The Only Game

‘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?’