Life's Lottery

by Kim Newman

  ‘She probably did it herself,’ says Jessup.

  Mary backhands him, slamming him into his seat.

  ‘Fetch the other Marion bastard,’ Hackwill orders Shane. ‘It’s time this was sorted out.’

  Shane goes upstairs, and comes back dragging James, hauled out of sleep and way behind the game.

  ‘Now,’ Hackwill demands, ‘who’s a fucking murderer then?’

  ‘Good question,’ you say. ‘Perhaps you’d like to answer first.’

  Go on to 243

  220

  ‘Ben McKinnell’s dead,’ Mary says. ‘Stabbed in the heart.’

  ‘She probably did it herself,’ says Jessup.

  Mary backhands him, slamming him into his seat.

  ‘Fetch the other Marion bastard,’ Hackwill orders Shane. ‘It’s time this was sorted out.’

  Shane goes upstairs, and comes back dragging James, hauled out of sleep and way behind the game.

  ‘Now,’ Hackwill demands, ‘who’s a fucking murderer then?’

  ‘Good question,’ you say. ‘Perhaps you’d like to answer first.’

  Go on to 244

  220

  ‘Ben McKinnell’s dead,’ Mary says. ‘Stabbed in the heart.’

  ‘She probably did it herself,’ says Jessup.

  Mary backhands him, slamming him into his seat.

  ‘Fetch the other Marion bastard,’ Hackwill orders Shane. ‘It’s time this was sorted out.’

  Shane goes upstairs, and comes back dragging James, hauled out of sleep and way behind the game.

  ‘Now,’ Hackwill demands, ‘who’s a fucking murderer then?’

  ‘Good question,’ you say. ‘Perhaps you’d like to answer first.’

  Go on to 245

  220

  ‘Ben McKinnell’s dead,’ Mary says. ‘Stabbed in the heart.’

  ‘She probably did it herself,’ says Jessup.

  Mary backhands him, slamming him into his seat.

  ‘Fetch the other Marion bastard,’ Hackwill orders Shane. ‘It’s time this was sorted out.’

  Shane goes upstairs, and comes back dragging James, hauled out of sleep and way behind the game.

  ‘Now,’ Hackwill demands, ‘who’s a fucking murderer then?’

  ‘Good question,’ you say. ‘Perhaps you’d like to answer first.’

  Go on to 246

  221

  You dress quickly and take your knife out from under your pillow. You haven’t time to be afraid.

  The cottage has two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, two rooms and a kitchen down. You left Shane, Sean and Jessup in the dining-room, but the talk comes from the other room, which you use as an office.

  On the landing, you pause outside the other bedroom. You don’t hear anything, then catch just the faintest moan. Mary should still be asleep in there. It occurs to you that she may not be alone.

  Warwick and Shearer might have prompted someone else to take a chance on Mary. Scary as the prospect is, it certainly occurs to you. Thinking on, you hope James is with Mary, or else he’s in real trouble.

  You go downstairs quietly. Your office door is slightly open. Two men talk in low, breathy voices. Static crackles. That gives it away. You step into the room and turn on the light. Sean turns, startled. The talking fades, in crackles, into the unmistakable sounds of love-making.

  ‘Keith,’ Sean blurts, ashamed and indignant.

  ‘Very clever,’ you comment.

  Sean has found your surveillance system. He’s listening to Warwick and Shearer.

  One of them gasps and sighs. You’ve heard women sound like that.

  ‘I was playing detective,’ Sean explains.

  One of the lovers is vocal, a ‘fuck me, fuck me harder’ screamer, a ‘deeper, faster, now’ grunter. You think it’s Warwick.

  ‘I thought they might talk about us.’

  ‘Yes, Sean, of course you did.’

  He is embarrassed. ‘I’ll switch it off.’

  He reaches for the intercom board. The loud lover’s cry rises to a peak and chokes off. It doesn’t sound like sex.

  ‘You!’ shouts Warwick or Shearer. Then a scream. Pain, panic.

