The Game Changer

by Louise Phillips

  She nodded. ‘He wouldn’t have got involved with anything like that.’

  ‘And the meetings he used to go to, Ethel, do you know anything about those?’

  ‘No. I don’t know anything about any meetings. Michael wouldn’t have allowed himself to be blackmailed,’ she said, with indignation. ‘I just know it.’

  ‘So, you moved after Kevin’s death?’

  ‘That house was bad luck. Some developer bought it, and the one next door.’

  ‘I used to live nearby.’

  ‘Did you, my dear? Maybe I know your family.’

  ‘Off Merton Avenue, number thirty-seven Springfield Road.’

  ‘Oh, you’re that Pearson girl.’

  Kate had no memory of ever being referred to as ‘that Pearson girl’, but the manner in which the words were delivered wasn’t positive.

  ‘Yes,’ she was suddenly nervous, ‘that’s me.’

  Ethel remembered the tea tray, and began pouring hot water into both cups.

  ‘Oh dear, I must have forgotten the …’

  ‘I’ll get the tea bags.’ Kate flew into the kitchen, frantically searching for a caddy. She went back to the sitting room and put the teabags into the pot. ‘Ethel, you were talking about the Pearson girl – me.’

  ‘You went missing.’

  ‘You remember that?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ As if insulted by Kate’s last question. ‘The whole neighbourhood was out looking for you.’

  ‘How long was I gone?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It was a long time ago.’

  ‘I only remember bits of it.’ Kate realised she was confiding in a near stranger, but continued all the same. ‘I think the shock of what happened might have blocked out parts of my memory.’

  Ethel didn’t respond, and Kate feared another blank session.

  ‘Ethel, can you tell me what you know?’

  ‘About?’

  ‘About me going missing.’

  ‘You went missing? I didn’t realise.’

  ‘I’m the Pearson girl, Ethel.’ Kate told herself to remain calm. ‘Sorry, you were telling me about the Pearson girl going missing.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Did you know her?’

  ‘Yes, I knew her.’

  ‘The Pearson girl,’ Ethel repeated the words, as if to remind herself of what she was trying to remember. ‘There were some people they thought had done it. There were awful rumours.’

  ‘What kind of rumours?’ Kate didn’t want to rush her, but she felt she was getting close to something. She couldn’t afford to let it slip. ‘Ethel, what do you remember?’

  ‘I don’t know. The girl was found. That was the main thing, thank goodness.’

  ‘You said there were rumours? What kind of rumours?’

  ‘Sorry, dear. I can’t remember them now. You could talk to one of the neighbours.’

  Kate had avoided doing exactly that for some time. In part, it was because she wanted to get the memories back without outside influence, and her parents had always made light of what had happened to her, or seemed to. The general consensus was that it was best not to talk about it. Unsavoury things were brushed under the carpet. Neither, if Ethel was correct, had Kate ever contemplated that she might have been missing for any more than a very brief period. Kate asked her next question without thinking, almost as if one part of her brain was working ahead of another.

  ‘Did you and Michael know a Malcolm Madden? He would have been in his mid-twenties back then.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I can’t be sure. The name sounds familiar, but …’ Kate’s disappointment must have been obvious, because Ethel tried to comfort her: ‘I can see this is troubling you, my dear.’

  ‘Yes, I guess it is. Not remembering something can be frustrating.’

  ‘I understand that.’ And then her face lit up. ‘You could try Michael’s notebooks. He used to write in them all the time.’

  ‘Do you have them?’

  ‘Not here. They’re in the lock-up.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Did you see my handbag, dear?’

  ‘It’s beside you. You have some of the contents on your lap.’

  ‘So I do.’ She started to root through the array of bits and bobs. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘I can’t find it.’

  ‘What are you looking for, Ethel?’

  ‘There’s a card with the address on it. It must be somewhere.’ Kate lifted the empty handbag. ‘Do you mind if I check inside?’

