by Leon, Taylor
She was wrapped in a dark coat and she looked so beautiful. We kissed energetically out in the woods. But she wouldn’t put out, wouldn’t let me get past first base.’
His face softened and for a few seconds I thought these memories may have slowed him down, or even filled him with regret.
But then his hands tightened around my throat.
‘No!’ I tried shouting, but I couldn’t breathe at all. I tried bucking him off me but he was too heavy.
‘I wrapped my hands around her throat…’ he said. ‘And I felt a power surge through me…My…God…if…you…only…knew.’ His words were breaking up, his mouth’s movements and sounds out of sync, like a badly dubbed foreign movie. I felt myself blacking out, my ear-drums ready to burst.
A shout.
Somewhere nearby?
Somewhere far?
I couldn’t tell.
But it wasn’t his voice.
It was a woman’s voice.
Suddenly his hands were off me, and I was coughing violently, taking in huge gulps of night-time air.
‘Get up!’ she called.
He was looking back over his shoulder, then slowly rose with both hands up.
As I struggled to sit up, I saw a tall shadow standing beyond the boxes, near the gate leading onto the Ferris wheel. She was standing with her feet spread apart, holding what looked like a gun aimed at FRIGHT-NIGHT’s shadow.
‘Who are you?’ he called to her.
‘Keep your hands-up, FRIGHT-NIGHT,’ she said.
I recognised that voice.
‘What the hell?’ he started, paused and then said. ‘You’re THE CHAMELEON?’
‘Please to meet you FRIGHT-NIGHT,’ she said and took another step forward, out of the shadows into the light.
‘Good evening, Detective,’ Meredith said to me.
50
‘MEREDITH?’ I CROAKED in disbelief. My head was in a whirl. Meredith was THE CHAMELEON?
FRIGHT-NIGHT glanced at me and then back at her. ‘You two know each other?’
Meredith took another pace forward, and I could see that she wasn’t holding a gun. It was my Taser.
‘Let’s say we have friends in common,’ she said.
‘How did you know I was here?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t. I was following her.’
Because I was on my way to see the person hunting me, I’d let my guard down and hadn’t been as careful as usual. I hadn’t considered that the second assassin would still be out there tracking me.
‘THE GAMES-MASTER knows I have her,’ FRIGHT-NIGHT said. ‘He’s even given me the meeting place and the name of the final target. So, how about we call this an unsatisfactory draw, kill this one, then go see THE GAMES-MASTER together and split the winnings?’
Meredith wavered, I could tell she was thinking this through. I needed time, had to keep her on her toes.
‘You think THE GAMES-MASTER is Hargreaves,’ I called to her. ‘But he isn’t.’
She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. ‘Of course Hargreaves isn’t THE GAMES-MASTER.’ She looked back at FRIGHT-NIGHT. ‘He knows who we are, you know. Don’t ask me how, but he does. We spoke about what I could do for him, how I could help. It got me a bonus point. I knew one of the investigating officers, and all he wanted me to do was point the police in a certain person’s direction. He even told me what clues to give them.’
‘Why tell me and not Cade?’ I cut across.
‘I told you both the first time. The second time, in the shopping centre I wasn’t planning to tell you anything. At that point you were a target, which was why I was there. But then your bodyguard almost broke my nose, and when we were left sitting together in the coffee shop, I figured, well, why not?’
She turned back to FRIGHT-NIGHT. ‘When I arrived here I had this grandiose plan. I would wait for you to kill her and then sneak up and stab you in the back, literally. But it would have been a risk getting so close to you. So, I couldn’t believe my luck when I found this.’
She waved my Taser gun.
I took the only chance I was going to get and rolled onto my front, pulling myself up onto my knees, ready to make a break for it.
Then I heard a crackle of electricity, one loud shout, and a light thud, as FRIGHT-NIGHT’s body crumpled to the ground.
I knew I had nothing to lose. Although, the Taser could only be fired once before it needed re-loading, with my hands tied behind my back, she wouldn’t need it to defeat me.
I was on my feet and running with no idea whether Meredith was giving chase. There were shuttered stalls and darkened rides all around me. I just needed to find some cover, quick. It was an ungainly, lolloping run, but I managed to hide behind a kiosk. My hands were still tied behind my back, and I swung them back and forth, trying to flip my coat around, so I could wedge my hands inside a pocket and grasp my phone. I made three failed attempts before I heard Meredith, calling to me in a mocking sing-song voice.
‘Erin, Erin, come out, come out, wherever you are!’
She sounded close. Too close.
I stopped shuffling around and leaned back against the cold metal, holding my breath, needing to hear every sound, so I could ascertain where my hunter was.
‘Where can you run to, Erin?’ she called, her voice reverting to a more serious tone. ‘What’s the point? We could spend the next two hours doing this and the end result will be the same.’
I looked behind me. There were a trio of rides, three structures that would provide a little more cover if I could just get over to them. I had to find somewhere to stop and shake my phone free.
This was a game of survival, pure and simple. And I was losing.
I heard a light crunch to my left. She was on the other side of the unit I was hiding behind. In seconds, she’d come around, and with my hands tied I was at a complete disadvantage.
