Game Players Read online

  game players

  Anita Waller

  Contents

  Also By Anita Waller

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  A Note from Bloodhound Books:

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © 2018 Anita Waller

  The right of Anita Waller to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2018 by Bloodhound Books

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.bloodhoundbooks.com

  Also By Anita Waller

  Beautiful

  Angel

  Winterscroft

  34 Days

  Strategy

  Captor

  Praise for Anita Waller

  "This is a dark domestic chiller that gradually creeps under your skin until the very shocking and unexpected climax." Joanne Robertson - My Chestnut Reading Tree

  "An excellent suspense filled read, and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, Strategy." Mark Tilbury - Author

  "Oh my goodness this book gripped me! I sat and read this book in one sitting over the weekend and honestly, I really didn't want to put it down..." Donna Maguire - Donnas Book Blog

  "The story is well versed and the characters kept me intrigued throughout." Louise Mullins - Author

  "Stunning, brilliant, gripping, heart breaking and touching!" Misfits Farm - Goodreads Reviewer

  "My God ...this story is heart breaking yet such a pageturner...There are secrets...lies..betrayal ..murder... And a darkness ...so terrifying.... that lurks almost invisible." Livia Sbarbaro - Goodreads Reviewer

  "Beware: when you pick up the book you won’t be able to let it go before you have reached the final chapter." Caroline Vincent - Bits About Books

  "A brilliant follow on book from Beautiful . Kept me guessing until the end." Angela Lockwood - Goodreads Reviewer

  "This book scared the daylights out of me and I mean that in the best way possible." Amy Sullivan - Novelgossip

  "The author writes well, weaving the story and sucking the reader into the lives of the characters within the book." Rebecca Burnton - If Only I Could Read Faster

  "This is book has all the elements needed to make it creepy, read-through-your-fingers-at-times kind of read. There is spooky suspense on every page." M.A. Comley - New York Times and USA Today best-selling author

  * * *

  "The author really keeps you on the edge of your seat – the twists made me gasp and she sets the atmosphere absolutely perfectly." Melisa Broadbent - Broadbean's Books

  "If you are looking for a crime thriller that is somewhat unnerving as it is every mother's worst nightmare, a fast-paced page turner that keeps you guessing. Then I definitely recommend Captor!" Dash Fan Book Reviews

  "Captor will have you gripped from the beginning and won’t let you go until you have finished. It is a suspense-filled crime thriller that will keep you guessing throughout." Gemma Myers - Between The Pages Book Club

  "...Waller has definitely done it again and proves herself to be one of the best storytellers in the genre of murder, necessary murder, as she likes to say." Rebecca Burnton - If Only I Could Read Faster

  For Mum and Dad who would have been

  inordinately proud of me!

  * * *

  Edna May Havenhand, née Bonnington

  1921-1953

  Ernest Havenhand

  1922-1975

  It should be noted that children at play are not playing about;

  their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.

  * * *

  Montaigne (Michel Eyquem de Montaigne)

  1533-1592

  * * *

  Essais (1580, ed. M. Rat, 1958) bk.1, ch.23

  Alas, regardless of their doom,

  The little victims play!

  No sense have they of ills to come,

  Nor care beyond to-day.

  * * *

  Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

  * * *

  Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1747) 1. 51

  1

  The sunlight was dappled in the deepest part of the woods. It wasn’t a huge wood, but their den was there; hidden from the road, hidden from the adjoining car park, hidden from everything. During the summer holidays, when school no longer gave them the interaction they enjoyed and needed, the Gang of Six, as they liked to call themselves, took full advantage of the copse’s proximity to their homes.

  Mark and Dominic Brownlow were the oldest; at eleven and a half, they considered themselves the leaders. However, Mark thought of himself as the sole leader, with twin brother Dom his second-in-command. Dom was quite happy to go along with that. The quieter of the two boys, he usually acceded to Mark’s leadership, unless it was exceptionally crazy and likely to end with a grounding from their mother.

  Physically, they were identical, with dark-blond hair, blue-grey eyes and straight noses, but the other members of the Gang of Six had no difficulty in recognising who was who. Teachers at the school they all attended insisted the two boys wore name badges. It made life easier.

  Occasionally, they swapped the badges, just because they could.

