Nothing Sacred (13 page)

‘Vick nearly died in a fire the other night,' I said, disdain in my voice. ‘Somebody tried to kill her. Know anything about that?'

Slowly he turned his gaze to me, as if reluctant to acknowledge that I existed. He nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. He told me he'd do it. He laughed.'

This stopped me. I looked at Ryan, his despair; wondered what lay behind it all, what pressure he was really under. People threatening to kill his family, hurting his children, torching his ex-wife's home.

‘Hey,' I said softly. I regretted the contempt that I had not bothered to hide from him; felt guilt for assuming his weakness. ‘We can do something about this.'

I walked towards him and he backed away, held up a hand. I stopped. He sat slowly on the low wall edging the rooftop, hands on his lap, head bent towards them – an attitude of prayer.

‘Ryan,' I said.

‘My father taught me to fight my own battles,' he said. ‘I'm a father, too. It's down to me.' He swallowed, shoulders hunching. ‘Nobody else.'

‘Just hold on,' I said. I did not know what else to say. I had so many thoughts in my head.

‘This isn't your problem,' he said. ‘Do yourself a favour. Keep out of it.'

‘Ryan,' I said again.

He sat up, squared his shoulders. Looked me in the eye. For the first time since I had met him, I felt that he was really there. For the first time I sensed a reserve of courage, something small yet fierce and unyielding within him.

‘I'll do anything to look after my family,' he said. ‘Whatever you think of me.'

‘Tell me who's doing this,' I said.

‘They tried to kill her. They'll never stop.'

‘Is it the Blakes?'

Ryan smiled sadly to himself, shook his head. ‘Connor Blake. A name I'll never have to hear again.'

The way he swung his legs over the edge, as if he was on a seafront wall, soft sand just feet the other side, his back to me. He pushed himself off with both hands and I froze, blinked at his sudden absence for I do not know how long. I slowly walked to the edge. Willed myself to look down. Saw a figure approach Ryan who was lying on his side, legs spread like a Sunday morning lie-in, four storeys below me. It was silent and he looked peaceful. At least there was that.

12

WHAT I DID
next was, I am honest enough to admit, both legally and morally indefensible. Perhaps it was the lingering threat of Alex Blake; perhaps it was a wish to walk away from Ryan, Vick, their whole dark and forbidding story. Perhaps I should not even attempt to justify what I did. Whatever. Rather than wait for the police to arrive, give them my version of events, help them understand what had driven Ryan over the edge of the fourth floor of a busy car park, I walked away. Headed back to the rooftop door, hurried down the concrete stairwell, walked out of the Liberty to the sound of approaching sirens, and did not look back.

But if I had imagined that leaving the scene of an incident rather than talk with the police would give me a measure of peace, I was wrong. Back home, its stillness and emptiness surrounded me like a reproach, unmitigated by Maria's happy presence. She had forgiven me for leaving her with Gabe the night before but told me that she had better things to do that evening than hang out with me, told me it over the phone with a smile in her voice. We still, at least notionally, lived separately, and she was having girlfriends over at her place, some kind of celebration, though I was not sure what for.

Walking away from Ryan's suicide gave me another dilemma. I had to tell Vick what had happened, could not avoid it. Had to tell her that I had been there but had left the scene. Had to co-opt her into what was, undeniably, a crime. Give her the bad news and at the same time ask her not to tell the police about my role in it. I took a deep breath, called her number. Got a busy signal. Called again and again, busy both times. Tried once more and was put through to voicemail. I sat back, replayed the likely sequence of events: the police call Vick, she calls somebody up, a friend; she heads to the friend's and talks, leaves her phone to ring through, too exhausted to speak to anyone else. I gave up, put my phone down, not without relief. Somebody else was taking care of it. Better them than me.

I turned on my TV, looked for some show to help pass the evening, keep my mind off what I had been through the last forty-eight hours; found a film I had seen before about an abandoned spaceship with some evil nestling deep within. But before the opening titles had ended, I heard a hammering on my door. My lights were on, my car parked outside: too late to pretend to be out. I walked to my door and opened it.

My father was on the doorstep holding a bunch of flowers, and for a moment the vision was so unexpected that I doubted what I was seeing.

‘You shouldn't have,' I said.

‘Don't be a wanker,' he said. ‘Where is she?'

‘Not in. Out.'

My father grunted, seemed at a loss about what to do with the flowers in his hands. Eventually he shoved them at me, pushed them into my chest, embarrassed.

‘Do something with them then.'

‘You want to come in?'

‘Thought we were going out.'

I tilted my head, frowned.

‘Snooker. Your missus' idea.'

‘Right.' Maria had forgotten to tell me. Or perhaps she had not dared. I guessed that this was her attempt to force some kind of reconciliation, build bridges between father and son. There was nothing that I would rather do less than spend an evening alone with my father, after what I had just seen. But at the same time he had information that, for perhaps the first time in my life, might prove useful. I stuck the flowers head down in my kitchen bin, pulled on a jacket and headed on out.

Snooker was a game that required patience, precision, a cool head and the ability to plan two, three shots in the future – an analytical approach. Watching my father miss another red, throwing his cue at the white as if he was bayoneting the enemy, I could think of few games less temperamentally suited to him. Chess, perhaps. His oiled hair glistened under the lights of the table and he was sweating even though it was not warm, pure rage beading his skin. The white hit the red all wrong and the red missed the pocket by a distance, came off three cushions before it stopped.

‘Fuck it.'

‘Don't hit it so hard.'

‘The fuck would you know?'

