The Only Weapon In The Room

By B Baskerville

Athena Fox doesn't work a typical 9 to 5, and on tough days, she's happy if she can walk home unaided.

When Athena's sister, Molly, takes her own life a year after their mother's death, Athena suspects grief isn't the real reason. Especially when she finds Molly's diary and discovers a list of men in the back cover.

Her suspicions grow as one by one Athena traces the men and she soon finds herself on a twisted path of violence and self-doubt. When her work makes headlines, the eyes of the world turn to Athena. She should concentrate on the job at hand, but she cannot help herself. Athena must know the truth about Molly, even if the answers put her in more danger than she could ever imagine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B Baskerville
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9798201604561

Book preview

- Chapter 1 -

Kris Kava massaged his face. He’d broken up eight fights that evening and had received a punch in the teeth for his efforts. Working as a doorman at a crappy pub in the Meadow Well estate was not worth its minimum wage rewards. 

It was three in the morning when Kris left his post to walk the short distance home. As always, he made sure no one was following him. In this estate, chucking the wrong person out of the wrong pub could land you in the bad books of some powerful people. 

It was a windy, balmy night and the streets of North Tyneside’s Meadow Well were deserted. The only sound Kris could make out was the distance tyre screeches of a car being taken for a joyride. 

‘Scumbags,’ he muttered to himself. Kris’s accent gave away nothing of his Polish birth. It was instead, the unusual mix of a Londoner who’d spent years living in the north. 

Ahead, a wheelie bin toppled in the wind, vomiting its contents into the road. An empty can of lager rolled the length of Padstow Road and came to rest at Kris’s foot. He kicked it into the kerb and checked behind him once more. The coast was still clear; no one was following him. 

But ahead, someone was waiting.

Kris squinted towards his house. A shadowy figure was crouched by his door. Great. Either someone had a grudge, or cousin Vinny was in trouble again and had fled the capital for the anonymity of the north-east.

You can’t pick your family, Kris thought to himself. He slowed his steps and hugged the shadows, using parked cars for cover. But as he neared his house, the shiver that ran down his spine subsided, and it became apparent that the figure huddled in Kris’s doorway wasn’t a man at all. A short, scantily-clad girl stared up at him from his doorstep.

‘Hey, Kris.’

Athena Fox was a petite powerhouse. A flimsy, silvery dress clung to muscular thighs and shimmered in the orange glow of a streetlamp. Athena pulled herself to her feet and staggered on ridiculously high heels. Her short, blonde hair billowed about in the breeze, and she had a nose so squashed it was clear she’d broken it at least twice.

Kris blinked at her. He took in her grazed knees, the bruising on her biceps, and a trail of dried blood that ran from her hairline down to her jawbone. She reeked of wine and menthol cigarettes. 

‘Foxy, you’re bleeding,’ said Kris, ‘and drunk. What the hell happened?’

He systematically opened the many locks to his door and ushered Athena inside. It had been twenty-five years since the Meadow Well riots, but the estate was still a no-go area for many. Whilst some residents were ashamed to see their estate burn on national television, torched by its own inhabitants, others saw it as a status symbol. To be from the Meadows meant you were hard. No one messed with Meadows folk. And here was Athena, roaming the streets after dark, wearing next to nothing and with enough alcohol in her system to make a pirate proud. Could Athena be the only woman in the north who hadn’t noticed the spate of unsolved sexual assaults that were all over the news?

‘I’m not drunk,’ said Athena, with an upper-class inflexion. ‘You’re just blurry.’

Kris locked his door, slotted two bolts into place and secured the chain. He turned back to the blonde and watched a trickle of blood flow from her knee to her ankle. 

‘Don’t bleed on my carpet.’

Athena rolled her eyes. ‘You must be the only bouncer on Tyneside with hemophobia.’

She bent over to remove her heels, allowing Kris a quick glimpse of a silk-covered crotch, before making her way to the living room and searching for a place to sit between piles of junk mail and dirty laundry.

