The Only Game

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Fine words, Father,’ said Dog, with the mockery of impotence. ‘But that’s the speciality of your trade, isn’t it? Remind me to look you up when it’s a moral imperative I’m after, not some practical help.’

  The priest did not react to the sarcasm but regarded Dog with a quiet smile. Then he said, ‘How come they call you Dog?’

  There were half a dozen flip answers at his disposal, but he didn’t feel like being flip. Why lie to a priest anyway?

  He said wearily, ‘I was very ill when I was a kid. My Uncle Endo was the only one who didn’t give up on me. When I got better, he said, “So what did I tell you? No way this kid’d give up. This kid’s Endo Cicero’s nephew and he ain’t got no dog in him.” And after that I was called Dog, like calling a big man Tiny. It’s a gambling expression, for underdog, they use it in odds, like eight to five dog means …’

  But he saw no explanation was needed.

  ‘Cicero? Endo Cicero? Not the Endo Cicero who took the World Series poker title back in the seventies?’

  ‘My God,’ said Dog. ‘You’re never a gambling man, Father?’

  The priest grinned and said, ‘It’s our only permitted vice, my son. Within reason. I’m a matchstick millionaire, and I’ve got a bishop who, if he’d backed every classic winner he’s picked in the past twenty years, could have saved the Vatican bank all that embarrassment!’

  Dog didn’t return his grin. A priest was only a priest, but in a tight corner you could put your trust in a gambling man.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Where do we go from here?’

  Blake immediately became serious.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I surely know someone who does.’

  For a disappointing moment, Dog thought he was being invited to pray. But Blake was looking far from pious.

  ‘Tench,’ he said. ‘Your friend Tench knows where they are, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, sure, but you don’t imagine he’s going to tell us, do you?’

  ‘Not if you ask him, he’s not. But there’s bound to be an operational plan, I’d say. And that’ll all be mapped out in a computer program, won’t it? And from what you’ve been telling me, Dog, you’re no slouch at getting into other people’s programs.’

  Dog nodded slowly. He’d been right. You can rely on a gambling man to spot the angles you should have seen yourself.

  ‘Hold on here,’ he said rising. ‘Have another cup of tea.’

  ‘No thanks, but I’ll have another drop of that Italian milk, if I may.’

  Leaving the priest with the bottle of Strega, Dog headed down to the basement room that housed the station computer terminal.

  WPC Scott was watching a print-out of car registration details.

  ‘Anything I can do for you, sir?’ she asked, with that false brightness the English adopt when uncertain whether to offer comfort or discreetly ignore a bereavement.

  ‘No, I’ll manage,’ he said. Her list came to an end and she made for the door where she hesitated and said, ‘I was so sorry …’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ He smiled at her and she left. He felt touched that the girl had put him at the centre of loss rather than indulging in an expression of personal grief. His affection for Charley Lunn must have shone through chinks in the barriers he thought he’d erected.

  He turned to the computer. There was no way it was going to tell him what he wanted to know legally. He would have to use David Westmain’s access code again and hope to hell that Tench hadn’t got round to advising of the need to change it.

  His fingers ran lightly over the keys.

  It worked. He was in. Special Branch operations lay open before him. All he had to do was ask. But what was the question? Trial and error would probably get him there eventually, but not without attracting attention. He closed his eyes, shut off the conscious level of his mind, and let his fingers choose whether to bet or fold.

  They ran across the keys, inviting the computer to access Operation Tinkerbell.

  He opened his eyes. There it was. Old conditioning kept all emotion off even the mobile half of his face, but beneath the blank surface a deep sigh of relief imploded.

  He keyed up personnel disposition. It was clearly a big operation. Tench was pulling out all stops. Possibly he’d put his reputation on the line which would make him all the more dangerous. Dog’s eyes sought the groups of six which indicated round-the-clock surveillance teams. There were two of them, each with a grid reference, one with a car number, but before he could probe for more details the door opened behind him.

