The Games People Play Box Set

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  He stood waiting until they turned and headed towards the main doors. Sylvia turned once and stood a moment. “We had information to pass to D.I. Morrison. But only to him. Since you seem entirely uninterested in any such matter, although you have no idea what we now have to indulge, I presume you are not involved with the case of the bodies discovered in the mock-Tudor house some weeks back?”

  A couple of Morrison’s team walked past and slowed, watching until the lift closed its doors and disappeared. The DCI glared at Sylvia. Hearing her, Harry walked back and stood beside her. Cramble said, “If you wish to address me at all, madam, you will use my title. However, I must inform you that I have no desire to hear the uncorroborated rumours brought by the public. Nor do I approve of members of the public gaining direct access to senior officers within this station, nor being included in police briefings. Any member of the homicide squad being found passing on private knowledge of crimes discovered or uncovered through secret or undercover will be facing disciplinary charges. These investigations are strictly private.” The senior detective looked down his nose at the two interfering old dears he saw before him, turned, said a sharp, “Good day,” and took the lift, which had just arrived, disappearing immediately into the upper echelons.

  Staring, Harry turned to Sylvia. “I don’t think he liked us. I do hope we haven’t got Darcey into trouble?”

  Sylvia grinned. “Have they shot him, do you think?”

  The voice behind them was faintly familiar. “It’s a new boss sent down from the Met. Gloucestershire is clearly becoming a region of murder and mayhem, so we need a little rigid control. Hence Boss Grumble-bum. Or, to be more correct, Chief Inspector Cooper Cramble. Not our favourite new arrival.”

  “They haven’t done away with Morrison?”

  “Oh, Lord no,” smiled Detective Constable Napper. “He’s still basically in charge. Grumble-bum just sits at the desk with mountains of paperwork and shouts at everybody. But he’s the senior in charge of the Mark Howard money-laundering case. Not homicide at all. But after that blistering set down, I honestly don’t think you should go in to see Morrison this morning. Phone him up later. If you’ve got something important to tell him, perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me and I’ll pass it on.”

  “Not urgent.” Harry shook his head. “It can wait. Actually, it was more about Mark Howard than the murders. Somewhat ironic. So we’ll phone Morrison at home later. I bet he’s loving this new man sitting sneering over him.”

  “Not actually over him, thank goodness. Cramble is senior, but not homicide, so Morrison is still top man in his own area. I doubt Cramble has the brains for working in homicide.”

  “One small consolation,” Harry grinned.

  “We’re all so happy,” Napper said softly, “we’re thinking of having a party.”

  “Please invite us.” Sylvia and Harry left and bustled out into the bleak freeze. “Let’s go home,” said Sylvia. “I’m a bit fed up with pretending to be policemen. We can phone Morrison and Kate too, and have tea. And I want a hot, hot, hot shower to make my neck move again. It’s frozen dotards, and my shoulders are hunched, I need to relax. I’ve really never cared what other people think of me ever since I divorced years ago, but this Grumble-bum made me feel quite small and insignificant.”

  Harry squeezed her arm. “You may be hunched, dependant on contact lenses, and married to an idiot my dear. But insignificant – no. Certainly not.”

  “And the wrinkles?”

  “They match my own.”

  Morrison answered the phone himself. “You met my friendly superior,” he said as Harry muttered about their welcome. “But I certainly want whatever news you have for me, and for once, I have some for you.”

  Harry explained. “It’s Kate Howard, Teacher Maurice’s wife. We didn't think she knew anything secret before, but now we believe she knows about Mark’s activities, and she’s been purposefully giving us clues about him. The C-U of his new house. When he’s arriving – and not left. And so on. Now she’s told us that Mark’s coming to visit them at home this coming Wednesday. Sorry to be a bit late with the news, but we came first thing this morning and got thrown out by your sweet boss. Can you set up surveillance or something?”

  “Exactly what I shall do, and I’m exceedingly grateful for the tip,” Morrison answered. “On the previous occasion, he changed his plans at the last moment, presumably guessing he’d been grassed. But this time it might work. Any idea what time?”

