Guess Who

by Chris McGeorge

  “You put us here?” Trying to regain the conversation.

  Not wanting to hear any more.

  “And yet some still call you ‘Detective.’ Even after everything. You’re the bastard child of a Conan Doyle nightmare. You’re not fit for the word.”

  “You put us here.” Stop, please stop.

  “Of course I did, you idiot.” The horse mask twisted as the man crooked his neck. “You see, I’m here to see if you can live up to your supposed reputation. Or more accurately, your self-proclaimed one. Resident Detective, rather gauche.”

  “What is it talking about?” Mandy said, shooting Sheppard an unsure look.

  Sheppard didn’t hear. Thoughts, too many thoughts, swimming in a dead sea.

  The horse man cleared his throat, although he already had all the attention. “As you probably know by now, you have been checked into a hotel room. The Great Hotel in Central London, to be exact. You are on the forty-fourth floor. It’s not a luxury room but my people have made a few modifications.

  “Firstly, they sealed the doors, the ducts and the window. There is no way out of the room, unless under my express orders. You cannot escape, unless I want you to. In the event of a fire, well...” He stopped to make a guttural chuckle. “Secondly, they did some DIY and covered the room in soundproofing. You’ve already managed to make quite a noise with the screaming and the banging, but rest assured that no one will hear and no one will come. You could make the loudest noise in the world and not a soul on the other side of that wall would hear.

  “It took a lot to get you all here. More than a few trips in luggage containers. Luckily none of you woke up. The point is the staff think that there is a very exclusive party going on in this room and have been asked to leave you alone. If for any reason you manage to contact the front desk, it’ll be the woman you have probably already heard.”

  “The woman?” Ryan said, looking to Sheppard.

  Sheppard took a moment. “There...was a woman on the phone. I thought she was one of those automated things, but... She... That’s how I woke up.”

  “She’s one of my people. Of course she is. And now she has disabled all calls going in or out of this room...”

  “She said something about next. Can’t wait to see what you do next. What’s happening next?”

  The horse mask stopped. No way he could tell, but he imagined a look of disdain. “Today, we are going to be playing a little game of Murder. You’ve already found that one of your fellow guests is no longer with us. In fact, he has been brutally murdered by one of my associates. And here’s the snap: that associate—the murderer—is in the room with you right now. One of these people is a murderer. The others are not—red herrings, McGuffins, whatever you want to call them.”

  What? The killer—of the man in the bathtub. The killer was in the room?

  “Take a look around you, Morgan. Five people. Five suspects. One killer. One of these things is not like the other.”

  Sheppard wasn’t the only one glancing around. The others were too, and now they were slowly separating—eyes darting as they moved into their own safe space.

  He knew where this was going.

  “So here’s the deal, Morgan Sheppard. Seems you are the actual definition of resident detective in this room. I’ll give you three hours. Three hours to solve the murder, to find out which of your fellow guests has killed a man in cold blood.”

  “Why are you doing this? Why should I do this?” It’s my fault. It’s all my fault everyone’s here.

  The horse mask made that chuckle again—low and humorless. “You never are a man to do something pro bono. Boring people need reason to do unboring things. There’s always got to be something to incentivize. Well, how’s this? When it begins, a timer will start. The timer on the table next to you.” Sheppard looked down at it and then back to the horse mask. “And there’s no way to stop it until it ticks all the way down to zero.”

  Sheppard was silent. The mask was silent.

  And finally, Mandy’s voice came up. “What happens at zero?”

  “If Morgan Sheppard doesn’t correctly identify the murderer in three hours, then you all die. And not just everyone in the room. Everyone in the hotel. My people have placed explosives around the structure of the building. I press a button and The Great Hotel becomes a Great Mess.”

  Various cries of disgust rang out. Who from—everyone? He didn’t know. He wasn’t in the room anymore. He was somewhere else—a blank place with only him and the man on the TV.

  “It’s school holidays, Morgan. How many tourists do you think are staying here? How many young families—how many kids who just want to see Wicked and go to Hamleys? All going boom.”

  “You’re sick,” Alan said. “Depraved.”

  The mask twisted round again. “Three hours. One murder. Should be easy for the good Sheppard. Really it would be a relief to have a few hundred deaths off my conscience. But rules are rules. And just like promises, they must be stuck to. Otherwise, there would be chaos. Although I suppose this time there’s chaos either way.”

  He could use a drink right now. Some of his pills. Things were too real, and they always helped with that.

  “Speaking of rules, there’s a rule book in the bedside drawer, should you forget anything. But it’s really quite simple. Three hours. Get the wrong answer, I blow up the building. Refuse to cooperate, I blow up the building. Cause too much of a headache, I blow up the building. You step one foot out of line—I. Blow. Up. The. Building. Got it?”

  A sudden movement. Ryan pelted for the door. He disappeared around the corner and Sheppard heard him banging.

  “Let us out. Let us out now,” Ryan shouted.

  “Someone clearly wasn’t listening,” the mask said.

  “Hey. Let us out now.” More banging. “Please, someone,” said Ryan. “Let us out—now.”

