The Game Changer

by Louise Phillips

  Kate glanced at her mind maps on the wall. ‘There are three principal characteristics surrounding the definition of a cult. One is a guru-type figure, or leader, someone who over time seeks worship rather than following the founding group’s principles. Another is reform-like characteristics, a systematic method of indoctrination being applied, usually done with a high emphasis on confessional-type sessions. A third characteristic is exploitation, which comes from above, via the guru/leader, or high-ranking people close to him or her. This exploitation can be economic, sexual or both.’

  She stopped the tape. All of a sudden she felt cold. Maybe Adam was right: maybe she should see a doctor. She went over to the study window. It was barely open a couple of inches, but the breeze was strong so she shut it. Looking down at the small table beneath, it was the first time she noticed things had been moved.

  The Game Changer

  THE GAME CHANGER ENJOYED SITTING IN THE DARK. The camera was disconnected but a small audio recording device was close at hand. Pressing the record button, the low, steady voice sounded powerful, godly, and almost visceral within the confines of the darkened room. It was good to be in Kate’s old bedroom, with her notebook and pen resting on the windowsill.

  ‘Confidential Note 152. It will be fascinating to see who dies first.’ A smile came to the Game Changer’s face. ‘Some members will put up a fight, or attempt an escape, but a great many will go willingly, believing they have been given the greatest gift of all. Not one of them is of any importance. The Game Changer hates them all. They are fools, with more money than sense, or young idealists, like Aoife, protected her whole damn life. Even Stephen is only part of the game because, like the Game Changer, he seeks power too. He would crush anyone without hesitation, pathetic mother-hater and child-killer that he is. They’re all pawns, nothing more. The Game Changer is the one in control. The manipulation of others is of limited value. The real power lies in governing life and death. The seclusion of the island is psychologically and logistically paramount. Being removed from outside influences fosters an emphasis on a specific subject matter.’

  The Game Changer stood up. ‘The boy, Addy, is trouble, but irrelevant. His importance was simply to keep Aoife sweet. Of course, she doesn’t offer money. She offers something far greater. Stephen doesn’t like the boy. He would kill him in a second, if asked.’

  Walking over to the windowsill, the Game Changer picked up the notebook and pen, then pressed the record button again.

  ‘Kate will know a lot more by now, but she will not be able to connect all the pieces. She has probably surmised that the bird was killed for her benefit. Weeks have passed, but it will still play on her mind. The longer she is restricted to that apartment, the more her mood swings will increase. One moment, she will think she is doing well, the next, she will crumple. When she does, she will remember the warmth slipping away from its body, death, not life, becoming the bird’s reality. It will be her reality too. Most people ignore the prospect of dying. They fool themselves into thinking it isn’t absolute, that the one thing they can be sure of won’t happen to them, at least not yet. An elusive event, something they don’t need to be reminded of, even though each time they look at their watches, mobile phones, clocks, TV programmes, another moment of their life is over, bringing them closer to the black hole, the one without a get-out clause, but still, they continue to behave as if they can delude, delay and ignore it.

  ‘Ethel O’Neill is like the blackbird, easily slaughtered. Kate is still trying to work out the why. The cause and effect aren’t clear. She sees the ripples, but she cannot see the core from which they flow.’

  The Game Changer contemplated the next visit to the island, knowing the latest. The next speech would be an important one. The wording, as always, was critical.

  ‘All beliefs serve as self-limiting devices. Others may call you crazy, but the madness is theirs, not yours. In Plato’s cave, the cave people lived with their backs to the light. It shone in behind them. All they could see were their own shapes in shadows, allowing the shadows to become their only reality. Each day, the cave people watched the shadows move, believing that was life. Their whole existence, awareness, was defined by their limited vision, not realising it was the light and their movement that created the shadow world. The cave people couldn’t see beyond the constraints of their beliefs. They saw the shadows as the only possible form of existence, making it impossible to see anything else. One day, a man turned and walked out of the cave. When he returned, he told his old friends there was a wonderful world behind them. All they had to do was turn around. The cave people told him he was mad. What did he mean by another world? The only thing that was real was the shadows.

  ‘If you are trapped in one reality, it is impossible for you to see another. Not everyone can be the man who turned around and walked out of the cave into the light.’

  The Game Changer thought about Michael O’Neill’s collection of butterflies, then pressed the record button again.

  ‘When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, the other caterpillars, instead of admiring it, only see difference. They will want the butterfly to turn back, but it can’t.

  ‘Confidential note 152A. All of it is an illusion. This happens when people swap one reality for another. Members think that by following the steps in the programme, they have escaped the misconceptions of their past. They believe they can now see things that other delusional people, those they have left behind, cannot see. It is the biggest trick of all, their certainty, and having escaped one lie, they cannot see that they are now living another. They have simply exchanged prisons. They misinterpret their new life as freedom, when it is nothing more than a different illusion of it.’

