Hands grabbed and hoisted us quickly into the back of the truck. It seemed a long way off the ground, with an iced bare floor that shivered as the lumbering engine was revved. I heard a flapping noise like a slack sail, and realised the truck had a canvas tilt. An army truck. I’d been in plenty of those.
“Where the feck are we going?” Declan demanded.
“No questions!” A boot scraped across the steel, connecting with the vulnerable softness of a body. Declan groaned and went back to cursing under his breath again.
I lay on my side with my head resting on somebody’s shin and concentrated on finding a position that lessened the pain in my chest. Two months previously I’d cracked my sternum. The injury had been without undue complications and had largely healed, but having my arms forced back like this made my ribcage feel as though it was being slowly torn apart up the middle. I closed my mind to the possibilities of what might happen if they were planning on manhandling us at the other end.
After only a few minutes the truck swung round in a half-circle, the engine cut before we’d stopped. Doors opened, people jumped down, doors slammed. The latches of the tailgate were shot back and we were hauled out.
I managed to roll so that I landed mostly on my feet, going down onto one knee. I was dragged upright and hurried over gravel, concrete, and up a short rake of steps at such a rate that I tripped blindly over my own feet. Then I was being forced to my knees. Someone jostled into me and I heard a hiss of indrawn breath that sounded like Elsa.
The change in temperature was enough to tell me we were indoors, never mind the squashy layer of carpet under me. Even through the hood I could tell the light level had gone up dramatically. I tried to prepare my eyes for the change I knew was coming, but it couldn’t be done.
When the hood came off, the brightness stung like when slicing strong onions. I screwed my eyes shut for a moment or so, then opened them cautiously. In front of me were probably twenty-five people, including another two women. They were all watching the three of us as we knelt there coated in filth and anxiety. There were some smiles, but it was mostly sympathy I saw spread among them.
A man was standing in front of us, wearing immaculately-pressed khaki trousers and a green army jumper with a regimental belt over the top of it. He had smartly brushed back fair hair, a long aristocratic neck, and the kind of crinkled up eyes that he would like you to believe are more suited to staring out over a battlefield, or an ocean.
“Good evening, ladies and gentleman,” he said, smiling a wolf’s smile, revealing teeth too white and too even to still be his own. “I’m Major Gilby. Welcome to Einsbaden Manor.”
“Oh for feck’s sake,” I heard Declan breathe, “can the man not just shake hands?”
The Major nodded to the men who’d brought us in. Two of them moved forward to release us. The rest fell in neatly to one side, as though this was a show they put on often enough for everybody to know their places by heart.
Now I had a chance to look at them in full light, I saw they were all big men, dressed in black assault gear, with cammed up faces and woollen hats.
One of them had pulled a combat knife from a sheath on his thigh and sliced through our bonds. I swear I heard my breastbone creak as the pressure on it eased. At least they helped us up with rather more care than they’d shown putting us down.
“You may think this is a little drastic introduction to the course,” the Major said, nodding, as the three of us eased our shoulders and surveyed our sodden clothing, “but I assure you that everyone here has been through just such an experience.”
He glanced round. The other people who were obviously not staff were grinning at us in rueful embarrassment that they, too, had been caught out. Gilby turned back to us and switched off the smile, fixing us with a serious gaze.
“Let there be no mistake,” he said, “by the time you’ve completed your training here you can be absolutely certain that nobody will be able to take you by surprise like that again!”
Three
It seemed that Declan, Elsa and I were the last ones to arrive at Einsbaden Manor. Major Gilby launched into his full induction talk right away.
The Major might have been a charismatic speaker, had not someone obviously once told him what a charismatic speaker he was. As a result he tried too hard and found his own jokes just a little too funny. Most of us dutifully folded our lips back and showed our teeth to order, but for the instructors it was apparently harder to feign amusement. Maybe they’d just heard it all too many times before.
When he was done he told us we had an hour to get settled in and changed into dry clothes before supper. Elsa and I would be sharing a room with the two other women on the course. We were shown the way by one of the men who’d ambushed us. His name, he told us, was Rebanks, and he would be teaching weapons’ handling.
“You’re in the east wing and the blokes are in the west wing,” he said as we followed him up the main staircase.
He turned. He had dark reddy coloured hair over a slightly pointed face which made me think of an urban fox. Intelligent, but sly. “The instructors’ quarters are in the middle, so you’ll have to get past us first if you fancy any extra-curricular activity.”
Elsa and I studiously ignored the knowing smile he flashed in our direction, but the predatory gleam was all too familiar.
Getting past anyone wasn’t going to be easy, though. Einsbaden Manor had that slightly neglected air about it, like a seaside hotel in a resort long past its heyday. The carpeting was worn so thin in places you could no longer determine the colour. Under it, the creaking floorboards were loose and the way they rubbed against each other as a result gave them the shifting quality of sand beneath your feet. Making progress silently was not going to be easy.
We seemed to tramp for half a mile along corridors that all looked the same, the woodwork painted an institutional cream. The tied-back curtains at the long windows were so frail I doubt you could have successfully drawn them.
I noticed that the usual mandatory notices for fire exits were all in English first, German second, almost as an afterthought. Madeleine had told me that the school had transferred from Wiltshire after the gun ban. I hadn’t realised that relocation had been almost wholesale.
Eventually Rebanks pushed open the door to a large room with a high ceiling. There were four single beds in opposite corners, lost among the floor space. Each bed had a lockable cabinet alongside it and a trunk at the foot.
“There you go, ladies, home sweet home for the next fortnight,” Rebanks said with another grin. “Make yourselves comfortable.” I almost expected him to linger, but with that he departed, pulling the door closed behind him.
Two of the beds were obviously already taken. I threw my bag on the nearest of those that weren’t and sat down gingerly. The metal frame squeaked and the mattress sagged deeply in the middle.
Elsa had pushed open a small doorway in the far wall. “It’s a bathroom, I think,” she said, with some doubt in her voice. “Do you want first risk of the shower, or do I?”
In the end, I took the first turn, finding to my surprise that although the plumbing appeared as ancient as everything else, the water pressure was good and the temperature was consistently high.
“Please don’t wait for me,” Elsa said as I dressed again in clean jeans and a shirt. “I will follow you down in a short time.”
I listened until she set the shower running again, then quickly unpacked my stuff. In the bottom of my bag was the mobile phone Sean had given me before I left. It would work all over Europe, he’d explained, and if I kept it switched off when I didn’t actually want to make a call the battery would last for quite a while without needing to be recharged.