by Emma Snow
He knew from the officer’s look that he hadn’t believed him. The first thing P.C Wilson had discussed was the rows of books on the shelf in the living room. Hunting Serial Killers. The Mind of the Murderer. Inside Evil. “Interesting collection.”
He knew what P.C Wilson thought. That he was an old kook obsessed with a theory that didn’t match up to reality. He had tried to reason with him but he’d failed. So much for the support of the boys in blue.
Once the representative of the law had gone, Timothy set off in his car, cursing himself for not going last night. He should have gone. She could be dead by now. Samuel could have taken her. He could already be gathering up Martha, finishing the game he started all those years ago.
He’d never forgive himself if he was too late. He tried to calm down, almost losing it on a bend. No point crashing on the way there. That would help no one. He tried to say to himself that she’d forgotten, that she’d gone out and got drunk or was staying over at someone’s house, some mundane reason why she hadn’t rung. But in all the years since the fire, she had never failed to ring him once a day. Some of the calls went on for a long time, her talking about her day, about the people she worked with, about everything and nothing. Other times only a few seconds long. Just “I’m fine,” and then gone.
But never had she forgotten. Something had to have happened.
He rubbed his eyes as he drove towards the motorway. Lisa. He thought about Lisa, about the life she’d led since the fire.
First she’d gone to hospital. He’d spoken to her a week later, when she was just beginning to calm down. He’d tried to speak to her sooner but she was in no fit state to talk. Wrapped in bandages, she was doped up on painkillers and it was a full seven days before he was allowed to sit by her bedside, his fingers gently laid on top of her hand on the blankets, not saying anything until he could get the words in the right order.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” she replied. That was just like her. She had been nearly burned alive and she was still her. She hadn’t changed. Or so he thought.
She had hardened, he found out later, developing a protective shell, shielding her from the past. By the time she left the hospital, the light in her eyes had dulled, not surprising given everything that had happened. She had seen children her age burn to death next to her, a sight that would never leave her for as long as she lived.
The home she was moved to was used to dealing with traumatised children. She was there for a year before a foster family was found. The Maitlands, a couple in Chester. Jonathan and Emily. A lovely couple by all accounts. His background check on them had brought up nothing. Two years after that she was adopted by them, in time for her sixteenth birthday. She was so excited when she rang Timothy to tell him, he could hardly get a word in edgeways.
She still rang him every day, a foible that the Maitlands were only to happy to oblige, despite the effect it had on their phone bill. She passed her GCSEs, four A stars amongst her glittering results. She passed her A-Levels too, doing well enough to go to Oxford to study chemistry. She decided not to go yet, wanting to spend some time outside of education. She had taken a voluntary post with Amnesty, moving out of her adoptive parents home and into her own. That was her most recent change. Since then, she had settled into a routine as far as he could tell, working in the local Amnesty office five days a week, helping with fundraising. She still rang him every night, occasionally during her lunch break, reassuring him again and again that she was fine for another twenty-four hours, resetting the clock once again.
He had tried not to think about what would happen when he was gone. He hoped that by then the risk of the Gamesman being capable of anything would be limited. He was probably already dead. Timothy knew he was being too cautious, but that didn’t stop him from worrying as he drove. She had her whole life ahead of her. His was already over. It had been over from the minute Samuel Lyons had lit the fire next to the cleaning cupboard, the chemicals inside turning the blaze into an inferno, preventing Timothy from returning to save the other three. He had tried but the fire brigade had held him back, strong arms that prevented him from running back inside. He had to hear them die, listen to their screams reaching fever pitch before fading into a silence that was not peaceful, it was black and dark and rotten in all the ways that silence should not be.
P.C Wilson had left at a little after nine in the morning. Timothy was in the car ten minutes after that. At quarter to noon, he pulled onto Acorn Lane. He had not stopped once and tiredness sucked at his strength. It had been a long time since he’d driven anything further than the local shops. He realised he had become complacent over the years. He should have practised more often, been better prepared for this eventuality. He should have moved to Chester, that way he could have kept a closer eye on her. But he hadn’t moved for one very important reason, his daughter lived in Worcester.
He didn’t write to Lisa beyond an annual birthday card. Sent on May twelfth, ready to arrive in time for her birthday on the fourteenth. The last one had been her twenty-first. She was an adult. Sophia, Janet, and Clare would never be adults. That jabbed at his heart every time he had written the card out. He should have been writing five. One for Lisa, one each for the three dead girls, and one for Martha, Martha the missing.
He stepped out of the car by Lisa’s house. He’d not seen it in person before, he only knew the address from her giving it to him during one of their phone calls.
The Maitlands. He could have called them to check on her. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Was his mind too blinkered by worry to think straight? He could have kicked himself. He should have rung them last night. Why hadn’t he? Idiot.
He pushed open her gate, his keen eyes noting that the white paint had peeled and needed redoing. Flecks of red, the previous colour, were showing through in a number of places.
He walked up the path and stopped at the door. The curtains were not drawn in the living room. The light was not on inside. Was she in? He rang the bell and counted to ten, hoping she would answer but feeling strangely certain that she wouldn’t.