  You run out of the front door, straight into a wall of horizontal rain that soaks and blinds you. Colditz, thirty feet away, might as well be across an Arctic waste. Your eyes are full of water. You can’t see anything.

  You take a few steps. Someone is moving near the pens. You aim your torch, but the beam lights only driving water.

  You struggle on.

  Something barrels into you from the side, staggering you. Your torch falls nose-first into mud. You see black legs scissoring round your own. You trip and fall, heavily.

  Sean shouts into the rain. Good God, your life depends on Captain Useless!

  The person who has knocked you over stands over you, a sexless shadow. Sean is still shouting. The edge of a long coat trails wetly across your face.

  If you grab the coat, go to 234. If you lie prone, go to 247.

  222

  ‘Councillor Hackwill’s dead,’ you say. ‘I killed him.’

  Sleep enfolds you. You can keep James out of it. You’ll take the consequences.

  For a while, it seems you can pull it off. The trick is not to give details about Jessup, claiming you went into a frenzy after attacking Hackwill.

  The trouble is that James moved the bodies. You claim to have killed Hackwill and Jessup by the shepherd’s hut and left them. James has tossed them off the mountain, to shatter on rocks five hundred feet below.

  You and James are charged. In James’s otherwise accurate statement, he claims to have killed Hackwill without you. The police keep asking about McKinnell. You keep saying it wasn’t you or James.

  ‘It’s a bit thick, isn’t it?’ says the sergeant. ‘A group of ten people, with three murderers?’

  All sorts of questions are never answered.

  You and James get twenty years apiece. In jail, you both get a lot of fan mail. Some is from local people who knew Hackwill for a bastard, but a lot is from young women who think the killer brothers are sexy. Or youths who think you’re well kewl. It’s a sick world, you think.

  You’re with other dangerous prisoners. Not madmen, hard criminals. You have even harder guards. There’s no brutality, just deadening fascist control, a sameness of days that dribbles away into a sameness of years. Legislation passes and you’re dosed on anti-aggression drugs. Your mind dies, wrapped in cotton wool.

  When you get out, you’re fifty. The world you enter is the future, the middle of the twenty-first century. It’s not like Thunderbirds or Blade Runner. It’s like being a child again, not knowing nine out of ten things adults take for granted.

  You see James for the first time since your mother’s funeral in 2005. He seems older than you, having had a harder time inside.

  A surprising number of people you know are dead. It’s not an easy century.

  There is nothing for you in this new world. Nothing.

  And so on.

  Begin again?

  223

  At the evening meal, you drink half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. You’re indefinably out of sorts. You feel betrayed by James and Mary; by your brother because he has formed a liaison with one of the victims, by Mary because you feel you passed up a chance with her. Yes, you admit you can’t have it both ways.

  The losers, exhausted and battered after the assault course, grumble softly. You sense they are bonding together in hatred of you.

  With James and Mary split off, you’re taking the full force of it.

  Outside, it’s storming up a swine.

  You lie there half cut, listening to the sonata of shagging from next door.

  ‘Fuck it,’ you think.

  Kay Shearer lies in the next bed. You only live once. You should at least find out what it’s like. You get out of your bed and go over to the twin.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Shearer says.

  In the dark, his face looks woma
nish. He could almost be Chris.

  ‘Lucky for you,’ you say.

  ‘I’ve come here to patch things up with Tris.’

  ‘Warwick bangs botty for Britain,’ you say. ‘He’s had half the youth-experience lads in Sedgwater.’

  You sit on the bed and touch Shearer’s face. You feel tears.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says.

  ‘Deeper … faster … yes!’ You giggle at the sound effects.

  ‘Fancy a fuck?’ Shearer asks. ‘I can’t take much more of that’ — a nod to the wall — ‘without at least tossing off.’

  You neither, you think.

  You find your hand is in Shearer’s soft hair.

  If you want to go through with this, go to 248. If you back off, go to 261.

  224

  ‘Sean, you cringing bastard,’ you snarl, ‘why did you kill Warwick? Was he digging too deep into your shenanigans at the bank? Dad always said you were a born till-dipper.’

