Games for Dead Girls, page 1
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023
Copyright © Jen Williams 2023
Jen Williams 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: 9780008383848
eBook Edition © Mar 2023 ISBN: 9780008383862
Version: 2023-03-02
Dedication
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
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
Acknowledgements
Also by Jen Williams
About the Publisher
Six months ago
There was a seagull on the damp sand ahead, fat and solid and grey.
Every time they came to the coast on holiday, Cheryl was surprised at how large and bolshie seagulls were up close. And this one was mean-looking too; its tiny yellow eye was full of fury. As she watched, it pecked violently at a cigarette butt someone had left on the beach. She thumbed the camera awake on her phone, but by the time she had it trained on the bird, it had dropped the fag end and hopped away from her.
‘Shit. Suit yourself.’
Instead her eye was caught by a small gathering further up the sandy beach. At this end, the place was nearly deserted. Cheryl’s own family, like most visiting the beach that day, had set up their towels and picnic bags closer to the small fairground that crouched above the concrete breakers. There were small wooden booths down there too, selling ice creams and freshly fried doughnuts. Down this end, there was just the sand, the stones and the persistently grey-brown sea. To Cheryl, already tired of her whingy cousins, the quiet end of the beach had looked very attractive.
And it seemed she wasn’t the only one to think so. Just ahead was a complex of brightly coloured windbreaks, the pink and blue material slightly tattered at the edges and snapping in the strong sea breeze. A tall man stood with a hammer, rhythmically whacking the poles into the damp sand. Cheryl was immediately fascinated. He was taller than her dad, so at least six foot four, and he was old; somewhere in his late sixties, from his iron grey hair and deeply lined face. He wore a clean long-sleeved white shirt, buttoned neatly up the front and at the wrists, and a pair of beige slacks. On his feet were brown leather sandals. It was a peculiar outfit for the beach. She wandered over towards the windbreaks for a closer look.
Despite his age – to Cheryl, who had not long turned fifteen, he was impossibly ancient – the man was hitting the poles firmly and without hesitation, and she sensed a great deal of coiled strength in his wiry arms. Spotting her approach, he stopped.
‘What are you after, girl?’
Cheryl jumped. The voice came not from the man, but from behind the windbreaks. She stepped forward, peering around curiously. This family were very keen to avoid the wind, by the looks of things. The tall man had set up what was essentially a fort, with walls on all sides and a small gap at the front to grant a view of the sea. Inside it were two old-fashioned stripy deckchairs, and several towels laid neatly on the sand. There was a huge, traditional wicker picnic basket and a long dark blue tarp wrapped around something bulky – but Cheryl’s attention was taken by the woman lying on the nearest towel. She was the one who had spoken.
‘Nothing, sorry. Just wandering about.’ Cheryl pushed a wild strand of hair behind her ear and slipped her phone back into her jeans pocket. ‘It’s nice down here,’ she finished.
The woman shifted on the towel. She was wearing a vintage-style swimsuit with a navy and white floral pattern, and her long legs were so tanned they looked almost leathery. Her toenails were painted red, and she was rubbing greasy-looking sun-tan lotion into her thighs. Cheryl could see little of her face; it was mostly obscured by a huge floppy sun hat.
‘It’s nice for young people, this beach.’ Her voice was leathery too. ‘That’s why we come here, isn’t it, dear?’
Cheryl blinked. Neither the woman nor the man with the hammer could be mistaken for ‘young people’, even if you were feeling particularly charitable.
‘My family seem to like it,’ said Cheryl, mostly to fill the silence. ‘We all get dragged down here every year.’
The woman tilted her face up towards Cheryl, and the girl got a brief look at the lower half of it, split into a dizzying smile; bright red lipstick, the colour of poisoned apples in a Disney film, and a sharp, unforgiving chin. She got a glance at skin that looked wrong, stretched somehow, and then the woman had bent back to applying lotion to her legs.
‘The beach, the sun,’ continued the woman. ‘The sea. Candyfloss, hot dogs, ice cream. There’s nothing else like it. Everyone should get to see the beach, don’t you think?’
‘I guess.’ Cheryl thought everyone should get to see Disney World, not a poxy seaside town on the south-east coast of England, but the woman seemed very taken with the idea.
‘Even bad girls get to go to the beach.’
Something about the way the woman said ‘bad girls’ made Cheryl frown, but her attention was taken by the tarp. It seemed to twitch, as though suddenly caught by the wind. Except it was safely behind the windbreaks.
