The Only Game

‘You’re very well informed,’ commented Dog.

‘My daughter. She was a little bit younger and she thought the sun shone out of Janey’s bum! I used to get Janey Maguire night and day and, of course, she was always round at our house.’

Another line of enquiry? Dog said, ‘Is your daughter living locally?’

‘No.’ The man’s face saddened. ‘Melbourne. We’re going out to see them when I retire next year. But she’d not be able to help even if she still lived here. They kept in touch through college, but after that they lost touch. More Janey than my girl. She had a bit of bother in her first job. After that, she seemed to cut contact with all her old mates.’

‘She never came back here?’

‘Not that I know of,’ said Denver. ‘My girl heard she’d married some Yank and settled down over there. Then she got married herself and next thing, Australia. They say the world’s getting smaller. It doesn’t feel like it! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do. I hope you get things sorted out, Inspector. She was a nice kid and I’d hate to think of any harm coming to her. You’ll keep me posted? I like to know exactly what’s going on on my patch, preferably before it happens.’

There was a warning in his voice. He’s no fool, thought Dog. He’s wondering why the hell I’ve come up here personally when a phone call would have done. Sod Toby Tench! It’s my case and Denver ought to be told that there’s a possibility his daughter’s nice school friend’s on the run from a charge of child-killing.

He was on the point of saying something when the phone rang. Denver picked it up, listened, covered the mouthpiece and said, ‘Sorry, this’ll take a bit of time. Are we done?’

‘Yes,’ said Dog. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

And left, feeling both relieved and guilty.

He found Mrs Maguire’s house without any difficulty. It was a thirties semi, narrow and single fronted. There was an old Ford Popular parked in front of it. He drew up behind, locked his car and went through a wrought-iron gate and up a scrubbed concrete path alongside a tiny garden so compulsively neat, it seemed to owe more to needlework than horticulture. The doorstep was an unblemished red, the letter box glinted like a Guard’s cuirass, and Dog found himself touching the bell push gingerly for fear of leaving a print.

The small middle-aged woman who opened the door looked a fit custodian for such a temple of neatness. Her hair was tightly permed like a chain-mail skull cap, her lips were like a crack in the pavement, and her eyes regarded him with fierce suspicion through spectacles polished to a lensless clarity. She bore such little resemblance to her daughter that Dog’s ‘Mrs Maguire?’ was tentative to the point of apology.

‘And who wants to know?’

The brogue was there, strong and unmistakable as poteen.

He produced his warrant card, certain that proof was going to be needed before he got over this step.

She examined it and said, ‘Cicero. That’s not an English name.’

‘It is now. I mean, I’m English and it’s my name.’

She nodded sharply as if the logic satisfied her sense of tidiness, and motioned him to enter. He followed her into a chill and cheerless sitting room where a bearded man in a dark suit and clerical collar sat on the edge of an unyielding armchair, a cup of tea in his hand.

‘Father Blake, this is Inspector Cicero, he calls himself, come to see me, I don’t know why. Now there’s no need for you to go with your tea still hot.’

The priest had risen with an expression of alarm. He was a tallish man in early middle age, his beard beginning to be flecked with grey. He looked at Dog anxiously through heavy horn-rimmed glasses and said in a low, unaccented voice, ‘I hope there’s no bad news, officer.’

‘Just some help with an enquiry,’ said Dog vaguely, not wanting to encourage a disruptive third party to witness his interview with the woman.

‘Fine,’ said the priest. ‘In that case, I will be running along. Thanks for the tea, Mrs Maguire. I’ll call again soon. I’ll see myself out.’

He gabbled a blessing and made for the door.

Dog said, ‘Oh, Father, is that your car outside? I may have blocked you in. Better have a look.’

He followed the priest into the hallway and at the front door he said in a low voice, ‘Look, there is some news, potentially bad. I need to talk to her alone but if you could come back in twenty minutes, say?’

Father Blake said, ‘Could you give me some idea … I’m not her parish priest you see, more a friend of the family.’

‘You’ll know her daughter then?’

‘Jane? No. I’ve never met her but naturally we’ve talked about her. Why? Is there something wrong? There hasn’t been an accident?’

His voice had risen and Dog glanced warningly towards the sitting room door.

