The Danger Game

by Kevin Brooks

  He held up his knife. ‘You won’t walk out of here.’

  He was about two metres away from me now. I gently started swinging the can of paint in my hand, getting the feel of it, testing its weight.

  Dee Dee laughed. ‘What are you going to do with that? Paint me to death?’

  Keeping my eyes fixed on him, I began swinging the can more vigorously, building up the momentum. Dee Dee watched me, his eyes narrowed, trying to figure out what I was doing. From the way he was standing, and the way he was holding his knife, I was fairly sure that he thought I was going to rush at him and try to hammer the can into his head. Which was exactly what I was hoping he’d think.

  I swung the can up and over in my head in a full circle, then suddenly stepped forward, swinging it again, even faster, and this time – just at the right moment – I let it go, hurling it as hard as I could at Dee Dee’s head. He reacted pretty quickly, I’ll give him that, realising at the last second what I was doing, and as the paint can went flying towards him, he raised his arm in front of his head and ducked to one side. If my aim had been good, the can probably would have missed him altogether, but luckily for me – and unluckily for him – I’d let go of the paint can just a fraction too early, so instead of flying straight at his head, it went a bit lower, and instead of dodging it, he actually ducked his head into it. His raised arm saved his head from a direct hit, but it didn’t deflect the heavy can all that much, and it caught Dee Dee just over his right eye. He staggered sideways against the wall, his legs almost giving way, but somehow he stayed on his feet. I didn’t hesitate, I just ran, hurtling along the corridor as fast as I could. Dee Dee made a grab for me as I approached him, but he didn’t have his coordination back yet, and all I had to do was feint one way and go the other, and I was past him like a shot.

  I knew I wasn’t safe yet though, not by a long way, and even before I’d reached the end of the corridor, I heard Dee Dee coming after me.

  ‘Come on, Ron!’ I heard him yell. ‘Move it! Get going!’

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw Dee Dee running after me. He was still a little unsteady, but he was moving pretty fast. Behind him, Ronnie Bull was on his feet now and coming after me too. He hadn’t recovered as well as Dee Dee, and he was stumbling around as he tried to run, but his eyes weren’t glazed any more. They were determined and angry.

  I carried on running.

  The lift was at the end of the corridor, and as I got near to it I could see that the door was open and the lift was waiting. Questions raced through my mind. Should I take the lift or use the stairs? Which was quicker? Could I get in the lift and shut the door before Dee Dee caught up with me?

  Come on, think!

  Lift or stairs?

  I was at the end of the corridor. I had to decide right now.

  Lift or stairs?

  I went for the stairs.

  Big mistake.

  46

  I got down the first flight of steps without any trouble, but as I turned the corner and started heading down to the second floor, that’s when it all went wrong. A young couple were coming up the stairs, the woman carrying two babies and the man lugging a pushchair. It was one of those massive twin-buggies, about the size of a small car, and there was no way I could get past the man carrying it. I couldn’t understand why they were using the stairs instead of the lift, but then it suddenly struck me that maybe it wasn’t just a coincidence that the lift was waiting on the third floor with the doors open, maybe it was there because Dee Dee or Bull had fixed it so it was there – jammed it open or something – in case they needed a quick exit. So the couple with the buggy hadn’t had any choice but to use the stairs.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said to them, trying to squeeze past, ‘I’m sorry, but I really need to—’

  ‘Move your arse, kid,’ the man growled. ‘You’ll just have to wait.’

  He was obviously pretty fed up with having to carry the buggy all the way up the stairs, and it was clear from the look he gave me that there was no point in trying to reason with him.

  Take the stairs, Ron! I heard Dee Dee calling out from above. I’ll take the lift!

  I heard the lift door closing, then Bull’s footsteps starting down the stairs.

  I moved away from the man with the buggy, backing up the stairs to the landing between the second and third floors, and I looked down over the railings of the stairwell. It was a good three-metre drop to the next flight of steps, and even if I climbed over the railings and lowered myself down, it was still a long way to fall. And there was nowhere safe to land anyway. It was all jutting lumps of concrete and metal railings. I’d be lucky if I didn’t break my legs.