  The mask resumed, eyes front, talking to Sheppard directly. “You can’t do an investigation in chains. Forgive me for even handcuffing you in the first place. You’re just a little...unpredictable. Addicts always are.”

  That word. Addict. Not a good word.

  “Besides, thought you might find a use for some handcuffs.”

  Ryan reappeared.

  “You’re crazy,” Sheppard said. “Insane.”

  “Means a lot coming from you.” Sarcasm now? Impossible to tell in the mask’s monotone. “You’ll find a key in the rule book beside you. They’ll unlock the cuffs. And then we can get this show on the road.”

  “Please, let us go. Just let us go.” Straining on the cuffs. Thrashing out with his body. Until the real question came out. “Who are you?”

  The mask studied him for so long, he didn’t think he was getting a response.

  “I’ll give you two minutes grace period before the games begin. Because I’m a good guy.”

  The TV went black.

  10

  This wasn’t real—it couldn’t be. And yet it was.

  In turn, they all faced him, looking like he had answers. The room seemed bigger now. They had all claimed their own place in it. They had been thrust together and then torn apart. Suspicion was etched on every face.

  “What—?”

  “I don’t—?”

  “But—?”

  Voices running together. He couldn’t focus. He had to focus. He shut his eyes, and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, Ryan was making his way down the left side of the bed. He opened the top drawer and took out a folder marked “Rules.” He opened it. Sure enough, he took out a small key. He put the folder on the bed, and shrugged at Sheppard.

  The key had been so close. Yet so far.

  Sheppard gave him a sad smile, as the young man reached up.

  “Now wait a second.”

  Ryan stopped. No, no, no. He looked around.

  Ala
n was watching them both with his familiar scowl.

  “Maybe it would be in our best interests not to let this man loose.”

  “C’mon,” Sheppard shouted.

  “Why?” Ryan said.

  “I’m just saying,” Alan said, “there’s no reason why we should believe everything we’re hearing. What if this man is behind everything? What did you...” He looked around to Mandy. “Blonde, what did you say before?”

  “What?”

  “You thought this was all some setup, some publicity stunt? Well, why not?”

  “You went into the bathroom,” Mandy said. “You saw that...man.”

  Alan shrugged. “I’m just saying, what if the only dangerous person in this room is already in cuffs?”

  Sheppard groaned. He needed to be free. “Are you serious? You heard what the TV said? You need to let me go now.” And then what? I can’t do this. I just can’t.

  “We don’t need to do any such thing,” Alan said. “This whole thing is your fault, no matter which way you slice it. You television types are all the same. If this mask man is telling the truth, then you’re the only one who can save us? Give me strength!”

  “And what do you think is going to happen in three hours?” Ryan said, turning back toward Sheppard. Yes. Just use the key. Use the key.

  “Empty threats,” Alan said. He actually believed every word coming out of his own mouth. “We’re supposed to take a man in a horse mask on his word?”

  “It’s all we have right now,” Sheppard said. “He put us here. He put us all here, and if you’re all the same as me, here is goddamn surely not where I want to be.”

  “God—” Constance started.

  “Sorry,” Sheppard said. “Who’s to say his threats aren’t real?”

  Ryan nodded at him. “That’s good enough for me.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Alan said, even as Ryan reached up to the cuffs again. Yes. Thank you God.

  Ryan fiddled for a moment and Sheppard thought, for a horrifying moment, that maybe it was the wrong key. Maybe the mask was just toying with them. But then there was a click and Sheppard’s limp arms fell down to his sides. Sliding down the bed, he took a moment to right himself.

  He stretched his arms, getting the blood back into them. Peeking out from his shirt sleeves, he saw his raw, red wrists, crusted over with dried blood. They stung to the touch.

  “Thanks,” Sheppard said, and Ryan nodded.

  He tried to scrabble off the bed, fighting with the duvet, putting his legs over the side. He stood up too quickly. The world swirled around him. He put a hand on the wall to keep himself from falling.

  The room corrected. Everything seemed smaller from higher up—the people less intimidating. He put a hand up to his chin and he found prickly stubble, longer than he remembered it.

  They were watching him. He knew that. He needed a plan. We need to get out of here.

  He turned slowly. Didn’t want to upset his eyes again.

  The bedside table. The clock. Still on 03:00:00. Hadn’t started yet. The two minutes. How much time had passed? The binder saying “Rules” was on the bed where Ryan had put it. It was large—a lot of pages. Ryan had only looked at the first one. He reached for it.

  It was heavy—packed with pages. It would take over three hours to read it all.

  But this thought was eradicated the moment he opened the folder. On the first page were four simple words—LISTEN TO THE HORSE. And then—nothing. He rifled through quickly. Blank page after blank page. Nothing. No more rules. A joke. Except one last sentence on the last page.

  THE BOY LIED.

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? Sheppard threw down the folder in disgust—it hit the bed and bounced off onto the floor with a thud.

  “There’s nothing—there’s nothing else.” What was he expecting?

  “What now?” Ryan said.

  Back to the room. All the lost faces, even Headphones, watching him. How much had she heard with those headphones cupped on her ears?

