The Games People Play Box Set

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Once again it was raining. “I’ve spoken to the police ten times or more.” Niles Daish was not large, did not seem aggressive, and appeared flattened by his sister’s disappearance. “But I was at home that night. I told her ‘bye and have fun.’ God, I wish I’d said something different. Have fun, for goodness sake. But I couldn’t have stopped her going, she’d never have listened to me. Besides, who would have thought to stop her. She deserved some fun.”

  “Do you have a car?” It sounded, hopefully, like a casual question.

  But Niles shook his head. “I used to fix windscreens, so I had a works car – a nice little truck actually. But I left the job when I discovered they were fiddling me. I wish I hadn’t left now since I’ve not found a job elsewhere. Been looking since Christmas. And of course, I lost the works van. So there’s no car in this family. Otherwise I would have given Eve a lift there and back. And the rain just kept on and on.”

  “To escape the rain, would she have visited a friend?” Sylvia asked. “Does she know anybody who lives nearby?”

  Both Harry and Sylvia had refused Mrs Daish’s offer of tea, but now Sylvia was wishing she’d said yes. Nothing was working out, and there were no clues coming out. Evidently Eve’s friends lived nowhere near the club and walking home would have been quicker than walking to any of her three best friends, all of whom would have been out anyway. Two of them were at the club with her.

  Mrs Daish sat in the corner, knees tight together, hands tightly clasped in her lap. Niles Daish paced the floor. Both looked virtually suicidal. “First off,” Niles said, gulping, “they thought I dun it. I know they did. You know – if the wife goes off, they reckon must be the husband wot killed her. And tis right. So when they thought t’was me wot dun Evie, I weren’t angry. But honest to God, I love me little sister. She’s brighter than me. She’s me little pet. I’d do anything to find her.”

  “He’s a good boy,” Belinda whispered. “And we all love Evie so much. I’ll never give up. I sit by the phone, just in case. But Niles – he goes searching over the hills.”

  The taste of misery invaded the house like the cold wind outside. “We’re not letting this drop,” Harry assured his hosts. “We think this is incredibly important. We won’t stop. But we’d better go now, I think, and start again tomorrow. And if you get any idea at all, please phone. You’ve got our mobile numbers, and the manor phone too.”

  “Oh, I will,” Mrs Daish whispered, closing the door behind them.

  They climbed in the car and kept talking as Harry drove. He drove slowly since the weather was, as usual, foul.

  It was on the way home that they saw Lionel Sullivan.

  40

  “Stop, stop! Drive back!” yelled Sylvia.

  “I’m not making an illegal U-turn in this weather,” Harry mumbled, and then he did exactly that. The wheels skidded on the road and the tyres screeched.

  “They’ve had every copper in Gloucester after this creature. Stopping every car, tracking back through the forests, checking every boarding house. Helicopters and hospitals. Undercover and uniformed. And who finds him? Us? That’s no coincidence.”

  Harry saw the tall figure in the distance. “So he was following us?”

  “Harry, my love, how could I know? But I bet he was.”

  “Impossible. He could never have known.”

  “And we’re sure it’s him?” Harry stopped the car, pulling in to the side of the road. There seemed nowhere for the man to disappear, but the scurrying figure was now unseen. Through the darkness and rain the world was murky and blurred, but Lionel Sullivan was exceedingly tall, wide shouldered and his middle bulged. His arms were long, his feet unusually large, and his hands exceptional. But now there was no one at all in the wet street. “So he’s ducked into one of these houses.”

  “He lives here. Somewhere near here. Or he has a friend who does.”

  “That man doesn’t have friends.”

  “We can’t go knocking on doors now. We’ll have the police out after us instead.”

  Harry pulled out his mobile and phoned the hotline. It seemed unfair to contact Morrison directly now he would surely be asleep in bed. So the desk sergeant took the message.

  “We’ll be right on to it, Mr Joyce.”

  Too late now for themselves, Harry and Sylvia agreed to return in the morning, hoping the rain would have stopped.