‘What happened, Foxy?’ repeated Kris. ‘Why are you on my doorstep at three in the effin’ morning?’ 

She was no more than five-foot-three and a half, and she stood with her arms outstretched as if to say, isn’t it obvious. 

‘I got into a fight. D’uh.’

Kris shrugged and abandoned Athena in favour of putting the kettle on. Athena Fox getting into a drunken fight wasn’t strictly out of character. The woman was a walking time bomb. 

From the kitchen, Kris could hear hiccoughing and muttered complaints that he hadn’t tidied up.

‘I would have if I’d known your drunken, beat-up arse was going to turn up at this hour,’ he grumbled to himself.

‘There was this awful woman,’ started Athena, over the noise of the kettle. ‘You know the sort. Wearing a top two sizes too small. Going on and on about how I must totally love myself because I’m like famous or something.’

‘But you do totally love yourself,’ laughed Kris.

‘I know that. You know that. Daft chavs in badly fitting clothes don’t know that. Anyway, words were exchanged,’ she paused to inspect a fingernail, ‘and things just got a little out of hand.’

A little? Sure. Kris finished making the tea and returned to the living room where he also handed Athena a couple of antiseptic wipes and some plasters. 

‘Thanks,’ said Athena, opening the wipes. 

Kris watched her wince as the alcohol stung her wounds. ‘Looks like she gave you a run for your money.’

Athena narrowed her beautifully pale-green eyes at him. Even in this state, with wine breath and grazed knees, he thought she was captivating. 

‘Er, no. She did not give me a run for my money, and neither did her fat friend. Or her fat friend’s fatter friend for that matter. Anyway, that creepy bouncer, the one with the missing tooth and the watery eyes, he picked me up like I weighed half a kilo and dumped me outside the club. My key must have fallen out. I didn’t realise until I got back to mine.’

Once Athena had finished dressing her wounds, Kris cupped her chin in his hands.

‘You’re not going to try and kiss me, are you?’ she asked. ‘Because you know my rule about Polish boys.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Kris with a yawn. ‘Sit still while I check your pupils.’

Athena squirmed free. ‘Fret not, Florence Nightingale. I don’t have a concussion.’ 

Unconvinced, Kris took a sip of tea. ‘So, you lost your key? That still doesn’t explain why you’re on my doorstep.’

Athena looked away, and there was a slight pause before she answered bluntly. ‘Where else would I go?’ She shrugged and turned her attention to the blank television screen.

Kris felt his heart tear in two. She was right. Where would she go? Who else could she turn to? 

Athena yawned. Her blinks were becoming longer and her eyes were glossy. Kris sat in silence for a moment, allowing Athena to be alone with her thoughts until one of her blinks was so long her cup of tea almost slipped out of her hands.

‘Bedtime,’ said Kris, getting to his feet. He took Athena’s hand and led her upstairs, listening to the sound of her beaded bag bouncing on each step as she dragged it behind her. He laid her in his bed, knelt beside it and tucked the duvet around her.

Athena looked at Kris out of one eye and reached out to stroke a scar above his right eyebrow. 

‘You’re very handsome.’

‘You’re very drunk.’

‘I could kiss you,’ she said with a giggle.

‘And I’d let you if you weren’t suffering from a head injury.’

‘But we can’t...’

‘I know. No Polish boys.’

Then, with a violent twitch of her leg, Athena fell asleep.

Kris pushed himself back to standing and looked down at his bedroom floor. The contents of Athena’s bag had fallen out. Amongst her makeup and loose change, a shabby grey notepad had flopped open. Kris picked it up and scowled at the writing. It was utter gobbledegook. Complete nonsense. Page after page was filled with squares, circles, triangles, and crosses. Kris flicked through the pages hoping to find a key or some other explanation, but there were no words, only shapes.