  Addy

  ADDY SAT IN THE DARK, HIS KNEES TUCKED INTO HIS chest, his arms wrapped tight around them. A spider crept along the ground, fast and furious. He watched it disappear into the muddied wall, wondering about his own escape, and why he had been so stupid. Staring at the iron grille above the door, the one that locked him in, he listened to noises coming from above – footsteps, muffled voices, the odd thud or whimper, making his mind up that as soon as he got out of there, he would get off the island – even if part of him still hoped to sort things out between him and Aoife.

  He had known Stephen had been testing him, hoping he would crack, talking about his incarceration being a reward for his idle curiosity and blatantly breaking the rules. He knew the bastard hated him, but it was Chloë’s face that kept coming to him now. Stephen had told her to go back to her mother, and she had looked so lost, like she thought she’d failed somehow.

  When the bastard pushed him down the steps, Addy thought he was going into some kind of underground storage area. He had given Stephen a few digs, and even though the guy had got the better of him, there was something tempting about doing real harm to him.

  When he realised where he was, his first thought was that this sicko was going to do him in. There was a certain look in the guy’s eyes, as if a mask had been taken down, and it had made Addy want to lunge at him again, which he did. He’d gotten Addy in a headlock then, and trying to break free had only given the bastard more satisfaction. ‘I could slit your throat in a second,’ he’d said, ‘I could pull your eyes out and blind you.’

  Addy didn’t reply, and then he saw that Stephen had taken a small knife out of his pocket and was turning it, like it was an extension of his hand. That was when he started going on about the history of the place. How the original buildings didn’t have proper foundations. At first, Addy couldn’t work out where any of it was going, but he kept his eyes on the knife, ready to protect himself if he had to. The guy went on and on about how the cells were originally built for murderers and thieves sent to the island to die, how the prisoners had no means of escape, and how the guards had had their own favourite type of punishment, burning body parts, smashing bones or pouring water down a prisoner’s throat, as if the man was drowning over and over again, until eventually he lost h
is mind. Stephen could have been making the whole thing up to scare him, but Addy had been freaked out by the sound of Stephen’s voice, a kind of menace within it, as if he was under some kind of spell.

  All the time Stephen was talking, Addy had taken in as much about his surroundings as he could. The room they were in was smaller than his quarters above, and there were no windows to allow in daylight. There were a couple of vents feeding into some kind of pipe system, but the only door other than the one they had walked through led to a small cubicle, with a washbasin and toilet.

  Addy let the bastard talk, wondering what Stephen was going to do with that knife. When he finally left without using it, and Addy was alone in the cell-like room, he didn’t feel quite as much bravado as he had earlier on, listening to the group meeting and, as Stephen had said, breaking the rules. Once he was on his own, the initial relief was followed by questions. What if the bastard left him there? Who would ask questions? Who would even know where he was? Would Aoife ask? He checked his pockets for his mobile phone. He didn’t have it. Maybe it had dropped out in the struggle, or maybe he’d left it in his room. It wouldn’t help either way. The signal would be worse below ground. If he’d had his phone though, at least he could have looked at his photographs, the ones of him and Aoife. It would have been some sort of link to normality. She had sent him a selfie a couple of months back, one of her alone in her bedroom. She looked gorgeous in it. What if Stephen had his phone? There was a password, but maybe he could bypass it – maybe Aoife would tell him what the code was. He thumped and kicked the walls then, knowing he had to think of some way to get out of there, and fast.

  Kate

  KATE STOOD AT THE WINDOW, HER HANDS MOVING around the objects on the table below. She had a set way of laying out the items: pens and pencils in the circular container to the right, her small notebooks piled neatly on top of one another to the left, and a photograph of Charlie, in a heart-shaped silver frame, beside them. Adam seldom came into the study, he knew it was her work area, but someone had switched things around. The breeze was strong from the window, but it couldn’t have moved them, not like that. A couple of things were missing too. A notebook and pen set, with a pattern of exotic birds, a present from Adam. They had joked about it. He had told her she should keep it by the bed, in case she woke up some morning with a life-changing idea. Could someone have been in the apartment? She hadn’t been out in days. She put her hand down on the table again, her fingers scrolling down the pile of notebooks looking for the one with the birds on it, even though she knew it wasn’t there.

  She felt cold again, shivering. Feeling faint, she sat on her study chair, the one that had belonged to her father. She lowered her head to her knees as the room began to spin, but no matter how she tried to get the image out of her head, all she could see was the dead blackbird, its throat slit, warm blood seeping through her fingers. The bird had been killed for her, but it had suffered too: its wings had been torn from their sockets and the dead eyes had stared up at her, saying, this is your fault, this happened because of you. ‘Who are you?’ she said out loud. ‘What do you want?’

  Almost as if her mind was trying to fill in the gaps, she heard the words, ‘I want you, Kate.’

  The first note had said something close to that. It had said, ‘I remember you Kate.’ If they remembered her, she must have known them, or did she? What if it was somebody who was obsessed with her? But they knew about the dead blackbird, and that had been years ago. ‘Who are you?’ she cried, raising her head.