I saw something peep around the corner, inches from my face. She was holding a knife that glinted in the moonlight.
One more step, bitch. Just one more.
I held my breath. Every little sound, the movement of every atom mattered now.
This was life and death.
I drew my leg back and kicked out, timing it to connect with her knife-hand, just as it came into view. The weapon flew out of her hand, and I quickly went around the corner, desperate to take full advantage of the surprise element. I pivoted on my right standing leg, my left foot coming up and smashing into her chin with a sickening crunch. She hit the metal shutter, bounced forwards and dropped to her knees.
I stepped forward ready to deliver the coup de grace, a heavy kick to the head to bring this to an end. But she drew upon her last reserves of energy, and as I closed in she launched herself against me, sending us both reeling back onto the grass. She was on top, drawing her fist back, ready to punch my lights out.
And then she was suddenly pulled up and flung back hard, as though she were a rag-doll.
FRIGHT-NIGHT stood over me, for an instant looking down to decide which was the best option. Me or Meredith. Then he turned and fell on top of her, his hands closing around her throat, as she beat her fists against his head. She reached down with one hand, scrabbled around on the floor and came back up with the knife. It was the same one I’d kicked out of her hand moments earlier. Now, she plunged it into the side of his neck.
I didn’t intervene, as he cried out in pain. But he kept both his hands on her throat, not giving up, wanting her dead. Her eyes were bulbous and her cries were wheezing rasps. Her face filled with blood and darkened, until finally her body gave three heaves and was still.
He fell off her, and rolled onto his back, but the knife remained embedded in his neck.
I staggered over and dropped down between them. She was staring lifelessly up at the night sky. He was gasping hoarsely for air. A weak hand reached up and yanked the knife out of his flesh, the blood spilling out of the hole and onto the grass.
He wasn’t going to make it, but THE GAMES-MASTER wa
s still out there with the seventh and final target.
‘Who is the final target?’ I whispered to him.
His head turned ever so slightly, and he looked at me.
‘You want to take my money?’ he gasped with a sardonic smile that turned into a wince, as he struggled to speak.
‘Who is it?’ I asked a little louder. I wanted to grab his head and shake that stupid smile off it, but that would hasten his death and I wouldn’t get the information I needed.
‘I wanted that money so badly,’ he said.
‘Please, I need a name.’
‘My Mom,’ he said. ‘Promise you’ll look after her.’
‘The name.’
‘Promise me you will look after her,’ he repeated.
I had no choice.
‘I promise.’
And then he gave me the name with his final breath. ‘Hargreaves.’
51
I STAGGERED BACK with the knife, to where Frankie was lying.
‘Erin, is that you?’ Frankie whispered, her eyes glazed over and only half-open.
I dropped to my knees next to her. ‘Yes, it’s me,’ I said, whilst with great difficulty sawing through the cord that bound my wrists.
‘The man who took me, has he gone?’
‘Yes, he’s gone. But he drugged you. You’re sleepy but otherwise okay.’
It took me vital minutes to cut through my bonds, but as soon as I had, I pulled out my phone and called the station. ‘This is Detective Dark. I couldn’t sleep. The prisoner we’re holding, Keith Hargreaves, how is he doing?’
‘I looked in on him ten minutes ago,’ the duty officer said. ‘He’s sleeping like a baby. Any problem?’
‘No,’ I lied, ‘I’m just lying here mulling things over, thinking about him.’
‘Yeah, I get like that sometimes. Rest assured though, he’s not lying awake thinking about you.’
I thanked him and hung up.
Hargreaves was safe. If he was the target, then he couldn’t be eliminated tonight. And yet FRIGHT-NIGHT had been adamant that it was all going to end in the next few hours.
What was I missing here?
I staggered back to the car with Frankie and sat her up on the back-seat.
I pulled out my compact and called Jessie. I needed to remove all trace of my presence from this fairground.
‘Je-sus,’ she said. ‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘Where are you?’
‘About to go to bed.’
‘I need you all.’
‘Oh, Christ.’
‘Bella and Moira.’
‘Not at this time-’
‘Please get them, I have a situation here.’
Jessie sighed. ‘Moira has a family, how-’
‘Please, I wouldn’t ask unless it was urgent.’
‘Okay, okay. Tell me where you are, and let me see what I can do.’
After I told her I pushed the compact into my coat. I was so tired and worn out. I may have stopped my assassins, but now I was as far away from capturing THE GAMES-MASTER as I ever was.
Why frame Hargreaves?
Why get us to put him in jail if he is the seventh target?
And then the missing pieces fell into place.
There were two Hargreaves.
Keith Hargreaves wasn’t the seventh target.
It was his wife, Louise.
52
VINCENT VAUGHAN-JONES, THE GAMES-MASTER, gently stroked her hair as she slept. She looked so perfect, lying in the bed she shared with the man who should never have been her husband. But Keith Hargreaves wasn’t here tonight. Fate, ingenuity and opportunism had seen to that.
Vincent knelt next to her on the edge and pressed the gun against her head. His hand was shaking.
He couldn’t do it.
