Cold Revenge - Alex Howard Page 0,2

His eyes ran over her as she stood before him. He was looking for weakness. He could see none. Hanlon’s gaze was as steady and imperious as ever.

The last time he’d seen her was when he’d visited her once briefly in hospital, hiding behind the expensive bunch of flowers he had brought with him like a shield.

Hanlon had been in bed, her head and arm bandaged, the springs of her thick, dark hair emphasizing the pallor of her skin. His heart had felt heavy at the sight of her vulnerability.

Then with her eyes still closed, she’d said, ‘Put the flowers on the table, Freddie.’

‘How did you know it was me?’

She opened her grey eyes and looked at him sardonically. ‘White lilies are for funerals, Freddie,’ she said. ‘I could smell them coming down the corridor.’

‘Oh,’ he said lamely.

‘I’m not dead yet, Freddie, but when I am, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

He smiled at her. ‘You do that, Hanlon.’

She propped herself up on one elbow. It hurt, but she took care not to let the pain show; she even refused her eyes permission to narrow.

‘I’m a hard woman to kill,’ she told him.

That evening was Hanlon’s first time back in the gym since her fight with Conquest on the island. Laidlaw had watched her earlier, jumping rope with effortless ease. As she skipped, following up with basic jumps, shuffles and side swings, Hanlon was graceful and fluid in motion, her body concealed by a baggy old tracksuit. Laidlaw noticed several of the other boxers stealing surreptitious glances at her movements. She was the only female boxer in the gym. Hanlon usually worked out and sparred with the handful of professionals and semi-pros who trained at the gym on the evenings when it was closed to amateurs. This was the first time most of them had ever seen her.

Aware of the attention and just for the hell of it, she finished off her half-hour workout with some showy rope tricks, cross-overs, double-unders and double cross-overs, the rope a blur of movement, haloing her slim body. She moved so fast the rope audibly swished through the air and cracked whip-like against the floor.

Beat that, she thought triumphantly.

Laidlaw went over to her, noticing the faint sheen of sweat shining on her skin. She pushed her unruly hair back from her forehead. Laidlaw saw lines that he was sure hadn’t existed before her struggle to the death with Conquest. He guessed it had cost her more than she would ever admit.

‘Ready?’ he asked. She nodded and held her hands out, fingers splayed. With speed born of decades of practice, Laidlaw taped her long, strong fingers. She flexed them, nodded in satisfaction and Laidlaw slipped on her boxing gloves.

He had agreed with Hanlon on just one three-minute sparring round with one of the other boxers. Laidlaw had chosen Jay. He was a good, promising middleweight. At eleven and a half stone he was a stone and a half heavier than she was, so a challenge but not a mismatch.

Hanlon hadn’t been in the ring for nearly two months. She was keen to check her fitness levels and the extent to which her arm had recovered. Laidlaw knew too that she would be desperate to release some of the aggression that had built up inside her. Hanlon was one of those boxers who need to release their aggression and she knew it. It was one of the reasons why she did triathlons. She wasn’t competing just against a clock; she wanted to smash her rivals.

Eight weeks of inaction were bottled up inside her.

The trainer got into the ring after her and motioned to Jay, who followed suit. His black skin looked as though it had been carefully painted over an anatomically perfect body.

Laidlaw waved them together to the centre of the ring. Jay had a broad sceptical grin on his face. For a start, as well as being a woman, Hanlon was almost twice his age, though little was visible of her beneath her headguard and baggy tracksuit. They tapped gloves. Jay’s smile froze and vanished as he saw Hanlon’s eyes, hard and watchful. Until now he’d thought the whole thing might be some practical joke. He’d made a mental note not to hit her too hard, to go easy on her. Not now. Not after that look. The two of them circled each other and then Jay moved in.

Three minutes sounds like no time at all, the length of a song on the radio