  ‘Work away, my dear. Those pockets can hide things on you.’

  Kate searched through each of the inner sections, finding a small white card with a key in one of the zipped pouches. ‘Is this it, Ethel, the address and key of the lock-up?’

  ‘I think so. Michael put lots of our old stuff in there.’

  ‘Ethel, did you mention the notebooks or the lock-up to the police?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Do you think you’d be able to find it? I can come with you, if you like.’ Her tone was more upbeat. ‘I need to get some milk and eggs.’

  Special Detective Unit,

  Harcourt Street

  ADAM LOOKED OUT AT THE HUB OF ACTIVITY beyond the glass panels of his office. He wasn’t happy about keeping information from Kate. Although the techies hadn’t found anything on the newspaper clipping, it hadn’t stopped him digging further. The cryptic note had come too close to the opening of the investigation for his liking. With Malcolm Madden connected to O’Neill, he’d decided to carry out some house-to-house enquiries with Kate’s old neighbours. Tongues always got looser over time, and the information he was given came from two separate sources.

  The term ‘closed circle’ or ‘private grouping’ came up, and with the images Lee Fisher had told him about on Mason’s computer, it certainly raised more questions than answers. According to both sources, Kate’s father, Tom Mason and Michael O’Neill had been part of this elusive grouping. All were dead, although Kate’s father had died from natural causes more than ten years earlier. The statements didn’t prove there was anything unsavoury going on. The men moved in the same social circles. They knew each other, and they would possibly have had a lot of other things in common. But if they knew each other, had Malcolm Madden known O’Neill for longer than he was saying, even though he was younger than the others?

  Kate had spoken to Adam a great deal about her father. He knew the man could be cold, and in Kate’s early years he had been capable of bouts of aggression. Adam hadn’t pushed her on it, but he believed her determination to help others in vulnerable situations stemmed from her father’s anger, and her mother’s inability to protect her. According to Kate, she and her father had made peace with each other well before he died, but there had still been a disconnection, and after his death, Kate’s concentration had been firmly on her mother, especially after she’d developed rapid dementia.

  It was too early to be making any hard allegations about paedophilia, but the thought had crossed his mind. He had worked with such groupings before, and part of their success was the veil of secrecy and trust that often made the core difficult to penetrate. He wasn’t ready to go to the PIU, the Paedophile Investigation Unit. For that he’d need more than references to elusive groupings.

  His rank as a senior investigation officer meant he had access to the higher levels of the police database, PULSE, but in the PIU, the names of previous victims and suspects, even those spanning back twenty or thirty years, were stringently protected.

  Kate

  KATE WASN’T SURE THAT BRINGING ETHEL O’NEILL with her had been such a good idea, but there was no denying, she wanted to know what was in those notebooks.

  Driving to the lock-up, she kept thinking about the possibility of her being missing for longer than she had originally thought. Ethel had said the whole neighbourhood was out looking. She had mentioned rumours. If Kate had been missing for hours on end, what had happened in the intervening period? In her memory, she had been followed by someone, a man. He
had grabbed her from behind at knife point, but she had gotten away almost immediately. If she had been missing for longer, what did that mean? Why had she obliterated it from her mind? It might have been shock, but surely her parents would have known there was more to it: they had always treated it as a minor incident, one best forgotten. Had she done that? Forgotten it because they said so? It was possible. Anything was possible. She had tried Adam on the phone several times, but on each occasion, it had gone to voicemail. She didn’t want to talk to anyone else, and she didn’t want to wait either. For all she knew, the police had already been to the lock-up. Still, as a precaution, she decided to use the protective gloves and footwear from the boot. Being stupid once was forgivable, but twice was sloppy.

  Opening the back of her hatchback, she called to Ethel, ‘I won’t be long. Wait here, and then we can go and get the milk and eggs.’

  ‘Take your time, my dear. I’m very tired. I’m not sleeping well these days.’

  ‘Why don’t you take a nap?’ She moved around to the passenger door. ‘Here, I’ll lower the seat back for you.’

