He’d programmed the number of his own mobile into the memory and told me to call him any time, night or day, if I needed to. He wouldn’t contact me unless it was absolutely necessary. There was a answering service for when the phone was off that would automatically activate and replay the message as soon as I next switched it on again. He would keep in touch that way.
I flipped the phone open, hit the power button, and then hesitated. Finally, I switched it off again, hid it away in the cabinet. I hadn’t enough to report to make the call worth while. With a final glance round to make sure my stuff was all out of sight, I left the room and headed back for the stairs.
On the way I looked for the quietest bits of the floor. I had a feeling that I might need to do some sneaking about and it was good practice. The edges of the carpet were much less worn than the middle and if you took it slow and careful the boards under them could be walked on without making enough noise to drown out a thunderstorm.
As I crept onto the open landing I saw a man about halfway down the staircase and I recognised the reddy-coloured hair of our friendly weapons’ handler. He’d just reached the lower treads when he was halted by a harsh whisper from one of the doorways on the ground floor.
“Rebanks! Where the hell have you been?” It was Major Gilby who stepped out into the light, hands tight by his sides.
The man shrugged, on the sidelines of insolent. “I’ve been helping the ladies settle in,” he said lazily. “I think I might be in with a chance there.”
I peeled back my sleeve and checked my watch. It was thirty-five minutes since he’d delivered us to our door and disappeared.
“Oh for God’s sake, Rebanks, take this seriously!” Gilby snapped. He looked up then and I shrank back behind the nearest wall, just peering round the corner through the balustrade. He lowered his voice again, but the tiled floor of the hallway ensured that it carried up to me. “You know how things stand at the moment. No one goes anywhere on their own. Not for any reason! Understood?”
“Yes sir!” Rebanks said, but there was laughter in his voice.
Gilby went white. His fingers clenched briefly and he took a step nearer, pushing his face in close to Rebanks.
“Until this thing is over, you follow orders,” he said tightly. “I don’t have to remind you of the consequences of—”
He broke off, and I heard it, too. Creaky footsteps from the corridor opposite my hiding place, which led into the other wing. I hopped back a few strides, then began walking normally. The floorboards under my feet crunched noisily like packed-down snow. I’d just got to the head of the stairs when Declan appeared from the direction of the men’s quarters.
“Charlie, me darlin’! Have you been waiting for me?” he greeted me. He seemed to have recovered his bounce. “Are you ready to eat? After all that pillocking about in the woods, I’m starving.”
We walked down together, passing the two school men with only a short nod of acknowledgement. I tried to act casual, but I found Gilby watching us with a narrowed stare. Perhaps it was my guilty conscience, or maybe he just didn’t like Declan’s cheek.
The dining hall had the same high ceiling of the rest of the house. It was huge, with a massive ornate fireplace at one end that cried out for a pair of sleeping wolfhounds in front of the blazing logs.
There were two long tables laid up, one on the main floor and the other up on the dais which ran across the opposite end of the room from the fireplace. The instructors, naturally, were taking their places at the high table. It was interesting that they felt the need to emphasise their elevated position with such heavy-handed lack of finesse.
There was a hot buffet to one side where people were already helping themselves. Declan and I joined the end of the queue.
Seeing that Einsbaden Manor was being run on military lines, I’d expected the worst of the food, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was more like the fare in a decent pub carvery. Three large cuts of meat and plenty of vegetables that actually hadn’t been cooked long enough to lose all structural integrity. I piled my plate high.
More by accident than design, Declan and I drifted together towards a couple of empty chairs at the nearest end of the long table that was set for the pupils. There didn’t seem to be a seating plan. You just found a space and got on with it.
Declan took the chair to my right. To my left was a big man with fair hair cropped close at the sides and gelled into a flat-top. He ate single-mindedly, resting his elbows on the table and shovelling it in. He had arms that were nearly as thick as my thighs, straining the sleeves of his T-shirt. He glanced at me as I sat down and I gave him a brief nod and a smile.
He didn’t smile back. His pale blue eyes flickered over me once, then he turned his attention back to his plate, as though I wasn’t worth the effort. With a shrug, I dug into my own food and ignored him. Another of life’s charmers.
Declan, however, wasn’t so easily deflected. He looked around at the faces nearest to us, and instantly struck up an easy conversation.
I stayed quiet, letting them talk around me, but kept my eyes open. The instructors were drifting in now, filling up their plates and taking their seats on the dais. Now that they’d washed off their cam cream and hung up their woolly hats for the day, they looked human for the most part.
Rebanks arrived with Gilby still glowering after him, although the Major’s expression settled into cool command as soon as he was among the students, like the professional smile of a politician.
I picked out another face I recognised. The scarred Irishman who’d greeted us at the gate. As I watched him climb the steps onto the dais I caught him pause fractionally and grimace in pain. It was only a small gesture, quickly covered. If I hadn’t been watching him, I probably would have missed it. But the Major had seen it, too, and there was something darker and deeper in his eyes than the incident should have provoked.
It seemed that the scarred man wasn’t the only one of the Einsbaden team who was below par. Another of the instructors entered the dining hall. A tall, wide-shouldered man with a slight but distinct limp. Half of the pupils at the table watched his progress across the room.
Or we did until he turned and glared at us, at any rate. He had sunken eyes under full black eyebrows that met as a single feature across the bridge of his nose, emphasising the slightly Neanderthal bulge of his forehead.
But something about the way he moved reminded me of Sean. They shared the same kind of cohesive control. I marked him out as dangerous without quite knowing why.
“Now there is a man whose lessons we will not enjoy, I think,” said the beefy man next to me, suddenly breaking his silence. He had a deep voice with a trace of a German accent.
“Who is he?” I asked.
The German didn’t look inclined to answer until he saw a couple of the others also waiting for his reply. “His name is Blakemore. Apparently he will be teaching us unarmed combat,” he said then, shrugging. “It was probably not a wise move to antagonise him so early in the course.”
For a moment my heart jumped. He’d seemed to direct that last comment in my direction.
“Who’s been antagonising the man?” Declan asked. He raised his eyebrows at me. “Did he not like the way we fell in the mud at his feet?”
But the German nodded across the dining hall towards Elsa, who had just entered, freshly showered with her immaculate bob dried into place. She looked fit and self-confident.
“When they picked the three of you up I understand that she put up quite a fight,” the man said. He went back to his food, spearing three or four carrots onto his fork. “Mr Blakemore has an old knee injury that has been aggravated and he is not a happy man.”