
Ok, so some of you know I've been writing a thriller called
Sixty-Six Metres. So, here's the front cover. Sweet, right? But hang on a minute. Those aren't my initials...
Correct. When I got a contract for three books from Carina UK (Harper Collins), they asked me to find a pseudonym. I asked why, and it's because when authors write in more than one genre, they usually take on a pseudonym, because readers of different genres don't always mix.
So I wracked my brains for days coming up with all sorts of strange names, but none of them felt right. Then H-C said, how about you keep the surname but change the initials. Bingo. JF, you might be asking? A family member who is no longer around. A friend pointed out I could have gone the whole way and used JF Sebastian, as in Blade Runner, but then that would be scifi again...
Ok, big deal, does it make any difference?
Strangely, yes.
Because it's not my own name there, I find I can look at it more objectively, with less ego, because... it's not my name there. This gives me some psychological distance. I can even occasionally look at it not only as a labor of love, but as a product meant to entertain, and this comes in handy when editing or getting editorial feedback.
Marketing it feels different, too. I have a new tweet account @kirwanjf and a new Facebook page @sixtysixmetres and a new blog! It's more about marketing the book than about marketing me, as I'm keeping my 'brand' low profile in terms of who I am etc. This also seems somehow more appropriate as it is a thriller.
The overall feeling is that I'm approaching this book, and the trilogy (only three, I promise this time), more professionally than before.
So, what's in a name? Quite a lot, it seems.
Alright, what's it about? Well, here's how it opens:
The
only thing worth killing for is family.
Her
father’s words to her, the day they’d come for him.
She’d
been fourteen when two men in combat fatigues and balaclavas burst into the
kitchen where she and her father were enjoying breakfast. The armed commandos hadn’t
seen his pistol lying beneath a folded newspaper. While her father struggled
with the men, his eyes flicked between her and the weapon. She could have
darted for it, threatened them, helped him. But she hesitated. The moment
slipped past. They threw a black hood over his head, cuffed him, and dragged
him away . . . to be interrogated, tortured, executed and buried in the woods.
A single thought haunted her ever since.
Had
he known they would come?
Nadia picked up his Beretta, its metal cool in her hands. She checked
and re-loaded the magazine. She walked to the window, took one last look at the
wild garden where her father had taught her to shoot, and the gravel path
leading through the pine forest to the banks of the Volga. There, she’d learned first to swim, then to
dive. Turning away, she stashed the pistol in her backpack and crept
downstairs, hoping to escape unseen.
But her mother
was waiting for her on the doorstep, arms folded. “You’ll end up a killer just
like him, Nadia. Or a whore, like your sister.”
Nadia
pushed by without replying. She passed through the creaking gate that had so
often announced her father’s return, and breathed easier after the turn of the
road. She waited an hour for the bus, part hoping, mainly dreading that her
mother would come running around the corner begging her to return.
Fifty miles from
Moscow, where her sister Katya lived, everyone had to get off the bus at a security
checkpoint to show papiren. Nadia
left her backpack under the seat. When she reached the front of the line, a
young soldier flicked noisily through her passport, then glanced up, surprise lighting
his smile.
“Happy
birthday,” he said. “Eighteen. A special day.”
Nadia moved into a grotty studio flat in
Old Arbat, where each night she fell asleep exhausted from working in the local
bakery from 4 A.M. until 3 P.M., then at a supermarket until 9. She liked boys well enough, but hated the
unsubtle flirting, the vodka-fuelled race to unconsciousness, the lies. She’d
loved her father, but he’d been one of the worst with women, and she’d seen the
damage it had done to her mother. So she kept her hair cropped, dressed for
comfort, and was often mistaken at first sight for a young man, which was fine
with her.
But then the ever-gorgeous
Katya invited her dark-haired kid sister to a party at a wealthy businessman’s
country dacha. Nadia had been amazed at the women with perfect skin in
glittering, low-cut dresses, the handsome and not-so-handsome men, their jewellery
and fancy cars and easy talk of big deals. Viktor, a man twice her age, who
turned out to be someone in government, seduced her. He wasn’t bad-looking,
took his time in bed, and left cash for her breakfast in the mornings.
She let things
coast for six months, no demands or promises on either side. She presumed he
was married. She never asked, and he never said. She gave up the early morning
bakery job, and thought about getting a cat.