  Sheppard didn’t answer. He pushed past Ryan, and toward the alcove. The head of the room was just as he imagined it. There was the main door, a closet on the right sitting open with bare coat hangers, extra blankets and a small safe and there was a door to the left which must lead to the bathroom. Don’t think about what’s in there. Just don’t. A dead body—he couldn’t face a dead body. Not until he knew he absolutely had to.

  He ignored the bathroom and went to the main door—first seeing the fire-escape information plastered on it, the rendezvous point of Floor 44. The door handle had a hooked message, Do Not Disturb or Please Clean My Room, whatever your preference. He tried the handle, relishing how cold the steel felt on his hands. To feel something again. He pulled. Nothing. Pulled again. Nothing.

  Mandy was right. The key-card light was red. Could it be overridden? Had the masked man hacked it somehow? He looked around. There was indeed a place to put the card to activate the lights, but it wasn’t there. On a whim, Sheppard flicked the light switch. The lights came on. What? He turned them off again. That didn’t make any sense.

  He looked at the door again. It would be impossible to break down. It was a fire door and it opened inward not outward. He ran his finger across the edge of the door. He thought he felt the draft from outside—the corridor—but he could have been imagining it.

  He looked through the peephole out into a hotel corridor in a fisheye lens. Muted carpet, nothing but more doors and doors left and right. Across from him, a door labeled 4402. He put his hand into a fist, and it made it halfway to the door before he stopped. There was no point hammering. It had already been tried and deemed pointless.

  Claustrophobia crept in. No matter how big the room was, it felt suddenly very small. A drink would be great right about now and maybe a pill or two. He needed to get out—why was his mind on the minibar?

  He wheeled around. All eyes were still on him, watching him with interest. No one looked like they could help—even Alan had nothing to say. He went over to the window and they parted for him. Maybe they were hoping he knew the way out. He had been in many hotels in his time and he had never entered or exited any way other than the main door.

  He put his hands on the windowsill, looking out to the London skyline—a sunny day. The London Eye peeking up from the tops of buildings, Waterloo off to the left, Westminster to the right. They were high up enough that all these landmarks were framed by the window.

  He wondered if they could get a signal to someone. A tall building was in the center of the frame, running vertically against their own building, blocking out most of the sunlight. It looked like an office building. He screwed up his eyes to try and see in the windows. There was no one in the office—in fact, it looked all packed up. There was no one there.

  Next... What was next? The main door was a no go. The window was impossible. The vents? Maybe the vents?

  He looked to the bed and the wall above it. It took a few moments to locate it as someone had painted the vent the same shade of cream, but he saw it.

  He climbed onto the bed steadily, hoping he wouldn’t fall. His wrists protested as they rubbed against his cuffs but he maintained his balance and then went to the wall. The vent was large enough for someone to crawl through, it looked like. He managed to loop his fingers around the central bar of the grille and pull. No give. He looked at the edges. Flatbed screws on all of them. He tried getting a hold of them, but there was no way they were budging.

  He turned. “Does anyone have anything in their pockets?” Sheppard said. “Like a penny? Some change?” Everyone checked. They were in their own little worlds. After a few seconds, they returned blank faces—turned up nothing.

  Trust was gone. And it wasn’t coming back.

  “Here, try this,” Ryan said, and reached up and handed him the handcuff key.

  She
ppard turned back, trying to work the key into the slots of the screws. It was too thick and he quickly lost grip.

  Nothing. Door. Window. Grate. No way out.

  There had to be something else—something he hadn’t tried. Short of banging on the walls, he couldn’t think of anything. He scanned the room, tossing the key back to Ryan. No other exit. Just a normal hotel room.

  But it wasn’t quite. It had stopped being normal a long time ago. Ever since the horse mask had decided to play a little game. But if the horse mask knew anything, he would know Sheppard couldn’t do what he asked. Sheppard hadn’t been a real detective in a long time. He was just a front man. A man who talked about things that didn’t matter, made bold predictions about things that didn’t matter.

  He wants to see you fail.

  So what was he to do? Curl up in the corner and prepare to die?

  Because as Sheppard looked around, he didn’t see a hotel room.

  He saw a coffin.

  11

  His life had gone too quickly. A blink of an eye and he was here, in this room. Fame rushed by, and now, for the first time ever, he wished he wasn’t famous anymore. Even though that’s all he had ever wanted. He had been fourteen when he met his agent for the first time. Three years, his parents had tried to keep him away from the limelight and that only made him want it more.

  “Hey, little guy,” the man said. Decades ago. But very close.

  Was it his fault—the man he would come to know as Douglas, the man who he considered his only friend? Was it his parents’ fault? Or was it he, himself?

  Douglas had taken him out for ice cream. He had asked if he was too old for ice cream but being fourteen years old didn’t make ice cream taste any worse. People stared, they must have seen him on TV, people were still talking about what he did—it was awesome.

  “What do you want most in the world, Morgan?”

  “I want to be famous.”

  “You already are, son. What you did a few years back—that boggles the mind. You want fame? You got it. Now, staying famous—well, that’s something I might be able to help you with.”