Games People Play Read online

  Games People Play

  Owen Mullen

  Copyright © 2017 Owen Mullen

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

  First published in 2017 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

  Contents

  Also by Owen Mullen:

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  A Note From Bloodhound Books

  Also by Owen Mullen:

  Old Friends and New Enemies.

  * * *

  Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead .

  For

  Devon and Harrison, the Carney boys,

  who always make me smile.

  The footsteps came after him, racing as he raced; slapping the sand, crunching shingle, beating against rock. Grass beneath his bare feet meant he was almost home. Almost safe. Then the crunching became a heavy pad. Gaining. He ran faster.

  His chest burned. Heavy legs refused to carry him; he couldn’t go on. He fell, panting and terrified.

  The footsteps stopped.

  For a long time he lay, too afraid to move, expecting a hand to touch his shoulder.

  But no hand came.

  He gathered his courage and looked behind him.

  There was no one there.

  Prologue

  Ayr, 35 miles from Glasgow.

  * * *

  They walked along the beach and stopped not far from an old rowing boat with a hole in the bottom. Mark carried the folded push-chair and his daughter. The sun fell towards the horizon. It had been a great day, a scorcher, but the best of it was behind them. Noisy gulls scavenged, soaring and diving and calling to each other. Lily pressed her face against her father’s chest, too tired to be interested in the birds.

  ‘We ought to get back,’ Mark said, ‘Lily’s tired. She should be in bed.’

  Jennifer didn’t reply. He knew what she was thinking.

  ‘Surely not?’

  ‘Last one? Five minutes?’

  Mark glanced at his watch – ten past seven – and limited his concern to a sigh. The last thing he wanted was to spoil things with a quarrel; there had been enough of those. Red flags fluttered in the evening air. He pointed to them.

  ‘Be careful, Jen. The waves are getting bigger. Don’t go far.’

  She dropped the bag with their towels and the baby’s things at his feet.

  ‘I will. In and out. Promise.’

  The water was cold; colder than in the afternoon. When it was waist high she kicked her legs and headed out. Jennifer caught a glimpse of Mark and Lily standing on the sand: her whole universe. She loved them so much. That thought almost made her turn back. Instead she took a deep breath and dived.

  It happened so fast. One minute she was swimming, the next the current was dragging her to the bottom. Seawater flooded her mouth. She fought, thrashed to the surface and tried to shout; a hoarse whisper was all that came. Her head went under and stayed under. Her lungs were on fire. With no warning it released her and she saw blue sky. Jennifer gulped shallow ragged breaths, shocked and scared, and started towards her family. She would never leave them again. But the decision was no longer hers. The force drew her back into a world without light or oxygen and this time it didn’t let go. Her arm broke free in a desperate attempt to escape. Tongues of spray pulled it down and Jennifer knew she was going to drown.

  She’d dreamed of watching her daughter grow into a woman. That would never be. And Mark, poor Mark. How unfair to leave him. Her body rolled beneath the waves. She stopped struggling, closed her eyes and disappeared from sight.

  Seconds passed before Mark realised something wasn’t right. ‘Where’s mummy? Where’s your mummy?’ The baby sucked her thumb. ‘Where is she, Lily?’

  At first he couldn’t move. Cold fear consumed him. A hundred yards away a group of boys played football; apart from them the beach was deserted. He yelled. They didn’t hear him. He threw the push-chair to the sand, yanked it open and sat Lily in it. His hands were shaking. The damned straps wouldn’t fasten. He spoke to himself. ‘Please god, no. Please god, no’ and raced into the sea.

  The water was freezing. What the hell had Jen been thinking? This was Scotland, for Christ sake. He swam to where he’d last seen her and went under. Mark was a good swimmer but it was dark. His frantic fingers searched until the pressure in his chest forced him to the surface. He took in as much air as he could and went back. Something bumped against him; he grabbed hold and dragged it up. Two boys ran into the water to help: the footballers. They hauled her body the last few yards and Mark fell to his knees. Jennifer wasn’t breathing. People appeared on the beach, silent witnesses to the nightmare the day had become. Where had they been when he needed them? He shouted, half in anger half in desperation.

  ‘Somebody call an ambulance!’

  The crowd kept a respectful distance, believing what he believed, that he’d lost her. Jennifer’s face was white. Mark covered her mouth with his and breathed into her. His hands pressed against her chest demanding she come back to him.

