A black Shogun swung into the car park and stopped alongside me. I got in and closed the door behind me, fastened my seatbelt and leaned back against the headrest, briefly closing my eyes.
“You OK?” Sean asked.
I opened my eyes again, found him watching me with that faint little half-smile hovering round his lips.
I sighed. “I suppose so,” I said, giving him a rueful smile in return. “If only they’d trusted me . . .”
“Trust’s a funny thing,” he said softly. “Sometimes people make you wait for it longer than you think they ought to.”
He put his hand on the centre console between us, palm upwards. After a second I put my own down on top of it, felt his fingers close around mine. And I was suddenly aware of not being quite so alone in this any more. I sat up, squared my shoulders.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“Where to?”
“Anywhere away from here,” I said. “Find me a job, Sean. It’s time I went back to work.”
From the Author’s notebook
ROAD KILL came about because of a snippet I spotted in a local Lancaster newspaper. It reported that during the summer months an unusually high number of motorcyclists had been killed on the country road between the motorway turnoff and a popular weekend bikers’ haunt at Devil’s Bridge, near Kirkby Lonsdale.
The police were dismissing the accidents as “rider error”, but it got me thinking, What if it wasn’t accidental? What if it was deliberate . . .?
The story also gave me the opportunity to explore two themes that had been on my mind for some time.
The first of these was that all bikers on page and screen seemed to be portrayed as gun-running, meth lab-running outlaws. Yes, the members of the Devil’s Bridge Club do break the law, but they’re hardly career criminals, and I wonder how much their attitude towards the legal and illegal is coloured by their usual contact with the police – being stopped for speeding.
The second was that Ireland often got the unpleasant end of the stick as far as the media went. I’ve spent quite a bit of time there, both north and south of the border, and loved the place. On the whole, it’s very different from the gloomy, violence-ridden image gleaned from the news reports.
Finally, when I was writing this book, I knew the ending was going to take place on the ferry coming home, but I wasn’t sure exactly how it was all going to happen. Then I had the chance to spend a day crawling all over an Irish Sea ferry, learning the ins and outs of its complex fire-fighting systems. The way it operates is exactly as described in the story – a nice example of how the truth is often so much better than anything you could invent.
Acknowledgements
As always, various people generously allowed me to pick their brains in order to write this book. These include Robert J Breden FGA DGA of Banks Lyon Jewellers in Lancaster; medical expert Kate Merriman BMBS MRCS; John Morris, Managing Director of Mondello Park race circuit in Naas, near Dublin; John Robinson at Safety Services Agency in Belfast; and former RAF bomb disposal expert, Robert Roper. Thank you all. The facts are yours, but I take the blame for any artistic licence.
Yet more people waded their way through the typescript and pointed out the glaring plot-holes. Therefore, my grateful thanks go to Peter Doleman, Claire Duplock, Sarah Harrison, Caroline and Robert Roper, Tim Winfield, my editor Anna Valdinger, and my copy editor Sarah Abel.
Also big thanks to ZACE eBook Conversion for immaculate conversion of the printed book to e-format; to Jane Hudson of NuDesign for the brilliant cover; and to Lee Goldberg for generously allowing me to include an excerpt from KING CITY as a bonus feature at the end of this novel.
But most of all, thanks belong to my husband, Andy, who suffered probably more than I did throughout every twist and turn.
if you’ve enjoyed ROAD KILL, why not try Zoë Sharp’s Other Works:
Buy the Books!
the Charlie Fox crime thrillers
KILLER INSTINCT
RIOT ACT
HARD KNOCKS
FIRST DROP
(ROAD KILL)
SECOND SHOT
Excerpt from SECOND SHOT
THIRD STRIKE
FOURTH DAY
FIFTH VICTIM – out in e-format Spring 2012
Short stories – eBook exclusive
FOX FIVE: a Charlie Fox short story collection
A Bridge Too Far
Postcards From Another Country
Served Cold
Off Duty
Truth And Lies
KILLER INSTINCT
Charlie Fox book one
by Zoë Sharp
‘Susie Hollins may have been no great shakes as a karaoke singer, but I didn’t think that was enough reason for anyone to want to kill her.’
Charlie Fox makes a living teaching self-defence to women in a quiet northern English city. It makes best use of the deadly skills she picked up after being kicked out of army Special Forces training for reasons she prefers not to go into. So, when Susie Hollins is found dead hours after she foolishly takes on Charlie at the New Adelphi Club, Charlie knows it’s only a matter of time before the police come calling. What they don’t tell her is that Hollins is the latest victim of a homicidal rapist stalking the local area.
Charlie finds herself drawn closer to the crime when the New Adelphi’s enigmatic owner, Marc Quinn, offers her a job working security at the club. Viewed as an outsider by the existing all-male team, her suspicion that there’s a link between the club and a serial killer doesn’t exactly endear her to anyone. Charlie has always taught her students that it’s better to run than to stand and fight, But, when the killer starts taking a very personal interest, it’s clear he isn’t going to give her that option . . .
‘Charlie looks like a made-for-TV model, with her red hair and motorcycle leathers, but Sharp means business. The bloody bar fights are bloody brilliant, and Charlie’s skills are both formidable and for real.’ Marilyn Stasio, New York Times
‘Sharp deserves a genre all her own – if you are just discovering Zoë Sharp then you are in for a real treat.’ Jon Jordan, Crimespree Magazine
‘Charlotte (Charlie) Fox is one of the most vivid and engaging heroines ever to swagger onto the pages of a book. Where Charlie goes, thrills follow.’ Tess Gerritsen
RIOT ACT
Charlie Fox book two
by Zoë Sharp
“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.”