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⦿◻︎✖︎☐▩✗▩⦿☐✖︎✕◼︎●△✖︎☐△✕▩▩✕✗△●✖︎○✖︎○☐✕◼︎▲●◯⦿✖︎✖︎⦿▩✖︎☐◼︎✕▩●▩✖︎✗◻︎✗◻︎☐●✖︎▩●◼︎✕◼︎☐✖︎✕▩◯▲✖︎◼︎△✗▩☐✕✕

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‘Foxy,’ he whispered, nudging her shoulder. ‘Foxy, what is this?’

Athena opened one eye and shut it again. ‘It’s Molly’s suicide note.'

- Chapter 2 -

Athena Fox awoke in the darkness with a tightness in her chest. She couldn’t breathe; it was as if a giant snake had coiled around her ribs. Calm down, she told herself, it was just a dream. 

But it wasn’t just a dream. 

It was a recurring nightmare. A morgue. Three bodies. Sheets being pulled back. And a man in a white coat nodding as two young women identified the bodies.

Calm down, she told herself again. She took a deep breath, and then the mother of all hangovers kicked in. 

Athena’s mouth was arid, her tongue clinging to her palette like a limpid to a rock. The taste of cigarettes and greasy pizza lingered at the back of her throat, and it felt as if someone was hammering her eye sockets with a pneumatic drill. Burying her face in the pillow, she inhaled, but something didn’t smell right. This was not her bedroom.

What loser was it this time? He was probably making her breakfast and drumming up the courage to ask if he could see her again. Athena was not in the mood for awkward morning-after conversation, not with this hangover. If your mother could see you now... Oh, please, my mother would be a fine one to talk.

Athena never used to make a habit of waking up in stranger’s beds. She’d had the same steady boyfriend through year eleven, sixth form and university. She’d been a devoted and adoring girlfriend to a pathetic, unfaithful, waste of space called Owen. But these days, the thought of returning to her empty house had led her to make some questionable decisions. The memory of a narcissistic nineteen-year-old Newcastle United prodigy came to mind.

Pushing herself up to seated, Athena became aware that it wasn’t only her head that was aching. Her torso was tender, and her shins throbbed. Trying not to aggravate the contents of her stomach – which could come back up at any moment – she reached across the bed and flicked on the bedside lamp. The room was littered with cans of Lynx deodorant and copies of Men’s Health magazine. Beneath a pile of laundry, Athena could spy a set of heavy dumbbells.

Why was she so sore? She could remember sipping basil and plum caiprinihas in The Botanist, and there was a vague memory of standing outside Perdu bar and laughing at a stag party who were dressed as Oompa Loompas. She had definitely downed tequila slammers whilst dancing to Pharell. Sadly, the rest was a drunken blur.

Athena bent over the side of the bed to retrieve her bag and pop today’s contraceptive pill. Her heart began to race once she realised there was no sign of her notepad. No, no, no, no, NO! Where was it? She tore the bedsheets from her and jumped out of bed. Her bruised shins caught the bed frame and she cursed in an affluent accent that seemed at odds with her appearance. On her hands and knees, Athena searched under the bed as a feeling of hopelessness overcame her. Under the bed was as cluttered as the rest of the room. Athena tossed t-shirts and pairs of socks about, but the notepad was nowhere to be seen. Something about one of the t-shirts caught her eye. Athena uncrumpled it and frowned at the logo.

‘The Pit?’ she asked herself. The Pit was a gym, one Athena knew like the back of her hand. She practically lived there.

Kris? Krzysztof Kava? The relief that she hadn’t hooked up with one of the Oompa Loompas caused Athena to vomit a tiny amount of partially digested pizza and pinot into her mouth. She swallowed it back down and grimaced. 

Opening a drawer and helping herself to one of Kris’s t-shirts. She pushed her dress into her bag and pulled the t-shirt down low enough to cover her behind. She peered into the hallway. Well, this is going to make training awkward, she told herself. You’re an idiot. You’ll have no friends left at this rate. Edging her way down the staircase, Athena could hear the radio, and Kris singing – badly – along to it.

