He said, ‘OK. I don’t give a toss about you, Maguire. It’s your boy I want to help. It’s Noll I care about.’
That was the Open Sesame. He could see her wanting to believe, perhaps needing to believe. But there were obstacles to trust beyond belief. Time to hit hard.
He said, ‘Your son’s under threat, isn’t he? Who’s holding him? Who’s threatening him? Is it the one with blond hair? The one called Billy?’
His bluff of knowledge was counterproductive.
New distrust flared in her eyes. She said, ‘How do you know all this, you bastard? What are you …?’
‘I don’t know anything,’ he said swiftly. ‘I just want to help Noll. This Billy, is he your boy friend or what?’
Now incredulity edged out distrust.
‘Boy friend? Jesus! You are crazy …’
‘Is he the one threatening Noll?’ he demanded harshly. Find the weakness, keep hitting it.
‘No. I mean, yes. Oh yes, he makes threats.’ Her face twisted in disgust and hatred and for a moment he thought she was going to spit. Then she said quite calmly, ‘He raped me.’
‘What?’
‘He told me he would cut off Noll’s ear. I believed him. So I let him … fuck me!’
Now she did spit the word out. He said helplessly, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For what? You think I should have taken the ear? I’m not telling you this for sympathy, Inspector. I just want you to be clear there’s nothing I won’t do to keep my son from harm.’
She spoke with an unnatural calm. He said gently, ‘But there’s someone else, is there? It’s not this Billy you fear the most?’
She put her hands to her face and spoke through her fingers, as though trying to hold in words that were forcing their way out.
‘Oh yes … another man … a terrible man … Thrale his name is … Jonty she called him …’
She shuddered as she spoke the name and deep down in Dog something shuddered in response, like the first stirring of a dormouse after long hibernation.
But he had no time for himself, far from enough for this tragic woman. He should be trying to win her confidence, to coax the truth from her. Instead he had to press hard, to force as much as he could through the fine mesh of fear and evasion.
‘What did he say to you? Was it him who made you come to us with this cock and bull story? Is that it?’
She took her hands from her mouth and cried in anguish, ‘Why should I trust you?’
‘Who else have you got to trust?’ he demanded savagely. ‘A man so terrible you can hardly bear to think about him?’
He saw that he hadn’t said anything new. She was agonizingly aware of how frail a thread she was hanging her hopes on. And now she was looking at him desperately, begging him to convince her that he could offer something stronger.
Then suddenly they were out of time. In the mirror Dog saw a car nose round the end of the pantechnicon, then quickly reverse out of sight. He started the engine and realized too late that the way ahead was now blocked by another lorry which had backed right up against the loading bay.
He dug his fingers into his breast pocket and pulled out a card. ‘That’s my home number and address,’ he said, urgently thrusting it into her hand. ‘Go there. Or ring. Now get out of here quick.’
She didn’t ask questions. He admired her for that. She got out of the car. A man came round the back of the pantechnicon. Dog got out too. He said to her, ‘Through there!’, pointing to the bay doors which had opened to let a trolley-load of boxes out. From the shop behind drifted the distant strains of ‘The Holly and The Ivy’. It came to him then that every carol note, every thread of tinsel, every plastic holly leaf, must score her soul.
She looked at him once. Not in thanks, not in promise, but as if in search of a sign. He had nothing to show her.
‘Go!’ he urged.
And she went. Oh the rising of the sun, and the running of the deer …
The newcomer broke into a trot too. Dog watched his approach, then stepped in his way. The man, heavy, thickset, and already panting, tried to shoulder him aside. Dog swayed gently, let the shoulder slide across his chest, locked his knee against the man’s inner thigh and next moment sent him sprawling to the ground.
Jane Maguire had paused at the doorway and was looking back. A car rolled into sight round the pantechnicon. A door opened and Tommy Stott, the lovely Special Branch sergeant, jumped out. Suddenly the fallen man half rose and grappled with Dog’s legs. A gentle pressure of fingers against his neck had him subsiding again. Then Dog turned and smiled a welcome at Stott, who was moving forward menacingly.