  Assuming it was the same person who had sent the notes, could they have gained access to the apartment? Malcolm had been there, but that was ages ago, and he hadn’t left the living room. The sender of the notes had got past the keypad lock. They could have been in the corridor any number of times. What if she had been careless? What if Adam or she hadn’t shut the door properly? Unless you pulled it after you, the door closed slowly, enough time for someone who was watching, hiding, to gain access. She looked at the key in the study door. She always kept it in the same place, but it wouldn’t have been hard to find, not if you had time on your hands.

  She needed to get to the bathroom: her stomach was doing cartwheels. She had to calm down, get her head straight. Maybe she had put the pen and notebook somewhere else. Her mind had been all over the place lately. Within seconds, she was throwing up, and then the shivers came back. She couldn’t stop herself shaking. Then she heard her mother’s voice: ‘Get into bed, Kate. You’re not well.’

  She felt exhausted. Perhaps she should lie down, get some sleep. The bed felt warm. She pulled the duvet over her head, the way she used to do as a child, and for the first time in years, more than anything she wanted her mother beside her, telling her everything would be okay, that she wasn’t to worry. Without warning, the tears came, and with them a form of relief. Finally, wih the warmth coming back into her body, she closed her eyes and slept.

  312a Atlantic Avenue,

  Brooklyn, New York

  IT WAS CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT BY THE TIME LEE LEFT his ninth-floor apartment for his nightly walk. Warm days and cool nights made October one of his favourite months, the crisp fall air refreshing after the higher temperatures of Spring Valley.

  Since he’d returned to the city, Marjorie had never been far from his mind. Whenever he took time off, it happened that way, almost as if she was waiting for his mind to slow down so that she could creep back in. He didn’t mind remembering and, looking up at the night sky, he figured it usually came back to the same thing: he hadn’t expected her to die so soon, or so abruptly.

  He had imagined their relationship reaching the point of no return, both of them lacking the will to go on, but it had never come to that. Despite going their separate ways, they had never got over one another. When she died, he felt cheated that the last stage of their relationship had been taken from them – it clawed at him even now. He missed her, and he’d meant what he’d said to Margaret. His biggest regret was that he couldn’t turn back the clock and make sure he was with her at the end. It wasn’t ego. It wasn’t because he wanted to know if she’d needed him there before she died. That was part of it, but not all. He had missed their final dance, the last bit of their life they could have shared, and there wasn’t a goddam thing he could do about it. Death does that. It finishes everything.

  Slowing down to light his cigarette, he wrapped the palm of his hand around the small flame, blocking out the breeze. It cooled his skin, like a lover’s enticement, gentle and provocative, tingling and almost ghostlike, as his thoughts shifted to the investigation.

  The Mason case was bothering him for any number of reasons. Detective O’Connor had drawn up a list of names, all male, involved in the 1980s grouping, and Lee had extracted as many as he could from Mason’s sister, Emily Burke. Some of the men on the list were already dead, and outside of Mason and O’Neill, their deaths were due to natural causes, and beyond suspicion. Of the few from the list that they had been able to track down, none was keen to elaborate on the group to any large degree, saying it had been active over a quarter of a century earlier. Many of them had been on the fringes, and if anything sinister was going down, they appeared unaware of it. He agreed with O’Connor on one aspect, though: if the Manhattan and Dublin deaths were related to the 1980s research studies, there had to be a reason why Mason and O’Neill had been targeted when others on the list hadn’t. Either the killer had only limited details about the identities involved or their emphasis had shifted.

  Kate

  IT WAS DARK BY THE TIME KATE WOKE. SHE LOOKED at her mobile phone – 7 p.m. She had slept for over four hours. She never slept during the day, and then everything came tumbling back: feeling unwell, throwing up, and wondering if someone had been in the apartment, the missing notebook and pen, the dead bird, and the notes, then her mother’s soothing voice. Crawling out of the bed, she took off her clothes, discarding them on the floor, still lacking energy, and wondering if she would feel any better after a shower.r />
  The water was piping hot and felt good on her skin. If she stood there long enough, could she wash away all that was troubling her? Concentrate, she told herself. Remember how much better you felt when you were talking to Adam, discussing the missing-person case. Keep busy.

  She switched off the shower, wrapped herself in a towel and left the bathroom. As if to ease her thoughts, she noticed the squad car passing the living-room window. Work, Kate. It’s what you do best.

  She played back the tape recording from that morning. Something still bothered her about the missing-person cases. If they were connected to the Mason and O’Neill deaths, the potential cult association might have other sinister connotations.

  What if this enlightenment group had some tie-in with the original group in the eighties? Both O’Neill and Mason had been members, as had her father, and all three were now dead. She stared out of the window, thinking about her father again. Even though there were a great many unanswered questions about him, she had no doubt that records would have been kept of the meetings that took place. Could they still exist and, if so, where would they be?

  She picked up her phone to call Adam. He was late, which also meant he was busy, and she was half expecting it to go to voicemail when he answered.

  ‘I didn’t expect you to pick up,’ she said, ‘I was going to leave a message.’

  ‘Are you okay, Kate? You sound tired.’

  ‘I’ve just slept for four hours.’ She remembered the missing pen and the notebook. ‘Adam, did you move that notebook and pen you gave me? It was in the study, but I can’t find it.’