Game Point

by Malcolm Hollingdrake

  Peg rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Sir. Do you want me to organise this?”

  He shook his head. “Liz wouldn’t have given up, she’d have just got on with the job. I can at least do that for her. I need a minute though and I’ll be fine. It’s Owen’s bloody driving, thinks he’s Stirling Moss.” He tried to lighten his mood and give them some assurance that he had his emotions under control.

  He walked up slowly towards the phone box. He wanted to instruct the officer to keep the area sealed off until Forensics had checked it out. He ducked under the tape.

  “Is she one of ours, Sir? One of the lads said she might be.”

  Cyril simply nodded and looked at his feet. The vomit had spattered his shoes and the bottom of his trousers; an intense anger stirred within him. It was then he spied it, just away from the grassy kerb.

  “What’s that?” Cyril pointed to the road.

  The officer walked towards it.

  “Don’t touch it!” Cyril ordered. His firm, raised voice made his colleague stop in his tracks.

  Cyril walked over and bent down. It was a bicycle spoke. He took a glove from his pocket and picked it up. He walked slowly back to Owen, holding it out.

  “It’s a spoke.”

  “Are broken spokes in the great wheel of good which shall in due time be made whole? Get in the car! This road leads to Lofthouse with a turn to Middlesmoor which I know is a dead end. Get a patrol car to block the road at the top of Trapping Hill, the road that leads from Lofthouse. I want it at the top.”

  Cyril’s mood had quickly changed, causing Owen some concern. He had read how the death of someone close could affect a person’s actions. “Now I want you to sit there.” He then pointed to the passenger seat. “Peg’s going to take charge. We’re going for a gentle drive.

  Owen looked at Cyril and then at Peg. Clearly confused, Peg just nodded at Owen and mouthed, ‘go’. He did as requested. Cyril stopped the car by the tape as it was removed, then drove steadily on. He said nothing. On arriving at Lofthouse, he turned right out of the village. The stone houses hugged the narrow road until the last two appeared to squeeze the road so narrowly that it seemed that they would not get through. It was on leaving the village that Cyril saw the cyclists struggling with the hill.

  “You’ve not met Charles have you, Owen?”

  Owen simply looked at Cyril, convinced that the sight of Liz lying in the churchyard had disturbed his mind. It was at that point that Cyril accelerated. The car lurched forward making a direct line for the cyclists.

  “Sir! What the bloody hell are… The bikes!”

  It took a moment for Owen to realise what was happening and a split second for him to react. He leaned over and grabbed and turned the steering wheel violently.

  “Owen, No!”

  The strength of Owen’s one hand was easily a match for Cyril’s determined grip. The car swerved violently, but not enough to prevent the two cyclists colliding heavily with the front wing of the car. The sound of bending metal, reverberated within. The first cyclist to be hit took the full impact and literally flew into the air, quickly followed by what was left of his bicycle.

  Cyril stamped on the brake and the car slid along the road before mounting the grass verge. Within seconds, Cyril was out of the car and running down the grassy bank towards the prostrate figures. Owen followed.

  Watching Cyril move swiftly towards the bigger of the two riders, Owen went instinctively to the other who was now beginning to sit up. Blood ran from his nose and from a cut above his right eye. Owen’s attention was drawn to the other figure by the scream that shattered the air. He looked across and saw Cyril hovering over him. He moved across swiftly, concerned at the commotion. He could see immediately that the man’s leg was bent at an angle that suggested it was badly broken. To his amazement, he saw Cyril raise his foot before planting it directly onto the damaged leg. The scream was intense. Cyril turned to Owen.

  “Owen, meet the bastard, Charles.” He pressed his weight down again. “You found and killed the Shylocks and the Judases but we have finally found the Devil.”

  Owen’s face was wracked with confusion as he moved towards the prostrate figure.

  “He’s Charles? How? Why is he here?”

