The Only Game

by Reginald Hill

‘But what that would mean,’ he cut across her, ‘is that everything that happened here was a set-up to misdirect our enquiries. And that would include the phone call you got saying Noll was ill. How certain are you it was Mrs Maguire’s voice?’

  She thought, then said, ‘Certain enough not to have had any doubts when she identified herself, if you see what I mean. It had the timbre and the intonation, that slight Irish brogue, of Mrs Maguire’s voice. And I assure you that since yesterday, I’ve gone over it a hundred times in my mind and I still can’t think of anything odd about it.’

  ‘OK,’ said Dog. ‘Let’s go back to last Friday. Mrs Maguire says she met this Miss Gosling …’

  ‘There’s no such woman,’ said Mrs Vestey firmly. ‘That I can be sure of.’

  ‘No such new member of staff,’ said Dog. ‘But was there anyone here that afternoon who wasn’t normally present?’

  ‘Of course not! Do you think we let strangers roam around at will?’ she said indignantly.

  ‘No, but you must have visitors,’ he said reasonably. ‘LEA officials, suppliers, and so on.’

  ‘Of course. But all we had on Friday afternoon were two mothers who are considering putting their children in our care.’

  ‘Strangers to you, then?’

  ‘Only by sight. I assure you we vet prospective parents far more closely than they vet us.’

  The vetting seemed to be mostly concerned with credit ratings once the customer made up her mind, but there were some preliminary precautions, such as getting a telephone number to check back to after the initial appointment had been made, and matching the number with the address given.

  ‘There are some weird people in the world,’ said Mrs Vestey, with expert authority. ‘And where children are concerned, you can’t be too careful.’

  ‘What about Mrs Maguire?’ said Dog. ‘She had no telephone. And I doubt if she had a credit rating.’

  It turned out that cash payment of a term’s fees in advance obviated these difficulties. But in the case of Mrs Tobin and Mrs Osterley, Friday’s visitors, the addresses and numbers had been checked out and Mrs Vestey was not too happy at handing them over to Cicero.

  ‘They seemed most impressed,’ she recalled. ‘A heavy-handed approach from the police could quite undo that good impression.’

  Dog smiled and made no promises. He needed to squeeze Maguire’s story absolutely dry before he committed himself to its even more dreadful alternative. And if she’d met someone on Friday afternoon who pretended to be a new member of staff, it had to be one of these two.

  The fact that both women had spent most of the afternoon with Oliver Maguire’s starter group gave a faint glimmer of credibility to Maguire’s claim. Nor was her description of the alleged Miss Gosling made completely impossible by Vestey’s account of the two mothers.

  He said goodbye. He could feel Mrs Vestey’s relief. Being a policeman meant never having to say sorry for leaving.

  Fifteen minutes later he was entering Rhadnor House, the block of elegant apartments where Mrs Tobin lived. He pressed the bell of Number Thirty-four, felt himself observed through the spyhole, then the door was opened on a chain.

  ‘Yes?’ said a woman in a cut-glass accent.

  ‘Mrs Tobin? I’m Detective Inspector Cicero.’ He showed her his warrant. ‘Could I have a quick word?’

  The door closed for the chain to be removed and then the woman invited him into the hallway. She was medium-sized, nondescript, with a harassed expression not caused entirely by his visit. Through an open door off the hall he could see into a kitchen where a workman’s legs were visible stretching from under the sink, and through another door he glimpsed a little girl in candy-striped dungarees chewing a huge chocolate bar as she tried to climb into an open suitcase on a bed.

  ‘Polly, don’t do that,’ commanded Mrs Tobin. ‘You’ll get chocolate everywhere!’ Then, deciding that some things are best left hidden, she closed both doors and said, ‘I’m sorry. Look, we’re off to Barbados tonight for Christmas, and my husband’s left me to do all the packing, and the waste disposal unit’s started playing up so I’ve had to call a plumber …’

  ‘So you hope I won’t take up too much of your time,’ completed Dog. ‘I don’t think I will.’