  You lean over Sean, hammering him with questions. ‘Answer me, shitface!’

  You slap him. He starts blubbing like a kid, protesting his innocence.

  Could this weakling kill? Maybe weakness makes murderers, not strength.

  (You used to cry a lot, as a child. Remember? Kids like Shane and Robert would pick on you until you threw a Mental fit. How does it feel, growing up to be like them?)

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ Sean whines.

  ‘Stop it,’ says Mary, softly. ‘He’s broken.’

  ‘I didn’t want Tris dead. I’d have voted with him and Ben. I wanted to get us out of the mess.’

  You dart a look at Hackwill, who is coldly angry.

  ‘Mary,’ you say, ‘fetch McKinnell.’

  Sean is pathetically grateful. ‘That’s a fine idea,’ he says, through snot and tears. ‘Ben will back me up.’

  Mary goes upstairs.

  ‘So you, Warwick and McKinnell wanted out of a deal? A Hackwill deal, perhaps? An interesting Development?’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Hackwill says.

  Mary comes downstairs.

  ‘McKinnell’s dead,’ she says. ‘Stabbed in the heart.’

  Go to 230.

  225

  ‘Let’s get McKinnell down here,’ you say. ‘His trots have been going on too long. I think he’s faking, covering something up.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ blurts Sean. ‘He’s been crapping walrus turds.’

  ‘Get him anyway.’

  You send Mary upstairs. She comes back down alone. She asks you to come upstairs.

  There’s no lock on the bathroom door. McKinnell sits, trousers up, on the shut toilet. He is slumped, a gouge-wound on his chest. He’s dead.

  You look at Mary.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ she says. ‘I’m off the payroll.’

  You look at McKinnell.

  ‘Whoever actually did it,’ Mary says, ‘I guarantee Hackwill paid for it.’

  ‘We’re agreed McKinnell is out of the running for Warwick.’

  ‘It was a real long shot.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Let’s go downstairs and put the screws on.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ you ask.

  ‘I hate not knowing answers,’ she says.

  Go to 230.

  226

  ‘What was Warwick’s mental state?’ you ask, mainly addressing Kay Shearer but including the others. ‘Was he depressed?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have killed himself,’ Shearer says. ‘No matter what.’

  ‘There was a matter?’

  ‘They’ve been quarrelling since we set out,’ Sean says, eager to get someone in trouble, even a dead man. ‘Not outright rows, just nasty looks and bitten-off bits of bitchy dialogue. Typical gays.’

  ‘So all you breeders have perfect relationships,’ Shearer sneers. ‘Rowena — yes, your wife, Sean — said she’d fuck me if I were interested. You’re too wrapped up in this Discount Development scam to notice.’

  ‘Enough,’ says Hackwill, prematurely ending an interesting avenue of argument.

  ‘Why were you arguing?’ you ask Shearer.

  ‘Warwick couldn’t keep it in his trousers,’ Hackwill said. ‘A menace to any boy in the office.’

  ‘It wasn’t that,’ Shearer says. ‘It was the same thing as with Rowena and Sean. Tris was in too deep with the fucking Discount Development. Finally, I thought, he was seeing you, Robert, for the crooked shit you are and was going to pull out entirely. But you had Jessup working on him, mean little blackmail stunts: this boy would go to the police, that polaroid would be sent to me. It was only yesterday he’d decided—’

  ‘You decided for him, more like,’ says Jessup.

  ‘—to get out. He knew McKinnell was pulling out and he was going to back him up. Our argument, such as it was, was over. It was only then that he died. Not, Keith, much of a suicide scenario.’

  ‘Let’s get McKinnell down here to confirm this,’ you say.

  ‘That’s going to be difficult,’ Mary says.

  She has slipped upstairs and come back down.

  ‘Ben McKinnell’s dead. And unless he stabbed himself in the heart and flushed the knife down the toilet, he didn’t commit suicide.

  Go to 230.

