The Games Keeper E-Book

Jack Benton

• Herausgeber: AMMFA Publishing
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

The Games Keeper: A thrilling British mystery from acclaimed author Jack Benton.

Having fallen on hard times, disgraced soldier turned private investigator John “Slim” Hardy is hired by rich and enigmatic land owner Oliver Ozgood to uncover the identity of a mysterious blackmailer.The man is demanding a fortune in exchange for his silence. He claims to be Dennis Sharp, a former employee of Ozgood, and threatens to reveal secrets that will soil Ozgood’s family name and send the patriarch to prison.

There’s only one problem.

Dennis Sharp is dead, killed by Ozgood himself.

In search of answers, Slim moves to the remote rural hamlet of Scuttleworth in the Devonshire countryside, where he will confront demons both from within and without in his most challenging case yet.

The Games Keeper is the third book in the Slim Hardy Mystery Series. While the stories follow a rough sequence, they can be read in any order.

Leseprobe

The Games Keeper

The Slim Hardy Mysteries #3

Jack Benton

Also by Jack Benton

The Man by the Sea

The Clockmaker’s Secret

The Games Keeper

Slow Train

The Angler’s Tale

Eight Days

Contents

The Games Keeper

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

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

Epilogue

Slow Train

About the Author

Contact

Acknowledgments

“The Games Keeper”

Copyright © Jack Benton / Chris Ward 2019

The right of Jack Benton / Chris Ward to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Author.

This story is a work of fiction and is a product of the Author’s imagination. All resemblances to actual locations or to persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.

The Games Keeper

1

The kick hurt.

Had it not been for the bucketful of booze he had drunk, it would have hurt a lot more, Slim thought as he doubled over, tensing the stagnant remnants of his army-trained stomach muscles as the next kick came in.

‘Stay away. I’ve told you. I won’t tell you again.’

Fingers closed over the scruff of Slim’s collar. A clenched fist rose, caught in silhouette by a street light. Slim braced for the impact, but when the punch came it didn’t hurt as much as he had expected. He slumped to the pavement as his attacker cursed, shaking his hand.

That was the thing about faces. They were generally harder than the jostling bones of an untrained fist.

The man staggered away up the alley. Slim sat up, only for a metal rubbish bin lid to strike him in the side, followed by an upended refuse sack which rained stinking food matter over him, carrot peel and chicken skin sticking to his clothes and face.

‘You want to eat our rubbish, be my guest. But if I catch you at it again, you’ll find yourself in one of these bags. Got it?’

Slim, blinded by a paper bag of unidentified kitchen slops, nodded in what he hoped was the right direction. An overwhelming urge to say something sarcastic to rile the man further burned like an unreachable itch, but he resisted. A few seconds later the footsteps were gone. Slim pushed himself to his feet and stumbled back to the canal.

The Riverway Queen, the listing, derelict houseboat he now called home, appeared up ahead. Slim withdrew the key to the padlock he had bought with his last change and unlocked the door, moving the DANGER: KEEP OUT sign aside then propping it back up as he closed the door.

In the gloom he clicked the padlock shut through another loop on the inside then switched on the little paraffin lamp that hung from a hook in the ceiling.

The barge’s downward, left-tilting angle had taken some getting used to. At the bottom end, a pool of water sloshed around the feet of a table and chairs, rising and falling with the changing depth of the canal, but most of the boat’s insides were untouched. Nothing worked, but a fold-out sofa bed propped up on some sodden hardback books was comfortable enough, and there were plenty of cupboards to stock his booze.

He pulled off his clothes and dumped them into the dry sink. It was washing day tomorrow, especially now he had blood on his shirt. Rain was due in the morning, meaning tomorrow afternoon the canal would flow good and fresh. While he was used to smelling of musty damp and mulched plants—he washed both his clothes and himself in the canal, and soap was an unnecessary luxury—it always felt good to be truly clean.

He didn’t look too good in the little mirror above the sink. The paraffin lamp left half his face in shadow, but one eye was badly swollen. His beard was flecked with blood and was long overdue a trim or removal altogether. He stood out too much, and that was never a good thing.

