However, when I opened to the first page, it wasn’t the file that exploded.
It was me.
Day 8
12:17
Nessa
I hadn’t seen the file for nearly four years, but I had never forgotten the contents of it. It had been the hypothetical bullet that had shot through my heart and massacred a piece of me that I would never get back. I had hunted for it everywhere after Noah, scoured the ends of the earth for it, and I was puzzled as to how the hell the GM had obtained access to it or how he even knew of its whereabouts.
Noah had known he was going to die, and instead of handing the file to his superiors, he had instead locked it away, fundamentally burying it. Why? My soul told me the answer to my question, but I refused to listen to it.
My heart hurt, and I could do nothing to stop the vomit that heaved from me. People stared at me as I bent over and puked endlessly into a recycling bin beside the row of lockers.
A squeal tore from me when a hand snatched my short hair. My head was ripped backwards, and my spine slammed against the metal doors. The revulsion on Caelan’s face when he stared at me with tears in his eyes only broke me more. His hold on my throat was harsh, his fingers digging into where my pulse throbbed crazily under his thumb. “You lied to me!”
I couldn’t allow myself to break completely. Not yet. “Your brother lied to me!”
The hatred in his eyes hurt me more than I thought it would have when he found out. I had been under no illusions that the GM would tell Caelan eventually, and his last game had indeed been my swan song.
“Jesus,” he spat out. “It wasn’t because Noah was undercover, was it? Your husband killed him because he found out about the two of you?”
Memories flooded back, and I choked on the sob that was clogging my throat. “No. Denny didn’t kill him.” I wouldn’t lie to him, not now. “I did.”
Blood drained from his face, and he reared back. His mouth fell open, and his head shook wildly. “No! No!”
I could barely speak, but I forced the words from my mouth. “Noah made me fall in love with him. But it was all a ploy to get information on my husband’s business. Denny didn’t have a clue about us or Noah’s reason for making his way into the family.”
He stumbled back, my words jabbing at him. “Why weren’t you there?”
I didn’t understand his question, and I shook my head. “Where?”
A bitter laugh fell from him, confusing me further. I couldn’t fathom his reaction or his questioning.
“Caelan? Why wasn’t I where?”
“On all the intel concerning Denny Barnes and Frank Johns. How the hell did you stay under the radar?”
Now it made sense, and I pulled my shoulders back defiantly. “Because Denny made sure to keep me away from it all. But Noah found out about me and made it his mission to slither under my skin. I fell in love with him, Caelan. I fucking loved him! And it was all just a cruel game to him.” Unable to control the grief that was overwhelming me, I screamed at him. “He was going to ruin my husband, my family, everything we had worked for. He was going to send them all to hell. I couldn’t allow that. I loved Denny too, and I couldn’t allow that, Caelan. Noah was a fucking undercover cop, and it was too late for us all when I found out.”
Dropping his shocked eyes to the floor, he shook his head as if bewildered before another laugh burst from him. He wouldn’t stop laughing, tears streaming down his face as he ran his hands through his hair and spun around in slow circles.
Why was he laughing? It didn’t make sense.
However, when he finally looked at me with eyes made of pure rage, my body froze in preparation. Leaning into me, a cruel smirk tilting the corner of his mouth as he pressed his lips to my ear, his response made perfect sense.
“Then I killed the wrong person.”
His words slowly sunk in and I fell backwards, my shoulder hitting one of the locker handles and shooting pain down my arm.
“No.” My voice was quiet, pure horror and grief seizing every one of my motor skills and disabling me. “No, Caelan.”
He scoffed, sneering at me. “Yes. I killed your beloved husband, Dr Griffiths. As they say, revenge is sweet. And while I watched his life seep from him, vengeance was as sweet as fucking honey. Now even more so.”
I dropped to my knees and screamed when Caelan turned and walked away.
Day 12
19:38
Nessa
729
11520
0124349
143
‘Blood.’
7248
‘A negative mind will never allow you to be positive.’
16593
I stared at the list for the hundredth time. Why the hell didn’t any of it make sense? I’d tried a cryptographer of my own, and even the guy Papa had hired had failed to come up with anything so far.
Looking over the list of games, I tried to find the connection between them and me.
1. Kidney transplant. Link: ?? No idea!
2. Water in the storeroom. ?? No idea!
3. Exhuming the body. Link: Denny and Noah buried there.
4. Walk down Connaughton Street. Link: To reveal my association with the London mafia.
5. Trinity maze. Where Denny proposed.
6. Shooting the rope in Brackley Wood to save Jenny… Link: Expose my skill with a firearm, maybe. But unsure of why there.
7. Popping Candy. Flesh, by Simon Curtis. Mine and Denny’s song. To prove the GM knows more about me that I thought, maybe? And reveal my association with the Bratva.
8. Lost property: Link: The file, maybe.
Lawrence’s Bar
Trinity House
Yew Tree Cemetery
The Royal Hospital
Warwick Avenue
Brackley Wood
The first three were all significant to me, but the hospital, Brackley Wood, and Warwick Avenue were a bit of a puzzle. Although, yes, I was a doctor, The Royal had closed around thirty years ago, and I’d never stepped foot inside. Maybe the tube station was a connection because it was where Noah had hidden the file?
