Gregory's Game (2 page)

He turned his attention fully to the house, annoyed, in that part of his mind that stepped outside of his dream, that he had allowed his attention to waver, even for those few seconds. It was an impulse he would never have indulged in the real world.

He watched as the men disappeared into the house; waited for some sign either that they had been welcomed by those inside or that they were hostile. But there was only silence; just the sounds of the birds and the wind in the trees and nothing more.

Gregory relaxed. Sometimes, he told his dreaming self, a dream is simply a dream. A confluence of random memories, haphazardly amalgamated by the sleeping mind.

Wake up, he told himself. It's morning and there's nothing useful to be gained by staying here. And then it happened. A single gunshot. It came from somewhere below him. Somewhere inside the house. One shot, then nothing.

Slowly, in his dream, Gregory rose to his feet. Keeping in the shadow of the trees, he descended the hill and waited at the perimeter of the compound for some sign, some reaction, but there was nothing. Birds continued to sing and the soft breeze brought with it the scent of wild thyme.

Slowly, Gregory moved to the gate and cautiously entered the compound. His almost-waking brain told him it was a bad move; that he was most likely walking into a trap. His dreaming self reminded the nagging thoughts that he was asleep, safe in his bed; there was no danger.

Gregory walked into the house, past the old car and through the open door. His feet sounded far too loud on the tiled floor of the hall. Spanish tiles, he thought, glazed in red and blue. The house was cool, the walls lime-washed in a light blue. Four doors led from the hall; two were closed. Through one he could glimpse the kitchen and it occurred to him that the layout of the house was not what he might have expected. Somehow, a more open-plan space would have felt in keeping with the exterior, with the Spanish tiles, with … with what? With his memory of this place? This place or something very like it.

He moved towards one of the closed doors. A hall cupboard filled with brooms and buckets and general cleaning stuff. The second door led to an empty bedroom. So that left the other open door.

Gregory realized that he was listening intently and also that there was nothing to listen
to
. Even the birdsong was absent now, shut out when he entered the house. The scents were now of disinfectant, coffee, and something spicy that had been cooking not long before. He moved towards the open door and stepped inside. The room was square and large. The far wall had open glass doors that led out on to a shaded patio. Four men lay upon the tiled floor. The two he had seen getting out of the car and two more. One black, one Asian. The black man lay closest to the door. Gregory bent down. The body was still warm and there was no sign of rigor – though, he reminded himself, the ambient temperature would skew anything he could tell from a quick examination.

The second man was the passenger from the car; he lay facing the window.

The shorter man, the driver, was close beside him, facing into the room. The fourth man, small and slightly built – and, Gregory now decided, probably Japanese – was sprawled, half propped against a chair. A gun lay on the floor, close to his left hand.

One shot, Gregory thought. I heard just the one shot and yet all four men are dead and the gunshot wounds are all too obvious. Four men shot with one gun; fine. Four men shot with the same bullet? That took a little more believing.

Even had the two men been dead before their visitors arrived, that still left two yet to die.

It was possible he had been mistaken, of course. No. Gregory dismissed the thought almost as soon as it arrived.

Waking, Gregory held the dream in his mind, examining and analysing it, trying not to add anything to the detail of what he had seen. He knew just how easy it was to manipulate memories and especially the memories of your own dreams.

He could still not make any sense of it – but he knew he would. It was only a matter of time. That and leaving it alone.

The one question he had was: did this dream have anything to do with Nathan's proposal and, if so, was the message positive or not?

Leave it alone, he thought for a second time. Go and do something else.

The big problem for Gregory was what he should do. He began to wonder if Nathan was right; that retirement was not an option for the likes of Gregory. He'd spent his life
doing
; idleness did not come naturally.

Gregory tried to pinpoint the moment when his life had changed, when the idea of actually changing pace had started to coalesce, but the only response his brain made was to remind him of two things. A blind woman, a dog and two children standing on a Welsh beach; and a young man who could draw with a skill Gregory knew was rare.