Instead of answering, I rolled a red into the middle pocket from a tight angle at dead weight. My father did not acknowledge the shot but I could hear him breathe a little heavier, a sign he was becoming agitated.

I settled down over a long blue and, as I lined it up, said to my father, ‘Heard of someone called Connor Blake?'

My father did not reply. I took the shot and caught it thick, missed by an inch. I straightened up and looked at him. ‘Not one of the Blakes, is he? Those Blakes?'

My father knew most crooked, dodgy, violent and villainous faces in Essex, but you did not need to be an expert on the local underworld to have heard of the Blakes; they were part of local folklore, fairy-tale monsters for adults. Never spoken of, feared, avoided, denied. Yet every-body knew them, what they did. A dark secret reluctantly and shamefully tolerated in our midst.

‘The Blakes?' said my father as he chalked his cue, blew on it. ‘D'you want to know about them for?'

‘They still around?'

My father eyed up a straight red, did not answer. He hit it softly, deliberately, and it dropped into the pocket. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘Yeah, they're still around.'

‘Haven't heard of them recently. Thought they might have disappeared.'

‘Just 'cos you ain't heard of them,' said my father. The cue ball had ended up tight on the cushion and my father did not have the technique to cue smoothly off the side of the table, was jacking his cue up clumsily to hit the top of the white. He got a bad contact and the white barely kissed the blue he'd been aiming for.

‘Arsehole.'

‘So go on,' I said. ‘Connor Blake. You heard of him?'

My father rested the butt of his cue on the floor, held his cue upright like a resting warrior might hold a spear. Away from the table's lights his face was in darkness and I could not read his expression.

‘You don't want nothing to do with that,' he said, and I was surprised to hear something like concern in his voice. I was about to ask him why not but he rested his cue against the wall, picked up his drink, downed it in one open-mouthed pour and said, as he headed for the bar, ‘Pint?'

With my father gone I had to fight a juvenile urge to nudge my score forward, to see if he would notice. But he almost certainly would have and I wanted a quiet night, a minimum of drama. The lights on the table next to ours came on and a couple of lads sauntered over carrying their tray of snooker balls, young and slightly drunk, laughing loudly. My father came back following them with two pints and set them down on the ledge on the wall next to our table.

‘Whose go?'

‘Mine.'

He looked at the table suspiciously. ‘You move the white?'

‘Please.'

There was a shot on to the baulk corner but there was very little room for the red past the brown; I did not want to clip the brown so tried to cheat the pocket but the red stuck in the jaws, leaving it hanging over the pocket, a dolly for my father. He snorted unpleasantly, picked up the chalk. I decided to try again.

‘You ever run into him then?'

‘Who?'

Getting information out of my father was as difficult as getting a dog to sing. ‘Connor Blake,' I said. I appealed to his vanity, his aspirations of being a proper gangster. ‘You're in with all that mob, aren't you?'

Whatever my father's misgivings were, he could not help but take the bait, allow himself a moment of glory. ‘Course I am.'

‘And?'

‘Them Blakes, they're what you might say trying to leave all that behind. Move up.'

‘Respectable?'

My father shook his head condescendingly, a professor to his naive student. ‘Not fucking hardly,' he said. ‘Different league, all it is. Try not to get their hands dirty. If you know what I mean.'

I did, at least broadly. At some point villainy became big business and property was bought, businesses were created, top-flight accountants with few scruples were involved and exactly where the profits came from became hard to identify, even for HMRC. Even if the origin of those profits was unspeakable. Gangsters and bankers: both equally adept at hiding the murk behind the money. At least I now knew why I had been spared. If Blake was being investigated by Customs and Excise, he wouldn't want to have to explain away the dead bodies of local lawyers last seen at his home.

‘Why d'you want to know?' said my father.

‘Client I've got,' I said. ‘Had some bother with them.'

My father turned to me, his back to the snooker table, cue propped in one hand. He rubbed his face with an open palm, smoothed back his oiled hair.

‘If your client's got bother with them, son, you've got bother with them. You want to get as far away as you can. Ain't nothing they won't do, nobody they won't touch, respectable or not. Geezer drinks around here, they did his wife. Still he didn't listen. So they did both his sons. That was twenty years ago. Been trying to drink himself to death ever since.'

I thought of Alex Blake, his absence of humanity. ‘And Connor Blake?'

‘Horrible little fucker,' my father said, turning back to the table. He bent down to his shot. ‘Big fucking surprise.' On the table next to us one of the young lads was already cueing his shot and my father was directly behind him. But of course my father had not noticed, and as the lad brought his cue back, he nudged my father's elbow. My father stopped, stood up, turned to the lad who already had a hand up to apologise even though it was not his fault.

‘You want to try that again?' said my father.

‘Sorry,' said the lad. ‘Didn't see you.'

‘Want to use your eyes, son,' my father said, giving him the stare. He paused a beat, said, ‘What've you got to say?'

The lad had already apologised and I could sense his internal debate, his disinclination to say sorry again fighting his natural urge to avoid confrontation. Just apologise, I thought. It won't hurt.

‘Yeah, sorry,' the lad said, enough sullenness in his tone to salve his pride, enough sincerity to mollify my father. My father shook his head at me, bent down to his shot, stopped, stood up. The young lad was still waiting to take his shot. He'd wait for as long as was necessary.

‘Listen, Connor Blake, you don't want to get involved. Him or his old man. Whatever it is, walk away. Just walk away.'

He bent down again, hit his shot but hit it too hard, didn't get the stun he wanted, put draw on instead and the white followed the red into the pocket with an impact like a shot.

He stayed down for a moment and I said, ‘Yeah but why…' but I had lost him.