Without breaking stride, Stark slipped automatically into the shadow of a tree and froze, one with the darkness, scanning carefully, feeling foolish but slave to training.
The would-be ambusher could be alone, but the unseen enemy was the one to fear. This might be the man from five minutes ago, or an accomplice.
Somewhere behind instinct, logic insisted this was far more likely to be a reporter with a camera than an insurgent with an AK-47. It wouldn’t be the first time, and his recent propulsion back into the limelight had painted a fresh target on his back for the hacks. If they’d connected him to the attack on Sinclair it would be hunting season all over again.
But something wasn’t right … The ambusher wasn’t so much coiled as slumped …
He covered the last distance at a hobbling run and found his suspicion confirmed.
Pensol.
Lipstick smeared, mascara run down both cheeks, hair dishevelled, minuscule skirt and sparkly top borderline indecent. Curled, hugging knees against the cold before passing out.
She looked deathly pale, skin cold, but her carotid offered a steady if slow pulse.
No clutch bag on or around her. No phone, keys, cash or cards. Robbed or lost. Perhaps some ‘gentleman friend’ would take the time to return them, or bar manager, or both combined.
A gentle shake and name-check elicited only a faint moan of protest.
Stark sighed. Unlocked the door to the flats, propped it open with a fire extinguisher and scooped the unconscious girl up off the ground.
A fireman’s lift was the best way to carry a casualty, but it was also a sure-fire way to get a drunk to vomit down your back – though it smelt like she might have rejected her last drinks already. Stark went for the movie marriage-threshold-carry instead, walking cane dangling from his fingers, assorted old injuries protesting, despite Pensol’s slight frame. She was an easy lift compared to a squaddie in battle gear, but under the circumstances he allowed himself a ride in the lift up to his flat instead of physio stair-penance.
For the second time he found himself removing her sick-soiled garments, this time dismayed to find not even a love-heart thong beneath, rolling her into the recovery position and covering her with a duvet.
Icy extremities meant her lack of shivering could be bad news. Arctic training body-warmth sharing was hardly appropriate, so he filled the hot water bottle Kelly had given him to alternate with cold packs after physio and slipped it in behind Pensol’s kidneys.
Once satisfied she was warming, he texted Ptolemy and Peters and called her flatmate.
‘What do you mean, she’s there?’ demanded Callie, relief tainted with distrust, before demanding his address so she could collect her friend. Stark said she was welcome to, but suggested the patient was best left to sleep it off, and Callie reluctantly agreed to leave her in Stark’s care overnight.
‘Just … Be kind. Please.’
Stark felt a swell of affection for her. ‘I promise.’
Returning to Pensol, he was pleased to find her colour returning. He sat on the edge of the bed until he was confident that she’d slipped from unconsciousness into sleep.
Then the whimpering and twitching began.
He could imagine all too well what torment of bullets and blood she was enduring. It was strange to be on the outside looking in, to know something of Kelly’s helpless heart, to know there was nothing he could do but stroke the poor girl’s hair and whisper lies of comfort until she eventually quietened.
As familiar as the sofa was to him as a bed, sleep proved a predictably hesitant ally. Kelly’s call had perturbed his new equilibrium and the thought of discussing it with his shrink was almost as bad. And now there was a girl in his bed for all the wrong reasons, and all efforts to calm his mind as Doc Hazel had taught him fell apart. He was about to give up and have a drink when Fran called.
‘Where are you?’
Stark almost laughed. ‘Everest base camp.’
‘Sober?’
‘Lamentably so.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Cos I’ve had a second glass of Chardonnay, and I need you to drive me north of the river.’
‘I thought John was on tonight?’
‘Just do that thing when you get ready unreasonably quickly and pick me up.’
‘It’s not exactly convenient.’
‘When is it ever?’
‘That was going to be my next line.’
‘Poor you. Wait … You’re lowering your voice,’ she said suspiciously.
Stark could hardly point out that she was too without bursting her little bubble of relationship denial. ‘Like I said …’
‘I don’t want to know. Whoever she is, let her sleep or put her in a cab. Meanwhile in the real world, Tower Hamlets think they just found the supplier of our stolen Citroën van with a terminal and some might say inconvenient case of lead poisoning.’