  It was then that he noticed the blonde hair. Cyril raised his leg and applied a little pressure onto the disfigured limb until Charles’s scream ceased and he lost consciousness. He then looked at the other cyclist who was trying to get to his feet.

  “Now who the hell are you?” Bennett said with a degree of venom as he approached the other cyclist.

  “Please don’t hurt him, Sir!”

  Owen was already making a call to Control.

  Epilogue

  Cyril poured the remaining drops from the second bottle of white wine. The waitress hovered, hoping that he would pay and leave. The bill had been placed on his table fifteen minutes earlier and he was the last customer for the afternoon shift.

  The temperature had fallen considerably during the afternoon; Cyril wrapped his scarf more tightly around his neck and paid the bill. He crossed the road and headed for the station to catch the train to Wihr au Val. The small station building, a yellow brick pre-war structure, was immaculate. He checked the clock that sat high above the main entrance. He had a twenty-minute wait. Being in France, a different country, a different culture, enabled him to feel insulated. Whether it was the climate, the mountains, the different language or simply the numbing effect of the wine, it all helped to shield him from his crippling guilt.

  The train journey was short and he stood, watching the fields pass. He was soon leaving Wihr au Val station. He failed to notice the person sitting on the station bench, huddled and wrapped. He crossed the main road and walked up Rue de la Gare before stopping at the narrow bridge that ran over the River Fecht. It immediately brought to mind the river at Pateley Bridge; the size of the waterway was the same as the Nidd, so too was its clarity and its colour; it was tree lined and secretive. He let the sound of the tumbling water fill his confused mind as tears ran down his cheeks, falling and blending with the water below before being carried away; if only his guilt could be washed clean, dissolved and lost as easily. The day was quickly drawing to a close.

  He thought of the last moments of his investigation. He could see the two cyclists struggling along the steep, narrow lane and then the collision. Had Owen not turned the wheel at the last moment he would have killed one if not both men. He wished now that he had, at least he would have taken an eye for an eye.

  The clinical audacity that Charles had demonstrated, his blatant disregard, casually spectating his grief angered him. To design and then mock his professional nadir he could not and would not forgive. Had he not left the cemetery quickly following his breakdown on seeing Liz, he would not have seen the two of them, they would have disappeared. They would have enjoyed seeing his heartbreak but would have then casually left in plain sight leaving the spoke to be discovered by the SOCOs after they were long gone. It would have been like a final nail that they hammered into his conscience for him to battle with. By pure chance, he had seen them and he would happily have killed them with his bare hands, as, he was convinced, would have Owen.

  Atkins’s plaintive cry not to hurt Charles was a conundrum. Both he and Owen had been shocked when they had realised who he was.

  The figure who had watched him get off the train now stood across the main road close to the trees, staring at the lonely man, waiting for the right moment.

  On questioning, it was discovered that Atkins had not been hiding family skeletons, covering for his sister’s death all that time. Yes, Valerie had pushed Jennifer to her death and he had threatened to tell if she did not tow the line. He manipulated her, threatened and blackmailed her, but that was only until she had discovered his passion for boys; then the tables had been swiftly turned. He became subservient and withdrawn until they both went to university. It was there that she had met an acquaintance of Charle
s’s and then Charles himself. When they were both back home, she had taken James to a party where he and Charles first met. Their developing relationship was flexible but it continued with James even visiting Charles at his home in the South of France on numerous occasions. James also had been made aware of Val’s voracious sexual appetite and had witnessed her gradual drug dependency; the tables had again begun to turn. It was then that she met John, James’ best friend, but she had soon sullied that relationship by mentioning her brother’s sexuality. The friendship quickly deteriorated with threats levelled on both sides: James was the one to bend. He ran.

  It was only on the surprise receipt of Valerie’s laptop that James had become fully aware of Charles’s activities. James then had a choice to make. Did he support the man that he loved, or did he support the memory of the dead sister he loathed and the man who had shown little sensitivity towards him? According to James, who was guilty of withholding crucial evidence, the decision had been an easy one. Charles had been the only person to accept him for what he was. To Cyril, he should be hung out to dry and Charles? He would gladly do to him what he had done to Liz.