‘Nothing like that,’ said Dog. ‘I’m sure Mrs Maguire will tell you all about it. Twenty minutes?’

He didn’t give Blake time to reply but urged him out of the front door and closed it behind him. Then he returned to the sitting room where Mrs Maguire was sitting by the empty fireplace. She motioned him to the chair Father Blake had occupied, which proved as hard as Dog had suspected.

‘Sorry to chase the Father away,’ he said. ‘He’s not your parish priest?’

‘No. He’d not be coming to my house in a suit if he was at St Mary’s, I tell you,’ she said scornfully. ‘He’s from the Priory College, if it’s any business of yours. A friend of my brother Patrick’s, God rest his soul.’

She glanced at a photo on the mantelpiece of a man in a soutane standing in front of a gloomy Gothic pile. It was her pride in having had a priest in the family which had made her uncharacteristically forthcoming, Dog guessed. Now, as if in reaction, she snapped, ‘What have you done with your face?’

The question took him by surprise. He was used to the curious side-glance or the carefully averted gaze, but direct questioning was a rarity.

‘A car accident,’ he said dismissively.

‘Oh yes. The drink was it?’ she said.

‘Yes. The drink played a part,’ he said softly.

Sitting in the bar, wanting another, hardly able to rise and go for it. The barman setting a pint of Guinness and a chaser before him. ‘Compliments.’ Nodding across the room to where a man stands, face beneath his old tweed hat unmemorable enough to be a forgotten acquaintance. A faint smile, a glass half raised, then the unmemorable blocked out by the unforgettable, a woman, her face candle-pale with emotion, her hair a flame that never burnt on any mere candle. ‘What the hell are you doing here, Dog? After what happened you must be mad! Let’s get you home.’

‘Men,’ said Mrs Maguire contemptuously. ‘If it’s not the fancy women, it’s the booze.’

Coming out of the bar, his arm across her shoulders. Light and the sound of laughter behind them; ahead, darkness and a rising wind with a caress of soft Irish rain. Her face turned up to his as he staggered on the uneven surface of the car park. ‘Darling, are you all right for the driving?’ His own voice slurred and angry. ‘Why not? No one asks me if I’m all right for the killing, do they?’

‘You’re so right, Mrs Maguire,’ he said. ‘It’s usually one or the other.’

She looked at him sharply, suspicious of irony. Then, surprised at detecting none, she folded her arms and said, ‘All right, Mr Cicero, what’s your business with me?’

He brought himself back to the present and said, ‘It’s about your daughter.’

‘Has there been an accident?’ she asked in alarm. He examined the alarm, found it genuine. Why not? Love was not a prerogative of the attractive.

He said, ‘Not an accident. An incident. As far as we know your daughter is fine.’

It was an evasion, also an economy with the truth, but he wanted as many answers as possible before the direction of his questions hit her.

‘When did you last see Jane?’ he asked.

Use of the Christian name seemed to reassure her.

‘At the weekend. Saturday,’ she replied.

So she had come here when she fled the social worker’s knock.

‘Were you expecting her?’ he asked.

‘No, I wasn’t. They came right out of the blue,’ she said in an aggrieved tone. ‘I had nothing ready, I might have been out or anything.’

He noted they but didn’t comment. He guessed that the moment she got wind he was interested in the boy, there would be no progress till she learned what was going on.

He said, ‘How long did Jane stay?’

‘Not long.’ A barrier had come down.

He said, ‘Overnight?’

‘No. She could have done. The room was there like it always has been.’

‘But she decided to leave?’

‘Yes.’

‘You quarrelled,’ he said flatly.

She hesitated then said, ‘What goes on between my daughter and myself is our business. What’s this all about, mister? You said she was all right …’ Then her face went stiff as if she at last felt the chilly north in his questions. ‘It’s not the boy, is it? Nothing’s happened to Oliver?’

There was nothing for it but another fragment of truth.

He said, ‘I’m sorry to say that your grandson is missing.’

Her hands seized the hem of her apron and threw it up to cover the lower part of her face beneath her fear-rounded eyes. It was a gesture he’d only ever seen in films, but there was nothing theatrical about it here in this cold front parlour.

‘Believe me, there’s probably nothing to worry about,’ he urged, justifying his lie with his need to get coherent answers from this woman who might turn out to be one of the last to see the boy alive. ‘Children go missing all the time. Most of them turn up fit and well.’

