Hide and Seek (17 page)

CHAPTER 35

19:32pm

Peter growled and shoved the mobile into his shirt pocket and returned both hands to the steering wheel as he veered round the roundabout, scraping the bumper of a car meandering around it, and onto Delview Road.

The streetlights illuminated a wide road
with little traffic. He pushed his foot down on the pedal, the revs dial leapt up but there wasn’t a great deal of acceleration - the speedometer teetering around 70 miles per hour.

Peter wondered why Celo was helping him so much this time. He hadn’t
offered advice with the others. He had been left to his own devices to resolve any issues he came up against. Even when he had been chased by the police before, Celo hadn’t given him any advice on how to try and escape. He wondered if it was because he hadn’t been given a proper chance to save Laura. Was it because he was getting close to the end of Celo’s game and he wanted him to make it to whatever grand finale he’d devised?

He glanced at the time, 7:33pm. Celo had said there was a chance that she was still alive, his heart fluttered slightly with hope.

The car flew over the railway crossing, juddering over the metal tracks, and an agonising jolt reverberated through the steering wheel and up Peter’s tensed arms. He looked in the rear view mirror - no police car - but he could still hear its siren. He was on a decline in the road approaching the row of shops as he braked hard to turn into the alley. The brake pads screamed, and a sickening feeling hit his stomach as the car continued to slide towards the wall of the first building. He frantically turned the steering wheel to the right. The car shuddered as it rattled on the cobblestones of the alley floor and missed the wall by inches and instead veered right towards a fence surrounding the house which lay to the side of the shops. This time he swung the steering wheel left, panicking as he tried to correct the slide. The car came to a violent stop as the side of it collided with the fence accompanied by the sound of crunching wood and splintering panels.

Peter sat there in shock for a few seconds, breathing loudly as he heard the siren getting closer. He tried the keys in the ignition but the engine spluttered and died. He fiddled with the levers by the side of the steering wheel to turn off the headlights. He turned in his seat looking out the back window, hiding his face behind the driver’s headrest as if that would conceal him.

The siren grew louder and louder. It was getting closer. Any second now.

Peter could see the reflection of blue lights dancing on the road behind him and breathed in as the police car flew past the alleyway opening. His hands were gripped on the head rest anticipating the screeching sound of brakes
as the police man spotted his car. But no screeching noise came. Instead the noise of the siren fell away.

Peter tried to open the driver side door but it wedged against the fence. He clambered over the gear stick to the passenger side and got out of the car. He looked around him;
it was remarkably quiet now the carnage had passed. He looked beyond the fence to the house behind it, expecting to see a light come on, but it remained in darkness.

He ran to the front of Keithland’s Pet Store. He couldn’t believe it was still here after all these years. Even the shop sign, although obviously freshly painted, was exactly the same as he remembered it. He
peered through the glass front door. At the back he could see neon blue light spilling out from … something. Something blocked from view behind the rows of cages that housed the rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters. He noticed that the blue light was rippling across the floor and then realised that the light was reflecting off a pool of water which covered the floor. He remembered that Celo had said the last key would open the door and started fumbling in his trouser pockets. They were empty. A woeful nauseating feeling hit him, the keys were in the inside pocket of the jacket he had left at the sports hall. He started wrestling with the door handle but it was futile. He was just about to put his fist straight through the glass when he remembered the Bowie knife.

He ran back to the car, and searched by the passenger seat where he had dropped it earlier.
The knife had fallen underneath the seat and he scraped his hand against the metal under frame as he retrieved it.

He ran back to the
shop and holding the Bowie knife, handle outwards, he jabbed at the corner of the window frame nearest the lock. It punched a perfect circular hole clean through the pane of glass and the rest of the window cracked but did not break. He reached his hand through, turned the Yale lock and opened the door. As he entered the thirty second warning of the store alarm started beeping.

‘Shit
!’

The William Tell tune rang out as if singing along in unison to the alarm. Peter answered the phone and the distorted metallic voice of Celo spoke quickly.

