The Players

by Darren O’Sullivan

  ‘No,’ she agreed.

  ‘So shall we get this over with and discuss what we are here for?’

  ‘You seemed hesitant, which is why I suggested we talked about other things. But if you are sure you want to get straight into it—’

  ‘I’m not, but we have to, don’t we?’

  ‘At some point, yes,’ she agreed. ‘But we have time, weeks, if necess–’

  ‘I’d rather get this done, so I can get back to work.’

  ‘OK then,’ she said decisively, slapping her palms against her thighs. ‘Where would you be comfortable starting?’

  I had prepared what I was going to say, rehearsed it a thousand times, but as I went to speak, my throat closed as hot bile forced its way up. I tried to disguise it by coughing.

  Come on, Karen, speak.

  My hands felt hot, and I had to blink hard as white dots had appeared in the corners of my vision.

  SPEAK.

  ‘On the morning of the 23rd of January, myself and Detective Howard Carlson entered the property of Gray…’

  I stopped, took a breath. I knew today was about opening up and discussing the arrest, but knowing and doing were two very different things.

  ‘Karen?’

  ‘Detective Howard Carlson and I entered the property as part of a planned arrest. As we approached…’

  I was aware that my mouth was moving, that words were falling out, and yet I couldn’t hear them. The sound of blood rushing around my head was drowning out my voice. Despite it being cool in the office, I felt my skin start to itch as I began to sweat. I had prepared my words carefully, I had selected the right ones to explain what had happened that day, and yet, now I was here, I couldn’t finish them. My hands began to tremble and I tried to discreetly massage the blood back into them. When I saw the therapist watching, I ever so slightly tucked them into the sleeves of my favourite blue cardigan.

  ‘Karen, do you need to take a moment?’

  ‘Please,’ I managed to say between jagged breaths. I needed to be outside, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. I needed the wind on my skin, the clouds above my head. I needed to run. ‘Is there a bathroom I could use?’

  ‘Outside, second door on the left. Take your time.’

  Without thanking her or excusing myself, I stood up, my legs feeling hollow and unsteady and left the room. I walked past the receptionist, who looked at me with concern, and stumbled into the bathroom. The room shifted on its axis and I had to grab onto the sink to stop myself from falling. I didn’t know what was happening to me, the tingle in my hands had moved to my face and numbed my lips. My heart began to gallop. Looking into the mirror I saw my skin was completely washed out and my eyes had glazed over.

  I tried to call for help, but as I opened my mouth, the sound that came out was inaudible, my throat had seized and wouldn’t release any words. It wouldn’t allow anything in either, and I began to feel like I was choking. Stumbling against the wall I slid to the floor, cradled my head in my hands, forced myself to try and take a breath. It was like I was sipping oxygen through a blocked straw.

  ‘Please. Someone—’

  I couldn’t finish my sentence; bile forced its way up my constricted throat and crawling into a cubical I lifted the toilet lid and heaved. I hadn’t eaten, so it was mostly liquid. I heaved three times, my burning forehead resting on the porcelain bowl, fighting to get my breathing back under control. The bathroom door opened and closed as I retched again, without bringing anything up this time. I felt a hand on my shoulder; I hated that it made me jump.

  ‘Karen, are you all right?’

  ‘Just, give me a minute, please?’

  ‘Come on, let me help you.’

  The therapist scooped me under my armpits and dragged me to my feet. I still didn’t trust my legs, so she held onto me as we half walked, half dragged ourselves to the sink. As I leant against the wall, she ran the cold tap and told me to put my wrists under the water.

  ‘It helps, trust me.’

  I felt powerless to challenge, so complied, and as the water ran over my wrists and hands, I felt myself begin to calm. My chest started to feel lighter, air started to flow into my lungs once more.

  ‘That’s it, just concentrate on your breathing. It will pass. In and out, you’re doing a grand job.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for. It happens.’

  ‘Can I have a minute?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  The more I felt centred, the more I understood what had just happened to me. I splashed calming water onto my face. Knowing I was in control again, the therapist asked if I wanted a minute to myself.

