The Games Keeper

by Jack Benton

  ‘How?’

  ‘His car was looked over, a few adjustments made. His clutch failed coming through a turn on the steep road heading down into that valley you see over there.’ Ozgood didn’t point, but his head turned slightly, indicating a forested cleft beyond the farmland to the northwest. ‘The car went off the road and struck a rock, killing him instantly, according to the coroner’s report.’

  ‘And you know he died?’

  ‘An anonymous call was made to police, but it’s not anonymous to the person who made it,’ Ozgood said, rather cryptically, as though he was taking an active part in whatever game the blackmailer had decided to start. ‘I was contacted by police, and I later viewed his body. I felt his neck for a pulse, just to be sure. Yet now, six years later, I’ve started to receive messages from a man claiming to be Dennis Sharp, demanding money, threatening to expose me, not just my part in his supposed death, but in other alleged crimes.’

  Ozgood stood up, walked across to the terrace’s edge, then turned and walked back again. Slim watched him, trying to make sense of this man. It was clear that Ozgood wasn’t a man to be crossed, one whose amiable outer shell hid a steel-hard inner core.

  ‘Let me be clear,’ Ozgood said, turning and returning to his seat. He hooked one leg over the other, then changed his mind and sat back up straight, leaning forward. ‘I do not fear this man dragging my name through the dirt. There is nothing he could have on me that could not be covered or disappeared. What disgusts me is the nerve of this person, which is why I have need of you to uncover his identity.’ Ozgood leaned forward, his cold eyes making Slim uncomfortable. ‘I consider this a personal slight against my family. In the right circumstances I might forgive such a thing against myself … but not against my daughter.’

  Slim sipped his coffee, using it as an excuse to break Ozgood’s gaze. ‘It’s most likely a case of stolen identity. Someone close to Sharp looking to squeeze something out of you.’

  ‘There’s no one who was close to Sharp who isn’t dead or as good as.’

  Slim wasn’t quite sure how to respond to this statement, so he nodded in a show of agreement, letting his gaze wander slowly over the panorama of countryside while he waited for Ozgood to continue.

  ‘This blackmailer knows things only Sharp could know.’

  ‘And you want me to expose either the fraud or the circumstances that this man could be threatening you from?’

  ‘That is exactly it. And when you discover the truth, I will either see him rot in prison or kill him all over again.’

  3

  Ozgood himself, carefully driving a pristine hatchback far too good for the road they were travelling, showed Slim to a small cottage that had once belonged to the estate’s caretaker. It was along an old, meandering access road which had been replaced by a shorter lane to the property’s rear, leaving the former access road to fall into disrepair. Unused now, the cottage was surrounded by forest at the bottom of a valley, approached by a barely discernible lane through trees which cut down one hillside, across a stream by a little bridge, before making a switchback outside the cottage. It then wound its way up the hill on the other side, in the direction of the small village where Slim had noted the church spire. As the road ascended steeply, cutting back on itself, Slim felt tired just looking at it.

  With a pat on the back and a promise to be in touch, Ozgood left Slim alone, turning his car around with a scowl at the brambles by the roadside and then gingerly making his way back the way he had come.

  The cottage looked unimpressive on the outside, with brambles grown up over one corner to dig their way into a roof space, and a crack in a front window, perhaps from a bird. However, it had electricity and hot water and a gas stove, and Ozgood had arranged for a weekly delivery of food in order to keep Slim catered for during the investigation.

  There were also bugs hidden in a tabletop, in a skirting board in the cramped living room, and in a wooden statue of a fox in the bedroom. High quality, far newer and more expensive than Slim had ever used in the military or on previous cases, the kind that could record a pin drop or a sharp intake of breath.

  Whatever the reason Ozgood felt he needed to keep tabs on Slim, Slim preferred to work in private, so he filled each receiver with Vaseline to muffle the sound to near inaudibility. It would take time for Ozgood to realise what had happened, perhaps enough for them to gain a trust in one another.

  Slim, having returned to his sinking ruin of a squat long enough to fill two cases with everything he owned, packed his belongings away into a chest of drawers. Filling only the top two of three, he gave a shudder at how light and impermanent his life had become. He could disappear in an instant, leaving no trace.