‘The code is 4-4-2-5-1.’

Peter flipped the lid of the panel to the right of the door and entered the code whilst speaking aloud.

‘4-4.’

Celo repeated, ‘2-5-1.’

He entered the last three digits and the alarm stopped. Celo hung up without another word.

Peter closed the door behind him and ran
in, his feet splashing through the pools of water gathering on the lino floor. Animals rustled in the cages and the screech of a parakeet rang out from the back of the store. He could hear the sloshing sound of water as if a tap had been left running.

Peter rounded the cages to face the source of the neon light.

CHAPTER 36

19:36pm

In front of Peter was a large tank lit up by a neon light within it. Next to the tank was a black metallic contraption,
an all too familiar trademark now. The contraption had an arm - like a tap - hanging over the tank and steadily filling it with water. The tank must have been empty to start with but as time elapsed it had filled to the top and was now spilling over the brim.

Peter’s face trembled as he started to cry. Grief took
hold and he dropped to his knees in the pools of water below him. Lying slumped within the full tank, face pressed against the glass wall, was the dead body of Laura O’Connor. Her hands and legs were bound so she could not punch or kick her way out of her glass tomb. Peter crawled closer towards the tank. Her face was pale white, her mouth open, her lifeless blue eyes staring at nothing. He held his hand up to the glass, which was ice cold to touch, as if he was trying to stroke her face.

Peter mouthed to her, ‘I’m so sorry.’

He found it disconcerting that she actually looked at peace. Her face looked serenely calm as opposed to the panic she must have felt as the water grew steadily higher and higher in the tank throughout the day.

He felt the urge to
pull her out of her watery grave. He stood up and tried to reach her, but the tank was too tall and he could only grasp at the wisps of her hair. He grabbed a bench, similar to the one they had sat on as children. He scraped it across the floor to the front of the tank, got on top, took a deep breath and immersed the upper half of his body in the tank. He groped under her arms to try and lift her but he couldn’t get the leverage he needed from this angle. As he tried, the mobile phone slipped from his shirt breast pocket and sunk to the bottom.

He came out of the tank and started to pound his fists against the glass wall in agitation but it was too thick and did not break. He gripped the top edges of the tank and tried to rock it back and forth. It swayed a little but would not budge enough for him to tip it over. It was stuck fast in a frame which was welded to the floor. He remembered observing earlier how Celo had scored the window in the flats to make it easier to smash when Colin hit it. He fished out the Bowie knife and scratched the blade across the surface of the glass in the shape of a
n X.

He picked up the bench clumsily, resting most of it under his arm and
, using it like a battering ram, drove it into the tank. The glass did not break immediately but cracked and splintered. Peter dropped the bench which thudded noisily off the floor. Trickles of water spat from cracks in the glass like the pierced hull of a sinking ship and then seconds later the entire front of the tank exploded and a torrent of water poured out.

Peter stood firm against the wave of water and caught the body of Laura as the momentum lifted and pushed her body out of the tank. The water spilled down and continued its journey across the floor of the store as Peter collapsed to his knees again,
and nestled Laura in his arms. He rocked back and forth, his body tensed and shaking uncontrollably.

‘I’m sorry
,’ he repeatedly murmured between his sobs.

He looked down at her blue eyes, as they stared up at the ceiling. It looked
as if she was in some kind of trance, like when she was sat with him staring happily into the fish tanks all those years ago. But he knew this was a trance from which she wouldn’t wake. He tried to close her eyelids and was surprised how hard it was. He had seen it done in movies many times before and the person would only have to brush their hand across the person’s eyes to close them but it was harder than that in reality. He had to roll her eyelids down with his fingers and it felt like he was closing the shutters of a store. He pulled her body up and buried his head in her sodden clumped hair and wept loudly.