Slowly the apron was lowered. She didn’t believe him but her wish to be reassured was still stronger than her disbelief.

He went on quickly, ‘Tell me about the visit on Saturday. It might help.’

‘Has he run away, is that it?’

He didn’t answer but smiled encouragingly and felt a pang of shame as she took this for agreement.

‘And you’re wondering if he’s come up here.’

‘Do you think he would come back here?’ he asked. His intention was simple evasion, but he provoked an indignant response.

‘And why wouldn’t he? We get on all right, me and Oliver. But he’s only a baby, how’d he find his way up here? And do you think I’d not let her know straight off though that’d not be easy? We might not see eye to eye, and, yes, I think the lad’d be better off here where there’s someone at home all day, but I’d not keep quiet about something like that. What do you take me for?’

Cicero again felt the distress beneath the indignation, but he was a policeman, not a counsellor, and there were points to get clear.

‘Why wouldn’t it have been easy to let her know if Oliver had turned up here?’

‘Because I don’t have her address!’ she burst out. ‘There, that surprises you, doesn’t it? Four months since she left, and I still don’t have an address.’

‘But how do you keep in touch?’

‘She rings me, usually on a Sunday. We never talk long. She rings from a call box and them pips are forever pipping. I tell her to reverse the charge but she’s not a one to be obligated, our Jane.’

‘Did she ring this Sunday?’

‘No. Something better to do, I expect. Hold on! He’s not been missing since Sunday, has he? Not since Sunday?’

The thought constricted her throat, turning her voice to a thin squeak.

‘No,’ said Cicero. ‘So you’ve no way of getting in touch with her direct?’

‘She told me in emergencies I can ring that friend of hers, that Maddy.’ Her lips crinkled in distaste as she spoke the name.

Maddy. The name in the copy of Songs of Innocence and Experience.

‘Who’s Maddy?’ he asked.

‘One of her college teachers she got friendly with. Too friendly.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Family comes first in my book, mister. Besides, she must be near on my age!’ said Mrs Maguire indignantly. ‘If you must have friends, stick to your own age, your own kind, that’s what I say. I knew this Maddy would be the cause of trouble, and wasn’t I proved in the right of it?’

She nodded with the assurance of one used to being located in the right.

‘Was it this Maddy you quarrelled about then?’

‘It was too! Maybe only indirectly,’ she qualified with reluctant honesty. ‘But she was behind it all the same. Why should her telephone number be such a secret? It’s public property, isn’t it? It’s in the book.’

‘It is if you’ve got a surname and address,’ said Cicero. ‘Do you?’

‘No. I never cared to ask what she might be called and I’ve no idea where she lives,’ admitted the woman.

‘And who was it you gave her number to?’

‘It was this friend of Jane’s, a really nice girl, well spoken, the kind of friend Jane ought to have if she must have them. She’d lost touch with Jane since college and she was so keen to see her again that I saw no harm in giving her this Maddy’s number. It was shaming enough to have to admit I didn’t have an address for my own daughter without pretending there was no way I could get in touch with her.’

‘What was her name, this girl? And when did she call?’

‘Week before last it was. And her name was Mary Harper.’

‘Did Jane remember her?’

‘No. But the girl was wearing a ring so it seems likely it was her married name. But whether she knew her or not, there was no reason to get in such a tantrum when I told her I’d given this Mary the telephone number. Well, I wasn’t about to be lectured in my own house by my own daughter, I tell you! So we had words and she stalked out.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Not long after they arrived. About half past four.’

‘How did she look, your daughter?’

‘Like she always does. A bit pale maybe. She doesn’t eat enough, never has done. All this athletics stuff, it’s not right for a girl. The men are built for it, well, some men, but it’s a strain on a female, bound to be.’

‘And Noll? Oliver?’

‘Now he looked peaky, I thought. I said to her, what’re you thinking of, putting that child through such a journey …’

And once more she stopped in mid-stride as the fear she was trying to control by words, by anger, by indignation, was edged aside by a darker, heavier terror.

‘All these questions, what have they got to do with anything? What’s really happened, mister? He’s not just wandered off, has he? Well, has he? What’s really happened, mister?’

