I remembered the shape that had swung at me and the blow I’d managed to land. When I glanced up, I saw Blakemore studying Elsa with bleak interest that I didn’t like the look of. I could only hope that the unwitting German woman wasn’t going to get too much stick for my actions. But if I wanted my cover to stay intact there was no way I was going to hold my hand up.
***
The next morning we started our training in earnest. At five o’clock the next morning, to be precise, when Gilby’s merry band of instructors came rampaging through the dormitories. They made a point of producing twice the quantity of noise that was required to get us out of our beds. And at three times the volume.
I was shocked into wakefulness as the overhead lights were slapped on and by the nastily cheerful voice of Todd, who had been introduced after supper the night before as the head physical training instructor.
He was short, almost stocky, with hair clipped razor-thin to his scalp. Not because he still hankered after his undoubted previous army career, but because he spent half his life in the shower after exercise. He had the air of someone who’s fitter on a daily basis than you’ll ever be in your life. And knows it.
“Good morning ladies,” he barked, swivelling his bull neck to survey the room’s occupants with just a little too much attention. “Outside in your running kit in fifteen minutes, if you please!”
The door slammed shut behind him and for a moment I continued to lie still, concentrating on slowing down my heart and preventing its imminent explosion. I’ve never liked loud alarm clocks and this was worse. It can’t be good for you to surface from sleep with such suddenness and ferocity. The wake-up equivalent of the bends.
“Come on then girls,” Shirley said briskly, sitting up in her bed opposite mine and reaching for her sweatshirt. “We can’t let the boys think we’re not up to the job.”
Shirley Worthington was from Solihull, the archetypal bored housewife. She was a bouncy woman who wouldn’t see forty again except in the rear-view mirror. Within five minutes of our meeting last night, she’d been handing round photographs of her grandchildren. Not exactly the kind of person I’d expected to find studying to be a bodyguard.
To my left I heard a quiet groan, and then Elsa pushed back her bedclothes and sat up wearily. The German woman looked like death, but I had a feeling I was probably seeing a fairly accurate picture of myself. Only Shirley seemed irritatingly alert.
I glanced over towards the room’s fourth occupant, who was little more than a vague outline under the blankets. Even Todd’s violent incursion hadn’t made an impact.
Elsa heaved herself out of bed and padded across the squeaky floor. “Jan,” she said loudly, shaking the lump by what appeared to be a shoulder. “It is time for you to be waking up now, please.”
Jan King made a muffled comment that probably contained at least four expletives. I’d never come across a woman with such a wide vocabulary of swear words. Or a man, for that matter. And I was used to hanging out around bikers.
Judging from her dulcet tones, Jan was from the East End of London. She was small, sallow-skinned and intense, with the stringy skinniness of a long-distance runner and very bad teeth. She didn’t look much like a bodyguard, either.
By the time the four of us had scrambled into our clothes and got down the main staircase, the men were already outside on the gravel. They stood in a huddled group, their collective breath rising like steam from winter cattle under the floodlights.
The stars were still glittering above us. By my reckoning we were still a good two and a half hours away from sunrise. Why, I wondered bitterly, couldn’t Kirk have got himself killed on a summer course?
“Ah, so good of you to join us at last, ladies,” Todd’s voice was sneering as he jogged up in a dark blue tracksuit. “Too busy putting your make-up on, were you?”
Jan’s response was short and to the point, but I don’t think the reaction she got was the one she was hoping for. If she’d thought it through that far.
“Physically impossible, I would have thought,” Todd said mildly, then his face tightened. “Get down and give me ten press-ups.”
Jan’s face mirrored her surprise. She put her hands on her hips. “Or what?” she demanded.
“Or you can pack your bag right now and bugger off back home, love,” Todd said. He gave her a nasty smile. “Better make that fifteen press-ups.”
“You can’t order me about like that,” Jan said, but there was a note of uncertainty in her voice now, underlying the belligerence.
“You didn’t read the small print when you signed up for this, did you?” Todd asked. He raised his voice, speaking to the group of us. “We need hundred per cent effort from you lot. Anyone who isn’t prepared to put the graft in and you’re straight out.” He waved an arm towards the edge of the gravel, where it faded out into the gloom in the direction of the forest track we’d come in on.
He turned back to Jan. “It’s a long walk out of here, but you can use the time to reflect on what a failure you are. On how you haven’t got the guts and the dedication to make it.” He shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. So, what’s it to be – twenty press-ups, or the next flight back home?”
They continued to stare each other out for a moment longer, then Jan dropped slowly and reluctantly to the frozen gravel.
Todd watched her complete the first three, then turned away. How many press-ups she actually managed to achieve was immaterial, I realised, it was the capitulation he’d been after.
Oh God, one of those . . .
I’d come across enough of Todd’s type – the control freaks and the macho bullshitters. First in the army, and then in the brief period I’d spent working the doors in a local nightclub. I’d found out early that I didn’t like playing the game their way. Sean had warned me to keep a low profile, but if this was their attitude, it wasn’t going to be easy. Perhaps it was a good job there was someone as bolshie as Jan to do the answering back.
“OK people, listen up,” Todd shouted. “We’re going to start out nice and easy with a straightforward little jog . . .”
His idea of a little jog, we quickly discovered, involved several klicks of rough forest tracks, at a pace he must have known hardly any of us could hope to sustain. The ground was frosted hard enough to concuss your joints with every stride. If it had been wet, the mud would have been impassable.
As it was, within the first kilometre we became widely strung out. I was thankful that I’d spent most of the previous year working at the gym, and so was fit enough to keep up with the middle of the field, at least. I didn’t have to put the brakes on in order to stick to the inconspicuous position Sean had recommended.
Two of the other instructors played sheepdog. Todd showed off his superior stamina by roaming up and down the line, goading us on. Sometimes he fell back almost to the rear and sometimes he’d sprint past to harangue those at the front.
I was surprised to see Blakemore lead off at the head of the group, despite the comments of the big German the night before. Blakemore was quick enough but he moved with a slight awkwardness, compensating for his damaged knee.
Bringing up the rear was the Belfast man, whose name I’d learned was O’Neill. I remembered his unguarded gesture last night at supper and wondered how he’d come by the hurt he was so obviously trying to mask. It surprised me that these two were the ones out running with us. If the Major didn’t even allow for injury time among his instructors, how was he going to treat the rest of us?
Without breakfast, my body had just about used up its available reserves after around five klicks. My thigh muscles were blocky and buzzing and I could feel my pace weakening with every stride. The cold air was murderous as I sucked it down into my lungs, burning my chest from the inside out.