The Only Game

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Yeah. Well he would be, wouldn’t he, standing where he was. But not you. Two IRA bombs and still here! Should’ve called you Cat, not Dog. That door! Like a riot shield after a bad day in the Bogside. Oh yes. God must be saving you for some special purpose, my son!’

  Now Dog swung round to face Tench.

  ‘Like pulling your face off maybe,’ he grated. ‘That was your man who got me out, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. No gratuities necessary. Just a simple thanks and a bunch of roses on mother’s day …’

  ‘You were watching the place! You saw Charley Lunn go in and you did nothing about it!’

  ‘What did you want us to do, Dog? Arrest him?’

  ‘You must have known the place was empty. You know those bastards don’t leave their bolt holes unprotected …’

  ‘Right, Dog,’ interrupted Tench. ‘But we didn’t know that you’ve got your lads trained as burglars when they ain’t got no warrant.’

  ‘Lunn wasn’t acting on my instructions,’ interjected Dog.

  ‘No? Not directly maybe, but you want to ask yourself why he’d do a thing like that. Not to impress Mr Parslow because we all know what Steady Eddie feels about making waves. So who was he hoping to get his Brownie points from? Which brings us to another question, Dog. What the hell are you playing at? You’re off this case. You’ve been taken off it and you’ve been warned off it. So how come you and your oppo are still plodding through it with your size elevens?’

  ‘Because we’re policemen, not secret bloody policemen!’ snarled Dog. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get out of this place.’

  They’d had to force him into the ambulance. All he could think of was Charley. The pain, the physical pain, hadn’t started till they confirmed Lunn was dead. Then he felt as if his own body had been ripped apart in the blast. And when they told him nothing was broken, that he’d got away with severe bruising and contusion, there was no relief, just an even greater agony of guilt.

  He pushed by Tench and strode down the hospital corridor. Only yesterday he’d been here trying to sort out the truth from the lies in Jane Maguire’s story. Sort out the truth! What kind of task was that for a man who couldn’t even pin down the truth about himself?

  Except for one thing – he dragged those he loved into disaster. That was indisputably true.

  As he crossed the reception area, the glass-plated door ahead swung open and Charley Lunn’s wife came in. She was deathly pale, those bright searching eyes sunk deep in shadows. He halted, sought for words, but didn’t need them as she swept by without a pause or a glance.

  ‘That his old lady? Poor cow,’ said Tench at his side. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll see he gets the full hero bit even though he acted like a right prat.’

  Dog nearly hit him then. Tench saw it in his eyes but he didn’t flinch, nor did the amiable Pickwickian smile fade from his round and rubicund face.

  ‘Take a swing if you like, my son,’ he urged. ‘Go on. Why don’t you?’

  He’d like me to hit him, thought Dog. Then he could really get me out of his hair.

  Knowing he’d be playing into Tench’s hands didn’t lessen the temptation. His fist stayed balled, but he was saved by an intervention which came as close to the divine as a man could expect in Romchurch.

  ‘Inspector! Inspector Cicero! Are you all right?’

  Hurrying towards him, flushed with haste and concern, was the black-clothed figure of Father Blake.

  ‘I called at your station and they said there’d been an accident,’ panted the priest. ‘I didn’t know what to expect.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Dog. ‘Look, Father, I can’t talk just now …’

  ‘Don’t let me interrupt the Holy Office,’ said Tench. ‘Didn’t know you’d got your own personal chaplain, Dog. Why don’t you present me?’

  Briefly Dog introduced the two men. Tench’s heavy lips puckered disapprovingly when he heard of Blake’s connection with the Maguires.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Father, I reckon you should stick to comforting the afflicted and leave police matters to the laity. Dog, when you’ve made your confession, perhaps we could have a word in my car?’

  He strode away. Blake said softly, ‘That is not a godly man.’

  ‘You’re right there, Father,’ said Dog. ‘Look, like I told you on the phone, there’s nothing you can do here …’

  ‘But I think there is,’ insisted Blake. ‘When I called at your station and mentioned Jane Maguire, the desk constable said she had been let out on bail. What does this mean, Inspector? Have you been lying to me? Was she already in custody when we spoke together last night?’