Naked, other than his black Calvin Kleins and a pair of Marigold rubber gloves, Kris stood at the kitchen sink. He sang along to the radio as he washed dishes, oblivious to Athena’s watchful eye. Krzysztof Kava was, though she hated to admit it, unquestionably attractive. Not sexy in a boy band way. If you could even call that sexy. There was no fake tan or waxed chest here, and the tall Pole wouldn’t be seen dead in skinny jeans or a v-neck. Kris was a primitive sort of sexy. At six-foot-three, his frame was almost as impressive as the inkwork that went into his elaborate leg tattoos. His muscles weren’t formed from a cocktail of steroids and a few bench presses. They were formed from a lifetime of intense training, running sprints and eating clean. His hair was auburn, scruffy, and just asking to have Athena’s fingers run through it. 

‘Love me, love me,’ sang Kris to himself.

‘Morning,’ smirked Athena.

Kris jumped and came close to smacking his head off the ceiling. ‘Jesus, Foxy. You scared me half to death.’

‘Sorry,’ laughed Athena. She pulled at the hem of his t-shirt. ‘So, last night... Did we...?’ She shifted her weight as colour flooded her cheeks. ‘You know... Oh, don’t make me say it for Christ’s sake, Kris.’

Kris put down his scourer. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘But you wanted to.’ He pointed at Athena with a Marigold clad finger, a proud glint in his eye.

‘Liar.’

‘I’m not lying. You were all, Ooh Krzysztof I want to kiss you, you are so handsome, and I was like, No Foxy, you are drunk—’

‘OK, OK, I don’t need to hear any more.’ 

It was a relief. It was a stupid rule of Athena’s that she never dated Polish boys. She knew the odds of Kris – or any random Pole – turning out to be her half-brother were minuscule, but she wasn’t going to take the chance. Athena was not going to be the sort of woman you read about in trashy magazines who unwittingly married her brother and ended up with a bunch of cross-eyed offspring. Of course, her no-Polish-boys rule could be an extension of her commitment-phobic attitude after the whole Owen thing, but who wanted to analyse that with a hangover?

Athena opened Kris’s fridge, picked up a carton of orange juice, peered at the expiry date and thought better of it. ‘Anyway, moving on,’ said Athena, giving her temples a rub. ‘Have you seen a notepad? It’s important. It’s grey and kind of old—’

‘This one?’ Kris held it up in his soap covered gloves.

‘Don’t get it wet,’ snapped Athena, tearing it from his hands. She flicked through the pages and then held it to her chest. ‘What happened last night?’ she asked. ‘And why am I bruised?’

‘You don’t remember?’

Athena shook her head. 

Kris removed his rubber gloves and handed Athena a cup of tea. ‘All I know is you turned up here at three in the morning, having walked through Meadow Well dressed like a short-supermodel. Not your brightest idea. And you were talking about getting into a fight with a couple of fat chavs – your words, not mine – because they dared to question the humbleness of the famous Athena Fox.’ He took a sip of his tea. ‘And apparently, you lost your key during the scuffle and didn’t realise until you got back to yours, so you walked here in your ridiculous heels.’

‘Hey! Don’t diss the heels.’

‘And,’ continued Kris with caution, ‘before you fell asleep you told me that...’ he nodded at Athena’s hands, ‘was Molly’s suicide note.’

‘I did?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, yeah, I think it is. It’s some kind of code. I found it not long after I found...’ She stopped herself. ‘After she died.’

Athena slumped on to the sofa. A huge hole in her heart opened up when she thought of Molly, her sister. She remembered her gorgeous face, glowing beige skin, cute freckles, and bee-stung lips. She thought of Molly’s thick brown curls and doe-like eyes. Molly had been slender and graceful; the opposite of Athena. If Molly were a feather floating effortlessly on the breeze, Athena was a cannonball. 

She tucked her feet up under herself and felt her hands begin to tremble. Her mind was going someplace dark. 

‘Hey,’ said Kris nudging her on the knee and bringing her focus back to the present. ‘Don’t go there.’

