The Game

by Luca Veste

  ‘It’s fine,’ Natasha said, and Mark believed her.

  They sat quietly for a minute or so, before Mark felt her eyes on him again. He turned to her and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped.

  ‘It’s okay, I can feel it too,’ Natasha said, speaking for him. ‘This is the good bit though. Talking to each other and learning. I don’t usually get this close to someone after a month or so. I guess this is moving quicker than I realised.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mark replied, but didn’t feel like Natasha was really sorry about what was happening.

  The start of something.

  Natasha laughed at his apology and shook her head. ‘It’s fine. I’m…’

  ‘Comfortable?’ Mark finished for her, smiling as she nodded in agreement. ‘Good.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean if I find out you’re secretly a Marmite lover or enjoy Love Island, I won’t be running for the door though.’

  Mark laughed now and felt good for it. ‘No on both counts. But I do like those reality TV shows about emergency services, if that’s a problem?’

  ‘I’ll let it slide.’

  ‘What about you?’ Mark said, as Natasha shifted on the sofa, moving closer to him. ‘Any tales of woe from your teenage years?’

  He couldn’t see her face now, as she turned and leaned on his legs. ‘Nothing that’d interest you.’

  Mark shaped to say something, push her on what was quite plainly untrue, but instead closed his mouth and stayed silent.

  It could wait.

  * * *

  Around midnight, with Natasha asleep in bed, Mark stretched out on the single sofa in the tiny living room, overpowered by the ridiculously huge television he’d spent far too much money on a year earlier. The Sky+ box was almost full, so he started watching a programme from it, turning the volume down so as not to wake Natasha. A half-hour panel show, he thought, would bring on sleep more quickly.

  An hour later, he was still awake. He took his phone off the coffee table where he’d left it earlier that night and started scrolling through the local newspaper’s Facebook feed. He quickly found the story he was looking for.

  The press conference for the Burns family. Julie and Stephanie centre stage. DI Bennett sitting next to them. He watched the video again.

  Mark switched back to the Facebook link, when the video autoplayed on his phone once again. He scanned the few comments left, the usual stream of thoughts and prayers and sycophantic declarations. A few troll-like comments appeared, as was the norm now.

  Shouldnt b out that late on her own round there. Askin for it, ya ask me.

  ‘No one is ever asking you,’ Mark said under his breath, continuing to scroll through the comments.

  Near the end, there was one which seemed to jump out from the page. Made him frown at his phone and read it again.

  She played the game and lost. Shame it wasn’t the other twin. Would have been more fun.

  He wondered what had prompted such a strange response, but carried on reading through. Combed through the comments to see if there was anything similar he’d missed.

  Seems like a Game to me. Another girl going missing –probably turn up in a day or two.

  Who cares? More important things going on than a stupid girl playing around.

  He’d seen comments like these before. Social media – the refuge of annoying opinions. He took a screenshot of the comments on his phone, without knowing why, and then switched to the main story on the page.

  The death of Joanna Carter.

  It seemed that this story had the same kind of people commenting, but with a few more fools tossed into the pile. The ones who couldn’t wait to post that someone was selfish for possibly ending their own life. The same idiotic words that were always used. Coward, attention-seeking, stupid. It was always the same.

  They would soon change their tune, once the fact it wasn’t suicide became known.

  Mark switched back to the story on Emily Burns when it became too much. There were a few more comments trickling in that he was interested in. Names he recognised from trawling through her fake social media accounts. Those who had been targeted by her, victimised and shamed. They would feel vindicated now; still too embarrassed to tell anyone what she had done.

  Hope she regrets wat she did.

  No1 will miss her.

  More to this than anyone knows. She wasn’t a goody two shoes.

  The anger Emily had left behind, like a stain on their lives. Mark couldn’t read anymore, but forced himself to make a note of the names.

  She played The Game and lost…

  When Mark finally fell asleep three hours later – Natasha asleep beside him, silent – he was still thinking about that comment.

  Twenty-Six

  Mark was bleary-eyed and tired when he arrived at the station the next morning. His eventual sleep was fitful, disturbed by the guilt of not working every hour, every minute of the day, to try and track Emily down.

  To work out what connected her to Joanna Carter.

  The usual early morning meeting was about to start when he arrived in the room, taking a seat near the back. Filled with faces he recognised, but couldn’t name.

  ‘Joanna Carter,’ DI Bennett said, bringing the room to a quiet. ‘Positively identified by family and we’re treating it as a suspicious death now.’

  ‘Not suicide?’

  ‘Highly unlikely, I would say, given the CCTV,’ DI Bennett said, turning to Mark’s least-favourite fellow DC. The smarmy Dale Williams. ‘We’re going through the last of the CCTV now, but it looks like whoever was with Joanna that night knew to keep themselves hidden.’

  On the screen behind her, there was a blown-up image of the figure that Mark had seen the day before, following Joanna onto the roof. He still couldn’t see any facial features, but he leaned forward anyway, trying to see anything recognisable at all.