Peter didn’t know how long he had been huddled there. It felt like hours as he continued to sway back and forth hugging the dead body of Laura O’Connor. He felt like he had emptied his body of all the tears they could muster and he was now just sniffing and breathing like he was hyperventilating. Behind him the William Tell tune began to play again. He looked around and lying on the floor in front of the tank was the mobile phone, rattling on the floor. He stared at it quizzically; amazed it was still working when it had been dropped in a tank of water. He looked down at Laura one more time and shuffled her out of his lap and delicately laid her head on the floor. He stretched to retrieve the phone, his face contorting into rage as the anger built up in him.

‘You’re dead. Whoever you are, I’m going to find you and I will fucking kill you.’

Celo didn’t rise to the threat and instead replied with almost genuine sorrow.

‘I’m sorry Peter. I know you cared for her deeply. I really wanted you to save her. It might have helped you. But it seems you’re destined to lose the ones you care about. If Cas hadn’t knocked you out you might have got to her in time...’

Peter interrupted, ‘No. Don’t you dare blame Cas or anyone else for this. This is your fault. This is all your fault and you’re going to pay for it.’

Celo
didn’t rise to Peter’s anger.

‘I told you earlier, you will have time to grieve for the people you’ve lost today. But for now, the game must continue, you’re so close to the end now.’

One last person to save, Steve. But a part of him didn’t care. He had already lost the people he cared most about. The only person he truly wanted to find now was Celo, so he could kill him.

‘You must push your grief aside Peter. I’m proud of you
for making it this far. You only have to keep going for a little longer. I promise after this last task you will get your chance to meet me. It’s sort of the grand finale to the game.’

Peter did not respond. His face was tense with anger. Steve was still a person, still a human being he could save. And then he would have his chance with Celo, a chance to make him suffer for what he had done to him and the other members of the Excellent Eight. He could have his revenge on Celo for murdering Gavin, for
causing Colin to fall to his death, for burning Cheryl, for killing Cas, and for drowning Laura.

‘Are you ready for the next clue?’

Peter was momentarily silent. Fixating on his revenge.

‘After I do this, after I save Steve, what happens next? You’ve been setting me up all day. How do I know you’re not
just going to disappear?’

‘At 8:30pm, regardless of whether you save Steve or not, I will call you again with your final clue. Follow the clue and you will find all the answers you’ve been looking for and I will reveal who I am.’

‘How can I trust you?’

‘Peter, have I lied to you?’

Peter thought for a moment. Had he?

‘I’ve never lied to you Peter. And I want you to know the truth.’

‘Look, I don’t care who you are, or what sick twisted reasons you think you have for doing all this. When I find you, I
will
kill you.’

Celo’s metallic distorted voice was calm and composed.

‘That will be your decision Peter. Someday, you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this. I cannot tell you.’

Peter
picked himself up from the floor and with a final sorrowful look at the body of Laura O’Connor he walked towards the exit.

‘Get on with it then. Tell me where Steve is.’

‘A place where you used to go with the boys and the girls. A graveyard for the ones we abandon, where wars may be lost and won. Steve Jenkins has bad memories of this place. You have until 8:30pm to find and save him.’

Celo hung up. Peter looked down at the phone display
- the time read 7:53pm. Celo had left it late to give him the clue. He’d let him lie there and grieve for Laura for over fifteen minutes. An act of compassion or malice? He didn’t know. He did know it left him with less than forty minutes to save Steve.

Peter didn’t consider the clue that much. He had heard the word graveyard and decided it
had to be the cemetery on the grounds of Bilton church. Celo was making him backtrack again; he’d been there earlier in the day when he was chased from the flats after Colin died. He cursed, wishing he’d known then what he knew now. It would have been easy enough to find and save Steve then.

He wondered if there was any significance to finishing the game in the same place where this had all
began - with the funeral of Gavin Blair. He was only buried yesterday and yet it seemed like something that had happened weeks, even months ago. Peter remembered that it was Celo that had put Gavin in the ground, feigning his suicide simply so he could get them all back to Bilton to play his perverted game. His anger was almost impossible to contain.