“Case numbers, maybe?” Papa asked from where he sat facing me across my kitchen table.
“Well, it’s not like I can ask Caelan, now, is it.”
Narrowing his eyes at me, he leaned his elbows on the table and regarded me carefully. “Are you ever going to tell me what happened between the two of you?”
I hadn’t seen Caelan in four days. Every time there was a knock at the door I panicked, thinking it was finally time to serve time for what I had done to Noah. Yet, so far, nothing.
Sam and Carolyn had, miraculously, turned up on my front doorstep the morning of Day Nine, and although they were both traumatised and exhausted, physical wounds were practically non-existent. They had been fed and given necessary bathroom provisions, yet, neither of them had seen the face of the man in black. He had also refrained from speaking, so any detail they could give about him was minimal.
The relationship between my father and me had become a little more comfortable day by day. He had barely left my side, or Sam and Carolyn’s, since he had arrived in England from Russia, and if he had business to attend to, a couple of heavies were on constant guard around us. He was as devastated as I was over the death of my mother, and it was glaringly obvious that he had continued to love her, even after her affair with Justin.
Sighing, I poured myself a whisky and my father a vodka and settled back. Nodding my head towards his drink, I gave him a sad smile. “You’ll need it.”
He looked worried for a moment but realising I was about to tell him something serious, he took a large mouthful and made himself comfortable, giving me his full attention.
“Five years ago, Denny started talking about a new man that had joined the firm, he couldn’t praise this guy enough, and over time he started to trust Noah more and more. It was rare that I was ever included in any business dealings, so it was a while before I met Noah.�
� Visions of the second man I had fallen in love with filled my thoughts, and my heart clenched painfully. “One day Denny came to me and said he needed my help. He suspected the wife of one of his men, Wendy, was squealing to someone. He’d had a shipment of firearms and another containing drugs from Columbia seized by some rogue company as soon as the ships docked in England.”
Lighting a cigarette, I slid the packet across the table, offering one to my father. He joined me, lighting one up as he refilled our glasses.
“Anyway, because I wasn’t recognised by anyone in Denny’s business, as he kept me totally isolated, apart from a select few whom he trusted with his life, he asked if I could stake Wendy out. However, concerned for my safety, even though I could take care of myself, he said that Noah was to shadow me. Protection as such.”
“He was right to do that, matryoshka.”
I nodded, giving him a smile. “That’s how Denny was, he would lay his life on the line for me.” I missed Denny every day, and after Caelan’s admission four days ago, I had found him in my thoughts even more often. “So, anyway, over the next couple of months, Noah barely left my side. He was beside me whenever we followed Wendy, but I found that I enjoyed his company, and he was making more and more excuses to visit me, even when we weren’t tailing Wendy.”
“You fell in love,” Papa said, finishing my story for me.
I nodded and wiped at the forbidden tear that rolled down my face. “I fell in love. Head over heels.”
“What happened?”
Pain seared my chest, and I winced. “I was on a break at work one day. The park opposite the hospital had a hotdog stand that served this amazing sauce and three times out of five I would buy my lunch there.”
I took the glass from my father when he refilled it yet again. I was becoming more addicted to whisky than nicotine, and I made a mental note to back off a little. However, tonight, well tonight I needed the oblivion only bourbon offered.
“I noticed this guy sitting on a bench nearby. He was reading a newspaper, and it humoured me how it looked like a scene out of a movie. You know the type, where a bench would be a meeting point, and I felt myself staring at him.”
“Let me guess,” he cut in with a heavy sigh. “It turned out to be exactly that.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And it was Noah who turned up to meet him.”
I nodded. “It was just how I had envisaged. The man folded the newspaper and placed it on the bench beside him. Noah strolled in casually and sat down next to him. They didn’t speak, and Noah got up and left. Then the other man stood up and walked away, but I noticed he’d picked up a brown envelope with his newspaper.”
Papa looked at me with so much sadness in his eyes it was painful to look at him.
“Don’t give me your pity, Papa. I was a fool.”
“What did he say when you confronted him?”
I scoffed, downing more alcohol. “I didn’t. One night I called him and arranged to meet him at the usual place. I watched him leave, and then I broke into his place.”
He lit a cigarette and passed it to me, even though I had only just finished my previous one. I took it between my thumb and forefinger and rolled it back and forth.
“Fuck it,” I exclaimed, stubbing it out in the ashtray.
“Jesus, Vanessa!” my father mumbled when I took a joint from the tin on top of the cupboard and lit that instead. Fuck nicotine. I needed an industrial strength smoke.
Ignoring him, I carried on with my story. “I found it.”
“What did you find?”
“The file. It had every detail I had ever told Noah about Denny’s business. But, it didn’t just contain information on the family, it was full of images of me.”
“With Denny?” he asked. “Was he planning on taking you down with him?”