  ‘So, we’re trying to track down whoever this person is,’ DI Bennett continued, gesturing behind her to the screen. ‘This is our most important piece of evidence at the moment. Tech officers are going through the victim’s computer and phone as we speak. At the moment, we don’t have even a possible ID for this person yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find him. I want this to be the main focus of today. Take this picture around the building, to all the occupants. The photograph will also be released to the media in a couple of hours. Someone, somewhere, knows who this man is.’

  Mark listened as DI Bennett went on, talking about a case he increasingly felt was way out of his control now. He waited until the meeting had ended before speaking to her. She was expecting him, it seemed, as he made his way past the other people in the room to the front, where she was leaning against the table, arms folded across her chest.

  ‘So…’

  ‘It would have been much easier if there was a link, Mark,’ DI Bennett said, shrugging as she finished. ‘We still haven’t found any link between the two and you would think in this day and age that wouldn’t be difficult to find. They’re not Facebook friends, don’t follow each other on Twitter, no emails or WhatsApp messages. We can’t find a single thing. Plus, it doesn’t look like Emily in the CCTV. I’m positive about that.’

  ‘So am I,’ Mark replied, as DS Cavanagh joined them. The room had emptied out now, leaving them alone. ‘I don’t like coincidences though.’

  ‘None of us do.’

  ‘So, what if Emily is a victim as well? What if she saw something that night and has been dealt with in the same way?’

  ‘Until we have something concrete, we don’t have the manpower to cover that angle at this time. We need something to connect them, Mark. You know the score.’

  Mark shook his head, trying to contain his frustration. ‘We’re just waiting for her body to show up, is that what you’re suggesting?’

  DS Cavanagh stepped forwards, fixing Mark with a stare. ‘That’s not what is being said, Mark. At the moment, Emily is still missing. Your job is to find her, or give us something more
to work on, right?’

  Mark swallowed and averted his eyes. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good,’ DI Bennett replied, cocking her head to one side and giving him a look of concern that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. ‘Have you tracked down the father yet?’

  ‘I think so,’ Mark said. ‘I’m going to speak to him now.’

  DI Bennett nodded, then turned to DS Cavanagh to discuss Joanna Carter again.

  Mark left them to it and went out.

  Alone.

  * * *

  Driving through the city was something Mark enjoyed. Back when he’d started working that side of the water, he was always driving. Exploring the way it was constantly changing before his eyes, the buildings and people shifting with each passing month. It was still all fresh to him, seeing it through new eyes every day.

  It meant he still viewed the city as almost another world. One with hidden secrets he wanted to uncover.

  After pretending to himself he knew where he was going, he eventually conceded defeat and plugged the street name into his sat nav. The city was a sprawling landscape of towns and estates. He couldn’t know it all. No one did. Still, he wanted to try.

  Mark pulled the car to a stop outside a tired-looking block of flats, half an hour outside the city centre. It could have been a different place entirely, a different city. This one seemed to still be clinging on to its past with whitened fingertips: the faded green facade of the building, peeling paint each way you turned. Even the graffiti looked like it was of a different time. As he left the car, he heard shouts and cackling laughter swept on the wind towards him, but the street was empty, apart from a crisp packet swirling in the breeze.

  The door that led into the block was ajar, held open by a bit of cardboard so it didn’t close properly. He pushed it open and made his way up the concrete stairs to the second floor, trying to breathe through his mouth as he did so. The cloying smell of decay and ammonia was seeping out of every surface.

  This was the forgotten land. The side of the city people elsewhere tried to pretend didn’t exist. The money spent on the waterfront and beyond not stretching this far.

  Yet. He hoped that would change.

  He rapped his knuckles on the door, stood back and waited a few seconds. He didn’t think it was likely that Barry Usher was going to be at work. Not with his knowledge of the type of people who lived in this area and what he knew about the bloke. He tried knocking again, harder this time. The wooden door rattled a little on its hinges. Another minute went by and he reached out to knock again, when the door behind him swung open with a creak that echoed around the small walkway.

  ‘He’s not in,’ a voice said, gruff and raspy, thick with years of smoking and drinking, Mark thought. He turned to see the woman it belonged to. ‘He’ll be in the pub by now.’

  Mark smiled at the older woman, taking in her large stature and bent posture. She was propping herself up on a walking frame, staring him down. ‘I’m from Merseyside Police…’

  ‘That’s nice for you, but he’s still not in.’

  ‘Where does he drink these days?’

  ‘You’ll find him at the Peg,’ the woman said, already turning around to go back into the flat. ‘Do me a favour and tell him to pick me up a pint of milk on his way back. He’s a good lad. Don’t go nicking him or anything.’

  Mark shaped to answer, but the door was already closing.

  He pulled out his phone for directions once he was back at the car, the sat nav finding the right pub within a minute. It was no better than the block of flats he’d just left – a pub that was probably last booming twenty years ago.

  Mark wondered how he would find the man, given he had no idea what he looked like. He pushed open the door to the pub, walking inside with his shoulders back and chest out, waiting for trouble as soon as he entered.

  He needn’t have worried.

