Personal Protection

  Personal Protection

  Tracey Shellito

  First published in 2005

  by Crème de la Crime.

  Crème de la Crime Ltd, PO Box 523, Chesterfield,

  Derbyshire S40 9AT

  Copyright © 2005 Tracey Shellito

  The moral right of Tracey Shellito to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Typesetting by Yvette Warren

  Cover design by Yvette Warren

  Front cover photography: Guy Moberly. Image supplied by

  Alamy Ltd, Abingdon, OX14 4SA

  Printed and bound in England by Biddles Ltd, www.biddles.co.uk

  ISBN 0-9547634-5-9

  A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library

  www.cremedelacrime.com

  About the Author

  Blackpool-based Tracey first turned to writing when she was diagnosed with asthma as a child. She claims she was always fated to write crime. “While my mother was pregnant she developed a fascination with the television detective programme Hawaiian Eye. I was named after her favourite character, Tracey Steele,” she says. “The rest, as they say, is history!”

  No one writes a book in isolation. Wordsmiths scribble and type the final words alone, but ideas, inspiration and support from family, friends and even strangers play an important part in the finished article. Thanks go to Simon Teff, Anna Paterson, Liz Serjeant and Mike Savage, my first readers, whose comments told me it was a story worth writing; to John Dawson, biggist critic and biggist fan; to Vincent Hamer, friend, muse and inspiration; and to everyone at Crème de la Crime for giving me this chance.

  To my parents, Fred and Jean Shellito, who always believed in me. This one’s for you.

  About the Author

  Blackpool-based Tracey first turned to writing when she was diagnosed with asthma as a child. She claims she was always fated to write crime. “While my mother was pregnant she developed a fascination with the television detective programme Hawaiian Eye. I was named after her favourite character, Tracey Steele,” she says. “The rest, as they say, is history!”

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  1

  “That’s the best thing about dykes. They’re not afraid to get their hands dirty.”

  “Cheers for that, Craig. Pass me the spanner.”

  “Which one’s that?”

  I glared at him between the slats. He grinned and handed it over. I torqued the bolt.

  “That should do it. Try now.”

  “Don’t you want to come out from under there first?”

  “Nope.”

  “The whole fucking lot could collapse on you!”

  “I have every confidence in my work. Besides, I need to see how the suspension holds up with some weight on it. Best place to do that is from down here.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “Probably. If it does go, I’m sure you’ll do the decent thing and dig me out.”

  He threw himself on to the steel framework. I admit I flinched. (Scared? Me?)

  The thing held. I gave a few final twitches to the screws and bolts then slid out from under, leaving Craig to wrestle the mattress back on to the futon sofa.

  “You wouldn’t have this problem if you bought furniture you could actually sit on, instead of stuff that just looks the business,” I pointed out, on the way to the kitchen and a bowl of soapy water.

  Though I have to admit the house does look good. Wood laminate floors, Persian rugs, minimalist furniture and art deco prints. A perfect snapshot of queer man at home.

  The sound of furious keystrokes grew louder as I approached the kitchen. Dean was still in his home study under the stairs, pounding the laptop I’d bought him for his birthday. He didn’t even look up as I passed. I sighed and went in to scrub off grease, wondering how long it would take for him to forgive me.

  Craig paused to say something nice to his partner, then propped his long, designer-clad body on the door post to watch me, the power of the pink pound never so obvious.

  His oh-so-expensive aftershave wafted over me as he shifted to a more aesthetically pleasing position. There is nothing gay men do in company that isn’t carefully considered, even when nobody is supposed to be watching. Especially then.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “No problem. I hadn’t got anything else on.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you and…”

  “She’s visiting her mum.”

  “Oh.” He flicked imaginary lint off his immaculate denim shirt. “Do you think you and she will..?” He gestured around him at the house.

  “Matching clothes and shopping at Ikea on Sundays? Not my scene. No, I’m happy as I am.”

  “Is she?”

  “What is this, twenty questions? Yes, if you must know. I’m well aware of the standing joke – the thing most lesbians do on their second date is rent the furniture removing van; but I did that scene with Gina. It was a contributing factor in our break up.” (Along with her going back to dating men, but the less said about that the better.) “I won’t make the same mistake again. I’m not cut out to live with anybody, Craig. I’m too fond of my privacy and getting my own way. I don’t do cohabitation.”

  He carefully looked at the floor, so that I wouldn’t have to see his disapproval. I dried my hands and flipped the bowl up to let sudsy water spill into the shining chrome of the sink.

  “I know it wouldn’t suit everybody, but it does suit me. Besides, who’d want to come home to the smell of gun oil and a bullet-proof vest on a tailor’s dummy every night? It’s not exactly calculated to add an air of permanency to a relationship, is it?”

