Nothing Sacred (18 page)

‘How?'

‘Ryan couldn't. So now,' he points the first two fingers of one cuffed hand at me, takes a shot, ‘I've got you.'

‘We're done,' I say again. ‘Goodbye.'

‘You can't leave.' He shakes his head as if he cannot believe that I am acting so foolishly. ‘You don't walk away from the Blakes.' He pauses, closes his eyes as if invoking some all-powerful entity. ‘My father.' He looks at me. ‘Don't tell me you want to meet him again.'

I do not, never want to, ever. But this is not a moment to show weakness. I think of Ryan, of what he had been reduced to. ‘Send anyone after me,' I say, looking at him, giving away nothing, ‘and I'll put them in a grave.'

‘You've got no idea what we can do.'

‘I've seen what you can do.'

‘Nothing compared to what we'll do to Maria.'

I step around the table and take a handful of Blake's denim shirt, lift him and push him backwards over his chair, rush him up against the brick wall behind him. He hits it hard and I feel the breath leave his body, feel his ribcage give under my hand. My face is inches away from his and I am looking directly into his eyes. Amusement in their blueness, delighted by my loss of control. There is no fear. Most men, if I did this to them, would be begging. He only smiles.

‘Daniel. What are you doing?'

‘Never threaten me.'

‘Give me a beating? There are guards outside the door. You're in prison, Daniel.'

I take a firmer grip of his shirt, lift him so that he is on tiptoes. His eyes widen slightly as he senses my strength and there is an excitement there. He is enjoying this.

‘You'd like to hurt me. I know. But you can't, Daniel. You really can't.'

I let go and back up, turn away from him as I pick up my briefcase.

‘There's nothing you can do. Me, it's different. I can make one call and destroy your life.'

I hit the door with my fist and the sheet metal makes a dull booming sound. I can hear Blake laughing quietly.

‘Daniel, if you walk out of that door then it will all change.'

I turn and Blake is leaning back in his chair, smiling at me.

‘We will take it all from you,' he says.

‘Listen—' I begin, but the door opens and the guard who had walked Blake in enters, looks at Blake, at me, says, ‘All right?'

‘Fine,' I say, and walk past him. As I do I hear Blake's voice say, ‘Everything, Daniel. Everything.' Another guard is outside and he asks me to follow him, leading me through a maze of corridors and locked doors and out of this place and back into the light.

17

MY VISIT TO
Connor Blake has disturbed me more than I care to admit. I spend the rest of that day considering him, trying to work him out and understand what kind of upbringing or psychological flaw would cause somebody to act as he had. I once had a teacher who maintained that nobody was beyond redemption; that everybody had some good in them. Her name was Ms Dawson, who I came to know as Rachael, a woman who had discerned some intelligence beneath my rough exterior and had encouraged me to apply for a scholarship to public school, which paved my way to university and a career, if you could call it that, in law. She has been dead over a year now, a victim of breast cancer, and her memory is one that I cherish and mourn. But still, I cannot agree with her. Some people are simply bad. They harbour no goodness, possess no virtue.

I pick up my phone, make a call. ‘Dean? It's Danny.'

‘Danny, son. How you doing? How's your old man? I ain't seen him in here for a while.'

‘Same as normal.'

‘Fucking horrible.'

‘Right.' Dean grew up alongside me and saw first-hand how I had been treated. Even though he's happy to serve him in his pub, he has no respect for my father.

‘Know Connor Blake?'

There is a silence on the other end and I take my phone away from my ear, check it is still connected.

‘Why d'you want to know about him for?'

‘Case I'm working on. Need some background.'

‘You want to steer clear of that lot.'

‘Just background. Don't worry.'

‘Anyway, Danny son, I don't know him, don't want to fucking know him.'

‘But you know somebody who does.'

‘Might.' Silence again, then, ‘You know he killed someone?'

‘I know. So go on.'

