The Game Changer

by Louise Phillips

  At some point, someone was going to have to pay the price.

  (Page 1 of 1)

  Adam

  THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE NEEDING IMMEDIATE attention at the commune was in excess of a hundred. Adam recognised Amanda Doyle and Robert Cotter from their missing-person photographs. At least a dozen people were dead, but the number could still increase if the medics failed to pull some others through. The scale of what had gone down was too enormous for Adam or any of his crew to take in, at least not fully.

  It hadn’t taken long to round up the senior members, those who had facilitated the suicides, following Saka’s final instruction to the letter. John Sinclair had identified the dead cult leader, but not before he had been reunited with his wife.

  Looking at the two of them together, and how much love John obviously had for Sarah, Adam wondered how things between them could have gone so wrong.

  Aoife would pull through, and the medics were hopeful about Chloë, too.

  ‘Are you all right, Dad?’ Addy asked, standing by his side.

  ‘I should be asking you that, not the other way around.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why?’ Adam looked at his son, confused.

  ‘For not giving you a chance when you were trying so hard.’

  ‘I walked away from you. That was unforgivable.’

  ‘I thought that for a while, but you never gave up on me, not completely. Mum said you used to stay in touch, making sure I was okay.’

  ‘But I wasn’t part of your life.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter now. When I needed you most, you came.’

  ‘I would have come regardless of who made that call.’

  ‘But it wasn’t anyone else. It was me.’

  Adam grabbed his son, hugging him even harder than he had before, and longer than he’d ever thought possible. When Addy’s body started to shake with tears of relief, Adam still held him, determined to hang on to him for as long as it took, even if that meant the rest of his life.

  Kate

  KATE KEPT FALLING IN AND OUT OF SLEEP, RELIEVED every time she saw Charlie come back into the room. She hadn’t heard anything from Adam yet, but she didn’t mind. Everything would happen in its own good time. Pulling back from work all those months ago hadn’t meant she had pulled back from life. Despite all the upset over the last few weeks, and everything she had remembered from her past, the harassment notes, the wrongs that had been visited on Jessica Baxter and others, she was grateful for all the love she had been lucky enough to receive.

  Charlie was with her, and soon Adam would join him. With the new life fighting for survival inside her, they would forge forward and create a future.

  When the door opened, she looked up, expecting to see Charlie and Declan, but a woman came in. She walked over to the bed, and placed a police ID card in front of her. Immediately Kate thought something had happened to Adam.

  ‘Is everything all right? Is Adam okay?’

  ‘Everything is perfect,’ the officer replied. ‘Sorry, when I saw you I thought something had happened to Adam.’

  ‘Don’t worry about him, Kate. It’s you and me now.’

  ‘Do I know you?’

  Kate stared at the woman. There was something about the way she looked at her, with revulsion, loathing, that unnerved her … and there was something else. She had seen her before. Where? Her features were familiar, and as one thought crashed into the next, her mind flashed back McDonald’s, when she had scanned the room for someone watching her and Charlie. Could it be the same woman? And what was it about her that had stayed with Kate? Whatever serenity Kate had felt a few moments earlier was disappearing fast. Suddenly all she could think of was the notes, and the woman who had given the statements to the PIU, the woman who had rented her old house from Malcolm Madden, Kevin Baxter’s sister, close to her in age, but that wasn’t all of it. There was a familiarity of features. Kate looked so much like her.

  ‘You’re not stupid, Kate. I’m sure you’ve pulled most of this together, and don’t be thinking that the police officer outside will save you. I’m very good at convincing people of things I want them to believe. He believes Adam has sent me to talk to you, and that we’re not to be disturbed.’

  Kate took a closer look at the ID badge. The photograph was perfect, the name immaterial, the division, the Paedophile Investigation Unit.

  ‘What do you want?’ Kate asked.

  ‘The same thing I’ve always wanted. To change the rules of the game.’

  ‘I’m not part of your game.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Kate. You’ve always been part of it.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I thought your mind maps were impressive. It’s a pity you got knocked down before more of the jigsaw pieces came together.’

  ‘You were responsible for that, weren’t you?’

  ‘I wasn’t behind the wheel.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘You’re Jessica, aren’t you?’

  ‘I can be anyone you want me to be, even the man who abducted you, although he died a long time ago.’

  ‘Why?’ Kate asked, the pain in her chest worsening, as she tried to hide her fear, knowing that somehow she had to buy time.

  ‘You kept looking in the wrong place.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For the person responsible.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You never did.’

  ‘Jessica, I’m sorry for what happened to you. I wish I could have changed things but I couldn’t. I was only a girl like you.’

  ‘WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. You were never a girl like me. Princesses who live in ivory towers cannot know anything. Which is why, very soon, you won’t.’ Jessica moved her face closer. ‘Don’t you see the family resemblance?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘We’re sisters, half-sisters, to be precise. Our father treated me the same as he treated that dead blackbird when he fired it into the skip.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Tut, tut, tut … It seems I’m a disappointment to you as well as Daddy!’