‘What?’ said Cheryl, distracted.
The woman snapped the lid back on her sun-tan lotion. For the first time Cheryl noticed that there was a box open by her leg. It looked a little like a larger version of the sewing kit her mum kept in her crafting box, only messier. There was a large pair of scissors with orange plastic handles, several bobbins wound with black and yellow thread, a rusty-looking thimble. It struck her that this was an odd thing to take to the beach, but perhaps that was how the woman relaxed; with embroidery, something like that.
‘I expect you think yourself too old for the beach,’ said the woman. She glanced up again, smiling, and Cheryl found herself smiling back. ‘Too old for sandcastles and crabbing, sweetheart?’
‘I guess so.’ Cheryl shrugged. ‘My cousins still like it, but …’
‘How old are you, dear?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘You’d rather be on your phone, looking at grown-up things?’
Cheryl bristled slightly. This was too close to the regular complaints she endured from her dad about how much time she spent glued to her phone, but the woman was chuckling warmly to herself, as though she were fond of Cheryl and her quirky ways.
‘You have no idea how very young you really are. That’s one of the gifts of the very young – you don’t know that the sand is even in your hands, let alone that it is running through your fingers.’
‘Okay.’ Cheryl glanced over to the tall man, who still hadn’t spoken. He was looking off down the beach, as if he’d heard the conversation many times before. ‘I suppose I should go back to my family, they’ll be wanting to get started on their sandwiches—’
Suddenly the tarp began to thrash back and forth, so violently that Cheryl f
‘Hey! What—?’
‘You see?’ The woman looked up, her red lips creased with displeasure. For the first time Cheryl could see her entire face, and every bit of warmth seemed to drain out of her body. ‘You see what thanks I get for my generosity? I get shenanigans! Malarky! Disobedience!’
Too late, Cheryl realised that the tall man had vanished from his spot by the windbreaks. She had a moment to look back at the tarp – still thrashing, still moaning – and then a pair of strong arms closed around her from behind, and she was lifted, kicking, into the sky.
Now
When I saw the old sign for the caravan park – big brown cartoon letters and a colourful cartoon parrot, of all things, as if parrots were native to the chilly south-eastern coast – it was like being kicked in the gut, and I had to pull over, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead and back. Katie, safely buckled up in the back seat, leaned forward far enough that I heard the seatbelt click.
‘What’s the matter, Auntie Charlie?’
‘I’m fine, I just need a second … to think.’
Immediately I could see how stupid this sounded. We were parked up around a hundred feet from the turn-off that was our destination, nothing but thick hedges on either side of the road. On the other side, I knew, were rows and rows of caravans, hidden by foliage. The bleak early winter sun was leaching rapidly from the sky; soon it would be completely dark. There was absolutely no reason to stop so close to the park, but here we were.
I turned around in the seat to give her a smile. She was always such a solemn kid, and the look she gave me was close to rude, glaring back at me like I was the worst person she’d ever met. In the gloomy light her skin looked too white, and the splash of freckles across her nose looked grey, some accident of the shadows. Her hair, which was cut into a severe fringe at the front and left loose over her shoulders, was dark brown and a touch greasy – that last brought me up short. Greasy hair meant she was edging towards being a teenager, and something about that made me uneasy.
‘Hey. This’ll be fun,’ I said, in the tone of all adults everywhere trying to convince themselves of something. ‘Just the two of us for a few weeks. You can do whatever you like – play games, do your drawings, go down to the beach. Anything you want to do. And I’ll get on with researching my book. You can help me, if you like.’
‘I know,’ she said flatly. ‘You’ve already said that.’ She shuffled her feet in the footwell, oversized pink and turquoise trainers, rainbow laces. She was wearing a pair of frayed denim shorts that came down to her knees and a baggy T-shirt, and for the first time I felt a stab of concern. Those were the wrong clothes for January. Still, it was warm in the car, and the caravan would have an electric fire. ‘Can we just go now?’
I nodded, some of my false cheer leaking away into the car seat. For a long moment, it felt like I was frozen in place, reluctant to take this final step. This was a bad idea, wasn’t it? And then I thought of the letter, and without another word, I started the car and turned into the car park.
