FOUR
Like a child cheating in a game of hide-and-seek, Pearson stood motionless in the shadow of a tree and watched Maguire make his way towards a bend in the path. The detective’s hunched-over shoulders and stiff walk suggested something more than a police officer determined to clear his name. It was the behaviour of someone inhabiting a dream that was slowly going from bad to worse. Recognising that walk heightened Pearson’s misgivings. From bitter experience, he knew that men like Maguire had a talent for dragging others into their personal nightmares.
He stood with his back to the tree and leaned forward slightly as the detective disappeared around the bend. He desperately wanted Maguire to turn around at the last moment, give him an apologetic wave, and call an end to the game. He wanted the detective to promise him there would be no more scary surprises or jumping out of dark corners, but Maguire slipped out of view without once looking back. Pearson lingered for a while on the path, wondering about the informer Ruby, if he was hunkering somewhere in a secret hole in border country, waiting to scare them both to death. He thought Maguire might also have reached the point where he wanted the game of hide-and-seek to end, if only Ruby would give it up, too.
Pearson watched the dusk advance along the riverbanks, the shadows contending with dying sunlight in every corner. He thought with a shudder that Maguire might have been a ghost, an apparition rising from the black river. He had expected a ready-made story from the detective, Maguire placing all his cards on the table in the apparent hope of fair play, not this tangle of confusing thoughts and fears. He should have fled Maguire’s troubled face, rather than plead and press him with more questions. He felt irritated at the role he had been forced to play, and more than irritated, alarmed. Maguire had been one of his best detectives, and Ruby’s secrets had played an important part in advancing Pearson’s own career, allowing him to lead a team of detectives in one of the busiest stations in Belfast, while all the time disdaining to look too closely at his officers’ operations or learn anything about their informers beyond a strict need-to-know basis.
Reluctantly, he made his way to a phone box and stepped inside. He lifted the receiver and hesitated. He felt genuinely sad at the thought of what lay ahead for Maguire. For a while, he stared at the window in an unfocused way, dimly aware of the lights of passing cars, the streetlights glittering along the river embankment. There were no such things as coincidences. Everything was part of a plan, some more subtle and underhand than others. If he believed in coincidences, he would not have agreed to meet Maguire and tip off Special Branch at the same time. He told himself there were things about Maguire and his career that could not be written off as good luck or serendipity. He gathered himself together, disciplined his thoughts, and pressed the numbers with a cold firmness. After a few rings, the voice of Special Branch Commander Tom Bates spoke in a flat tone at the other end.
‘How did it go?
