Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) (28 page)

Charles stood with his hands in his pockets, his face a picture of nervousness.

“Sit down,” Jester said, “we have two hours to kill.” He paused and smiled. “Literally.”

Charles frowned at the comment and stayed upright, rigid. “This is a big deal,” he said. “You don’t seem to be taking this seriously.”

“I have nothing to lose,” Jester said. “I don’t need to take things seriously. Would you prefer it if I did?”

“No,” Charles was quick to reply. “I just find it …” He trailed off.

“Weird, yeah, I know,” Jester finished. The song finished, the sexy blonde replaced by adverts. Switching channels, he found a documentary about survival, dropped the remote on the bed, scuttled up to the headboard and rested his back on the pillows.

“You should get some sleep,” Charles said. “We both should. We’ll need the rest.”

“Agreed,” Jester nodded, his eye slowly closing.

Jester found himself alone, lost in darkness. He was in a small room, the four walls tight and getting tighter, closing in on him.

He stood in the corner, his mind scared, worried, his body carefree. Inside he felt like crying. An endless pit of worry had dug itself deep inside. He could see the inside of his mind. He could see the worries and the horrors in pure form.

In the corner of his mind, Jennifer Wilkinson sat huddled up in the foetal position, her hands and legs bound with rope, black tape over her face.

In the far reaches of his subconscious, past the darkened corner where Jennifer lay, Darren Whittall – the fat man from the warehouse – the cabin owner, and the two hit men all stood, rigid and expressionless, their eyes on Matthew.

On the outside he felt fine. Leaving the confines of his mind, Jester found himself back inside the room. The walls had grown tighter, closer. There was a door now, solid steel, reinforced and locked, but there was a door and in his eyes the door was hope. He flung his body at the door. He hit it like a rubber ball and bounced off, crashing to the floor with a thud.

He climbed back to his feet and attacked the door, throwing everything at it. Every muscle in every limb worked; he kicked it, he slammed his shoulder into it, he thumped it and he shoved it. It still didn’t move.

Taking a step back, Jester waited until he found his breath again. He noted that the walls were closer than before and his realisation forced them even closer.

Matthew dived at the door, but all his attempts, all his efforts couldn’t knock it from its hinges. He continued to try. The door wasn’t moving, but neither was Jester. As long as the walls encroached, he would try to break down the door.

The hard concrete walls closed in on him until he could feel them pressuring him from either shoulder. Screaming in agony, his feet still trying to kick the door down, he closed his eyes and waited for the pain.

Jester woke with a start. He was breathless, his face red, his mouth dry.

“Holy shit,” he mumbled, his voice coarse.

He pulled his sleeve over his wrist and then drew his wrist across his forehead, wiping away the sweat that had formed. He was still in the hotel room. The television was still tuned into the documentary channel, now displaying a program about global warming.

He picked up the remote control and switched it off. He collected his thoughts and then slowly rose from the bed. His eyes flickered across to a digital clock next to the television. The time read 11:55. The meeting was due to begin in five minutes.

He made his way over to the sports bag. It was on the floor in the centre of the room where he had left it.

“Charlie!” he shouted. He knelt down and unzipped the bag. “Where are you–” he paused, his mouth still open. “What the fuck …”

The guns weren’t in the bag, and neither were the spare magazines. The bag was empty besides a sheet of paper, neatly folded and placed at the bottom. ‘
Matthew
’ had been written across one side of the note.

He took the piece of paper out of the bag, returned to the bed and sat himself down on the edge. He unfolded it and began to read the hastily scribbled words.

Dear Matthew.

I would like to offer my deepest and sincerest apologies. You are a strong, empathetic man with a good heart. The last few days have taken a lot out of you. It would drive any man insane. You have stayed strong, and I respect that.

You may be wondering where I have gone or where the guns have gone. If that is the case, I am afraid I can’t answer your first question but will gladly answer the second. I have the guns. I took them away. Your idea to come here and kill Fadel wasn’t actually your idea. It was a set-up – the newspaper, the article, the fugitive nonsense. I didn’t bring you here to end the game, Matthew. I brought you here to start it.

Money makes the world go round. Thanks to you, I am set for life. I didn’t lie to you about Chambers, or my wife for that matter. I was a bigger part in this game than you could have ever dreamed. I was offered a large sum of money to bring you here and then leave the country, leaving my wife and kids behind. Chambers doesn’t want me around his family anymore, and for the money he paid me, I’ll gladly stay away. Being a fugitive has its disadvantages, of course, but I can buy my way through life now.

So it’s thank you and goodbye. Thank you for helping me and thank you for opening my eyes. I’ve seen courage in the face of adversity, and I wish you luck. You’re going to need it.

This is the game, Matthew. The hotel is empty. Every room, every crevice has been fitted with cameras. Your exploits over the next few hours will be streamed to an audience of thousands via an encrypted website.

There are five hit men in the hotel, Matthew; all of them are after you. You see, this is the game, this is the system. However and wherever you die, thousands will see, and billions of pounds will exchange hands. There is no way for you to escape. The windows have been sealed and barred, and the doors are blocked by reinforced steel; if you want to escape, you have to kill.

I will make my last words to you useful words. Right now you are being watched. They can see you reading. They know I wrote this letter and know of its contents, but this bit can be between the two of us; advice from old friend to old friend.

The control room is in the hotel, locked and guarded in a room you are never supposed to see. In that room, Ahmad Fadel, Mark Chambers and the man Dennis Maloney, who ordered the slaughter of your girlfriend, all sit, waiting on your actions. You asked to be brought to Fadel. You wanted your chance at vengeance. Here he is; here is your chance.