  He turned. Two men were standing there. One of them was Tommy Stott, his classic features a mask which didn’t quite conceal his anticipated pleasure.

  ‘Sergeant Stott,’ said Dog pleasantly. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Sir,’ said Stott stiffly. ‘I am investigating a possible breach of the Official Secrets Act through unauthorized use of the Central Police Computer to obtain classified information. You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so …’

  ‘Are you saying you’re arresting me?’ asked Dog, his tone politely puzzled.

  ‘No, sir. Just inviting you to accompany me to a senior investigating officer who wishes to put to you certain questions about your possible involvement in this crime.’

  Tench. He hadn’t rushed off to alter or cancel Westmain’s access code. He had left it as a bait to lure Cicero into an indisputable illegality. Whether he’d go as far as a charge was another matter. But Dog knew the thousand and one delaying devices which could keep a man incommunicado for a couple of days or more, with at the end of it a suspension from duty pending further enquiries.

  The man accompanying Stott was taking photographs of Cicero beside the still active screen. Dog took one last look then played a little arpeggio on the keyboard and the screen went blank.

  ‘You got enough, Fred?’ said Stott.

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘Right, sir. If you wouldn’t mind …’

  He stood aside and motioned Dog to the door. He really was a thing of beauty, perfectly balanced, both hands free, with the look of a man who, while he doesn’t expect trouble, would be more than happy to accommodate it.

  Dog paused alongside him and said, ‘This is absurd. I demand to see Mr Parslow at once. Someone’s going to suffer for this.’

  His indignation washed over Stott like a Tuscan storm over the Boy David, leaving him untouched, unmoved. Then the computer let out an ear-piercing howl as his last entry triggered its illegal access alarm system. The beautiful head turned, and Dog drove his knee into the sergeant’s balls. Now the lovely mouth opened wide to let out a second howl in concord with the computer’s.

  Dog stepped through the door, took out his key, turned the deadlock, and ran up the stairs to the ground floor. Here he met WPC Scott.

  ‘Are you finished, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘Almost. I’ve just got a little program running. Do me a favour, Scott. Pop up to my room and tell Father Blake I’ve had to go out and could he call back in a couple of hours?’

  He made for the exit to the car park. His own car was still presumably in the street outside Rhadnor House. Blake had driven him here from the hospital and it was to his old Popular that Dog now headed. The priest practised the trust he preached and the door was open. Dog climbed in the back and lay down on the floor.

  It seemed an age before Blake turned up though it was probably less than two minutes. Coining from the hospital Dog hadn’t noticed what a lousy driver the priest was, but now he flinched as gears crashed and the car lurched out onto the road. He was wondering how to reveal his presence without causing a crash when Blake said casually, ‘You can sit up now, Inspector, and tell me what in the name of heaven’s going on.’

  ‘You spotted me,’ said Dog, rising cautiously.

  ‘Is there a prize?’

  ‘Just my thanks for not making a fuss.’

  ‘That’s an option I’ve not abandoned,’ said Blake dryly. ‘Now perhaps y
ou’ll explain how a man in my line of business comes to be smuggling a man in yours out of a police station.’

  ‘I’m on the run,’ said Dog bluntly. ‘I got caught lifting classified computer information. In fact, I reckon Toby Tench laid a little trap for me to give him an excuse to put me out of commission for a while.’

  ‘That means he must be worried about you,’ said Blake. ‘I like the sound of that. And did you manage to find out anything before the trap was sprung?’

  Dog didn’t reply at once. Listening to Blake’s suggestions was one thing. Letting the priest get deeply involved in the action was quite another. Yet he needed transport and he needed it fast.

  But Blake, like a good gambling man, was reading his mind.

  ‘If you’re thinking of hijacking my car, forget it,’ he said softly. ‘What’s mine is yours, but you get me with it. And look at it this way before you start arguing. OK, this old car won’t get spotted in a hurry, but you’re not the most unnoticeable man in the world. Whereas who’d look twice at me, especially without my collar?’