  227

  ‘You think one of us is a murderer?’ Sean asks. ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘It’s crazier than that,’ you say.

  ‘The boots,’ Shearer says. ‘My boots.’

  ‘I have no explanation,’ you say. ‘But it can’t be an elaborate hoax. I mean, it would be so hard to stage. My boots — the duplicates, I mean — have a scratch on them I got tripping on the boot-scraper just before getting into the minibus to come here. Even if someone went to the trouble of getting matches for all our footwear, they’d never have got that. I think the boots are what they call an “apport”, objects that appear out of thin air.’

  ‘Supernatural objects?’ Mary asks.

  ‘Yes,’ you say, reluctantly.

  There is a general protest.

  ‘You think Tris was killed by this apport?’ Shearer demands.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ But it’s what you think. A literal act of God. Or of some other extra-human entity or force.

  ‘What’s this nonsense?’ Hackwill asks.

  Jessup explains about the boots.

  ‘And who saw this fabulous apport?’ Hackwill asks.

  Shane timidly puts up his hand.

  ‘You’re telling me my boots have a doppelgänger?’

  ‘Everyone’s have, Councillor,’ you say, ‘except McKinnell’s.’

  ‘And why wasn’t McKinnell included in this cosmic largesse?’

  ‘Maybe the footwear demons couldn’t face duplicating the diarrhoea,’ says Jessup.

  ‘And where is McKinnell?’ Hackwill asks.

  ‘On the bog, Robbo,’ says Jessup. ‘Where else?’

  ‘Fetch him down.’

  Reluctantly, Jessup stirs himself. You all stand and sit in silence while he’s away. You look at faces.

  ‘And where’s your killer brother?’ Hackwill demands.

  Jessup comes down, face pale. ‘McKinnell’s dead,’ he says. ‘Stabbed.’

  Go to 230.

  228

  You aren’t a man of leisure. You don’t just employ advisers to invest for you, you take an interest. You build up your holdings, then diversify from stocks and bonds — merely shifting numbers around on a screen — into actual business, into making things, providing services.

  You can afford to lose money for a while. You pump cash into the town. You take up the skeleton of Sedgwater’s Discount Development, a wasteland ruin since its collapse, and refashion it as an enterprise zone, backing an array of small businesses.

  Part of the money is set aside for Jason’s computer business and Jesse’s fashion-design consultancy. They are only seventeen and fifteen, but they will grow into the businesses waiting for them.

  You use your money t
o make more.

  You can’t just sit idle.

  It’s harder work than you’ve ever had to do. Money doesn’t buy you everything. It can make almost everything easier but it’s no substitute for work.

  You get over your minor celeb status. You want to be the first Lottery millionaire to be taken seriously.

  Your marriage is better than it’s ever been. When you apply yourself, Vanda wakes up. She sticks with you.

  You have come a long way. But there’s still a long way to go.

  And so on.

  Begin again?

  229

  ‘No,’ you say. ‘We were friends at school.’

  The word ‘friends’ is like a pebble in your mouth. You are so shattered that one more verbal stumble won’t stand out in a statement full of them.

  ‘Um,’ the sergeant says. ‘I think that’ll be all for today. The doctor wants to take a look at you.’

  You wonder if you’ve passed.

  Read 250, go to 255.

  230

  A week later, you are interrogated in Llandudno. This has proved too much for the village police. The survivors have been brought to town and are giving their stories.

  It’s not been easy for you. You’ve been taken through everything several times. Your first account is so full of lacunae — from your reasons for offering Councillor Hackwill such a substantial discount and operating the course well after the season has ended to who you spend your nights with and Mary’s admission to you that she had been hired by Hackwill to kill McKinnell — that the inspector taking your statement won’t let you sign it.

  Frustratingly, you’re kept apart from the others. You especially need to square stories with James and Mary. It must be this bad for them all.

  Hackwill can’t talk about hiring Mary as a hit woman. And whoever killed McKinnell and/or Warwick will have to adjust their own statement to cover. Unless someone’s cracked and told everything.