  Eve counted the steps from the corner by the door. No huge strides and no minute shuffles. Just steps, as if she was in a normal room. Twenty five steps from corner to corner. She walked over to the opposite corner and counted steps in the new direction. Twenty five. Nice and square. She turned and counted twelve and a half. The middle of the room. Ways of passing the time became repetitive, but counting steps was something she did often since little else was possible.

  While desperately passing the long lonely hours, having nothing to do of any kind except think, she tried so hard to banish memory. Memory hurt far worse than being whipped, worse than being raped, even worse than being tortured. It was a torture of sorts.

  “Night night, darling. Love you.”

  “Mummy, I’m cold.”

  “Do you want a hot water bottle Evie?”

  “Yes please, mummy.”

  “Cuddle Evie, Andy my love, and keep her warm until the kettle boils.”

  “Thanks, mummy. Love you too. Love you too, Daddy. And I loves Niles. Where’s Niles, Daddy?”

  “Doing his homework downstairs, my little one. One day you’ll do homework too.”

  “Sounds like fun. Night, night everyone. I’ll say all my prayers to keep you all safe and snuggly.”

  She wiped away gritty tears, sat on the dirty floorboards, stretched out her legs and examined her knees. They were very grubby and rubbed raw in several places. Because the flesh on her thighs and calves had shrunk, the knees seemed more bony than in the past, sitting up like unsymmetrical lumps of sore and partly bleeding debris left over after the rough creation of a living body. But the knees were not living. They were discarded rubbish.

  Bending one of those knees, Eve regarded her right foot. The toenails, now thickened and ingrowing, were painful in places, and exceedingly dirty. She could neither clean them nor cut them, having neither clippers nor scissors, nail file nor water and cloth. Sometimes Master had demanded a pedicure and gave her sharp little scissors and a green nail file. But once done, these were taken away immediately. She was given nothing for herself.

  She stared. It was as if the foot no longer belonged to her. She stretched out her left foot and gazed on both together. She started to pick away the dirt from between some of the toes but discovered that some were bruises. The soles of her feet resembled broken linoleum, thick but flaking, dark coloured but callused.

  Collapsing backwards on the ground, she crossed her hands over her breasts, closed her eyes, and saw herself as one of the carved figures laying on their medieval coffins. Then, shivering, she pulled the white furry rug from her bed and laid it over herself. She stopped shivering and instead started to cry.

  Eve wrote a mental letter to her mother, another to her brother Niles, and a third to her father. She knew they would be worried. She had never run away in her life, and surely they’d think her dead. She wished she was.

  There was absolutely nothing to do. Only think. And inevitably her thoughts were dismal, frequently suicidal and sometimes overflowing with raging hatred. Yet, strangely, although she loathed the man, she also pitied Master. Yet she pitied herself more. She had accepted a lift in the rain, which was madness. But surely she had known the man. To accept a lift from someone you know surely did not seem crazed. Even a little pissed, frozen with icy rain, and tired, she could not have been so crazed.

  But it was a face she could no longer remember. No name came to mind. She remembered only the club, the happiness and fun followed by the incoherence and the beginning of that soaking journey home. Then she woke, ill, shivering, and chained. Whatever had happened in-between was was
hed into flickering atoms of inconsistency. The buzz of a car engine. Her own sudden relief. A gulp of water on her tongue.

  Eve stood, wrapped the rug around her shoulders, and again walked the room, this time counting the steps while following the walls. She knew each wall intimately. She had traced each pattern where dampness, stains or scratches marked the plaster. Finally she lay on the bed. She was still there many hours later when she heard the rattle and scrape as the door was unlocked, opening slowly.

  It had seemed that anything would be preferable to the utter nothingness and the misery of empty loneliness. But now, with Master’s footsteps approaching the bed, she wished desperately that the nothingness would rush back.

  Morrison shrugged. “There are signs of brutality post mortem. There’s very little indication of cause of death. We have no leads. Well, my friends, have you come to tell me all the answers?”

  “Humph,” Harry sighed. “Wish I could. But one thing happened.”

  Darcey lifted one eyebrow. Sylvia said, “We saw Lionel Sullivan.”

  With a lurch of surprise, Morrison leaned forwards, saying, “Are you sure? Where, exactly? Did you follow him?”

