The Game

by Luca Veste

  No one to make her feel better.

  All she had was the knowledge of the things she had done and the only way to make sure no one found out about them.

  Level One – Spying on some random bloke she’d never seen before. Trying to break into his house and failing. She’d thought then that it would be over, but it hadn’t been enough apparently.

  Level Two – Vandalism. Breaking panes of glass in bus stops, late at night, in different areas of the city. A few other things too, but she didn’t want to remember.

  The Game.

  She could feel her pulse begin to beat faster than the music blaring in her ears. The nervous feeling of being found out. The lies she’d told.

  Just keep playing and it’ll all be okay. Just got to keep going.

  Her bag lay on the floor where she’d slung it ten minutes earlier, the college books spilling from the top. The folder which contained notes she never imagined she’d read again. The exam preparation she wouldn’t need. The course had been something her parents thought would be a good idea. Away from the high school she’d grown to loathe. A fresh start, outside of that place, those girls and boys who had made her life a misery.

  That’s what it was supposed to be.

  Instead, it was the same old story. Sitting alone, no one bothering to make any effort to engage in conversation with her. No one caring that she was on her own, no one trying to become her friend. She was invisible to them all.

  It didn’t take long for her to go back to her old ways. Sitting at the back, feigning interest every now and again, but really just seeing out the minutes until she could leave. Escaping from that prison cell and into the online world to have at least a little interaction in her life. People she didn’t know in the real world, who wouldn’t judge her, who accepted her for who she was.

  That’s what she’d done instead of bothering with all the fakeness she witnessed every single day in that college.

  Instead, she’d created a fake life all of her own.

  She wondered if there was ever going to be a final level to this game. Whether she would have to play forever and ever.

  Imagined the look on her mum’s face if she found out what she’d been doing.

  It wasn’t all bad. Her life was easy in so many ways. Her mum loved her, she wasn’t ill, she wasn’t poor.

  Her dad had already left for work and they both earned a good wage, provided all the things she could ever want.

  She’d had enough to make her life easy, if you ignored the loneliness.

  Beside her, the mobile phone lit up and began to buzz. It made her jump, her heart pounding, knowing who it would be. She swiped to answer and lifted it to her ear.

  ‘You’re almost there, Holly,’ the voice said, the flat, robotic tone filling the silence. ‘Only a couple more levels…’

  ‘Please, let this be over,’ Holly replied, feeling a huge lump grow in her throat. She wanted this done. To move on. To go back to loneliness. ‘I’ve done enough for you.’

  ‘Too late, Holly. You know the rules by now. Everyone is going to know what a dirty little liar you are, if you don’t do exactly as we say.’

  For the first time, Holly realised the reality of it all. That it would never be over. Not really.

  ‘I’ll do anything, please,’ she heard herself say, and realised it was true. She wanted to take it all back. She didn’t want the attention anymore. She didn’t want to live like this anymore.

  The voice had scared her the first time. The emotionlessness of it. She had no idea if it was a man or woman on the other end; no idea if they knew everything. There was no doubt now, though.

  ‘But please,’ Holly said, her voice soft and pleading, ‘I can’t do anymore. I’ve done enough. Let me go.’

  ‘It’s too late for begging,’ the voice replied, and there was almost a humour to the tone now. As if it was excited. ‘There’s only one way out. And that’s to play. To the end. Unless you want me to tell everyone what you’ve been doing.’

  She breathed in and closed her eyes for a second. Leaned her head back and nodded to herself. ‘I’ll do anything. Just please, don’t tell anyone what I’ve done.’

  ‘I knew you would make the right choice,’ the voice said, its monotone purring through the phone. Holly felt she could almost hear emotion in its void.

  ‘What do I have to do now?’ Holly said finally, thinking she wouldn’t go near the internet ever again. Wouldn’t look for validation there, for comfort. She wanted nothing but boredom from now on.

  Something else.

  A life.

  PLAYER TWO

  Rob couldn’t play anymore.

  Ending up in hospital hadn’t been part of the plan. Now, he dreamed. Soundlessly, endlessly.

  His wife and parents sat at his bedside, waiting for him to wake up.

  They had been called late at night.

  After the incident at the train station, he had walked for a long time. Considered his options and then walked out into traffic at Switch Island.

  A rather large lorry had hit him and left him like this.

  Where he slept peacefully, without any clue that’s what he was doing.

  They would sit with him, praying, hoping, pleading, for an outcome that was never going to happen.

  At some point, a doctor with kind eyes and grey, thinning hair would take them into a room. Sit them down and ask them to make a decision.

  And, they would make it.

  Rob couldn’t play. He wouldn’t play.

  He failed at Level One.

  Twenty-Five

  Mark was a little disappointed by the turnout, but it was becoming the norm now. Unless the story had already taken off, or had some juicy elements to it, very few actual news journalists would show up at this point. Now that everything revolved around twenty-four-hour rolling coverage, they could afford to crib the footage from local stations, without the need to send anyone up to cities outside of London.

  He wondered if the attention would have been different if they’d told them it was connected to the death of Joanna. Or, more annoyingly, if the victim had been a pretty blonde girl from a middle-class family.

