Twenty minutes later they were pulling up outside a large building that looked like some kind of converted warehouse. Converted, Eames noticed, not into apartments but into some kind of sports facility, judging by the sounds of exertion coming out of the windows.
"I thought you said we were going to your friend's house?" she asked.
"We
are; we need to pick her up first. This shouldn't take long."
Davenport parked the car and hopped out, motioning them to follow him
in. She brought up the rear behind the two of them, pausing on the
way in to read the sign: "1st floor: Lougar's Boxing Gym, 2nd
Floor: Advanced Fighting System Dojo". This gets more
interesting by the minute.
She
entered the door to find Davenport in conversation with a heavyset
young man with scruffy red hair and a vaguely Goth-like appearance,
manning a reception desk at the foot of a large flight of stairs. A
fluorescent jacket lay on the table near him, with his name printed
on the front, "Duncan Ampirelli", and the logo of what she
guessed was the local civic authority underneath.
"Hiya, Amp. You drew the short straw, huh?"
"You're late," the young man said by way of greeting. Eames noticed that his T-shirt, rather unfortunately, read: "I hear voices, and they don't like you".
"I'm not training tonight."
He leaned back and eyed up the two of them, Davenport & Goren. "Jesus, Drew, one of these days you should learn to pay to entertain your dates. Oh, sorry love-" he caught sight of Eames emerging from behind Goren's bulk "-didn't see you there." He looked faintly embarrassed.
"That joke's out of date anyway." Davenport held up his left hand, the small ring on it glinting in the late evening sunshine.
"Well bugger me. You finally persuaded Michael to make an honest man of you?"
"A engaged man, certainly."
"You after Tanya?"
"Yes. These guys are friends of mine from the States."
"Coppers?"
"Yeah – they wanted to see how we do things over here. Tanya's asked us round for dinner tonight, I said I'd give her a lift."
Really? First we've heard of it, Eames thought, then realised that that was the point; this was going to be their cover story for spending time with Davenport plus whoever this Tanya turned out to be.
"She's upstairs, training session. They should be done in ten minutes," Amp replied, then returned to the video he was watching.
"See you later." Davenport gestured to the stairs and the three of them began to climb. They passed by the first floor landing, ignoring the thwacks of people hitting punchbags, and headed further upstairs. Eames couldn't help noticing that there was a slight swagger in Davenport's step, reminding her of nothing so much as Goren entering the corridor that led to the interview rooms at One Police Plaza, or Carver about to make his entrance in court. This was obviously home territory for him. As they reached the landing, he paused.
"Right, this shouldn't take too long if they've nearly finished training. We'll pick Tanya up, then hit the road. Sorry about the delay, but…" he shrugged his shoulders as if to say it can't be helped, then shoved open the door.
Behind it lay a huge open-plan room, with blue and green mats on the floor. Eames recognised the type instantly from her training days at the Academy, although unlike the Academy, Japanese symbols decorated the walls and wooden swords and staffs in rack took up the remaining space. A tall instructor with short dark hair and a black belt around his waist was patrolling the floor, shouting instructions, explaining the technique being shown and murmuring encouragement. Nearly all the available space was taken up by around thirty people of varying shapes and sizes, all clad in black karate pyjamas with coloured belts, and all doing their best to learn the technique currently on offer – by the looks of things, a nasty variation on a standard wristlock. Eames noticed with interest that the technique involved not only a wristlock, but a nasty squeeze down onto the attacker's thumb as they tried to grab the other person's jacket. She made a mental note that it might be interesting to return here and watch again, maybe even join in, if they had the time.
"Okay!" The instructor bellowed across the room, and Eames realised that the figure she'd taken for male was, in fact, female. She had to be easily one of the tallest women Eames had ever seen, and broad-shouldered with big hands. "Right, that's it for working in pairs for tonight." She did a quick scan of the room, eyes flickering across the three of them stood at the back. So far, no-one else seemed to have noticed their presence, being too busy either grabbing jackets, applying wristlocks, or yelling "Ow! Ow, that really bloody hurts!".
"Let's see, how many of us are here tonight…" she murmured, counting heads quickly, then grinned, a very wide and slightly feral grin. "I think we'll have some fun tonight, don't you? Everyone not first dan or above, off the floor, please." The people in coloured belts scooted swiftly to the walls, forming an ragged ring of spectators and leaving the instructor plus six other people with black belts in the middle of the room. Beside Eames, Davenport murmured under his breath, "Oh, bugger," and looked at his watch despairingly.
