Lethal game, p.1
Lethal Game, page 1
LETHAL GAME
Charlie Gallagher
Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2021
Copyright © Charlie Gallagher 2021
Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Cover photographs © Silas Manhood / Trevillion Images (figure, road) and Shutterstock.com (building, birds and back cover image)
Charlie Gallagher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008445546
Ebook Edition © November 2021 ISBN: 9780008445553
Version: 2021-09-24
Dedication
For Julia James.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Day 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Day 2
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Day 3
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Day 4
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
Day 5
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Day 7
Chapter 64
Acknowledgements
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Charlie Gallagher
About the Publisher
Prologue
Shannon pushed herself back against the wall firmly enough for the exposed brick to dig her in the back. Her buttocks were lifted, her feet out in front of her to scrabble in the straw, pushing it away in clumps towards the mud-flecked boots that had appeared under the weathered door. She held her breath, silently praying that those boots would turn on the spot to face away in any direction and then walk on. Her hands flailed like they were controlled by someone else and her fingers caught on the wire that had been tight around her waist from the moment she had arrived, holding her against that wall.
The door made a clacking sound. The acoustics of an open barn made it sound like a gunshot that bounced around the exposed metal rafters. The door shook too, the movement slight but enough for her to know it was unlocked. She still held her breath, staring at the door with such intensity that she might almost expect it to burst into flames.
The boots did turn and then they were gone. They scuffed and scraped away, the sound of a pair too large for the wearer. He was not coming in. There were to be no more instructions, no more threats or promises.
The final part was about to begin.
The clanging of the first bell confirmed it. This was louder still, its echo making it impossible to determine the direction of the source. Shannon scrambled upright. It seemed more difficult somehow; the wire was suddenly slack around her middle and she couldn’t lean on it to pull herself up. She managed a few paces before the wire halted her again, tightening all at once to pinch her hips. She was a metre closer to the door, a metre of ground that had to contain something useful.
She dropped to her knees into a frenzy of movement, tearing at the dry straw that had formed a layer on the floor of the pen, searching for anything that could help. Her bare hands disturbed solid clumps of animal dung that she discarded, plunging her hands back so hard her nails and fingertips scratched and scraped on the concrete base. Nothing.
The bell clanged again. Two out of five. Could that really be ten seconds already? Her restraint slackened again to allow another few steps and she threw herself forward towards the door, stumbling in her haste. She might have toppled over but the wire caught her again, forcing a breath from her, and this time pinching her stomach. She went back to searching the floor, bending her fingers back in her haste, registering the pain, but there was no time to stop. Her fingertips bumped something. She scooped it up and it kept coming: a belt; leather with a small buckle. Not what she wanted but it could be of use. She slung it round her waist, her sore fingers fumbling in her urgency to fasten it, her eyes already back to the task of searching for something else. The third ring of the bell forced a whine as her desperation peaked. She was scrabbling round the edges of the pen now, where the straw was firmer, trampled flat and mixed with more dung to solidify. But there was something else, something with some weight. Her nails caught and scraped as she pulled it clear. A hammer! This time her whimper was one of relief. This was something she could use, something that might give her a chance. It was only small, a hammer for glass, the type she had seen on buses to use in emergencies. It didn’t matter. It would be more effective than her fists. She got back to her feet and stumbled forward, one step, two, the third just a half step, and was caught again with a clunk that left her balancing on one foot with the other knee raised while she flailed for a moment at the door in front of her.
The bell clanged for the fourth time.
Ten seconds left.
The time for searching was over; the wire that had been gripping her fell slack. She moved back, now with time to realise just how hard she was breathing, gasping to fill her lungs. She needed to get that under control; it wasn’t the exertion so much as the fear, anticipation of what she knew was coming next. Her fingers hurt as she pulled at the wire loop that now fell apart to drop at her feet. She stepped out, fixing her gaze on the closed door, knowing the outcome if she dared leave before that final bell. She felt for the wall with her bare foot, using it as something solid to push off, to give her the best start. She leant forward, her hands resting on the floor, her right foot dragged up to complete the stance of a sprinter on a starting block. She had a moment to glance down her tensed body at the belt hanging loose off her waist and at the hammer that was uncomfortable in her right hand, squashing her knuckles into the floor – but she dared not let it go, even for a moment. She was wearing a loose red dress made of coarse material coated with a layer of filth. The thigh that was lifted was stained with animal faeces and dirt too.