  Dog groaned gently.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She came into the station early this morning.’

  ‘Voluntarily, you mean? What did she say? What has she been charged with? What has happened to the child?’

  The questions came at Dog with a force and anger he had to admit were justified. With Maguire’s mother agonizing over the fate of her daughter and grandchild up in Northampton, it must look like an act of gross callousness for the police not to have got in touch.

  He said, ‘Father, I’m sorry. But the reason no one’s contacted Mrs Maguire is that we still don’t know what’s happened to Noll, except that his mother came in this morning to confess to killing him.’

  The priest shook his head in pained bewilderment.

  ‘I don’t understand … they said she’d been given bail …’

  ‘Yes, she has. It’s difficult to explain … look, can you hang on a moment? I’ve got to speak to Mr Tench.’

  He had seen one of Tench’s underlings come into the hospital vestibule and gesture imperiously towards him. Normally, he might have returned the gesture with interest, but now he was glad of an excuse to take time out from the angry priest.

  He found Tench waiting in the back of his car.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, close that door, Dog. I’ve just worked up a nice warm fug. Finished with your tame priest, have you?’

  ‘He’s not mine. He’s just genuinely concerned about Maguire and her child,’ snapped Dog. ‘And I don’t blame him.’

  ‘Ooh, temper!’ reproved Tench. ‘We’re all concerned, Dog. So let’s get things cleared up between us, shall we? Cards on the table, none of your fancy gambling games, nothing in the hole. Do you still play? Remember those games in the bicycle shed? You took all our sweetie money, you bastard! No one would play with you in the end!’

  ‘Cards on the table,’ snapped Dog impatiently.

  ‘All right, you first. Come on, Dog. What have you been up to that I ought to know?’

  Dog flexed his fingers. Cards on the table, was it? Never show a man more than he’s entitled to see, said Uncle Endo, not unless you’re softening him up for next deal.

  He said, ‘I looked up an old mate in Intelligence, tried to twist his arm to tell me something about Jonty Thrale.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Come off it, Toby. Cards on the table, we said.’

  Tench smiled and nodded. He said, ‘This mate of yours let you look at Thrale’s file? I don’t believe it, not unless you had him by the balls.’

  ‘He accessed my file and when he left me to look at it, I accessed Thrale.’

  ‘Naughty. How’d you know your mate’s entry code?’

  ‘I watched the way his fingers moved.’

  Tench chortled admiringly. ‘Those old memory tricks. They’ll get you into bother one of these fine days, my son. So tell me, now you’ve seen Thrale’s file, what is it you know, or imagine you know?’

  ‘I think Thrale is after the money Oliver Beck embezzled from Noraid. I think it was his sidekick, Bridie Heighway, who lifted the boy to put pressure on Maguire.’

  ‘And she knows where the money is?’ said Tench tentatively.

  ‘Don’t bullshit me,’ said Dog. ‘You know she doesn’t. They’d never have let her go if she’d known that.’

  ‘So they’ve had ho
ld of her, have they?’ said Tench. ‘And they let her go because she knows nothing?’

  ‘They let her go because she told them Oliver Beck is still alive,’ said Dog quietly. ‘Thrale wants the headlines to bring him out of his hidey hole. She confesses to murder, we lock her up, and that turns her into tethered bait. When Beck appears, Thrale probably reckons he can move twice as fast as you lot. And if the worst comes to the worst, a bullet certainly can.’

  Tench whistled admiringly.

  ‘You’re not daft, are you, Dog? You’d almost think you’d been having a good chinwag with Thrale himself. Or at least with Maguire.’

  He regarded the inspector shrewdly.

  Dog said, ‘If you tell me where she is, I’d like nothing better. You did catch up with her again, I take it?’

  ‘Not yet. Not that it matters,’ said Tench indifferently. ‘She leaves a wide trail. First off, she went to see that old college chum, the butch lecturer. We found the poor cow dead in bed, smothered with a pillow, Maguire’s prints all over the place. Lover’s tiff, maybe. She’s one to steer clear of, Dog, believe me. Sooner her old man catches up with her, the better for everyone. We’ll be waiting. And even if he gets to her before we do, no matter. We’ve got a fool-proof long-stop.’