"Right, ladies and gentlemen, the next five minutes is going to be freestyle with weapons, no holds barred. No eye gouges, no biting, no aiming for the groin. Other than that, anything goes and don't stop unless-" she paused, then pointed to a large man with a brown belt, standing near the door "-Mark says you've received a lethal blow and you're out. If someone throws you into the wall and a stick falls on your head, pick it up and use it." The man she'd indicated stepped forward, ready to act as the referee, whilst the seven black belts scattered to the walls, each picking up one of the wooden weapons from the racks. The instructor herself picked up a wooden sword and headed back towards the centre of the room.
"Everyone ready?" She looked around at the other black belts, most of whom were poised in a ready state Eames recognised, controlling the adrenaline, the body's natural fight-or-flight response, masking any feelings of fear, trying not to hyperventilate…
"Here we go, hajime!"
The seven martial artists went from stillness to motion in one frenetic second, each looking around, picking a target, engaging the others. Soon yells and blows filled the room, and the noise rose to a deafening level as the watching observers began to encourage their favourites bellowing "Keep going!" "You've got him, hit him again!", an atmosphere familiar to anyone who'd ever seen a boxing fight or streetfight. So far they were all evenly matched, and no-one had yet landed a lethal blow.
Eames noticed that the instructor herself was hanging back slightly, evaluating the others' techniques and styles, not yet picking out a target and attacking, although she defended herself swiftly, turning aside blows and dancing away, encouraging the others to fight amongst themselves. Good strategy, she thought. Let the others tire themselves out before picking a target and engaging it. Of course, for that to work you'd have to be sure that no-one would pick you as a target, or at least no-one you couldn't defeat quickly… The numbers of combatants were thinning now, leaving the instructor and two others still standing.
Beside her, Goren shifted slightly and muttered "Can't we just get your friend and go?"
Davenport sighed and pointed to the instructor, who had just picked up a man nearly the same size as she and thrown him onto his back, stabbing downwards with her sword to simulate a killing blow. "She probably wouldn't thank us if we distracted her right now. That's Tanya Simmonds. She runs this place, and it's her house we'll be borrowing."
The door opened behind her, surprising Eames, and another man entered the room. He was blond and heavily built, not quite as big as Goren, but not that far off.
"Hey, Leo," Davenport remarked. "You're late."
"You too. Not fighting?" He had a slight Irish accent, Eames noticed.
"I think I may need all my ribs intact for the next few days."
"You're working on a particular project?" The man – Leo – leaned across and picked up a large wooden staff from the walls.
"Can't tell you."
"Ah. Me too. Still, a weekly dose of beating people up does you good, you should make time for it."
They watched for a couple of seconds as the instructor dispatched another opponent. The newcomer commented: "Is it me, or is she getting more brutal?"
"Tanya. Getting more brutal." Davenport paused and chewed the thought. "Tanya. Getting more brutal. Nope, I'm not seeing it."
"Before, she would let you try things out, play a little. Now, you even get near her, she blows you away. Watch," and with one move, the man launched himself forward into the ring, aiming himself and his staff straight for Tanya's unprotected back. Incredibly, she turned in time to block the attack – she read the crowd, Eames realised – but the force of the unexpected blow knocked the sword from her hand. She flung herself backwards and to the side, giving herself distance, but the end of Leo's staff caught her in the ribs. The crowd gasped, but she stayed on her feet, keeping a safe distance, but she was beginning now to lose some momentum; the bigger attacker, combined with the weapon, made her opponent hard to attack whilst she herself was unarmed.
Davenport murmured, "He's not supposed to do that – too dangerous – but this is no-holds-barred." His body was tense, Eames sensed that he himself wanted to be in the ring… Suddenly, she was aware of a movement beside her, as Bobby picked up another staff from the wall.
"He broke the rules first, right?" he asked Davenport, who nodded, grinning evilly. Bobby waited for Tanya to move into his line of sight, then lifted the staff and threw it carefully into the ring. More gasps of surprise from the crowd as Tanya flipped in mid-air, landing, rolling and picking up the staff in one fluid movement.
With a sudden yell, she attacked, not waiting any longer, and the unexpectedness gave her the advantage. She thrust the staff hard between her opponent's knees and threw herself to one side, taking his balance; pulling the staff out, she slammed it down hard onto the floor two inches from his head. Having made the "kill", she leapt back into a ready stance, eyes quartering the room. Eames suddenly wondered if she was a police officer herself, or in a similar line of work. It was a method she recognised.
The crowd erupted, yelling and calling. Tanya stood for a few seconds, ribs heaving, ignoring Leo, who was slowly pulling himself back onto his feet. They shook hands and bowed, then Tanya turned to the crowd and bowed again. "Yamé. Dismissed, good training, everyone." She straightened up, and as she turned in their direction, gave them a wink.