He had thought he might be able to just shoot her quickly while she was asleep, but he couldn’t.
He sat up, and watched her breathing gently. ‘It should have been us,’ he whispered. And he believed it. From the very first moment she had spoken to him twenty years ago, he knew she was the one for him.
The only one.
She had approached him in the University bar when he was in his third year, and she was a freshman. She was kind, gentle and so beautiful. He never understood what made her come over to him in the first place; what it was that she saw in him. Later, she said that although he looked so sad, she could tell right away there was a big kind heart inside.
He, in turn, put her up on a pedestal that he certainly could never reach and didn’t think anyone else could either. But he was wrong, because shortly afterwards she met fellow freshman Keith Hargreaves, and he reached up and brought her down. Then he paraded her like a trophy, rubbing Vincent’s nose in it because he had known how Vincent felt about her.
Vincent could have run away and not spoken to either of them again, but the thought of not seeing Louise was too painful. He was compelled to stick around and be a part of their lives. Outwardly, he appeared close to them both, but inside his heart was only with Louise. He prayed at night that they would break-up and occasionally had even darker thoughts about what he wished would happen to his nemesis.
Louise confided in him about Keith’s past and his real name. She knew Vincent had gone to the same school as her boyfriend, albeit he was a couple of years older. She hoped he might be able to tell her more about the teacher called Elias James who had had such a detrimental effect on her boyfriend’s teenage life. Vincent told her he had never heard anything sinister about Elias James, and re-iterated the same thing when Keith confessed the name-change to him several years later.
But that was a lie.
There was plenty he could have said about the old, sick bastard, Elias James, because Vincent had fallen prey to him as well. Unlike Keith, he had kept the shame and guilt hidden while he was at Rosenthorpe School. He had played truant for a few half days here and there, just to avoid him, but Elias James always caught up with him in the end. Always reminding Vincent that he’d never amount to anything without his help. Without his extra “tuition.”
The effect it had on Vincent’s personality, if not his academic work, was catastrophic. He lost all his confidence and his friends. He felt dirty and disgusted with himself and for a long time was unable to even talk to girls.
Vincent went to University, had a miserable time there, but at least graduated with a first-class degree. He looked older than his years with a pale face, and desperately thinning hair, and he interacted with a social awkwardness that was off-putting rather than sweet.
He lived a solitary life, throwing himself into computing and IT, becoming much more adept than any of his employers ever appreciated. He challenged himself by creating computer viruses and infecting random people and businesses. He took great pleasure in evading the authorities who he knew were looking for him. He even invented a name so they could have someone tangible to chase.
Vincent Vaughan-Jones was Drax.
Meanwhile, his personality, or lack of it, meant he was only rising so far in any business he went into. The work he was doing was piss-easy for him, but meant he was being paid less than he would have been for a more challenging job. He never had the inclination to run a business, and he wasn’t interested in the money. The only passion he ever had had been for Louise, and nothing else came close.
Over the next fifteen years he did work up the courage to ask several other girls out. Amy Harper, Melissa Fairbanks, Jennifer Brooks, but they all rudely turned him down, like he was some sort of grubby joke.
When he moved to Binton Tech Industries, he invested in a wig. It knocked years off him, but only from a distance. Then one afternoon, he overheard another girl he liked the look of, laughing about “the old man’s rug.”
That girl was Oriane Law.
Mortified he left Binton Tech that same day, found a new lower-paid job somewhere else, and threw himself back into work.
During this whole time, he kept up his close friendsh
ip with Louise and gave a hard-worked smile throughout her wedding to Keith, and faked happiness when they eventually had kids, and started building up Keith’s business.
They were living happily ever after.
It broke his heart into a million pieces. Hargreaves had what he wanted. Everything was so perfect for him, and yet he’d come up exactly the same way as Vincent. They had been to the same University, the same school and both been a victim of Elias James.
So, why did it turn out like this?
How did God’s mind work?
And then he began to think: God doesn’t give a fig, about me or anyone else on this Earth. Why should he? After all, he has the whole universe to think about. We are little specks, with little or no meaning in the grand scheme of things.
Louise begged him to come to her second child’s christening. He did so, reluctantly. Standing inside the Church that afternoon, he had felt the anger swelling up again. He cursed God, looked at the images on the stained-glass windows and cursed his son as well.
Come on, take your best shot, he challenged them. You’ve taken her away from me. There’s nothing else that matters. Nothing more you can do to hurt me.
Five years later, the doctors told him he had six months to live.
****
Death didn’t scare him. He was ready now. After all, he’d had time to prepare.
Two years.
Eighteen months longer than the doctors had initially given him.
But that had allowed his anger to manifest itself and mould into a plan.
He would leave his mark on the world God had abandoned.
He hadn’t been able to work full-time when he underwent treatment, but Louise had swooped down to save him, forcing her husband to take him on and pay him a nice salary regardless of how much work or how many days he could cover. Then Vincent realised that this would be where his trail of revenge would begin and end. Not only would he wreak his revenge on those who had wronged him, but he would finish up by destroying his nemesis Keith Hargreaves and then spend eternity with his true love.