The Only Game

by Reginald Hill

  But what was the alternative to letting the man drive off? Another assault, leaving a body to dispose of? And a car, he’d have to get rid of the car …

  Oh shit, shit, shit, shit! Billy groaned inwardly. It didn’t seem possible that things could get any worse.

  Then they did.

  The car wasn’t stopping, it was turning into the lane!

  ‘Oh shit!’ he cried aloud.

  Driven on sidelights only, the car was bumping gently towards the cottage. For a moment Billy thought of leaving Bridie Heighway to look after herself. It wasn’t heroics that made him go on, simply the realization that, as he was, he had nowhere else to go.

  He followed the car down the track, keeping well back out of sight. By the time he came in sight of the cottage, the car had stopped, and the driver was opening the little gate into the garden.

  Even from behind in silhouette, Billy recognized the figure and had a millisec of relief that at least it wasn’t the pigs. Then the front door opened and Bridie Heighway came flying out into Jonty Thrale’s arms and it occurred to the watching youth that if he didn’t get back into his room before they finished kissing, he might wish that it had been the police.

  He began to move sideways into the wood, planning to work his way round the back. But the cow Heighway must have been snogging with her eyes open for she broke away from Thrale, speaking urgently, and he came spinning round with a SIG-Sauer P226 conjured out of nowhere into his left hand.

  ‘Right, let’s have you out of there. Right now!’

  Slowly Billy stepped forward. There was no point in running, not with Thrale at the other end of fifteen nine-millimetre Parabellum rounds. But his mind was racing madly in search of that safety he knew his legs could never find.

  ‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t Superboy,’ said Thrale softly. ‘Now there’s a thing. And what have you been up to, Billy, to get yourself in such a state?’

  Billy Flynn tried to speak, found how hard it is to get out words which might be your last, hawked, spat, and said, ‘Christ, is it only you? I heard a car, thought I’d better take a look, so I climbed out of my window. There’s a tree, but a branch broke and I fell.’

  For a long moment Thrale regarded him in silence. Then he smiled and the gun vanished as swiftly as it had emerged.

  ‘So you’ve found at last that you really can’t fly, Billy! Never mind. Full marks for being so alert. We’ll make a fieldman of you yet. Now let’s all go inside and have a cup of tea. There’s work to be done, or will be soon.’

  ‘Work?’ said Bridie Heighway. ‘Does that mean you’ve made contact with Beck?’

  Thrale smiled again. He was in a high good humour, thought Billy. It had probably saved his life.

  ‘Better than that,’ said Thrale. ‘Beck’s snapped. He’s in the country and he’s made contact with the Listeners. And he’s missed me so much, he’s invited me along to a little reunion!’

  9

  They breakfasted together in silence till their hands touched as they reached simultaneously for the coffee pot. Dog’s fingers curled round hers.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I know it’s not the time, and probably for you last night happened because … well, because of everything. But I wanted to say, for me it was … more. End of speech.’

  She said, ‘Maybe for me too. I don’t know … I mean …’

  She looked at him and wondered what she did mean. Her heart, her body, might be making decisions that could be binding, but they were being stored in a bottom drawer till her mind had leisure to examine them. Last night had been … last night. A necessary interlude, a longed-for respite. But here and now are creditors who always claim their due.

  She tried again and said, ‘I can’t think of anything but Noll. And Oliver …’

  ‘What do you think of Oliver?’

  ‘Where is he? Has he heard yet? What does he think? What will he do?’

  ‘And what do you feel about him when you think about him?’

  She shook her head impatiently.

  ‘How should I be able to answer that? I ran from him, from part of what he is. But only part … And you might argue that it was illogical to run from a man for helping something you hate when it turns out what he was really doing was robbing it blind!’

  He shook his head and said softly, but forcefully, ‘No, I wouldn’t argue that.’

  She pulled her hand free. He lifted the coffee pot, poured more coffee.

  ‘You’ll go to your mother’s now?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I think so. Unless you’ve got any idea …?’

  She looked at him desperately and when he shook his head, tears started in her eyes and she said, ‘It’s hopeless, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said gravely. ‘I’m afraid it is.’

  Then as her face registered her dismay at not getting even some token disagreement, he smiled and said, ‘But like Uncle Endo used to say, there’s guys sleeping in the subway for not knowing the difference between no hope and no chance. There’s always a chance till the last bet’s laid, Jane, and we’ll find it.’

  Somehow this flimsiest of straws was more comforting than a whole rhetoric of reassurance.

  ‘Will you give me a lift into town?’ he asked. ‘My heavenly driver with his chariot of fire has deserted me. Can’t say I’m sorry. He relied a bit too much on divine intervention.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll just get my things from the room.’

  ‘And I’ll settle the bill. No,’ he added when she demurred, ‘I’m sure they’ve spotted there were two of us in there and will probably take great pleasure in pointing it out.’

  In the event the cashier who was sitting tapping out figures to the rhythm of some music from her Walkman clearly couldn’t have cared if the Ball of Kirriemuir had been held in the room. She removed her headset as she printed out the account. The radio was tuned to the local station and as Dog waited he heard the music fade and the announcer start to speak.