He said, ‘We don’t know, Mrs Maguire, and that’s the truth. But we’ve got to face the possibility that your grandson may have been abducted.’

It was a choice of horrors. Little boy lost, wandering around in the cold midwinter weather, or a kidnapped child in the hands of a deranged stranger. She sat there rocking to and fro, in the delusive belief that she was facing the worst. This was no time to hint at the third and most terrible possibility.

The door bell rang. He looked at the woman. She showed no sign of having heard it.

He went out into the tiny hallway and opened the front door.

Father Blake was standing there, his face pale with anger. Before Dog could speak, the priest demanded, ‘What the hell are you playing at, Inspector? Coming here with your stupid lies! What sort of man are you?’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand …’

‘No, you don’t, do you? That’s clear enough. It’s people you’re dealing with … Why couldn’t you come right out and say it? Don’t we have a right to know what’s going on? Suppose that was how Mrs Maguire got to know, for God’s sake!’

His anger and anguish clearly went deep.

Dog said, ‘Please, Father. What’s happened? Tell me what’s happened and maybe I’ll be able to tell you what you want to know.’

The priest regarded him with deep mistrust, but he was back in control of himself.

‘All right, Cicero,’ he said. ‘I’ll play your game a little while. I’ve been sitting in my car listening to the radio, and I’ve just heard some policeman from Essex, Romchurch, isn’t it? That’s where you’re from?’

‘Yes,’ said Dog. ‘What was it you heard?’

‘I heard this man, Parslow, saying the reason you’re interested in Jane Maguire is because her son’s missing, that you believe he’s dead, and that you want to find his mother in order to charge her with murder!’

12

It wasn’t as bad as the priest made out, but almost. Close questioned, Blake calmed down enough to admit that Parslow hadn’t stated categorically that it was a murder hunt, only that the child was missing, the police were anxious to interview his mother, and the possibility of foul play could not be ruled out.

‘Look,’ said Dog. ‘Why don’t you go in and see what you can do for Mrs Maguire? She knows the boy’s missing and that’s been shock enough. I’ll get onto my office to see if anything else has come up.’

‘And you’ll let me know? The truth this time?’ said Father Blake harshly.

‘I’ll tell you everything I can,’ said Dog jesuitically.

Reluctantly, the priest went through into the sitting room leaving Dog to his thoughts.

The whole thing stank of Tench. He must have decided his devious purposes would best be served by going public. And he’d get no argument from Parslow. Steady Eddie would have made the statement dressed as Santa Claus, so long as his pension rights were safe.

Dog cooled down a little. Perhaps he was being unfair to both Tench and Parslow. Perhaps something new had come up.

He picked up the phone from the hall table and dialled.

‘Romchurch police, can I help you?’

‘CID, Sergeant Lunn.’

When he heard the sergeant’s voice, he said, ‘Charley, are you alone? What’s going on?’

‘Maguire, you mean? There was some kind of media leak, I gather, so they wheeled out the super to make a statement. But why he decided to throw petrol on the fire beats me, specially as I’d talked to the social worker who tried to see Maguire, and while he said a couple of odd things, there was nothing there to reinforce the murder theory.’

‘Tell me,’ said Dog.

‘This chap confirms he rang Maguire’s bell and got no reply. Then he had a word with Mrs Ashley, the old lady who’d made the complaint. He wasn’t all that worried, it seems, ’cos evidently it’s quite a hobby of Mrs Ashley’s ringing up with allegations about domestic mayhem. And in this case he reckoned she’d really slipped over into fantasy land because there was no record of a child living in the flat anyway.’

‘Maguire hadn’t been in the area all that long,’ said Dog.

‘All the same, kids usually figure in the records very quickly. Health, education, that sort of thing. I checked with the DHSS about Child Allowance and there’s no trace there either.’

Cicero said, ‘Would going to a private kindergarten make a difference to the records?’

‘Officially, no. I mean, children have to be accounted for and County Hall would have a record of all the Vestey Kindergarten kids. But until someone bothers to do a cross check, the fact that a pupil at the kindergarten doesn’t figure elsewhere wouldn’t come up.’

‘Whereas if the child had been registered at a local authority nursery school, it would automatically be fed into the whole system?’