He remembered once an old friend telling him that the homeless were invisible, drifting by beneath the eyes of the world. Slim had found that not to be the case. In the six months since his eviction, he had been assaulted three times including tonight. Once had been done lazily by a group of likely lads strutting back from a nightclub with nothing better to do, and once with rather more ferocity by a group of other homeless for the sin of sleeping on someone’s turf. Feet, fists, and even a piece of two by four used by one bearded shadow hadn’t hurt as much as Slim had thought they might. Bodies healed, he found. The heart and its delicacies were far less resilient.

From a fridge that didn’t work he took a beer that wasn’t cold and popped the tab. It tasted bad—out-of-date because that was cheaper—but it took away a little of the pain.

Maybe tomorrow he would stop drinking again. He had stopped recently—less than two weeks ago he had quit for three days. It had gone so well he’d washed his suit and made it to the job centre to look for work.

Then something happened. He had seen someone who looked like someone else, or heard a voice that sounded like one of those which haunted him, and he’d found himself in a pub, drinking what was left of his unemployment money.

He opened the fridge again, looking at the dark line of cans. That he hadn’t drunk them all, that he could keep a supply, it was surely a sign of control.

It wasn’t all bad. There was still hope.

He sat down on the sloping sofa bench, feeling the uncomfortable creak of the boat beneath him. He’d been down worse than this before. He had to stay positive, and dream, if not hope, for something better.

He took a sip of the beer.

A buzzing near to his face woke him. Slim reached out to swat what he at first thought was a fly, but found his old Nokia phone under fingers numb from cold.

Despite his grogginess it amused him to find the phone charged in a houseboat with no power. Then he remembered an hour he had spent sitting in a MacDonald’s toilet with his phone plugged into a wall socket hoping for a call back about a construction job.

The call hadn’t come, and that had been, what, two, three days ago now? Slim forced a smile as he scrambled to press the answer button. It was a good thing he didn’t get many calls.

‘Hello?’

‘Slim? Is that you? You sound like hell.’

‘What’s new? How are you, Kay?’

Slim’s old army friend who now worked as a forensic translator laughed.

‘I’m good, Slim. Same as ever. How are you really, Slim?’

‘Not had the best week, but it’s Sunday, isn’t it? It all starts again tomorrow.’

‘Slim, it’s Monday.’

‘Well, like I say, I’m not having the best of weeks.’

Kay laughed at the apparent joke. Slim just smiled at the phone while wishing his headache would clear.

‘I wondered if you had a spot in your schedule,’ Kay said.

Slim smiled at the irony. ‘I can probably fit something in,’ he said.

‘I got a call from an acquaintance I knew from my last tour,’ Kay said. ‘He wants someone investigated for attempted blackmail.’

‘He could call the police,’ Slim said. ‘It’s not really my area of expertise.’

‘He doesn’t want the police involved,’ Kay said. ‘I know what you can do, Slim. I’m sure you can help.’

‘What makes this case the kind of mess that would interest me?’

‘The man to be investigated has been dead for six years. My contact wants to know how that’s possible.’

Slim sighed. ‘It’s easy. Faked death, identity change. Happens all the time. How can your contact be sure the man is dead?’

There was a long pause, and Slim began to think Kay had hung off. Then there came a quiet outtake of breath and Slim understood.

‘Tell me, Kay. Believe me, there’s not much I can’t take. How does your contact know the man’s dead?’

‘Because he claims he killed the man himself.’

2

The man who called himself Ollie Ozgood didn’t look like a murderer. With a smooth face hidden behind a thin, blond wisp of beard, he reminded Slim more of an Eastern European fisherman or the kind of cultured construction worker who operated heavy machinery at a quarry. He looked technically learned but not fiendishly clever enough to get away with murder. However, Slim knew well how looks could be deceiving.

Cold eyes watched every movement as Slim broke open three sugar sachets in turn and stirred them into coffee so thick it congealed on the spoon.

‘You’re an alcoholic?’ Ozgood said.

‘Recovering,’ Slim replied. ‘Nine hours dry. You have to start somewhere, don’t you? Not the first time. I’m used to it.’

Ozgood nodded at the cup. ‘You’re swapping one addiction for another?’

Slim shrugged. ‘Unless it tastes like it was brewed a week ago then left in the sun to dry, it’s hardly a memorable experience.’ He lifted the cup, took a sip and winced. ‘Ghastly. Exactly how I like it.’

‘When our mutual friend suggested you, I was expecting someone more to type.’