  When I came out of school I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had qualifications, but nothing special. Nothing appealed at the job centre. I was young, restless and bored. One night, after trying to talk my way out of it, I got into a fight at a club. Somebody who knew what they were looking for saw me. They approached me and offered to sponsor me on a training course. As a bodyguard.

  I turned out to be good at it. I try to avoid fighting unless it’s absolutely necessary, though I have to know how so I can defend myself and my Principal if the need arises.

  Some of the training sounds a bit psycho unless you’re in the military or armed response police. Getting hypothermia as you stand around practising surveillance techniques. Team reconnaissance, intelligence, endurance, observation, recognition and identification of threats and threat levels. Formation walking. Ramming cars. Aggressive and evasive driving. Having the stuffing beaten out of you. Fighting and talking your way out of a fight. And shooting and being shot at comes with the territory.

  I take my job very seriously. Unfortunately so do my girlfriends. With the usual result that, aft
er the novelty of having a bodyguard as an affair wears off, they start wondering how much of a future there can be with someone who could take a bullet for a complete stranger.

  I’ve learned never to lie about my job. Most of my prospective partners don’t believe me anyway. Then I take them home. Seeing the Kevlar with a few holes punched in it is usually enough to make my affair bite the bullet too. But better sooner than later, after I’ve learned to care about them.

  This one was different.

  Perhaps it was because she had a job that wasn’t calculated to inspire security in a relationship either. As far as I was concerned it was a marriage made in heaven. We’d been together three months. She had her home, I had mine. We got together to do all the things couples do and stayed the night at one or the other’s place having great sex. What more could a girl want?

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was an exotic dancer?” my working partner Dean had screamed at me, after said revelation prematurely terminated last month’s dinner party.

  “Because I didn’t think it mattered!” I’d yelled back.

  It didn’t, to me. Hell, that was how I’d met her! I’d gone to the place with some straight clients, who wanted to kick back after the job was done. And there she was. A lap dancer. When she saw how I looked at her and that I wasn’t a guy, she was at my table all night. I took her home, and the rest, as they say, is history.

  It was a big turn-on for me, the idea of her showing off her beautiful body to those sad acts who’d never get to do more than look. I was the one she came home to.

  For all his liberal views, Dean had a different take on the sex industry. Dating someone who took their clothes off for money was too much for his delicate sensibilities.

  It was too much for his dinner guest, too. Being confronted – and recognised – by the object of his sexual fantasies over the dinner table was his nightmare come true. How was I to know the husband of the couple Dean had invited hung out in lap dancing clubs, my girlfriend’s in particular? His own wife hadn’t!

  So now the wife was filing for divorce, Dean’s status as a socialite was in jeopardy and I was persona non grata. Luckily for me, the lady who’d been the cause of it all thought the whole pretentious set-up was a major cause of hilarity, otherwise I might have found myself girlfriendless as well as friendless, through no fault of my own.

  I was glad that the fall-out hadn’t been worse, but life was too short for this crap. I wished it would blow over so we could get back to normal. Dean’s frosty attitude made working with him a real trial. We work out of a squatty two room office suite in the town centre as a private detection and protection agency.

  While I was getting qualified as a bodyguard, clever clogs was passing his Bar. A part-time job ‘serving process’ as the Americans would call it, (subpoenas, skip tracing, etc) gave him a way to use the dry facts of the law and exercise his nosiness, gossipy queen that he is. He began taking instruction in the field as a private detective.

  We’d known one another off and on for years. We first met in school, then afterwards on the scene. (That was weird. I was really surprised how many people I went to school with turned out to be gay.) But it wasn’t until he’d qualified, set up the business and was looking for something to make his services unique that we got together again. Offering a bodyguard service was certainly unique, and some clients found a female bodyguard an extra fillip.

  To begin with I worked for him, the business taking a percentage. It didn’t take him long to see my part of the job brought in bigger bucks than surveillance on cheating wives and philandering husbands, even if there was less work.

  He offered me a partnership; I jumped at the chance and bought in. Now I help on cases where he needs leg-work, while getting qualified as a detective under his mentorship; and he helps on the odd occasion when I need back up. When it’s not expected to get too messy, that is; we wouldn’t want him to break a nail or muss his hair, would we? As a rule, I’m the muscle and he’s the brains.

  “Fuck!”

  Craig and I turned.

  “This fucking thing is eating my report!”

  “Has he backed it up?” I asked.

  Craig threw his hands in the air. “God knows! Since you persuaded him that all things computerised are not works of the devil, he’s been a law unto himself on that thing. He won’t let me touch it.”

  Which is as well, since Craig is a nurse and knows bugger all about computers.

  We wedged ourselves under the stairs on either side of Dean, peering over his shoulders. I started to reach for the keyboard to stop the problem, but Dean snapped, “I don’t need your help.”