  “We tried to,” said Harry. “Last night, but too dark and too wet. We lost him. Up the Torr Road, on our way home. I phoned the police at once and got your desk sergeant, or whoever it is does nights. So we went back this morning. Troops of police tramping first thing, so we avoided them. There are a few deserted buildings through the area. A large farm with a few sheds. We asked permission, explained why, and searched the sheds. No sign of anyone. There are other sheds and broken down outbuildings – a smallholding with a couple of donkeys and a thousand free-range hens. Again we got permission to search and found nothing except eggs!” He smiled. “I’m surprised the uniformed lot didn’t tell you. I expect they just do their job.”

  “And I do mine.” Morrison sighed. “But let me warn you both, leave that man alone. He’s one of the most dangerous I’ve known.”

  “We asked at the pub too.” Sylvia shook her very wet hair. “The Brass Farthing. Nothing. He skipped it. But why come back here where people know him? He’s after us, and he’s after his wife. That’s a man who plans. He’s not spontaneous.”

  “His escape from prison was certainly well planned. We haven’t traced the inside informant yet. But we know he had help.”

  “At the back of that road, behind the smallholding, there’s another pub. You may know it. The White Boar.”

  Morrison grinned. “I know it. Live Jazz on Fridays and Country on Sundays. Attracts the trouble makers at weekends, mostly drunk teenagers.. Sullivan isn’t my responsibility anymore, but I most certainly take an interest. I’m in charge of homicide. But if you’re both crazy enough to try and find him, there’ll be two more homicides for me to trace. Although I’ll guess the killer at once.”

  “I know.” Sylvia “If anyone has any connection to homicide it’s that monster.”

  “But he can’t be connected to this new case. I did consider the possibility at one stage, but it doesn’t fit. Never mind, Billy Lang will be delighted to hear about Sullivan. No doubt he’ll drop into the Manor later to talk to you.”

  “In the meantime, love to Peggy and the kids.”

  It had stopped raining, but the trees dripped as heavily as the rain had. When quite unexpectedly the sun made a brief golden peep between the swathes of grey, everyone blinked with delight and changed whatever their intentions had been, deciding to go out instead. Harry and Sylvia went to explore the road where they had seen Lionel Sullivan.

  “I’m coming,” said Ruby. “Don’t try putting me off this time. I’m bored, and there’s not a cake in the house. I need diversions.”

  “Oh very well,” Sylvia looked at the tiny thin woman with the bright red hair beside her. “You can protect us both when the monster attacks.”

  “Don’t tell Morrison, but I do have a Mace Spray or whatever it is,” Ruby said. “After all that murder, and poor little Pam, I wasn’t risking anything.”

  “I’ve thought of carrying a knife around,” Harry nodded. “But I’d probably get arrested. Share a cell with dear Lionel. No thanks.”

  Once again they sought permission at the smallholding. “Yes. But make sure you close the gates.”

  And the farm. “Yes, but the ground’s still wet. Watch your step and make sure you close all the gates.”

  A cluster of thick feathered hens gathered, hoping for a special delivery of food. Ruby cuddled one, but it pecked her fingers. Harry and Sylvia trudged through the mud and aimed for the winding country road on the other side of the fields. A long low shed was piled only with hay. “He could have wedged himself in there.”

  “No,” Harry said after poking the stores for some time. “There’s no sign of anything. He’s too big to leave no sign.”

  They moved on to the next shed.

  The Spalling Road wound and meandered, a flooded gutter on either side leading to hedges and then more fields. “He could be anywhere.”

  In the distance, they could see a long line of dark blue men with shovels, sticks and rakes. The police were clearly searching the same area. “They’ll do a better job than we can.”

  Ruby mumbled, “I need food. Coffee. And a loo. How about The White Boar?”

  “We should be looking for poor Eve, not Lionel.”

  „Besides, who says Lionel always has to have a shed. OK, last time he did. This time he might have chosen an abandoned attic. Or a tree house. Or a chimney.“

  “We should be eating cake.”

  “One beer, one coffee, one lemon, lime and bitters.”