  Inside, a fat barman sat precariously on a barstool staring at a quiet television in the corner. The only other sign of life was an older bloke, sitting a little further down the bar, a newspaper open in front of him. A pint of something dark next to his hand.

  Mark made his way over towards the bar, feeling more overdressed than he ever had, in his suit and tie and black polished shoes. He didn’t belong there. The barman gave him a cursory glance up and down, then turned back to the television. Marked out within seconds, he thought.

  ‘Barry?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’ the man sitting at the bar said without turning around.

  ‘Detective Constable Mark Flynn. You got a minute?’

  Barry Usher looked at him for the first time, then turned back to his paper. ‘I don’t know nothing about anything.’

  ‘I’m here about Emily. Your daughter.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Barry replied, lifting his pint and draining a third of it in one slug. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Mark said, wishing he was suddenly anywhere else. ‘We’ve been trying to track you down for a couple of days now. She’s missing. It’s been on the news, online and that.’

  ‘I don’t bother reading all that shite. It’s usually all lies. Anyway, she’s twenty-odd years old now, I’m sure she can look after herself.’

  ‘She’s nineteen,’ Mark corrected, trying to keep his voice calm and steady. ‘And we’re worried she may have come to some harm.’

  ‘And what do you need me for? It’s not like I know where she is. I’ve not seen her in over ten years. Thanks to that bint of a mother she’s got. Should I be worried?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say.’

  Barry considered this and sniffed. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine. It’s not like they need my help anyway. Wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire, thanks to their mother. She’ll turn up soon enough, no doubt. And won’t thank me for caring.’

  ‘I’m guessing my next question is going to be easily answered then.’

  ‘No, I haven’t seen her. Wouldn’t even know what she looked like now. Any of the kids. They don’t want to know me, so what can I do? It’s not like they’re missing out on anything. They’d only want to know why I wasn’t around when they were growing up. All that touchy-feely Jeremy Kyle bollocks. It’s not like I could give them an answer they’d like. I’d only be landing their mum in it.’

  ‘She kept you from seeing them?’

  ‘She didn’t want me having anything to do with the kids,’ Barry said, stroking the side of his pint glass with an idle hand. From the look of him – and the smell – Mark guessed it wasn’t his first pint of the afternoon. ‘I was a bad influence because I wouldn’t put up with the shite she would. They needed discipline, not a friend. That’s what she wanted to be. I wanted to be a dad. Show them the right way about things. Real-life stuff, you know? Especially the boy. He was soft as shite, even as a baby.’

  ‘So, you haven’t heard from any of them in years?’

  Barry paused, then lifted his pint to his mouth. Motioned towards the barman for a refill. He didn’t move. ‘Not a word in at least four or five years. Their head will be full of crap by now. Their mum never had a good word to say about me and I can only imagine what she’s said since then. All lies, of course.’

  ‘Really?’

  There was a moment when Mark thought he’d pushed it too hard, even though he’d only asked a simple question. That’s all it could take in a place like this – one bad word, one wrong look.

  ‘I never did anything bad to her,’ Barry said, a look of anger sweeping across his face, gone in a second. ‘Nothing like as bad as she told your lot anyway. We had some arguments, me and her. Some doozies. She could give as good as she got, that Julie. What happened to me was never talked about – it was always what happened to her. She always came running back, though.’

  ‘Until the last time,’ Mark said, watching as Barry’s face darkened yet again, before the fresh pint was plonked in front of him on the bar. A curled fist went round it and Barry supped greedily
.

  ‘Yeah, until the last time,’ Barry replied, wiping a grimy sleeve across his bearded face. Mark wondered where he’d been for the past decade, as his son and daughters grew older, became adults. Whether he’d been waiting in this pub, for someone like him to come along and tell him how his kids were doing.

  ‘I tried for a bit,’ Barry continued, patting his pockets and eventually finding what he was looking for – a pouch of tobacco, which he opened and began rolling a cigarette. ‘Used to have them round to this little flat I had back when I moved out. Tiny place it was and she wouldn’t let me put some sleeping bags down so they could sleep over. Not my fault, that. They would have loved it, I reckon. Would’ve been like they were camping. That bint wasn’t having any of it. She hated me by that point, even though she still loved me as well. I could tell, when I would drop them off – there was always a part of her that wanted me to just walk through that door like nothing had happened and take over the house again. She needed it, but I wasn’t going to give it to her. Not anymore. Bet she’s still waiting for me to come back. She could never cope without me.’

  She seems to have done fine without you, Mark thought. ‘Do you keep in touch with any of that side of the family? Ever had any run-ins with them perhaps?’

  Barry barked out a short laugh, then, a little sliver of tongue slipped out of his mouth as it ran along the cigarette paper, sealing it shut. ‘You’ve met her brother then, I’m guessing. Richie Burns. Is he still a big, jumped-up lump? You know, he never said a word to me, in all those years me and his sister were having problems. All talk, that one. Don’t let him make you think different. He’d sooner beat up some poor drunk bloke a foot shorter than him, than actually take on someone who could fight back. His reputation is not well earned, I’ll tell you.’