‘I can wear a trench coat and a hat if need be,’ Slim said. ‘If you want me to smoke cigars I’ll charge them as expenses. Now, I need to know why you think this man has come back from the dead.’

‘I can’t start from the beginning, because I’m not sure where the beginning is,’ Ozgood said. ‘To be on the safe side, I’ll pick somewhere in the middle and work out from there.’

Slim nodded. ‘Whatever you need to do.’

Ozgood turned in the chair, indicating the farmland beyond the terrace where they sat and the scattered houses that poked out of the green patchwork of fields as though they’d grown there from seeds.

‘I’m the latest in a line of landowners. Almost everything you see belongs to me. And if it doesn’t, it’s not worth owning.’

Slim pointed at a grey spire sticking out of a stand of trees just down from the brow of the hill beyond the forested valley to the west.

‘Even that church?’

Ozgood smiled. ‘Firmly in the latter category. The current Sunday morning congregation numbers less than twenty, by all accounts. No money to be made there, but it keeps the locals happy. The extended churchyard, however, is rented land. My grandfather was a businessman, and bought up everything he could afford, certain one day its value would be revealed. He never saw the benefits, but my father maintained the estate, and since his death I’ve kept it running in his name. A cleverer man might have sold much of it off, but I remain confident that the current economic climes will improve before we’re all ruined.’

Slim glanced up at the three floors of manor house rising above him and wondered if Ozgood had any real concept of what poverty meant. ‘Kay said he knew you in the Armed Forces,’ he said.

Ozgood nodded. ‘I was doing that typical hothead thing of trying to prove myself worthy. After two tours, I came to accept my family’s inherited wealth would define me whether I liked it or not. Plus, I didn’t appreciate getting shot at. What is it they say, that wars are fought by the poor to benefit the rich? Without being snobbish, I fall into the latter category.’

Slim smiled. ‘And I the former.’

Ozgood’s eyes never left Slim’s face. ‘Then we are both victims of circumstance. Like brothers … in arms.’

‘We might have been if I had done better. I failed even at that.’

Ozgood’s smile was colder than a chill wind off the sea. ‘I so much prefer to work with vulnerable men. They’re far easier to trust.’

‘Watertight,’ Slim said.

He looked back up again at the country house rising behind him in all its splendour. Ozgood Hall was the focal point for the two valleys falling away to either side. Set among twenty acres of landscaped gardens, it was the kind of place most people only visited on National Trust tours. Slim felt he had made a statement by bringing his own coffee.

‘Plus,’ Ozgood added, after a lengthy pause, ‘I never liked the idea of killing someone.’

Slim deliberated over how to phrase his next question, but there was no point in trying to skirt around it. He knew about the murder, and Ozgood knew he knew.

‘Yet you found out how it felt. The man attempting to blackmail you is supposedly dead by your own hand. Can you tell me about that?’

Ozgood leaned back in his chair and gave his chin a thoughtful rub. ‘I wondered how soon you would ask, Mr. Hardy.’

‘I believe in getting the worst out first,’ Slim said. ‘Then you can move on. Working for a murderer is a first for me, but a challenge I’m not in a position to refuse.’

Ozgood had winced at the mention of the word “murderer”. Now he frowned, squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples as though massaging a sudden headache.

Without looking up or opening his eyes, he said, ‘I know all about your conviction.’

Slim lifted an eyebrow. ‘Excuse me?’

Ozgood looked up, holding Slim’s gaze until Slim wondered if he ought to look away. In the end, it was Ozgood who looked away first, but in a tired, nonchalant way that left Slim no sense of dominance, only that a noose had been removed from around his neck for a little while longer.

‘I know that you were discharged from the Armed Forces for attacking a man with a razor blade,’ Ozgood said. ‘He was supposedly having an affair with your wife. Is that right?’

‘So I thought.’

‘And you tried to kill him.’

Slim nodded. ‘I failed. Luckily for both of us.’

‘So before I tell you what I’m about to tell you, I want you to know that you have no moral high ground over me. Just to make that clear. It’s one reason why I thought you’d be perfect for this case.’

‘That’s understood.’

‘Good.’ Ozgood shifted in his seat. He took a sip of his coffee and smiled. ‘A man named Dennis Sharp lived and worked on my land. Specifically, he worked in forestry. I’d guess his job title was forest ranger, but he was more of an odd job man. He lived on my land and did whatever I asked. I thought he was a good man, and I trusted him. Then, one night just over six years ago, he assaulted my sixteen-year-old daughter.’

