The Game Changer Read online

  PRAISE FOR LOUISE PHILLIPS

  ‘A gripping, suspenseful story peopled with well-drawn characters’

  Irish Independent

  ‘A satisfyingly chilling yet enthralling read that had me turning around checking I was home alone’

  Woman’s Way

  ‘A deliciously dark thriller … the writing is truly spectacular’

  Writing.ie

  ‘Phillips goes from strength to strength … the pace is excellent, the characters well drawn and believable … Highly recommended’

  Belfast Telegraph

  ‘Unusual and unsettling’ Irish Times

  ‘Among the best crime writing in the world – a top notch thriller’

  BBC Radio Ulster

  ‘As fast-paced and thrilling as a rollercoaster’ Jane Casey

  ‘A page-turning, gut-wrenching thriller which will undoubtedly earn Phillips further accolades and hordes of new fans’

  Lisa Reads Books

  ‘Fast-paced, dark and intriguing – and well worth reading’

  Novelicious

  ‘This book is superb! Chilling and original … it has an ending that you just can’t see coming’

  Eurocrime

  ‘It was dark, it was deep, it was scary, it chilled me to the bone. It was brilliant!’

  Kim the Bookworm

  Dublin-born crime author Louise Phillips won the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year Award for The Doll’s House, her bestselling second novel, in 2013. Red Ribbons (2012) and Last Kiss (2014), which also feature criminal psychologist Dr Kate Pearson and DI O’Connor, were each shortlisted for the award. Louise’s work has been published as part of various anthologies and literary journals. She has won the Jonathan Swift Award, was a winner in the Irish Writers’ Centre Lonely Voice platform, and her writing has been shortlisted for prizes such as the Molly Keane Memorial Award and Bridport UK. In 2015, she was awarded a writing residency at Cill Rialaig Artists’ Retreat in Kerry and was also a judge on the Irish panel for the EU Literary Award. The Game Changer is her fourth novel.

  ALSO BY LOUISE PHILLIPS

  Last Kiss

  The Doll’s House

  Red Ribbons

  Copyright © 2015 Louise Phillips

  The right of Louise Phillips to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Ireland in 2015 by HACHETTE BOOKS IRELAND

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters and places in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious. All events and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real life or real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Quotation by G.K. Chesterton used with permission of United Agents LLP on behalf of The Royal Library Fund.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 4447 8939 3

  Hachette Books Ireland

  8 Castlecourt Centre

  Castleknock

  Dublin 15, Ireland

  A division of Hachette UK Ltd.

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment,

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hachette.ie

  Contents

  Praise for Louise Phillips

  About the Author

  Also by Louise Phillips

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  November 1988 Dublin

  May 2015 New York

  Part One

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Sarah

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Sarah

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Addy

  Kate

  312a Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York

  Addy

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  Addy

  Spring Valley Village, Texas

  Kate

  Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Street

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Street

  Addy

  Spring Valley Village, Texas

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Street

  Addy

  Kate

  Stephen

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Sarah

  Kate

  Chloë

  Spring Valley Village, Texas

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  Sarah

  Kate

  Part Two

  Addy

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Addy

  Kate

  312a Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York

  Kate

  Sarah

  Kate

  Sarah

  Kate

  Addy

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  312a Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, New York

  Addy

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  Addy

  Kate

  Sarah

  Kate

  Special Detective Unit,

  Addy

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  Addy

  The Game Changer

  Addy

  John F. Kennedy Airport, New York

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Addy

  Kate

  Addy

  Kate

  Addy

  Kate

  Addy

  Kate

  Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Street

  Addy

  Kate

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  Addy

  Kate

  Adam

  Kate

  Adam

  Addy

  Adam

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Street

  Adam

  Addy

  Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Street

  The Game Changer

  Kate

  Addy

  Adam

  Addy

  Kate

  John

  Adam

  The Game Changer

  Adam

  Kate

  Charlie

  One Week Later

  Adam

  Acknowledgements

  For Mum and Dad

  ‘When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world we have not made. In other words, when we step into the family, we step into a fairy-tale.’

  G.K. Chesterton

  November 1988

  DUBLIN

  THE SMOG HAD BEEN HEAVY FOR DAYS, DUBLIN CITY falling into darkness by late afternoon. The poison billowing from the chimneys attacked the thr
oat and lungs as it crept menacingly through doors and windows. Some of those who ventured outside wore masks in an effort to stop the sickening blackness, while politicians argued in government buildings about speeding up the transfer to smokeless fuels, and another black Dublin winter took its toll. The mood on the streets was sombre, the air choking, as if the city was partially buried.

