Nothing Sacred (14 page)

He straightened up and turned to the young lad, gripping his cue in both hands, holding it like a barbell, and he said to the young lad who would not meet his eyes, ‘Now look what you made me fucking do, you stupid little cunt.'

I got home late and exhausted having talked my father out of physically attacking a boy nearly fifty years his junior for no other crime than being there at the same time as my father happened to be demonstrating his ineptitude at playing snooker. But what my father had told me rang true: whatever Ryan had done to upset the Blakes, nothing had been sacrosanct – his wife, his kids, all made to pay. I thought of Liam, his mistake, allowing me to follow him home and exposing Alex Blake. His punishment, although still terrible, at least now made more sense.

Perhaps Ryan had really had no choice; perhaps suicide had seemed the only way out, the only way he could protect his family from the Blake's pitiless onslaught. I felt a sudden overwhelming feeling of guilt, a sensation like my body was in free fall. I had treated him with disdain, such contempt. My conduct may have driven him over the edge. The feeling of guilt was so strong that for some hours I sat with my head in my hands in my living room, trying to rock away my dreadful culpability, and failing, failing.

13

I HAD RECENTLY
bought an abandoned building, which at one point had been a convent, using an unexpected inheritance. I had planning permission to convert it into apartments and was using Andy, an old acquaintance of mine, to carry out the work. I had nothing to contribute to the project, had signed off the architectural plans and told Andy to do it right, take his time, quote me a price and do his best to stick to it. But the next morning I needed something to do so I drove over, parked at the kerb where tall painted wooden boards with
Danger Do Not Enter
signs hid the construction work from the street.

I got out of my car and walked by the tall boards until I came to a door with a security keypad on it. I punched in the code, opened the door and saw men in hard hats, cement being mixed, scaffolding boards over muddy earth. I nodded to a couple of men who I knew by sight and walked into the entrance. As always when I did this, I had to try to suppress the thought of what lay beneath the concrete floor, what was buried there. I had no love for the place, in some senses feared it, but it was mine and it had come to me in strange circumstances. Anyway, looking at the work in full flow around me, it was a little late for second thoughts.

‘Danny. You all right?'

Andy was bald, built like a pillar box and one of the most honest and open men I had ever known. He had a daughter at LSE studying Economics who he would talk of with a bewildered yet proud awe.

‘Yes, mate. Everything okay?'

‘Okay, except for the fact it's bloody freezing. God cancel spring or something?'

‘Cold, is it?'

‘Funny. Here, electrics are in, on schedule despite acts of God. You want anything particular?'

‘Just looking. Seeing you aren't making off with the fireplaces.'

Andy laughed. ‘First thing I did.'

My mobile rang and I hesitated, did not wish to appear rude, but looking at it I saw that it was Vick's number.

‘Sorry, Andy, I have to take this.' I picked up the call. ‘Hello?'

‘Yeah, you've been calling Vick,' said a woman.

‘Yes.'

‘You that lawyer?'

‘Yes. She hear about Ryan?'

‘She heard. Listen, that social worker's been in touch. Says she can visit her kids. Vick wants you there with her.'

‘Me?' I did not want this. I did not want to be involved.

‘Best you come over here.'

‘Where's here?'

The woman gave me her address, told me I couldn't miss it, had a flamingo on the lawn, a plastic one but pink like the real thing. I said goodbye to Andy, thanked him for his work, walked back over the scaffolding boards, through the door and out to my car. And back into Vick's story.

Ms Armstrong still had her hair piled up on top of her head but this time her dress was orange rather than blue, black leggings underneath and sandals on her feet. She carried the same air of goodwill combined with professional distance, which suggested that she had everybody's best intentions at heart but, ultimately, she called the shots and there was no discussion to be had.

‘Mrs Lowrie?' she said.