  Leaving an old woman, especially one with Ethel’s condition, alone in a strange car, wasn’t a sensible idea, but when she saw Ethel close her eyes, she felt somewhat relieved. Should she lock the doors? If she did, and Ethel woke up, the locked doors might frighten her. She’d have to take a chance. As she looked up, she saw a young man at the top of the lane. He was dressed in a dark tracksuit with the hood up, covering his face. He stalled, looked towards her, then moved on. She was suspicious of everyone these days. She waited until she was sure he was gone before approaching the garage. She counted ten garages in total.

  Access was through a side door, with the main door locked with a metal padlock. There were no windows, so once inside, Kate fumbled around for a light switch. Something smelt, and when she put her gloved hand to her nostrils, she knew what it was immediately: stale urine. When the light bulb flashed on, it caused spots to form in front of her eyes and for the first time, she realised how nervous she was. She retched at the rancid smell, but even so, as she had done earlier in the O’Neill house, she took in her surroundings.

  The space was full of boxes of various shapes and sizes, and more books, only this time, they were mainly hardcover editions. She opened one of the books, then a second and another, noting they were all first editions. Michael was a collector. On a low box to her right, she saw four large leather albums. Picking up the first, she couldn’t be sure that the smell of excrement she detected was human. Closing her mouth tightly, to stop her stomach heaving, she found stamps inside the album, detailed to the side with the date, origin and their element of rarity.

  Her eyes were then drawn to four black metal boxes on top of one another. Walking towards them, she slowed down, hearing footsteps pass by outside. She hoped Ethel was still asleep. When it went quiet again, she continued, opening each box to find smaller ones inside, with coins from different parts of the world. Again they were marked with individual details, a rectangular white sticker on the bottom of every box. The late Michael O’Neill, she thought, was organised, consistent and, most likely, patient.

  When adults become collectors, their collections can become an extension of their identity – a sort of attempt at immortality, living on even though the person doesn’t. What else did they tell her about the late Michael O’Neill? Was his desire to own and collect rare items a form of control? Could it be indicative of anxiety around personal relationships? His position as a teacher was important too. Adam had said he used to lecture on social policy: was his authoritarian role a mask for something else?

  When the side door of the lock-up squeaked open, Kate jumped, turning quickly to see who was behind her. If Ethel noticed the shock on Kate’s face, she didn’t comment: she looked lost, standing there, not saying a word, taking in her surroundings. She paid no heed to the putrid smell, finally asking, ‘Did you find the notebooks, my dear?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I didn’t realise Michael had so much stuff.’ Ethel peered around the lock-up. ‘They could be in that tea chest over there. I remember it, I think.’

  ‘Why don’t you go back to the car, Ethel? It’s a mess in here.’

  ‘We need to get the milk and eggs.’

  ‘I know that.’

  Kate escorted her out into the lane, watching while Ethel walked to the car and sat back inside. This wasn’t going to be easy, she thought, but she was committed now.

  Inside again, she stared at the tea chest, then took in the contents of the frames hanging on the left-hand garage wall. The only wall without urine stains. At first, she thought they were another type of collection. The frames nearest to her contained species of butterflies, but there were other insects, too, stuffed rodents and what looked like framed strands of hair.

  Kate thought about the violation of the place. Had Michael O’Neill done it? Was he under duress? Or was someone else responsible? She took a step closer to the frames containing the hair. There was no way of knowing if they were animal or human.

  When she flipped the lid of the tea chest open, it was full to the brim of large hardback notebooks. Like the other collections, each had been clearly marked, this time with a specific year, dating from 1980 to 1988. If 1980 was the year O’Neill had started teaching, strange, she thought, that the notebooks ended in 1988. He had continued teaching for a long time after that. She wondered why he had made the career switch. Surely lecturing was more lucrative than primary school teaching. 1988 was also, coincidentally, the year of her attack, and the year Kevin had died. Maybe Michael had stopped filling them in after the boy’s death.