  He pulled it off as he spoke and dropped it into the glove compartment. Dog glimpsed a copy of the Ordnance Survey Atlas. He leaned forward and pulled it out.

  ‘Father, you’re wasted in education,’ he said. ‘You should be in missionary work. All right, but when I say genuflect, you get down on your knees pretty damn quick. Now pull into that pub car park. I need to be steady while I’m doing this.’

  Blake obeyed. Dog closed his eyes to conjure up the two grid references he’d seen next to the surveillance teams, then tracked them down in the atlas. He found them both on the same page. One was on the edge of Northampton and he didn’t need a larger-scale map to tell him it would be Mrs Maguire’s house. The other, some twenty miles to the west, was more problematical.

  ‘Well?’ said Blake impatiently.

  ‘According to what I saw, Tench has ordered a twenty-four-hour surveillance on a piece of open countryside in Warwickshire.’

  ‘You couldn’t have copied it down wrong?’

  ‘If I’d copied it down, perhaps. But as I didn’t, no way. I have a car number too, though why they should have parked their car in a field …’

  ‘Perhaps they’re camping?’

  ‘At this time of year? Not likely. They’d stick out like a sore thumb for a start.’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Blake, starting the engine.

  He was right. No point in hanging around here where he was more likely to be spotted than anywhere else. Tench probably had his boys out looking already …

  ‘Shit!’ he said. They’d go straight to his flat. And Jane Maguire was still there unless she’d got impatient and run.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘I need to make a call.’

  He got out and went into the pub. There was a public phone just inside the door. He dialled his number. It rang endlessly. Then at last it was picked up. He could hear breathing. He said, ‘It’s me.’

  Silence. Then her voice. ‘Where have you been?’ Low, taut, accusing.

  ‘Having the time of my life,’ he said savagely. ‘Listen, you’ve got to get out of there. You’ll have visitors soon.’

  ‘Where shall I go? Have you found anything out?’

  Her voice was desperate. She needed something to cling on to. And he needed to keep in contact with her.

  He said, ‘Look, I don’t know. Perhaps. Just get out. Head up to Northampton. There’s a motel on the ring road not a million miles from your mother’s. The Clareview. Do you know it? Opposite a new superstore.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Head there. I’ll try to be there tonight but leave a message anyway. OK?’

  She didn’t answer. He could feel the waves of doubt and distrust coming down the line but there was not time to try to stem them.

  ‘Go now,’ he ordered. ‘At once.’

  And rang off.

  Back in the car, he sat silently in the passenger seat while Blake jerked out into the traffic.

  ‘Something up?’ asked the priest.

  He almost told him but changed his mind. Jane Maguire had no time for priests. She had been betrayed enough without this further small betrayal of talking about her with Father Blake.

  ‘Only your driving,’ he said.

  ‘They used to call me Jehu at the seminary,’ laughed Blake. ‘You remember? Second Kings, he was the one who drove furiously.’

  Dog found himself smiling.

  Battered, bruised, on the run from his own colleagues, driving north with a crazy priest to an empty spot on the map in search of a kidnapped child, he had no right to feel anything but the depression of insanity.

  But suddenly he felt almost lighthearted.

  And that was something he hadn’t felt in more years than he cared to recall.

  4

  Toby Tench shook his head sadly and said, ‘You’re a great disappointment to me, Tommy. I always thought you had nuts of reinforced concrete and here you turn out mortal flesh like the rest of us.’

  The sergeant shifted gingerly in his chair and said sullenly, ‘It was that bloody machine starting to scream. I took my eyes off him.’

  ‘Yes. Always was a clever sod, that Dog, credit where it’s due,’ said Tench. ‘Now, more important than your knackers, how much of the Tinkerbell file did he see?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Stott. ‘And he didn’t have time to take no notes or get a print-out.’

  ‘Makes no matter, my son,’ said Tench. ‘Not with Cicero. I’ve seen that sod look at a page of Shakespeare, close the book, then recite the lot. It wasn’t fair. Me, I always had to do things the hard way at school. Cheat.’