Athena shook her head and gathered herself. ‘I can’t read it though,’ she said, handing Kris the notepad. ‘It’s consumed me. But look,’ she turned to one of the last pages and pointed to small watermarks. ‘Tear stains. She was crying when she wrote these last few pages. And look how shaky her handwriting it. Whatever she wrote in here, it might tell me why she killed herself.’

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△⊙⊙⊙╳△╳￭⊙￭╳╳￮╳╳▢⃞▫╳▲⊙○⊙╳⊙￭╳▲╳△⊙╳╳￭￭╳▢△╳￭△╳╳

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Kris looked intently at the notepad, then back at Athena. ‘Do we need to call a locksmith?’

‘I’ve got a spare key at The Pit. Don’t suppose you’d give me a lift?’

‘What?’ asked Kris, his voice laced with irony. ‘You don’t want to walk there in your perfectly, practical shoes?'

- Chapter 3 -

Kris’s V-reg Golf contained at least three empty Costa Coffee cups and five empty bottles of water. They rolled around Athena’s feet as Kris set off east, slightly above the speed limit and left Meadow Well for the neighbouring area of North Shields. They passed shoppers, dog walkers, and churchgoers before turning left as the mouth of the Tyne came into view. Housed in an old industrial unit halfway up the bank from the mouth of the river was The Pit, the north-east’s premier mixed martial arts gym. Established in 1998, The Pit, named after its former life as a garage, was ahead of its time and churned out some of the country’s top talent. Kris parked his car and grinned at Athena.

‘Good luck.’

‘Why do I need luck?’

‘Luke opened up today.’

Athena groaned at looked to the heavens. She loved Luke, he was the big brother she never had, but it wouldn’t be an understatement to say that he could be too much when you had a hangover. It was time to employ some serious ninja skills. Could she get in and get out without Luke spotting her?

‘OI, OI,’ boomed Luke when Athena closed the door to The Pit behind her.

Damn it.

‘Do my eyes deceive me? Or, did young Athena Fox just get out of Krzysztof Kava’s car wearing one of his t-shirts?’

Luke Mar was a giant of a man, tanned from head to toe with short curly black hair that had the chemical smell of Just For Men hair dye. Today, like most days, he was topless, showing off his vast upper body to no one other than his own reflection. He wore turquoise shorts that were too short for this decade and a matching sweatband sat lopsided around his head. He bounced across the gym, jumping on a swivel chair from the main desk and gliding the rest of the way. 

‘I smell gossip,’ he beamed as the chair came to a stop in front of Athena. ‘Do tell.’

Athena sighed, shook her head and manoeuvred her way around Luke. ‘I know how it looks, but there’s nothing to tell.’

Rubbing her temples, Athena moved to a white, box-style shelving unit at the far end of the gym. She pulled a wicker basket from one of the dockets and fished through old socks and emergency tampons until she found her spare key. Charlie Fisher, the club’s owner, had got so sick of his fighters leaving their crap all over the gym that he’d invested in the shelving unit. If your belongings weren’t in your docket by locking up time they were as good as in the bin.

It took Athena over ten minutes to escape from Luke Mar’s interrogation about everything that did or did not happen last night. She’d even suffered the indignity of having to twirl for him in Kris’s oversized t-shirt because evidently, she could, ‘Work it, sister.’

‘Was that as brutal as I imagine?’ asked Kris when Athena returned to the car.

‘Worse,’ she replied, tugging at her seatbelt. ‘Apparently, we’d have the cutest babies.’

‘We would.’

Athena shot him a look before burying her face in her hands.

Kris started the engine. ‘Where to m’lady?’

‘Camp Terrace,’ she muttered through her palms. ‘Head towards the Gunner and turn left before the crossroads.’

Five minutes later and Kris had turned through the ornate wooden gates that marked the entrance to the quiet Georgian serenity of Camp Terrace. He got out of his car and stood in the glaring sun, staring up at the impressive terraced house, his mouth hanging open. 

‘Jeez Foxy, Charlie said you had a big house but...’ 