  ‘We can’t be.’

  ‘I keep telling you, Kate. I can be anyone you want me to be, but right now, I’m the woman who’s going to take your precious life away, the same way mine was taken from me. I only wish our father was here to share in the joy.’

  The stab of the needle in Kate’s upper arm happened so quickly, that she had no time to defend herself, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep her eyes open.

  ‘I’d wanted you to suffer more, but I’m a pragmatist at heart. It’s partly why I’ve survived for so long. Your death will be far less painful than I would have liked it to be, but knowing your foetus will die with you is an added bonus.’

  Charlie

  THE CANTEEN WAS FULL OF PEOPLE EATING, TALKING, laughing, reading newspapers and all kinds of stuff. Charlie didn’t like being away from his mum for so long.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can we go back to Mum now?’

  ‘It’s only been twenty minutes. You heard what the doctor said.’

  ‘I don’t care. I know Mum wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘It’s not a question of her minding. It’s a question of what’s best for her.’

  ‘I’m going back down.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘I am.’ He stood up, defiant.

  Declan couldn’t help but laugh. He knew when he was beaten. ‘All right, but if we get into trouble, I’m blaming you.’

  ‘Deal.’

  In the lift, they watched the numbers move from floor five to floor two. When the lift doors opened, a woman walked into it, smiling at both of them before they left.

  ‘There’s that woman again,’ Charlie said, heading towards his mother’s door.

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘The wo
man Mum and I saw a few weeks ago in McDonald’s. She used to come to the school too. She looks a bit like Mum, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Charlie, are you sure?’

  ‘What’s wrong, Dad? Why are you shouting at me?’

  Declan took a number of steps forward, getting nearer to Matthews, pulling Charlie with him.

  ‘That woman,’ he shouted at Matthews, ‘the one who got into the lift. Was she with Kate?’

  ‘DI O’Connor sent her.’

  Before Matthews had time to say any more, Declan opened the door to Kate’s room. ‘Jesus!’ he yelled. ‘Get help fast.’

  One Week Later

  Adam

  ADAM STARED STRAIGHT AHEAD OF HIM. THE LAST few days had felt like a lifetime. They had caught up with Jessica Baxter at Dublin airport. If she hadn’t delayed to get to Kate, she might well have been able to make her escape. But, thankfully, she was behind bars, as was Malcolm Madden for interfering with justice. Stephen and the other senior members of the cult were also under arrest, each suspected of multiple murders, including those that the police had found buried on the island.

  ‘I never had a chance to meet Lee Fisher,’ Kate said.

  ‘You will. He’s going to be back in Dublin for the trials.’

  ‘How’s Addy coping with everything?’

  ‘He’s doing okay.’

  ‘That’s good. He and Charlie have gotten very close.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Has he spoken to Aoife yet?’

  ‘Not yet. His head is all over the place at the moment.’

  ‘These things take time, Adam. There’s a whole programme of rehabilitation that needs to happen for everyone involved. Aoife, like the others, will be caught between indoctrination and an uncertain future. With counselling, hopefully, most of them, including Aoife, will be able to find their way back.’

  ‘You know that boy, Donal, the one Addy befriended on the island, is now in state care, along with the little girl Chloe.’

  ‘Let’s hope not for long.’

  ‘Addy visited both of them.’

  ‘You should be very proud of him.’

  ‘I am, Kate, really proud. What do you think is going to happen to Sarah Sinclair?’

  ‘Sarah is a special case. Despite the passing of time, she is still traumatised over the loss of Lily. The real world isn’t a place she wants to be right now. She has a far bigger battle to conquer than the grieving process or the indoctrination. The cult gave her what she wanted, an opportunity to encourage the denial of her loss, but the real question is, does she want to make a future for herself without Lily?’

  ‘I understand she’s not able to have another baby.’

  ‘No, she’s not, but John loves her deeply. He will have been changed by this experience too. Everyone needs a rock in their life at moments of vulnerability. I doubt he’ll let her slip away from him again, and the heart is a mighty adversary.’

  He turned to face her, putting his hands around her waist, turning her to him and looking down at her stomach. ‘How’s our little survivor doing today?’

  ‘She’s taking it one day at a time.’

  ‘You still think it’s a girl.’

  ‘I do, and she’s a fighter.’

  ‘She’s like her mother then.’ He laughed.

  ‘Adam, I was thinking we might call her Eva. It means “life” or “living one”.’

  ‘I like the sound of that,’ he said, then turned to watch the officers below them. Both of them looked down at the enormous hole being dug out of the earth. The anthropologist, Victoria Hunt, from the size of the frame and the shape of the pelvic bones, had already confirmed that they were dealing with the skeletal remains of a young boy.

  ‘Victoria Hunt certainly knows her stuff,’ Adam said, as he watched her carefully and meticulously record each discovery.