"Finally! Follow me," Davenport exhaled, and led the way through the crowd, following Tanya's back, to a small changing room marked 'Private' just off the main hall. He knocked twice, shouted "It's me,", then opened the door without waiting for the reply. They followed him in, to find Tanya Simmonds clad in a sports bra and black training pants, and cooling down after the session. As they watched, she finished drinking most of a large glass of water, then tipped the rest over her head, breathing heavily, and draped a towel over her shoulders.
"You know, Drew, there's this thing called knocking and waiting," she said by way of greeting. Eames couldn't quite make out her accent, but would have hazarded a guess at northern England.
"Sorry."
"You should have been out there." Her eyes were glittering, and she was grinning widely. Eames recognised the tell-tale signs of someone coming off an adrenaline rush. She glanced at Bobby to gauge his reactions to Tanya, and noticed that he was staring slightly. Probably trying to get used to the unfamiliar sensation of a woman who can look him in the eye. Tanya had to be pushing six-one, maybe six-two, and whilst she lacked the sheer bulk a man of the same height would have had, she was still one of the biggest women Eames had ever encountered, with heavy muscles, a large scar up her left arm, a tattoo of Japanese symbols on her right arm, and a large bruise forming over her left ribs. Her face was strong-featured, not exactly ugly, but the sort that would be described as "full of character" rather than attractive, and her hair was short, dark and curly. Eames wondered idly if perhaps one of her parents was black.
"You were managing just fine without me."
"Of course I was. I just haven't beaten you up for a while; kinda missing the experience."
"Sorry. Been busy. You remember how I said last night I might need to borrow your house over the next few days? Well…"
The grin disappeared from Tanya's face, to be replaced by a sober expression. "You know, some people would work up to that. They might say 'Hope you've had a good few days, because the next few are going to be pretty bad'. Or 'By the way, Leo, don't bash Tanya's ribs in'."
Davenport shrugged apologetically. "No time. We need to go, now."
Tanya sighed again, and began to throw clothes into a large bag nearby. "You can give me a lift?" She looked over Goren and Eames, and paused on Bobby for just a second, giving him a very odd look. Eames had the oddest sensation that she recognised them, but she was certain they'd never met her before.
"Yeah. Jack and CeeCee are on their way over too." More people involved? She had the sinking realisation that trusting that Davenport knew what he was doing, whilst secretly doubting it, was going to be a major feature of the next few days.
"Hail, hail, the gang's all here," Tanya murmured, and shouldered the bag. "By the way, are you going to introduce us, or shall we all just make up names for each other?"
"Sorry. Tanya, Detective Robert Goren, Detective Alex Eames. Detectives, Tanya Simmonds-McAllister."
"Uh-huh." Tanya grinned at them, and looked down at her hands, which were sweaty. "I'll not shake hands, if you don't mind." She reached for a T-shirt and pulled it on, revealing a logo which read: "I do two things well; kick ass and chew gum. Right now I'm all outta gum."
Not long after, they were pulling up outside a long row of terraced houses. Goren was not an expert on the English housing market, but would have guessed that they were worth quite a lot. He wondered exactly how well Tanya's business was doing, if she could afford a house like this. "What is it you do for a living?"
"You want the short version or the long version?"
He shrugged. Tanya returned the shrug, and replied "Okay, well, I used to kill people for a living – I was an Army sergeant a while back, then I got fed up with having people shooting at me. Transferred to teaching combat skills, then passed out of the army. Right now I run the dojo in the evenings for fun. During the day, I'm a police self-defence instructor." She smiled, showing her teeth.
"She runs training courses for civilians as well," Davenport contributed, parking the car with a jerk of the brakes and hopping out. Goren recognised the nervous energy of someone running on too little sleep and an overload of caffeine and sugar. They followed Tanya up the drive. Goren saw what Davenport meant about security. Burglar alarm, fence all the way round the garden, double-glazed windows with grilles across them on the ground-floor, solid locks, what looked suspiciously like broken glass on the windows, a garden carefully designed to ensure that no-one could lurk there unexpectedly, and nothing around that could be used as a ladder or other burglars' tool. Someone with a paranoid imagination and a thorough knowledge of how to break into a house had really gone to town here, he thought. Well, so far Davenport hadn't been wrong.
They stepped through the door into a small hallway, then emerged into a large room. Tanya hit the lights, then turned a graceful circle in the middle of the floor. "Ta-da! Welcome to my humble little abode." She gestured with a flourish and a grin of obvious delight in her home. He couldn't help smiling in reply, glancing around as she hurried off to her kitchen and begin rooting through the fridge.