Tall evergreen trees on either side ate us up, and the sound of wheels crunching over gravel rose to meet us. The lamps weren’t quite all lit yet, so I navigated mostly by the pale line of the road, rolling slowly past the small blocky buildings that were the site shop and the little place where you could rent televisions and extra heaters. There was a phone box there, too, an old red one, but I doubted it still contained a working phone. Along from there was the swing park – climbing frame like some industrial skeleton, slide with a pile of dead leaves and mulch at the bottom – and the shower huts. Then, the first of the caravans, long capsule-shaped things, neatly lined up and inert.
At these, I felt something inside me wake up. They were exactly the same as they had always been. At first glance, they looked identical, but if you trained your eye you could see all the things that set them apart from each other – and if you were a little kid, left to run riot around the site all day, it was vital to learn these differences. Otherwise, you might never find your way home again.
‘What did you say?’ asked Katie suddenly. ‘You said something then.’
‘Nothing,’ I said, my eyes still on the road. ‘Just thinking out loud.’
‘I’m hungry,’ she added. ‘Are we having tea when we get in?’
I nodded, glancing at her in the mirror. ‘Absolutely. Spaghetti hoops? Toast? It feels like that sort of evening, doesn’t it?’
She smiled, and some of the chilliness eased from her posture. I looked back at the caravans.
They did all look the same, but there were differences. The patterns on the side, for example; different stripes of brown, ochre, yellow, pale pink, olive green, dusty red, blocks of colour and cream, all very discreet and tasteful. They were different shapes, too, some very boxy and square, others rounded off at the edges. Some were so huge and sprawling they were basically bungalows, and the biggest and fanciest had wooden steps leading up to their doors, painted white and decorated with flowers. These ones often had old satellite dishes too, the ultimate sign of luxury when I was a kid.
As we crawled along, the headlights sending beams of soft glow into the rapidly darkening night, I saw that perhaps some things had changed after all. Spots of rust here and there, weeds thick around the supports of some of the caravans, windows empty of curtains or nets, or covered over with cardboard. I looked away, telling myself I needed to concentrate on getting us to the place we were staying. There’d be time to look around later.
We turned a few slow corners, and here at last some of the lamps began to flicker into life. All at once I just wanted to get inside, away from the petrol and leather stink of the old car.
‘There we are, look.’
It wasn’t the caravan, of course. That was long gone, for all sorts of reasons. This one was relatively new, but still quite cheap. It looked long and grey and boxy in the twilight, but I could see snowy white net curtains at the windows, and someone had swept around the bottom of it at some point in the last few weeks. It made me feel surer of myself, so I parked up and got out, Katie following close on my heels. I bent down to the blue gas canister and retrieved the keys from underneath it, and I stepped onto a set of slightly wobbly metal steps to open the door. Katie shot through it ahead of me, making loud BRRRR noises.
‘Yes all right, let’s get the heating on, warm things up in here. I’ll get the tea on, shall I?’
Katie nodded and plonked herself down on the narrow sofa that ran around this end of the caravan. I flicked on the electric heater, waited for the grey coils to turn a deep orange, and then began unpacking some of our bags. In no time at all, the place felt like the caravan always did when I was a kid – a small, cosy place, full of yellow light, the smell of toast. The windows beyond the net curtains looked too black, so I tugged the curtains across them. Eventually I sat down at the small table, sliding into the booth to sit opposite Katie, and we began to munch our way through our tea. As a treat, I had sliced up some cheese on top of the spaghetti and melted it under the grill.
‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ I watched Katie carefully, her head bent over her food, only looking up to take sips of her chocolate milk. She lifted one shoulder in reply.
Afterwards, I switched on the telly and gave Katie the remote. She flicked around the channels for a bit, her small face intent, until she finally settled on some reality show that seemed to involve awful tattoos. I had a moment where I wondered if this was appropriate viewing for a pre-teen, but the idea of me, of all people, instructing Katie on what was morally correct was so laughable that I did just that – a small, congested chuckle escaped me. She looked up, visibly irritated.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ I waved at the telly. ‘I just hope this doesn’t give you nightmares.’
She snorted at that, but at the same time she seemed to lose interest in the TV. When I sat down, she turned to face me, pulling her legs up onto the sofa so that her feet rested against my leg.
‘This book,’ she said. ‘How will you do research for it? What sort of stuff do you need to know?’
‘Well, it’s a book about folklore. Specifically folklore of the area. Do you know what folklore is?’
She rolled her eyes and shoved me with a foot. ‘Duh. Stories and stuff.’
‘All right, smarty-pants.’
