The Games People Play Box Set

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “A thousand names, I expect,” Harry said. “She can’t possibly recount every single local person known to the girl.”

  “No, she won’t,” said Sylvia. “But even just a few names would give us a lead. Like we said, we have to start somewhere.”

  “We haven’t spoken to the girl’s father yet,” Harry leaned back, thinking. “But he hasn’t got a car. He might have friends who do. The mother too. Someone in the knitting circle or the book club.”

  “Well,” Sylvia said, “it all sounds far-fetched, but it’s what the police do, isn’t it. What we need to ask is whether there’s someone Mrs Daish hasn’t already mentioned to the police. Someone they won’t have investigated yet.”

  “Facebook friends,” said Ruby, stirring her gin with a straw. “They all live on their mobile phones these days, don’t they. Or a school friend. She still goes to college?”

  “The police will have covered that.” Sylvia saw her cheese platter weaving its way through the growing crowd. “I wonder if the girl came to the pub every so often. So what about a barman?”

  “You phone,” Harry said, “and ask if we can come around this evening and meet the whole family. Ask them all to make a list.”

  41

  “The Postman. Jim. He comes every day really early just as Eve used to leave for college.”

  Niles was pacing, arms crossed. “No. He’s a decent bloke. I’m not putting up any of me friends as likely murderers. Wouldn’t be right. ‘Sides, none of ‘em got cars.”

  Eve’s father was a short man and hunched. He was home from work. “Misery,” he said. “Feels worse than any disease. I couldn’t face the job. And Belinda said you were coming over so I phoned in sick. I could give you a list of names, but I can’t imagine any of them doing something so terrible. They’re all good folk. Friends at work. A couple from the pub. Christophoro and Bella from next door. They’ve got a good car, an SUV, but they were in that night. When Evie was late, I went to ask them if they’d drive me to the club, and they did.” He was hunched forward in his chair, staring at his feet. “I’m a train driver. Evie doesn’t know my mates. Except for Toby and Imil. And they both have cars, but they’re good blokes.”

  “But you didn’t give their names to the police who came asking?”

  Mr Daish said no, that it didn’t occur to him. Belinda added a friend from the Greengrocer’s.

  It continued to rain but the Lexus was so deliciously comfortable, Sylvia threatened to go to sleep. “Bored stiff?” asked Harry, blinking sideways.

  “Perhaps I am.” Sylvia stared ahead through the windscreen. “We have good ideas and we do try, but we don’t achieve much, do we?”

  “So you want to take up knitting, and I should join in the cheese rolling competition?”

  She relented and smiled. “Well, it’s true, I’m feeling like an old fuddy-duddy again Just a useless old granny. Worse! I’m a granny without kids.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Harry told her. “The police haven’t found Sullivan either. They haven’t found the Chimney monster. And they haven’t found poor little Eve. Perhaps we are useless but no worse than the law of the land. And we haven’t given up yet. Anything can happen.”

  “Like getting arthritis.”

  “Don’t bother waiting. We both have it already.”

  It was the same day when two more bodies were found under the rhododendrons along the fence where the old mock-Tudor house stopped. Both were curled on their sides, head down into the earth. One was a young girl of roughly sixteen years, and the other was somewhat older. Morrison informed Harry and Sylvia but had no more to say. He was busy. “Up to my forehead wrinkles and frown lines.”

  “Two in the garden? So the chimney was full.”

  Sylvia looked up at him from the pillows. She was still in bed while he had searched out his phone as it rang. “Nine poor young girls. Pretty, I expect and waiting for the whole of the rest of their lives. Wanting to know what delicious romance awaited them.”

  “Hush, my love.” Harry marched back into the bathroom. “We all feel monstrous pity for everyone. I’m sorry for the young Sylvia. Your childhood and teens weren’t delightful either.”

  “I wasn’t tortured and murdered by a lunatic.”

  “We’ll find the bastard, my love. And the other bastard. And Eve.”

