The Games People Play Box Set

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  He had not meant to kill her so quickly. He had wanted to play a little longer, perhaps for another day. The pleasures were diverse. The living body was soft and warm and the face responded, pleading and acknowledging his power and her weakness. Whereas the dead body offered more constant repeated opportunities, but never responded, and became cold, stiff, unyielding, and finally utterly broken.

  Both were delightful. Ideally he’d have wanted the girl alive for three days, and then keep her dead for up to a week. But she had fainted when he inserted the hot poker for the third time, and by the time he had finished, she was gone. Shame. But she was a drunken bitch anyway, and he’d had a day and a half of delightful excitement. Then the dead days – quite a few of them – no wriggling and no sobbing – but the freedom to do exactly as he wished. He sat naked on the rug in front of the fire, the girl naked on the floor beside him.

  His own predilections interested him. After all, he decided, he was a highly intelligent man with an intelligent job. Well, alright, sometimes that was boring too. That, perhaps, was the problem. Boredom. Too long alive and the girls became boring, begging for food and snivelling and doing whatever he told them in the hope of escape. But then, they could also be boring when dead. No song, no movement. The flesh lost its pretty colour and the agonised eyes went blank. Both had their beauty too, of course, and he could wallow in both before deciding that it was time to part company and ditch the bones.

  It was almost Christmas, but he couldn’t actually remember the date. The clock had stopped ages ago since it needed a new battery and he didn’t have one, and there was no TV here. In fact, there was only a tiny amount of electricity from the old clunking generator. He’d put in the sewerage tank himself underground, but when it overflowed he couldn’t be bothered emptying it and certainly couldn’t employ anyone else to do it. He was used to the stink by now, and the girls all pissed and shat themselves during his games, so no matter. He liked a lot of those smells. They meant excitement, with power to himself and utter humiliation to them. Usually he made them eat it.

  After finding she was dead, he went home for a day. He bought chocolates and left them for the wife. The most boring gift and entirely lacking imagination or interest, but it would suffice. The old cow was useful and it was best to keep her alive. He was almost always away anyway. He told the old bag he’d be away for Christmas. She’d lowered her head, saying, “This is for Christmas, my dearest. You won’t open it before the day, will you? And do you expect to be back before New Year?”

  He counted the days. “Yes,” he had nodded. “Round about then.”

  Back at the shed he’d chucked her present on the threadbare chair and forgotten about it. There was a far more precious gift to play with. Dead, but still delectable. And Christmas dinner might be something rather special too.

  The little old heater was on but spluttering. His inner spasms kept him warm, but it was getting sodding freezing outside, and that could do bad things to an erection. The generator ran on diesel and he could steal that without a blink or a sneeze, but it was old and spluttering too. The last thing he needed was to lose his shed now. It was his greatest pride and it had created a paradise. There was no longer the need to kill quickly after a simple rape or two, and then have less than an hour’s playtime, with even that full of risk, constantly looking over his shoulder. Now time was his friend. He could play for a week. In theory, he could play for a month. But he didn’t think he’d ever do that. For a start, he got bored with the dead bits and pieces long before that, and for another thing, he needed to keep his job and stop anyone searching for him.

  Rosemary. He liked the name. He wasn’t sure what colour pin she’d end up becoming, but there was still time for that. She’d died too quickly to earn the gold headed pin, but she promised great games while dead, so an ordinary pin was also out of the question. But it wasn’t time for pins yet. It was time for the screwdrivers, the carving knife and the small saw.

  Having played late into the night, he woke the next day with a slight headache. But being used to pain, and accepting constant aches in his hands, feet and stomach, he took no notice, but rolled over and looked down to the floor. There she was, on the splattered boards, staring up at him although her eyes were glazed. He hadn’t taken them out yet. He liked to think she was watching him. She still had her head too, which was unusual. The others had died when he slit their throats, almost decapitating them, so that during the following hours the spine crumbled and the neck broke. But this one, dying on her own account, was not headless. He decided he liked that too and might alter his killing methods in future. A simple strangulation might be pleasant. There would be less blood of course, but that didn’t really matter as he could get plenty before and after death from other parts of her.