  Perhaps that was the plan. Slim wasn’t naive enough to trust Ozgood fully, and the property baron clearly felt the same. It was a mutual distrust likely to benefit both.

  Slim finished his unpacking and ventured outside. As he closed the door, a rustling came from the trees to the cottage’s side and a man stepped out onto the path.

  Rheumy eyes looked up and a mostly toothless mouth smiled.

  ‘Name’s Croad,’ the newcomer said. ‘Boss told me to show you round.’

  4

  Weathered as he was like an old barn roof, Croad was of indeterminable age, but, with a passion for Eighties football matches, Slim guessed his new guide to be around fifty.

  ‘You know, I nearly made the bench at QPR back when Wilkins was just hitting his peak,’ Croad said, baffling Slim that this limping tree stump of a man could have ever walked straight, let alone been good enough with a ball at his feet to get near a then-League One side.

  ‘Strong squad they had back then or I might of made it. I’d scored ten in three games in the reserves, but celebrated me Saturday call up with a bottle of bourbon and a hussy I met in Soho. Bailed through a window when her husband rolled in late, ripped me hamstring on a railing fence then stepped in front of a 94 bus to Piccadilly. Might have been worse if it hadn’t been slowing down to stop, but that was that.’ He pointed. ‘Ah, here’s the ford. Road goes up to a junction. Left goes to the village, right to Weaton’s farm, but stay away if it’s raining as muck washes over the road and your car’ll likely get stuck unless you have four-wheel drive.’

  Slim was marvelling too much at the seamless transition from a tale of near-heroism to one of swollen rivers to mention that he had no current driver’s license.

  ‘Weaton’s is still part of Ozgood’s land but they have a long-term fixed lease so he has to keep his nose out.’

  ‘What kind of a man is Mr. Ozgood?’

  Croad shrugged. ‘Is this on or off the record?’

  ‘Off, of course,’ Slim said, knowing full well anything he said would likely get back to his new boss one way or another. ‘I mean, is he the kind of man who deserves to be blackmailed?’

  ‘Depends who you ask. General rule, isn’t it, that the more coin you have the longer the line of people wanting to steal it.’

  Slim smiled. ‘That’s why I have so many friends.’

  Croad emitted a gravelly laugh. ‘You and me both.’

  ‘I’m sure you know why I’m here. Mr. Ozgood wants to know why he’s being blackmailed by a dead man.’ Slim paused, remembering Ozgood’s warning to say nothing about the true nature of Dennis Sharp’s death.

  ‘Aye. Dennis Sharp, never saw that coming. Quiet kind of guy, worked, got paid, went home or to the pub, the easy type.’

  ‘I hear he died in a car crash.’

  Croad nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  Slim waited for further information, but when none came, he said, ‘Was it around here?’

  Croad nodded. His incessant shuffle paused a moment and he turned back. ‘Taking you there now. Master’s request. Best to start at the beginning, isn’t it?’

  5

  ‘Don’t get that many switchbacks like Gunhill Hollow in these parts,’ Croad said, waving at the road dipping abruptly out of sight over the brow of the hill as tr
ees closed in around it like protective hands. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t expect that kind of curve to come on you if you were lost, driving this road for the first time.’ Croad grinned, revealing cragged, blackened teeth. ‘You’d take it easy, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Slim answered, not sure whether, after a drink of two, he would or not.

  They walked on into the trees, the shadows slashing across them, the temperature dropping rapidly, the air dry from the afternoon sun turning dank and moist against Slim’s skin.

  The road narrowed and angled steeply, its surface potholed and uneven, shingly patches of broken tarmac crunching as they shifted underfoot. Slim had the uneasy sensation that he was walking across the acne-scarred face of a long dead and buried giant.

  Croad stopped where the road abruptly cut back on itself, angling sharply downhill into the mossy green of the valley. He stepped into the verge and leaned forward, hands cupping his face.

  ‘Yeah, she’s still there.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘The old Ford. Sharp’s wagon.’

