The Only Game

by Reginald Hill

  No, Cicero was definitely a last resort. But when your options were as limited as hers, it was wise to keep them all open.

  She put the pieces of card in her pocket and tried to work out her next move. She needed somewhere to go. Her own flat was out. There would certainly be watchers there. Worse, Noll would be there, in everything she saw.

  Her mother’s then? She longed to go, was appalled at the prospect; longed for the welcome and comfort that ought to be there, felt sick at the prospect of reproof and priests and prayer.

  Or there was Maddy’s. Again. She’d gone there yesterday (was it only yesterday?) in search of refuge and found instead … But that was nothing to do with Maddy. Perhaps she would be there now. At the very least she ought to make sure she was all right. But no bus this time, no long walk. She came out of the toilet, washed her face, repaired her make-up, then set out briskly towards the taxi rank at the entrance to the shopping precinct.

  Her years with Oliver had stopped her feeling guilty about riding in taxis, but something of the old feeling returned as she watched the meter ticking up a day’s pay. The driver looked at her curiously as he dropped her by the gate.

  ‘This it, darling?’ he asked, casting a distrusting urban eye over the desolate and deserted-looking site.

  ‘This is it,’ said Jane, paying him.

  He drove away and she set out down the driveway towards the residential block. There was no sign of life anywhere. If there were watchers, they were a long way off and well concealed. But she did not feel herself observed and she was beginning to trust her instincts.

  Rounding the end of the block she saw with relief that Maddy’s car was there. But when she rang the door bell, she got no reply. She dug into her purse and found the key she hadn’t had to use on her last visit. Memories of that came flooding back and when she unlocked the door she pushed it open and took a quick step backwards. But there was no one waiting to greet her this time.

  Cautiously she entered.

  ‘Maddy?’ she called. ‘Are you there? It’s Jane.’

  There was no reply, but the flat didn’t feel empty. Or perhaps it was simply that her subconscious had already spotted what her eyes now began to take in – the raincoat hanging behind the door, the scattering of letters on the mat, the purse and key ring on the mantelpiece.

  She moved slowly, reluctantly, towards the bedroom.

  The door was ajar. She pushed it wide. And felt a great surge of relief.

  Maddy was lying in bed, looking towards her.

  ‘Maddy,’ she said, moving forward. ‘Are you ill? I just came straight in because …’

  Her voice tailed away though she would have liked to keep on speaking, just for the comfort of the sound. The eyes were still staring at her but they were unblinking with a steadfastness beyond simple control. The skin of her face was translucent as the membrane of an egg with the creases and lines of middle age all smoothed away. But she did not look young. Only dead.

  A scream of grief, of terror, of something more unbearable than both, welled up from the pit of Jane’s being. She tried to stop it in her throat with her fist in her mouth, biting on the knuckles. But it forced its way through and filled the tiny room with an almost visible pulse of sound.

  Slowly it faded, slowly the ripples of echo smoothed out like the skin on the dead woman’s face, till the room became again a solid cube of silence with the two figures fixed in it, the living as still as the dead.

  5

  Dog Cicero knew there was no point in bullshitting David Westmain.

  When you’d pulled a man out of a burning personnel carrier eleven years ago and made no attempt to contact him for the last ten, he would have to be a fool not to hear alarm bells jangling when you walked into his office.

  Westmain was no fool. He’d been a captain in Intelligence the night he’d decided to take a personal look at a border operation he’d helped set up. Now he was a full colonel, though he didn’t look in the least military in his grey business suit.

  ‘Dog,’ he said, rising and reaching out his hand. ‘I haven’t seen you since … ages.’

  The last time they’d met had been in hospital, but it had been Westmain who was visiting. He’d looked down at the recumbent figure, forced himself to meet the one eye visible through a cocoon of dressings, and murmured something idiotic about the marvellous things the quacks were doing these days, hadn’t they got an old crock like himself back on his feet in a couple of months?