  ‘An update on our earlier item about the discovery of the body of Mrs Yvonne Ellings in her maisonette at Little Staughton after neighbours reported a disturbance early this morning. The police would like to interview a man in his early twenties, with spiky blond hair and wearing jeans and a mottled brown leather bomber jacket who was seen leaving the Snooty Fox public house at Little Staughton with Mrs Ellings late last evening. If you think you can help the police with this or any other information please ring the following number …’

  ‘Ready?’ said Jane Maguire behind him.

  He turned. Either she hadn’t heard the item or the echo of her description of the youth who had fixed her car, the youth who had raped her, hadn’t registered. Why should it? Blond hair, jeans, bomber jacket … it could be any one of a million kids.

  To a man too broke to make the next ante, it could be all he was going to get.

  As she drove towards the town centre she said, ‘How will we keep in touch?’

  He said, ‘I’ll ring your mother’s with a message for Father Blake. I’ll say it’s the school calling and ask him to be there at a certain time. I’ll be waiting at the Clareview an hour before that time, OK? But take care. You’ll be followed. You can drop me here.’

  She pulled in and he climbed out of the car. He sought for some parting words of cautious comfort and could find none.

  Then he thought, to hell! He’d chucked everything else to the wind, why hang on to caution?

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, leaning down. ‘We’ll get him back, whatever it takes. I promise.’

  He didn’t wait for a reaction or a reply but straightened up and walked swiftly away.

  Two minutes later he was pushing open the door of the Central Police Station. His logic was simple. He doubted if Tench would have put out a general alert on him. A story like that would soon have leaked and Tench would want the media interest to centre on the vanished child, not on a detective inspector on the run. Walking into the station was the quickest way of testing this theory.

&
nbsp; More important, it was the only way he could hope to check out his single flimsy lead.

  For all his logic, he felt a great surge of relief to find that, though Denver’s welcome was chilly, it was not the greeting of a man about to make an arrest.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Cicero. Still acting as a messenger boy for your funny friends, are you?’

  He guessed at the cause of the irritation. It wasn’t hard.

  ‘No,’ he replied forcefully. ‘Not now, and I wasn’t last time either. I’m trying to do my job and I don’t much care to have those bastards creeping out of the woodwork telling me what I can and can’t do … I’m sorry, sir. I shouldn’t be talking like this …’

  Denver had visibly relaxed.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I know just what you mean. We’ve had them on our backs too. Worst was the last, smarmy fat sod smiling all the time, like a spiv selling dodgy cars. I came close to putting my boot up his arse, I tell you!’

  So Tench himself had turned up. This must be the place to be.

  Dog said, ‘If you ever need a witness that you were only raising your foot to tie your lace, look no further, sir.’

  Denver barked a laugh and the relaxation was complete. He ordered up some coffee and asked Dog what he could do for him.

  ‘Well, it’s really a courtesy visit,’ said Dog. ‘This Maguire case has to all intents and purposes been taken out of my hands. I’ve been instructed to liaise between my chief and the Branch and to assist where I can. Well, I’ve offered my assistance and more or less got told to run off and play with myself. So I thought the best thing I could do was come along here and talk to some real cops again.’

  ‘And pick our brains, you mean?’ said Denver.

  ‘Well, that too,’ grinned Dog. ‘I can’t deny it would give me great pleasure to turn up something those sods had missed.’

  The coffee came, strong and hot. Denver sipped his, grimaced, and said, ‘Sorry, Cicero. Wish I could help, but we’ve been pretty well sidelined on this too. I don’t even know what the hell it’s all about, apart from the missing kid. Or is he dead, do we know that yet?’

  Dog shrugged.

  ‘The father’s an American. There’s an FBI interest, that’s all I know,’ he said vaguely. ‘No doubt it’ll be tossed back to us when things fall apart. Meanwhile I’m just going to be hanging around twiddling my thumbs, so if you’ve got anything an idle detective can do, just say the word. You’re being kept pretty busy by what I hear on the radio.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ said Denver. ‘Lots of fun and games last night. Major alert to start with, not on our patch but we went on stand-by. Some riot out on one of these gyppo sites. Turned out a false alarm in the end. There was a lot of smoothing over went on and it smelt a bit of the Branch to me. Nothing to do with this Maguire thing, was it?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Dog.

  Denver looked at him sharply then went on, ‘Then there’s been a murder out at Little Staughton. Not so little now and growing fast, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘Lot of men tied up on door to door, eh?’

  ‘Door to door, yes. There’s a lot of doors out there now with all these new estates. But it’s the buggers who are putting the doors in and the bricks down and digging the new roads that are taking up the time.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The building workers, the navvies. Area’s full of them. Hostels, digs, caravans, and with half of them on the lump, their bosses don’t bother keeping records.’

  ‘I heard on the radio you were looking for some youngster,’ said Dog. ‘But the description was pretty vague. What makes you think he might be one of these building workers?’

  ‘There was something else we didn’t give to the radio. No use letting the world know everything you know, is there? Not that it’s much, just that the landlord reckons the man we’re after was drinking Guinness and spoke with a bit of a brogue, and these building sites are full of Micks, so that’s our lead if you can call it that.’

