The Games People Play Box Set

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  After a couple of hours, feeling entirely exhausted, Sylvia and Harry said goodbye to the Chief Inspector and waited until he marched from Morrison’s office, closing the door quietly behind him.

  “Gracious, I can remember my father being like that,” said Sylvia, gathering her wits. “Once he got going, you felt you’d been beaten with a wooden paddle over and over, just as though you were the criminal yourself. I need a whisky.”

  “Clearly!” smiled Morrison, “I’m far too easy going since I don’t affect you like that.”

  “Thank goodness,” Harry said, getting up and heading towards the door. “You’re human. We’ll go on looking for Eve, and Lionel Sullivan. I’m not really interested in this Mark Howard person. Well, I know what he looks like because of Maurice looking the same, but I don’t expect to find a high power like that. He’ll move in sky-high circles. But the main quest is the killer. A feeble probability, but it worked last time.”

  “By getting yourselves into danger,” Morrison added. “Don’t do anything like that again.”

  Sylvia stood with Harry’s help. “Love to Peggy,” she said. “And I promise we’ll be good.”

  “Much as I’d appreciate the sublime justice of you finding the poor young woman,” Morrison said, “I cannot see how you’re going to discover someone locked away in a cellar or attic in total pre-arranged secrecy. And please don’t suggest knocking on every door for miles around. Evidently, the brother and the old boyfriend are the principal suspects, although personally I doubt if it’s either of them.”

  “So you definitely think it’s the chimney man?”

  “What I think,” said Morrison, “is that I should get back to work and you two should go home for a nice chat with the wealthy old folk of Little Woppington-on-Torr.”

  But it was not where they went. Driving in almost the opposite direction, although with little hope of being permitted entrance, Harry and Sylvia went back yet again to the mock-Tudor house, now commonly known in the press as ‘The House of Horrors.”

  Almost deserted, they were surprised to discover the gardens, now little more than a ploughed field, unattended. The house itself was encircled with blue and white plastic strips, almost like the wrappings on a birthday gift. Here there were police standing guard, and others clearly unearthing and battering within. Bang followed crash.

  “We couldn’t ask for more,” mumbled Harry, parking carefully out of sight. “That tunnel is wide open to the sky now, but it’s not being guarded either. You want a run through a tunnel that isn’t a tunnel anymore? And you’ll end up in that same old nightmare cellar with shadows like vampires.”

  Looking at him, Sylvia smiled suddenly. “You’re getting quite fantastical, my love. You’ll be reading Tolkien soon instead of Clive Cussler and that Child person.”

  “Thrillers are best,” Harry scratched his earlobe. “Though why I want to read books full of murder and excitement, I don’t know. Well – since that’s what I’m trying to figure out in real life.”

  “Come on then,” but she wasn’t jumping out of the car, “let’s go inside while we can.”

  But Harry said, “No, my love, let’s give it a rest today. I’m wearing the wrong shoes. These will be full of mud after two steps in the quagmire down there. If you insist, I’ll wear my hiking boots tomorrow, and we can come back here.”

  With a cup of hot milk between her cupped hands, Eve was so terrified of wasting one drop, so thrilled for the warmth both against her palms and in her throat, that her arms shook and she hunched over the cup, sipping with reverence.

  “You likes?”

  “Oh yes indeed. Thank you.” The cup was now half empty, but both the heat and the taste were delicious on her tongue, against the inside of her mouth, her gums and teeth, while her throat felt roasted by pleasure.

  “Yum.” Master watched her, his smile growing. “Tis good, huh? From nice Master.”

  It was the first time anything remotely warm and soothing had entered her mouth for a very, very long time. She appreciated the food she was occasionally given, however unpleasant, however cold and stale, however partly chewed. Food was always an enormous hope, and its arrival was always joyous. But hot and fresh food was virtually unknown. “Oh yes, nice Master. Thank you, Master.”

  She had heard the other voice again, busy outside in the room Master used. “Hot milk, it will be good for you.”

  “And my little lady?” Master had asked.

  “Why not, if that’s what you want.”

  And the door had opened, Master hobbling in and bringing the milk. Steam rose from the large mug. The door had closed behind him, and she had not seen the man behind the other voice.