  “No. But he’s supposed to be taking Maurice fishing, so presumably really early. Or overnight. But it could be the night before or the one after.”

  “We’ll set up a forty eight hour watch,” said Morrison. “Wednesday? Today is Friday. I’ll pass this on, but in the meantime, if you hear of any changes or any further details, clearly it’s important. Let me know anything and everything.”

  Harry promised. “And your news, Darcey?”

  “Ah, yes.” There was a pause. Then, “Your friend Lionel Sullivan has resurfaced. He managed to catch another girl, but she was too quick for him. After receiving some terrible wounds, she managed to escape. She was found and taken to a police station in a village over on the Oxfordshire border, and now she’s in hospital. Her condition is serious, but not life-threatening. So both horribly unfortunate, and yet extremely lucky. Sullivan has not yet been recaptured.”

  Unable to answer for some minutes. Eventually, Harry muttered, “Cheers, Darcey. Good luck for next Wednesday.”

  He told Sylvia. They both sat looking at each other in silence for quite some time. Eventually Harry woke himself up, crossed over to sit beside Sylvia and put both his arms hard around her, easing her head to his shoulder. She was crying tearlessly. Whispering, she said, “I thought he was locked away for life. I thought no poor creature would ever be hurt by him ever again, not even his wretched wife.”

  “It’ll happen,” Harry growled. “Morrison isn’t a fool. Or at least, it’s not him – but whoever it is. The police can’t be idiots. They have to catch him quickly. Now.”

  “That poor girl will tell them where he is. They’ll be out in force already, in bulletproof vests or something.”

  They were. Immediately word reached the Cheltenham Station, a team of four detectives and four uniformed police drove to the village of Brabbington, and most remained there two hours speaking to the local police, while two of the detectives drove on to the large hospital nearby.

  “Miss Anna Libansky is unable to be questioned at the moment, detective,” the head nurse told DCI Latymer. “She’s in Surgery, and will be unconscious for some time, possibly several hours.”

  “I’ll wait,” Latymer said, nodding to his companion. “Get us some tea and sandwiches, Bobby. We’ll probably be here all night.”

  Candy awoke in the middle of the night with a bewilderment of both pain and numbness leaving her both dizzy and frightened. She felt trapped. She had been restrained, and so immediately looked around for the man who had grabbed her. The bed where she lay was comfortable, but since she was strapped in, clearly she was once again a prisoner. It was dark. She could see almost nothing, but far beyond the lurking black shadows, a tiny pink light flickered. She tried to scream but found that her jaw was wired. Wondering whether she had been horribly tortured, wires perhaps thrust through her mouth, she wrenched herself upwards, attempting escape.

  “Are you alright, dear?” murmured a soft feminine voice. “How do you feel? A little confused I expect.”

  Candy could not see anyone. “What?” She could barely speak. Even the one word was unclear.

  “You’re in hospital, my dear,” said the voice. “You’ve had surgery, and that has all been entirely successful. The doctor will come and see you in the morning. You should sleep now.”

  “Hospital? Safe?”

  “Oh, yes indeed,” murmured the nurse. “You’re in a private ward in Babington General Hospital, and just coming round from the anaesthetic after surgery. You’ll soon be feeling
quite yourself again, my dear. A few days perhaps, and you’ll be well looked after.”

  She managed to say, “The man? Caught?”

  But the nurse shook her head. “I don’t know all the details, I’m afraid. But the police will be in to talk to you tomorrow, once you feel better. They won’t be permitted to bother you until you’ve had a chance to recover and have a good breakfast. Only a liquid breakfast I’m afraid until your jaw is mended. But I’m sure you’ll want to tell your story.”

  The nurse helped her sip some water, tucked her in comfortably, and quietly trotted from the room. The door was left open and there was another shuffle outside. A guard then, perhaps a constable, to stop – who? The monster she’d escaped or even the press. And Candy fell fast asleep.

  She woke late and found herself being addressed as Miss Libansky, a name she had avoided using for some time. Anna.

