The Game

by Luca Veste

  Mark opened his mouth to answer, but Natasha was laughing again. He stopped himself, watching as she turned to him again and sneered.

  ‘You were just going to use me as well,’ Natasha said, her words tumbling into each other and barely making sense. ‘Why not get what I wanted first? You should just go, Mark. You’ve embarrassed yourself enough.’

  ‘See,’ John said, giggling like a child now. ‘She’s just like the rest of them. She could see you for what you really were. Not good enough for her, not good enough for any of them. You’re still like me.’

  ‘I’m nothing like you.’

  ‘You keep saying that,’ John interrupted, irritation entering his tone. ‘It’s meaningless though. You know the truth. We all know the truth. You don’t have to keep lying. This woman is nobody to you, so why still protect her? She treated you like shit on her shoe and you still can’t accept it. The things you did for her, for all of them, because you felt like you had to. You don’t anymore.’

  ‘That’s not how I feel,’ Mark replied, adding a touch of defeat to his tone that he hoped John could detect. From the smirk on his face, he thought it was working. ‘It’s not…’

  ‘All you’ve done for this girl and she thinks you’re nothing. Just another man that doesn’t live up to her expectations. Can you see it now? Can you see what we’re doing? We’re fixing this. One person at a time. Natasha wouldn’t care if you lived or died…’

  ‘I don’t care if you live or die, I don’t care if you live or die, I DON’T CARE IF YOU LIVE OR DIE.’

  Mark tried to shut out the screams coming from Natasha, but instead they filled his head. He struggled against what he wanted to do. To say. To walk away and never look back. To let it happen.

  He breathed in deeply and the feeling evaporated.

  ‘That’s what she really thinks of you. Do you see it now? This is what they are. They’re liars and cheats. I can get rid of her, just like the rest. I can send her to the other place, so she’ll suffer for what she’s done. She hates you. She hates us all.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Mark replied, but he could hear the anger in his tone. He knew John could hear it too. ‘That’s not why I tried to save her.’

  ‘You really need to work on your lying skills. Maybe I can help you there. You couldn’t see my lies earlier and you’re used to dealing with liars. I’ve got so good at it over time. No one knows a thing I do now. My family have no idea what I’ve been doing for the past year. Just constantly complaining that I spend too much time on my computer – then moaning when I disappear for a few days to do what I’ve been doing. They’ve never suspected a thing. I killed a man while he was eating fast food at a service station. Came back and it was like it never happened. They didn’t even wonder where the hoodie I’d been wearing had gone. It was covered in his blood. Do you know how that feels? Do you know what real power is? You should try it now. Take the power back.’

  ‘I don’t need to.’

  ‘Think about it, Mark… can I call you Mark? I feel like I know you now. I can see how much it hurts you to be rejected by her. It’s there, written all over your face. There’s so many of us out there, just like you.’ He shone the light across the faces of the men standing close by, each of them wearing faces of what Mark could only describe as barely constrained glee. They were enjoying this. All of them. Enjoying the feeling of power they had.

  ‘Only, we’ve found a different path,’ John continued, his chest puffing out. ‘A different way. Sure, I bet you could forget about her within a few days. Find some other slut to warm your bed. But you won’t want that, will you? You were willing to do so much for her and she just… she just doesn’t care. That’s not right.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me,’ Mark said, but even still, he could feel the lies. The shame, if Natasha had been lying to him. He looked over at Natasha, seeing the way she was shuffling on the spot. A wave of anger coursed through him. He tried to ignore it. ‘I just want her to be safe.’

  ‘Leave me alone, Mark,’ Natasha said, a glint in her eye that disappeared as the light shifted. ‘Go. I don’t want you.’

  ‘She hates you, Mark,’ John said, turning to one of the men nearby and nodding. ‘We’re always told we have to wish them well and send them on their way, but why should we? They wronged us, so why shouldn’t we strike back against that. I’m giving you the chance to do that. Here and now. No one knows you’re here, I’m guessing? No one will know you were too late. You can punish her for what she’s done to you. Watch her suffer and become no more, for all of it.’

  ‘No…’

  ‘You tried to give your life for this woman and this is how she repays you? She thinks nothing of you. You repulse her, just like Holly was repulsed by me. Even after I treated her like a fucking queen. I gave everything to her and she just ignored all of it. Well, that’s not how we do things now. We show them who runs the world. Let Natasha experience the same. I’m giving you the opportunity to take something back. She tried to steal your life, now you can take hers.’

  ‘Watch her play the final game. I’ll do the rest,’ John said, lowering his head and staring towards Mark. ‘It’ll look like suicide. No one will ever know. I’ll be gone. You can live your life.’

  Mark couldn’t speak, watching it happen in front of him. John was still, then started nodding.

  ‘I understand,’ John said, then whispered in Natasha’s ear. She flinched at the closeness of him.

  ‘One… two…’

  Mark watched her move backwards and forwards, moving her feet at John’s instruction, as he pointed the phone – it was a phone, he could see that now – in her direction. She counted out her steps, moving them in increasingly bizarre ways.