‘Morning, sergeant. No need to risk damaging that pretty jacket of yours. I think I’ve got things under control.’
‘What?’ said Stott, pausing uncertainly.
‘This would-be mugger. Broad daylight too! Look, you’re welcome to the collar if you think it might help your career.’
For a moment he thought the sergeant was going to burst out of his Gaultier jacket and launch himself at him. Then the car’s rear window wound down and Toby Tench’s amiable face peered out.
‘All right, Tommy,’ he said. ‘Pick that useless wanker up, and if he moans about being stiff, offer him a few years back on the beat to walk it off. Dog, would you like to step in out of the cold?’
Dog looked towards the loading bay. It was closed and there was no sign of Jane Maguire.
‘My pleasure, Toby,’ said Dog Cicero.
3
The car door closed behind him with a clunk like a bank vault; in the front the driver was talking rapidly into his radio.
‘… Captain Hook to all units, Tinkerbell is in Hartley’s furnishing store on the Central Mall. Rear is covered. Cover all customer exits. Repeat, Tinkerbell is …’
Tench pressed a button which brought a glass barrier purring down, cutting off the driver’s voice.
‘Dog, how are you, my son?’ he said. ‘Didn’t expect to see you again quite so quick.’
‘That’s how it goes,’ said Dog. ‘You don’t meet for years then you can’t stop bumping into each other.’
‘That’s where I think you’re wrong, Dog. I think we can stop bumping into each other. With a bit of goodwill on both sides. And Tommy too. You’ve bumped into him once. I thought for a moment you were going to bump into him again out there. Not advisable, my son. Tommy’s worse than me for bumping into.’
‘You reckon? You’d think a good-looking boy like that would try to keep out of the way,’ mocked Dog.
‘Yes, he is a handsome lad, isn’t he?’ agreed Tench, unperturbed. ‘I always liked the nice-looking ones in my gang, eh, Dog? Like what you were. Don’t think you’d qualify now though, would you?’
‘Thanks for that at least, Toby,’ said Dog. ‘Is that why you asked me into your lovely car, to talk about old times?’
‘No! I’ve had enough reminders of my age today without digging up the past. For instance, I reckon I’m going deaf. I could have sworn I heard old Eddie Parslow tell me you were off the Maguire case.’
‘That’s right,’ said Dog. ‘So I am.’
‘Really? In that case, how come you’re still sniffing around her like she was a bitch on heat, Dog?’
‘Is that how it looked? I’m sorry. I saw her walking along and like any well brought up boy would, I offered her a lift. She said thank you kindly and asked to be brought here. Then she said thank you kindly again and walked away. Then your lad came running up. I thought he was a mugger. Sorry about that. I hope he’ll be OK. Incidentally, why are you still interested in Maguire? Yesterday you seemed determined she was a killer. Well, now she’s admitted it. So what’s your problem, Toby?’
Tench sighed deeply.
‘My problem? Normally I ain’t got no problem, leastways no more than any other Branch cop working under the Prevention of Terrorism Act to try to keep this little realm of ours safe for Her Majesty’s Subjects to live in. But you look like you might be about to turn you
rself into my problem, Dog. So let’s try to get you solved before you get out of hand, shall we? No more questions ’cos I know the answers. You reckon she didn’t kill her kid and you’re wondering what would make a woman confess to something like that and you can’t see any better way to find out than blundering around after her. Right?’
‘I thought you weren’t asking any more questions,’ said Dog.
‘You really want to play it hard, don’t you?’ said Tench. ‘OK, get this. Me, I don’t know if her kid’s alive or dead, and it doesn’t bother me that much. What does bother me is whether his father’s alive or dead. Yeah, that’s it. Oliver Beck, your friendly Noraid man. Now our mole Paddy – we call all our Irish moles Paddy, it saves on the headstones – tells us that it wasn’t just the IRS who were bothered by Beck’s creative accounting, it was the IRA. Seems there’s hard men from South Africa to Libya asking for payments that never came. And there’s lots of Micks catching cold on lonely beaches at midnight watching out for arms shipments that are never going to come. And it all adds up to somewhere around three million. Pounds sterling, I mean. Not dollars. Where’s it gone, everyone’s asking. Three possibilities. One, it’s salted away and no one but the dead man knows where. Two, it’s salted away and Maguire knows where, and is just marking time till she feels it’s safe to pick it up. Three, Beck’s not dead at all. He just faked it to get out from under before the IRA’s hard men found out what he’d been up to and sent in their own special brand of debt collector.’