  Amy and her usually silent husband were sitting in front of the roaring fire, its spangles and sparkles reflected in Percival’s large framed glasses. Amy fluttered a hand at Sylvia. “Come and roast, my dear Sylvia. There’s more bodies discovered, I hear.”

  The luxury apartments upstairs within the Rochester Manor spread along four corridors, landings well carpeted, and reached by both front and back staircases. These eight living quarters were each roughly similar with a very large bedroom, a lounge incorporating a minute kitchenette, a large en-suite bathroom to the bedroom, and a smaller room serving either as a study, or a spare bedroom. Ruby occupied the rooms next to Sylvia and Harry. On the other side, the sunnier quarters of Percival and Amy Fryer. Percival, once a highly respected doctor and surgeon, saw no reason to speak unless someone asked him a direct question. Amy was contemplating the onset of dementia, but as yet enjoyed three days out of five.

  Amy said, “I hear you saw that funny old man who killed people?”

  “Lionel Sullivan,” said Harry.

  “Yes, I saw him too,” said Amy. “He was on a bicycle. His bottom sort of sagged over the edges of the seat. But he was heading towards The Cow’s Udders. You know, that funny old pub past the Torr.”

  Sylvia blinked. “Perhaps you mean The Torr’s Wonders?”

  “Is that what it’s called?” Amy pondered. “But the Torr isn’t a wondrous thing, you know. It’s just a muddy little creek full of moss and algae and tadpoles with a nasty smell like sour milk.”

  “And so you thought of a cow’s udders. We shall call it that in future.”

  Harry nodded. “Did you see that man go in?”

  Amy said yes, and elbowed Percival. “You remember dear,” she said loudly into his best ear. “we saw that nasty man with the acrimonia or whatever you said it was. Hands and feet. Anyway, we saw him, didn’t we.”

  Percival reluctantly looked over the top of his newspaper. “We did, Amy dear. He was cycling up the Old Torr Road. I was surprised to see him set free after what he’d done.”

  Harry sighed. “Not free, Percy. The wretch escaped. He was in prison with a life sentence for murder, but he had help, and got out.”

  “Tut, tut,” said Percival. “These people should be more careful.” He returned to his newspaper.

  Sheila O’Brien, a downstairs tenant, was sitting in the nearby window seat and looked over. “They should have executions for special cases. Like this chimney man.”

  Ruby squashed in beside Sylvia. “Amy, you’re looking well. Better than yesterday. How do you feel?”

  “Was I ill yesterday?” Amy wondered. “I can’t remember.”

  “You had a cough, and said your arthritis was playing up.”

  “Ah, yes. Cold days do that, you know,” Amy said. “I get the snivels, and that makes me cough. And my hip. The other one’s artificial, - the real one does horrible things.”

  “The cold makes me ache too,” admitted Sylvia, smiling towards the huge bustling flames across the fireplace.

  “Oh one thing always leads to another,” sighed Amy. “Cold chills – and along comes arthritis. A bad night’s sleep and I get a horrid headache. Even when I was younger, I had those same troubles.” She leaned towards Sylvia with a slightly conspiratorial frown. “When I was young, every time I masturbated, I ended up with a terrible backache and had to go to bed.”

  Percival looked once more over his newspaper, saying softly, “I doubt you mean that, Amy. I believe you meant menstruated, my dear.”

  “Of course,” said Amy. “What did I say?”

  Nobody told her.

  Harry already had his phone in his hand and was dialling Mo
rrison at home. It was while he was on the phone, that someone called from the back of the room where the TV addicts relinquished the cosy heat of the fire in order to watch the News, gossip, and various programmes that others called rubbish.

  It was Stella who shouted, “It’s that woman friend of yours on the news, Harry. Come and see.”

  Harry was still talking to Morrison, and Sylvia relinquished the fire too and went back to the television area.

  It was Joyce Sullivan. “You think it’s easy being married to a mass murderer? Well, of course I didn’t know that was what he was up to, but I did know he was a beast. He abused me, ignored me, insulted me and hit me. But usually he was out. Well, he travelled all over England, and sometimes over the Channel too, so I didn’t see much of him. And that’s the way I liked it.”

