Ben didn’t know anything of the machinations of the Gamesman. He did know the Gamesman existed and he was starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The previous evening, after talking to his father, he had used the ancient laptop that used to belong to his mother. It still fired up and accessed the Internet, which was all he needed, albeit running incredibly slowly.
He had the black knight gaming piece on the table in front of him and he had decided to do some research. It took hours. He had finally gone to bed at three in the morning. What he learned had told him he needed to have another conversation with Martha.
He talked to his father about his initial findings. His father already knew, which surprised him. “You didn’t think you should have told me?”
“It’s her private life, not yours,” Peter had replied. “If she wanted to tell you, she would.”
“But what if he’s still out there? What if he didn’t die in the fire?”
“Then she’s safest here, where we can keep an eye on her, don’t you think?”
Ben disagreed. To think that she had been a child when that happened. It beggared belief. To have gone through all that at so young an age, abused by that sicko, that murdering deluded psychopath. He thought about what Timothy had said, that he should keep an eye on her. Did the old man know something too? Was he the only one in the dark about the woman who stood to inherit the castle?
He helped his father climb into bed before returning to the laptop, looking up more about the Gamesman. There were various lurid tabloid reports from the time but a lot of the information was contradictory. The only consensus that he could find was that an employee of a care home at the time used to play board games with some of the girls in his care, part of a sickening ritual abuse he carried out undetected for years before finally losing it completely and attempting to burn them to death. It seemed that he tried to escape but was unable to, dying with them.
There was a single report that he found that suggested discrepancies with the official line taken at the time, noting the inability of the coroner to identify the adult victim by his teeth as they were too badly damaged by the intense heat of the blaze. It was unlikely to be anyone other than Samuel Lyons who died with the three children though, according to all the other available information out there. The girls had seen him head into the chemical store at the last minute and not come back out.
Ben thought about the black knight he’d seen out on the site, the one that had scared Martha so much. Was someone trying to frighten her? Who would stand to gain the most from doing so? He stroked his chin absently as he thought.
The only name that sprung to mind was Alexander. If the information about the Gamesman was out there, it was entirely possible that Alex had found out the truth about Martha, that she was one of his victims. He might also have got a head’s up from Joanne that Peter was planning to leave the place to her. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Alex had planted the black knight to frighten her into leaving.
He thought hard. Was it feasible? Or was he so biased against Alex that he was capable of making him the culprit without thinking things through properly. He rubbed his eyes, deciding he was too tired to think clearly anymore. He’d sleep on it and see what his subconscious had decided by the morning.
Heading upstairs, he stuck his head around his father’s door, finding him fast asleep and snoring slightly. Relieved that he seemed on the mend, he headed through to his own room a moment later.
He had been in bed ten minutes and was just drifting off to sleep when he shot upright. His father was crying out from his bedroom. He leapt out of bed and ran across the landing, finding him with his teeth gritted, his face white. “It hurts,” Peter was saying, his voice slurred, rubbing the wound on his head. His eyes rolled back as he slumped down on the bed, not moving.
“Dad!” Ben shouted, grabbing his wrist, feeling for a pulse. With his other hand, he groped for the phone which was supposed to be somewhere on the bedside table. On the third attempt, he got hold of it, ringing 999 whilst trying to rouse his father at the same time.
The ambulance arrived in twenty minutes, way outside of its target time. Ben saw the lights in the courtyard through the curtains. His father still hadn’t moved. He ran downstairs just as they knocked on the door, unlocking it and opening it to two of them. “He’s upstairs,” he said, stepping aside and then following them up, looking at the stretcher they carried, fearing the worst.
“What’s wrong with him?” he asked from the doorway as the two men marched over to the bed.
“I don’t know yet,” the man knelt by Peter’s side said. “How long’s he been like this?”
“Since just before I rang you.”
“What’s his name?”
“Peter, he’s my Dad.”
“And your name?”
“Ben. Look I don’t-”
“Just give us a minute, will you, Ben?” the paramedic interrupted.
Ben felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to find Martha standing there, anxiously glancing from him to his father. “Come on,” Martha said. “Let’s wait outside.”
Ben followed her downstairs, allowing himself to be led by the hand outside into the courtyard. “How did you know?” he asked.
“I saw the lights,” she replied. “What’s happened to him?”
“They don’t know yet.”
He looked into the house in time to see the two paramedics carrying Peter out on the stretcher. His eyes were open and he was trying to speak.
“We think he’s had a stroke,” the paramedic said as they passed by Ben and began loading his father into the back of the ambulance. “Are you coming with us?”
“He stays here,” Peter said, his voice more slurred than before. He fixed an eye on his son. “You stay here.”
Ben looked at his father and then at Martha. He thought about what Timothy had told him, to keep a close eye on her. He thought about what he’d just found out about the Gamesman, then he shook his head. “Where’s he going?”
“York.”
“I’ll follow on in the car.”
Ben watched them go. He could feel the unasked question from Martha. Why had he stayed behind? He turned to look at her, she looked pale, shivering in the cold wind. He noticed she was only wearing a pair of pyjamas. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you home.”
She shook her head. “I want to come with you to the hospital.”
“You heard what he said, he doesn’t want me there.”
“But he’s not thinking straight. What if he dies?”
Ben winced internally. He wasn’t willing to even think about that question. Turning away from her, he paused, his emotions threatening to boil over. He took a deep breath, staring at the open door to his house. He wanted to walk away from Martha, sit alone and do nothing apart from think. Then he felt her arm on his shoulder again and he thought about everything he’d learned.
In the brief second before he turned to look at her, he thought about her past, about his own, about how different they both were, how unlikely it was that they had ended up standing there next to each other. Then he looked into her eyes and all his thoughts went away, all that was left was the raw sensation of pain combined with the deep seated fear of being alone. He said nothing.