A game of hide and seek – MURDER style 

By Yash Nanayakkara, 12yrs 

Plump old Mary Lawrence came back to her apartment at 5 o’clock in the evening. Work had been  exhausting. Tiredly, she groped for the keys in her brown handbag, and put the key into the lock. To her  surprise, it was ever so slightly open. 

“Hmm…” she thought. “Maybe Hank forgot to close the door properly.” 

Hank Lawrence, her husband, always had been a goofy character. She found it hard to imagine that she  ended up marrying him in the end. Mary chuckled and opened the door fully.  

“Hank? HANK!” she called. No answer.  

“That’s quite funny,” she thought. Her husband was never quiet. Unexpectedly, as she slowly walked  across the room, she noticed a red liquid on the carpet. 

“What is that?” Mary thought. She then saw more of it coming from the bedroom. The door was partially closed. 

“Hank? Oh Hank, what is tha…” She stopped short, for Hank lay slumped on the floor, blood oozing from  his slit throat. She flipped around and saw a black figure jumping out of the window. Mary then did what  any wife would do in this scenario. She screamed. 

Back at the local police station, 35-year-old detective Mike Steward sat lounging in his chair. With ashy  black hair falling in waves over his forehead and moderately muscular arms resting on the arm rests,  Mike was fast asleep on his chair. The day had been quite unhappening for him. No cases to solve, no  crimes to investigate. Ever since he solved John McKowski’s case of the stolen nuclear codes, he had  become a celebrity at the station. A celebrity with nothing to do. It was then that the police  commissioner, Mr. Gordon Bulstock, rushed into Mike’s office. 

“Mike!” The detective quickly bolted up and stood up. 

“Yes Commissioner?” asked Mike, a bit woozy from the sudden awakening. 

“Mike, there’s been a murder downtown at Hilltop Apartments, number 43. Hank Lawrence.” Mike’s blue eyes opened wide, and adrenaline pumped through his veins at once. “Finally!” he exclaimed, with the relief of getting a new case. The era of boredom was over. 

“What are the details commissioner?” questioned Mike. His exhilaration of getting a murder case was  overwhelming. 

“Come on, I don’t know much myself. But the victim’s wife knows it all, and she is getting restless,” the  commissioner replied, as he put on his cap and strode out of the office. Mike slammed on his navy-blue  beret, put on his brown coat, and quickly followed.

Ten minutes later, the car arrived at Hilltop Apartments. Mike and Commissioner Bulstock walked up the  stairs to the third floor. The elevator was, to Commissioner Bulstock’s disappointment, was out of  commission. They arrived at number 43 and rang the bell. A plump lady opened the door and panickily  beckoned them in with the wave of a hand. 

“Hello ma’am, my name is Commissioner Gordon Bulstock, of the Hilltop Police Department. This is Mike  Steward, our best detective.” The commissioner and Mike showed Mrs. Lawrence the badges. 

“Yes detective, please come in quick!” Mike and Commissioner Bulstock walked into the apartment. 

“When I came back home from work at around 5, I just found him slumped on the floor in the bedroom!  It’s simply horrible!” Mike went to the bedroom and saw the remains of Mr. Hank Lawrence. When Mrs.  Lawrence and the commissioner came in, she looked at the body and burst into tears. The commissioner told Mrs. Lawrence to go into the living room, while he and Mike examined the body. 

“So Mike,” the commissioner asked, “what have we got?” 

“First-class murder…” Mike replied. “The killer has slit Mr. Lawrence’s throat right in the vein near the  windpipe. With precision. Whoever this guy, he’s the real deal.” 

“But why was Mr. Lawrence killed?” The commissioner was curious as to why a high-class killer would  target an unemployed man like Hank Lawrence. His wife said that Hank had only worked in the previous  year, for a diamond mine company. 

“I’m not sure about that myself Commissioner, but I do know that the killer left a clue.” 

“WHERE, WHERE!” The commissioner was now in ecstasy. He knew that Mike would be the man for the  job. Mike held up a tiny piece of paper.  

“It must have been dropped by the killer when Mrs. Lawrence came back suddenly,” said the  commissioner. 

Targets 

Hank Lawrence, Hilltop Apartments number 43 Johnny Saville, 73/B Park Lane

“Looks like we know the killer’s next victim. Lucky for us that he  wrote it down.” 

“When do you think he’ll make his move?” 