  I backed off. Craig must have seen how much it hurt, because he went into facilitation mode. The great compromiser in action is really something else. It took him seven minutes to get his partner away from the infernal device and into the kitchen to the cappuccino machine. By that time the screen was an ominous blank. I slid into the seat Dean had vacated and set about rescuing the disappeared data. I suppose a month isn’t long enough to learn it all. He had backed everything up. Thank God.

  When laughing boy came back with his bowl of coffee, the printer was chattering. Dean scanned the print-out.

  “Thanks,” he told me grudgingly.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Thanks for putting the futon back together, too.”

  “’s OK.”

  “How did you..?”

  I showed him how I’d restored the data. “Nothing is completely lost unless you switch off.”

  He muttered something which was probably as close as I was going to get to an apology about the party fiasco.

  “Look, I didn’t know Mr Clean Cut Family Man was sneaking off to lap dancing clubs. I didn’t deliberately set out to ruin your soirée.”

  “You should have told me what she did.”

  “So you could un-invite us, you mean?”

  “No, of course not, but we could have said...”

  “I’m not going to edit my life for you, Dean.”

  “I never asked you to!”

  “As near as damn it! You’re my friend and business partner, not my mother!”

  We glared at one another.

  “You never asked what she did. You were just happy I was shagging somebody instead of moping around. And you didn’t have to toss my leavings out of my flat any more.”

  He had no answer to that. He retreated behind the bulwark of his delicate sensibilities. “I don’t know how you can live with her taking off her clothes in front of other people.”

  “Drop it, Dean,” I advised.

  Craig intervened. “Randall’s a big girl, Dean. If she can live with her girlfriend jiggling her bits in naff blokes’ faces, that’s all that matters. Just be happy she’s found someone she likes who likes her too.”

  A backhanded compliment if ever I heard one. Since Craig had come down on my side I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s comments like that which tell me he’s being genuine in his support. He still doesn’t like me much, but since I went out on a limb to keep his partner out of the firing line last summer he’s warmed to me.

  It was his idea for me to come round and fix the sofa. Mend a few fences. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have unscrewed the bolts himself. He’s a sneaky bastard is Craig.

  “I suppose it isn’t any of my business,” Dean muttered.

  “You’re right, it isn’t!”

  The camaraderie was starting to cool between us, as our ‘discussion’ escalated towards ‘argument’. We were literally saved by the bell. My pager went off just as their mobile rang. Craig answered the mobile and handed me the house phone before acknowledging the call and handing the mobile on to Dean.

  “For you,” he told him unnecessarily. Dean’s mouth thinned into a tight line of annoyance. He snatched up the phone and stomped off into the kitchen talking as he walked.

  “You’re not helping,” Craig pointed out as I dialled.

  “
Neither is he. I have nothing to apologise for.”

  The phone rang twice before a distraught, unfamiliar, female voice answered.

  “Randall McGonnigal. You paged me?”

  “Thank God! It’s Tori’s mum. You’ve got to come! She’s been raped!”

  2

  I have only ever driven that fast four times in my life. Twice on an Aggressive And Evasive Driving Course (once to rehearse, once to pass), once with a client doing it for real, and that nightmare journey to Tori’s mother’s house. A journey that should have taken three-quarters of an hour took thirteen minutes. I know; I was counting. And it still seemed too damn long.

  As I drove I tried to remember all the things I’d learned about the crime of rape. There are four main motivations. Misogyny, revenge, mental aberration and opportunity. Misogyny, revenge and crimes of opportunity are all about power. Men who hate or fear women. Those who want to dominate or punish a specific victim or a victim by proxy, who reminds them of a hated figure who they cannot attack. Those who are inadequate in their own sex life, as a way of working out their anger at their impotence or premature ejaculation. Whatever the reason, it’s a fact that about eighty percent of rapes are perpetrated by abusers known to the victim. Almost sixty percent never get reported, because of that. Rack my brains as I might, I couldn’t think of anyone who’d fit the bill as Tori’s attacker.

  The good fairy must have been looking out for me, because I made it to her parents’ Cleveleys bungalow without police interference. But getting through the door was another matter. Her grey-haired, septuagenarian, West Indian father with a belly like Buddha brought to mind Xeno’s paradox; I was determined to get in, he was determined to keep me out.

  “Get out of here, go on! Haven’t you people have done enough to my Vicki?”

  You’d think I’d be used to homophobia by now, but it never gets any easier.

  “That’s enough, Rafe, come away now, come inside.”

  The woman who coaxed the shuffling man inside and plucked me off the doorstep was white but not much slimmer. She fastened the door behind us, pushed her still muttering husband into the living room and closed the door on him, before she turned back to me. She took a step away and looked me up and down.