The Game Changer (14 page)

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.

Flicking through the rest of the notebook, she checked to see if other pages had been removed, but none had been tampered with, as far as she could tell. It was only the pages after the day she had disappeared. She checked again, doubting herself, telling herself to take it slowly this time.

It was only when she looked at the back of the notebook for a second time that she saw the plastic pocket on the inside cover: in it, a folded page of a newspaper. She opened it. The article had a photograph of her and Adam leaving the Circuit Court in 2012. It was during the William Cronly trial, the man responsible for the murder of two twelve-year-old schoolgirls that year. Both she and Adam looked sombre, trying to avoid the cameras as they walked down the steps of the court.

Kate couldn’t believe what she was looking at. Why had Michael O’Neill an article about her and Adam at the trial? Cronly was still serving out his prison sentence. Did someone want her to find the clipping, perhaps for the same reason they had sent the note to the apartment? Her visit to the lock-up had been random, dependent on Ethel’s unreliable memory, yet something about it felt orchestrated.

She thought about Malcolm. There was an age gap of at least fifteen years between him and O’Neill, but now that the connection with Kevin was clear, she knew Michael O’Neill and Malcolm must have been neighbours at one point. They could have known each other back then. She needed to talk to Adam. She swallowed hard. Time was running out. She couldn’t risk leaving Ethel on her own any longer. On leaving the lock-up, she fired the protective gloves and footwear into a nearby skip.

Ethel awoke as soon as Kate opened the car door. She hoped she didn’t smell too bad, but she also knew she had to bring the conversation back to the lock-up and its contents.

‘Ethel, the notebooks?’

‘Notebooks? Oh, yes, I remember now. Did you find them?’

‘They were in the tea chest, as you said.’

‘There’s so much stuff in there. I knew Michael was a hoarder but, heavens …’

‘Do you remember when the things were stored in the garage? Was it when you moved house?’

‘I think so. It was so long ago. Some friends of Michael’s helped him move it all.’ Her eyes lit up with delight, as if she had won a prize by remembering such a tiny thing.

‘Who helped?’

She looked confused again. ‘I can’t …’

‘Were they neighbours?’

‘I’m not sure. They might have been.’

‘Please, Ethel, it’s important.’

She bit her bottom lip. ‘Valentine. There was a man called Valentine.’

‘Valentine Pearson?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Did you know him?’

‘For a time.’

‘There was another man too.’

‘Who, Ethel?’

‘I can’t … I don’t … It’s there, the name, but I can’t catch it.’ Kate wanted to scream, but with Ethel becoming increasingly upset, pushing it wasn’t going to help. Turning the ignition key, she said, ‘Don’t worry, Ethel. Let’s go and get the milk and eggs.’

‘I think the name started with M.’

Malcolm Madden, Kate thought. His name started with M, but then again, so did a great many others. Was she creating links that might or might not exist, and what about Adam, why hadn’t he mentioned Kevin being O’Neill’s foster son? Why had he held this information back from her?

IT WASN’T LONG BEFORE KATE AND ETHEL’S VISIT TO the lock-up was reported to the Game Changer. Success meant anticipating a variety of moves and potential counter-moves, and having eyes and ears in any number of places was always useful. The group member who reported the incident believed Ethel O’Neill could be troublesome.