  But she had remembered a great deal. Now she knew exactly who had offered her a lift home that fateful and misbegotten evening, and she knew why she had accepted, and she knew the owner of the other voice.

  “Do you like him? I mean your Number One?” She nodded towards the closed door. She had finished every single last drop of the milk. Otherwise she would not have risked asking a single question. She had also wiped her finger around the inside of the cup, scraping up every taint of heat, steam, and liquid.

  Master was surprised. “Course. I likes him ever so. But that’s,” and he nodded as Eve had done towards the other room, “Number Two. He’s ever so kind. Heated that fer you, he did.”

  “I heard you ask. Thank you. That was kind too.”

  “Is I kind? I dunno. But now you gotta play.”

  She had expected that. “I will,” she told him, “but he won’t come in while we’re – playing – will he?”

  “No, he don’t like watching,” Master said. “Reckon he’s gone. So’s, you gets on floor and does wot I tells ya.”

  The milk had been worth it.

  One last risk. „Does he – have a nice name too?“

  Master kicked her in the nose, and the blood stung. “Not allowed ta tell and you knows it.“

  45

  Kicking his shoes off, Harry sat back on the large armchair in their bedroom, clasped his hands behind his head, and decided, “A girl that age, well – what is she? – seventeen? She ‘s either been killed in an accident or been abducted. It’s obvious. Even Morrison admits that. She hasn’t made a phone call, and her phone can’t be traced any longer. Last place was out on the road where she’d have walked on her way home from that party. But the police have searched every inch. No phone, no clothes, no body. And she hasn’t used her credit card or ATM card for the same length of time. So – dead or kidnapped.”

  Sylvia, rustling in the wardrobe, called back, “And if Darcey’s right, poor Eve has been abducted by the Chimney Killer. Which means she might also be dead by now.” She reappeared from the wardrobe. “I can’t find your hiking boots, dear. I can’t even find my own.”

  He stood at once and went to peer out of the long window at the small balcony outside. The rain was dripping from the iron railing, but the paved area behind the row of pot plants, now only full of twigs, was sheltered beneath the overhanging ledge of polystyrene, and there beneath sat two pairs of heavy brown boots.

  “You’re getting forgetful, my love.” Harry pointed. “We put them out because they were covered in mud. But they aren’t catching the rain, and they need a thorough washing.”

  Reluctantly, Sylvia pulled out a copy of yesterday’s Times from the small table, and spread it out on the rug by the window, then opened the long glass door. She reached out a hand, and grabbed first Harry’s boots and then her own, dropping them onto the newspaper. Mud splattered. “We could put them in the bath,” she said.

  “Or the Torr River,” muttered Harry. But he bent down and eyed the boots sitting in their own sludge on the paper. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll clean them up. Yours too. You sit down and have a rest.”

  She didn’t argue, turned on the radio, and took Harry’s place in the large squashy armchair. The radio was playing one of her favourites from Turandot, and she closed her eyes, enter
ing the blissful tunnel of the music she loved. Harry stumbled into the bathroom, boots collected in a soggy paper wrapped parcel. The taps in the shower were turned on and a puff of steam found its way out into the bedroom. Sylvia murmured, “I feel guilty, thinking of that poor girl Eve. Is that crazy? But I’m so happy these days, my love, with you and the comfort here, and Morrison. Even Ruby’s more relaxed. Above all because of you, my dearest. You’ve changed my life. And that helps me want to change other people’s lives.”

  She waited for a sweet reply. Harry was good at sweet replies. But this time the reply was an echoing roar. “Sylve, come here. Look. Quick.”

  It sounded as though he was drowning in the shower. Sylvia leapt up and into the steam filled bathroom. Harry was holding out one of his boots. “What?” she demanded. “Darling, You’re dripping melted mud.”

  He turned the boot over, its laces still clogged and showed something small which had stuck to the sole amongst the dirt. “Look here,” and when she looked, he said, “This could be damned important. The paper – look. And no, not a McDonald’s wrapper but it came from the tunnel, which is the last time I wore them.”