A bitter laugh fell from me, and I shook my head. “Oh no. That wasn’t enough for Noah. I found photos of me and him having sex, even a video. It was obvious Noah didn’t just want to take me down.”
Papa looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Disgust rolled over me, and I baulked. “The video was on a USB stick. In an envelope.”
He shrugged and nodded, willing me to go on.
“Which was addressed to my husband.”
He blanched, grasping the enormity of what I had just revealed. “He was planning on exposing your affair to Denny?”
“Yeah. The result of that would be…”
“Your death,” he finished for me.
“And a pretty gruesome one at that.”
The memories were becoming suffocating, and I poured another drink. I was well on my way to oblivion now, and with a knowing look, my father took the bottle away from me.
“So,” I carried on, “I made sure that myself, Denny, and all his men had a steadfast alibi. On the night of 25th May, I threw a birthday party for Denny, and invited all the bent coppers from the MET that he had in his pocket, plus a few politicians.”
Papa smiled. “Clever girl, he taught you well.”
“That he did, and I betrayed him. I’m not proud of that, and I have lived with the guilt for the rest of my life.”
Reaching across, he placed his hand on mine and patted it gently. “We all make mistakes, matryoshka. It’s the lessons we learn from them that is important.”
“Oh, I learned a huge lesson that day. That, at the end of the day, you can only trust the truth with yourself.”
“Life’s been hard for you, Vanessa. But I promise…”
“Don’t promise me anything, Papa,” I told him firmly, shaking my head and making him see the conviction in my eyes. “I have learned not to trust promises, you only set yourself up for more heartache that way. Anyway,” I continued, “I had arranged, by mouth, to meet Noah at a new hotel. I paid a random guy I found in a backstreet pub to pose as room service, and at exactly eleven pm he was to deliver a burger and some beers to Noah, with a message that I was running late.”
Relighting the joint, I drew a long inhalation and slowly let it out. I didn’t want to relive the night, but I knew I had to tell someone. I had kept it buried for so long that the enormity of it had become a festering cesspit in my soul, dirtying me more and more every day.
“I had laced the burger with a paralysing agent.”
Papa’s eyes widened on me, but he remained silent, listening intently to my horror story.
“At precisely 11:34, I slipped from the party. Grabbing a bag that I had previously stashed in an industrial bin in the alleyway that ran between the club and the hotel, I slipped on a long coat and wig and entered the hotel. Noah was unconscious, as I knew he would be.”
“What did you do?”
“I had very little time before I knew someone would miss me at the party. So, I’d had to think and plan ahead. It took me a mere five minutes to strip Noah and drag him to the bathtub.”
Papa regarded me closer, leaning on the table. “You drown him.”
Nodding, I winced at the sting in my chest. “I drown him.”
I drown him.
I drown him.
“Fuck!” I exclaimed, making my father jump when I shot upright.
Grabbing my notebook, I stared at the second game listed.
And I finally had my connection to Game Two!
Day 13
9:43
Caelan
I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the photos and contents of Noah’s file. I hadn’t left the house for three days. I stank, and I couldn’t remember the last thing I had eaten. Whisky and pot had been the only things keeping me sustained. The more I tried to numb my mind to the image of Nessa’s grief-stricken face the moment I had told her it was me who had killed her husband, the more it haunted me.
It was plain to see how much she had fallen in love with Noah from the images he had captured. There had also been a USB containing a recording of Noah and Nessa having sex, and her declaration of love to him. The fact that it had been inside an envelope
addressed to Denny didn’t sit well with me. Noah had been a ruthless bastard when it came to his job with the bureau, but I hadn’t thought he would be capable of sleaze and bribery. Yet, the contents of the file revealed his intent to either blackmail Nessa or expose their affair to Denny for some reason I hadn’t figured out yet.
It was hard to admit to myself that I could understand why Nessa had murdered my brother. However, understanding wasn’t justification. There was always a motive for murder, and Nessa’s had been a classic case of a scorned woman and her crime of passion.
It must have been hard for her to read all the details of Noah’s findings. The fact that he was about to tell her husband confused me as much as the fact that Noah had refrained from reporting Nessa’s existence to his superior.
When I had illicitly obtained Noah’s confidential records after his death and found out he had been undercover, planted deep inside within the underbelly of Denny Barnes ‘family’ and the London mafia, it hadn’t been hard to realise who had killed him – or so I had thought.
I’d also obtained the records for the investigation into Noah’s murder. The London mafia had all been at a party that night, all vouched for by none other than the police commissioner himself, therefore entirely omitted from the investigation. I had put two and two together and come up with five. My gut had told me that Denny had found out Noah had been undercover and killed him. Never in my wildest imagination would I have considered there was another explanation for his death.
I remembered back to the day I had shot Denny Barnes. Like Nessa, I had managed to keep a murder under wraps. Yeah, I was a copper, but that wasn’t a reason to kill in cold blood, and I wasn’t prepared to do fucking time for that cunt. The many times Denny’s crimes had sailed through the net at the MET was galling. Because he had so many bent policemen and women in his pocket I had to sit back and watch him get off time and time again.
Game Master Page 12