  He watched Dog work out the implication.

  ‘You were onto Rhadnor House before they left, weren’t you? Leaving your man on watch was just a precaution. Which means you’ve followed them … Why the hell haven’t you picked them up and got hold of the boy?’

  He guessed the answer even as he put the question, but Tench didn’t mind spelling it out.

  ‘Priorities, old son,’ he said. ‘We pick them up, what’ve we got? A few more Micks for the tax payer to feed. They’re not the type to give us anything. They’ll sit inside, painting their cells with shit, till either someone busts them out, or there’s a deal done. No, I’ve got bigger game than even Mr Jonty bloody Thrale. Yes, you’re right. Oliver Beck. You see, with Oliver I get, first of all, the money; second, the propaganda coup when it gets out in the States where all their money’s been going; and third and most important of all, I get a man who knows all the ins and outs of the Irish-American connection, who can supply top names on both sides of the water, who can detail commercial channels to all the terrorist supplier countries, and I get him by me balls! All I’ve got to do is tell him he either talks or he gets dropped off in the Falls Road on a Saturday night with his name tattooed across his face. So you can see I’ve got to take the long view! For a while at least, me and Thrale are playing the same game. He’ll use the boy to smoke Beck out, then I’ll move in and pick him up, and probably the others with him.’

  He finished and regarded Dog complacently as if expecting congratulation.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, Dog?’ enquired Tench finally.

  ‘No,’ said Dog in a very low voice. ‘I was just trying to be sure I heard properly. You’ve let Charley Lunn get blown up, and you’ve let a child stay in the hands of his abductors, and you’ve let his mother remain in a state of mortal terror, all for a propaganda coup?’

  ‘And the rest, Dog,’ said Tench, aggrieved. ‘Don’t forget the rest.’

  ‘Fuck the rest! And fuck you too, Tench. I should have known from way back that beneath that revolting exterior there was something really evil waiting to get out.’

  He opened the car door and began to climb out. Tench grabbed at his arm.

  ‘Dog, wait. At least be honest and admit what’s really getting your knickers in a twist. It’s not this Irish tart and her precious bastard, is it? It’s that other one, the one Thrale blew up. You read the file, Dog. Don’t tell me you missed that! But you didn’t mention it, Dog. And for why? Because it’s eating your guts so badly you don’t dare to let it show. It’s Thrale you want! All right, you shall have him. Soon as we’ve got him banged up, I promise you half an hour alone with him, no questions asked, OK? But till then steer clear, my son, or else. I’m not having my operation fucked up by a jumped-up wop with half a face!’

  Dog had dragged himself free and was walking away towards Father Blake, but Tench continued to yell at him through the open door.

  ‘You stay out of it, Dog, you and that poxy priest both. This has fuck all to do with revenge or religion, this is politics, and you’d better remember that!’

  Curious heads were turning, attracted by the noise, but Dog Cicero did not turn as he walked through the frost-edged December gloom to where the broodingly still figure of the priest waited beneath the huge red cross painted on the lintel of the hospital door.

  3

  ‘This is the first time I’ve made my confession over a cup of tea,’ said Dog Cicero.

  ‘Over anything at all for a long time, I suspect,’ said Father Blake dryly. ‘And you don’t sound all that contrite to me.’

  ‘It’s not absolution I’m after, just confidentiality,’ said Dog. ‘I don’t want you blundering around causing more confusion than we’ve got already.’

  ‘You’ve got it, I promise,’ said Blake impatiently. ‘So far I’ve heard that Janey Maguire has been let out on bail after confessing to killing her son, and that you believe her child is alive and well anyway! In God’s name, Inspector, I need to know what’s going on!’

  They were in Dog’s office. The station was in a state of shock from the news of Lunn’s death, and the sight of Dog turning up, with hair singed, face cut, clothes crumpled and bloody, accompanied by a priest, had cast even more darkness. He’d volunteered no information, merely demanding a pot of tea which he’d reinforced from his Strega bottle.

