Dangerous Games

Chapter 11

Sugden tugged on his earlobe absent-mindedly as he digested what Claire and I had just told him. He pursed his lips, and I could almost see the gear wheels going round in his mind.

"I see. So are you saying that this professor lied, then?"

"Well, no, not really. He was probably so grounded in reality that he just saw what he wanted to see." The last few days had gradually turned me into quite a keen amateur psychologist.

The Superintendent didn't seem entirely convinced. Although I didn't fear him any more, I was still painfully aware that the man couldn't be described as being 'on my side'.

"It's all in the report, sir," Claire added. "If you compare what he said in the interview on television with the known facts, they just don't fit together."

Sugden glanced down at the couple of typed pages we had handed to him. Hurriedly put together, they were probably full of spelling mistakes, but they made the point and that's what mattered.

"Yes, you said. The difference in time between his watch and time in the outside world, and the fact that he says he saw no-one on the tenth floor, when you assure me there was a police officer up there right in front of the lift door. All very telling stuff."

"There's more to it than that," Claire added. This puzzled me, as I thought we'd thrashed the matter out fully the previous night, but I said nothing.

"Something the man said in the interview didn't mean much to me at the time," she continued, "but it's been rattling around in my head ever since."

"What?"

"He said that he heard a woman crying, and assumed that it was some resident of the tenth floor who'd had an argument. With her partner, we assume."

"You think he imagined that?"

"No, sir. I think what he heard was Anita Patel. Think about it. She's terrified, she's been up there for God knows how long, and the only thing she can think of doing is hiding somewhere. In one of the flats, maybe. Perhaps when she hears the ping sound of the lift arriving, she thinks it's some terrible monster come to kill her – maybe even the demon woman."

"I notice that the professor didn't mention the demon woman getting on the lift."

"She doesn't always arrive. The websites only say that she might get on."

Claire piped up. "Oh, sir. I almost forgot. I've had a thought as to why there are so many web sites claiming that the ritual doesn't work."

I raised my eyebrows. Why hadn't she run this past me first? I don't mind saying I felt a little piqued.

The Superintendent raised his eyes. "Surprise me, Ogden. I could do with some good news."

"Well, sir..." She paused slightly. "I've been trawling the net researching the Elevator Game and I've found that all the web sites decrying it are American."

I'd noticed that too. All those videos on YouTube proving that the Elevator Game was a load of rubbish – all the participants spoke with American accents.

"So, what of it?" Sugden clearly couldn't see where this was going, and neither could I.

"Well, sir. My researches also showed that the Elevator Game seems to have originated in Korea. South Korea, I assume rather than North."

"Get to the point."

"I'm sure you'll already know, sir, that the largest ex-pat South Korean community in the world isn't in America, it's here in Britain. In fact, it's only three miles away in New Malden."