‘Hang on, thinking.' I listen to Dean's breathing and think about how first my father and now Dean have tried to warn me off the Blakes.

‘Danny?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Can only think of one person. Might want to talk to him. But Danny?'

‘Yes, Dean.'

He hesitates. ‘Nothing.'

Dean gives me the name of a man who he tells me is a chef at a hotel called Thorndon Manor and had been tight with Connor Blake for years, called Ade, said like Maddy. He asked me to come round the pub one day, have a drink, but behind this I could feel his discomfort at what I had asked of him and he seemed anxious to get off the phone, end the conversation. I thanked him and told him I'd see him around and he hung up before I did, leaving me with a dead phone to my ear.

That night Maria and I drive to a seafood restaurant on the coast that has a reputation across Essex and further, a dark candlelit place with heavy wood tables overlooking a small harbour of fishing boats and modest yachts. Maria knows the owner and he embraces her, shakes my hand and gives us a table in the window where we watch a full moon float above the sea, scraps of cloud blowing across its pocked face. We eat green-lip mussels and oysters, share a lobster, drink white wine recommended to us by the owner. In the warm flickering light Maria looks beautiful, her dark hair and skin merging with the shadows so that she seems a part of them and I can barely delineate her form, watch only her shining eyes and lips as we talk together.

The place is so peaceful and removed from reality that for a brief time I can push the events of the day to the back of my mind, exist in the here and now. But towards the end of the evening the inevitability of returning home intrudes and my thoughts turn back to Connor Blake. Maria catches my change of mood and reaches across the table, puts a hand on my wrist.

‘It's work, isn't it?'

I have not told Maria what has been going on. I do not want her to know, as if by telling her any details she will be involved, put within touching distance of the Blakes. I nod, settle for a half-truth.

‘Vick. The way she was with her kids. Hard not to think about.'

Maria leans across the table and takes my chin in her hand, gives it an affectionate tug. ‘You're a good man, Daniel Connell. Don't let anybody tell you different.'

I do not know what to say to that, so say nothing.

Maria sighs. ‘Listen, Daniel, you're a lawyer, not a social worker. There's nothing you can do.'

I nod dutifully but cannot shake the worry that I am already in too deep, past a point of no return. We pay and drive home with the radio playing songs from a generation ago; I do not speak more than ten words along the way. Maria keeps looking at me and I want to speak to her but I cannot think of anything to say. She cannot know what is happening, can never know. Some secrets are worth keeping.

I drive out to the hotel the next morning. The sky is blue and it is very cold, a ground mist on the flat fields, the sun golden and dazzling on the horizon, casting long shadows. Thorndon Manor is an upscale country house hotel at the end of a long gravel drive, which crackles sharply in the chill air as I drive up it. I introduce myself at reception, tell them that I am a lawyer and that I need to speak to Ade regarding a case, and that I am sorry to come to his place of work but that it is urgent.

The woman behind the reception desk looks at me suspiciously and asks me if he is in any trouble. I tell her that it does not concern him but that he might be needed as a character witness; she seems satisfied by this nonsense and asks me to sit in the lounge and that she will fetch him.

Ade is black and a huge man, his chef's whites only making him seem more immense. When I offer my hand to shake it seems small in comparison to his, his fingers the size of sausages. But despite his size he finds it hard to meet my eyes, and in his hunched and reluctant posture I can read a life spent outside society, the natural reticence of the congenitally disenfranchised.

I ask him to sit down. I am sitting on a leather sofa and he sits opposite me on an identical sofa, a coffee table between us.

‘I'm sorry to trouble you,' I say.

‘What do you want, man?' he says quietly.

‘Just a little help.'

‘You know my boss out there? He's counting the seconds I'm away from the grill. Going to make sure I pay them back, every one.' Ade's voice is soft and gentle, and it sounds strange coming from such a colossal frame. He talks down into his hands as if he is in a confessional, owning up to something shameful.