  ‘This isn’t happening,’ Mark said, beginning to move, as he watched it unfold. His feet finally obeyed him. He moved towards them, charging, before a flash of light exploded in front of him and he realised he was looking at the sky.

  Standing over him, one of the men who had been standing with John. The one he’d nodded towards. In his hand, he could see something, dull and extended. Then, there was a glint of something which shone across his vision and then disappeared.

  There was pain growing inside him as he tried to breathe. His hands were clutching his side, but he didn’t know why. When he took them away, they were sticky.

  Muffled shouts came from a world away. A scream. Then someone’s hands on him, pulling at his shoulders.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

  He turned his head, trying to locate where the voice was coming from, but all he could see was a body on the floor. The light from a phone, shining into his face.

  John, his head turned in his direction, a smile across his face.

  Then the world shifted again and darkness crept in.

  AFTER

  Fifty-Six

  She wasn’t a survivor.

  That’s why she was there, talking to a group of teenagers. A politically driven course of meetings, which would supposedly stop what happened to her and Emily, and Joanna, and Holly, and so many others, from happening again.

  She wasn’t a victim.

  She didn’t know what she was.

  It would take a while to get used to seeing her photograph in the paper. Her story of what had happened that night.

  Not that she remembered much of it.

  Parts of it were vivid, stark, horrifying. Other parts were blurred and malformed. She was remembering more of it day by day, but wished she wasn’t.

  Ignorance can be bliss.

  The end was a memory that was one she actually remembered well.

  She remembered the feeling of the rope around her neck. The burn of it, the weight of it.

  The end had been there. Waiting for her.

  She remembered Mark. The hurt and anger on his face, as she’d lied.

  The feeling of the rope and tightening around the leader’s throat, before she’d realised what had happened to Mark.

  She had v
isited him while he was in hospital. The blood loss was a worry, but they always knew he’d come through it.

  The fear in those other men’s faces, as they had been joined by the other detective working the case. The voices soon growing in number, as arrests were made and the boys – because that was what they were – suddenly realised how serious it all was.

  She remembered a young lad, a couple of years younger than her, lying bloodied and beaten on the ground.

  She knew she had done that. Lashing out in a blurred haze of violence. Fighting for her life.

  She hadn’t seen Mark Flynn since he’d been released from hospital. She’d see him soon, she imagined, at the trial. She didn’t know if she wanted to be in the same room as him. He was considered a hero by all. He had stopped the lad from killing her, after all. That’s what everyone was saying.

  She had a different memory of him from that night. Of him not acting quick enough.

  Perhaps, one day, she thought, she would remember it all as vividly as the feeling of the rope cutting into her neck.

  John Redwood. What a ridiculously normal name.

  It had been in the media for months now. How an eighteen-year-old boy had managed to kill so many people without being caught. In the space of ten months, he had managed to not only set himself up a network of people willing to suggest women to kill, but also evade capture.

  Pretending it was about blackmail, when it was simply a case of male violence. The forum had disappeared from where it had been. Police from a few different countries were trying to investigate, but were struggling.

  All started by one young teenage boy. Countless newspaper headlines screamed the same question.

  How does this happen?

  Natasha knew how.

  She suspected every woman in the room – in every room – knew as well. All of the victims – no, survivors – in their own way.

  The detective’s voice droned on, Natasha listened, as he explained to the young people in the room what could happen online. How no one was really safe, even if they thought they were anonymous.

  She’d asked for this, but didn’t know if it would actually make a difference. She had to do something and she thought someone close to the case that was now so infamous might make a difference. That’s where it had all started, after all.

  Online. Where the real world always feels far away.

  She could feel the odd glance her way. Hear a few whispers. They would all know her face. The image of the story. The star of the show.

  Maybe she should just move on.

  Maybe she should ignore what was happening around her, hidden away. All these young minds being groomed into believing something that wasn’t true, that they were owed something.

  Maybe there was no future.

  Maybe she should at least try.

  * * *

  Mark was moving more freely now, but it had taken time. After that night, it had felt as if every movement was cutting him in half. The pain had been more than he felt able to handle at first, but it was getting better.

  Being stabbed at least six times will do that to you. Multiple surgeries to repair the damage. Months of physiotherapy. Counselling thrown in from his employer.

  He was lauded as a hero, but he didn’t feel like one. He had waited too long and paid the price.

  ‘You sure you want to do this?’

  Mark turned to DS Cavanagh, who was sitting in the driving seat and waiting for an answer. ‘I think it’s only right. This is the end of it, right?’

  ‘Until the trial. Or trials, I should say.’

  This was the first time he’d seen the DS outside of the hospital, but Mark knew that it was only the beginning now. ‘If you hadn’t been there that night…’

  ‘She’s alive because of you,’ DS Cavanagh cut in, before he had a chance to finish. ‘They would have killed her if you hadn’t shown up. I was just there to tidy up. And she was doing a fine job of making sure that even though you’d been taken down, that she was going to survive.’

  ‘I’m just glad you tracked me down.’

