RIOT ACT
Charlie Fox book two
by
Zoë Sharp
Copyright © Zoë Sharp 2001
For Andy, who encouraged me to write in the first place. See, this is all your fault . . .
RIOT ACT is the second 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.
“I am a violent man, Miss Fox,” Garton-Jones said, without bravado or inflection. “I can – and will – do whatever is necessary to control this estate. Remember that.”
A self-defence expert with a motorbike and an attitude, Charlie Fox doesn’t need to go looking for trouble. It generally finds her. House-sitting for a friend seems like an easy favour at first but the house in question is in the Lavender Gardens estate. Teenage gangs are running riot and Charlie’s desperate neighbours have been forced to employ an expensive – and ruthless – security firm to apply rough justice where the legal kind has failed. The situation gets even uglier when a young Asian boy is fatally wounded in what appears to be a racially motivated shooting.
Caught in the middle of an urban battlefield, Charlie’s more than able to take care of herself but then she comes face to face with a spectre from her army past. As the tensions rise, lives will depend on Charlie working out just who she can really trust . . .
‘Sharp’s first novel, Killer Instinct was a good read, but within the first few pages of Riot Act she surpasses herself. She succeeds in bringing the characters alive and Charlie Fox makes a powerful and attractive heroine. Equally, her other characters work well and she succeeds in creating snappy dialogue and mixing it well with action.
‘At times, Riot Act feels slightly reminiscent of Minette Walters’ ‘Acid Row’ . . . (Sharp) takes her Lancashire setting, throws in a great deal of action and creates a fast-paced novel that is guaranteed to build on the reputation created by her debut novel and make her known as an up-and-coming talent in the crime world.’ Luke Croll, Murder & Mayhem Book Club
Bonus Material
Don’t miss the bonus material at the end of RIOT ACT:
The other Charlie Fox novels and short stories
Excerpt from HARD KNOCKS: Charlie Fox book three
Meet Zoë Sharp
Meet Charlie Fox
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RIOT ACT
One
Phone calls that come out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, rarely herald good news as far as I’m concerned. This one arrived somewhere between midnight and one am. It yanked me forcibly out of the warm leisures of sleep, and proved no exception to the rule.
Right from the outset, in that fraction between dreaming and waking, I was overwhelmed by an instinctive dread.
By the second ring, I’d jerked upright in bed, fumbling for the bedside light and swinging my legs out from under the blankets before I’d really kicked my brain into gear.
It took a moment or two to work out that I wasn’t safe in my own bed. Instead, I recognised a small, oppressively-wallpapered room, made smaller still by the pair of dark oak wardrobes that loomed over me from both sides.
Pauline’s place.
I’d been house-sitting for Pauline Jamieson for three weeks at that point. Ever since she’d flown to Canada to visit her son. Waking up in her bed still brought a feeling of disorientation.
The phone noise ran on, shrill and imperious. I groped for the receiver and tried to rub the grittiness out of my eyes.
“Yeah, hello?” It was a relief to stop the damned phone ringing at last, but that feeling didn’t hold.
“Oh, Charlie, please come quickly, and bring the dog!” A woman’s voice, scratchy with alarm and close to weeping. “They are in the garden and Fariman has gone out after them. I am afraid they will kill him!”
The last vestiges of sleep evaporated. “Shahida?” I said, suddenly recognising one of Pauline’s neighbours. One of my neighbours for the moment. “Calm down. Now tell me who? Who has Fariman gone after in the garden?”
“The thieves!” she cried, as though it was obvious, the pitch of her voice rising like a banshee spirit. “They are trying to steal his equipment. Please, come now.”
I started to ask if she’d called the police, but the phone was already dead in my hand.
With a muttered curse, I dialled the local cop shop myself, giving them the bare bones and demanding that they come at once. While I was speaking, I clambered into my clothes. By the time I hit the narrow staircase I was dressed and fully alert.
Well, almost alert. In the darkened hallway I nearly went sprawling over Pauline’s Rhodesian Ridgeback, Friday. The dog had been sleeping with his back against the bottom riser, and he bounced up with a startled yelp.
I grabbed his lead from the hall table and snapped it onto the thick leather collar. Just for a second I hesitated over the wisdom of taking him with me, then dismissed my doubts. He might be a handful, but there were times when a big dog like Friday comes in very useful.
Now, he barely gave me time to lock the front door before he was towing me along the short driveway to the road. Fariman and Shahida’s house was on the other side of Kirby Street from Pauline’s, and further down the row of mainly dilapidated semis. I headed quickly in that direction.
I’d only met the elderly couple a few times, but I knew Fariman had been a cabinetmaker. Since he’d retired recently he’d kitted out the shed in his back garden with enough tools to keep his hand in. Trouble was, he’d turned it into your average burglar’s car boot sale gold mine. By the sound of it, it hadn’t taken them long to cotton on to the fact.
I was surprised now to see one or two other figures emerging from doorways, pulling on coats over their pyjamas. Some carried torches.
It startled me, the reaction. Lavender Gardens was a notoriously crime-ridden estate and I would have expected a far more apathetic response to any cry for help. Maybe there was hope for the area after all.
My sense of complacency lasted until I reached the far crumbling kerb and we threaded our way through the line of close-packed empty vehicles.
Friday lurched to a halt so abruptly that I ran into his rump and nearly stumbled. It only took a second before I realised the reason for his sudden check. For me to register a bulky figure rising behind a parked van.
Shock made me gasp, sent me reeling backwards. Fear convulsed my hands, so that I tightened my grip on Friday’s lead.
A harsh laugh greeted my recoil, as though that was the effect its owner always hoped his appearance would have, and had yet to be disappointed. “A tad late to be walking the dog, isn’t it, Fox?”
The man swaggered forwards into the glow of a streetlight, sending a spent cigarette butt sizzling carelessly into the gloom. Three other shadows solidified behind him, keeping station. All of them were dressed in military surplus urban cam fatigues, and carrying an assortment of makeshift weaponry that would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so deadly serious.
Friday settled for giving out a low growl. It was difficult to tell if his hackles were up, because Ridgebacks have a line of opposite-growing hair down their spines anyway, but the sight and sound of him was enough to stop the men in their tracks.