  He laughed, became serious and went on, ‘So let’s assume he remembers what he saw. Where will that get him?’

  ‘I don’t give a toss as long as it gets him in arm’s length of me,’ growled Stott.

  ‘Don’t make it personal,’ advised Tench gravely. ‘Priorities. First and foremost, to get our hands on Oliver Beck. Then to take out Thrale and his team. After that you can start thinking about kicking Cicero’s head in. At the moment all I want to know about him is where he is so I can be sure he’s not sticking his nose in. So let’s assume that he’s done his memory trick on the bit of the file he accessed. What was that?’

  ‘Surveillance disposition,’ said Stott.

  ‘And what could that tell him he didn’t know already? Salter’s flat, Maguire’s house. And Warwickshire. That’s the one. That’ll set his nose twitching. Tommy, you’d better get yourself and a couple of extra bodies up there just to make sure old frozen face don’t throw no spanner in the works.’

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure, guv,’ said Stott, rising.

  ‘No it won’t, my son,’ said Tench softly. ‘Not yet. Not till we’ve got our result. And then the pleasure will all be mine. Now sod off and try to keep the family jewels under lock and key this time! I ain’t got no use for geldings, you should know that by now.’

  After the sergeant had gone, Tench sat for a while studying the file on his desk. He had a great deal riding on this operation. While disaster might not break him, it would certainly fix him where he was until an uncomfortably early retirement. He’d pushed his way to his present moderate eminence by a mixture of hard work, brown-nosing, and ruthless opportunism. But he’d pushed too hard and taken too little care of those he had pushed by. Not every face that gets trodden on remains in the mire, and even in the Lodge which was the centre of his social life he was regarded with a distrust which not all the fraternal vows in the world could overcome.

  What can’t be won by worth may still be claimed by right of conquest and from the moment a rumour had surfaced of the IRA’s belief that Oliver Beck was not dead, Tench had seen a unique opportunity. His efforts to persuade his superiors to put Jane Maguire under permanent surveillance after her return to England had met with failure but at least he had put his marker on the case. And when the flag he’d put on police computer queries about Ma
guire had popped up, he’d been ready. Intelligence had already suggested that Jonty Thrale was on the mainland planning an operation. Tench had linked Thrale, Beck and the missing child in a bold hypothesis which his superiors had recognized as providing a blueprint for either an anti-terrorist coup or Tench’s own downfall. Either way, they won.

  He had moved quickly. While Cicero was still trying to unravel the truth of the woman’s story, Tench had accepted it as gospel. He had made no attempt to interview the two women who had visited the kindergarten as prospective clients but had put a watch on both addresses. Any doubt that Rhadnor House was the one vanished when Billy Flynn was seen escorting a dark-glassed Jane Maguire into the building. Tench could have moved in then, recovered the child, picked up Flynn and Heighway, and perhaps Thrale too. But he held back. His masters said nothing. For them, as for him, Beck was the big noise. Get hold of him, and he knew that the men who moulded careers wouldn’t give a toss what happened to Noll Maguire and his mother.

  This was the world according to Toby Tench. At the moment he felt pretty much in control of it. He had Maguire covered, had the boy and two of Thrale’s team covered, had old Mrs Maguire’s house covered. Cicero he guessed was heading for Warwickshire where he’d soon be picked up. Thrale was roaming loose, but he had Thrale on a string, and could jerk him hither and thither at will.

  At least that was the grandiloquent way he put it when self-doubt crept in. But he’d been too long in the game not to know a string has two ends and can be pulled from either of them. Also this was a very private string. He’d never seen any reason for letting his superiors or his rivals dip their bread in his gravy. But there came a point where secrecy became illegality; worse, unprofessionality. He’d long passed that point and knew now that the string to Jonty Thrale was a tightrope he could easily fall off.

  Except if he grasped the magic jewel which enabled a man to fly.

  Success!

  He picked at his teeth with a bent paper clip and let his mind drift from the rocks below to the cloudless blue sky above.

  He knew exactly what he needed to soar over the rainbow.