Slim just nodded. He lifted his cup and took a sip.

‘It should have been dealt with by the police,’ Ozgood said. ‘At least initially. I’m a law-abiding man, after all. Unfortunately, the lag between the event and the investigation weighed in Dennis Sharp’s favour.’

‘What happened?’ Slim asked.

‘The case got thrown out, and Sharp thought he was a free man.’ Ozgood sighed, leaned back into his chair and looked away into the distance. ‘He wasn’t. He never could be, could he? Not after what he had done.’

‘So you took matters into your own hands?’

Ozgood lifted a finger to his lips and pouted, appearing to kiss it. He rubbed the base of his chin with his thumb. ‘If you owe me, I will make you pay,’ he said. ‘Dennis Sharp made payment with his life.’

‘How?’

‘His car was looked over, a few adjustments made. His clutch failed coming through a turn on the steep road heading down into that valley you see over there.’ Ozgood didn’t point, but his head turned slightly, indicating a forested cleft beyond the farmland to the northwest. ‘The car went off the road and struck a rock, killing him instantly, according to the coroner’s report.’

‘And you know he died?’

‘An anonymous call was made to police, but it’s not anonymous to the person who made it,’ Ozgood said, rather cryptically, as though he was taking an active part in whatever game the blackmailer had decided to start. ‘I was contacted by police, and I later viewed his body. I felt his neck for a pulse, just to be sure. Yet now, six years later, I’ve started to receive messages from a man claiming to be Dennis Sharp, demanding money, threatening to expose me, not just my part in his supposed death, but in other alleged crimes.’

Ozgood stood up, walked across to the terrace’s edge, then turned and walked back again. Slim watched him, trying to make sense of this man. It was clear that Ozgood wasn’t a man to be crossed, one whose amiable outer shell hid a steel-hard inner core.

‘Let me be clear,’ Ozgood said, turning and returning to his seat. He hooked one leg over the other, then changed his mind and sat back up straight, leaning forward. ‘I do not fear this man dragging my name through the dirt. There is nothing he could have on me that could not be covered or disappeared. What disgusts me is the nerve of this person, which is why I have need of you to uncover his identity.’ Ozgood leaned forward, his cold eyes making Slim uncomfortable. ‘I consider this a personal slight against my family. In the right circumstances I might forgive such a thing against myself … but not against my daughter.’

Slim sipped his coffee, using it as an excuse to break Ozgood’s gaze. ‘It’s most likely a case of stolen identity. Someone close to Sharp looking to squeeze something out of you.’

‘There’s no one who was close to Sharp who isn’t dead or as good as.’

Slim wasn’t quite sure how to respond to this statement, so he nodded in a show of agreement, letting his gaze wander slowly over the panorama of countryside while he waited for Ozgood to continue.

‘This blackmailer knows things only Sharp could know.’

‘And you want me to expose either the fraud or the circumstances that this man could be threatening you from?’

‘That is exactly it. And when you discover the truth, I will either see him rot in prison or kill him all over again.’

3

Ozgood himself, carefully driving a pristine hatchback far too good for the road they were travelling, showed Slim to a small cottage that had once belonged to the estate’s caretaker. It was along an old, meandering access road which had been replaced by a shorter lane to the property’s rear, leaving the former access road to fall into disrepair. Unused now, the cottage was surrounded by forest at the bottom of a valley, approached by a barely discernible lane through trees which cut down one hillside, across a stream by a little bridge, before making a switchback outside the cottage. It then wound its way up the hill on the other side, in the direction of the small village where Slim had noted the church spire. As the road ascended steeply, cutting back on itself, Slim felt tired just looking at it.

With a pat on the back and a promise to be in touch, Ozgood left Slim alone, turning his car around with a scowl at the brambles by the roadside and then gingerly making his way back the way he had come.

The cottage looked unimpressive on the outside, with brambles grown up over one corner to dig their way into a roof space, and a crack in a front window, perhaps from a bird. However, it had electricity and hot water and a gas stove, and Ozgood had arranged for a weekly delivery of food in order to keep Slim catered for during the investigation.