  Looking out of the little plastic sealed window, he suddenly realised it had been snowing in the night. He clapped his hands, delighted, and informed the girl at his feet that it was surely a white Christmas. He therefore sat on the old armchair and shuffled around for the gift his wife had given him. He found it under the bed, pulled it out, sniggered at the awful wrapping paper the stupid cow had used, and unwrapped the gift. He was rather surprised to find a small bottle of dark red wine and two little tubs of jam. All made from plums according to the hand scribbles labels. So she had made it all herself. It was therefore more than likely they’d be useless. He shoved them all on a shelf with a vague idea of eating and drinking sometime in the future if he couldn’t be bothered buying anything more attractive. No rush.

  It might or might not be Christmas Day, but he was charmed by the weather and the floating cascade of white flakes, so he counted himself doubly happy.

  “Happy Christmas, bitch,” he told the girl at his feet. “But you’ll not get a Happy New Year I’m afraid. You’ll be drowning in some ditch before then.”

  “It’s snowing,” called Harry from the bathroom.

  Sylvia rushed to the window. The trees across the Rochester parklands were a shimmer of white gossamer, and the sky was waking, opening those rose-petal eyes over the hilltops to the crusted silver ground. “So it’s actually a white Christmas.”

  “Well, it was already starting yesterday when we left Melton. But there wasn’t a crumb when we got back here.” Harry, now wearing a Father Christmas white beard of shaving soap, poked his head around the door. “So it caught up with us overnight.”

  “Magical.” Sylvia now felt the long overdue tingle of Christmas excitement which she hadn’t felt since she was twelve.

  “I fancy a snowy walk on the hills. Will you come?” Harry yelled over the running water as he washed off the shaving soap.

  “Breakfast first,” Sylvia called back. “Then a trudge in the snow to see fox paw prints.”

  “Not foxes, deer. There’s a teenage stag and three young does out in your gardens. Look.” He now stood by the window and had pulled open the curtains. “They’re browsing the lawn, nuzzling under the snow cover.”

  Dashing to the window to join him, Sylvia pulled on her dressing gown, threadbare in places. Harry smiled at her. A new sumptuous affair was what he’d bought her as a Christmas present.

  After scrambled eggs, toast, orange juice and tea, and after the cheers, the endless cries of happy Christmas, the fluttering of cards and good wishes and the galloping of feet to the dining room window, Sylvia and Harry pulled their coats from the huge hat stand in the corridor and tugged them on before opening the front door to the beauty of the snow crystals. Sylvia’s coat was a huge trench style coat lined in cashmere, but Harry’s was a stained and well-worn jacket of padded polyester and Sylvia smiled, since a new snug winter jacket was exactly what she had bought him.

  It was a trudge up the hills, but they avoided the highest and craggiest, and enjoyed the gentle slopes and valleys, the copses and streams, the whistling winds and the paw prints of badger, rabbit, fox and deer. In winter most of the sheep were penned or stabled in greater warmth with assurance of food, but the oth
er animals either risked a scrummage at dawn, or remained in hibernation.

  Harry’s scarf was up around his chin and his voice crawled through the wool with a blurred intensity. “Freezing. Beautiful. But too cold. Let’s go back for lunch. Nearly midday already.”

  Climbing down and avoiding loose stone hidden beneath the crust was less strenuous but more difficult. Missing her step, Sylvia fell into Harry’s arms. They stood there a moment, looking down at the thickly forested valley below. Sylvia said, “Look, there’s some poor soul out in this weather, trying to collect firewood.”

  Barely discernible, the man had an armful of damp twigs, but then disappeared between the firs. Harry shook his head. “Should have stocked up days ago before it snowed. Now his fire will smoke. Come on, my love,” and he kissed her, “let’s get back.”

  More greetings, more blowing of paper whistles, throwing confetti which fell in the tea cups, cheering and calling names. Quavering voices called out the dreadful cracker jokes they’d found and crammed on their paper hats over their receding or balding hair.