  ‘ANPR,’ DS Cavanagh said, grinning to himself. ‘Never thought I’d be putting a fellow copper’s number plate in the system, but I had to do something.’

  ‘Thank you all the same.’

  DS Cavanagh waved it away, like it wasn’t needed or warranted, and maybe it wasn’t.

  ‘Come on, it’s time.’

  Mark followed him up the path to the Burns’s house. It had been a couple of weeks since that night. Since the family had been told who was behind the death of their daughter and sister.

  And niece.

  Big ol’ Uncle Rich had been released from custody, when it was finally accepted that Mark had been right all along.

  His life hadn’t been over.

  Five men had been in the park that night. Four had been arrested, including John Redwood. Each one had broken down in interview. Given details of the online forum, where plans had been made. They swore up and down that they weren’t there to hurt anyone, much less kill, but Cavanagh had broken them eventually.

  The DS had told him this on one of his daily visits to the hospital. Investigations around the other deaths in Leeds and Newcastle were ongoing. Mark guessed that John Redwood may not have been present for those who died there, but that didn’t make him any less responsible. He started this. The Game was his creation.

  DS Cavanagh knocked on Burns’s door. It swung open, a uniformed officer standing at the entrance. They followed them through to the living room, Mark standing back and waiting.

  The Burns family.

  Mark could see Uncle Rich, heading the pack, head and shoulders above everyone else there. He was standing at the mantelpiece, the same position he’d been in when Mark had first arrived at the house a couple of months earlier. Julie Burns was on the sofa next to him, looking even older than when he’d seen her last. Stephanie next to her, arm around her mother, still holding her up.

  Charlie, the youngest member of the family, wasn’t to be seen.

  Julie spotted Mark first, pushing past Rich to get to him.

  He hadn’t seen her since that night at the police station, but news of what had happened must have reached her. Another who thought him heroic. He accepted her gratitude, the rubs to his arm. The thanks and promises to do anything he needed. Rich then did the same. He imagined his offers of ‘help any time you need it. You need anything, you tell me,’ were probably more likely to happen than Julie’s. Less legal, also.

  And they wouldn’t be remembered for very long, after what was about to happen.

  Mark continued to wait then, as planned, with DS Cavanagh talking things over with the family, he slipped upstairs. He could hear the uniform behind him.

  Charlie Burns was in his bedroom, the same young lad with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He looked a little paler, dark rings under his eyes.

  ‘Charlie, how have you been?’ Mark said. ‘Getting on with things okay?’

  ‘Yeah, suppose,’ Charlie replied, looking behind him quickly, then at the floor. ‘Bit hard with all this going on, like.’

  ‘I bet,’ Mark said, crouching down a little to Charlie’s level. ‘Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something. Think it’s important we have a little chat.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I think you know.’

  Charlie shook his head slowly. ‘Haven’t got the first idea.’

  ‘I know what you did.’ Mark waited for some kind of reaction, but Charlie was a blank slate. ‘We don’t know who suggested Emily to him. Who told him to target her, but I know. They’ve managed to work them all out, except for her.’

  ‘I didn’t do nothing…’

  ‘Stop, Charlie,’ Mark said, placing a hand on his shoulder. He gripped a little tighter, ignoring the shooting pain up his side. ‘It was you. I don’t know why, or what you thought was going to happen, but I know it was you. That letter that I found in the attic – you wrote it to put the
blame on Stephanie. We found all the people in that park that night, except for one. Then, I remembered the logo I saw on the back of a jacket. The band I’ve not heard of or seen before. CCTV tracks everyone in this city, without them even realising. You were there, but managed to get away.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about…’

  ‘Yes, you do. You hated your sister and wanted to punish her. It was all you. I don’t know why and maybe you’ll never tell us, but want to know my guess? Jealousy. That’s it. I remember everything you said to me, the last time I was stood in this room. I remember you talking about The Game. I remember the way you talked about your sister. The way you kept trying to say your uncle had something to hide. John told me that the victims were all left in places he was asked to leave them. When she fought back, you needed a cover story. Now, I don’t like coincidences, but there was one here. Your uncle’s yard wasn’t that far away. You helped take her there because John needed your help when it all went wrong. You knew your uncle would be the one who would go down for her murder.’

  ‘You don’t know anything…’

  ‘You’re wrong about that,’ Mark said, his face now only a few centimetres from the young lad’s. ‘You probably think we’ll never find any evidence on that computer, but you’ll be wrong about that too. I promise. Your family are going to know what you’ve done and you’ll have to live with that forever. Charlie Burns, this officer has some things to say to you now.’

  Mark stood aside and allowed the uniform to take over. Watched Charlie’s young face begin to comprehend what was happening.

  There was a moment of struggle, as Charlie began to shout and plead for his mum. Tried to shout his innocence, but it was too late.

  His life as he knew it was over.

  ‘Everything okay, Mark,’ DS Cavanagh said, joining him upstairs, once Charlie had been taken away. ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘Nothing we weren’t expecting.’

  ‘Hopefully we have enough. At least to prove he was there that night. And everything before that. I’m betting you’re right about this as well, though. You haven’t been wrong yet.’