  ‘I’ll be in my office. Come in when you’re ready,’ she said before leaving.

  As the door closed, I examined the woman staring back at me in the mirror. My face was not quite so ashen, and my lips looked like they would come back to life soon. But I looked tired, I looked old. When did that happen? Fine lines spread from the corners of my eyes. The skin around my jaw had lost some of its elasticity, and I knew, if I didn’t dye my hair grey would streak through it.

  After cleaning myself up, I walked towards the therapist’s office. I could see the receptionist wanted to check on me but stopped himself. I knew that I needed to go inside, sit down with Shauna and say what I came for so then I could get back to work.

  But I couldn’t.

  Chapter Two

  Carlson

  3.14 p.m.

  DS Howard Carlson turned off his car ignition and stepped out into the cold. The scene before him was hard to read. Two ambulances sat idling, their rear doors open. Three police cars blocked most of the pedestrian walkway, a vain attempt to ward off the gathering crowds of people who wanted to see what was going on. When the call first came in, there was talk of a terror attack, but as the armed unit was scrambled it became apparent it was isolated, albeit like an incident that had happened only three days before. As Carlson pushed his way through the thrum of people, he was horrified, but not surprised to see most had their mobile phones out, trying to video and photograph the scene. Approaching the cordon, he waved at the uniformed officer and slipped under the tape.

  ‘DS Carlson.’

  ‘PC Sommers,’ he acknowledged. ‘What have we got?’

  ‘Same as the other day. A man approached, disguised, told another to attack the first person he saw.’

  ‘In red?’

  ‘Yep, wearing a red coat. Said he would kill the attacker’s dog if he didn’t.’

  ‘What? A dog?’

  ‘That’s right. The guy – the attacker – is homeless, says his dog is his world.’

  Carlson nodded. Three days ago, a woman attacked someone elderly in a red coat. She’d claimed that the person who made her do it had threatened her daughter, had showed her photographs of her daughter at school so she knew the threat was real. The attack was brief, and the elderly lady wasn’t seriously hurt. The scene Carlson saw in front of him looked entirely different.

  ‘How’s the victim?’

  ‘Looks like he’s got several broken bones – and there’s lots of blood.’

  ‘Clearly,’ Carlson said, looking at the pool of blood on the pavement outside one of the city centre’s more upmarket bars. ‘Any witnesses?’

  ‘Loads.’

  ‘Anyone get an ID?’

  ‘None so far.’

  ‘None? Let’s follow the homeless angle. Get a round-up of our usual suspects from the homeless community. Someone will know who he is. Where is the victim now?’

  ‘In the ambulance, he’s off to hospital to get treatment.’

  ‘I mean the other one.’

  ‘The other one?’

  ‘The dog owner.’

  Sommers looked confused. ‘But sir, he is the attacker.’

  ‘He is, but if we believe his story, he’s a victim too. Where is he?’

  ‘Back of the van,’ PC Sommers said, pointing behind them.

 
‘Thanks. Keep going, and Jake, if you find anything, shout me.’

  ‘Sir.’

  As Sommers turned back to the scene to speak with the few witnesses who claimed they’d watched the attack unfold, Carlson made his way to the van, and opening the back door, he came face to face with Mikey. A man Carlson had run into a few times for petty crimes: shoplifting once, begging a few times. Nothing of huge consequence, nothing so violent as this.

  ‘Where’s my dog? Is my dog OK?’

  ‘Mikey, calm down.’

  ‘Where’s my fucking dog, he promised he wouldn’t hurt him. He promised.’

  ‘Who promised, Mikey, who made you do this?’

  ‘I don’t know who he was.’

  ‘What did he say, Mikey?’

  ‘Where’s my dog, please? I need to know he’s OK.’ Mikey started to cry, his face buried in his hands, and Carlson leant in, rubbed his shoulder. Carlson couldn’t help but feel for Mikey. He wasn’t a violent person, far from it – his small, rat-like stature and painfully thin physique hardly made him a physical threat. Carlson could even recall a few times where Mikey had been assaulted himself. But there was a lot of blood, and Mikey was behind an attack that had left a person seriously injured and on their way to the city hospital.