  It was after midnight when Valentine Pearson strolled past the town-hall clock in the suburb of Rathmines, then turned around and went back in the opposite direction. The repeated solitary movement, up and down the footpath, fought off the night chill and the edge to his mood. He wore a long grey overcoat with a black silk scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth, his collar raised, his black trilby tilted downwards, keeping his eyes in shadow. He listened as the clock chimed a quarter past midnight, his irritation and impatience at the late hour forming a tight knot in his chest. He swallowed hard. The man he was due to meet was now fifteen minutes late. He kicked a stray beer can with more force than he’d intended as a lone car crawled past him with its fog lights on. The rest of the street was deserted, apart from some teenagers, a few moments earlier, falling out of the late-night chip shop further up the street.

  He gripped the envelope that contained the tightly bundled cash in his pocket, ten thousand pounds in large notes, and the term guilt money came to mind. He stopped walking, retreating instead under the town-hall archway. Out of sight, his eyes fixed on Leinster Road, opposite him, second-guessing the direction from which his late rendezvous would come. The wrought-iron amber streetlamps created circular pockets of light on the ground.

  He heard the man’s footsteps before he saw him, disappearing and reappearing within the circles of orange light, the encounter getting closer with each step. It would be over soon, he told himself. Give him the money and that would be it. He recognised his co-conspirator before he saw his face, crossing Rathmines Road with apparent arrogance as Valentine pulled further into the dark. The man was barely half his age, early twenties, with the swagger that younger males possess, a confidence born of ignorance and too much testosterone. Still, he thought, any port in a storm. He clenched his fists, part of him wanting to hit out at someone, anyone. He hated feeling vulnerable, and the sense that the power was in the hands of another.

  As the men came face to face, they kept their silence for a couple of seconds, the younger man waiting as the older one finally stepped out from the darkness onto the smog-filled street.

  ‘Lovely night,’ the younger man said, with too much vigour for Valentine’s liking.

  Valentine pulled the scarf down from his face. ‘You took your time,’ he said, sounding cold and indignant.

  ‘I told you I’d be here, and here I am.’

  ‘You told me a lot of things.’ ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’ The young man coughed, covering his mouth with his hand.

  ‘Is that what you are now, Malcolm, a messenger?’

  ‘Do you have the cash?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘If you want things sorted, you’ll need to pay.’

  ‘Can we trust them?’

  ‘To stay quiet, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you prefer to run the risk of not paying?’

  ‘No.’ Valentine took out the envelope of cash and handed it to his collaborator. ‘We won’t be discussing this again. Do you understand?’

  ‘I do.’

  May 2015

  NEW YORK

  GLITTERING MOONLIGHT CAUGHT A FERRYBOAT travelling along the East River, the light cutting through nightfall as the streetlights of the Lower East Side and the interconnecting city exit roads and highways danced in the remaining darkness.

  It had been a killing like no other, Detective Lee Fisher had reflected for the umpteenth time. The bloodied room holding the chopped-up remains of Tom Mason was one of the worst crime scenes he had ever witnessed. He used to think he had seen too many goddam killings for any of them to be extraordinary, but he had been wrong-footed this time, nothing surer.

  He liked to walk at night. The exercise always helped him to think during a difficult investigation, when the city felt like an extension of his mind, pensive, partly mysterious, full of urban mutterings and capable of surprising itself. Soon, he would take the thirty-minute subway ride home to Brooklyn, but for now, he breathed in deep, the smell of nicotine lingering in the air. Smoking was one of his guilty pleasures, but he only ever lit up at night and outdoors. More than once, people had referred to him as bohemian: he was tall and slender, with near-shoulder-length curly dark-chestnut hair, a tight-cut beard, and the air of a wise rebel.

  Two months earlier, when he had arrived at the corner of Orchard and Rivington Street, he was unaware that the 911 call would result in something more horrific than he had ever witnessed. The building he had stood in front of was six storeys high with a red stone façade and an upscale trendy boutique at the bottom. Access to the upper floors had been via a communal hallway to the side, with a fire exit at the back on each floor. He remembered a time when that part of the Lower East Side was filled with immigrants, a working-class neighbourhood. Rapid gentrification in the mid-2000s meant the place had changed, with inhabitants possessing far bigger bank balances.