Nothing. He tried again, holding down the bell for the count of fifteen. No answer. He looked around him before turning the handle. The door opened. “Hello,” he called out loudly into the house. “Lisa? Are you in?”
No answer. Not a sound. There was still a chance she wasn’t there, that she’d left the door unlocked. It looked like a safe area after all. But would she do that? After what had happened to her? After his warnings to always be on her guard?
The hallway was carpeted and his feet made no sound as he walked inside. He closed the door behind him before walking into the living room. She was a tidy person. The TV in the corner was turned off. The floor was spotless, the only thing on the coffee table was a remote control and a single coaster, the image a 1950s advert for Guinness.
The sofa didn’t look as if it had been sat on recently, the cushions perfectly level. The armchair looked like it was where she settled of an evening, in the corner, able to see the TV but more importantly where she could see both into the hallway and out of the window at anyone approaching the house. Behind the armchair was a photo in a frame, on the wall, low, as if she wanted to see it whenever she turned her head that way. It was her and Martha side by side in the Beeches garden, aged twelve. It couldn’t have been taken any more than three months before the fire.
It was a terraced house, the hallway turning right out of the living room. There was a staircase to one side and to the other a door that led into the dining room and then the kitchen.
The dining room was empty, the table was not. Brochures and guidebooks for castles and abbeys were laid out in a rainbow around one chair. Another bookcase, filled so heavily the shelves sagged in the middle. On the wall was a poster in a frame for a film Timothy had not heard of. The computer was switched off.
The kitchen was less tidy than the living room, crumbs on the surfaces, a loaf of b
read with the end of the bag untied, the remains of a dinner in the sink, a single plate, knife, fork, mug, glass. “Lisa?” he called out again, reaching to try the back door. It was locked, the key sitting in the hole, ready to turn. He unlocked it and glanced outside. Just a small yard. Nothing there.
He opened the fridge. The milk was three days from expiring. She had been here recently at least. But then he knew that, he’d only spoken to her the day before yesterday.
He headed upstairs, calling out for her again. “Are you in, Lisa?”
Upstairs were two doors, one open, one closed. Through the open one he could see her bed, the duvet neat and tidy, the pillows in a straight line. “Lisa?” he called out, spinning around and taking hold of the handle of the closed door.
He pushed the door open, finding Lisa in the bath. Empty eye sockets stared up past the ceiling, her head tilted back. Her wrists were bound in front of her, her ankles also bound, bent awkwardly, as if he’d had to twist her body to fit her into the tub. The water was scummy, though not enough to conceal her nakedness.
He collapsed to the tiled floor, his head resting on the edge of the bed. Closing his eyes, he let out a long low wail of pain. He was too late. He had failed her.
Opening his eyes through his tears, he knew he had to ring the police. Samuel would already be on his way to Martha. He didn’t want to ring them. He didn’t want to leave her alone. He wanted to sit there and cry but he fought the need, getting to his feet. He took another glance at her, frowning as he noticed something sticking out from between her fingers. He had fixed his gaze there to avoid looking at her face, no face should look like that.
From between the middle and index finger a tiny plastic something jutted out. He didn’t need to look closer to know what it was.
That was all the proof he needed. If there had been any doubt, it was wiped out as he looked at the boardgame piece protruding into the air, as if it was put there just to taunt him. Samuel was alive. He was alive and Lisa was dead. He had failed her. The little white knight taunted him.
His legs felt weak and he had to hold onto the wall as he made his way back downstairs to the phone. He rang the police, the few seconds it took for him to dial was long enough for a wave of dizziness to wash over him, sending him spinning down into the blackness. He fainted, the voice of the switchboard operator bringing him to less than a minute later. He scrabbled for the phone, stuttering words into it.
He should have come as soon as he was suspicious. The fact that she was probably already dead by the time he missed her phone call didn’t matter to him. What mattered was that he had failed her. And if they didn’t hurry, Martha would be collected too. Would they find her in the tub with a gaming piece in her hand? Or did he have something else planned for her? He was finishing his game. Was he going to get to make his offering after all?
Poor Lisa. Up there with that blank expression on her face. They lied when they said the dead looked as if they were at peace. She didn’t look at peace. She looked in pain. How had he done it? Had he drowned her? Strangled her then put her in the tub? Why was she naked? Why take out her other eye?
Stop thinking, he told himself, turning to look at the photo on the wall. Lisa and Martha. Twelve years old. 2007. Lisa smiling in the photo, no idea she only had ten years left to live. A decade then gone, snuffed out like a candle. It wasn’t long enough. Timothy was sixty-two. It didn’t seem fair. Why had he warranted such a long life when that innocent girl in there had been so cruelly taken from the world at just twenty-one?
Outside the sound of sirens grew louder.
TEN
Ben pulled into Helmsley Castle car park at five past five that evening. The car park was next to the castle. It was almost empty, more of the day-trippers having headed for home before the castle and the shops all closed up at five. There was a track at the far end and he headed over to it, ignoring the PRIVATE sign on the grass verge next to him. He stopped the car in the courtyard at the end of the track. Surrounding him were three houses.