  ‘Give me a minute, Mikey. I’ll look.’

  Carlson closed the police van’s door; he didn’t want the public hearing Mikey’s sobs from inside. Grabbing the first police officer that passed he asked them to find out if there was a dog nearby that was missing its owner. Confused, the officer nodded and turned to search for the mutt.

  ‘Have they got him?’ Mikey asked between jagged breaths when Carlson opened the van door again.

  ‘An officer is just finding him now. He’ll be here.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without that dog.’ Mikey began to cry once more.

  ‘Mikey! We’ll find your dog; you need to tell me what happened.’

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt him.’

  ‘Then why did you attack him?’

  ‘He said he’d kill my dog if I didn’t.’

  ‘Mikey, I need you to be specific. Who said they would kill your dog?’ Carlson asked, suspecting he knew the answer already.

  ‘I don’t know, someone else.’

  ‘Someone else’ Carlson echoed. ‘Did you get a look at him?’

  ‘No, he was wearing a hood, I didn’t see his face properly. Tell me about the man in the red coat. Is he OK?’

  ‘He’s injured but should make a full recovery. The other man you mentioned wearing a hood, what was his build? Was there anything else you noticed about him?’

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt him, I didn’t, I’m so sorry.’

  Mikey began to cry again. Carlson knew he wasn’t going to get anything useful out of him right now. Not until his dog was found and he had calmed down. He closed the van door as Mikey shouted one last time for him to find his dog. Walking away, Carlson took a moment to think. This was the second incident this week that followed the same pattern, but as yet, he didn’t know why. Taking out his phone, he scrolled through his contacts to find Karen’s number. He wanted nothing more than to ring her, pick her brain, but she was off limits to him due to her suspension.

  As he put his phone away and turned to speak to Sommers – who was taking a statement from a teary-eyed teenager – he didn’t see that in the crowd someone was enjoying the spectacle. Carlson put his hands on his hips, looked up to the sky, as if begging for answers. The only source who could supply them had slipped away. With the success of the fourth and fifth red coat experiments this week, The Host could now proceed to the next stage.

  And the next Game would begin in just four hours’ time.

  Chapter Three

  7.15 p.m.

  After my meltdown in the toilet at the therapist’s office, I couldn’t face getting the train straight away. Instead I walked around Cambridge, along the river, past King’s College in all its glory. The rain started to fall, so I nipped into a Starbucks and had two coffees, and watched the world go by. As it started to get dark, I made my way to the train station and after an uneventful journey rattling along the fens arrived back in Peterborough.

  Despite the miserable weather, I decided to walk home from the station. My house was only three miles and a brisk walk would clear my head. I always found that walking helped, and I needed those miles to process the day, and try and work out how I would tell Sam about what happened. I found it hard to open up about things, even to her. I didn’t know how I would say the day had been a disaster, culminating in a panic attack. My first ever. And hopefully, my last. I couldn’t live through that again.

  Just over an hour after leaving the station, I walked through my front door, thankful the central heating had clicked on. I took off my coat and wet shoes, peeled off my sodden jeans.

  ‘Sam?’ I called out. When she didn’t respond, I nipped upstairs to put on a pair of loose-fitting jogging bottoms, assuming she would be in the bath, or working on the bed as she often did. ‘You here, love?’

  The house was empty. I checked the time, Sam usually went around to her mum’s on a Sunday but was never usually this late back. I knew it was nothing, and yet I could feel myself starting to worry. I went into the kitchen and saw a note on the table:

  Had to pop back to mum’s, forgot some of her shopping. Don’t cook…

  Reading the note, I couldn’t help but laugh at myself for overreacting. Of course, nothing had happened to Sam, why would it? I was becoming more and more like my mother every day. That reminded me, she sent a text earlier, and I still hadn’t replied. I’d get around to it tomorrow when I had worked out what to tell her.