  The boys had a sister, two years younger, with the same dark-blonde hair and slightly bluer eyes, a much smaller nose than her siblings, and very pretty; but in the competitive stakes, she was fierce. Her parents laughingly called her feral, feral Freya. They weren’t always laughing when they said it. She had to be the winner; Mark and Dom accepted this for a fact and had shown no hesitation in bringing her into the gang. They always nodded when their mum asked them to look after Freya, keep her safe. The truth was that Freya could very well look after herself. The twins simply let her get on with it.

  Freya had a best friend, Ella Johnston. She had known Ella from the start of their school life, and she had invited Ella to join them. Ella had agreed, albeit a little reluctantly. She wasn’t sure her mum would approve of her running free in the woods with a group of boys. Her mum always said she had to be careful around boys, and yet, here she was, blindly following Freya, as usual. Ella’s skin was a lovely toffee colour, and her dark eyes and hair set off that shade to perfection. Freya didn’t see it; skin tones didn’t come into her world.

  And at nine, Freya Brownlow was in love with skin so dark, it seemed ebonised, covering the wiry frame of Sammy Walker, another eleven-year-old from the same class as the Brownlow twins. His curly black hair and flashing dark eyes, combined with an ever-present smile, made him a cool kid at school. Sammy, in return, had found the love of his life in Freya. It was a match made in heaven, and they laughed and joked and loved without even so much a
s a shared kiss between them. They didn’t even mind saying bye as the days headed towards evening, because they knew they would be together again the following morning. To them, their friendship was a beautiful thing.

  And the sixth member of the close-knit group was Daryl Clarkson. Taller than the others, with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes, he was the sensible one. He stopped them dying from ingestion of assorted berries and fruits, by simply taking out his iPhone (they were all envious of the acquisition of this, even though it was merely a cast off after an upgrade, via his dad). He would google the berry and tell them yea or nay as to its poisonous qualities. Daryl Clarkson was probably the most important member of the Gang of Six. He kept them alive.

  * * *

  The woods were bursting at the seams with creatures. Squirrels, hedgehogs, tiny mice, badgers, a fox family – they had all been seen at one time or another by the children. The den had been converted into a veterinary hospital a couple of times, when they had spotted some injured animals.

  It had taken them three long weeks to build the den, constructed after school during May, so that it was ready for them when summer fully arrived, and school closed for the six-week holiday. They had worked carefully, always aware that the woods were situated next to a massive police station; they didn’t want to be moved along, because they knew that their parents wouldn’t allow them to wander any further away from home than the current site.

  The less their parents knew, the better. Likewise, the police.

  The den was cosy inside. They had made seating for all six of them and had used a triangular shape formed by three thick trees to construct the erection of twigs and thicker branches. Nothing showed on the outside to give any casual onlooker the impression that it was something man-made…children-made…but inside, it sported seats around the edge covered by a couple of throws purloined from the Brownlow’s and the Clarkson’s homes. Tucked underneath the seats were small bottles of water, bought from a nearby Asda and paid for by Daryl; he was the only one who received any sort of pocket money. From the outside, it blended in perfectly with its surroundings. They had built in two small windows; they did not want anyone creeping up on them, so the viewing holes were at eye level when they were sitting down.

  One day, they had seen Sammy’s older brother Joe in the woods, with a girl from his school. He had been holding her hand, and they had seen him kiss her, not six feet away from the den.

  They had remained silent; Sammy and Daryl being on lookout duty, the rest had waited for a signal from them before daring to speak.

  Eventually, Sammy did. ‘Bloody ’ell. That was our Joe with Kelly Marsden, an’ ’e kissed ’er!’

  They all giggled nervously, and then, Freya spoke. ‘It shows our den’s pretty good. They didn’t even know it was here.’

  Everyone nodded in unison. Crisis averted, their hideaway had passed the test.

  One day in June, there had been an accident. They had decided to play hide and seek, and Ella had fallen headlong over a thick tree root. Wearing only shorts and a T-shirt, no protection for the skin on her legs, the resultant gash on her knee was truly spectacular.

  They helped her back to the den, and Daryl, the patient, caring one, used some of the water and a leaf to clean her wound.

  ‘Will you be able to walk okay?’ he asked a tearful Ella.

  She nodded. ‘Just give me some of that water, I’ll be okay. It hurts.’

  They cancelled the rest of the day’s activities and helped Ella home. Her mum was in the back garden and looked shocked when she saw the cut.

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘I fell over.’

  ‘Let’s get you inside and put a plaster on it. It needs cleaning first.’

  Ella turned and smiled at the five members ranged around her. They smiled back and turned to leave. They knew Ella’s day was over, but they also knew she would be back again the following day.

