The Game Changer

by Louise Phillips

‘To the narcissist, the slight or the offence threatens their grandiose perception. They can also link two totally obscure motivations easier than others, and once they’re connected, their ego will do the rest. They’ll see it all as part of some grand plan they need to control.’

  ‘So what you’re saying, Kate, is that the Mason case is telling us more about the killer than the O’Neill case, assuming they are connected.’

  ‘They’re connected all right, it’s just a question of how. And, yes, the Mason case illustrates that the killer likes to play games, exhibiting their intelligence, or their belief that they’re one step ahead of everyone else, exposing a side of their personality that may be useful.’

  ‘Kate, I don’t know about you talking to Ethel O’Neill. I mean, we’ve already interviewed her. She’s very forgetful. I don’t think you’re going to get anything more out of her.’

  ‘Let me try.’

  ‘I don’t like this, what with the note and how you’ve been lately.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The last week or so you haven’t been yourself. You’ve seemed preoccupied, distracted.’

  ‘It’s just lack of sleep, that’s all.’

  ‘Lack of sleep didn’t cause the delivery of the note.’

  ‘I know that, but I can’t let it turn me into a house hostage either. It could be nothing more than a prank. I’ve worked with a few oddballs in my day.’ She looked at the mind maps on the wall. Was someone on those maps capable of sending her that note and, if so, why?

  ‘All right, but remember, you’re supposed to be concentrating on other things right now.’

  ‘I know that too.’

  Addy

  WHEN ADDY LEFT HIS BEDROOM, HE SENSED HIS mother’s relief straight away. She had purposely delayed going to work when she realised he had locked himself in because of Aoife. She said she understood how he felt, and that even though he and Aoife had been seeing each other for a while, it wasn’t uncommon for early relationships to run their course.

  He let her do all the talking, figuring that when he finally confided his plan to her, she would be more understanding. ‘Mum, I’ve another few weeks before I start back in college.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I was thinking about going on a short break.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Some of the lads were talking about going to Corfu.’

  ‘Corfu?’

  ‘Yeah. The nightclubs there are great.’

  ‘I see …’ she sounded less than approving ‘… and where do you plan on getting the money to go to Corfu?’

  ‘That’s the thing. I’ve enough saved from the bar job in Flanagan’s, but I don’t fancy it, not really.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not into it. I was thinking of going to see Aoife instead.’

  ‘Are you sure about that? I mean, if she gave you the brush-off—’ He stopped her in mid-sentence. ‘Look, Mum, I know what you said about us being too young, and you’re probably right, but I need to get this sorted. I’ll know from her reaction when I get there if it’s over.’

  ‘And you said she’s gone to Kerry?’

  ‘One of the islands off. It’s called Colton – it has amphibian footprints from 385 million years ago. One of my friends did a research paper on them.’

  He hoped, compared to Corfu, the island sounded the better option. He was going anyway, but the less aggravation he got, the better.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A few weeks. I’ll be back in time to register for college. I’ve already put my option choices up online.’

  ‘You’ll bring your mobile with you?’

  ‘Sure thing, Mum, but the signal might be crap.’

  ‘When do you plan on going?’

  ‘There’s a train leaving Connolly station shortly. It’s real cheap on account of it being a late booking, and there’s a boat Aoife told me about. I can catch it at the other end.’

  ‘Sounds like you have it all organised.’

  ‘You keep telling me I need to get better at that stuff.’

  She gave him a look that said, half-heartedly, she agreed. Even if she had her reservations, it didn’t matter now. He was going. At some point, even she knew, she had to untie the apron strings.

  Spring Valley Village, Texas

  IT HAD BEEN A LONG THIRTY-SIX HOURS FOR LEE Fisher, before he stopped at the less than classy Sunset Motel for what should have been eight hours’ sleep, but in motels and strange beds he invariably ended up thinking rather than sleeping.