The games begins at twelve.

Charles Edinburgh

The letter fell from Jester’s grasp and floated to the floor. He turned quickly, his eyes on the clock, 11:58. He jumped up from the bed and headed for the door.

In the conference room, Mark Chambers held out his glass as Fadel’s butler filled it with brandy. Next to him, Dennis Maloney checked his watch. “Two minutes before we let the hitters loose,” he said.

In the corner, Ahmad Fadel smiled, his eyes riveted by the man on screen who was reading a letter with horror in his eyes. He ran his eyes over the other screens. There were over a hundred, all fitted to the far wall. They showed various angles of the hotel: the bedrooms, games room, bathrooms, even the sauna. Every aspect had been covered.

Wires spilled out from the large screen, leading to a computer server at the back of the room. From there, the pictures would be piped to thousands of computers.

Dennis Maloney fiddled with the server, Fadel’s eyes on him all the time. “The site is live,” he called from the back of the room. “Three thousand four hundred and three people, all tuned in right now.” He turned to the front of the room with a beaming smile on his face.

***

Charles Edinburgh drove with a smile on his face. He was now a very rich man, all thanks to Matthew Jester.

He flicked on the radio, fiddled with the device until he found a suitable station and then returned his eyes to the road, his mind elsewhere.

Initially he wanted to help Matthew, and he had gone to the log cabin with that in mind. But the two hit men that Chambers had sent had been a harsh reminder of the powers that the men running the game possessed. Charles wasn’t going to stand up to a man who could buy his way out of anything and wouldn’t think twice about betting on the life of a human being.

After the cabin incident, he had managed to get word to Chambers of his location and his intentions, and Chambers – following Maloney’s advice – had advised a trip to the caravan. There, Charles could rest and wait, whilst the powerful and ruthless businessmen rearranged the hotel, turning a place of rest and luxury into a morbid reality television show.

What he did was wrong, but he had ten million pounds in the trunk of his car that suggested otherwise. The thought brought a smile to his face, and he began to tap the steering wheel to the beat of the music.

The complex nature of the game and how it was set up was cruel but incredibly well thought-out. No one wanted to put one man in an empty hotel and then leave him to fight for his life. When faced with sudden fear, most people would cave in under the pressure. But Matthew had been modified by Maloney. He had practically brainwashed him into becoming a hardened killer who wouldn’t think twice about pulling the trigger, even at the expense of his own life.

That was the kind of man they wanted for the game.

Matthew’s brainwashing had been subtle and lucky; the reward offered by the newspaper was always going to cause trouble. Maloney had foreseen the incident with Barry Brown, but he hadn’t dared contemplate that Matthew would run into a psychotic, inbred family and the cabin owner from hell.

Charles respected Maloney for what he had done. He didn’t like him very much, but he respected him. He’d played puppet master with Matthew Jester for three days, and he managed to carry him to the play just in time.

Charles slowed down, easing his foot off the accelerator when he saw a slowing truck up ahead.

In two hours’ time, he would be boarding a boat to France. His fake ID and passport bulged in his pocket.

He was right behind the van when it stopped suddenly. The front of the Toyota crumpled against the back bumper of the colossal van. Charles was thrown forward from the impact, and the airbag ignited and exploded in his face.

“
What the –
” His words were frantic and muffled as he tried to push the airbag out of the way. Something appeared at the driver’s side window. He shifted the airbag out of the way and peered through. A tall man wearing a knee-length trench coat and black leather gloves aimed a revolver inside the car.

“Charles Edinburgh?” the man’s voice was deep and unforgiving.

Charles could only nod, his eyes transfixed by the weapon.

The man squeezed the trigger.

***

Mark Chambers pulled out his mobile phone. It was on vibrate, and he could feel it tickling his inside leg. He answered the call, listened to a few instructions and then hung up, shoving the phone back inside his pocket.

He turned to Maloney. “Charles has been taken care of.”

Maloney nodded impassively, his eyes on the computer server. “Three thousand five hundred,” he said.

Chambers nodded in recognition.

“We go live in thirty seconds,” Maloney called.

Outside the hotel room, in the long, glorious corridor, Matthew Jester stood rooted to the spot. He looked left and right, expecting to see someone, but there was no one there. Instead of heading for the lift, he turned on his heels and set off down the corridor, passing rows and rows of rooms until he came to the final one.

It was a storage room marked ‘
staff only
’ and the door was locked.

He took a step back, raised his right foot and aligned it with the centre of the door. When he kicked out, the door instantly sprang open and thudded against a box inside the room before bouncing back towards him.

He pushed the door open and shifted inside the room. The box blocking the door was an empty cooler.  The room was small but airy, no bigger than seven foot by six. His eyes scanned the shelves that lined the walls.

On one side of the wall, piled up on the shelves, were stacks of towels, arranged in colour and in stacks of five, and at the end of the wall was a stack of shower caps. On the far wall, in a two-foot gap, was another cooler. Matthew opened it, his efforts frantic, his hands clumsy. The lid of the cooler snapped off in his hands. He looked at it momentarily before throwing it over his shoulder and inspecting the contents.

It was filled with stocks from the mini-bars: miniature bottles of whiskey, brandy, vodka and wine; small packets of crisps, nuts, small bars of chocolate and packs of dried fruit.

He ignored the cooler and checked the final shelf: bathroom products, in plenty supply; bottles of shampoo, miniature and normal-sized; conditioner; bars of soap; shower gel; shaving foam; disposable razors and talcum powder.