Fosgate's Game, David C. Cassidy [top romance novels TXT] 📗

of onlookers, was suddenly beheaded.

The anchor went on. Just a few kilometers away, in Chigwell Row, the body of an elderly woman was discovered in her home by her niece. Elizabeth Brighton, aged 87, had also been beheaded, fueling outrage toward officials.

The report continued. In yet another bizarre and unrelated incident, a jogger had come upon the crushed remains of a man in Hyde Park. The brutal crushing of the man’s upper body, particularly the head, would make identification “extremely difficult, if not impossible,” according to PC Colin Murphy.

Chadwick was ashen. He felt weak, as if he’d run a marathon. There had been no mention of any others—the individuals he had “inked out” on the reverse side of their clippings—and he was thankful for small miracles. Still, what did it matter now? The hounds of hell were already circling.

Fosgate, unable to bottle his excitement any longer—his grin had grown more sinister with each report—roared. He clapped his hands and stood up, beaming. “Cod from Billingsgate, Chadwick! We’ll sup into the evening. We’ll dine like kings.”

~ 14

It was precisely 9:37 that evening when Esther Frost heard her husband talking to himself in the ensuite bathroom. She looked up from the king-sized four-poster bed, beyond the rim of her reading glasses, and lent an ear. At first she believed it a prank, yet in their forty-three years of marriage she had never known him to do anything remotely humorous. She asked if he was all right, but what came in reply was a discordant sound. A staccato crackle, like scurrying rats in the walls. Arthur called out to her, shouting, and as she sat up, paralyzed at his frenzied voice, she heard the definitive shriek of breaking glass.

The mirror.

Despite her years, she sprang from the bed, upsetting the solid gold lamp on her night stand. Fear gripped her as she scrambled barefoot across the marble floor to the door. She stopped cold at the guttural sounds beyond; it was as if some monolithic creature pounded step by step along the floor.

And thus began his screaming.

Her heart pounded as she thrust fist upon fist at the door. She tried the latch, but Arthur had locked it; he always did. The sliver of light beneath the door dimmed as a thick river of blood flowed to her feet. A child-like plea slipped from her husband’s lips, and a resounding thunder, a sound eerily similar to that of a bowling ball dropped to a hardwood floor, silenced him.

And thus began her screaming.

When detectives from the Yard forced the door, a smashed, blood-spattered mirror offered a hundred reflections of Arthur Frost’s bludgeoned remains. His limp body was curled beside the expansive marble tub. Blood ran from several deep wounds along his arms, the result of blocking blows; it was as if someone had struck him again and again with a spike. His face had caved under the assault, his nose and teeth lodged deeply within his skull. Beside him, an intriguing rounded cavity had been carved into the marble, several inches across. Later, upon due investigation, the coroner would log that the deceased had perished from severe trauma, a result of sustained blows from “a mace-like” weapon.

~

Within three weeks of Arthur Frost’s death, the Board of Directors at A. F. Enterprises initiated preliminary merger proceedings with Sandringham Publishing, amid unbridled rumor and speculation. Frost’s best friend and confidant, one Jameson Argyle, sought legal action to block the merger, but the attempt failed. After five grueling weeks of legal wrangling, lawyers on both sides, utterly ecstatic over the prospect of lining their pockets over the next several months, prompted both sides to come together and consummate the marriage in a semi-official announcement on New Year’s Eve, at a party hosted by none other than Fosgate Harvard Harrod the Third, President of Sandringham Publishing, suddenly the number six tabloid publisher in all England.

~ 15

On New Year’s Eve, after the last of the help and the guests departed—Fosgate’s newest enemy, Jameson Argyle, the very last—Chadwick had wanted to follow. He had had quite enough of Fosgate and his growing arrogance. Still, he couldn’t leave. He had once again exceeded his limit, which had ballooned from two to eight drinks in only eight harrowing weeks. Eydie had left long before the countdown, using a headache as an excuse. She held no love for Fosgate as it was, and if she had only known him as he truly was, would have despised him. He could see her now, curled up in their bed, her lovely silvers curled around her face, her tiny smile as teasing as a sweet dream. How he wanted to hold her again. How he loved her.

He could only pray that his plan would work. It had to. Not for his sake. For hers.

Fosgate joined him in the study. The weather outside was frightful, as the song went, and his ulcer had begun to act up. His head throbbed. His tired eyes were bloodshot. A rabid wind off the North Sea threatened to slip through every cranny of the ancient estate, and he was, with each passing minute, becoming more certain that the gods were conspiring to undo him.

He shivered as he cupped his cognac. It was uncomfortably chilly this night, and he nodded silent approval as Fosgate lay some kindling in the hearth. Minutes later, as the flames began to work their magic, he managed a small smile, for the first time in months.

“You’re in better spirits,” Fosgate observed, lighting his pipe.

Chadwick said nothing. He seemed to shrink in his chair. Never a large man, he had lost twenty-two pounds since that first match, a match that now seemed a lifetime past. When the nightmares came, he would start in his bed, mind racing, heart pounding, fearing the shadows. Terrified of some vile creature riding horse, slinging blade.

