The Game Changer

by Louise Phillips

  ‘What’s wrong, Mum?’ Charlie asked, from the back seat.

  ‘Nothing, sweetheart.’ She glanced at him in the rear-view mirror, realising he looked anxious. ‘There’s nothing wrong, honey. I’m trying to work something out, and not doing a very good job.’ Smiling, she asked, ‘How were your friends at school?’

  ‘They’re good. There were two boys and one girl out sick today.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Carla, Shay and Alex.’

  ‘No doubt they’ll be back soon. What did the teacher say about practising for the school play?’ Keep it normal, she told herself, keep talking. There’s no point in letting things get out of proportion.

  ‘We’ve to practise all the time.’ The last three words came slowly, as if he was copying his teacher’s voice.

  ‘Did anything exciting happen?’ Kate indicated to turn left.

  ‘We got to watch A Bug’s Life. It was cool.’

  Pressing her foot on the brake, slowing down because of the backlog of school traffic, she asked, ‘What did you like most about it?’

  ‘I liked the way one ant stood up for the other ants, and then at the end, the smaller ant saved the day.’

  ‘I like that too.’

  ‘Mum, I’m starving.’

  ‘I know you are. We won’t be long.’

  ‘Can we go to McDonald’s?’

  What’s the harm? she thought. One trip to McDonald’s isn’t going to be the end of the world. Changing direction, she turned the car right on to Rathmines Road.

  ‘Yay!’ Charlie roared. ‘I want large fries this time.’

  It felt good holding his hand crossing the road. A part of her was still getting used to doing things on the spur of the moment. On the way to McDonald’s, Charlie talked and talked. Marbles was the latest craze at school, and collecting match cards of football players was high on the list too.

  ‘Some cards, Mum, are harder to get than others. They’re rarer.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘If I got two Wayne Rooneys, I could swap him for five different ones. Dad’s getting me a book for the match cards, so I can keep track of the ones I want to keep and the ones I have for swaps.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Can Patrick come over on Saturday? His dad is getting him a match book too.’

  She remembered the note: others coming to the apartment didn’t seem like such a good plan. ‘I’ll have a chat with his mum.’

  ‘Patrick’s dad supports Manchester United.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Patrick’s going to play in the Premier League when he’s bigger.’ His words tumbled out. ‘For his birthday, he got new boots. They cost a lot of money, but his mum says they’re an investment. What’s an investment, Mum?’

  ‘Hmm, it’s sort of like doing something today for a reward in the future.’

  ‘Do you mean like practising my singing for the school concert?’

  ‘Yes, the more you practise, the better you’ll be.’

  ‘Some people, like my friend Ella, are brilliant already. She doesn’t have to practise, even though the teacher tells her to.’

  She raised her eyebrows, but Charlie took no notice. He kept on talking, and the only time he stopped was when he had a fistful of chips in his mouth. She liked listening to him, to how contented he sounded.

  Before she left the apartment, she had locked the newspaper-cutting note in her study, not wanting Charlie to see it when they got back. As he ate his chips, another thought crossed her mind. What if whoever had left the note was watching them now? She did a quick survey of the people in the various booths: two teenage schoolgirls chatting away, and what looked like a grandmother with her grandson, a mother with a baby asleep in a buggy beside her and a toddler stuffing a burger into his mouth. None of them looked out of the ordinary. Behind her, she saw a woman sitting on her own, reading a book. She was about the same age as Kate, attractive with similar hair colouring. There was something familiar about her, but Kate couldn’t work out what it was. Maybe she’d seen her before at the school, or out and about. She was forced to turn away, embarrassed, when the woman caught her eye.

  This, Kate thought, was exactly what the person who left the note had wanted, for her to be uneasy, apprehensive, jumping to conclusions about innocent people. Determined she wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction of messing with her head, she kept on talking to Charlie, as if everything was perfectly fine. As he licked the salty cardboard of the chip packet, she finally said, ‘Come on, we’ve homework to do before it gets late, not to mention singing practice.’

  ‘Ah, Mum.’

  Not so long ago, she mused, she would have been up to her neck in case files. She knew she’d have to talk to Adam about the note. How seriously should she take it? Perhaps it was a one-off, somebody’s idea of a joke, but what if it wasn’t? What then? As if he had read her mind, when they reached the car her phone rang, and it was him.

  ‘Hi, Adam,’ she answered, still holding Charlie’s hand. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘My son is what’s up.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He won’t return my calls.’

  ‘He will. Give him time.’

  ‘Sorry, that’s not why I rang.’

  ‘Hold on a second, I need to put Charlie in the car.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Once Charlie was safely buckled in, she decided against putting the phone on the hands-free set, instead stepping outside the car to ask again, ‘What’s up?’

  ‘It’s the Michael O’Neill case.’

  ‘Has something turned up?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I know you’re not on the case, and I don’t want to be pulling you into—’

  ‘It’s fine. If you have a question, ask it.’

  ‘I’ve been contacted by a Detective Lee Fisher from NYPD.’

