Black Chalk

The letters, of course, Chad says, although there is something hesitant to the way he says it and this makes me wonder if he’s telling me the truth. There were nine of them originally, Chad continues, all members of some rich boys club. Rich and bored and kicking around looking for something fun to do. And it was Tallest who came up with it. An astonishing, life-changing game. A game just like one he and some friends had played at boarding school to pass the time.

The details were never revealed to me, Chad says, but I know a few things. I know about the prize for winning. And I know Game Soc weren’t the winners. That’s why they had to find someone. Someone else to play, that was the price for losing.

Then who were the winners? I say.

I have no idea. But they were all rich, all from wealthy families. They were young and smart and well connected. And money meant nothing to them. So instead they played for something much more valuable. They played for power. Those who lost would be beholden to the victors for the rest of their lives. Whatever positions they reached, whatever stations in life, they would owe favours. Be they government ministers, influential bankers, publishing magnates, captains of industry . . . they would all look out for the winners, they would support them utterly and without any questions. Jolyon, you have to understand, our game was nothing compared to any of this.

And they had their own form of deposit as well. Money might not have mattered to them. But their standing in the world meant everything to them. And so that’s what they all deposited. Their reputations.

So when Middle walked away . . . Look, like I say, I’m really not sure exactly how it all went down. Maybe the rest of them, whoever the rest of them are, simply decided that he needed a gentle reminder of his obligations. Anyway, a few years after we were done playing, Middle was doing very well climbing the greasy pole of a prestigious private banking house. Until one day he was arrested for the possession of a particularly large quantity of cocaine. He managed to wriggle out of serving any jail time, but he lost his job. And after that, no one in the banking world would touch him.

The letters told you this? I say. But how do you know any of it’s true?

The information about Game Soc’s game? I don’t know if it’s true. But Middle? Along with the letters I was sent a whole bunch of additional reading material – we’ll come to that in a bit. But one of the things that was included was a bundle of press clippings, news stories all about Middle’s arrest, the trial . . . and one of the press clippings had a note written in green pen. It said something like, Middle is aware there are considerably worse crimes on the statute book than possession of class-A drugs. And that was it. Chad claps his hands in sarcastic delight. In the very next letter, I was sent another bundle of press clippings. Can you guess what the story was this time? Let me see if I can remember one of the headlines – Oxford Student’s Suicide Offers Grim Reminder.

Chad covers his eyes, I hear him sniff. And I want to tell him what really happened to Mark, I want to help him. But how can I tell Chad now? What if he were to use it against me? His body shakes gently between the arms of the chair.

Chad takes one long last sniff and then looks at me again. Let me tell you about some of the other things I got sent, Jolyon, he says. I have boxes full of this stuff back home in England, more press clippings, magazine stories, books . . . One time it was a story about a drinking club in Poland, all these tough guys who got together to down bottles of vodka and play games. One night, after a particularly vigorous session, things got a little out of control. They ended up cutting off each other’s hands with axes. Or another time I’d tear open the envelope and pull out an eighteenth-century essay about gentlemen gangs who roamed the streets of London slashing and stabbing and gouging out eyes. Pamphlets produced by fringe groups about American high-school shootings and video games, a long investigative piece about a secret collegiate society at Yale, another one about the Bilderberg Group, an entire book on the history of Russian roulette. And all of these things were covered in notes, every time in the same green pen. Notes or phrases that were circled, whole paragraphs underlined. Anything about games, about rules and punishments, consequences, conspiracies, secret societies.

Oh, I tried not opening the letters. But somehow I couldn’t make myself destroy them. The idea that I was a part of all this, something so big, something . . . it was grotesque, it was ludicrous even. But at the same time I was fascinated. The secrecy, the hidden gears, it felt like a drug. Some nights I’d go to where I’d hidden the letters and open whole stacks in one go. And then I’d spend all night reading them over and over and over.