  ‘It will be a slow process, Adam, but an anthropologist can read a skeleton the way you or I can a book.’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough how and when the boy died, and if Peter Kirwan is down there.’

  ‘Buried secrets,’ she whispered, as if thinking out loud.

  ‘Kate, do you believe your father had any part in Peter Kirwan’s death?’

  ‘No, I don’t. But he knew where he was buried. Otherwise, my mother would never have brought me here that night. I feel such shame.’

  ‘You have no reason to. You did nothing wrong.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow, that my parents, especially my father, could have taken Peter Kirwan’s family out of their misery, and didn’t.’

  ‘Who knows, Kate, why people make decisions like that? All we have are fragments of the full story.’

  ‘What about the abuse, Adam? Denying his daughter, my half-sister, what about that?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if what you say is true, he did regret the decisions he made. At least he told you he was sorry and that he loved you. That was something.’

  ‘Do you think Victoria will give us enough evidence to find Peter Kirwan’s killer?’

  ‘I’ve been at this game long enough to know that all new evidence offers hope of solving a crime.’

  ‘It feels like a heavy weight inside me, a burden. I thought I wanted answers. I thought what had happened to me all those years ago was a puzzle, that one day I would resolve it. I had no idea that the truth would be harder to take than the not knowing. If I could turn the clock back, I wouldn’t want to know any of it. But if Peter Kirwan is down there, his family will at least have some kind of closure. Although I’ve always hated that word, “closure”. These things never have closure, not completely.’

  ‘I guess, Kate, this is how mysteries are solved. A seemingly harmless piece of information remembered, appearing unimportant at the time, but suddenly being the breakthrough needed.’

  ‘Do you know the irony of it all?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Something struck me when I was in hospital.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘All my life, I hated being an only child. I used to dream about having a sister.’ She turned to face him. ‘Some dream that turned out to be.’

  ‘We have to be careful what we wish for, Kate, but if you hadn’t been her Achilles heel, she might have got away with it.’

  ‘Adam, I thought of something else in the hospital.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘No matter how awful all of this is, imagine if I’d had her life.’

  ‘She’s not you.’

  ‘I was the lucky one, which is why I’m going to change. From here on, I’m going to focus on all the good bits, and the life I’ll share with you, Charlie, Addy, and our future fighter.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to that too.’

  Acknowledgements

  WRITING IS ALWAYS AN EXPLORATION, AN ENTRY into a world that doesn’t exist until you create it. It is a challenging, rewarding and at times daunting experience, and one in which you never know the full extent of the journey unless you have travelled the entirety of it.

  Like my previous novels, Red Ribbons, The Doll’s House and Last Kiss, The Game Changer started out with an impetus of an idea. I was intrigued by the manipulation of the individual in group environments and how the innocent are not always best prepared for this.

  Writers study people. It is part of our DNA. Which is why over the last few years, looking at group behaviour has fascinated me. Like a lot of things in life, being part of a group can be both a positive and negative thing depending on the dynamics of the grouping, the people involved, and how an individual fits in. This was my starting point for The Game Changer and it certainly framed the story. However, as the writing progressed, the novel became so much more than that.

  Our parents are one of the biggest influences in our lives, and within this story, the sins of the father rippled through the narrative in a way that as the writer I didn’t expect. This book is dedicated to my mum and dad, two people who are forever foremost in my mind, despit
e having passed away a number of years ago. I recognised early on in life that human beings are complicated souls, and this has certainly influenced my writing and this story, which I hope you enjoy.

  I want to give sincere thanks to my mother and father, Sarah and William Ray, who travelled a difficult journey in life, but one in which they loved their children dearly. I also want to thank my husband, Robert, for his patience and understanding, especially in those moments when I paced the floors working on character and storyline. Huge thanks to my daughters, Jennifer and Lorraine, for their love and support, and special thanks to my son Graham, who helped me with so many aspects of this story.

  It has been a real pleasure working with my editor Ciara Doorley and all the team at Hachette Books Ireland, and also Hazel Orme, copy editor, and Ger Nichol, my agent. Their words of encouragement meant a huge amount to me.

  While writing this novel I spent some time at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Monaghan. I want to thank everyone there, both staff and visiting artists, for creating an environment where creativity can flow.

  Finally, I would like to thank Dave Grogan for his support regarding some of the psychological issues explored in the story, members of An Garda Síochána, especially Detective Tom Doyle, for helping with my research, Shirley Benton for asking her daughter lots of questions, all of which helped me to develop the child voices in this story, Mary Lavelle for reading the first draft, Sheila Stone for introducing me to the concept of the raven, Carolann Copeland for giving me a wonderful location in Benalmadena to finish editing, and all my friends, who have made the journey all the more pleasurable, and lastly, but most importantly, the readers, who have brought me more encouragement and joy than I ever thought possible.

  RED RIBBONS

  There is a place without shadows. Where evil resides …