She lifted her head for one last look at the solid stone lintel above the door. She was sure the pattern and the row of numbers scratched into it were also scratched into her mind and with such ferocity that that she would never forget them, but what if they left her just when she needed them? What if she didn’t remember? She shook her head, trying to put it out of her mind. It wasn’t just her mind that turned over with doubt and anticipation; her stomach churned too, while her chest burned with the strain of holding her position. She dropped to one knee, a moment to rest. The last clang of the bell was taking longer, she was sure of it – the time should be up by now. She was being toyed with.
Then the fifth bell filled the space.
Shannon threw herself forward, her right hand gripping the hammer. Two strides and then a jump and turn, and the door burst open with such violence that its clamour slammed her eyes shut and the blow knocked her off balance, so that she dipped her head as she stumbled into the noise of a second door thrown open to smash off the wall directly opposite. She lifted her head and saw another terrified young woman who had emerged. Their worlds stopped for a moment, a silent exchange before the other woma n twisted left and sprang towards the entrance that glowed a scorched white: daylight.
‘Shit!’ Shannon was already behind. She broke into a sprint. The other woman made the sunlight first and the bright sun distorted her white dress as she fled. And she was fast too. ‘Shit, shit!’ The instant Shannon was out of the barn the terrain changed – still concrete but broken up, stained too, with something that made it slick. The stones jabbed at the underside of her feet and this time when she stumbled it turned into a fall that she took on her knees and palms. There was no time for the pain. She bounced back to her feet. She kept her eyes down, desperate to pick out patches of ground where she could plant her feet. The woman in white was still ahead and faring better. She was already onto a track that twisted away to become a steep hill. And she was still running.
Shannon made it to the track too. It was kinder on her feet, since vehicles had cleared two clear lines among the stones. The terrain changed again at the top of the hill to smooth tarmac and here she could see country lanes meeting at a crossroads fifty metres ahead. The woman in white was there already. But she was hesitating, had even stopped, long enough to glance back. Then she seemed to make a decision, bursting back into a sprint. She went straight on.
Shannon slowed for the same crossroads, thrown into doubt and confusion by the other woman’s actions. The scratched diagram had shown a left. But had it? She stopped, her chest burning from the hill. Her mouth was full of excess phlegm and she leant over to spit it out. She walked a few paces left. She was too far behind the woman in white to go the same way anyway. She had to believe she was right, that the other woman had made a mistake. It was her only chance.
Shannon was back to a sprint. It was flatter here at least, the road stretching out in front of her with solid mud banks on either side. The woodland ahead arrived with a change of sound, her footfalls bouncing back off the underside of the tree canopy. There should be a dog-leg next: a quick right, then a left. The makeshift map hadn’t made it clear how soon the turn should be. But there should be one; if it didn’t arrive then she was wrong. And she couldn’t be wrong.
The right turn appeared as a violent slice through the woodland, cutting the mud banks in a sharp angle. She turned into it. A left turn followed almost straightaway and she dared to hope she had been right.
She was struggling now. Her chest burned brighter and her heart thumped. Her legs were close to cramping and she knew she was going to have to slow. She opted for a fast walk, her strides long to aid her recovery like she had been taught at her running club. She should have time. She pushed her hands into her hips, pulling her shoulders back to take gulps of air, aware of the hammer pressing against a hip bone. Shannon threw a look over her shoulder. A woman in a loose white dress was moving towards her. Fast.
‘Ah, dammit!’ Shannon realised she was too tired to run, that she could intercept the woman instead, hold her ground here. She gripped the hammer tighter, but now, as she fixed on it, it seemed smaller in her grasp – lighter even. What if the other woman had found something else? Something better? From the etched map she should be nearly there. She picked up her feet to run again.
Those few moments of rest had done her good. She was faster – stronger. Another right should appear. It did. This time she could see it coming from a long way off. The scenery was back to fields, and the high banks either side were now gently dropping away. When she cast another look over her shoulder the other woman was scrabbling up the bank on the right side – trying to cut the corner!