  Doubling back to check on Ethel, she was relieved to see her fast asleep in the car. With little time to waste, she went back to the tea chest, but as she did so, almost instinctively, she began to go over things in her mind, pulling together all the bits she could remember. She had been attacked from behind after separating from her friends, looking for a stray ball. When he’d grabbed her, and she screamed, she’d felt as if her screams were coming from somewhere distant. He had held a knife to her throat, and thinking this, she raised her hand to her neck, getting the smell of urine once more. Why remember some parts and not others?

  Despite there being no heating on in the lock-up, her body felt warm. Her chest was hot too, with red blotches, confirming her nervousness. It was only then that she heard someone else approach the lock-up door. There was more than one person. She listened to the low voices, holding her breath, trying to work out what she would say if anyone stepped inside. Paranoia set in – could someone have followed her again? She knew she was being daft, but she couldn’t shake the notion that she was the one under some kind of microscope, rather than the other way around.

  When the low voices stopped, she listened to the wind whizzing underneath the door and let out a sigh of relief. Whoever it was had moved on. This time, she thought about all the things she couldn’t remember, asking again how long she had been missing. How had she managed to find her way home? What had his face looked like? She flicked open the first record book from 1980, four years after she was born. Reading page after page, she noted that Michael O’Neill recorded details of the school day, community events, items of local interest, like the passing away of the parish priest or the opening of a new club. None of it was of any major consequence, but detailed nonetheless.

  She went to 1981, and found more of the same. Why was she waiting? Why didn’t she simply open 1988 and be done with it? Stop running, she told herself. She pulled out the notebook with ‘1988’ on the front, closed the lid of the chest and placed the notebook on it. Other memories were flying through her mind. There was that feeling of utter panic, a sense that she was alone with the man, somewhere far away from the people who could help her. Think hard, she told herself, but it was as if she was searching her brain in the same desperate way that Ethel couldn’t remember things. Damn it, think.

  She stared at the notebook. Her last
memory was of being dragged through trees. Her feet had hurt, and she had lost her shoes. She hadn’t remembered that bit before. Her white ankle socks had become wet and mucky, and her underarms were sore from where he had held her, his fists tight around her chest, the knife still in his hand. All of this was new. She thought about the smell of alcohol on his breath, something that had never left her, but what about his hands? They were strong, the fingers chunky – she could see them now, another fragment of memory. Was he wearing a ring? She couldn’t be sure. She held the notebook, still hesitant.

  ‘Open the damn book,’ she said out loud. ‘Stop running.’ She opened the pages one by one, and it didn’t take long to reach the date she was looking for. She read the early contents quickly, mainly around the school day. At the end of the page, she found it – ‘Local Girl Goes Missing’. Underneath, her name and other details: ‘Kate Pearson, aged 12, a student of St Mary’s School for Girls’. Under that, there was another note, giving details of a local search party being set up: ‘So, the community was definitely involved.’

  Something banged against the lock-up door, two loud cracks. She looked up, turning fast towards the side entrance, thinking it was Ethel again, but no one entered. It might have been the door contracting, she thought, but she couldn’t shake her anxiety, looking all around her. You’re alone, she told herself. She went back to where she had stopped reading. The entry went on to explain that the local community had searched all evening, but the schoolgirl, Kate Pearson, hadn’t turned up. It was true, then. She couldn’t have been missing for only a couple of hours, as her parents had told her. But if not a couple of hours, how long had it been? Hours, days, longer? The following entry covered the next school day. Speed-reading the opening content, she found nothing of significance, but on turning the page, she knew she was getting closer to something, closer than she had ever been.

  She stared at the next two pages for what felt like for ever, realising quickly that the following page didn’t correlate with the previous one. Pages had been cut out. She stretched out the fold in the notebook, seeing the neatly severed remains of sheets tight to the spine – the same edge as on the newspaper clipping.