  It was too late to jump now anyway. Ronnie Bull was coming down the steps towards me.

  ‘Stay right where you are, boy,’ he said sternly. ‘You’re under arrest for assaulting a police officer.’

  He was kind of tough-looking, in a grizzly sort of way, and I guessed under normal circumstances he’d be more than capable of looking after himself. But he still looked pretty groggy, and as he came down the steps towards me, he was holding on to the banister to help keep his balance.

  ‘Turn around,’ he told me. ‘Put your hands on your head.’

  I did as I was told.

  As he came up behind me, he began cautioning me. ‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which—’

  I spun round suddenly and hit him in the belly with a hard right hook. He let out a low groan, the air bursting from his lungs, and as he doubled over, gasping for breath, I stepped round him and began running back up the stairs.

  I didn’t stop running until I’d reached the fifth floor. The sixth floor, I realised, was a dead end. There was only one way out up there – down – but on the fifth floor I still had the choice of going up or down. I went through the door into the car-parking area and started heading across to the other side. I didn’t know if there was another lift or more stairs on that side or not, but it was worth having a look. As I went, I took my mobile out of my pocket, intending to call Grandad. But there was no signal. No bars, nothing at all. I tried his number anyway, just in case, but it was a waste of time. I switched to the tracker screen. The green dot was still showing, but it was doing the flickering around thing again, which meant that Dee Dee was either on the stairs or in the lift. I had no way of telling which floor he was on though.

  I’d reached the far side of the car park now. There was no sign of any stairs or another lift, and then I saw a sign on the wall that said ALL EXITS THIS WAY, with an arrow pointing back the way I’d just come.

  ‘Great,’ I muttered.

  I went over and crouched down behind a parked Range Rover and tried to work out what the hell I was going to do.

  The first thing I did was put myself in Dee Dee’s shoes and try to imagine what I’d be doing if I were him. He had no way of knowing which floor I was on, but he probably knew there was only one way out. So, if I were him, I’d leave Ronnie Bull on the door at the ground floor while I went looking for me. The big advantage I had was that there were plenty of places to hide. Dee Dee had six floors of parked cars to search. On the downside though, I couldn’t hide for ever. As the hours passed, the cars would leave, and eventually – I didn’t know when – the car park would close. That wouldn’t have mattered so much if Dee Dee had been on his own, because the carpark staff would have told him to leave when the car park closed. But he wasn’t on his own, he was with a police officer, and all Ronnie Bull would have to do was make up some story about me, and the car-park staff would probably help him look for me.

  So hiding wasn’t a long-term option. I had to find some way of getting out.

  Just then, a Vauxhall Astra started up a few rows away from me, and as it backed out of its parking slot and drove away, I suddenly realised that that was my way out. Dee Dee and Bull wouldn’t be expecting me to leave in a car. They wouldn’t be watching the vehicle exit.<
br />
  I smiled, quietly pleased with myself, and began to think that maybe I was going to get out of this situation after all.

  All I had to do now was work out how to get into a car.

  After thinking about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that there were two basic options. I could either get into a car with or without the driver knowing. To get in with the driver knowing, I’d either have to do it by force or persuasion. Force was out of the question. There was no way I was going to threaten a perfectly innocent person – drive me out of here or I’ll break your nose. I just couldn’t do it. But I didn’t think persuasion would work either. I’d have to come up with a believable story, an acceptable reason for needing to get out of the car park in a stranger’s car, and I simply couldn’t think of anything that anyone would swallow. And besides, who in their right mind was going to let a fourteen-year-old kid who they didn’t know into their car?

  So that left the other option: getting into a car without the driver’s knowledge.