He was beginning to believe he was losing his mind. Madness begets madness.

Like his dear wife who would hold him in those dark hours, his doctor had told him to slow down.

Slow down. He could laugh at the thought. They were hardly slowing down.

Fosgate took up his familiar stance at the hearth, arm upon mantel. He regarded the south window with a small rise of his loose and ample chin. “I so loathe that man.” Sleet crackled against the glass.

“Argyle? He’ll come round.”

“Don’t patronize me. You know I detest that.”

“You’ve got control, Fosgate. Need it be total?”

But it had to be, Chadwick knew.

He had found prayer, but prayer held no substance; just fleeting faith. He had tried to believe that as it went on, he would wake in his bed to the sweet sounds of the dawn, the nightmare ended. But the killing had gone on and on, page upon page of faceless souls, carved and crushed by God-knew-what as Fosgate forced him to pick and to cut and to cap, name upon name, in an obsessive hunt to eliminate the one man who had opposed him during the merger—the one man who still opposed him at every turn. Argyle.

To be sure, he had suggested that Fosgate do it himself. But as the hunter maintained, where was the sport? It was a ridiculous notion, the killer with a conscience, yet there it was, in all its maddening glory.

To date, he had managed a stalemate in just three matches. Three out of seventeen.

The others? He had bested Fosgate in all fourteen, the last nine in a row. He didn’t dare reveal he’d attended each funeral. Nor did he reveal he had sent tidy, yet quite anonymous, sums, to each of the victim’s families. Meanwhile, the Phonebooth Phantom remained at large, gripping the populace.

With every move he had fought the desire to throw each match, have Argyle dispatched. But at what cost? His dear Eydie. He had had no recourse but to struggle for stalemate in every game; with all his heart he had given his all. He had let slip clear chances for advancement when Fosgate stumbled, his only luck that Fosgate, being the lesser player, had not discovered his deception. The matches had given him fits, straining mind and soul, for there seemed no end to this madness. No end to this checkered killing field.

The only saving grace was that they met only on Thursdays.

He drank. Let his mind drift. In the warmth of the hearth’s glow, he saw his lover, his true love. Were it not for her, he might well have taken his own life; might have taken that bullet, after all.

~

They spoke of little import for a spell, and when the time came, Fosgate shifted from the hearth to the safe. He glanced once over his shoulder, then worked the lock. In apparent reverence, with great care he removed the case, which he now held under strict lock. Paranoia had snared the man in its web, and Chadwick knew its spindly fingers would clench around his throat soon enough. It was only a matter of time before Fosgate defeated him and moved on to his next victim. A politician, perhaps. One of the Royals.

Madness begets madness.

It was all part of Fosgate’s Game.

They set the pieces, Chadwick white, Fosgate black. Fosgate handed Chadwick the directory, the shears, and the pen. They had murder down to a science. An art.

“I do think the book feels a tad lighter,” Fosgate quipped.

Chadwick saw no humor in this, and he flipped the book open roughly three-quarters through. He snipped a name and address, and Fosgate, puffing his pipe and eyeing the fire, reminded him of the telephone number.

Chadwick capped his receptacle, sealing the name—and fate—of this unsuspecting soul. Admittedly there was always a chance at a stalemate, or even a Fosgate victory, but in an ironic twist, his chess-playing skills had sharpened to their finest edge. He’d joked that perhaps he should play for Argyle’s head, but Fosgate, never one to abandon the hunt, had not laughed in the least.

The wind whipped at the windows, and he shuddered. Some cognac settled him, but he stiffened as his ulcer burned. He led his Queen’s Knight, as he often did, and the hunter countered with the same move. They glanced into each other’s eyes, neither trusting the other.

Neither spoke until Chadwick’s final move.

~ 16

Chadwick slipped back in his chair. His nerves were shot. He glanced around the study, pausing at that unsettling shrine of trophies. He stifled a laugh. It came to him that Fosgate, in his infinite madness, had all along seen the head of Jameson Argyle hanging proudly among his conquests. A fine joke, indeed.

Fosgate, defeated yet again, cast him a raised brow.

Chadwick smiled weakly. He turned away to those damnable windows, the wind and the snow driving like the devil. The gods were closing.

He listened.

And waited.

“I’ll have another if you don’t mind,” he said finally.

Fosgate took his glass with mock surprise. “Another? The Band of Hope will be knocking at your door, old b—”

At the very edge of hearing came a soft rustling sound, as if rats had scurried in the ceiling. Yet it had snaked itself around them from all directions. Their eyes fixed on each other. Both heard it. Both tried to deny it.

It’s not rats, Chadwick thought as it came again.

“What the devil is that?” Fosgate said sharply. He wavered.

The stone lamp beside them went flying, shattering against the base of the hearth. Only the muted glow of the coals illuminated them. Chadwick froze, the beat of his heart nearly driving him to scream.

It’s come.

Fosgate whirled in half circles, left, then