  He was right. She had nothing to tell him. She’d visited the kindergarten to check it out for her daughter, and couldn’t recall anything special except that she hadn’t taken to Mrs Vestey very much and wouldn’t be using the school unless her other options didn’t come up to scratch.

  Dog thanked her and left, smiling to himself at the thought that Mrs Vestey would have no doubt as to where to lay the blame.

  The second woman, Mrs Osterley, was harder to find as she lived on a new executive estate where it was clearly considered de trop to exhibit house numbers, but it took even less time to eliminate her from the Gosling hunt as she was six feet tall with prominent horsey teeth and twin boys clearly ambitious to fill the gap left by the Krays.

  All in all it left Maguire’s story not just lame, but legless.

  Back at the station he met Sergeant Lunn on the stairs with WPC Scott behind him.

  ‘Morning, Charley. Anything new?’

  ‘Yeah. She bought some clothes at Mowbrays in the precinct. It was Scott’s idea to check.’

  Guilt too can be inspirational, thought Dog.

  ‘Good thinking, Scott,’ he said.

  She flushed with pleasure and said, ‘Thank you, sir. I won’t be happy till we get her back.’

  ‘Could be some time. If she’s buying clothes, she’s really on the run.’

  Her face fell. She thinks it’s all personal, thought Dog. Perhaps she’s right.

  He said, ‘Have you got the new description out?’

  ‘Just on my way to the computer,’ said Lunn, holding up a sheet of paper. ‘By the way, the super was asking for you earlier. He sounded hot and bothered.’

  ‘Probably the greenhouse effect,’ said Dog.

  He went right up to the superintendent’s office. The door opened as he approached and Parslow ushered Councillor Jacobs out.

  ‘Ah, here he is now,’ said Parslow. ‘Dog, Councillor Jacobs came in to make a formal statement and he was asking me what progress we’d made in catching this woman.’

  ‘It’s very good of the Councillor to take an interest,’ said Dog.

  ‘I’m always interested in justice,’ intoned Jacobs. ‘A slag like this who could harm her own child, she needs to be found quick and put away, or by God there are plenty of decent people out there who’ll be only too glad to do it for you!’

  ‘Sort of lynch mob, you mean?’ said Dog pleasantly.

  ‘No, I do not. But there’s something called natural justice which comes into play when civic justice drags its heels. I don’t approve, Inspector Cicero, but I damn well understand. Good day to you, Superintendent.’

  He walked away. Parslow said, ‘Not a chap to get on the wrong side of, Dog. Come inside.’

  ‘In a minute,’ said Dog. ‘I’d just like to set the record straight with the Councillor.’

  He ran lightly down the stairs and caught up with Jacobs on the half landing.

  ‘Quick word,’ he said.

  ‘It’ll need to be. I’m a busy man.’

  The self-important tone, the sneering lips, were suddenly too much. Dog’s hand seized a bunch of shirt and he thrust the man back hard against the wall, his eyes popping in mingled amazement, indignation, and fear.

  ‘What the hell …’

  ‘You listen to me, dickhead,’ snarled Dog. ‘We know all about you and your dirty deals and what you get up to at the Health Centre. Your lot would get chucked out at the next local election if the voters knew what we know. But you’re useful to us so we let you stay. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stand by and watch you drop other people in the shit to cover your own shabby name. Have you got that?’

  Jacobs’s face was now grey.

  ‘This is outrageous,’ he croaked.
/>   ‘Yes, isn’t it? Now, on your sledge, Santa!’

  He went back up the stairs to Parslow.

  ‘OK?’ said the super.

  ‘Fine,’ said Dog.

  ‘Good. Excellent fellow, the Councillor. Salt of the earth. Few more like him on every council and our job’d be a lot easier.’

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir.’

  ‘That’s right, Dog. Fill me in. How’d you get on last night?’

  Briefly, Dog described his encounters with Mrs Maguire and Madeleine Salter, then his visit to Charnwood Grove. Suzie Edmondson he didn’t mention. He’d learnt by experience not to tell Parslow things he wouldn’t want to know.