  Cyril took one more look over the bridge. The darkness had swallowed the light. He set off towards his hotel.

  The figure crossed the road; the day’s light was fast diminishing.

  “Cyril Bennett! DCI Cyril Bennett!”

  Cyril stopped dead hearing his name called. He had left his title back in Yorkshire days before and did not want to hear it again until he was ready, if ever. A shiver ran down his neck. He turned slowly and looked back towards the bridge and into the gloom.

  “A penny for all your thoughts, Cyril.”

  The figure moved slowly towards him, hand outstretched. Of all the people he would want to see, this was the one. He walked quickly back towards her and they embraced.

  “Julie… how? Where did you come from?”

  “They told me at the hotel that you’d walked into Munster and that you were intending to get the train back. I waited on the platform.” She kissed him on the lips and smelled the sweet wine on his breath.

  Tears again began to stream down his cheeks as he rested his forehead on hers. His shoulders lifted involuntarily as he sobbed.

  “We have the time to rebuild, Cyril. We cannot bring Liz back, but we can honour her memory by upholding what she truly believed in and that’s fighting crime and keeping Harrogate safe from the likes of Charles.”

  He wiped his face on his sleeve and she chuckled.

  “If David Owen saw this Cyril Bennett, he’d never let you live it down.”

  Cyril tried to smile.

  “You’ve been fighting an unseen enemy, all of you and you’ve won, Liz and the team, they won. Honour the victory and honour her. They are naming a wing in the new North Yorkshire Police Headquarters after Liz, The Liz Graydon Suite. Remember, my brave man, that she died doing a job she loved, she died defending the people she loved and if she had a choice…”

  Julie linked Cyril’s arm as they walked from the dark towards the few lights of Wihr au Val.

  Have you read the other books in the DCI Bennet Series?

  Only The Dead

  Amazon UK – Amazon US

  Hell’s Gate

  Amazon UK – Amazon US

  Flesh Evidence

  Amazon UK – Amazon US

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  Acknowledgements

  It is hard to believe that this is the conclusion of DCI Cyril Bennett’s fourth case. He and the rest of the team have now become a firm part of my family. It was a difficult decision to plot Liz’s demise and one that I didn’t take lightly, but sometimes life deals devastating blows that make each and every one of us take stock and re-think our position in life.

  Writing is such a pleasure but one that, for me, requires a good deal of support. Although I type the words there are many people who, through their various skills, help form and wreak the raw material into a tangible structure. I must offer a massive thanks to the wonderful team at Bloodhound Books, the editors, the cover designers and all those beavering away behind the scenes. I shall be ever grateful to Betsy and Fred for having faith in my writing. They are the ticking heart of Bloodhound.

  To Helen Claire, Kerry-Ann Richardson for their support for me as a newly published writer, it made a difference. Thank you.

  I am constantly humbled by the support received from the many bloggers who promote indie writers. Please keep doing what you do so well.

  A big thanks to a number of groups: Crime Fiction Addict, TBC, UK Crime Club and Crime Book Club on Facebook. Your support is so valued.

  I am blessed in having a dedicated group of readers who are always there to offer honest, critical insights into my work. To Stuart, Chris, Margaret, Bill, Barbara, Tony, Eileen and Peter, my sincere thanks.

  To Carrie, who always casts a critical eye over the second draft, your patience is appreciated.

  To my wife, Debbie, without you I’d be nothing. X

  Last, but certainly not least, I have to thank you, the reader. Thank you for your continued support.

  Malcolm

  “There are moments when I feel that the Shylocks, the Judases, and even the Devil are broken spokes in the great wheel of good which shall in due time be made whole.”

  Helen Keller. ‘The Story of My Life’