  Grabbing a mug from the draining board I made a coffee and grabbed the tin of food for Bob, our black moor goldfish. I watched him drift around his tank, oblivious to struggle. Perhaps that was why people were calmed by watching fish. They didn’t have a past, or a future, they just had the present, and they moved weightlessly through it. I watched him until my heart that had threatened to hammer through my chest calmed to a pensive tap. There was something to be said about Bob’s life, I supposed.

  Sam and I had won Bob at a fair, on a warm spring night two years ago when Sam proposed. That night we drank and laughed, and as we wobbled home, intoxicated on love and cheap gin, Bob hung in a bag from my hand. Neither of us knew the first thing about keeping a fish, and I expected him to die within a week. Two years on, Bob had grown out of his tank twice and was still going strong. We joked about him continuing to grow, year after year, until we’d need a pond in the garden for him.

  ‘Hey, Bob,’ I said as I sprinkled fish food into the tank. He sprang to life and started to eat in a frenzy.

  Picking up my steaming mug of coffee I turned on the wall-mounted TV to catch the news. I wanted to see if anything was being said about Grayson James. Thankfully, the world had moved on, in the media’s eye anyway.

  ‘What do you think, Bob? Think it will be OK?’ I asked, seeing he had stopped eating and was now idling around the bottom of the glass bowl once more. ‘That’s what I thought. Sit on it. Give it time.’

  The front door opened, and a cold wind swept through. Sam called my name down the corridor.

  ‘Karen, are you home?’

  ‘I’m in the kitchen.’

  Sam walked in, looking like a drowned rat.

  ‘Good look,’ I said, teasing her.

  ‘I know, it’s really coming down now. Roll on, summer.’

  ‘I hear that.’

  Sam was empty-handed, something was missing. She noticed the way I looked at her expectantly, and the penny dropped.

  ‘Oh shit, I totally forgot! I’m sorry, Karen, we’ll order online.’

  ‘Not a problem, I’ll go.’

  ‘No, we’ll get them to deliver, it’s miserable out there.’

  ‘Don’t know about you, babe, but I’m starving. I’ll ring now, it will be ready in fifteen to collect. If we wait for them to d
eliver, we could be sitting here for an hour. And I’m far too hungry for that.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. Of course,’ I said, pleased that I might actually do something productive with the day.

  ‘Shall I pick up a wine too?’

  ‘Yes, great idea. I could do with a glass. I can’t believe the weekend is over and it’s back to work tomorrow.’

  ‘Looking forward to it then?’

  ‘Expecting this to be another tough week… Some of my year tens and elevens are being a pain in the arse at the moment.’

  ‘Aren’t year tens and elevens a pain in the arse all the time?’

  ‘Usually.’ She laughed. ‘But this group are pushing against the system, which is fine – we all do it from time to time, test the boundaries – but they’re getting carried away.’

  ‘Part of growing up.’

  ‘I guess, but I’ll have to come down hard on them. Their parents evening is soon; should make for interesting discussions.’

  ‘Oh God, wouldn’t want to be part of that chat,’ I said, nudging Sam.

  ‘They’ve had their warnings.’ She grimaced. ‘But I’m glad I get to meet their parents. This is an important time with their mocks and prep for final exams. A few in particular are bright and could do well.’

  ‘What exactly are they doing wrong?’

  ‘Nothing too serious. It’s not like they’re fighting or truanting. But they’re being consistently late for lessons, challenging everything a teacher says.’

  ‘I don’t know how you put up with it.’

  ‘Well, we can’t nick them, like you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t anyway, babe, you’re too “glass half full”,’ I said, grabbing my phone to order on the app. ‘Veggie supreme?’

  ‘Of course. And, well, I don’t know…’ Sam continued, ‘recently, I’ve struggled with them. I’ve noticed these last few years, kids just aren’t kids anymore. They’re like mini adults, streetwise and informed, but still without the ability to make proper judgements.’

  ‘That is why I don’t work with children.’

  ‘No, just people who are far, far worse.’ Sam smiled then asked, her tone gentle, ‘How was this morning?’