  ‘So she quarrels with her mother, then she quarrels with her friend, and no one saw the boy after she left Salter’s flat on Saturday night. Where did she go? Obviously to this boy friend or minder, whatever he is. Somewhere, either en route or after she got there, it happens. The child is struck, injured, dies. Which of them hit him, I don’t know. It’s usually the man. And it’d certainly be the man who says, dump him where he won’t be found, then spends the rest of the weekend coaching Maguire in her cover-up story. Did the hospital check her for drugs, by the way?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘She’d need something to keep her going,’ said Parslow, almost sympathetically. ‘Only thing that doesn’t really fit is offering Councillor Jacobs this hand-job right out of the blue. You’d have thought she’d have wanted to keep everything on a nice routine even keel that day.’

  Dog wondered if Parslow would reckon the removal of this small obstacle to accepting Maguire’s guilt was worth having to know the truth about Jacobs. He doubted it. Also he saw no reason for helping the superintendent believe what he clearly wanted to believe. Though why he should be quite so keen to believe it, Dog could only guess.

  ‘I gave a press conference last night,’ said Parslow.

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘I had to field a lot of questions about the scope of our enquiry and I couldn’t leave out the possibility that Maguire herself had injured the child. I’d weighed all the possibilities and had a long talk with Toby Tench, and that did seem the most probable scenario.’

  So that’s it, thought Dog. And when you heard the radio reports last night and saw the tabloid coverage this morning, you began to realize what a nana you’d look if the child turned out to be kidnapped after all! No wonder you’re chuffed that I’ve come up with nothing.

  ‘Mr Tench went along with you, did he, sir?’

  ‘Oh yes. He was most supportive, most helpful. It’s marvellous how quickly the Branch can whip the media up. So your recommendation, Dog, is that we concentrate all our resources on finding Maguire and looking for the child’s body?’

  Dog regarded him almost admiringly. How casually he continued hedging his bets. The wise old super, delegating authority and accepting the advice of the officer in charge of the case!

  He said maliciously, ‘There is another scenario, sir. How about if Maguire just drove back to her flat on Saturday night. Got there so late, no one saw her. Found all the parking spots at the front of the building filled so had to park round the corner. Spent all day Sunday in the flat. And then went off to school with the boy on Monday morning like she said. Fits the known facts pretty well.’

  ‘But the blood on the back seat?’ objected Parslow, alarmed.

  ‘Kid had a nose bleed on the way home. Wasn’t very well on Sunday which was why she kept him inside.’

  He’d got Parslow really worried. Suddenly his amusement turned to self-disgust. He didn’t believe a word of what he was saying, and by saying it, he was doing just what both Parslow and Tench were guilty of – reducing Maguire and her child to counters in a personal game.

  He opened his mouth to put things right, but before he could speak, the phone rang. Parslow picked it up and listened. On his face Dog saw alarm turn slowly to jubilation.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ he said, replacing the receiver. ‘Well, there we are! Just goes to show the old man’s nous can still beat the young man’s nose, even if he is called Dog. Is that where you got the name, by the way? Never thought to ask before.’

  ‘No, it’s because I crap on people’s carpets,’ said Dog irritably, as he was urged through the door. ‘May I ask where we’re going, sir?’

  ‘Of course you may,’ said Parslow gleefully. ‘We’re going downstairs to have a chat with an acquaintance of yours – a Miss Jane Maguire who’s just walked into the station and announced she wants to confess to killing her son!’

  17

  Jane Maguire had the look of a woman who had been to hell and knew there was no way back. Once you’d been in that place, you took it with you everywhere.

  Lunn had already issued the caution, but Parslow, who liked belt and braces, insisted on repeating it.

  WPC Scott was in attendance once more. The smile of relief she flashed at Dog Cicero contrasted so strongly with the tragic haggardness of Maguire’s looks that he quenched it with a frown. Inside, though, he knew he preferred Maguire looking like this. Despair aged her, folded her in on herself, diluted her power to remind.

  ‘You wish to make a statement, Mrs Maguire?’ said Parslow.

  ‘Miss Maguire,’ she said in a low tone. ‘Yes, I want to tell you what happened.’