Then one day Viktor
was on the news, handcuffed, being forced into a police van. She leapt off the
sofa and began packing a bag, but within minutes a loud rapping sounded on the
door. The Beretta was on the table, fully loaded. She hid it under a loose
floorboard, then opened the door.
Receiving misappropriated funds. That’s what they told her at the station, though she was never
formally charged, never saw a lawyer. Once inside Lubyanka prison, Nadia was informed
she’d be their guest for twelve years, ten if she behaved. On the anniversary
of her father’s death, she gazed through the prison bars, studied the sad faces
staring back at her from the ugly block opposite. She turned away, took in the
inside of her cell. The double bunk with rancid sheets under which she shivered
each night, curled up in the foetal position. The iron toilet that stank of her
own piss and shit – they wouldn’t give her the bucket of water to flush it
until lunchtime. The cold grey bars, faded whitewashed brick walls, not even
graffiti to lighten her mood. And the lone hook in the ceiling that her former
cell-mate had used to end everything while Nadia had been out in the exercise
yard. The fourth suicide since her arrival.
Ten years? She wouldn’t
make it.
Shouting erupted
down the corridor. Wolf-whistles, tin mugs clanging against doors the bars,
lascivious remarks from several lesbian inmates, one of whom already had her
eye on Nadia. And then a gruff man’s voice, more like a growl. It silenced
everyone. Nadia stared at the bars. It couldn’t be anyone for her. No one had
visited her since her incarceration. But she listened. A man’s shoes, heavy,
impatient, and high heels clacking behind, almost running to keep up. Nadia
smelled her sister’s perfume, and took a step forward as the footsteps approached.
But Katya wasn’t alone. Nadia took a step back.
Kadinsky.
He had a
gleaming bald head, like he actually polished it every morning, and was fat
without being flabby, as if his weight was there to throw around, to crush you
if necessary. He wore an expensive beige suit, and gold jewellery dripped from
his wrists and neck. Katya stood behind him in a skimpy red dress and high
heels, tousled hair falling behind her shoulders, her large eyes hopeful and
scared at the same time. There was no guard with them, and Kadinsky held a ring
of keys in his hand. He selected one that looked indistinguishable from the
twenty others dangling from the ring, shoved it into the slot, turned it with a
resounding clank, and stepped inside.
Nadia wanted to
hug her sister, but Kadinsky barred the way. He turned his head to the side,
not enough to see Katya, but just enough so she’d know he was talking to her.
“One word, and I
walk. Turn around. Give the other inmates a treat.”
Katya gave one
last look at her sister, then dutifully turned around, and faced the bars.
There was silence outside. Everyone was listening. Especially Nadia.
Kadinsky glanced
at his gold Rolex, as if bored, somewhere else he’d rather be. Anywhere. He
glanced at Nadia, then folded his chubby arms, stretching the fabric of his
suit.
“I’ll ask you a
single question, girl. You have three chances to give the right answer. If you
do, you come with us. If not, you stay, and see your sister in twelve years.”
He glanced at the toilet bowl, grimaced, pulled out a silk handkerchief, blew
his nose noisily, then stuffed it back into his pocket. “And be quick.”
Nadia tensed,
stood almost to attention, and waited for the question.
“What did you do
wrong?”
Nadia’s reply
was too fast, a prison reflex, what everyone here said when they first met
someone new in the canteen or the yard.
“Nothing.”
Stupid. Kadinsky was a
gangster. She’d met him once. The party where she’d hooked up with Viktor had
been at Kadinsky’s dacha.
“Wrong answer,”
he said. “Second try.”
She stared at
the keys in his hands. The door was open. Soon, one way or another, it would be
locked shut. Think! Maybe just the
facts.
“I met Viktor
Romanovich at your dacha. We had an affair. It lasted eight weeks. One day I
saw him on TV, being taken away, arrested on corruption charges. While I was
packing, they came for me, threw me in here.” But what had she done wrong? She’d just enjoyed the ride, a little
life, a little luxury, someone who’d looked after her. She pictured Viktor. A
man twice her age. Old enough to be… She shuddered. “I should have found out
what he was up to, where the money came from.”