  The press had been more interested in Joanna’s death anyway. This was a silly distraction from what they saw as the main story.

  That said, he could still see there were a few cameras around the room. A smattering of print journalists sitting patiently waiting, before going on to the next story they’d be working on. For them, he imagined it was business as usual.

  He could already hear some of them taking bets on which of the family would actually be the culprit.

  Mark listened to them speculate, wondering how long it would be until Uncle Rich found himself in the middle of the odds. He couldn’t blame them – they weren’t wrong. It was one of those clichés that was actually true. In most cases he’d been involved with – however tangentially – it normally turned out to be someone close to the family. Usually a parent. Usually a male.

  Something told him that this wasn’t the case here.

  It was over twenty-four hours since Joanna’s body had been found. In that time, he’d taken Emily Burns’s family on a wasted identification and spent long hours reading endless conversations between Emily and various other teenagers. All of them nonsensical, ridiculous discussions, which always ended with threats and anger towards her. Once they’d discovered her true identity.

  DI Bennett was leading the press conference, which had surprised him at first. He was preparing to do it himself, when she’d announced it. Now, his job there seemed to be almost like a liaison officer. To be on hand for the family. For afterwards. He’d left them in the corridor with DI Bennett, so he’d be better positioned to observe, but even now, he was anxious for them. Knowing what was to come, once they were in the spotlight.

  Trying not to let his annoyance at being shoved aside show.

  Mark moved closer to the door they would soon be coming through, standing with his hands loosely l
inked in front of him, watching those in the room. Wondering how they would report this, how they would react to the story. Whether they would even think it was one worth telling.

  He wondered if they’d been tipped off to anything yet. Whether any of them realised they were being used somewhat.

  Flashes of light blurred his vision momentarily, as the doors opened and DI Bennett walked in first. Julie was close behind, followed by Stephanie. The only two family members needed, it had been decided.

  ‘What about the uncle?’ Mark had asked earlier, still unsure of his role in this. ‘Might be good to get his face out there. See if anyone in his past has something to say?’

  ‘Too soon. We need to make sure he doesn’t get spooked.’

  Mark had accepted DI Bennett’s words, wondering if he was a man who was easily worried.

  He watched as DI Bennett waited for Julie and Stephanie to sit down behind the table, Emily’s last known photograph on a screen to the side of them. Waited to see if either of them looked towards it at any point. They were both looking out into the room, wide-eyed, almost wincing at the sight. Mark knew they’d be nervous, but he didn’t think they’d even get a sentence out. Both pale and, likely, dry-mouthed. Reality setting in now, the adrenaline of that morning disappearing.

  ‘Thank you all for coming,’ DI Bennett said, quietening down the camera clicks and low murmur of voices. ‘On Sunday 21st October, Emily Burns – a nineteen-year-old woman – left her home without saying where she was going to anyone. Four days later, the family has had no word from her. She has no known means of travel or plans to meet anyone.’

  Mark listened to the normal spiel DI Bennett said, detailing the circumstances of Emily’s disappearance. He watched the faces of Julie and Stephanie first, before turning back to the room. Most of the people there listened seemingly attentively, but he could see a few blank faces there. Some who had become more seasoned to this type of show. Just another missing person. Another name they would struggle to remember in a month’s time.

  Never making a dent in their consciousness.

  ‘Emily is a bright, intelligent young woman,’ DI Bennett continued, playing her part well. Mark knew some of the reporters in the audience would already be questioning why someone of her rank was conducting this press conference. Wondering why a detective inspector was seemingly leading this investigation.

  ‘We are increasingly worried about her safety. She has no history of running away. No history of going missing. This is a situation which is greatly worrying. Her last movements have been shared, but I’ll go over them again. She was last seen on CCTV, at two-twenty a.m., making her way into a disused warehouse yard on the Liverpool waterfront, off Sefton Street. Brunswick Business Park is close by, as is the old Century building. While this is not a heavily trafficked area during the early hours of the morning, we believe there may have been some witnesses who may have noticed Emily’s movements at this time. We’d urge anyone with information to come forward and provide that to us. No matter how small or insignificant you may think it is.’

  Mark watched Stephanie, as DI Bennett continued to talk. Her lips were pursed together, her blonde hair hanging past her shoulders. Sitting beside her, Julie seemed to withdraw further into herself.

  ‘Emily, it’s Mum,’ Julie said, when it was her turn to speak, her voice cracking, stilted, as she struggled to get those words out. ‘We’re all worried about you. We just want you to come home. You’re not in any trouble.’

  Maybe, maybe not, Mark thought.

  ‘We all want you back home and safe with us. That’s all we need. Just get in touch and let us know you’re okay, if you can’t come home yet. Everyone misses you. Charlie, Uncle Rich. We just need to know you’re okay.’

  Mark watched a few exchanged glances between the reporters at the mention of the uncle. Eyebrows raised as they began to wonder how this story would play out.

  ‘We just want to know you’re safe, Emily,’ Stephanie said, the moment to speak passing to her. ‘And if you’re in trouble, then you have people who will support you no matter what. Please, just get in touch. And if anyone out there has seen Emily, or spoken to her, get in contact and let us know.’