  The following morning, he fired his backpack into the boot of the hired black Cherokee jeep, and took the interstate, driving through Alabama, Mississippi and New Orleans, before finally arriving at the outskirts of Spring Valley, ten minutes away from his brother’s house, by late afternoon. Seventeen hundred miles equated to a lot of thinking, and the Mason case was clawing at his brain the same way something caught in your tooth could bother the hell out of you, the constant irritant that told you it wasn’t going anywhere.

  The temperature guide on the dashboard said ninety degrees outside, heat not uncommon for the early days of September. On the floor in front of the passenger seat were the two books he had brought with him for recreational reading – George Orwell’s Animal Farm and a 1930s English detective novel called The Mad Hatter Mystery by John Dickson Carr. He had read both books before, but he liked the familiar, and a few days’ annual vacation at his brother’s place needed other forms of escapism.

  Before he left, there had been another development in the Mason case: a laptop they hadn’t seized the first time around on account of it being locked away in the storeroom of the boutique below. Someone needed more space, and the locked unit had been forced open. It was only then that the manager remembered Mason asking him if he could keep it there. Mason had had the only key and, considering the contents, that was no surprise. It hadn’t taken them long to find the wiped files and images of children. They weren’t the worst he had ever seen, but they indicated a penchant of sorts, and these things were usually lifetime tastes rather than random interest.

  The images had made him think about his brother’s two sons, Joshua and Matthew, aged ten and eleven, but for all the wrong reasons. John, his brother, had taken the happy-family route, unlike him, but then again, they’d always done things differently. According to John, it wasn’t that they were unalike, it was simply that they chose different ways to do the same things.

  The jeep screeched to a stop, a large brown hog staring at him. No doubt, Lee thought, an escapee from a local farm. The hog didn’t look like he was in any hurry, taking up the centre of the road. Lee leaned further back in the driver’s seat and, instead of losing it, began to think about that Mad Hatter detective story. It was the second in the Dr Fell mysteries, with lots of questionable ingredients, stolen hats, crossbow bolts and missing manuscripts. The plotting was masterly, with an air of humour, a good example, too, of the ‘onion’ technique – peeling away at things until you got to the core. As the hog eyeballed him, he thought about his nephews again, and what he would do if anyone ever harmed either of them. He’d rip out their insides and chop them into pieces, not unlike how Mason’s body had ended up. Just then the hog turned, as if sensing menace, and walked off the road with the same slow vigour that Lee figured had got him there in the first place.

  He had five days’ vacation ahead of him, but something told him, in much the same way as he liked to read the same books over and over again, that the investigation would never be far from his mind. There was a lot about the killer that he hadn’t worked out, but whoever they were, they had a dark history. No one is born with that kind of killer application. It takes skill, and skill is rarely achieved without experience. Lee had had more than his fair share of encounters with the less than friendly types of this world, so he was good at reading people, spotting a rat or a do-gooder within a hundred-mile radius. Mason’s killer had known more than the logistics of the apartm
ent: they had known how to get to Mason. The man had lived alone for years, but something or someone had influenced his decision to give the killer access.

  Kate

  DESPITE HER EARLIER ENTHUSIASM, NOW THAT she was sitting in her car by the O’Neills’ seaside bungalow in Skerries, Kate wished she wasn’t there. She had almost convinced herself that a past patient had probably sent the note, but even if they had, that didn’t mean it was nothing to worry about. She had called into Charlie’s school on the way to the O’Neill house. It was unorthodox, but it settled her mind to see that he was okay. Would it be an overreaction to take him out of the equation for a little while, until she got to the bottom of things? She didn’t want to upset him any more than she had to, but it was always better to err on the side of caution. Maybe he could spend a while with Declan. But how long is a while? He couldn’t stay away indefinitely.