  “No. I’m Candy.”

  “As you wish,” said the doctor, a young cliché in his white coat and stethoscope necklace.” Now, how do you feel?”

  The usual procedures, the usual questions, a quick but careful examination. Then it was breakfast. She managed half a bowl of mashed something with yoghurt and a glass of orange juice. It was about fifteen minutes later that the police were admitted for a strict ten minutes and no more, and she was forced to remember everything she would yearn to forget in the years ahead.

  “He was big. All over. Tall and wide. Belly fat. Huge hands. Big face and big nose. Everything except his eyes. They were screwed up little slits.”

  DCI Latymer sat politely on the small chair at the side of the bed. “You’ve been a great help, Miss Libansky. Thank you. And if you remember anything else, please do let us know. Get in touch if you need any further help yourself.”

  “He was driving a BMW. Not the latest model, but a good car.”

  “That was a stolen vehicle, Miss Libansky. But it hasn’t been found yet.”

  “Sorry. But he drove for some time. I don’t know where we ended up. I only know it was a little shed, but the door locked. It was all hay and straw inside. Dirty and smelly. Outside was just fields and grassy weeds, except for the swivel tyre marks in the mud.”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Libansky. You’ve been most helpful. But as I said, should you remember anything else as you recover further, please do let us know. As you can tell, this man is highly dangerous and must be caught as soon as possible.”

  At some distance from the Babington Hospital, Maurice Howard was talking to a different police force concerning a very different matter.

  “We wish to know your twin brother’s address, sir,” said Superintendent Cramble. “This is important. Your brother, as you must surely know, is a dangerous international criminal. We intend taking him into custardy without delay. We know he came to this country from Dubai, and presumably, this would have included a visit to his only living family. Identical twins are known to be close, but I need information, and I shall hold you for obstructing the police in their duty if you refuse to answer, sir.”

  Sitting in the white painted minimalism of the interview room, Maurice Howard was lounging back on the small chair and had just finished his second cup of tea. But the detective who was being the nice one, and who had supplied tea, had now strode off and the chief had replaced him. Cramble was not playing nice. The teacher, tweed elbow to the stained plastic topped table between them, simply shook his head. “You can say whatever you like, sir. It doesn’t alter the truth. I have no idea what my brother’s business involves, but to the best of my knowledge, it involves nothing criminal whatsoever. Yes, he visited from Dubai, partially for business, but also to spend some time with me. We like to go fishing. Golf too, sometimes. My wife loves Mark’s visits, and she finds them comical since he looks exactly like me. I’ve seen him a couple of times, but not often, and I believe he’s renting a cottage in Scotland at present. I don’t have the address as I know he intends flying back to Dubai shortly. I don’t have a date for that. He may already have gone.” Maurice leaned forwards, checked his empty cup, sighed and leaned back again. “Incidentally,” he added, “my brother isn’t a volatile character at all. He’s calm and organised, like myself.”

  “I understand,” Cramble continued, “that you know a good deal more about your brother’s activities than you’re admitting, sir.” Now Cramble thumped both fists on the table and the cup shook. “Your brother belongs to an International ring of dangerous criminals. So don’t try to deny it.”

  Maurice shrugged. “Think what you like, constable. It’s of no consequence to me. I know my brother as an innocent and extremely likeable man. But he wouldn’t care a biscuit crumb for what you think of him. And frankly, sir, nor do I.”

  Cramble stood, “We are still being recorded, sir. And on the record, I must point out that you are being most uncooperative.”

  “Am I?” Maurice smiled. “If you say so, constable. Now, am I under arrest? I assume not. In which case, I officially object to having been purposefully brought here from the school where I work and questioned for long and boring hours when I should have been teaching. Now I shall leave, sir. This interview is over.”

  Spluttering, Cramble switched off the recorder. “And as you know full well, Mr Howard, I am not a police constable. I am Detective Chief Inspector Cramble, and I shall be seeing you again in the near future. You have my word on that.”