  Shortly after, they’d flown Cicero back to England. Westmain had written a couple of times, got no reply, and accepted the rebuff with the guilty shrug with which most men accept the chance to step aside from anticipated awkwardness. But it’s a long step that’s forever.

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ said Dog.

  ‘Yes, I did hear something. The lure of uniform, eh? Will you have a coffee? Or something stronger?’

  ‘I want some help,’ said Dog. ‘Some information.’

  ‘Is this official, Dog?’

  ‘Depends. Jonty Thrale. Does that mean anything official to you?’

  Westmain pursed his lips, shook his head.

  ‘Sorry. Rings no bells.’

  Truth? Lie? It didn’t matter.

  He nodded at the keyboard and screen on Westmain’s desk.

  ‘No bells, eh? Suppose you try Big Ben there, see if he rings?’

  ‘Dog, even if we’ve got something, you know I can’t just …’

  ‘Why don’t you check first, then decide if they’ll send you to the Tower for passing it on?’

  It was the gospel according to Endo. The weaker your hand, the tighter you took control.

  Westmain turned the screen so that it didn’t offer his visitor even an oblique view, and his fingers ran lightly over the keys. Dog watched, unblinking. The hands, not the face. In poker, faces tell nothing because they can be made to tell anything.

  ‘Yes, we’ve got something. But I’m sorry, Dog, it’s got a classification way above anything I dare pass on without top-level authorization.’

  His voice was at the same time pleading and adamant.

  Dog said, ‘OK. What about me? Am I in that thing?’

  ‘You? You mean … yes, I suppose you would be.’

  ‘Could you try?’

  The fingers moved again.

  ‘Yes, you’re there, Dog. The whole thing.’

  ‘How’s the rating?’

  ‘Lowish after all this time.’

  ‘Low enough for you to leave it up there while you get me that coffee you offered?’

  Whenever you can, offer an option. Show them the big rock, and they’ll chew on the pebble like it’s new-baked bread.

  Westmain hesitated. Dog said, ‘I need to see it. It’s in my system, David. Working its way through, but it needs an impetus.’

  ‘Sort of an enema, you mean?’ Westmain joked. Dog didn’t smile. Awareness of his bad taste could be the last straw of guilt the Intelligence officer needed.

  ‘How do you like your coffee, Dog?’ said Westmain resignedly.

  ‘Espresso. Take your time. Espresso means pressed out, not quick.’

  He took the vacated chair and started reading the lines of green light.

  Cicero, Julian. Lieutenant Royal Essex Light Infantry …

  It went on and on. Christ, they knew details of his life he’d forgotten! He skipped till he caught his father’s name.

  Giuliano Cicero, Italian national, son of Antonio Cicero secretary of Genoan branch of Italian Socialist Party who died in prison 1934 … emigrated UK 1935 naturalized 1938 served in Far East with Royal Essex L.I. 1940–45, corporal at discharge, joined British Labour Party 1946 …

  The bastards were into everything! But there was no time for this, not now. His hands hovered over the keyboard then dipped like a pianist’s and his fingers moved lightly, echoing the motions of Westmain’s earlier.

  All the psychological skill in the world wouldn’t help you win at poker unless you could remember t
he cards. Uncle Endo had delighted him with tricks of memory as much as prestidigitation, till one day he had amazed his uncle by first equalling, then surpassing his feats. A couple of dozen letters and numbers pressed in sequence on a keyboard was child’s play.

  Thrale, Oscar Johnson, ka Jonty Thrale b Shrewsbury England 5.7.58. Mother, Jennifer Teresa nee Mahoney. Father, Antony Johnson Thrale solicitor d heart attack 1969. Thrale ret Dublin to mother’s house 1970 …

  There was a footstep outside the door. He looked up, alarmed. The steps moved on. But this was too slow. He pressed the print-out key. It was one of the superfast silent printers, thank God. He glanced at the last line. Known associate: Heighway, Bridgid. His fingers flickered again. The printer performed its silent magic. He tore off the print-out, folded it, tucked it beneath his shirt under his belt, punched up Cicero, Julian and once more keyed the printer.