  Ahead of her, at the top of the road, she saw an old woman with grey hair putting one frail foot in front of another. She was dressed in a pair of flat black furry boots and a heavy black coat, and Kate knew, from a photograph Adam had given her, she was looking at Ethel O’Neill. There were family similarities too. She had the same pointed nose and elongated chin as her brother, the chief super. Michael O’Neill had been in his sixties, but seeing his widow, there was no denying that she was a lot older than her late husband. Kate decided to hold back until the woman was inside the house, but as Ethel reached the gate, she hesitated before opening it, as if she was unsure she should continue. Kate waited.

  By the time Ethel arrived at the front door, Kate couldn’t take her eyes off her, fascinated as she watched her remove what looked like a wristband of red wool, with keys dangling from it, and struggled to get one into the lock.

  Stepping out of the car, Kate called, ‘Mrs O’Neill?’ She waved, and walked towards her. Ethel blinked a number of times in quick succession, as if she was trying to work out why this stranger was calling her.

  ‘I’m Kate. We spoke on the phone.’

  ‘Did we?’

  ‘Yes, you said I could come round.’

  Ethel gave her another blank look.

  Kate continued, ‘I have some questions for you about your husband.’

  ‘Michael? Do you know Michael?’

  The widow might be more than mildly forgetful, Kate thought. Dementia was a more likely diagnosis. Kate took a step forward, offering to take the key. ‘Here, let me help you with that. These locks can be tricky.’

  ‘Yes, they can be …’

  ‘Kate, my name is Kate.’

  Ethel reminded her of her late mother. One moment she wouldn’t recognise Kate, and the next she would. As Kate turned the key in the lock, Ethel stared at her front garden. ‘I need to get a boy in to cut the grass. Michael used to do it.’

  ‘It must be hard for you.’

  ‘Yes, it is … I try not to think about it too much. Now that the funeral is over, I suppose I’ll have to get on with things.’

  Shit, Kate thought. How would she react if she was in Ethel’s position and she had to face all of these questions so near to her husband’s death? ‘Ethel, I’m really very sorry, and if you’d prefer to do this another time, that would be fine.’

  ‘I’m all right. Michael did enough thinking for both of us.’ A hint of bitterness in her words.

  Inside, the house was cold. Either there was no heating system or Ethel had forgotten to switch it on. Looking around, Kate saw a bag of unopened logs by a burner in the sitting room. ‘Shall I light the stove, Ethel?’

  ‘Oh, yes, do. I’ll get us some tea.’

  Ethel departed to the kitchen with her heavy coat and boots still on. While she waited, Kate took in her surroundings – the flowery wallpaper, the dark curtains, a cabinet bursting with china, ornaments scattered on side tables, shelves of books in every available wall space, the embroidered headrests on the sofa and armchairs, and the newspapers piled waist-high under the window.

  She listened to Ethel move about in the kitchen, cups clattering against one another, and a kettle that seemed to take for ever to boil. Kate noticed other things too, after she’d lit the stove: a dinner plate and a cup of cold tea at the far side of the sofa. Judging by the hardened stains on the plate, it had been there for a while. There was a shopping bag with groceries behind the sitting-room door. When Kate looked at the contents, she saw the milk and eggs in the bag were out of date. All the tell-tale signs were there. If she could see them, then the late Michael O’Neill had noticed them, too. Would a loving husband, in his full faculties, leave his wife with dementia to fend for herself? Ethel, Kate thought, must have been having one of her good days for Adam and the others not to realise how bad she was. She had seen her own mother trick others, learning ways to compensate: letting others finish your sentences, or doing things like Ethel did, tying your front-door key around your wrist in case you forgot where you’d left it.

  Kate looked around the room again. The walls were missing the usual photographs of children’s communions, confirmations or weddings. Then she remembered that Adam had told her the couple were childless, and as she was thinking that, she spotted a charcoal sketch of a teenage boy. It had prime position on the china cabinet to the left of the stove. Kate walked over, picking up the frame and turning it around to see if there was a date or something else on the other side. She was still holding it when Ethel returned, carrying a tea tray laid with daisy napkins, a small white jug, a sugar bowl and a large yellow teapot but no cups.