  The interviewer was not the most charismatic nor the most experienced. “Mrs Sullivan? May I call you Joyce?”

  She nodded. “But remember, I know nothing about Lionel’s crimes. Besides, I divorced him as soon as I could after he was arrested.”

  “Well, now then, Joyce. Can you tell us what first attracted you about Lionel Sullivan when you first met him?”

  She was a small plain woman, plump without seeming obese, and the pleasant curves of her face spoke of her looks when she had been younger. Joyce patted her own cheek. “I let myself go, you know,” she said. “I became very lonely and dismally unhappy. I thought I could never be happy again. Lionel was such a bully. The only saving grace was that he was away most of the time, I dreaded the days he came back. And when I first met him? Oh, gracious, we both thought we were happy for a year, perhaps even two. Crazy, but I thought he was shy at first. He told me stories about the places he’d driven to – you know – Scotland and France and all around the Lake District. I felt sorry for him when he told me all about his disability.”

  The interviewer was trying hard to encourage some gruesome secrets. “I understand from his trial, that your husband stopped killing for some years after your marriage. This was presumably because he was happy, and needed no other stimulus.”

  “He had enough stimulus just beating me, you mean?”

  “He was violent from the beginning?”

  Joyce backed down. “No, or I wouldn’t have married him. But it was less than two years later. He needed to be brutal to prove himself strong, or something. I knew he became a horrible person, so I guessed he had always been a pig, but naturally I never guessed how bad he really was. What motivates such crimes? I don’t know. Honestly I would never have guessed.”

  “He was a large man. Over six foot, I imagine.”

  “Six foot three. And the acromegaly of course. He was bullied about his hands and feet when he was young, and his parents really didn’t help. His mother were abusive too, and his father disappeared.”

  Sylvia wandered off from the television. “What’s she trying to achieve? She’s not doing herself any favours.”

  “Oh well.” Harry plodded after her, found the wine bottle with sufficient dregs, and filled her glass with a drop for himself. “A bit of appreciation after years of misery. Heaven knows what she really went through.”

  Ruby squeezed up, making a place for them both on the smaller sofa. “You have to feel sorry for her. “

  “She ought to stay quiet and stay in her safe-house.”

  “You think we have a right to be bored?” Harry objected. “What about going into a safe house after years of being beaten up, and just having to hide away in silence? “

  Suddenly waking up, Amy said, “Perhaps all old houses have bodies in them. The Tudors were shocking people. That eighth one, Henry, he could have stuffed other wives up the chimney that we don’t know about yet.”

  “An interesting hypothesis,” Sylvia said. “This chimney here, for instance. But not that particular one, Amy dear, since the house wasn’t old at all. Mock Tudor, built less than a hundred years back.”

  It was a conversation they continued in bed. Wrapped in two layers of feather quilts and with the electric under blanket only just turned off, Sylvia stretched and admitted to warmth and comfort. “Though it’s your cuddles that really keep me warm, my love.”

  Harry squeezed tighter. They had not fully closed the curtains since both enjoyed the occasional visits from owls. Now it was a flight of bats, tiny and silent, rising from the trees along the edge of the kitchen garden outside, and streaking the night sky with even darker shadows. Like tiny black birds, they flocked, searching for food. “Bats in the belfry again,” Harry said.

  “We’re all getting there,” said Sylvia. “Amy’s on her way. But she’s fighting it.” Pausing, she cuddled tighter. “If I ever get like that, put me out of my misery.”

  “Kill you off? Isn’t it murderers we’re trying to catch?”

  “I didn’t suggest torture or stuffing me up the chimney. I just want a nice quick release. Talking of which – do we have a belfry?”

  “No. No bell tower and no bell. But,” added Harry, “there is clearly an attic. Not that I want to crawl around attics. I’ve had another idea about finding Eve. The library. She must go there for study. College friends and teachers. Teachers from her previous school. And teachers from her brother’s school. Someone with a car and who Eve trusted enough to accept a lift, is more likely to be a teacher or some other adult, rather than daft friends who could be tipsy at that house. It’s a shame Morrison isn’t on Eve’s case, or we could ask him about who’s been questioned so far.”