  Slim came forward. ‘The car’s still there?’

  ‘What’s left of it. Sharp hit this turn at real speed. Missed the largest trees and plunged a couple of hundred metres down into forest. They tried to tow line it out but what I heard was the line snapped twice and on the third time they couldn’t be bothered. Police teams checked it for evidence, did their work on location, and then left it for anyone who might see.’

  Slim peered downslope into the gloom beneath the trees. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  ‘Not much left but a rusting hulk overrun by brambles, but she’s there. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  Croad stepped off the verge, immediately dropping down as the hill fell away. Within a couple of steps he was below eye level. Slim’s military drilling kicked in, and he squatted, scanning the undergrowth for anything that might be out of place, anything synthetic or human-altered.

  A cackling laugh made him look up.

  ‘Who are you, Schwarzenegger? Ain’t nothing to worry about round here. This ain’t ‘Nam, soldier boy.’

  Slim wondered how much of his past Croad knew, but he shrugged it off, grinning. ‘Always loved the forest as a kid,’ he said, something which while once true had been inverted since. He didn’t like open spaces either, but at least you had a better chance of seeing your enemy.

  ‘Didn’t we all,’ Croad said, turning and ambling off. ‘Nothing to worry about except a few ghosts. They left the car but they took Den’s corpse.’

  Slim hurried after Croad, catching up as the old man came to a stop beside a tangle of undergrowth that suggested something hidden beneath. A little further on, a rocky outcrop jutted out of the earth and beyond it the bank dropped away into a stream channel.

  ‘Front axle got lodged on that rock,’ Croad said, stumbling through the undergrowth and slapping the outcrop with a surprisingly agile kick. ‘Pigs did their investigation then left the car here to rot. Kids used to come down here and smoke skunk, call out old Den, see if he was still about.’

  ‘They still come down here?’

  ‘Got tired of cutting the weeds back, I think.’ Croad grinned. ‘Or they got spooked. More than a couple of kids sat in the hot seat and won’t come in these woods no more.’

  ‘The hot seat?’

  Croad reached down and took hold of a clump of gnarled brambles with his bare hands, ripping them back to reveal a dirty, cracked side window. ‘Front, driver’s side. Where old Den met his maker.’

  6

  Ozgood told him that during his investigation no question was unaskable of anyone living on his estate.

  With a cup of coffee he had left standing in the filter overnight, Slim pored over large aerial photos of the area Ozgood had provided him with, matching the buildings and roads with those on an annotated map.

  The photos stretched back thirty years, and in that time a couple of holdings had come and gone. Others, once standing in the open had become obscured beneath trees which had grown up, while others previously hidden now sat lonely and avoided among cleared areas or open gardens.

  The manor house stood dead centre like a queen bee, surrounded by extensive gardens. These then segued into forest which gradually sloped down into two adjacent river valleys, turning Ozgood’s estate into a diamond, although they never quite converged again.

  Across the river to the northwest, the village of Scuttleworth stood, a cramped cluster of cottages surrounding a church, and bookended by two facing shops at one end, and a village green—in reality little more than a patch of scrubland Slim had seen during Croad’s driving tour. The churchyard was the largest single land use, stretching over a couple of meadows separated by a line of trees, although north of Scuttleworth were a couple of industrial holdings: one grey block that looked like a factory perched on the edge of a valley, and the other an open grey space lined with parked cars and a couple of construction vehicles: a mechanic’s yard.

  On the edge of a smudge of trees a mile to Scuttleworth’s south, Dennis Sharp’s old cottage was highlighted with a double-ringed black circle and an annotation, in case Slim had been unsure. It lay along a meandering track which rose over the southern end of the western valley, wound through forest, and eventually connected with the old access road to Ozgood Hall.

  Slim’s current residence, the former caretaker’s cottage, stood nearly halfway between the two, and was visible only as a brown smear through the trees. The old access road, clearly visible in a map dated 1971, was barely a dotted line on the most recent dated 2009, replaced by a new road to the east.