Kadinsky made
half-fists, turned them palm upwards, and studied the fingernails of one hand,
then the other. He stared at her like she was a waste of skin. “One last try.
What did you do wrong?”
Nadia looked at
her sister’s outline, saw that she was trembling. What had she done wrong? She
didn’t know. Been born, maybe? So, she’d stay here, die here. Could she do that
to Katya? If her father hadn’t got messed up in God-knew-what, if he’d still
been around, things would have been different. What had he done wrong? She never knew. But then she realised what it was
she’d done wrong, both times. She’d not picked up the gun for her father, that
fateful day. And when they’d came for her, his Beretta – the only keepsake she
had from him – had been right there.
She looked
Kadinsky in the eye. She didn’t know if it was the answer he was looking for.
Whichever side of those bars she ended up on, she had a feeling it would be her
epitaph.
“I let them take
me.”
Kadinsky
grunted. Looked at his watch again. “We’re leaving,” he said.
Katya spun
around and Nadia found herself wrapped in her sister’s arms, felt her sister’s hot
tears on her cheeks. Nadia’s head tilted upwards, and while she succumbed to
the embrace, she stared at the lone hook in the ceiling. Fuck you.
Kadinsky got Nadia out with bribes and promised
favours. Of course, she’d have to work it off.
Once back at
Kadinsky’s country dacha, she stood in the large lounge with its single bay
window overlooking the dry fountain, a chipped statue of Pan in its centre.
Inside, oil paintings of battles, including one above the fireplace featuring a
victorious Napoleon, hung around the white walls. Kadinsky ordered Katya not to
speak, then walked around Nadia. He looked her up and down, then shook his
head. He dropped into a wide leather armchair. Katya was perched on an antique
wooden dining chair opposite. Nadia stood between them, and Kadinsky’s two
henchmen – one grossly fat, the other slim as a snake and with pockmarked
cheeks – leaned against the far wall.
“You have grey
eyes,” he said, wagging a finger at her. “Like a fucking tombstone. Who’d want
to make love staring into such eyes?” He glanced at Katya. “Are you sure she’s
your sister?”
Katya stared at
the carpet and nodded, her own eyes a deep blue, like her mother’s. Nadia had
her father’s eyes. “Killer’s eyes,” he’d
once joked, when she’d been too young to realize it was a confession.
Kadinsky swirled
the ice in his whiskey tumbler with a pudgy index finger. “What else can you
do, girl?”
Nadia never knew
where her answer came from, possibly revulsion against a life of prostitution,
but she thought of her father, and the words slid out of her mouth. “I can
shoot. I never miss.”
Kadinsky’s
thugs laughed. He didn’t. “I detest
exaggeration,” he said. “So American.” His mouth moved as if he was going to
spit.
“Let’s see if
you can really shoot. Give her your pistol,” he said to one of the henchmen,
the one with a pockmarked face – Pox,
she named him – who immediately lost his sense of humour.
She
took the weapon from his outstretched hand, weighed it in her palm. An
old-style Smith and Wesson. God knows why the guy had it. Most blatnye
preferred semi-autos, Makarovs or the older but higher-velocity Tokarevs. She
checked that it was loaded, all six bullets nestling in their chambers. She
glanced at Kadinsky, thought about killing him. But the other henchman, the fat
one with slicked black hair – hence, Slick
– had his Glock trained on her, his lopsided leer daring her.
Kadinsky
waved a hand towards Katya, five metres away. He tilted his head left and
right, then settled back against the soft leather, took a gulp of whiskey, and
smacked his lips. “The red rose in the bowl of flowers behind her left ear.
Shoot it. From where you stand.”
Slick’s
eyes flicked toward Katya, gauging the angles. His leer faded.
Nadia
stared at her sister and the rose. Most of it was behind her head. Only one
leaf of the scarlet blossom was exposed. She swallowed, then lifted the
revolver, and took up a shooting stance like her father had taught her. Right
arm firm, elbow not locked, left hand under the fist, prepared for the recoil.
She had to do it before anger could build and disrupt her concentration. She
cocked the hammer, lined up the shot, then spoke to Katya’s serene, trusting
face: “Love you,” she said. Then she breathed out slowly, as if through a
straw, and squeezed the trigger.
Sixty-Six Metres can be pre-ordered on Amazon here.