‘Right. Why so interested in that aspect, Dog? It was the same when I told Parslow. That chap, Tench, from the funny buggers, was there and he didn’t seem much bothered that the child abuse thing was probably a fake alarm either.’

‘Oh, I’m bothered, Charley. Anything else?’

‘No. Oh yes. Five minutes ago they rang up from the desk to say there was this woman asking for you and did we know when you’d be back. A Miss Edmondson. Said she worked with Maguire.’

‘First name Suzie? Long blonde girl, not bad looking?’

‘Don’t know. Never saw her.’

‘You mean you just let her go?’

‘Of course not. I went down but by the time I got there, your Mr Tench had swallowed her up. Willy on the desk, though, did have a languid look on his face so maybe your description fitted. She’s probably still in the super’s room … hang about, I hear Mr Tench’s merry laugh now … I’ll just have a word …’

‘No!’ snapped Dog, though why the word came out he did not know. But it was too late anyway. There was nothing on the end of the line but background noise of footsteps and a door opening, voices, distant and tinny, silence, more steps, then in his ear Tench, merry and bright.

‘Dog! Just been talking about you. How goes it, my son?’

‘What’s going on?’ said Dog. ‘Why have we gone public?’

‘No choice, had we? Press got onto it, probably one of the mums at the kindergarten tipped them off. You’ve got to cooperate with the media, Dog, or they won’t play ball with yours.’

‘But why stress the possible murder angle?’

‘Because that’s what it looks like more and more. Don’t knock it, my son. Once we’re absolutely sure it’s some batty slag topping her toddler ’cos he got on her nerves, I’ll be on my way and you can get back to the five-hour siesta!’

‘What did Suzie Edmondson say?’ said Dog, refusing to let Tench irritate him off course.

‘What? Oh, the girl from the Health Centre, you mean. You didn’t mention her, did you? Saving her for yourself, were you? Don’t blame you, very tasty. But she just about wrapped it up, Dog. Thought you were just enquiring about the Jacobs business till she heard the news. Then she recalled a couple of odd things Maguire had said to her this morning. Like when she got bawled out for being late, she’d told Suzie she was sick of this and was thinking of looking for a real full-time job with better money. Suzie said, what about the kid? And our little charmer shrugged and said she had a life to live too. Now I know it’s hearsay and what Suzie says about Maguire’s tone of voice would not be admissible, but it all adds up, my son. How’ve you got on with the mother?’

‘Maguire came up at the weekend. Saturday. With the boy. They didn’t stay. There was a row and she left.’

As he spoke his hand toyed with a spring-loaded index by the phone, its right angles exactly matching those of the highly polished table. He touched M. There was only one entry: Maddy, with a number after it.

‘A row, you say? What about? Any idea where she went?’

‘Oh, just the usual mother and daughter thing,’ said Dog. ‘And Mrs Maguire assumed she’d drive home.’

‘But we know she didn’t. Could be that’s when it happened, Dog,’ said Tench. ‘And she spent all Sunday thinking up her fantasy. Well, it’ll all come out in the wash. What time will you be back?’

‘Oh, a couple of hours,’ said Dog vaguely.

‘See you then if I’m still around. Take care, old son.’

‘I will,’ said Dog, replacing the receiver. He’d no idea why he’d lied, except as a defensive response to a gut feeling that Tench was lying too. But about what? He picked up the phone again, dialled Directory Enquiries, identified himself, gave the number next to Maddy, and asked for a name and address. It took half a minute.

Madeleine Salter, The Warden’s Flat, South Essex College of Physical Education, Basildon.

He went back to the sitting room. Father Blake was kneeling beside Mrs Maguire, holding her hands and talking urgently to her in a low voice, but there didn’t seem to be any response. Dog motioned with his head and the priest followed him into the hall.

‘Look,’ said Dog. ‘I’ve been on the phone to my station and it’s not as bad as it sounds.’

‘Will you spell it out to me, Inspector,’ said the priest grimly. ‘If I’m to help this poor creature, I’ve got to know how much reassurance I can honestly give her.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Dog. He gave a rapid digest of the facts, missing out any reference to Special Branch.

‘So there’s nothing to show that Janey had hurt the boy?’ said Blake fiercely.

Dog hesitated. Then he said quietly, ‘Father, be as comforting as you can, but until we can see our way clearer, it would be wrong to promise certainties.’