  And my lead too, thought Dog, feeling a little surge of excitement. It would probably turn out to be simple and sordid, some Irish brickie picking up a tart and things getting out of control. On the other hand …

  He said, ‘Sexual, was it?’

  ‘She’d had it, but willingly, the M.O. reckons. The injuries came later. She was well known for bringing strange men home. Not a pro but always on the look out for a drink, a laugh, a bit of company, know what I mean? Almost sure to go sour in the end, but it’s a hell of a price for being lonely, wouldn’t you say?’

  A hell of a price for being Catholic, Protestant, rich, poor, black, white; for simply being there. The price of admission and the price of exit all in one.

  ‘A hell of a price,’ agreed Dog Cicero.

  Part Four

  1

  Three people watched Jane Maguire arrive at her mother’s house.

  Two of them were Tench’s men, one outside and one in.

  The third was Oliver Beck.

  He’d spotted the outer watcher without difficulty. He’d had years of practice spotting all sorts and conditions of security men. Technique becomes habit, and habit is the great betrayer of human beings. After a while even attempts at variety form a pattern.

  Being aware of this, he had schooled himself over the years to leave layer after layer of variants, each one sufficiently detailed to make the keen seeker after knowledge think, this is the true pattern of Oliver Beck! But when the last one was peeled back they would find … nothing.

  Jane Maguire had changed all that. First she’d been a simple pick-up, a ship-board affair. Then he’d fooled himself into thinking that by setting her up in his house on Cape Cod he was merely laying another diverting trail for the hounds that followed.

  That was another way men betrayed themselves, by not examining their own motives with the same cold clarity they turned on others. We’re the Immortals, he’d told her, we’re the Gods. But even the Gods can get it wrong. You’d only got to look at Ireland to see that.

  But when his son was born, self-deceit went out of the window. The simple and complete disappearance he had been toying with for years was no longer possible. That he himself could vanish beyond all trace he did not doubt. Hadn’t invisibility been his metier? But a woman and a small child could not be so easily spirited away.

  Alone, he would have been happy to be alive and defy the hounds to find him. Now, he had to be dead and hope they would stop looking.

  He needed Jane’s cooperation but he hadn’t told her everything. His reasons were mixed; all good in themselves, but not perhaps the ideal mixture. First he hadn’t been sure of her reaction. To go on the lam from the Revenue Service was one thing. But to let her know the true source of his wealth and the kind of people who might be looking for him was something else. Besides, she’d got enough acting to do, identifying ‘his’ body and faking grief. The genuineness of her reaction to the news of his Noraid connections would be a real protection to her. So his divine logic went.

  How it would affect her feelings for him he didn’t know, but flight was a possibility not overlooked in his scenario. In the end there was only one place for most people to run to, and that was home.

  And there she was now, walking up the little path alongside the starched and laundered garden, to ring at the shining front door.

  But the rest of his plan was in tatters. Jonty Thrale had seen to that. Jonty Thrale who, when the cards had all been dealt and all the delicate groundwork of bluff and double bluff gently laid, had reached across the table with a cut-throat razor and flicked over the hole cards.

  The door opened. She paused and looked around, as if sensing the other watchers. He put his hand to his face though there was no way she could see him. Then she disappeared inside.

  For a moment he allowed himself the indulgence of examining his feelings for her. Their strength still surprised him. Women had always been a short-term investment with him ever since the disastrous mista
ke of marriage. But Jane was different, perhaps because she never asked for anything. In fact she never behaved as if she believed she had any real right to happiness. Maybe this had helped when he broached his plan for disappearance. Maybe she had taken it all so calmly because she’d never really regarded those years of happiness as permanent. And because she made so few demands on him, he had come as close to loving her as he had ever loved a woman. But not as he loved his son. Life without Jane was conceivable; he might always remember her but not always with pain. But life without Noll would be a maiming, an emptiness, an absence, which nothing could ever fill.

  So, if it came to choices, Noll first, Jane second. He didn’t feel guilty at thus articulating priorities. He had no doubt that Jane had already done the same.

  He walked slowly back to his car.

  Soon it would be time to meet Jonty Thrale.

  In the house Jane Maguire sat opposite her mother and felt ashamed. Here was the woman she had longed to love but only feared, striven to please but always failed. Whatever she had done in her life, she had always been aware of this judging presence. And always she had fled for comfort to that other presence, the gentle, laughing, soothing wraith of her dead father.

  Now, sitting before this hunched and somehow shrunken figure who had put on twenty years since last they met, Jane realized what she had never admitted before: that all her life she had blamed her mother for her father’s death. Because she had never articulated the accusation, there was no detail, just a conviction that it was this rigid, icy woman who had driven her man to the warm consolation of the pub which had left him too befuddled to dive for cover when the firing started.

  Even now Jane could not entirely explode this notion, but it had ceased to be simple black and white. How could anything be black and white ever again now that she realized that all the barriers which she had felt her mother set up against true closeness with her daughter were nothing compared to this one great invisible unsuspected barrier she had built up around herself?