“It would be unlikely for a killer of such finesse to put off the next  murder till tomorrow. Nightfall is the perfect time to assassinate  a person.” 

Mike and the commissioner assured Mrs. Lawrence that the body would be taken care of, and they  rushed back to the black Sedan waiting for them. 

“So, Johnny Saville. 73/B Park Lane. Are we going there? Just the two of us?” enquired the  commissioner. 

“No Commissioner, it would be too dangerous. I’m going to bring Jacob along.” Mike told the driver to  go to the police station to pick up Jacob, and the Sedan sped away. Jacob was already waiting when they  pulled up at the station. 

“Hey bub!” Jacob exclaimed. 

“Hey my old friend. Thanks for working overtime. Come on, get in the car,” said Mike, “we’ve got a  murder to stop.” 

While on the way to Mr. Saville’s house, once Mike explained to Jacob what was going on, Jacob  suddenly asked the driver to stop to make a phone call. Once he was done, they sped away. “Hmm…”  pondered Mike, “it’s not like Jacob to make a phone call in the middle of a case.” 

Johnny Saville’s house was a wreck. Wooden floorboards creaked for each footstep, and the windows  were encapsulated in a blanket of dust. Jacob came forward, and slowly pushed the door open. Silence. 

“Mr. Saville? Hello?” called Commissioner Bulstock. There was no answer. 

“Hold on, did you hear that?” whispered Mike. A strangled wheeze emerged from the cobwebbed dining  room. Mike and Jacob ran in, only to find Johnny Saville’s body taking its last breaths. The commissioner  frantically pressed on Saville’s chest to try and save him from imminent death. 

“Mr. Saville did the killer say anything to you. Anything at all?” questioned Mike, with as much subtlety  to the dying man as possible. Only two words came out of him. 

“Behind you…” 

Mike and the commissioner whipped around, only to be knocked unconscious by a glass bottle. Blackness. 

Mike awoke slowly after half an hour. The wound on his forehead throbbed with agony. He slowly  turned his head to view his surroundings. Next to him was the gagged commissioner, who was emitting  muffled sounds of help. 

“I see you’ve woken up Mike.” 

Mike turned around and looked forward, to see a dark man and Jacob. 

“Surprised, Mike?” asked Jacob, a tone of victory in his voice. 

Mike writhed and struggled in his ropes to get out, as is mind whirled and reeled at this betrayal. “Why Jacob, why did you hire an assassin to kill both of the victims?” 

“I will answer that,” said the dark-skinned man. “Both Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Saville were employed  under my boss an year ago, in diamond mining. Your alleged friend, Jacob, is under his service as well,  but as an informer and infiltrator for this task. We got to know that Hank and Johnny found a palm-sized  diamond, but never handed it in to our boss. So I was assigned to hunt them own, find out where it was,  and them kill them. And we got that information.” 

“It was in Saville’s son’s house the whole time. We couldn’t kill him yet, but we will, once I’m done with  you two!” exclaimed Jacob. “And I know you got suspicious about that phone call I took when we were 

coming here. It was to the assassin, to inform him to stay out of sight but remain in the house. It was an  elaborate murder game of hide and seek all along!” 

The assassin cocked a revolver and pointed it at Mike. 

“Bye bye Steward!” said Jacob, and he laughed maniacally as the assassin was about to pull the trigger.  But all of a sudden, Mike started laughing himself. Jacob and the assassin exchanged glances. 

“I knew that you would betray me after that phone call, Jacob,” said Mike, “so I just stayed quiet just to  get to know what your motive was. Now that I’ve got it, there’s no need for hide-and seek anymore.  Because I’ve caught you now.” Mike’s ropes fell off and, before the assassin could react, Mike’s leg  whipped up, knocking the revolver from the assassin’s hand while the gun reactively shot a bullet  towards Jacob, who fell on the floor when the bullet hit. Mike punched the bewildered assassin in the  face and grabbed the gun. He cornered the assassin to the end of the room, and tied him up. Mike then  untied the commissioner, and called for backup. 

An hour later, the assassin had been arrested, and the two dead bodies of Jacob and Mr. Saville had  been taken away. However, the next morning, Mike found the location of Mr. Saville’s son, and obtained  the diamond. 

“Well Commissioner,” said Mike, as he and Commissioner Bulstock sat in the police station’s office,  “Another day gone, another exciting case solved!”