  Busy but not bursting at the seams, The White Boar was a very old building and had been built early in the 16th century over the ruins of an even earlier tavern. The White Boar was not a diplomatic title at the time, but they had remained safely unnoticed, much as they did now. Much repaired over the years, it still sagged between its beams and every step creaked. Some of its more recent customers were gaining it a bad reputation, but this was lunchtime and was quiet enough.

  Ruby looked for a menu, Sylvia ordered the drinks, and Harry approached another barman, holding out the photo of Lionel Sullivan which he had collected from Morrison.

  “Seen him?”

  “Yes, of course I have,” said the barman, glancing only quickly. “Stayed here a week. Had the small room upstairs at the back. Left this morning.”

  “Effing shit,” groaned Harry.

  The barman looked back over his shoulder with a heavy frown of suspicion. “We don’t welcome trouble makers in here,” he said. “And language like that doesn’t help anyone. Besides, the police have always asked the same question three hours ago, and been all over the place with a magnifying glass.”

  “He was here a week. And you didn’t recognise him as the serial killer of two years ago?”

  The bartender shrugged, delivering Harry the drinks Sylvia had ordered, some slosh of beer over Harry’s fingers. Why would I? Never met the man before. Said his name was Harry Joyce. Signed in and paid in advance. No reason to ask for proof of identity. Obviously English. Polite. Didn’t swear.”

  “Harry Joyce?” roared Harry Joyce. “He damn well gave my name. What a shit.” He carried the drinks back to their table before the barman had time to complain again. He plonked himself down and related the story to Sylvia and Ruby. “My name, the bastard.”

  “Well, his wife’s name’s Joyce,” Sylvia nodded. “So I daresay that name came to mind. Actually it’s just as well you never married that poor silly woman. She’d have been Mrs Joyce Joyce.”

  “At least now he has the police after him,” said Ruby, looking up over the menu. “Are we going to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry,” said Harry, slurping his beer. “And I feel sick.”

  “Then I shall have cheese and biscuits. The cheese platter,” sighed Sylvia, having finished her coffee.

  “And I’ll have sticky date pudding with lots of custard,” sai
d Ruby. “No, stay there. I’ll go up and put in the order and pay at the bar. Are you sure you don’t want anything, Harry?”

  “What I want, they don’t supply,” Harry said.

  “Let’s face it,” decided Sylvia, “we aren’t actually any good at police work. But at least we try. I just don’t know where we go from here. Find Eve? Goodness – where to start? Find Sullivan? We tried without any success until luck simply brought him into view. But then we failed again and he’s gone. And the new serial killer? We’ve really done quite a bit, but it hasn’t got us anywhere.”

  “Early days,” said Ruby.

  “Not for whatever victim he has lined up for the next slavery and slaughter.” Ruby took the menu and went up to the bar to order food. Meanwhile, Sylvia was wondering whether a G and T would wake her up or send her to sleep. “Morrison says no other remains have been found in that house. Nothing in the grounds so far. Nothing in the attic. Nothing more to investigate. They’re moving out tomorrow after they finish with the cellar and the strip of garden under the rhododendrons right in the back.”

  “Everything’s ordered,” Ruby returned and sat with a smile. “I ordered you a pie, Harry. Don’t eat it if you don’t want it. And I got you a double Scotch too. I’m sure you won’t waste it. For you and me, Sylvikins, I got a gin and tonic each.”

  “Wonderful.” After a moment, she added, “I think I want to concentrate on finding Eve. After all, three pathetic old pensioners looking for the most brutal maniac alive doesn’t make good sense. And I have another question for Mrs Daish.”

  “We’d outnumber him, but I daresay he’d still kill us just with a glance if we found him.” Harry was welcoming his double scotch from the delivering barman. “We’ll phone her when we get home, always hoping we’re sober enough. What’s the question?”

  “I doubt if she’ll be able to answer in full,” Sylvia said, “but we’ve got to start somewhere. I’ll ask Eve’s mother who owns a car and might be driving in the rain at night, who her daughter would trust enough to accept a lift. Presumably, she has friends who drive. Neighbours, perhaps. The local shopkeeper or the secretary at the doctor’s.”