and hearsay. Just about anything, by his way of thinking, was better than hanging around at the hospital.

  The very fact that at one point after the crash Clare had obviously been conscious and lucid filled me with a small measure of hope but I shied away from the possible nature of her injuries.

  Besides, what was she going to do without Jacob? Did she even know that he was dead?

  I couldn’t imagine what kind of self-induced error had brought the pair of them down. Jacob was a seriously fast rider, had raced bikes in his younger days and still pushed hard on the road. He had skill I couldn’t even begin to match and a seeming sixth sense for dangers lurking round the next blind bend.

  And Clare had too much respect for her classic Ducati 851 Strada to be reckless. In biking, as in all things, Clare just had too much style to do something as untidy as crashing.

  So what the hell had gone wrong?

  ***

  Lancaster on a Sunday was fairly quiet and I totally disregarded the posted speed limits all the way through town. Sam was right behind me when I finally pulled into the car park at the RLI and dived into a space marked ‘reserved for consultants only’.

  For once I didn’t chain the bike up, or even check to see that it was settled fully onto its side-stand. Taking the keys out of the ignition was the most I could manage. Having Sam there made me try for composure, so we walked, rather than ran, into the building itself.

  Nevertheless, I hit the entrance doors to Accident & Emergency shoulder first without slowing, punching them open and woe betide anyone unlucky enough to be standing on the other side.

  Sam bypassed the reception desk and trotted off down a corridor. I wanted to stop and ask, but at the same time I didn’t want to let him out of sight, so I hurried after him with barely a break in stride.

  It had been around ten months since my last visit to the RLI – only that time I’d arrived on a stretcher. I felt the familiar tightness in my chest that being inside the place again always brought on. They say the body doesn’t remember pain. They lie.

  After a couple of corners the corridor opened out into a large recess that formed a waiting area. The three walls were lined with a rake of squat cloth chairs pushed together into benches. In the centre was a low table covered with nervously dog-eared magazines.

  There were already half a dozen people in occupation. Most of them looked awkward and uncomfortable in their full race-replica leathers. A row of helmets sat like trophy skulls across the end run of seats.

  I had time to wonder who they all were, these strangers. I didn’t think I’d been away long enough to be so completely out of touch. Nobody looked immediately familiar but I didn’t have time for a thorough inspection.

  As soon as we appeared, a middle-aged woman who’d been sitting in a corner jumped to her feet and launched herself in my direction.

  Before I knew it I’d been enveloped in a motherly embrace of such ferocity I barely knew how to react. Aggression I can deal with in my sleep. Affection defeats me every time.

  I gave in long enough to hug her in return, then managed to lever myself back far enough to be able to breathe unrestricted.

  “Pauline?” I said, suddenly grateful to see her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sam got them to call me,” she said gently. “He thought Clare might appreciate a friendly face.”

  I’d known Pauline Jamieson since she started coming to the self-defence classes I was teaching around Lancaster a couple of years ago. Then, when those came to a somewhat abrupt end, she stuck by me as a friend.

  After I’d introduced them, Pauline had got to know Jacob and Clare almost as well as I did. So, of course she would be here. Unaccountably, for the first time my voice wobbled and threatened to take the rest of my face down with it.

  Pauline took one look at me and wrapped me in a big hug again. She was wearing a strappy summer dress that was a bit of a fashion mistake with her ample figure but she had the self-confidence to carry it off regardless. Her hair was a vivid shade of burgundy and she smelt of apples and peppermint.

  “Clare will make it,” she said, eyeing me intently. Just when I thought her firm tone meant she’d had an updated report, she dashed my hopes by adding, “You’ve got to keep telling yourself that.”

  “How is she? Have they told you anything?”

  “Only that both her legs are broken,” Pauline said. She was one of the most matter-of-fact people I knew, but just saying the words even she winced. “Pelvis too, I think. I’m still waiting to hear.”

  I blanked my mind to the image of Clare’s long artlessly perfect legs in pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.

  “Jesus,” I muttered. “Does she know about Jacob?”

  “Jacob?” Pauline frowned and glanced at Sam, then her eyebrows shot up and she let go of me just long enough to put her hands to her mouth. “Oh my goodness,” she said, a little faintly. “That wasn’t who she was on the bike with, Charlie. I thought so initially – everybody did – but we were wrong, thank heavens. It wasn’t Jacob.”

  Parts of my brain overloaded and shut down. Anger sparked and flashed over. A gut instinct response, like the irate mother of a just-found missing child. The relief was so strong it actually hurt.

  “Oh thank Christ for that,” I moaned, pulling away from Pauline’s arms to sink onto the nearest chair with my head in my hands.

  “You might want to rethink the celebration a little, or at least tone it down,” said a voice above me, tight with compressed emotion. “It might not be your mate who’s cashed in his chips, but it was one of ours.”

  I lifted my head to find one of the group of bikers had come over and was glaring at the three of us in fairly equal measure.

  He was black, with high cheekbones and
a buzz cut. Probably somewhere in his late twenties, he was built like a gym junkie, bulked out further by the snazzy one-piece leathers he was wearing. On the outside of both knees were hard plastic sliders, stuck on with velcro. The sliders were well scuffed, so either he had the bottle to lean his bike over far enough to get his knee down, or he fell off a lot.

  The leathers were the latest pattern of expensive Nankai gear in white and two shades of bright green. I would have laid money on him having the latest pattern of expensive Kawasaki sports bike to match.

  We each of us reacted to his intrusion according to our nature. Sam took a step back, I got to my feet and took a step forwards, and Pauline moved into the middle ground between us, stoutly undaunted.

  “Don’t you think there’s been more than enough bloodshed for one day, young man?” she asked, her voice mild.

  To my surprise, the big guy looked flustered at her quiet admonition. He dropped his gaze, hunching his shoulders uncomfortably inside all that kevlar-reinforced padding as though he’d developed a sudden itch.