  ‘What? New York?’

  ‘That’s right. It seems they have unidentified DNA from a murder scene in Manhattan a few months back.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Fisher sounds like a needle-in-a-haystack kind of guy. The victim in New York was Irish. He got it into his head that there could be more to the Irish connection.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Interpol in Washington contacted our Interpol division in the Phoenix Park. The principal impetus behind the enquiry was vis-à-vis murders or suspicious deaths in Ireland, those with a similar gender, age, social profile and, of course, nationality as the New York victim. Fisher didn’t think the killing was a one-off.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘With the suspicion behind O’Neill’s death, for DNA purposes we quarantined the lengths of tape used to seal off the area around the air vents. We needed to establish whether or not O’Neill had done it. We managed to extract sweat marks, probably from the victim’s fingers. Long story short, they were his, but only after we pulled a full DNA profile from the victim.’

  ‘That was fast.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘I’m sure the chief super was very close to his late brother-in-law. He must be very pleased with the efficiency.’

  ‘Let it go, Kate.’

  ‘Fine, but the results from the tape will only add credence to it being a suicide. I’m still not getting how this is connected with Fisher’s case.’

  ‘That’s what we thought initially, but the DNA profile was sent to our guys in the Park.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It turns out they’ve found a match with the Manhattan case.’

  ‘I didn’t think the US and Ireland could share that kind of information, what with jurisdictional boundaries, international data confidentiality, et cetera.’

  ‘No, but with both victims being from Dublin, and the other similarities, it was enough to legitimise the contact. There is a good relationship between the two countries. We were able to exchange the information on an intelligence basis.’

  ‘I see.’

&n
bsp; ‘If it goes any further, Kate, and by that I mean if the US wants something admissible in court, they’ll have to produce their own sample. Information collected using intelligence isn’t admissible in court proceedings.’

  ‘Meaning they’d have to come over here to produce their own DNA profile.’

  ‘Or have it brought to them for analysis.’

  ‘You said they found a match? What details do you have? Was O’Neill’s DNA found at the Manhattan killing?’

  ‘The killing was vicious. The victim had parts of his body amputated. The unidentified DNA is from a pen they believe the killer used to mark the incision lines. The sample was taken in the same way as in the O’Neill case, from palm or finger sweat. It’s O’Neill’s DNA on the pen.’

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘Never more, but it gets better.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘O’Neill has never been to New York, and certainly not when the murder happened. He hadn’t left the country in the last twelve months – and get this, when Mason was being chopped up, O’Neill was with the chief super all weekend, playing golf.’

  ‘Mason?’

  ‘That’s the victim’s name, Tom Mason.’

  ‘The politician?’

  ‘Ex-politician. Why? Did you know him?’

  ‘My father knew someone by that name a long time ago.’ Kate leaned into the car. ‘Sorry, honey, Mum needs another couple of minutes.’

  ‘Don’t be long.’

  ‘I won’t – promise.’

  Once the car door was closed, she picked up her conversation. ‘None of this is making any sense, Adam. If O’Neill wasn’t in New York, does Fisher think the DNA was planted?’

  ‘He does, and he’s not the only one.’

  ‘But even if someone wanted to frame O’Neill, they’d know that if he hadn’t left the country, he’d be cleared.’

  ‘Which is why, Kate, I’m phoning you to ask you what you make of it.’

  Kate didn’t know what to think, but if it was the same Tom Mason, he’d have been a close friend of her father. Malcolm would know him too. ‘I assume you’re looking at other connections between Mason and O’Neill.’

  ‘Yes, but Mason had been living in New York for over twenty years.’

  ‘Well, if the plant of the DNA was deliberate, it could be a message of sorts.’

  ‘What kind of message?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if it wasn’t to shift the blame to O’Neill, then either it’s a cryptic form of communication designed to lead someone away from or to the truth, or …’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Someone is playing a power game.’

  ‘I’m not getting you.’

  ‘They want people to know they’re controlling things, that they’re capable of a lot more than murder.’

  ‘So you’re saying they have a set plan.’

  ‘Could be. If Fisher’s hunch is correct, about it not being a one-off killing, it brings O’Neill’s death into the mix as another potential victim.’

  ‘It’s a completely different MO, Kate.’

  ‘I know that, but it doesn’t mean the same person didn’t orchestrate both deaths. Even if O’Neill sealed the air vents, we can’t be sure he didn’t do so under duress. Potentially, all it’s telling us is that the killer is capable of varying their method.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Don’t underestimate them.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Adam, there’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  She knew there was no other way of saying it. She gave Charlie a reassuring look. ‘I got an anonymous note. It was sent to the apartment.’

  ‘When?’ His tone was sharper, snappier.

  ‘About an hour ago.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It said, “I remember you Kate.”’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘It could be someone’s idea of a joke.’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’

  ‘Neither am I. It was created using old newspaper clippings. It could be an ex-client. It could be anyone.’

  ‘Do you have the note with you?’

  ‘No, it’s back in the apartment.’