  Everyone resident or employed at Rochester Manor sat cheerfully and ate their Christmas dinner. The chef Francesco proudly ate his own creations and accepted the thanks and congratulations of the crowd. Ruby sat with Harry and Sylvia and ate sparingly so she would have space and appetite for a helping of every kind of pudding, especially trifle, and pulled her cracker with David, sitting at the next table. Arthur and David behaved with sedate happiness, and Arthur cut up David’s roast pork for him, with a huge slab of crackling on top which the boy adored crunching loudly. Lavender sat between Ruby and Sylvia, and never stopped talking.

  “My late husband,” sighed Ruby, “the famous racing driver, you know, would have loved living here if only he had survived. The atmosphere is so charming.”

  “Electric,” said Harry.

  “And I’m so absolutely thrilled you’re getting really married,” said Lavender. “A proper wedding. Oh yes, I know you said you didn’t want a fuss, but I expect the police will come and naturally everyone already here, and maybe some of the others. There’s Tony back home, isn’t there – and your step-father Walter.”

  Sylvia stared. “What makes you think that? How do you know his name’s Walter?”

  “The phone message.” Lavender hiccupped and blushed, gazing down fixedly into her roast turkey and potatoes. The sprigs of rosemary and the faint aroma of garlic smothered her guilt. “Didn’t I tell you? Oh dear, I’m so sorry, but I’ve been so busy what with Christmas and murders and your wedding all together. Mr. Rankling phoned some days past, saying he was coming to see you on Christmas evening, to thank you and bring you something, and then see the police after Boxing Day.”

  “I hope he brings me his son’s head on a platter.”

  “He’ll arrive late and book into a hotel for the night. His son’s home now of course, but evidently his father needs to sort things out.”

  Everyone helped clear up and bung dishes into the dishwasher, throw the scraps of left-overs out for the birds, wipe the tables, fold up the table cloths and shovel the napkins into the laundry basket. Then they all sat around for present giving, squeaked with pleasure at everything, and ended up by singing carols before putting the television on for the queen’s speech, and a showing of the film White Christmas, which seemed obligatory.

  Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, hugging each other, settled down to phone their children in Canada, and several other people’s adult children arrived in a flurry with their husbands, wives and babies, bringing gifts and wanting to kiss their elderly parents fond Christmas goodnights. A wind-swept flurry of snow clad coats and the stamping of snow from shoes filled the hallway. “Where’s Dad?” “Where’s Mum?” Where’s the present I got for Granas?” “What happened to the champagne?”

  Norman Syrett was asleep with his new bicycle pump still clutched in his hand, and Sheila O’Brien was sitting outside on the doorstep, mouth open in wonder as she watched the snow bank up. Ralph Tammy was packing up to leave, but he delayed his departure in order to spend Christmas Day evening with his new friends.

  The large living room, apart from its roaring, spitting and raucously gorgeous fire, was festooned with holly, paper chains made by everyone’s grandkids, coloured balls painted with fake mistletoe, and real mistletoe hanging from the main chandelier. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed and everyone lifted their glasses and drank their various favourite binges, and mumbled a few words of Old Lang Syne, having forgotten the significance of the occasion.

  The tree, a giant spruce, stood in the far corner, shimmering with light even more vividly than the fire. At the top, dripping false diamonds, a dancing hippopotamus in a frilly skirt, twirled on tiptoes while smiling at the crowd. The rest of the decorations were somewhat more traditional, but there was a preponderance of snow flakes and glass cherubs, Ivy twined up the staircase and lamps ignoring the electricity bill to come, were all full on.

  Sylvia put on her new dressing gown and Harry hung up his new jacket, and Ruby and Lavender wrapped the new silken scarves around their necks, thanking Sylvia and giving back boxes of chocolates. Dutifully opening one of these boxes, Sylvia offered it to David and told him to take two. He did, with a huge grin, and said, “Can I give one to me Dad? Look. He’s sitting right proper here. He’s a proper good dad too.”

  “Take two chocolates for your dad as well,” said Sylvia.

  “He don’t never smack me,” added David, with the same smile.