  The victim was male, Irish, late sixties, unmarried and retired. He had lived in the US since ’92, an ex-small-time local politician who had stayed well away from politics in Manhattan, from what Lee could gather. Instead, he had concentrated on working as a financial adviser and part-owner of a chain of boutiques, including the one located on the ground floor of the building. There was nothing particularly interesting about Tom Mason, described as a quiet man who kept himself to himself. The official cause of death was heart failure, brought on by loss of blood and shock, but the attacker had wanted more than the victim’s death: they had wanted to ensure maximum pain by chopping him to pieces. According to the medical examiner, the killer had started with the victim’s fingers, then severed both arms. The toes were next, the heart finally packing in before both legs were amputated from the upper thigh.

  The term ‘in bits’ seemed to fall short of an accurate description, but ‘in bits’ was how Lee saw the investigation, a chaotic cocktail of anger, determination and the ability to administer pain with clinical and methodical application, necessitating a calm head on the part of whoever had butchered the man’s body. The victim had been gagged, but other than some neighbours reporting a loud version of what Lee had later discovered to be Beethoven’s Symphony No 5, Op. 67 (first movement), playing and replaying from the music centre in the apartment, nobody had noticed anything unusual. The vast array of blood, guts and body parts found at the scene, coupled with the putrid smell of death – Tom Mason’s body had been discovered two days after he was slaughtered – was like an ocean in comparison to the tiny droplets of forensic evidence they had found. Everything at the scene had been traced back to the victim, or the home help, who had discovered the body after the weekend – everything, that was, except one tiny unidentified swab taken from the tip of a pen used to create the incision lines.

  Lee had been long enough in the game to realise that some investigations had the hallmark of being unsolved right from the beginning, although on this occasion the killer had left a note. Scrawled in blood on the bathroom mirror, using the severed index finger of the deceased, were the words: ‘HE SAW THE LIGHT’. A religious fanatic, they had surmised, but either way, as Lee inhaled the last of his cigarette, there was one thing he was sure of. Solving this crime would take another killing or killings. It was simply a question of who the next victim would be, and where and when the crime would take place.

  Part One

  September 2015

  DUBLIN

  Kate

  KATE AWOKE AS SOON AS SHE HEARD ADAM’S MOBILE phone ringing. It was a few hours since the two of them had made love, and it still felt good lying close to him. As he reached out to take the call, coldness set in between them: she watched his body turn
away from her, the room dark except for the light from the streetlamp outside. As he moved, she saw shadows bounce from one side of the room to the other, and for the briefest moment, he reminded her of her late father, Valentine. Both were complicated men, but poles apart in so many ways.

  The next sound she heard was the creaking of branches, the tentacles of the whitethorn tree, sporadically tipping the apartment window. She checked her own phone – 2 a.m. The time could mean only one thing: an emergency call from Harcourt Street Special Detective Unit. She didn’t say anything, at least not at first, observing Adam as he got dressed on autopilot, pulling his white shirt over his head. He only ever opened the cuff and top two front buttons – all shortcuts to save time. With his back hunched, he pulled up his trousers, closing the belt tight as he straightened before attaching the gun belt across his chest, like a silent shadow in the dark. She couldn’t even hear him breathe.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, sitting up in the bed. ‘I’m already awake.’ Her voice was low and croaky from sleep.

  His shadow shifted, and the streetlamp caught his smile. He whispered in her ear, ‘Two light sleepers living together may not be the best of plans.’

  She had already switched on the bedside light. ‘You’re the one who told me planning was overrated.’ It was her turn to smile.

  ‘What’s up?’ She’d kept her voice low, not wanting to wake seven-year-old Charlie, in the other room.

  ‘Some guy has topped himself.’ He said it so matter-of-factly that she wondered if, after years in the police force, death was eventually diluted for everyone. Standing at the end of the bed, he raised his shirt collar to wrap his tie around his neck, still going through the motions, like a fireman putting on his uniform with no time to waste.

  ‘What else do you know?’ She was now curious.

  ‘He isn’t any guy.’ He pulled the tie tight. ‘It’s the chief super’s brother-in-law – or, rather, late brother-in-law.’

  ‘Do they think it’s suspicious?’

  ‘Too early to tell, but one way or another, Kate, it means trouble.’ He kissed her softly on the lips.

  ‘Be careful,’ she murmured. ‘Try to get some sleep. I won’t be long.’ His words sounded reassuring as he pulled the bedroom door closed.