  Mark was impressed by the pair, their heartfelt pleas coming across as genuine and just needy enough to be effective. He wasn’t sure how much play they would get on local news channels, but he thought it would be all over social media within an hour at least.

  Another tweet that could be shared over and over, as if they really had any effect.

  The press conference was wrapped up a few minutes later, more words shared by DI Bennett, information doled out once again. Mark held the door open for Julie and Stephanie as they walked out, away from the media, cameras still snapping pictures as they left.

  Stephanie turned to him once the door was closed, wide-eyed and shaking.

  ‘Did that go okay?’

  ‘You both did excellently,’ Mark replied, a tight smile shared with them both. ‘Hopefully it’ll jog some people’s memories, get some of them thinking back on that night.’

  ‘Someone must have seen her,’ Julie said, quieter now, as if all her energy had been expended in there. ‘That’s all I keep thinking. Someone knows something.’

  DI Bennett joined them, giving the same words of encouragement Mark had already given them. He liked to think his had a little more conviction than hers did, but by that point, he doubted Julie and Stephanie were even listening.

  It was moments like these that they would play over and over in their minds later, when sleep became a distant stranger. Wondering if they could have said more, whether they had said the right things.

  Whether they had done enough.

  ‘The girl they found yesterday near where Emily was last seen,’ Stephanie said, turning to DI Bennett now. ‘Who was she? Did she know Emily? Do you know that yet?’

  ‘We know who she is,’ DI Bennett replied, treading carefully, Mark felt. ‘We now have someone travelling to identify her for sure.’

  ‘Is it someone we know, or Emily knew?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ DI Bennett said, eyes narrowing a little as she spoke.

  ‘It just seems weird that someone around the same age, same look, almost, would be found so close to where Emily was seen last.’

  ‘That’s something we’re looking into,’ DI Bennett said, shooting Mark a quick look. One he couldn’t quite read. ‘We’ll let you know if anything comes up in the investigation that is a possible link. DC Flynn here will still be leading the search for Emily.’

  They seemed to buy that explanation easily. As the seconds went by, the minutes, the hours, Mark was believing less and less that there was no link between them. The proximity, the ages, the gender… too much of a coincidence. Mark took them home a little while later, driving in silence as the two women stared out at the disappearing city centre on the journey back to the estate. He didn’t stay with them long.

  There were only so many times he could tell them everything was being done to find Emily and make it sound believable.

  * * *

  Mark pulled his car to a stop outside his house after 9 p.m. Worn out, the muscles in his body aching and begging for rest. A flash of guilt washed over him as he remembered the looks on the Burns family earlier. Like rabbits in a hundred pairs of headlights.

  With that image, the feeling of being watched returned once again.

  He couldn’t quite work it out, yet the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he stepped out of his car, closing the door as quietly as possible behind him. On the empty street, darkness staring back at him from every corner, he couldn’t help but feel that someone was out there. Hidden in the shadows.

  Mark decided to take a walk.

  He made his way down the street, slowly, methodically, eyes scanning the area. Listening for any noise, like the one from the previous night. Each step made him a little more anxious, as if he was going towards the danger, rather than away from it.
>
  Which was his job, he supposed.

  He walked the length of the street and back again, hearing and seeing nothing. The feeling remained, but he shook it off and eventually made his way up the path to his house. Let himself inside, gave it a few seconds, then called Natasha.

  She arrived twenty minutes later.

  * * *

  He sat down next to her on the sofa, muting the television in the corner. ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Yeah, was starving when I got home from work,’ Natasha replied, running her hands through her hair and sitting back further into the sofa. ‘Couldn’t wait for you to finish. Wasn’t sure if you’d be calling. Still busy?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mark said, grimacing at the thought of having to go back there again the next day. ‘You didn’t have to come round if you were tired or something.’

  ‘I know, but I’d rather be here than at home on my own,’ Natasha said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not expecting us to move in together after so short a time. But don’t you think this has been… easy? None of the weird awkwardness that’s usually there at the start of relationships?’

  ‘No, I guess not. Just let me know if things are moving too fast though. I don’t want you thinking I expect you to come round at the drop of a hat if you don’t want to.’

  ‘You’re sweet for someone who obviously doesn’t have any problem getting people to “come round”.’

  ‘That’s not true…’

  ‘You keep saying that,’ Natasha said, turning to him and lifting her feet onto the sofa. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Let’s just say when I was younger, I looked a lot different.’

  ‘How so?’

  Mark sighed. ‘I was a heavy teenager. Acne, sweaty, the lot. You wouldn’t have looked twice at me.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because no one did,’ Mark said quickly, then closed his mouth as the familiar feeling he’d lived with as a teenager bubbled its way to the surface. ‘I didn’t know how to talk to anyone really. I thought if I spoke up, I’d just be laughed at. Then puberty hit, and it just made things worse, I suppose. I was bullied for a while, but even they moved on. I was too boring to make fun of, so they just left me alone. I barely spoke to anyone from the age of fourteen to eighteen. Just got used to it. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’