  “I took my lenses out,” Sylvia was peering closely, “so I can’t read it. Too tiny. Just a corner of a label. Are you sure it’s from the tunnel? And does it matter?”

  “Yes, I’m damn sure it matters, and yes, I’m bloody sure too.” He waved the boot in front of his wife’s face and two large blobs of wet earth patterned her cheek. “I have to phone Morrison immediately.” He put the boot down carefully, sole uppermost, and marched back into the large bed-sitting room.

  Sylvia stood beside him and listened carefully to what Harry was saying on the phone. He was looking and sounding both triumphant and a little embarrassed. “Rohypnol. That’s – ”

  “I know exactly what it is,” Morrison’s voice came over the phone. “Stay exactly where you are, protect that scrap of paper with your life, and I’ll be over in minutes.”

  “Rohypnol surely isn’t sold in the chemists?” said Ruby. “Isn’t that the rape drug? Surely you have to buy it online?”

  “I suppose so.” Sylvia was counting coins for the weekly pocket money both of them had decided to give to Arthur’s son David in exchange for a couple of odd jobs. “It would have been so much easier to go around all the local shops and find who has been buying packets of Rohypnol regularly over the past few years. But I presume you can’t trace internet sales?”

  Ruby had no idea. “All those police things they do these days, I mean, they can do everything, can’t they?”

  “Except find the murderer.”

  “Well, they trace phones and they can hack computers and all that identification by blood stuff. Doesn’t Detective Morrison tell you all about these things?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Sylvia collected the coins in a small pile. David preferred coins because he could count them and they looked more like money. Half disappeared into a large money box shaped like a hedgehog, whereas the other half disappeared just as quickly in the local sweet shop. “He’s a friend, and he tells us all sorts and welcomes the little bit of help we offer,” Sylvia continued, looking up. “But nothing about private police work and no secrets or inside stuff. Well, I don’t mind that. But I still wish we could find Eve.”

  “Rohypnol,” Ruby persisted, “dissolves in drinks and makes the girls fall asleep. Unconscious. They don’t wake up for ages.”

  Sylvia knew this. “It explains how the killer drugged and then murdered the girls, poor little things.”

  “But no fingerprints on that label?”

  “After goodness knows how long in the mud and rain?”

  Ruby sighed. “Alright. I’m going out. I’m bored. I’ll go and buy some cakes at Kate’s place. Coming?”

  An apology seemed the proper response. “I suppose I’m not such a good friend now I’m married,” Sylvia said. “Sorry, beautiful Bluebell. I know I’m boring. But I don’t want a cake, I’m sure she’ll have shut the shop in this vile weather anyway, and I’m waiting for Harry.”

  “To come back from the pub? Honestly, Sylvikins, that’s pathetic.” Ruby pulled a face.

  Sylvia laughed. “He doesn’t come home drunk or anything,” she said. “He went to ask questions about Rohypnol, and that’s a lot easier without me looking for anyone who knows too much.”

  “If the cakeshop’s shut.” Ruby said, sweeping back her hair in faint defiance, “I shall go to the Micro. I can sit at the bar with a cocktail and watch the idiots pulling at those horrid one armed things Rod used to like in Monte Carlo.

  Sylvia was feeling guilty again. “So it’s you who wants to get drunk, my dear?”

  “Come and guard me then.”

  She relented. Ruby had little else to relieve the lonely boredom of getting old. Sylvia said, “Beautiful Bluebell, I shall hold your hand forever on into the horizon and beyond. Let us eat cake.”

  It was Arthur who was clearing the ice crystals from the front doorstep, who looked at both women huddled in their woolly hats, coats, scarves and gloves over thick stockings and boots, who stared a moment, almost as if he didn’t recognise them beneath all the mismatched wool, and finally said, “You going out, ladies? Not the best weather fer jogging, I reckon. Where’s you going?”

  “The cake shop in the village,” said Ruby through her scarf.

  “And then the Micro Casino in Cheltenham,” Sylvia admitted. “For afternoon cocktails.”

  Arthur gave an incredulous frown. “You’s gonna walk to town in this? I hope you knows it’s gonna rain like the blitz.”

  Ruby nodded. “It’ll keep us fit.”