Maybe, Gregory thought, the answer lay with them, though he didn't see how. Working on the basis that doing something was better than idleness, Gregory decided that at least this was a starting point, though he was far from sure of the welcome he would receive when he sought them out.

I
n the end Naomi and Alec's decision had been an easy one. After all of the anxiety and stress of trying to find a new place, they had moved back into an old one. A flat that had once belonged to Naomi had come up for rent, and with a little negotiation, rent had become purchase. A couple of weeks with the decorators in, Naomi and Alec camping out in friend Harry's spare room, and that was it.

Home.

Naomi knew that perhaps she should feel strange, maybe even a little disappointed about this. The flat, small and easily managed, with a single bedroom and a galley kitchen that only just accommodated two people, had been her first proper home. A single-person home. After marrying Alec she had moved to his much larger house and she had loved it for a while. The space, the garden, the stately isolation of it, set so well back from the quiet road. But that was then. It felt like a lifetime ago, not just the few months it had been since circumstances had forced them to leave. Now Alec's house had been sold and they were back where they had started in a way, but far from feeling disappointed, Naomi found she was actually quite profoundly relieved.

This place was familiar, comforting, small and stress-free – and Naomi felt that in their present circumstances, that was just as well.

Alec was recovering from the car crash of a few weeks before, albeit slowly. Twice a day they walked with Napoleon, Naomi's big black guide dog, down to the promenade, released him from his working harness and allowed him to run on the beach. Usually, Alec sat on the sea wall or on a wooden bench close to the concrete steps that led down on to the strand. Naomi allowed the big dog to guide her down towards the water. She'd remove the harness and then spend twenty minutes or so throwing whatever toy he had chosen to bring that day – frisbee, ball, stick. She would stand and throw, relishing the cold sea breeze on her skin, the sound of the waves breaking close to her feet, and Napoleon would fetch until the time came for him to return to duty. Harness on, he would guide her back to Alec.

Back at home Naomi and Alec would cook, watch TV, relax and not talk. At least, not talk about anything that mattered. The rest of it was fine, but Naomi was starting to find the not-talking part something of a bind.

‘He's depressed,' Harry said when she finally spoke of her anxiety. ‘Get him to see a doctor.'

‘It's a hard enough job persuading him to keep his hospital appointments. I don't think I'm going to be able to add the GP to the list.'

‘Is there no one at the hospital you can talk to?'

She shook her head. Whenever she accompanied him to appointments he went into the consulting room alone, leaving Naomi and Napoleon parked outside in the corridor.

‘He seems to be pushing me away,' she told Harry.

Her old friend hugged her. ‘He'll get over it,' Harry said. ‘Alec loves you. I think he's just still in shock. He nearly died.'

‘Harry, it's been weeks. Months, actually. Soon it's going to be too damned cold for him to just sit and wait on that blasted bench. What then? Will he even stop going out with us altogether? Harry, I think I'm losing him.'

Time was, she knew, when Harry would almost have rejoiced in that. Naomi knew how her oldest friend had always felt about her, but she also knew, when he hugged her again and told her that everything would be OK and Alec would soon be himself again, that Harry was utterly sincere.

M
rs Meehan had lived at number six Church Lane for forty years. She had seen residents of number five come and go, marry, have children, move on. She'd been quite sorry to see the last owner leave with his wife and little girl. They had been quiet neighbours. She had sometimes heard the mother and daughter playing in the garden, but the toddler chuckles and motherly cajoling had been pleasant enough and the size of their two gardens was enough to make it a distant sound anyway. Chiefly, she had been bothered that when they left they had told Mrs Meehan that they planned to rent the place out.

Tenants, Mrs Meehan had thought. That could mean just anyone. You heard such dreadful things about people who rented.