The house consisted of one large ground floor room, with a tiny hallway and a flight of stairs up one wall, leading to a small balcony with doors to what were presumably bedrooms and bathrooms. A spectacular Japanese silk wall hanging took up most of the wall space above the stairs. The rest of the wall space was decorated with an eclectic mix of pictures, prints, framed photographs, several Japanese swords, and done out in a pleasant shade of cream, with the exception of the rear wall, which was golden brown, and a large space on the wall near the main door, which seemed to be covered in what looked like photographs. The ground floor was divided into several areas; TV with a large couch in front of it in one corner, state-of-the-art kitchen with interesting-looking gadgets in another, a piano against one wall, sliding doors leading to what looked like a garden, and a large wooden table with several chairs near the kitchen. The overall impression was friendly and welcoming. Goren found himself wondering vaguely if Tanya had a husband – the "Jack" she'd mentioned, perhaps? This must have cost a serious amount of money.
He meandered across to the kitchen table, when Tanya was busy putting out what looked like salad ingredients, and found with interest that there was an intriguing object lying there, a long metal rod… he picked it up, turning it over, and found that it was actually a folded antique Chinese-style fan, about a foot long and surprisingly heavy. The span seemed to be made of some kind of red silk, with a white design. He was about to try opening it, when from nowhere a hand appeared and prised it from his fingers with surprising skill and a certain amount of pain as the hand – Tanya's, he realised – shoved thick fingers into nerve points on his hand, forcing him to release it.
He turned to face her, and watched as, grinning, she held the fan up and let the outer rib drop. The full weight of the metal slats pulled it open with a loud snap, the outer rib smashing into a carrot on the table. It snapped cleanly in two as though she'd whacked it with a butcher's knife. Still grinning, she held out the edge of the fan for inspection, and he saw with a wince that there was a razor sharp blade concealed within it. He looked up and met her eyes, which held a mixture of amusement and seriousness.
"You know, some people take the view that, since we've got ten fingers, it doesn't matter too much if we lose one or two along the way." She shrugged. "Personally, I think you should aim to leave this life with as many appendages as you started out with. This is a tessen, a Japanese war fan, I just got back from a trip over there. This version contains a concealed blade so it can be used for defence and assassination." She picked up the carrot and bit it with a crunch, then met his eyes with an expression of polite but firm warning. "Don't go playing with my toys without asking."
Davenport had wandered across to join them. "Hey, is that the tessen Tamada-sensei was going to get you?" He reached out for it with an expression of interest. Tanya scowled, and put it on top of a cupboard, stretching to her full height.
"Jesus, boys with toys…" she grumbled, rolling her eyes, then she turned her head, and addressed the group. "Right. I will be down in five minutes; help yourselves to anything you like, drinks, food, whatever." In reply to Davenport's frown, she continued. "Drew, if we're going to be stuck in a room together for any length of time, you're gonna want me to have taken a shower," and left. Davenport busied himself clearing off the table, then retrieving his papers from the large briefcase he'd brought with him and spreading them out.
From outside there came the sound of a motorbike, then two sets of footsteps, then a key in the lock.
"Hello, I'm home, and I have pizza for six, can someone give me a hand?" a male voice with a faint Scottish accent called out. Goren, motivated partly by curiosity and partly by hunger (the food at the hotel hadn't been all that great), followed the sudden appealing scent of tomato sauce and cheese towards the door, where two short figures in motorcycle leathers were kicking off their boots. The man who'd spoken was mopping his forehead with a tissue, having removed his helmet and unzipped his leathers. He paused, showing no signs of surprise at having a hulking stranger wandering around his house, and stuck out a hand. "Hi. I'm Jack Simmonds-McAllister; call me Jack. You're Detective Goren?"
"Yes, I am." Ah, this was Tanya's husband then. He was… not what Goren would have pictured for Tanya's husband. The phrase conjured up an image of some sort of enormous modern-day Viking warrior, whereas McAllister was short, about an inch shorter than Eames' height, and slightly-built with pale brown hair and glasses. He wore an expression of mild friendly interest, and, by Goren's reckoning, had to be in his late thirties, whereas he would have put Tanya at not much more than thirty years old, if that.
Following his nose, he noticed that the other figure, a woman, was holding the boxes. He reached out to take them from her, and had a sudden sense that he'd met her before. Her figure seemed familiar in some way, underneath all the leather… what was her name again? CeeCee? She reached up to take off her helmet, and there was something oddly familiar about the way she moved, energetic, lively…
Not CeeCee, he realised, the shock causing him to freeze temporarily to the spot. SiSi. Short for…
He knew now who it was, knew, with a sense of dawning inevitability, who was the fourth member of Davenport's little crowd of friends, knew even before she took off that helmet and ran her fingers through her red hair…
"Hello, Bobby," said Sienna Tovitz, and smiled politely.
Author's Note: Tanya's another character with a soundtrack; whenever I write any fight scenes for her, I tend to listen to "Spitfire" by the Prodigy (album "Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned").