  Half asleep now, Sylvia was just murmuring. “Kate’s husband is a teacher. He teaches little ones, not Eve’s age. But I can talk to Kate anyway. She’s promised to come tomorrow. Ruby hasn’t had cake for hours. She’s getting withdrawal symptoms.”

  “Perhaps I should go to the college.”

  But Sylvia was asleep. Her first small snores were like little kisses against Harry’s arm.

  42

  She lay on her stomach, her face hidden in the pillow and the white wool rug over her back. She had stopped crying. It only made her sick and she was too hungry to miss food by vomiting it back. No memory of her last meal could be timed but it seemed a long time ago. There had been warm toast without butter, and a lamb chop on the bone, with two small bites already gone.

  Master had handed over the plate, saying, “I never finished it. So I were thinking she’ll like it. I were right, weren’t I?”

  “Yes indeed,” Eve had said at once. She had gnawed at that bone for many, many hours. The two pieces of toast had been eaten within seconds.

  Now feeling as empty as usual, the terror of her destiny swarmed around her head like wasps disturbed from their nest. Biting, threatening, buzzing, attacking. Emotion swamped her mind and left no space for rational thought. Fear was the tidal wave, rushing and roaring into her head when she woke in the night, when she woke the next morning, and all through the day. She had not expected to sleep at all, but weakness and the strangely exhausting listless apathy led her into both sleep and dreams. The dreams were vile. She dreamed of her mother’s arms reaching for her, then the face above the arms turning to a bleeding skull with vampire teeth.

  Shivering coldness was both fact and fear. She expected to die and fervently wished that death would come soon, yet not accompanied by the torture she imagined. Rape, which she no longer resisted, was of little consequence, but Master enjoyed her screams and the chocking and guttural cries when he partially strangled her while embedding not only himself inside her but bottles, torches, scissors and other gadgets. He had a bamboo cane which he used to beat her, to force into various parts of her, and also used to tie to her head between her lips as a gag.

  Not knowing night from day nor the passing of the hours, Eve could not know how long she had been kept prisoner. She guessed a month. Now perhaps more.

  “I dunno,” Master said when asked. “I doesn’t count. You knows that.”

  “Do you have a mother and father?”

  “Shurrup.” He punched her breast. And s
he was quiet.

  What each day might bring was the eternal terror. Pain was accustomed, but sometimes the pain was a little less, yet sometimes greater. There had been days of such violent suffering that Eve had truly expected imminent death and been disappointed when it did not occur. The initial pity she had intermittently felt had long since flown since Master’s delight in cruelty was no canvas for empathy, however much he clearly suffered himself.

  “How did you kill them? The others before me?” Asking these questions was a risk, but sometimes it brought a conversation of sorts which then delayed the next beating.

  Master looked up. He was sitting cross-legged on the floorboards. “Yeh.” He studied his own memories. “I got strong hands. Squeezing necks. Sometimes it ain’t meant. I had a nice lady. She were pretty and proper little. She gotta nice little arse all pretty and rosy. I stuck all sorts o’ things up it. One day I stuck up me whole hand wiv a nice big mirror on a handle. I wanted to see wot she got inside her. I mean, tis all hid, ain’t it. Secrets up inside. But silly cow yelled and yelled and the mirror broke. Reckon it cut her cos she bled all over. But I never meant killing my little lady an’ I were sorry.”

  Eve swallowed back vomit. “How did you bury her?”

  “Oh, I never done that. Number One does that.”

  “Where?”

  “I dunno. I doesn’t care neither. Once my lady’s gone dead, she ain’t no use no more.”

  “People used to think I was pretty.” Eve kept the rug to her chin. “But not anymore. I’m bony and my skin hangs off in straggly bits, all grey and scratched. I have so many scars, it’s as if I’m striped. I don’t know what my face looks like, but it’s all scarred too, isn’t it? My eyes must be swollen. I must look like a scarecrow.”

  Master pulled a face. “You’s OK. I seen worse. You got nice tits.”