  Sylvia hoped he wasn’t hypnotised.

  Tony had spent Christmas Day with friends at the pub, but came afterwards to visit Harry, bringing beer and half a bottle of Scotch, and claimed to be feeling fine. “I miss her,” he added. “Of course I do. And the way it happened makes me feel sick. But then there was the nightmare of the prison and the accusation and expecting a trial and life in gaol. When all that fell through and I was free again, it was such a bloody wonderful relief, I feel more relieved than sad. Maybe that’s wrong. But we weren’t a great pair, Isabel and I. There’s some guilt. Another nightmare. But I didn’t mean it. I’m not wicked, just stupid.”

  “Have another beer,” said Harry.

  By the time Walter Rankling turned up, Sylvia was ready for bed. But she took him into the smaller salon and left Harry stuck with Tony in the two big armchairs by the fire. The fires were raging throughout the manor, flames leaping and shadows dancing. Outside the snow continued to float like tiny white fairies in the darkening night. The fire reflected over Walter’s face, bringing life back into frozen muscles.

  He said, “It’s about Fletcher.”

  “Yes. I thought it was. Have some Burgundy.” She handed him a fairly full glass,

  “Of course, this is to wish you all the good things you deserve too. And to thank you. Two cheques in two months, well, that’s amazingly generous. It helps so much.”

  “Never mind all that,” sighed Sylvia, nose in her own glass. “Tell me what that wretched boy has been up to this time.”

  So he did.

  The man tipped his armful of wood onto the floor. The hearth was full of old ashes and general rubbish and he reckoned it was years since the chimney had been cleaned. But the little electric fire had spat out smoke, given a small explosion, and stopped working entirely. It was too cold to stay without heating of any kind and he was damned if he was going to give up days and days of pleasure by having to leave and go back home too soon.

  He built the fire with some care. The shed was his golden secret life of joy and thrills and he certainly didn’t want it burning down. He kept it small, and put up with the smoky haze from the damp wood. Coughing a bit wasn’t going to bother him, as long as the bloody thing kept burning. He had not lit it before. He hadn’t wanted smoke rising from the chimney to advertise that after years and years of empty abandonment, now someone was living there. But what he had to do now was trust that being Christmas and freezing weather, no one would peer up at his little chimney, and he
could enjoy his games in peace. Then when he had to leave, he could use the fire to dispose of some parts of the girl which remained, dump the rest, put out the fire entirely, and leave the place empty for a few weeks or more After all, the snow would cover his footprints and the tyre marks.

  Then while back at home and work, he could buy a small gas fire, sneak some cans of diesel, and prepare for the next adventure. He might have to wait a bit for that. No matter. Patience was one thing he’d practised over the years.

  He sat cross legged on the rug peering at the small dirty hearth, willing the fire to keep burning. He was now bare foot, for the serious medical problem with his feet meant no socks fitted, he had to get his shoes personally made and the friend who used to do that was now dead, and his feet were in constant pain.. Keeping them free helped. One day he’d have to get new shoes. Various places did this kind of thing, and he had plenty of money saved. But he didn’t like doing anything unusual which might make him memorable.

  Skidding around, he turned from the fire to the spread eagled girl. Clearly Rosemary was eager for him to get started, and anticipated a great day of fun and in-depth investigation. The man grinned to himself.

  It was on Christmas Day and quite alone, that the old man John the cobbler died in his hospital bed. At ninety eight years old, nobody felt that his death was unexpected, and he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for more than ten of those years. Having spent some of those years of forgetful drifting in the ‘Old Folk’s Home’, he had been upset when removed to hospital. But he soon forgot where he had been previously, and no one was left who remembered his proud life making special shoes, gloves, and leather aprons for the rich, the famous, and the peculiar.

  John died peacefully. The memories of the strange gentleman he had served several times with enormous shoes and gloves to fit his out-size extremities, had long faded. Even had the police discovered him, John would not have been able to remember a thing about it, and especially not the customer’s name. Acromegaly was rare enough, but hands and feet so huge were extraordinary.