  Quickly he filled the priest in. His motives were both humanitarian and practical, but also he felt a need if not to confess, at least to confide, and he detected a strength and resourcefulness in Blake which, added to the certainty of his silence, made him an ideal confidant.

  Also, with Charley Lunn gone, Dog realized with a devastating sense of loss and loneliness that there was no one else he could talk to.

  The door burst open as he finished and Parslow came in. He was grey-faced.

  ‘Dog, they said you were here … this is terrible … Charley Lunn …’

  Dog looked at him keenly, seeking hints that the man was viewing Lunn’s death in terms of its effect on his own standing. He found none and felt guilty. Parslow had been a good copper longer than he’d been a complacent time-server.

  ‘Yes, sir. Terrible,’ he said. ‘The Branch let him go in there. They should have warned him.’

  He spoke with a bitterness aimed at Tench, then saw too late that Parslow had taken the reproof to himself.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dog. They warned me off, but it’s my patch … I should have …’

  ‘It’s OK, Eddie,’ said Dog. ‘Not your fault. There was nothing you could do, nothing any of us could do.’

  He didn’t believe it, but it wasn’t Parslow’s shoulders he wanted to drop his own share of guilt on.

  The superintendent left. Dog doubted if he’d even registered Blake’s presence.

  The priest said, ‘That’s your top man, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dog challengingly.

  Blake shrugged and said, ‘He looks like he needs help.’

  ‘Light a candle,’ growled Dog, suddenly wondering if he’d made a mistake in taking this man into his confidence. Never sit down with a priest or a Chinaman, Endo had warned. They both got an edge.

  As if sensing this revulsion against his spiritual function, Blake suddenly became very down-to-earth.

  ‘So you think the boy is alive? But the main watch will be on his mother because she’s the bait for this man, Beck, when and if he gets word of what’s allegedly happened?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll get word,’ said Dog.

  ‘It may take time,’ said the priest. ‘If he’s hiding out in South America, say.’

  ‘I’d say Europe myself,’ said Dog. ‘Spain, perhaps. He spent a lot of time over this side of the water on
his Noraid business, so he’d have plenty of opportunity to set up a bolt hole. Also he told Jane to make back to the UK after six months so presumably he wanted her here so he could make contact.’

  ‘But she doesn’t want to see him, you say?’

  ‘Not since she found out where his money was coming from. But he’ll go after her for sure. Where else can he go? I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard, thinking his son might be dead, then finding he’s walked into a trap, either the Branch’s or the IRA’s. I’m not sure which would be worse!’

  Blake regarded him ironically.

  ‘I would have expected a man in your position to have more faith in British justice, Inspector,’ he said. ‘So, the way I see it, what we’ve got to concentrate on is the boy.’

  Dog rolled one of his cigarettes and said, ‘We? I’m not in the market for a partner, Father.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ said Blake softly. ‘I got rather a different impression. But this isn’t about you or me, Inspector. It’s about a child in danger. And from what you say, you reckon his well-being is not a priority of this man Tench’s.’

  ‘No, but I assume the Branch are keeping an eye on Heighway and the child,’ said Dog. ‘And once they get hold of Beck, they’ll move in.’

  He saw no reason to communicate the full depth of his unease about Tench’s attitudes and plans, but Blake was well ahead of him.

  ‘Look,’ he said grimly. ‘We both know who we’re talking about here. If Heighway and her chums get cornered they’ll use the boy as a hostage, and do you think your friend, Tench, is going to let a child’s life stand in his way? And if they did get clear, they won’t be wanting to slow themselves down with a four-year-old boy.’

  ‘You think they’d kill him?’ said Dog, distressed to hear his own fears echoed by this man of peace.

  ‘He’s got eyes, ears, a memory, a tongue,’ said Blake grimly. ‘This is Ireland we’re talking about, remember? Now I don’t know about your job, Inspector, but mine’s got a moral imperative. I can either go back to Mrs Maguire and tell her that her grandson’s alive but for God knows how long, or I can do something about keeping him alive.’