  It was later that day when Detective Sergeant Vine informed his own chief inspector of Cramble’s activities earlier in the afternoon. Morrison gazed in faint horror at his sergeant. “Someone passed the information I’d obtained to that blithering idiot? In other words, he was told that the elder brother was expected to visit the younger brother tomorrow morning?”

  “He was informed, sir. I informed him myself.”

  Morrison managed a passable re-enactment of a dangerous gas explosion. “So he knew he had a chance at catching an unsuspecting Mark Howard in the morning, and ruined it all by interviewing Maurice Howard today? Now they know they’re watched. They certainly won’t be having that meeting now. Is the man a raging lunatic or a simple nincompoop?”

  Vine lowered his voice. “I have a feeling that Cramble thought your information was either false, too easy perhaps, and that you’d been tricked, sir. Or perhaps even that the information was categorically untrue, and the trick came intentionally and from yourself, sir. Who knows? He’s not going to tell me. But he’s ruined what could have been a decent chance at a highly important arrest.”

  Morrison leaned back, temper blown. “He’s in charge of that whole range of accusations. It’s his bag o’tricks. If he makes a fool of himself, it’s something I won’t be complaining about. Perhaps the Met sent him over here to get rid of him on what they believed was a fool’s chase. Meanwhile, Vine, we’re getting no further forward on our own job. Sullivan’s well nigh caught. Howard could have been. And yet our own man is as far away as ever.”

  Vine hung his head. “It seems so, sir. But there’s no one giving up on it yet.” He noticed his boss’s red-rimmed glare. “Tea, boss? I’ll make some, then I can send in the team for a pep talk, including the juice on Cramble. It’ll cheer them up.”

  Olga was sitting on the sharp upturned edge of the spade, spreading her black thorned wings over the scattered straw. Her golden eyes dazzled, but they were deep black hooded, and her snout opened into a snarl.

  Lionel had been sobbing and did not look up to meet Olga’s fury. “I’m getting old,” he snivelled. “I know it. That time inside made me weak and my muscles have turned to grease. Don’t tell me I’m useless. I know it.”

  Olga’s wings spread further, blocking out the stream of light entering from the cracks in the wooden planks. All sunlight fled. The world closed in. The bat’s smile ripped through the darkness turning black to scarlet shadows, with a screech of red raw threat.

  Cowering down against the straw strewn ground, Lionel clamped both arms over his head and moaned, cringing and shivering. He felt tra
pped. His escape from prison had brought him neither success nor pleasure. Then happiness had leapt in again, with a girl in his car and a place to take her. But, though small, skinny, weak and stupid, she had proved stronger than he was. Not only had she escaped, but she had locked and bolted the barn door behind her. The key was now outside and he was inside, imprisoned with Olga once more. Her teeth had grown since her last encounter. She was waiting to suck all the happiness from him, drinking his strength and slurping at all his hopes. She crawled into his eyes and nostrils and throat, eating away all his power and the belief in himself which he had managed to build up. He knew himself an ugly child again, quivering as he saw his mother march into his room.

  And then he stood, legs shaking, and looked around, forcing his shoulders back, forcing his eyes wide, and forcing himself to breathe. Then he saw the dark bloody mess on the ground beside the straw. Lionel began to smile.

  One stride, and he clasped up the collapsed nipple and part of the girl’s breast he had ripped from her. His smile widened as he looked at the mess spreading across the palm of his hand, and he stuffed the whole bleeding lump into his mouth. Then he licked his hand. The familiar taste of blood delighted him and spelled achievement, success and the banishment of Olga. She faded quickly, and Lionel, sucking cheerfully, strode to the little barn’s door, and kicked twice. It was almost enough to shatter the cracked old wood. Two more furious kicks and he was free.

  Taking the car, he settled back, warm and satisfied, and drove south-east. On the outskirts of a small village, a large pond glittered with thick ice. Lionel drove across the pond’s frozen surface, climbed quickly from the car as the ice began to crack, hurried back to dry land, half sliding, and climbed the little bank as he watched the stolen BMW begin to sink into the water. Then he turned north-west and began to walk.