Stone steps and iron railings led up to a shiny black door that was flanked by thick stone pillars. Athena turned her keys through various locks and walked into the double-fronted, six-bedroom house only to be almost bowled over by a massive ball of white fur. 

‘Argh! Down, Simba!’ yelled Athena, as a sixty-kilogram Akita stood on its hind legs and licked her face. ‘Outside Simba. Wee wee!’ 

The dog bounded past her to the garden, found his favourite tree and relieved himself. Athena wiped a trail of glistening dog saliva from her face and looked at Kris. He was still stood on the street in awe, looking back and forth between the remarkable building and her red Audi TT convertible that was parked by the door. Athena had often witnessed the look of wonder that passed over people’s faces when they entered the Camp Terrace property, but it still agitated her. Their looks of envy made her feel like a fraud, after all, she hadn’t earned this, she wasn’t the one who had paid off the mortgage. 

‘Stop gawping and come in,’ she snapped. ‘I’m going to make some breakfast.’ Athena turned and walked to her kitchen, closely followed by Kris and the hungry dog. 

Kris busied himself exploring the ground floor. His feet tapped on the hardwood flooring, the occasional board of which would creek under his weight. He looked up at the ceiling roses and coving, ran his hands over the marble fireplaces, and played with the latches on the old sash windows. Meanwhile, the mammoth Akita sat at Athena’s heels, awaiting his scrambled eggs.

When Athena emerged from her kitchen carrying two omelettes and two cups of tea, she found Kris staring at an old family photograph that sat in a display cabinet.

He pointed at a slender girl with dark curly hair and warm skin. ‘Is this Molly?’

Athena placed the plates and cutlery on her twelve-seater dining table and joined Kris at the display cabinet. 

‘Yeah, that’s Molly,’ she answered. ‘And that’s Mum, Nana, and that’s Gramps,’ she added, pointing to her family members in turn. Her mother had the same poker straight golden hair as Athena, only much, much longer. ‘And the short fatty,’ said Athena, pointing to the last family member, ‘the one refusing to smile for the photograph, is me.’

Kris took the china cup from Athena and sipped his tea. ‘Wow, talk about chalk and cheese.’ His eye’s flicked from the stubborn looking blonde to the elegant dark girl. ‘Tell me to mind my own business, Foxy, but Molly was adopted, right?’

The sound of the Akita burping echoed through from the kitchen. 

‘No, she’s my sister,’ answered Athena. ‘Sorry, she was my sister, my half-sister. My dad’s Polish, her dad was black.’ 

A haunting image of Molly’s cold, waxy skin and lifeless eyes forced its way back into Athena’s mind and she turned to the window to try and shake it. 

Sitting down to eat, Athena and Kris took turns flicking through the pages of Molly’s notepad, munching on their mushroom and ham omelettes without saying a word until Kris piped up. ‘Do you think the little crosses are vowels? There are loads of them. Maybe an A or an E?’

‘Maybe,’ replied Athena, finishing the last mouthful of her breakfast. The omelette had done wonders for her sore head and fragile stomach, and she felt a lot more prepared to face another day of grief. ‘There’s loads of the little circles with dots in them too. I thought they were As or Es. But look here,’ she pointed to the third line on the page, ‘it goes circle with a dot, little cross, circle with a dot. That would be A, E, A or E, A, E. I used a Scrabble app online, and there aren’t many words using those letters. Unless she was saying, Simba has been defleaed.’

Kris itched himself behind his ear and pulled the notepad back towards him. ‘And here, it would be E, E, E.’ He pointed to three circles with dots inside. ‘Unless it was one word ending in two Es and the next word starting with an E?’

Athena’s head fell back and she breathed out forcefully. ‘This is impossible!’ she growled up at the chandelier. ‘There’re no spaces, no punctuation...’

Kris inclined his head to one side so that the light from the window highlighted the little scar above his eyebrow. ‘Well, if I was going to go to the effort of creating a secret code, I wouldn’t want to make it too easy to crack.’

Athena forced herself to tear her eyes away