‘It concerns a case I'm working on,' I say. ‘Involving Connor Blake.'

‘Oh fuck no, man,' says Ade. ‘I don't want none of this.' He looks away across the room as if I have given him bad news and clasps his hands together, squeezes them against each other.

‘Ade? I'm sorry if this is something you'd prefer not to speak about.'

‘You know I've just come out? Three years. Not allowed to fraternise with the man. So how can I be talking about him with you? Fuck that noise.'

‘Okay,' I say. ‘Listen, I just want to get a sense of him. What he's like. It would help.'

‘Should be cooking.'

‘I won't keep you long.'

‘Counting the seconds. Lose my job, 'cos of you.'

‘That won't happen.'

Ade looks at me for the first time. ‘Why d'you want to know?'

‘You know he killed somebody,' I say.

Ade laughs softly, blows air from his nose. ‘Big surprise.'

‘You used to be friends with him.'

‘I used to run with him,' Ade says. ‘Before.'

‘I'm getting the impression he's bad news.'

‘He know you've come to see me?' A rush of panic, a rising edge to his soft voice.

‘No. I'll never mention it. He'll never know.'

This seems to reassure Ade. He relaxes, his huge shoulders slumping in relief. ‘Bad news. Could say that.'

‘Why?' I say. ‘What did he do?'

‘You know who his dad is?' say Ade.

‘I know.'

‘Connor Blake,' says Ade, as if summoning up a name from a scarce-remembered legend, some cautionary tale. ‘Worst person I ever met.' He sighs, looks at me reluctantly and briefly closes his eyes, opens them again. ‘Had a taste for ladies. You meet him?'

I nod.

‘Yeah, the girls – never a problem for him. But, you know, maybe 'cos it was so easy for him, I dunno… But they weren't enough. Normal things weren't enough for him. He wanted to…' Ade frowns. He shifts on the sofa and the whole frame moves under his weight. He must have been close to thirty stone. ‘Dunno how to say it. Play with them. Own them.'

‘Okay,' I say. ‘He liked the ladies.'

‘No. Fuck no, man, listen. It was like… like they were
his
.'

I am trying to follow him but I do not know what he is trying to get at.

He blows out air in annoyance, sits up, elbows on knees, tries again. ‘Sex weren't enough. He'd pay girls to let him hurt them. But that shit, that went wrong. He'd lose control, think he could do what he wanted.'

‘Hurt them?'

‘Cut them. Anything under the skin. Getting inside them, couldn't leave it alone. He don't think people are people. He thinks they're…
things
.'

Ade looks as if his memories are causing him physical pain, as if looking back at what he has witnessed is a form of torment.

‘One girl, I don't know what he wanted but she said no, no way she was doing that. He lost the plot, cut up her face with a blade.'

‘What happened?'

‘Her and her dad, didn't have no mum, they both just moved away. Don't know where. Just went.' He pauses. ‘This beautiful girl, man.'

I think back to Connor Blake, his astounding eyes and chiselled features. If I saw him in a photograph, I would imagine nothing but goodness, a man of virtue.

‘He once said to me he wondered how it would be to put his hands inside someone here.' He frames his belly with both hands. ‘Deep inside. He was serious.'

My mind skirts briefly over this image, of Blake elbow-deep in another person's innards, the heat, the blood. I am not surprised that Ade flinches from the thoughts of what he has seen and heard. I accept that there is a spectrum of human desire and that the idea of a norm is notional at best. But some people inhabit the outer limits and their most mundane desires would horrify any ordinary person.

Ade tells me that he had run with Connor Blake partly through fear of what he would do to him if he did not. He tells me that Blake liked to be surrounded by people who had some physical quirk, unusually tall or large or misshapen in some way; freakish. Ade tells me that he weighed twenty stone by the time he was fourteen and that Blake had been fascinated by his size. He sighs, the uncomprehending sound of the duped and brainwashed, trying to understand how he had fallen under such a man's influence.