The man who moved in had been single. No sign of a family. He had come to say hello and introduce himself and had told her that he would be out all day, working. Mrs Meehan, satisfied by his respectability, had settled back into her quiet routine once more. She had even gone so far as to take in the odd parcel that came for him. The postman always left a card and Mr Palmer was always prompt in collecting and grateful in manner. It was odd, therefore, that he'd not been round to collect this one. Odder still as, going round to knock on his door, she spotted his car parked by the side of the house.

The second time she went round, she'd been a little concerned. The car was still there, and she couldn't recall the house lights being on the previous evening. By her third visit, she was thoroughly concerned and decided she should do more than just knock on her neighbour's door.

Number five Church Lane was an ample cottage, front door set not quite in the middle, windows to both sides allowing a view into two comfortable and substantial rooms. Mrs Meehan let the front gate clang loudly and then hammered with the cast-iron knocker on the wooden door. ‘Yoohoo. Mr Palmer, I've got a parcel for you. It's Mrs Meehan from next door.'

Tutting quietly to herself, she went to peer in through the left-hand window. Nothing. No one. Same when she looked through the right-hand glass. Finally, she opened the letter box and looked down the length of the hall, getting ready to call his name once more.

Mrs Meehan opened her mouth, but what emerged was not a neighbourly greeting. Freda Meehan began to scream. She screamed until she was breathless; screamed until she had regained the safety of her own house and locked the door. Screamed as the phone operator tried to ascertain what was wrong. Freda Meehan felt she'd never be able to stop screaming.

‘He hanged himself,' she managed finally. ‘Must have done. I saw his feet, just dangling there, and blood on the floor. Blood all over the floor.'

G
regory knew that Patrick had seen him even though the boy had barely looked his way. Gregory perched on a low wall outside the university, enjoying the autumn sunshine and watching the stream of students emerge through the heavy glass doors.

Patrick was with a group of others, also obviously art students, portfolios slung across their backs and assorted boxes and bags of materials clutched in their hands.

Patrick was, Gregory noted, the most conservatively dressed of them all. Jeans, dark sweater, black jacket. Pale face and heavy dark curls falling forward on to his forehead, the Umbrian quality broken only by red Converse trainers and a brightly coloured scarf slung loosely around his neck.

He'd have gloves in his pocket, Gregory thought. Still only late October but autumn was already developing a winter bite and Patrick's hands were always cold.

Gregory watched as he chatted to his friends, the young crowd thinning and then dispersing until Patrick and his little group were the last ones standing outside the entrance. Eventually, they too departed. Hugging, waving, Patrick watched for a moment as they went, then turned and walked over to where Gregory sat.

‘Hi,' he said. ‘Fancy a coffee?'

Gregory smiled. ‘Sounds good to me.' The casual welcome amused and pleased him. Few people greeted Gregory casually; actually, very few viewed his presence with any kind of enthusiasm, even those who had at various times employed him. At best, most people viewed him as a necessary evil; at worst they disregarded the ‘necessary' part.

Patrick led the way to a cafe in the next street. It was above a bookshop and had a row of small tables flanked by comfortable chairs beside the window. Gregory ordered while the boy nabbed a table and propped his portfolio against the wall. Gregory watched him thoughtfully. Patrick was eighteen but still looked younger – except when you looked into his eyes. Patrick's eyes reminded Gregory of another dark-haired young man, the difference being that Nathan was dangerous. Gregory didn't imagine anyone could accuse Patrick of that.

‘So,' he said, setting the coffee down. ‘How's it going? The university thing?'

Patrick grimaced. ‘OK, I guess. It isn't what I expected, I suppose.'

‘Oh? So what's different?'

Patrick leaned back in his seat and regarded the older man thoughtfully for a moment as though re-familiarizing himself with Gregory's features. He noticed the boy's hand move, twitching as though he imagined a pencil held there and marks being made on an invisible page. Patrick drew obsessively. Harry, his father, reckoned it was the way he made sense of the world and Gregory was inclined to agree.

‘Different?' he prompted and Patrick laughed self-consciously.

‘I suppose I had this daft idea that it would all be painting, or drawing or making or something. You know, it being an art degree.'