  One of the boys took over with no better luck. Mark tried again, refusing to let her go. He pumped her heart, whimpering like a child, sobbing for himself as well as his wife. Jennifer’s eyes fluttered; she retched and vomited water. Mark turned her on her side and rubbed her back, whispering reassurance, blinded by tears, aware his prayers had been answered. A siren sounded in the distance. It was going to be all right. She was safe. They would be together again.

  The three of them.

  He raised his head and saw ambulance-men racing towards him across the sand. Mark jumped to his feet. They must have drifted... except the boat was there. His voice rose from a cry to a scream.

  ‘Lily. Lily!’

  He spoke to the group who had offered nothing.

  ‘I left a baby here, somebody must’ve seen her.’

  They stared, no idea what he
was talking about.

  A new terror seized him. He ran a few steps up and down the beach, lost and afraid. The bag lay where Jennifer dropped it. But no push-chair. No sign his daughter had ever been there.

  Lily was gone.

  1

  I opened the door and stepped into a cloud; the unmistakeable musk of marijuana and the sound of copulation.

  The couple on the bed were naked, the girl straddling the boy, too absorbed to notice me. He held a mobile phone, recording a souvenir of the occasion while his partner performed, squeezing her breasts together and pushing them at the camera; rolling her head in a parody of ecstasy. Blue movie sex, and about as far from the real thing as it was possible to get.

  Their bodies were lean and bone white. Though the rest of the country basked in the heatwave a suntan hadn’t made it on to their list of priorities. Tidying up wasn’t on it either: the floor looked like the bottom of a river; pizza boxes, crushed beer cans and empty cider bottles. Dirty sex had a new meaning.

  On a fold-down table a used condom, slicked and crumpled, lay beside a pouch of Virginia Special Gold tobacco, a penknife, and what looked like an Oxo cube carelessly wrapped in silver paper. Two joints were already rolled from a production line I guessed had been going all weekend. As a Tracy Emin still life it would’ve been okay. As a love nest it fell short of the mark.

  People can’t keep secrets – they always tell somebody. Maryanne Mulholland was no different. Her confidante was a friend at school. It had taken seventy two hours and a ferry crossing to find her but I had. Shagging her brains out in a caravan in Dunoon.

  The boy sensed rather than saw me, dropped the mobile and threw the girl aside. His jaw was slack and his eyes were glassy – it wasn’t called dope for nothing.

  He snarled. ‘Who the fuck’re you?’

  In the circumstances, a fair question.

  I answered with some snarling of my own.

  ‘Get away from her.’

  He turned his anger on the female. ‘You told me your father didn’t know where you were.’

  She shook her head. ‘He’s not my father. I’ve never seen him before.’

  All the encouragement he needed. He picked up a bottle by the neck and crashed it against the wall. It disintegrated. Blood dripped on the discoloured carpet; the cut would need stitches. He stared at his injured hand, dumb with surprise. I could have told him not to depend on that tough guy shit; it hardly ever worked. And he wasn’t a boy, more like twenty eight or twenty nine.

  Even by his standards his next move was stupid. He lifted the penknife and charged. Comic, made more ridiculous by his nudity. I didn’t laugh too long because room to manoeuvre was limited. There was always a chance he’d get lucky and actually stick the stubby blade in someone. Maybe me.

  He was fearless. Drugs do that to you.

  And slow. They do that to you as well.

  I grabbed his arm, pushed it behind his back and manhandled him through the door. His shoes and jeans followed. He lay on the ground, out of his head, screaming.

  ‘Bastard! Fucking bastard! She’s sixteen!’

  Loser chat.

  He wasn’t getting it. I moved towards him pointing a threatening finger.

  ‘Yeah, but you’re not. Don’t come near her again.’

  Inside the caravan broken glass crackled under my feet. I lifted lover boy’s phone and put it in my pocket. Maryanne Mulholland was on the bed hugging her legs; crying. Mascara, smudged in black circles, reminded me of a panda I’d seen on a visit to London Zoo.

  ‘You can stop bubbling. It won’t change anything.’

  She drew a slender arm through tears and wiped lipstick from her chin. ‘Did he send you?’

  I wasn’t in the mood to explain. ‘Clean yourself up and meet me outside.’

  It was over for her and she knew it, yet she had spirit. She said, ‘I’m not going back to Glasgow. I’m not going back and you can’t make me.’

  I’d been hired to locate a runaway teenager. Just that. All I had to do was tell my client where his daughter was and send him my invoice. Forcing her to return with me wasn’t what I’d signed on for. Four days earlier in my office Bill Mulholland set the tone of our relationship with an opening line that guaranteed we would never be friends.