‘And Maguire?’
‘She’ll join him when the time seems ripe.’
Dog frowned and said, ‘But wasn’t there a body …?’
‘Which she identified. That’s right, Dog. If Beck is still alive, then someone else got killed, and she knew all about it. Oh yes, just because you think you’ve proved she doesn’t jerk off old men for pocket money, don’t imagine she’s the Virgin bloody Mary! At the very least she knew how he made his living and it didn’t bother her. She’s a thief and that doesn’t bother her. And she could be party to murder, and I doubt if that’d bother her either. Another nice girl you’ve got yourself mixed up with, Dog.’
‘I’m not mixed up with her.’
‘Sorry. Mixed up by, I should have said. Dog, let me tell you, I punched up what happened to you over there. It’s all in the files, everything that’s happened since sixty-nine, and you’re part of it. A little part, but with lots of detail, more than you imagine possible, I dare say. There’s even a photo of the girl. And I looked at her and I could see how Maguire might get to you …’
‘What the hell are you talking about? There’s no resemblance …’
He stopped as Tench laughed at the giveaway denial.
He tried to open the car door but it was locked.
‘Not in the features, no,’ said Tench judiciously. ‘But the eyes, Dog. And the hair. But above all, Dog, it’s in you that the resemblance is most marked. The same doubts, the same ambivalence. The same wanting and not wanting … I told you the record was detailed, Dog. Pity you can’t see it. Might put you out of your misery … if you want to get out of it, that is.’
‘All I want to get out of is this car,’ said Dog softly. ‘Do I have to break a window?’
‘You’d need a pneumatic drill, old son!’ laughed Tench. ‘But I can see you’re in a hurry, so there you go.’
He pressed a button and the door handle moved. Dog thrust the door open and got out.
‘Just remember one thing, Dog,’ said Tench cheerfully through the window. ‘This slag’s ours. She can lead us to a lot of nasty people. It’s a boggy enough path without sinking my feet into your neuroses every two minutes. So be a good little old soldier, Dog, and simply fade away. We’ll take care of everything, I promise.’
‘Including the child? You’ll take care of the child?’
‘Don’t get sentimental, Dog. Of course we’ll take care of the child, though I don’t know why. With his background, when he grows up he’ll be a natural for putting bombs under cars, wouldn’t you say? You worry about yourself, son. Take a few days off. You’re looking a bit peaky to me.’
He pressed the button which wound down the barrier so he could speak to the driver. As he did so, the car radio crackled. The driver picked up the mike and said, ‘Captain Hook. Receiving. Over.’
‘Wendy One. No sign of Tinkerbell in Hartley’s store. I say again, no sign of Tinkerbell …’
Tench seized the mike from the driver and snarled into it, ‘You load of wankers! Don’t hang about repeating yourself. Get out there and find her. Captain Hook, out!’
He tossed the mike back into the driver’s lap.
Dog grinned at him through the window.
‘Having trouble, Cap’n?’ he mocked. ‘If you can’t catch Tinkerbell, how do you expect to lay your hands on Jonty Thrale?’
Tench’s face smoothed into a puzzled blank.
‘Who?’ he said. ‘Where’d you pick up a name like that?’
It was an unconvincing performance, but it was his own reaction rather than Tench’s which disturbed Dog. He’d tossed in the name just to stir things up, but even as he spoke it, he was aware of that deeper resonance, something more personal, more buried, which he hadn’t had time to examine when Maguire had mentioned the man with such fear.
‘Must have been something you said,’ he lied. But it didn’t feel altogether a lie …
‘Never heard of him,’ said Tench. ‘Dog, my son. There’s an old Irish proverb. Half a face is better than no head. Take care.’