  “It’ll keep yer in hospital,” said Arthur. “Wait a mo, ladies, and I shall give yer a lift.”

  But the shop, however, was shut as Sylvia had guessed. The lights were off, the blinds were down and a large “CLOSED” hung on the locked door.

  The Pitville Casino was around the corner from the park and was known as the Micro by those who would have liked something much larger. Two large circles of clanking fruit machines flashed and glittered with coloured lights and promises of extraordinary riches. The Black Jack and smaller gaming tables seemed unoccupied. In the centre stood the table with its roulette wheel whirling, chips jingling, and the croupier, utterly expressionless, sweeping everyone’s chips back into the banker’s pile. Not many were playing. Three well dressed young men were concentrated on the play. A woman in too much bling for the time of day was sunk at one end while the elderly man with her was looking only at the wheel. More people wandered the fruit machines, some avid, others bored. One elderly woman in pink sat with her nose almost touching the machine and its spinning pictures of fruit, numbers and high pitched exuberance. The woman was neither exuberant nor avid, yet seemed glued to the clanking metal and glass.

  Ruby led Sylvia to the bar, its base raised and ordered two Bloody Mary's. Sylvia would have preferred a cup of tea but didn’t complain. They sat at a small table overlooking the shuffle and grumble of the casino activity.

  “My Beloved Bluebell,” Sylvia said, sipping slowly, “I’ve never known you so bored. Take up golf. Bowls. Reading.”

  Ruby stuck her tongue out. “Bowls would break my back with all that bending. I hate golf. And I do read. Sometimes. And stop thinking I’m some poor dithering old lump who needs help.”

  “That’s exactly what we all are,” Sylvia said, looking over the tomato smears on her glass. “We all need help. I can’t see a thing without my lenses, and I can’t even get out of bed without a kick from Harry.”

  But she was no longer looking at Ruby. She was watching the small and faded woman in pink who had finally moved away from her concentration on one machine, its repetitive dingle suddenly silent. The woman stared around, her glazed stare seemingly blind.

  “What now?” Ruby demanded, attempting to catch Sylvia’s attention.

  “Umm?” Sylvia shook her head. “Nothing. Nice drink. Relaxing. But some people just seem lost, wa
ndering around waiting for money to hurtle into their hands. Like that funny little woman in grubby pink. I don’t suppose you know her?”

  “You think I live half my life in a dump like this?” Ruby glared, and Sylvia laughed. Ruby relaxed and smiled back. “I don’t come here very often,” she said. “I never gamble. Actually, I’d feel silly, and I don’t really know where to put the money. Daft, isn’t it. But I like this little bar, and I like the cheap cocktails, I like being in a crowd. So yes, I’ve seen that woman before. I think she comes here a lot, but I’ve never spoken to her.”

  “She looks”, Sylvia thought a moment, then said, “tragic. Alone. Miserable. Penniless.”

  “Penniless I expect because all her pension goes in the fruit machines.”

  The woman kept walking, very slowly, watching for a machine that attracted her. What her criteria was, Sylvia could not tell nor wanted to. But it was certainly not aimless. After a generalised patter around the room, the woman made her choice, sat in front of a large shining splash of colour and patterns, she pulled her hand from her coat pocket, peered down to count the remaining opportunities, and pushed the first one into the machine’s slot. She pressed the button. Clang. The colours whirled with intense noise. The woman pushed in another disc. Whir, clank, buzz, stop. The woman inhaled deeply but didn’t pause. She slotted in her next coin.

  Sylvia related an old story to Ruby, laughing over both their first husbands and trivialising the horrible details. “He brought a huge sack of potatoes. How would we ever get through that many? That sack would keep a fish and chip shop going for a month. And the silly man didn’t even like mash. But I was so overwhelmed that he’d actually done what I asked, and walked into a greengrocer’s, well, I just thanked him and told him he was a saint. Actually, he was a pig, but I found that out later.”

  “My Rod was a saint,” Ruby sighed.

  “Oh hell.” Sylvia shook her head. “You know he wasn’t. And you hardly ever even saw the man. And you admitted ages ago that he had no end of affairs. He wasn’t ever faithful and jumped into bed with any girl who smiled.”