Vick held out her hand and Ms Armstrong took it but did not shake it, instead simply held it for a moment as she looked Vick in the eyes. I wondered how Vick was managing to hold herself together. That she was doing it for her children I did not doubt, but so soon after hearing of Ryan's death, I was amazed she was capable of speech, of thought.

Ms Armstrong nodded, turned and said, ‘Follow me,' and again set off so quickly that Vick and I had to hustle after her. We passed the large hangar-like room where children of different ages played and read and waited for whatever fate was being decided for them by adults they had never met.

‘They are expecting you,' Ms Armstrong said without turning. ‘I need you to understand that you should not give them any assurances regarding when, or if, they are coming back home with you.'

Vick nodded but Ms Armstrong was in front and could not see and she said curtly, ‘Mrs Lowrie?'

‘Yes,' said Vick. ‘All right.'

Ms Armstrong stopped at a door with a card on it that read
Family room
and turned to us.

‘I need to be there with you.'

‘I want Daniel to be there too.'

‘Vick,' I said, but Vick shook her head.

‘Please, Dan.'

I shrugged and Ms Armstrong opened the door and stepped aside to let Vick pass. I followed her in, Ms Armstrong behind me. Ollie and Gwynn were sitting on small chairs at a low table.

The instant they saw Vick they got up and yelled, ‘Mummy!' and Vick was on her knees, with them in her arms, holding them, stroking their small backs desperately and covering their faces with kisses as the children gabbled and tripped over their words, hopped up and down in the safety of Vick's grip. Watching them I wondered how Ms Armstrong could still suspect Vick of any wrongdoing, so unconditional, unrestrained and joyful was their reunion.

As I turned to look at Ms Armstrong, I caught her roughly pushing a tear away from her nose with her index finger as if it was an unwelcome insect, and I realised that her job was difficult, so very difficult. The emotional toll must have been dreadful.

‘Where were you, Mummy?' said Ollie, the elder child.

‘I had to work,' said Vick. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘Do we go home now?' he said.

‘Soon,' said Vick. ‘I hope soon.' She let go of her children and leaned back away from them so that she could look them in the eyes. ‘Are you all right?'

‘I don't like it here,' said Ollie. ‘Can we go home?'

Gwynn did not say anything, watched her mother with grave eyes. Vick spoke and I could sense the effort she made to keep her voice bright, keep it from breaking.

‘A bit longer here,' she said. ‘Just a bit longer.'

‘I want to go home,' said Ollie. His voice caught on
home
and he stood upright with his fists clenched, his eyes tight shut and his little frame shook as he cried. Vick gathered him to her but he pushed her away with rigid arms. Then Gwynn started to cry as well and I could not imagine a more helpless situation. Abruptly Ollie stopped fighting and both children collapsed into Vick's embrace and she stroked their hair, whispering, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' again and again like a liturgy, although she did not have anything to say sorry for, nothing at all.

Contact was strictly monitored, supervised and timetabled, and after an hour Ms Armstrong quietly told Vick that her time was up, that she had to go but that she could come back in two days' time if she wanted. I could not watch Vick say goodbye to her children, could not bear to see the pain that it would cause her, so waited outside, staring at the closed door of the room, trying not to picture what was going on behind it, trying not to think about how hard it must be for Vick and how brave she had to be.

I had driven Vick to the care centre in silence and I took her back to her friend's house, again driving in silence through the falling darkness. Vick did not speak for the first half of the journey and when we stopped at a red light, tired people on their way back from work passing in front of headlights, I looked across at her and saw that she was crying. My heart was beating fast, the adrenalin of the confessional.

‘I'm sorry about Ryan,' I said.

Vick did not answer, turned to look out of her side window.

‘I was there,' I said.

‘You what?'

‘I was there. Talking to him. When he… When he killed himself.'

Vick turned to me. ‘You were there?'

I nodded. ‘I wanted to talk to him. Get to the bottom of… this.'

‘What did he say? What… Daniel? What did he say?'

The lights changed and I pulled away. ‘Vick…'

‘What did he
say
?'