  Enema or irritant, there was no point in not knowing anything Toby Tench knew.

  Westmain returned a few moments later with two cups of coffee.

  ‘Done?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Would you clear it?’

  He studied the keyboard carefully, one finger poised.

  ‘Is it this one?’ he said.

  Westmain smiled slightly.

  ‘I’ll do it. Tell me, Dog. Why were you asking about Thrale?’

  His voice was lightly curious, but Dog knew he’d been checking on current security operations involving Thrale. Like Uncle Endo said, at Fourth Street in Hold ’Em, the best bluff could be the truth.

  ‘The Branch have been on my patch. Overlapping cases. I heard one of them mention Thrale. I know Tench, their chief man, from way back. We don’t get on. I thought I might put one over on him by twisting your arm. Also he made some crack about my file. I reckoned if my enemies could read it for entertainment, I was entitled to my share of the fun.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Westmain. He was six to four convinced. If you were to make the grade in Intelligence, those were the best odds you ever allowed.

  Dog downed his scalding coffee.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘I’ve got an appointment.’

  ‘It’s been nice to see you again, Dog. Let’s make it social next time.’

  Interpretation: OK, perhaps I still owe you, but professionally, the bank is closed.

  Dog nodded and offered his hand.

  ‘Watch how you go,’ said Westmain. ‘By the way, all these years, one thing I never knew, how come they called you Dog?’

  ‘You know the Army. I was very good at obedience tests.’

  Later he sat in his flat which ten years of occupancy hadn’t personalized beyond the laundry mark on his sheets. In front of him were the print-outs. He tried to start on Jonty Thrale and Bridgid Heighway but it was no good. A man’s ghosts are stronger than living flesh. So he started reading about himself, and soon it ceased to be a reading and became a renewal.

  He was sitting in his car in the shadowy car park of that Belfast pub. Beside him Maeve Mooney was putting the key in the ignition. She looked at him anxiously, eyes huge in that luminously pale face all shadowed by an exuberance of rich red hair.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ he muttered.

  She switched on the engine. The starter had been playing up but tonight it caught first time. You want an ace for three hands, you’ll get it when your straight needs a deuce.

  ‘You’re sure? You’re not going to be sick?’

  ‘Only for the rest of my life.’

  Even in his drunkenness he recognized that the melodramatic phrase marked a point where self-reproach was becoming self-indulgence and he looked at her and tried to smile apologetically.

  Her lips twisted in wry acknowledgement, then she found reverse gear and let in the clutch to back out.

  The explosion drove right up from beneath the front offside wheel. It was channelled right at the driver’s seat and it blew her apart. Literally. Him it flung sideways out of the car, breaking bones in his legs, arms and rib cage and laying waste the right side of his face.

  There was nothing heroic about what followed, no desperate efforts by a wounded hero to rescue the woman he loved. He lay there, his head in a frozen puddle, his clothing scorched by the blazing car, and screamed till someone started to drag him clear. Then he fainted.

  He struggled free from that terrible memory and read on. He saw himself in hospital and there was the memory of comfort here, not from me medical staff, though the Army had seen he got the best of care to heal his body, but from the man they’d sent to heal his mind, the only person whose visits he ever looked forward to. ‘Bear with me now,’ that soft voice had insisted. ‘You may not feel the benefit for months, for years even, but what we’re doing will help, believe me.’

  He’d wanted to believe, in the end had come to believe. That soft, undemanding voice was the only good memory of that time, one of the few good memories of any time since.

  But now as he read on, he felt himself squeezed and torn apart as the explosion had torn at his body. For here in the print-out it was clear beyond any doubt that the psychiatrist’s equal if not prime concern had been to get at the truth for Army Intelligence. He and the debriefing captain had been working as a team! Hard man, soft man, the commonplace of interrogation technique.