Shannon reacted by veering right too but she stayed on the road, terrified of falling if she attempted the bank. The right turn seemed to take an age, but it did come and she leant into it. The other woman had gained on her but Shannon was on the last straight. The field on her left flashed past as a vivid yellow, the rapeseed filling the air to coat her nose and throat as she sprinted past it. But all her attention was in front of her, to where she could see the bright red of the phone box in the distance. It added strength to her stride. She was going to make it and she was going to be first!
The door to the phone box opened outwards. It was heavy and she was exhausted. She had enough forward momentum for the door to bang into her shoulder and the side of her face. The impact shook the hammer from her hand and she had to scoop it back up, looking down the road as she did. The other woman was ten metres behind and shrieking her desperation, her eyes wide, her hand raised. There was something in it.
Shannon shut the door behind her. The phone box was a steel construction that was at its thickest in the four corners, the glass panels on all four sides criss-crossed with thinner steel. Much of the glass was missing, pushed out or smashed to leave jagged remnants. She turned on the spot to see the other woman almost upon her. Shannon needed more time.
A sudden idea had her fumbling with the belt she had wrapped around her. It came free and she pushed it out through a glassless panel and round the bottom corner of the door where she could tie it shut. In her haste her wrist caught on a shard of the glass; it split her skin to spill blood but she didn’t flinch; she barely even felt it. Shannon had to calm hands that shook with adrenaline as she wrapped the belt three times round then, more slowly, fed the end through the buckle. The door frame was too thick for three times round, and the belt’s metal pin fell short of the punctured holes. But only just. There was no time for correction. She yanked on it, leaning backwards to use her weight. The leather creaked and the pin edged closer.
‘Come on!’ Shannon begged.
The other woman hit the phone box so hard it rocked, and rusted red fell in pieces from the roof. A glass panel higher up smashed inwards, the sound merging with the woman’s shriek and the noise of her rattling the door. The belt still wasn’t fixed. It started to unravel as the door was pulled. Shannon leapt to her feet and swung the hammer at a remaining piece of glass near the top. It popped outwards, showering shards on the woman outside, whose reaction was to shriek again, her hands lifting instinctively to protect her head, revealing a similar glass hammer in her right hand. Shannon dropped back to her knees, tugging again at the leather belt, wrapping the excess up in her fist for better grip. The belt tightened, crushing her injured fingers. She used the pain to fire herself up, to fuel one last pull. The pin’s movement was agonising but it did drop into place. The woman outside was back to shaking the door but the sound of the rattling was muted; the belt looked like it was going to hold. There was no time to wait and see. Instead Shannon spun away from the door to face the handset. She could hear screaming behind her, pitiful and desperate, tailing off into a wail. Then the sound of more glass shattering that fell into her hair and spilt onto her bare feet.
Shannon lifted the handset. There was a tone – thank God there was a tone! The door rattled again behind her, then a hand reached in and she felt a firm pinch in the fleshy part of her back. She spun to the pain and her right hand came down on instinct, the hammer still in it. Shannon felt the impact through her own hand and wrist and the woman in white leapt away, now wailing with pain.
The phone’s keypad faced her. A silver coin lay on top of it just like she had been promised; it was freezing cold and the sensation cut through her panic. The wailing woman was soon back, trying to lash out through the gaps in the steel. The phone box shook and glass still smashed – she felt it nip at the underside of her feet with every movement – but she had to focus, just for a moment while she recalled the line of numbers that was scratched into that lintel right below the map. She’d known it was a phone number the moment she had seen it. Shannon could remember the first part clearly. She typed it in … 07652 … and now she hesitated. When she had tested herself she had been getting the second part wrong a lot; it just didn’t seem to want to stick, and she was wrong at least half the time. There was only one coin.
‘Fifty, fifty,’ she muttered while the door rattled and another shriek filled the space. Shannon was receiving blows in the back, on the arms. She was just out of reach of anything with any power but it didn’t help her focus. She typed what she thought was right and got a dialling tone. She held the phone tight to her cheek. The mouthpiece had a tight stretch of film over it that brushed her lips as she mumbled the same word over and over: please, please, please!
She turned back towards the woman in white outside, whose assault had paused at least. Now she was still and silent, her right hand gripping one of the slats tightly enough to suggest it was helping her stay up, her knuckles bleeding freely. The two women were locked in a stare. Then the woman outside started to back away, her head shaking, thick tears suddenly spurting down her cheek.