When he had lived here, the one nearest the castle had been empty, his father doing it up slowly in order to rent out. The ivy covered cottage next to that was the one he knew best, the one he’d grown up in. Then there was the one behind him, the one with the lights on. Someone was home. He climbed out of the car, his mind instantly back. So little had changed. The trees were taller, the view of the East Tower in the castle grounds obscured a little by the overhanging branches. But the sound was the same. He could hear the trickle of the stream back by the side of the car park. The crows cawed above his head, settling in the trees.
The last of the evening light was fading as he walked over to the cottage that was lit up inside. Was his father in there? Were they preparing for a funeral? For an instant before knocking, he thought he might just walk in. But it wasn’t his home anymore. Then he raised his hand and knocked loudly, waiting and thinking how this was a precious moment, the last few seconds of freedom, of not knowing and not caring what was going on back here. He refused to say back home. This wasn’t home, not anymore. The island was home. This was just a part of his past, like the castle. It was ancient history.
It tugged at his heart nonetheless.
ELEVEN
Martha was washing up when she heard the knock on the door. She jumped, still on edge despite the hours that had passed since finding the scourge. She’d had to work alone all day and she was tired. Chloe had texted her a little after eleven, apologising for missing her calls, explaining that she was ill and would have to miss work for a few days.
Martha hadn’t let her irritation show through in her replies, simply putting, “Get better,” and leaving it at that. It was annoying, the staffing levels and rota organisation left little room for manoeuvre at such short notice. She would normally leave such problems for Peter to deal with, passing them on up the chain of command.
But he was on his way home from the hospital and she wanted to keep his recuperation as stress free as possible.
So she had worked alone, snatching food and toilet visits during the few lulls during the day. She hadn’t found anything else on site when she’d locked up and for that she was grateful. The entire day, a little voice had whispered to her that he would arrive, brandishing a knife or maybe even a gun, force her to use the scourge again, to play his twisted games.
By the time she locked up, she had a stress headache and it was only just starting to fade by the time she was home. She saw the lights on across the courtyard and headed over in time to find the hospital transport driver was leaving, the door open ready for his assistant to follow.
“How is he?” Martha asked, catching them as they began to walk out of the courtyard towards the car park.
“He’s comfortable in bed,” the older man said. “Sorry, you are?”
“Martha Coleman. I work for Peter.”
“Right, great. We weren’t comfortable about leaving him alone in there so we were about to ring you from the van.”
“Well, I’m here now.”
“So you are. Did you not get the message that he needs someone to keep an eye on him? We rang his wife. Did she not pass it on?”
Martha shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
The man frowned. “He was asleep when we left him. We got him into bed and he’s had his evening painkillers so he should be all right for the night. You might want to think about moving his bed downstairs. With his leg like that, the stairs aren’t going to be easy.”
Martha smiled. “Wouldn’t let you do it, right?”
“Nope.”
“He can be a stubborn one sometimes. I’ll see what I can do. Anything else I need to know?”
“There’ll be a nurse coming out to check on him every other day. Just make sure he takes his medication and he should be all right. He was pretty lucky, all things considered.”
“I guess he was.”
“If you notice him getting worse, give us a ring straight away, won’t you?”
&nbs
p; “Of course.”
“Great. Good night then, Martha was it?”
“Yep. Good night, and thank you.”
“Just doing our jobs.”
The men turned and headed away and Martha returned to the open door in the courtyard, passing through and listening for any noise upstairs. She could hear him breathing up there.
She walked up as softly as she could, tiptoeing onto the landing and peering in through Peter’s bedroom door. He had a bandage wrapped around his head, ending just above his eyes which were tightly closed. Next to the bed were a couple of crutches. Martha wondered if they’d tried to get him in a wheelchair. She could imagine what a pointless attempt it would be.
Peter had always shunned the help of others, wanting to keep on top of everything himself. It had taken two years of Martha working at the castle for him to start letting her do any of the paperwork. For six months after she began, he had double-checked her figures every night, his trust in her very slowly growing.
It felt strange to see him asleep in bed. She’d never seen his bedroom before. She’d been in his house, sitting at the battered old dining room table drinking tea and watching the sunset outside the mullioned windows.
He wasn’t moving in bed, the only sign that he was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest. Martha turned away, suddenly feeling that she was intruding on his privacy.
She headed back downstairs and into the kitchen. The least she could do was wash up for him. She poured water into the sink and waited for it to fill up, glancing outside as a bat darted past the window, catching her eye.
She was halfway through when someone knocked on the door. Drying her hands on a towel, she crossed to the hallway before stopping, thoughts of the scourge coming back to her mind. She knew it wasn’t Samuel out there but she still slipped the chain across before opening the door and peering out.
There was a man standing there, half lit by the glow from inside the hallway, half in darkness. He was older than Martha but not by much. “Can I help?” she asked, her eyes moving down his checked shirt to his jeans, both looking shades of grey rather than colour in the gloom.