  The captain had flung questions at him like blows.

  ‘Did you ever suspect that Maeve Mooney was working for the IRA? Hadn’t you been warned that her family had strong Sinn Fein sympathies? Didn’t your CO suggest that your association with this woman was inappropriate? Did she ever question you about your work? Did you at any time discuss operations with her? Hadn’t you met her that night to talk about the incident earlier that day?’

  Incident! How easy to shrink the monstrous with jargon.

  Incident …

  On patrol – everything quiet – routine, almost over, his mind drifting ahead to his date that night – out of nowhere a flurry of shots and suddenly it was combat – a figure bent low scurrying across the street – the challenge and the shot almost simultaneous – echoes fading, silence flooding in like a choking gas, and combat reduced to a fourteen-year-old boy bleeding to death in a gutter.

  Yes, of course he’d have talked about the incident to Maeve. Where else could he take his guilt?

  But what the captain alleged … ‘You were drunk, vulnerable, ready for squeezing dry. She offered to take you home, said you wouldn’t want to go back to your quarters in this state. Oh yes, you’d have told her everything she wanted to know, and if you hadn’t, there’d have been a couple of the boyos in the next room ready to start pulling your plonker less gently. Believe it or not, Cicero, you were lucky. Because you shot that kid, some more of the boyos decided to fix you quick. Leaving your car in that pub car park must have seemed a heaven-sent opportunity. But they got their wires crossed. Mooney saw her chance too and decided to make her move. That’s all that saved you, Lieutenant. A typical Mick cock-up …’

  ‘No! No! No!’ he’d screamed. And his screams of denial were still echoing when the other had come with his soft voice, his sympathetic ear, his promise of healing.

  ‘In my opinion Lieutenant Cicero was ignorant of Mooney’s probable terrorist connections and did not knowingly offer her any classified information. But it is at least possible that, but for the car bomb, there would have been a breach of security by this officer and it is therefore not recommended that he continue in the service.’

  Not because of his scarred body, not because of his agonies of mind, but because he might have been going to be a security risk. For years he had felt sure that resigning his commission had been his own indisputable decision, the only course possible for a man of feeling and honour. But now he saw that it had presented itself as the easiest course for the Army, and he of the soft voice had spared no pains to direct him to it.

  His decision to join the police had baffled people, baffled himself. How could a man who’d
walked away in disgust from one form of uniformed law enforcement so quickly embrace another?

  But he hadn’t walked away. It was not in his nature to walk away. Uncle Endo had seen this when he had fallen seriously ill during one of the old man’s visits from the States. ‘This kid will make it,’ he’d said confidently when his parents’ fear had been turning to despair. ‘He doesn’t know how to give in, believe me!’ And he’d recovered against all the odds.

  No, he wouldn’t have walked away. He’d have stayed and done things his way. But all the Army could see was a flaw, a potential embarrassment. So he of the soft voice, the man he’d trusted as healer and friend, had opened the door and gently ushered him through.

  ‘Bastard!’

  He spat the word out like an explosive sneeze, and like a sneeze it cleared his head.

  The print-out shouldn’t make him angry, it should make him glad! It made more sense out of the last ten years than all his soul searching had managed. It could help him bring his life back into focus.

  But it still left him not knowing, never able to know, what Maeve had had in mind when she had helped him into his car.

  Now here he was again faced with the ambiguities of a woman, the ambiguities of Ireland. This time he needed no urging to walk away. Everything in his being cried out against re-entering this dangerous maze.

  Everything except the knowledge that there was an innocent child out there in the hands of people who had never let innocence come between them and their cause, being sought by a policeman who would rather collar the perpetrators than recover their victim.

  Noll Maguire was the same age as Dog Cicero had been when he lay dying in the eyes of everyone except old Endo. The fears of parents are too easily turned into a communicating despair. A boy needs someone else reading the cards for him.

  He turned to the print-outs on Jonty Thrale and Bridgid Heighway again.