The window purred up, the car accelerated away.
Dog watched it go, debating his next move. Would the woman contact him at his flat? Doubtful. In any case he couldn’t sit around waiting. Inside him, in that tangle of wreckage he’d thought he was walking away from for ten years, something was stirring. Brought to life by Tench’s mocking reference to his file? Or by a name he’d never heard before but which tolled like a passing bell? Or by a red-haired girl with a voice full of music?
He made for his car. It was time to call in a favour owed for many years, perhaps time to do himself a favour he had owed for almost as long.
He got in the car, drove back through town till he hit Eastern Avenue and then turned west towards London.
4
The ringing of the door bell startled Madeleine Salter into waking. For a moment she did not know where she was, only that she was not in her bed where she expected to be. Then she sat upright and the unfamiliar ceiling gave way to the familiar walls and pictures and furnishings of her living room.
She had slept badly, risen early and made herself a pot of tea which stood by a half-filled cup on the table by her sofa. Sleep had come unasked as so often it does when you stop chasing it, and it had swallowed her deep for many hours.
The bell rang again. Suddenly she was certain it was Jane. Pulling her thin silk robe around her, she ran to the door, undid the chain and flung it wide.
A man stood there, swathed in a long dark overcoat, buttoned up to the neck against the chill wind. She slammed the door shut, refastened the chain, then opened it a crack through which she said, ‘Yes?’
He hadn’t moved but stood there still, smiling slightly.
‘Miss Salter, is it?’ he said. ‘You’re wise to take care.’
‘Who are you? What do you want?’ she asked.
‘It’s about your friend, Jane Maguire,’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Who are you?’ she repeated. ‘Police? I’ll need to see some identification.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Like I say, you’re very wise. Let me introduce myself.’
And he began to unbutton his coat.
It was two hours later that Jane Maguire arrived at the college.
In Hartley’s furnishing store, she had paused briefly to wrap a headscarf round her giveaway hair. As she approached the main exit, she saw a woman trying to negotiate it with a pushchair and a crammed shopping bag.
‘Let me giv
e you a hand,’ said Jane, taking the bag and holding open the door so the chair could get through.
‘Thanks a lot,’ said the woman on the pavement outside. ‘It must have been a man who designed that place.’
‘It’s the same everywhere,’ said Jane. ‘Mine can walk now, thank heaven.’
It came out automatically as part of her cover as she walked down the mall chatting animatedly, two friends out shopping together. But as she spoke, the brightness of tone hit her like a betrayal and when the other woman said, ‘How many have you got?’ it was all she could do not to choke as she answered, ‘Only the one. A little boy.’
‘Are you all right?’ asked the woman, concerned.
‘Yes, fine, just a bit of a cold. Bye.’
She hurried across the mall, dodging between the crowds of Christmas shoppers. Everything seemed to be closing in on her, the canned carols, the glittering decorations, the festive windows, and everywhere the young children. Every woman she saw seemed to have one by the hand, or in her arms, or on her back, or in a pram. She saw a sign saying TOILETS, hurried in, shut herself in a cubicle like a coffin, and let the tears flow. It was, she told herself, the right place to be. Her tears were a waste product, a necessary relief of pressure. From time to time they would build up till they had to find release. But in between times, she would be cool, calm and collected as a woman must be whose every decision is life or death. Her son’s life or death.
In her mind she went over Thrale’s instructions again. She’d hung on to his every word, terrified she might miss something and give him an excuse for hurting Noll. And she’d carried out his orders to the letter. But they had stopped with the confession. There’d been nothing after that, no contingency plan for what she should do if they let her out on bail.
Suppose they had seen her get in the car with Cicero, what would they make of that? Surely they’d guess that she had no choice, surely they wouldn’t blame her? Wouldn’t blame Noll …?
She was still clutching the card the detective had given her. She ripped it in half as though it were evidence against her. But as she made to drop it into the pan she hesitated. What game was he playing? She’d looked back and seen him floor the fat man who was trying to follow her. That could be evidence of his good faith. Or maybe just part of an elaborate charade.
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