Hard Knocks

tucked behind the front screen and handed it over.

“It came with this,” he said. “I thought perhaps you ought to be the one who opened it.”

I slit the top flap with my thumb and pulled out a sheaf of papers. The top one was a bill of sale from a London dealer, made out in my name and stamped Paid in Full. Stapled to the top left-hand corner was a piece of plain white card. On it, a flamboyant hand had written just a mobile phone number and the words, “Sometimes you CAN have what you want. Thank you.” It was signed, “Gregor.”

“Who’s Gregor?” my father asked.

I put the papers back into the envelope and looked at the bike. It was gorgeous. I ran my hand over paintwork on the tank that was so smooth and so unblemished it was silky to the touch. There was zero mileage on the clock, and the release agent still shone like skin on the virgin tyres.

“Oh, he’s just someone I did a favour for,” I said softly.

Definitely a promise then, not a threat.

My father looked at me, waiting for me to go on. At last he said, “It must have been some favour.”

“Yes,” I said, and realised that I was smiling. “Yes, it was.”

From the Author’s notebook

This was Charlie Fox’s first brush with the world of close protection, which she would go on to make her own. When I first came up with the idea to send Charlie undercover into a close-protection training school, the book was originally going to be set in a remote part of the English Lake District. Then the school shooting at Dunblane in Scotland in 1996 caused handguns to be widely banned in the UK and I had to look for another location. Most of the actual bodyguard training schools here moved to Europe – mostly France, Holland or Germany. As I knew Germany as a location better than either of the others, the village of Einsbaden and the surrounding area began to form in my head.

I used some old pictures of Wannsee Manor in a suburb of Berlin as my inspiration for Einsbaden Manor. It had the right air of brooding menace about it, and the flat roof of the design also came in very useful during various scenes. The lack of speed limits on the autobahns also became an integral part of the plot, so the story moulded nicely into its location. Being able to set the action in the middle of winter, on a continent as large as Europe gave an added glint of frozen danger.

For the writing of this book it was absolutely necessary to drive at speeds in excess of one-hundred-and-fifty miles an hour on the German roads – erm, purely for research purposes, of course. Just goes to show that this game can be a lot of fun.

One final point. Please note that this story was originally written in 2002 and first published in the UK in 2003, when mobile phones and internet access had not reached the level of sophistication we take for granted today.

Acknowledgements

Many people have let me trawl through their collective experiences in order to put together this book. Former VIP protection officer Brad Blake was one of them, as was Glynn Jones. The people at the Revere Gun Range in Pompano Beach, Florida also helped, but never knew it. I’m still drawing on the lessons learned during self-defence classes with Ian Cottam and Lee Watkin.

Key pieces of German information were provided by Derek Harrison and Armin Mohren. Technical info vital to the plot came from Luke C in Colorado; Tim Enderby and Ike Flack at SAS; and Ian Hill and John Whitehead at Hiteq. Thank you also to Chris Brown at Alpine Electronics (UK) for explaining the finer points of their navigation system. Any factual errors are all my own work.

Once again, many people were kind enough to offer their opinions during the early stages, including Iris, Jean, Sheila, and everyone at the Lune Valley Writers’ Group. The usual pre-publication vivisection was carried out by Peter Doleman, Claire Duplock, Sarah Harrison, Clive Hopwood, Tim Winfield, and copy editor Sarah Abel. Keep on digging, people, and don’t mind me squealing . . .

As always, the biggest thank you goes to my husband, Andy, who has a lot more to put up with than he lets on about.

Grateful appreciation goes to Libby Fischer Hellmann for her help and advice, and generously allowing me to include an excerpt from DOUBLEBACK as a bonus feature at the end of this novel.

Finally, huge thanks to ZACE-eBookConversion for immaculate conversion of the printed book to e-format; and to Jane Hudson at NuDesign for the stunning new covers.

if you’ve enjoyed HARD KNOCKS, why not try Zoe Sharp’s Other Works:

Buy the Books!

the Charlie Fox crime thrillers

KILLER INSTINCT

RIOT ACT

(HARD KNOCKS)

FIRST DROP

Excerpt from FIRST DROP

ROAD KILL

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