  The next day, Daryl arrived with a first aid kit. Nobody questioned how he had got it – the supplier had struck again.

  The summer of 2016 was a warm one, and once school had ended, the Gang of Six met every day in the woods. They had added supplies to the den; sparkling water instead of the ordinary stuff, because it quenched their thirst better, even if it tasted a bit iffy, biscuits that they kept in a plastic box, and some Haribo sweets because they loved them. Everything was protected from attack by animals by keeping it all in plastics of various kinds, and the days passed with nobody querying where they had been.

  Tuesday 26 July was overcast. It was still warm, and Daryl was the last to arrive.

  ‘Mum said I should stay home, because it was looking like rain.’ He sounded shocked. ‘Stay home? Is she daft?’ He grinned at the others. ‘Bet you thought I’d knocked, didn’t yer?’

  ‘As if,’ Dom scoffed. ‘We knew you’d turn up at some point. What we gonna do now we’re all here, then?’ He turned to his brother. ‘Bro? What we doing?’

  ‘Let’s have a meeting.’

  Mark bent and crawled inside the den, and the others followed. Daryl produced a long tube of plastic cups. ‘Thought I’d get these. Then, we don’t have to drink full bottles of water, we can have a small cup, if that’s all we want.’ He stashed them under the seats, and they all sat down.

  ‘Right, Ella and Sammy on look-out today.’

  They took the appropriate seats for looking out of the apertures they called windows, and everyone else sat around them.

  Mark took charge. ‘I thought we might do a bit of litter picking. There’s loads of plastic bags and stuff after that gale the other night, and we don’t want any nosey parkers coming in to clean up, do we? I’ve brought us some bags. What does everybody think?’

  They nodded; they remembered the council sending some workers in to clean up before, and they had to make the decision to stay home, instead of going to the den, in case they were still in the woods.

  ‘Okay, we work in twos. Me and Dom, Freya and Ella, and Sammy and Daryl. Any problems, blow your whistle.’ They had set up the system very early on in the gang’s formation. Everybody had a whistle – provided by Daryl – and each had their own distinctive call. They had practiced and practiced until they unerringly recognised all six individual sounds.

  ‘Shh,’ Ella spoke urgently. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘Somebody coming.’

  They immediately became silent; nobody moved. They could hear twigs snapping as the footsteps drew closer, then passed by their den. Still nobody moved. The intruder progressed into Sammy’s view, and the young boy continued to watch as the man drew further away. Sammy held up his hand to indicate it still wasn’t safe to talk or move. He watched the man move towards the edge of the woods, then look around. He was alone, and he appeared to be checking that nobody was following him.

  Sammy’s eyes never left him. He watched every movement; the man knelt and took a trowel out of his backpack. He dug a hole, and then, he took a large pack of white powder out and laid it into the hole.

  Sammy was no fool; he was only eleven, but he’d seen lots of television shows about white powder, along with the drug education classes they’d all sat through at school. This was drugs. He stifled the gasp that threatened to come out of his mouth and continued to watch. The man was pulling the soil back into the hole.

  He stood, and Sammy froze. There was something about him… He felt sure he knew him, and then, there was recognition. The man stood perfectly still for a moment, before checking all around that nobody had seen him. He continued on his way through the woods, towards the Asda car park that adjoined the leafy, secluded area.

  Sammy dropped his head. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Did you know him?’ Daryl was curious. He had been watching his friend’s face and knew something was wrong.

  Sammy shrugged. ‘I thought so, but I’m not sure. If I do, I can’t remember who he is. We need to forget about this, though.’ Sammy had decided it was safer to deny he had recognised the man.

&nb
sp; ‘Why?’ Freya turned huge blue eyes on him. ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’

  ‘What did he do?’ Mark and Dom spoke almost in unison.

  ‘He buried something…’

  ‘Sammy, for goodness’ sake, what did he bury?’ Freya was demanding.

  ‘It looked like a bag of white powder.’

  Even Freya and Ella, the youngest members of the group, understood the significance of white powder.

  ‘Shit,’ Daryl said, speaking for them all. He took out his mobile phone, keyed in a few words and then showed them several pictures thrown up by the browser. ‘Cocaine,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s cocaine. Is this what it looked like, Sammy?’

  Sammy nodded. ‘Yeah, I knew as soon as I saw it. It was the same as they showed us at school. It’s not going to be a bag of icing sugar, is it? And if it’s not cocaine, it’s something just as bad.’