by David Thorne
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.
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 ter
rible, 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.’