  ‘Good. Now what you say will be noted down, then typed out for you to read and emend if necessary before you sign it. You understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then go ahead.’

  She sighed deeply. Parslow had done all the talking so far, but it was on Dog that she fixed her eyes as she began.

  ‘I made it all up,’ she said wretchedly. ‘All that about being late and the new teacher … it was all lies so that you wouldn’t know …’

  She slurred to a tearful halt. Dog said gently, ‘From the beginning. From the time you left Maddy Salter’s flat.’

  She expressed no surprise that he knew about Salter.

  ‘I just drove away. I didn’t know where I was going. Anywhere. Noll was strapped in on the back seat. He had started crying, not so much crying but whingeing, on and on, he wouldn’t shut up, and I reached back to touch him, not to hit him, but somehow it turned into a blow, and he let out a terrible cry and when I looked back, I could see blood all over his face. I froze. I couldn’t take my eyes away, and when I did, I realized the car was heading off the road into the verge, and I slammed the brakes on and went into a skid, spinning right round and the back end of the car hit a tree. Then everything was still, so very very still …’

  ‘Where was this?’ interjected Parslow.

  ‘What? I don’t know. Out in the country somewhere. A narrow road. Everything round about so black. That blackness you get in the country. So very very black and so still … it was like being dead …’

  ‘Were you hurt?’ said Dog.

  ‘Me? No. I was strapped in. But when I looked back … Noll must have half struggled out of his straps … and when the car spun, he must have been thrown against the side, against the window … I got him out and laid him down … he wasn’t breathing … I did all the things you ought to do … but it was no good … he was gone, he’s gone, I’ve lost him, he’s gone …’

  Tears streamed down her cheeks and she bowed her head so that long tendrils of her bright hair covered her face in fuchsia-like glory.

  ‘And then, Miss Maguire, Jane, what did you do with him then?’ asked Parslow urgently.

  Dog glared at him angrily. This was bad interrogation procedure from every angle, but Parslow had the scent of flesh in his nostrils.

  ‘Do? Nothing. I told you, there was nothing I could do.’

  ‘I mean, with the body, Jane. What did you do with the body?’

  ‘The body?’ said Maguire, as if somehow she had not made a connection between this term and her dead child.

  ‘How long did you stay by the car, Jane?’ said Dog quietly.

  ‘I don’t know. Minutes, h
ours, I don’t know.’

  ‘But finally you got back into the car?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And you’d put Noll back inside too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And where did you go then?’

  ‘I just drove.’

  ‘Didn’t you think of taking him to a hospital?’

  ‘Yes, of course. But when I looked again, he was quite cold.’

  Her voice was now drained of emotion, as if the narrative had moved on to a different level.

  ‘So you stopped again?’

  She hesitated, then said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you speak to anyone? Did you go to see anyone?’

  Another hesitation.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘And what did you do with Noll?’ said Dog gently. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I told you. He’s dead.’

  ‘Yes, but we need to find him so that he can be properly buried,’ he insisted. ‘You’re a Catholic, aren’t you, Jane? You know how important it is for the proper rites and ceremonies to take place. You wouldn’t want to think of him lying somewhere unhallowed without a stone to mark his passing, would you?’

  She raised her eyes to meet his.

  ‘Do you believe in God?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Yes,’ he lied, frowning.

  ‘Then you really are a fool,’ she said, almost jubilantly. ‘I put him in the river.’

  ‘The river? What river?’ he demanded.

  ‘I don’t know. The Thames, I expect. Yes, it was the Thames.’

  ‘Where? Where exactly?’ demanded Parslow.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t mark the spot!’ she cried. ‘I drove around. I remember being somewhere near Tilbury. What does it matter? He’s dead. I’ve told you he’s dead. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘We need to find him so we can establish how he died,’ insisted Parslow. ‘It could make a lot of difference to you. If, like you say, it was the result of your accident, then that’s very different from, say, if when you hit him … and what you intended …’

  Parslow was floundering, trying to hint a deal when clearly what she might be charged with didn’t loom large among this woman’s current priorities.