I thought about what Ryan had told me, wondered how I could tell it, so it made sense. ‘He was under some pressure. Don't know from whom. Wasn't making much sense.'

‘You were there.' Disbelief in her voice.

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I wish I could have done something. But he just… He just went.'

I took Vick back to her friend's house, came in, sat with her in the kitchen. She made coffee and we drank in silence, Vick looking out of the dark window into whatever she saw out there.

‘What kind of pressure?' she eventually said. ‘What kind of pressure was he under?'

I drank, considered. Came up empty. ‘Don't know. Maybe he owed people money. Maybe they were getting to you, to get to him. All that's been happening. Could be it was all about him, nothing to do with you.'

‘Ryan,' Vick said in frustration and anger.

‘He wanted to make it stop,' I said.

‘So he done himself in.' She laughed, a short, sad sound. ‘Couldn't have been that bad.'

But I was not so sure. I had met Alex Blake; she hadn't. I watched her as she thought, went through recent events in her mind, shifted meanings and changed her assumptions.

‘So everything's been happening,' she said, ‘it weren't ghosts?'

‘No,' I said. ‘I don't know what it was. But it wasn't ghosts. And I think it's over.'

Vick looked angry, a brief expression of defiance before her face collapsed and she dug in her bag for a tissue, wiped her eyes.

‘Why didn't you stay for the police?'

A good question. ‘Whoever Ryan was involved with… Vick, it's best to leave it. It's over. Get the police involved, we'll get straight back in it.'

‘But my kids. Could prove it weren't me. What happened to them.'

She was right. But she had not met Alex Blake. She did not understand.

‘Vick, believe me. You don't want to get involved.'

She did not respond to this, gazed back out of the window.

‘He was doing well,' she said eventually. ‘Doing so well.'

I looked across at her, frowned. ‘Doing well?'

She nodded. ‘We still spoke. He told me. How good work was going.'

‘Yeah, but Vick, rent-a-cop for a shopping centre? Bit of a come-down from the army, wasn't it?'

Vick frowned. ‘Rent-a-what? No, Danny. Ryan weren't no security guard: he worked up at the nick. High-security.'

I did not understand. ‘The nick?'

‘Yeah. He was a prison guard. And doing bloody well too, if what he said was right.'

‘Prison guard,' I said. I had a feeling of floating, of anchors cast off. My chest and arms felt numb and I barely trusted myself to hold my coffee.

‘Loved it, he did. Reckoned he'd be running the place one day.'

I did not reply. There was a meaning here, a significance that was only barely discernible, like a dark shape submerged in murky water – a meaning that changed everything. I did not know what Vick had told me meant. But I knew that it could mean nothing good.

It did not take me long to do a search for Connor Blake, did not take me long to read four or five news stories that all carried, essentially, the same sparse information. I remembered the headlines from months ago, one more violent incident in my neighbourhood. I had not read the details, had not known the names of the people involved. Connor Blake.

On a Friday night three months ago he had been drinking in a local bar with a group of friends. The bar was open only to clientele aged twenty-five and over, in an attempt to reduce violent incidents caused by inebriated teenagers high on testosterone. That evening, though, the policy had not been enough to prevent what happened. The police described the attack as motiveless; they also described it as horrific. A young man named Karl Reece had been drinking in the bar that night. He was a medical student visiting a university friend over the Christmas holidays. He apparently exchanged words with Connor Blake and an argument broke out. Karl's friends managed to cool the situation down and both parties continued drinking. But at around two o'clock in the morning it had flared up again and Connor Blake had attacked Karl Reece, beaten him half unconscious. Then, not satisfied that the other man's disrespect had been sufficiently punished, he dragged Reece out of the bar and laid him face-down against a wall so that his forehead was resting against the bricks, his neck at an angle. He had taken a four-step run-up and launched himself at Reece, landing with both feet on the back of the other man's neck, killing him instantly.