“You might have a bit of a problem with Todd about keeping me on,” I admitted, somewhat belatedly. “That’s the reason I’m back early. He thinks you’re going to send me packing because I’m injured.”
The Major turned back to me, raked dubious eyes up and down. “Injured?”
I explained briefly about my fall from the rope bridge and the cracked breastbone such a move had exacerbated.
“Well, I wouldn’t have guessed, but perhaps it might be best if you weren’t in this fight,” he said, but there was no enthusiasm in his tone. “You’ve done enough.”
“Oh no,” I shot back, fast and fierce. “I’m the one who gave Gregor my word on this. It’s my neck on the line just as much as yours. I hardly think he’s the kind of man who’d accept a sick note from my mother if I don’t show. I’m in this now, whether you like it or not, and I’ll see it through.”
For an agonising few seconds Gilby hesitated, then he nodded slowly. “All right, Miss Fox,” he said and, more purposeful, “Leave Mr Todd to me.”
I started for the door. If I could manage to break into a jog up the stairs I might even be able to snatch the bathroom before Elsa and Jan got back. I wasn’t banking on it, though.
“Oh, Miss Fox.” The Major’s voice caught me when I’d nearly made my exit. “If what I’ve just seen is anything to go by, I’d rather have you when you’re injured than half the men I’ve worked with when they’re fully fit.”
He was back on top, his voice clipped, shoulders straight. Any hint of weariness was gone. He was already reaching for the phone to dial the number I’d given him for Sean.
In his eyes I read a new determination. For the first time since Gregor Venko had left that study, I could see that Gilby really believed he might win this.
I hoped to God he was right.
Twenty-two
Even with a head start, I didn’t make it to the shower first. Elsa easily beat me to it without having to resort to any undignified elbowing techniques. While she was in there, Jan collared me with all the concentrated determination of an average domestic cat faced with a wounded sparrow.
“Come on then, Charlie, what happened when you got back here?” she demanded. “Give me all the gory details!”
For a moment I stared stupidly at her, thinking she somehow knew about Gregor Venko’s armed invasion. It took a couple of seconds for my brain to click round into the right gear.
Actually, I thought she was being thoroughly nosy considering how closed-mouthed she was about her own motives for being on the course, but I refrained from saying so. In truth, I suppose I was glad of the opportunity to try out the rhythm of my concocted story on her before I faced the third degree from Elsa. The German woman, I’d discovered, was not easy to lie to. Maybe I just found the fact that she’d been in the police instinctively intimidating.
So, I told Jan how Major Gilby had decided to exercise his executive power and let me stay on, as he had done when McKenna had concussed himself during the ambush in the forest. It was a recall of a conversation Gilby and I had never spoken, but I was pretty sure it was what he would have said, if he’d thought of it at the time.
I told her how it was up to me to prove I was fit enough to complete the course, how there’d be no quarter asked nor given. There was a certain ring of truth to that last bit, bearing in mind the kind of stick I just knew I was going to have to take from Todd, but still she frowned at the rest of it. I shrugged and didn’t try too hard to persuade her. I was too tired to put up much of a fight, in any case.
My near-indifference must have worked, though, because when Elsa appeared, her wet hair combed back flat from her face, it was Jan who told her I was staying, with hardly a hint of cynicism in her voice. Elsa raised an enquiring eyebrow in my direction and I repeated the bones of my story for her benefit.
When I was through Elsa regarded me gravely for a few moments, then nodded. “Good,” was all she said, almost cryptic. “It is right that you should be here.”
In light of the morning’s events, that could have been read in any number of ways.
The three of us went down to lunch together. When I walked in to the dining room I swear the conversation dried up in direct response. As I walked across to the hot buffet I was self-consciously aware of the eyes following my progress. I was glad of the show of solidarity from the two women flanking me, whatever their private doubts might have been.
I received a few cheery nods of encouragement, though. Declan gave me a “Good on you, girl.” Craddock’s reaction was one of relief rather than pleasure, and I realised he’d been feeling guilty about letting me fall in the first place.
I was more wary about the behaviour of the domestic staff than of anyone else, but fortunately they seemed unaware that I’d played any particular role in the proceedings. I don’t know exactly what it was that the Major said to them after Venko’s thugs had gone, but if you knew where to look and did so very closely you could just about spot that they’d all had the fright of their lives.
Now, I held my plate out and Ronnie slapped a couple of slices of roast beef onto it, his movements jerky, his normally good-natured whistling silenced. When I glanced round I saw that all of them were much the same, but very few of the pupils seemed to have noticed anything was amiss. It’s amazing how often people dismiss waiters and porters and cooks without really looking at them.
Elsa, Jan and I sat together at the end of a half-occupied table. There seemed to be more empty spaces than filled seats down here now and I tried to work out how many had left the course so far. I wondered if the Major calculated his costs on the basis that half the students would drop out before the end of the two weeks.
The doors opened and the instructors came stalking in. I could see straight away that Gilby had filled them in and they hadn’t liked what he’d had to say. Some of them less than others. O’Neill was glowering at everybody in general and – when his eye lighted on the three of us women – at us in particular.
“Looks like you’ve ruffled a few feathers, Charlie,” Romundstad commented from along the table. I gave him a wan smile. Oh yes, Tor, but not quite in the way you’re expecting.
In fact, I wasn’t sure that Gilby’s pride would let him tell his men about my intervention, but it wasn’t until Todd swung by the end of our table that I found out for sure.
The bulky phys instructor paused so close to my chair I had to lean back slightly and crane my neck to look up at him. His whole body seemed to be vibrating with anger.
“So what did you have to do to get him to let you stay, Fox?” he muttered, his voice tight and nasty. “Give the old man a blow job?”
I should have kept my mouth shut and my head down, I know, but in twenty-four hours Gregor Venko was going to come in here all guns blazing, and if he didn’t get his son back there was going to be a bloodbath. In the light of that I couldn’t find it in me to be diplomatic to the likes of Todd.
“Why?” I shot back, “Is that how you got him to take you on?”
The silence arrived along the table on a gasp of surprise that quickly turned to a splutter of astonished amusement.
“Ah now, Mr Todd,” Declan said almost gently, shaking his head, “but you surely asked for that one.”
The flush started just above Todd’s shirt collar and rose up past his ears like coloured smoke. He opened his mouth to drench me in vitriol, but the dining hall doors swung open again, and suddenly nobody was paying him any attention.
Major Gilby walked in, smart and upright. By his shoulder was Sean Meyer.
I told myself that I’d known Sean was coming. That I was the one who’d told the Major to call him, but the shock of his arrival still hit me like a mental and physical double blow. My brain reeled even as my body reacted, prickling my scalp, tightening my stomach, making my shins itch.