  ‘Handsome, isn’t he?’ Ethel said.

  ‘Yes, he is.’ But Kate’s words were hesitant, mainly because she had worked out why the sketch interested her.

  ‘He’s dead now, like Michael.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  Ethel put the tray on a low table, staring at it as if she was trying to work out what was missing.

  Kate stood up. ‘I’ll get some cups.’

  ‘Oh, yes, thank you …’ And there it was again, the look on her face as if she was trying to remember Kate’s name.

  ‘Kate. Kate Pearson. We spoke on the phone.’

  ‘What a lovely name.’

  It didn’t take Kate long to find the cups in the kitchen, but once there, she saw even more clues. Cupboards filled with tins and jars of the same things, unopened mail, out-of-date bread and more cartons of eggs.

  When she returned to the sitting room, Ethel had taken off her coat. It now rested on the back of her chair. Kate handed the picture frame to her, asking, ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened to him?’

  ‘It was a long time ago. I’m afraid my memory isn’t what it used to be.’

  ‘That’s okay. Take your time.’

  Kate hadn’t expected tears but the image obviously affected Ethel. ‘It broke both our hearts. I was older than Michael, you see. We tried to have children, but we couldn’t. I left it too late to get married, too late to have a child, too late to do a lot of things …’

  ‘What about the boy in the frame?’

  ‘We fostered him. No one knew who his father was, not even his mother.’ Disgust coming into her face. ‘She was a strange one, neglected the boy, and the authorities got wind of it.’ She sounded as if she was telling Kate an enormous secret. ‘They started calling around, checking on them, until they finally took him away. That’s when we got him.’ She smiled.

  ‘He obviously meant a great deal to you.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He was tough, though, and bitter too.’ A reluctant laugh. ‘He certainly didn’t want to live with us.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ Kate asked, even though she already knew the answer.

  Another blank stare, then Ethel asked, ‘My handbag … where did I leave my handbag?’

  ‘You left it in the hall. Hold on, I’ll get it for you.’

  When Kate returned with it, Ethel turned the handbag upside-down, emptying most of the contents onto her lap, then pulling out a torn and battered envelope with an address on the front, handing
it to Kate. ‘It was when we lived here.’

  Kate stared at the address. The house was only minutes away from where she used to live. It made sense now. She had known from the start that the sketch was of Kevin. She hadn’t remembered Ethel or Michael O’Neill, but then again, they had only lived near her for a brief time.

  ‘That house was too big for two people. Michael wouldn’t hear about us fostering again, not after what happened.’

  Kate knew exactly what had happened, and the similarities between his death and that of the late Michael O’Neill weren’t lost on her. Had it crossed Ethel’s mind that they had both died in the same way? Could Michael have lived with the guilt all these years, and decided to take his own life, leaving the world in the same manner as their foster son?

  ‘Did you mention Kevin to the police, Ethel?’

  ‘Yes. No. I’m not sure. I think I did.’

  ‘Did you mention that he died the same way as Michael?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘It could be important.’

  ‘I said I don’t want to talk about it. Michael is gone, and that’s the end of it.’

  Kate knew better than to push it, and even if Ethel hadn’t mentioned Kevin to the police, she knew, through their background checks, that they would have discovered it by now. Adam should have mentioned it to her, especially as he must have connected it with that old story.

  ‘Ethel, do you understand about the missing money?’

  ‘Our life savings lost.’ Her tone angry.

  ‘Have you any idea who Michael could have given the money to?’

  She didn’t answer.

  Kate tried again: ‘Was Michael under any kind of financial pressure?’

  ‘The police think he was being blackmailed, you know.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think he would have …’

  ‘Would have what?’

  ‘Do that thing they’re saying he did.’

  ‘Being blackmailed, you mean?’