There were also bugs hidden in a tabletop, in a skirting board in the cramped living room, and in a wooden statue of a fox in the bedroom. High quality, far newer and more expensive than Slim had ever used in the Armed Forces or on previous cases, the kind that could record a pin drop or a sharp intake of breath.

Whatever the reason Ozgood felt he needed to keep tabs on Slim, Slim preferred to work in private, so he filled each receiver with Vaseline to muffle the sound to near inaudibility. It would take time for Ozgood to realise what had happened, perhaps enough for them to gain a trust in one another.

Slim, having returned to his sinking ruin of a squat long enough to fill two cases with everything he owned, packed his belongings away into a chest of drawers. Filling only the top two of three, he gave a shudder at how light and impermanent his life had become. He could disappear in an instant, leaving no trace.

Perhaps that was the plan. Slim wasn’t naive enough to trust Ozgood fully, and the property baron clearly felt the same. It was a mutual distrust likely to benefit both.

Slim finished his unpacking and ventured outside. As he closed the door, a rustling came from the trees to the cottage’s side and a man stepped out onto the path.

Rheumy eyes looked up and a mostly toothless mouth smiled.

‘Name’s Croad,’ the newcomer said. ‘Boss told me to show you round.’

4

Weathered as he was like an old barn roof, Croad was of indeterminable age, but, with a passion for Eighties football matches, Slim guessed his new guide to be around fifty.

‘You know, I nearly made the bench at QPR back when Wilkins was just hitting his peak,’ Croad said, baffling Slim that this limping tree stump of a man could have ever walked straight, let alone been good enough with a ball at his feet to get near a then-League One side.

‘Strong squad they had back then or I might of made it. I’d scored ten in three games in the reserves, but celebrated me Saturday call up with a bottle of bourbon and a hussy I met in Soho. Bailed through a window when her husband rolled in late, ripped me hamstring on a railing fence then stepped in front of a 94 bus to Piccadilly. Might have been worse if it hadn’t been slowing down to stop, but that was that.’ He pointed. ‘Ah, here’s the ford. Road goes up to a junction. Left goes to the village, right to Weaton’s farm, but stay away if it’s raining as muck washes over the road and your car’ll likely get stuck unless you have four-wheel drive.’

Slim was marveling too much at the seamless transition from a tale of near-heroism to one of swollen rivers to mention that he had no current driver’s license.

‘Weaton’s is still part of Ozgood’s land but they have a long-term fixed lease so he has to keep his nose out.’

‘What kind of a man is Mr. Ozgood?’

Croad shrugged. ‘Is this on or off the record?’

‘Off, of course,’ Slim said, knowing full well anything he said would likely get back to his new boss one way or another. ‘I mean, is he the kind of man who deserves to be blackmailed?’

‘Depends who you ask. General rule, isn’t it, that the more coin you have the longer the line of people wanting to steal it.’

Slim smiled. ‘That’s why I have so many friends.’

Croad emitted a gravelly laugh. ‘You and me both.’

‘I’m sure you know why I’m here. Mr. Ozgood wants to know why he’s being blackmailed by a dead man.’ Slim paused, remembering Ozgood’s warning that he should say nothing about the true nature of Dennis Sharp’s death.

‘Aye. Dennis Sharp, never saw that coming. Quiet kind of guy, worked, got paid, went home or to the pub, the easy type.’

‘I hear he died in a car crash.’

Croad nodded. ‘Yeah.’

Slim waited for further information, but when none came, he said, ‘Was it around here?’

Croad nodded. His incessant shuffle paused a moment and he turned back. ‘Taking you there now. Master’s request. Best to start at the beginning, isn’t it?’

5

‘Don’t get that many switchbacks like Gunhill Hollow in these parts,’ Croad said, waving at the road dipping abruptly out of sight over the brow of the hill as trees closed in around it like protective hands. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t expect that kind of curve to come on you if you were lost, driving this road for the first time.’ Croad grinned, revealing cragged, blackened teeth. ‘You’d take it easy, wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Slim answered, not sure whether, after a drink of two, he would or not.

They walked on into the trees, the shadows slashing across them, the temperature dropping rapidly, the air dry from the afternoon sun turning dank and moist against Slim’s skin.

The road narrowed and angled steeply, its surface potholed and uneven, shingly patches of broken tarmac crunching as they shifted underfoot. Slim had the uneasy sensation that he was walking across the acne-scarred face of a long dead and buried giant.