  ‘I wouldn’t normally have anything to do with someone like you. No offence.’

  This job wasn’t for the thin-skinned, so none taken. Cheeky bastard.

  I sat on the grass in front of the caravan listening to the gentle hiss of the shower and waited for the girl to appear. When she did her hair was wet and she was carrying a plastic rubbish bag and a grudge the size of Dumbarton Rock. She ignored me, dumped the bag by the door and went back in. Minutes later I heard the hum of a Hoover. Maryanne was cleaning up. Strange behaviour for a delinquent, and the first inkling I’d been misled. This was no wild child, more like a child acting wild. Certainly not the renegade her father had described. I’d decided long ago that kids were a responsibility I could live without.

  Eventually she showed herself, surly and unrepentant. The way any sixteen-year-old at war with her parents should look. The shower had done her good: her eyes were clear. The smoky emptiness wasn’t there anymore. And she was angry. I didn’t blame her. I had chased her boyfriend and nipped a promising career on YouTube – where the video clip would surely have ended – in the bud. But I wasn’t getting points for protecting her reputation. She stood, hands on hips, squinting into the sun, preparing to give me my character. An interesting role reversal, all things considered.

  What she said reminded me of her old man; pompous and judgemental, overflowing with righteous indignation.

  ‘People like you make me want to throw up.’

  This young lady was her father’s daughter all right. Short memory too.

  ‘Nobody’s perfect, Maryanne.’

  No reaction. Teenagers don’t do irony.

  ‘Who gave you the right to hound me? I meant what I said. I’m not going back.’

  ‘Your decision. I’ll give you a lift to the city if it’s any help. Or stay. I don’t care.’

  ‘So why are you still here?’

  I changed the subject, away from me. ‘That guy, your pal, he’s a tosser, what you doing with him?’

  ‘His name’s Fraser and you can’t say that. You don’t know him.’

  ‘Yes I do. He’s using you.’

  Colour rose in her cheeks. No make-up made her seem younger than sixteen; too young to have been doing what she’d been doing. She turned away and took a last defiant stab at maturity.

  ‘Maybe I want to be used.’

  ‘Yeah now, while you’re mad at the world. Not tomorrow.’

  She shook her head as if my naivety saddened her. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Try me.’

  It took a long time. By the end she was crying again. Somewhere in the middle she almost laughed. ‘Fraser thought you were my father. He thought you were going to kill him.’

  ‘If I was your father I would have.’

  She gave me a look; a mixture of wonder and disbelief.

  ‘Would you? Would you really?’

  ‘Yes. I probably would.’

  Later, on the ferry to McInroy’s Point and Gourock, I bought coffee in the downstairs bar and brought it up top. The girl took the plastic cup without a word, walked to the rail and gazed across the glittering Clyde at the Cowal Peninsula fading into the distance behind us. She was tall, almost as tall as me. Her face turned away so I couldn’t see. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and blistering hot. So much had happened. She needed to be alone to make some sense of it. Outside the caravan she’d sat beside me and let me in. And as she spoke, I realised we had something in common; we didn’t get on with our fathers. Both of us had headed for the hills to escape them, though her exit was more dramatic than mine.

  Inevitably, she remembered I was a private investigator working for the enemy and shut down. That was where it stood and it
would take more than a watery Nescafe to change her mind.

  Bill Mulholland had struck me as a severe individual. A man who ruled his domestic kingdom with an iron hand; the reason the household was a daughter short. He’d played the exasperated parent confronting teenage rebellion to a tee when he asked me to take the case.

  Maryanne told a very different tale. I knew who I believed and gave her space.

  Further along the deck a guy in a yellow t-shirt, engineer boots and denim jeans torn at the knees, was pounding out the Bob Dylan songbook on an old acoustic. Between verses he vamped the harmonica in a holder round his neck, adding reedy bursts to Maggie’s Farm, Mr Tambourine Man and Like a Rolling Stone. Somebody requested Don’t Think Twice and he played it for them. Not great, not even good, but he played it. His voice was raw, discordant at times, bang on for Dylan. At the end of the song he fiddled with the guitar strings and joked to the people nearest him.

  ‘Was in tune when I bought it,’ he said.

  A sense of humour: given the nuclear arsenal anchored just miles away at the Holy Loch and the Ban the Bomb badge on his chest, he’d need it.

  His hair was greasy. Above his mouth a wispy excuse for a moustache was having second thoughts about growing. Likely he didn’t have a pot to piss in but the contrast with Mulholland’s daughter couldn’t have been more marked. This kid was happy.