  ‘We’ll need to get it checked.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Have you any idea what it means?’

  ‘That’s the thing, Adam, it could be almost anything.’

  Getting back into the car, a number of miniature explosions were going off in her mind. Even though she hadn’t said it to Adam, it was as if everything was pointing her in one direction. The dreams, the repetitive sentence, her journal writing, the similarities between Michael O’Neill’s death and Kevin’s, the note and now Tom Mason. Could it all be coincidence? She had enough life experience to know it could, and that the easiest thing in the world was to jump to conclusions, forming an incorrect or incomplete analysis. When had her life started to become a mini-investigation? But the note was important. There was no denying that.

  312a Atlantic Avenue,

  Brooklyn, New York

  THE LOFT APARTMENT OF LEE FISHER WAS LOCATED on the ninth floor of a seventies apartment building that was only a stone’s throw from Brooklyn Detention Center, but also close to the Atlantic Terminal on Hanson Place. Apart from the steel balconies attached to the lower units, the building looked more like an office complex than a residential block. Still, that high up, the view was better, even if the neighbourhood had some downsides.

  It had been a long day. Lee walked along the upper corridor, with its tiled impersonal cream walls and floor, and went into his apartment. Inside he had a better sense of self. Ten years earlier, he’d moved into the blank canvas with white walls and wooden flooring, but the minimalist look hadn’t lasted. Lee was a hoarder of anything useful, including old newspapers, books, ashtrays, glass, cutlery that didn’t match, and containers in all shapes and sizes. The largest object, other than the retro upholstered black and maroon striped sofa, with four seats, was a red vintage double-fronted Westinghouse fridge. Lee liked to cook, and he liked his fridge. He also liked living alone. The four seats accommodated stretching, nothing more.

  He flicked on the television, a modern flat-screen with high resolution. There was a cup with stale coffee in it to the side. Picking it up, he poured the contents down the plughole of the enamel white kitchen sink. WABC-TV Eyewitness News was talking about a doctor who had removed a huge tumour from a three-day-old infant girl. It didn’t matter what was on, because Lee was only half paying attention.

  His eyes felt gritty, his body tired. The breakthrough on the Tom Mason investigation would take some time to unravel, although there was no denying the link with the suicide in Ireland. The Irish detective had been helpful, and right now, it was over to him to search for other connections. The DNA found at the scene allied the dead men as closely as if they’d been married. The big question was what it all meant, and who else was swimming in this murky pond. Mason had lived in Manhattan for a couple of decades, long enough for Lee to grasp that, if the same killer linked the two men, ancient history could be playing a part.

  He took a cold beer out of the fridge, then fired his scuffed leather jacket onto the far end of the sofa. History, he thought, usually meant old grudges, scores to be settled that had been simmering for some time, and simmering was never a good thing, at least not as far as murder was concerned.

  Addy

  LYING IN HIS BEDROOM, ADDY IGNORED THE CALLS from Carl and Adam. All he could think about was Aoife. He hadn’t put any music on, despite his mother constantly knocking on the door asking him if he was okay. He was far from okay, but he wasn’t going to share that with anyone.

  Carl rang again. He let it ring out. Carl had been the first in his class to lose his virginity. It had happened one night after the local disco. The event sort of turned him into something of a celebrity within the group, and somehow his raised status still existed. The only girl Addy had ever been with was Aoife. T
hey had been going out together for more than a year before it had happened, and he hadn’t told anyone about it. It was none of their damn business.

  When his mother knocked on the door again, asking him if he wanted any supper, his answer was one word: ‘No.’ He waited until he heard her walk down the stairs before he relaxed a little. The first time he had met Aoife, she had been wearing dark skinny jeans and a baggy green jumper. It was only afterwards that he discovered the jumper was to cover up her body shape. Her vulnerability, if anything, made her more attractive to him. He didn’t have all the answers, but he wanted to protect her, to make her well.

  Damn her and her 20 Step Programme, he thought, but at the same moment he wondered if he should go with her. It couldn’t be any worse than being trapped inside his bedroom. College wouldn’t start for another six weeks. He could still follow her.

  She had given him a small booklet. The words on the opening page said: ‘If you WANT something, you can HAVE it.’ Inside, the contents were full of suggestions for bettering your life. What was the harm in swapping one crap situation for another?

  Everything felt messed up. Aoife hadn’t said she was finishing with him, but if she cared that much, she wouldn’t leave. Would she?

  He thought again of how they had been together since the end of fifth year. At the end of the school term, they had celebrated in town, a whole gang of them, but she had been the one person in the crowd who had stood out. It wasn’t just her laughing at his jokes or how attractive she was to him: it was the way she could turn serious all of a sudden, becoming so enthusiastic about stuff.

  Even if this whole self-improvement lark wasn’t his kind of thing, at least she’d had the courage to go for it. What was he like? What was he trying to prove? Lying on a comfortable bed in a warm house, his mother hovering, making sure he didn’t do anything stupid … It wasn’t exactly living life on the edge.