Reginald Hill - The Only Game

‘And what did you take this to mean?’

‘I took it to mean she was offering to masturbate me for twenty-five pounds,’ said Jacobs sharply. ‘What the hell else could it mean?’

‘Hard to say,’ said Dog. ‘Were you erect, by the way?’

‘What?’

‘Erect. Excited. It’d be natural. Pretty girl rubbing your body …’

‘No, I was not erect,’ snarled Jacobs. ‘What the hell is this? I have a massage at least once a week. I don’t care if it’s a pretty girl or Granger himself, as long as it helps my back. God, I knew I should have had her arrested straight off and not given her the chance to pour her poison out …’

‘Why didn’t you?’ asked Dog. ‘Call us straightaway, I mean. A man in your position with your reputation can’t be too careful.’

‘Don’t you think I know it? Mud sticks. I thought, better to forget it perhaps. Also George Granger’s by way of being a friend. I didn’t want to get his centre into the papers.’

‘Very commendable,’ said Dog. ‘So you decided very altruistically to keep stumm, till your mate Granger rang you up to say I’d been round?’

‘I don’t like your tone of voice,’ said Jacobs softly. ‘As it happens I didn’t keep stumm. As it happens I was chairing a meeting of the Liaison Committee this afternoon and Jim Tredmill, your Chief Constable, was there, and after the meeting I had a word with him, asked his advice. He said I’d probably done the right thing, no witnesses, hard to prove, but he’d see his men kept their eyes open for this tart. Clearly he hasn’t had time to ask you yet, Inspector. But never fear. I’ll make sure he knows just how ignorant his senior officers are!’

The door banged behind him with a force which set the coffee cups on Parslow’s desk vibrating.

‘Now I’d say you handled that really well, Dog,’ said the superintendent mildly.

Dog shrugged.

‘You’ve got to play ’em as you see ’em,’ he said.

‘One of your famous Uncle Endo’s gems, is it?’ enquired Parslow. ‘All right, fill me in.’

He listened, sucking reflectively on a tablet.

‘Sounds like it could turn out nasty,’ he said unhappily. ‘Maguire. Is she Irish?’

‘Born in Londonderry, brought up in Northampton.’

‘Is that a problem for you, Dog?’

‘No,’ he said emphatically. Too emphatically? But Parslow just wanted formal reassurance.

‘Good. It’s an odd tale she tells, certainly. Over-ingenious, you reckon? Or odd enough to be true?’

It dawned on Dog that Parslow did not yet know that Maguire had walked out of the hospital.

He said, ‘Hardly matters, does it? One way the kid’s dead, the other, he’s likely to be in danger of his life.’

He saw Parslow register glumly that hassle awaited them in all directions, then tossed in his poison pill.

‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘I’ve just heard from Scott at the General that Maguire’s had it away on her toes.’

A spasm of pain crossed Parslow’s face, mental now but with its physical echoes not far behind. He should go, thought Dog. To hell with hanging on till he topped twenty-five years, which was Parslow’s avowed aim. But who the hell was he to give advice? Another month would see his ten years up, and for the past eighteen months he’d been promising himself that the decade was enough, he’d have done whatever he set out to do by joining. Only, his motives were now so distant, he couldn’t recall whether he’d achieved them or not.

Parslow said, ‘Have the press got a sniff yet?’

‘No. And I’d prefer to keep it low key till we know which way we’re going,’ said Dog.

‘Fine,’ said Parslow. ‘I suppose I’d better have a word with Mr Tredmill.’

He didn’t sound as if he relished the prospect. Everyone knew that the Chief Constable was keen for him to go and didn’t much mind if it was in an ambulance.

‘I’m going round to Maguire’s flat,’ said Dog.

‘You think she might show up there?’ said Parslow hopefully.

‘Only if she’s mad,’ said Dog.

Parslow popped another tablet into his mouth.

‘What makes you think she isn’t?’ he asked, sucking furiously. ‘And if she is mad, and she’s killed one kid, you’d better find her pretty damn quick, Dog, before she gets the urge to kill another!’

Jane Maguire’s head was aching. She wondered what the result of the X-ray had been. Most shops were already staying open late as Christmas approached and she went into a chemist’s and bought some aspirin. The shop was packaged for the festivities with golden angels dangling from the ceiling and carols booming out of the P. A. Noll was to have been an angel in the school nativity play on the last day of term this coming Thursday …

She had to get out of this perfumed brightness. Clutching her aspirins, she started to push through the thronging shoppers towards the door. Behind her someone called, ‘Excuse me …’ A woman said, ‘I think they want …’ but she thrust her rudely aside and did not pause till she was outside on the glistening pavement dragging in litres of the cold damp air.

A hand grasped her arm. She pulled it free, turned, only fear preventing her from screaming abuse. A girl in a blue overall looked at her strangely and said, ‘You forgot your change.’

She took the money and managed to croak a thank you. Despite the chill rain she felt hot and weak. Across the road was a pub. Oblivious of traffic she made her way towards it. Only when she reached the bar did she realize it was the same pub she’d been in this lunchtime. It seemed light years ago. Would the barman remember her? What if he did? There was hardly time for her face to have appeared in the papers.

She ordered a brandy. She didn’t like it, but her mother had always insisted on its medicinal qualities. Her mother … She took a sip and pulled a face. The barman said, ‘All right, is it?’ She said, ‘Yes. Sorry. It’s just the taste … I mean, I’m starting a cold …’

It was a productive lie. He said, ‘What you really need is something hot. We do coffee.’ And as he poured her a cup in response to her nod, she was able to take a couple of aspirin without him calling the drug squad.

She sipped the coffee and felt a little better. It occurred to her that the last time she had eaten had been in this place several hours ago, and that hadn’t been much. There were some corpse-pale pies in a plastic display cabinet. She asked for one. The barman put it in a microwave and a few moments later handed it to her, piping hot but still pale as death. She bit into it. The meat was stringy, the gravy slimy, but it tasted delicious. So. Forget the soul, forget the intellect. Animal pleasure was still possible even after …

She pushed the thought away as she ate the pie. Then she ordered another. No pleasure now, but a simple refuelling, an anticipation that she would need all her resources.

Finished, she went to the cloakroom. The mirror showed her a face as pallid as the pies. Her long red hair, usually electric with life, hung straight and lank and darkened almost to blackness by its exposure to the rain. It was, she guessed, a good enough disguise, but it was not how she cared to see herself. She stooped to get her head under the hand drier and combed her hair dry in the hot blast. Then she washed her face, rubbed it vigorously with a paper towel and applied a little make-up to her skin, which was glowing with friction.

Once more she inspected herself. It was better, this shell she had to present to the world. Little sign there of the hollow darkness beneath, empty of everything but the echo of a child crying …

Her clothing was very damp. She took off her linen jacket and dried it as best she could under the hand drier. Then she thought, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ It was these damp clothes that the fearsome Cicero would have a description of. Out there was the High Street full of shops desperate to take her money, no matter how tainted it might be.