  Grandad had taught me the basics of breaking into a car, but I didn’t know enough about disabling alarms to feel safe enough trying it. An alarm going off would be a dead giveaway as to where I was. So I was left with just two choices. I could either wander round the car park trying the doors of all the cars, hoping to find one that wasn’t locked, then get in the back of the car, hide behind the front seat, and just wait for the driver to return (and hope that they didn’t have any back-seat passengers with them). Or I could keep an eye out for a returning driver, follow them to their car, wait for them to open the door, then somehow sneak in the back without being seen.

  I decided to go for the first option – wandering around, looking for an unlocked car.

  I cautiously straightened up, peering over the bonnet of the Range Rover to make sure there was no sign of Dee Dee or Bull, and when I was satisfied that neither of them were there, I gazed around the car park, trying to work out the best way to set about searching for an unlocked car. I decided to start where I was, go up this row of cars, then down the next row, up the next one, and so on. That way I could keep track of where I’d already searched and not waste time getting lost.

  I went over to the first car – a Citröen C3 – and just as I was reaching out for the door handle, something slammed into the back of my head and the world went black.

  47

  I thought I’d gone blind when I woke up. My eyes were open, but all I could see was a veil of blackness. The back of my head was throbbing like mad, and in a state of panic I began to think that I’d been hit so hard that I’d lost the use of my eyes. I squeezed them shut, held them closed for a few moments, then opened them again. I still couldn’t see anything. I automatically tried to rub my eyes, but for some reason I couldn’t move my hands. I flexed my arms, and that’s when I realised that my hands were tied together behind my back.

  What the hell was going on? Where was I? Why couldn’t I see anything?

  Stay calm, I told myself. Panicking’s not going to help. Just keep calm, use your head, try to think things through.

  I breathed out slowly and thought things through.

  Where are you? I asked myself.

  I was lying on my side, kind of squashed down really uncomfortably in some kind of gap, with something lumpy jutting into my ribs and my head pressed up against a hard vertical surface. I could hear an engine, the sound of a car . . . the sensation of movement . . .

  I was moving.

  I was in a car.

  I tried to sit up, and immediately felt someone pushing me back down again.

  Don’t move, kid, I heard Dee Dee say. His voice came from above me, and just to my right. Just stay down there and keep your mouth shut, he added, and you won’t get hurt

  Is he awake?

  Bull’s voice this time, also from above me, but from the other side.

  Yeah, he’s awake, Dee Dee told him.

  I kept still, kept quiet, and gave some more thought to my situation. If I was in a car, I thought, and Dee Dee and Bull were both above me, one to my left and the other to my right, the only place I could be was in the footwell behind the driver’s seat. Bull was driving, I guessed, and Dee Dee was in the back with me. It made sense. Sitting in the back meant he could keep an eye on me at the same time as keeping himself relatively out of sight. He was probably keeping his head down as well, unless the car had tinted rear windows, which wouldn’t surprise me. The last thing either of them wanted was to be seen together in the same car.

  Yeah, I told myself, that all makes perfect sense.

  And the reason I can’t see?

  There was something on my head, I realised now, something over my head. Something light . . . a cloth. I could feel it on my face too. It was some kind of hood. That’s why I couldn’t see. I had a hood over my head.

  Thank God for that, I thought. I’m not blind after all.

  My sense of relief didn’t last very long though. I might not be blind, but I was tied up and hooded in the footwell of a car with Drew Devon and Ronnie Bull. And however you looked at it, that wasn’t a good situation.

  I moved my head slightly, trying to get my eyes closer to the hood to see if it helped to see through it, but the moment I moved, a bolt of pain shot through my skull like a blunt knife jabbing into my brain, and it was all I could do not to cry out.

  Whoever it was who’d hit me – and I guessed it was Dee Dee – he hadn’t held back. It felt like he’d smashed my head with a sledgehammer. How the hell had he found me? I wondered. And how had he managed to sneak up behind me without me noticing?

  Not that it made the slightest bit of difference now.

  He had found me, and he had sneaked up behind me. How he’d done it was completely irrelevant. All that mattered now was now.