  Slim counted fourteen other houses or homesteads not belonging to the manor estate or Scuttleworth. Two clusters were farms, while Croad had identified a line of three as former social housing Ozgood had bought up and now rented out. The others all belonged to various rent-paying locals.

  Croad was waiting outside when Slim emerged, mouth sour from too much coffee but his mind—for once—feeling refreshingly sharp. He had begun to count the days of sobriety again as he always did. Four now without a drink, six since he’d got plastered and twelve since he’d woken up somewhere different to where he remembered going to sleep. The caffeine buzz was making his heart palpitate, but the gentle uncurling of the Ozgood case had aroused the curiosity only a bucketful of booze could bury. It was a web, for sure, but if he could somehow unravel it, he might actually get paid for once, and that eternal search for a meaning to his existence could be cooled for a while.

  ‘You ready, boy?’ Croad rasped. ‘Got a busy day of stirring up some muck ahead of us.’

  Slim nodded, inwardly sighing, wondering how long he would have to enjoy Croad’s abrasive company before he could continue the investigation alone.

  Croad had wheels too, an ancient Morris Marina which looked older than its owner. Faded green, it had one jarring chrome red door and a square of blue on the roof that looked to have been laid loose on top. Slim must have been staring because Croad suddenly cackled and said, ‘Sunroof. Homemade. Air-con don’t work.’

  Slim considered saying something about windows but thought better of it. Instead he said, ‘Where’s our first stop?’

  Croad grinned. ‘Figured we’d get straight down to business. I’m taking you to see a ghost.’

  7

  As Croad’s car bumped and bounced down country lanes Slim was sure hadn’t been on his aerial maps, air pouring in through the roof hole as the blue painted board that usually covered the jagged opening jostled at his feet, Slim felt sure no one heading to meet a real ghost would pass the time talking about long forgotten games for Queens Park Rangers.

  ‘Lad’s name was Mickey,’ Croad was saying, fingers drumming on the wheel. ‘Ended up doing pretty well, won a cap for Scotland. But that day he showed up, he was the new kid on the training ground. Night before his first game for the reserves, we filled his boots with chili powder. Damp, misty day, it all got ground in like. Kid got scabies or whatever. Said his
feet itched so much he practically scratched the skin off.’

  ‘Scabies?’ Slim muttered, feigning interest as Croad snorted with laughter.

  ‘Kid would’ve got ruined if he hadn’t been such a good sport about it … ah, here we are. Den’s place.’

  A gate overgrown with vines was set back from the road. The building behind—it was hard to tell it was a house—had boarded windows, but the front door had been kicked in and the entrance invaded by bushes and brambles. Slim got out of the car and approached the gate, only now seeing a second floor hidden among the branches.

  ‘Den’s place,’ Croad repeated as he climbed out and came around the car to join Slim at the gate. ‘After the first message arrived, Ozgood had me down here watching, see if Den showed up. Camped out for weeks. Nothing.’

  ‘I thought Sharp was dead.’

  ‘He is. Or he should be. Ghosts can’t write letters or send emails though, can they?’

  Slim made his way along the gate to a buried stone wall and climbed over. If there had once been a semblance of a garden it was long gone, replaced by a vicious thicket of brambles which clutched at Slim’s jeans as he kicked his way through.

  ‘You going inside?’ Croad asked. ‘You’ll need this.’ He leaned over the gate to hand Slim a torch. ‘Kids trashed the place so Ozgood got it boarded up, since it was only ever leased.’

  ‘I’d like to meet these kids,’ Slim said. ‘I imagine they have stories to tell.’

  ‘Down the green on a Friday night,’ Croad said. ‘You’ll find them out in the beer garden, drinking cheap cider. Keep Cathy’s shop in business, they do.’

  Slim nodded. He took the torch and angled it into the gloom. The outlines of decomposing kitchen units appeared through the matting of vegetation. Treading carefully, he moved a few steps inside, but there was nothing to see except the ruined cottage. Shattered glass, chips of masonry and a few unidentifiable pieces of metal provided a base layer to the usual suspects of an abandoned property: a few crushed cans of Special Brew, a couple of damp, torn porno magazines, and a dusty used condom which had split at the duty end.