  Are you sure this place we’re going to is safe? I heard him ask Bull.

  It’s a safe house, Dee, Bull replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  What’s it used for?

  Witnesses under police protection, informants . . . anyone we need to keep safe, basically. That’s why it’s called a safe house.

  And you’re sure it’s not being used at the moment?

  I’m sure.

  How do you know?

  I just do, OK? Trust me.

  Who else knows about it?

  Just a couple of DIs and the DCI Its location is only given out on a need-to-know basis. Don’t worry, Dee. No one’s going to know we’re there.

  Good.

  They went quiet for a while then, and I just lay there, listening hard, trying to pick out any telltale sounds from outside that might give me a clue as to where we were, but all I could hear was the soft rumble of the car engine and the unremarkable sounds of streets passing by – heavy traffic, horns beeping, a brief blast of music from a passing shop or a pub . . .

  We could be anywhere.

  What are you going to do with him? Bull said.

  Talk to him, ask him a few questions. . .

  Then what?

  What do you think?

  No, Bull said firmly. You can’t do that.

  Why not?

  It’s too much, Dee. He’s just a kid.

  He knows about us, Ron. He heard everything. What do you think’s going to happen if he talks?

  Well, yeah, but—

  We’ll both be ruined. You’ll lose your job at the very least. You could even end up in prison. And if that happens we’ll both probably end up with a knife in our guts.

  There must be some other way of keeping his mouth shut.

  Yeah? What do you suggest? We just ask him nicely to keep quiet?

  Threaten him with something.

  I’ve already threatened him. I’ve threatened him and his grandad, and I’ve had the girl who works for them beaten up. But he’s still come after me. There’s only one way to stop him, Ron. You know that as well as I do.

  I don’t like it.

  You should have thought of that before you started taking my mon
ey.

  I never thought things would go this far.

  You were wrong then, weren’t you?

  They didn’t talk much for the rest of the journey, just the occasional idle remark, and they didn’t pay me any attention at all. They hadn’t paid me any attention when they were talking about what they were going to do to me either – treating me as if I simply wasn’t there – and I wondered if that utter disregard was genuine, or whether it was all part of a ruse to scare me, to soften me up before we got to the house, so that when we got there I’d be so terrified I’d tell Dee Dee everything he wanted to know. As I lay there in the footwell thinking about it, I tried to convince myself that it was all talk, and that Dee Dee was only bluffing when he’d told Ronnie Bull that there was ‘only one way to stop’ me.

  The problem with that though, the reason I found it so difficult to accept, no matter how hard I tried, was this: why was Dee Dee taking so many risks – kidnapping a fourteen-year-old kid, being out in the open with a policeman – if all he was going to do when we got to the house was ask me a few questions? He could have stayed in the car park to do that. Why did he feel the need to take me to a place that no one else knew about, a safe house, a safe place? Safe from what? I kept asking myself. Safe for what?

  It wasn’t easy to put those thoughts from my mind and concentrate on what I could do, rather than what might be about to happen to me, but I did my best. There was clearly nothing much I could do right now. Even if I could open the car door and throw myself out – which given that my hands were tied and I couldn’t see anything was virtually impossible anyway – and even if I survived the fall and didn’t get run over by another car, what good would it do me? Bull would just stop the car, and Dee Dee would just jump out and recapture me.

  So I had to accept that there was nothing I could do just now, and instead I had to start thinking about what was going to happen when we got to the safe house. Whatever Dee Dee’s ultimate intentions were, I was pretty sure he’d want to ask me some questions first, and I guessed one of the things he’d want to know was how I’d found out about him and Bull and how I’d tracked him to the car park. I quickly decided, there and then, that no matter what he did to me, I wasn’t going to tell him anything about Jaydie’s – or her friends’ – involvement in anything. In view of that, I realised, I had to come up with an alternative, and believable, explanation as to how I’d found out about him and Bull and their meeting at the car park.