by David Thorne
Connor Blake is so good-looking that I do not recall ever encountering anybody who comes close. He has black hair in gentle waves and the bluest eyes I have ever seen, bluer even than his father’s, and his features are so regular, his nose so straight and jaw so strong, that he would not look out of place in a Hollywood movie or on the cover of Vanity Fair. He is wearing prison denims yet on him they look almost stylish, as if this season’s fashion is jailhouse chic. He has his sleeves rolled up and he is wearing handcuffs, his hands in front of him. He is standing casually, relaxed, as if wearing handcuffs is nothing, as if it is something he has chosen to do.
He pulls out the chair across the table from me and sits down, leans back and makes himself comfortable, as relaxed as if he is in his own home. He clasps his hands and puts them on the table in front of him, the handcuffs making a metallic sound on the table’s surface. I watch him, wait for him to speak.
‘Never hang up on me again,’ he says.
‘What makes you think you can give me orders?’
Blake ignores me. He carries the contemptuous air of a man who acknowledges only that which he considers worthy. When I worked in the City, one of my clients had been the son of a sheikh connected to the House of Saud, a young construction billionaire who drove a Lamborghini and was surrounded at all times by a retinue of deferential advisors he treated worse than unwanted pets. For some reason, Blake makes me think of him.
‘The people in here,’ he says. He shakes his head. ‘Wouldn’t believe it. Dogs. Animals. The stink of them.’ He makes his eyes go big in mock panic. ‘Man, you’ve got to get me out of here.’
‘How will I do that?’ I say.
‘Course,’ he says, and I wonder whether he hears anything I say, ‘they don’t touch me. They know who I am. But still. You know what I think the problem is?’
‘What’s that?’
He leans forward, whispers conspiratorially. ‘Place is full of criminals.’ He leans back again, smiles, delighted at his joke. I watch him without expression.
‘Come on, man. Lighten up.’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘We’re going to be working together. Give me a smile.’
‘Not going to happen.’
Blake closes his eyes, puts the cuffed heels of his hands up to them, sighs in frustration. ‘Okay. Okay, Daniel. Let’s have it. What’s the fucking problem?’
He takes his hands away, frowning, and his bemusement seems genuine. I wonder whether he even understands that intimidation and blackmail are hostile acts, that they cause resentment in those it is visited upon.
‘You threatened me. My girlfriend.’
‘Maria? Nothing’ll happen to her. Not unless I say.’
I can feel my pulse hurrying, heat rising from my chest. ‘Mention her again and I’ll break your jaw.’
‘Probably could too. You’re a big, ugly bastard, anybody ever tell you that?’ He smiles, presumably to rob his words of any offence. ‘Listen, you’re on the team now. Nothing to worry about.’
‘I wasn’t worried.’
Blake gazes at me for some seconds, watches me as a bird of prey would tall grass, looking for movement. There is something hypnotic about his stare, an assuredness that seems unassailable.
‘You fucking well want to have been.’
His words are delivered with such measured threat and contain such a promise of malice that for a moment I am unbalanced; they are so at odds with his affability of moments ago that I do not know how to respond. By the time I am ready for a comeback the moment has gone and he is smiling again.
‘Daniel, hey. Start again, okay? Okay?’
‘Running me off the road,’ I say. ‘Holding a gun to my head. No. No, it’s not okay.’
Blake frowns, looks behind him as if asking his counsel for advice. He looks back at me, confusion in his eyes, his composure threatened for the first time.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Please,’ I say.
‘No,’ says Blake. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
I look at him and he is looking at me in incomprehension and I realise that he has no idea what I am referring to. He had nothing to do with it. What happened on that road, the guns to our heads, the warning – it was all about Gabe. A military manoeuvre, that’s what Gabe had said. They’d been after him, not me.
Too late I realise that Blake has done nothing except make some empty threats and rattle my cage. All I want to do now is get away from his odious presence. But I need some answers; I owe Vick that much.
‘Tell me,’ I say. ‘Ryan Lowrie. What did you want from him?’
Blake looks surprised. ‘Want? Wanted him to get me out of here.’
‘How was he supposed to do that?’
Still that look of surprise, as if I am asking questions that he cannot be expected to answer. ‘Fuck would I know? He’s the screw, not me. Was,’ he corrects himself, smirking. ‘I told him to find a way. Get me transferred, give me a day release, whatever. His problem, not mine.’
‘But…’ I say, and for a moment I cannot think of the words for this man. ‘Did you really think he could do that?’
‘I’ll be honest,’ he says. ‘Towards the end, I think he was stalling. Bullshitting me, saying he could do this, do that.’
I thought of Ryan, of him hearing of furniture moving, of Vick waking outside; being shown shots of his children tied up, unconscious. Of the relentless pressure put on him and his desperate response; empty promises, assurances that he would find a way to get Blake out, if he’d just give him time. Saying anything to keep Blake and his men at bay, away from his family.
‘What did you expect?’ I say. ‘You were blackmailing him, harming his kids.’
Blake shrugs, looks bored. ‘Anyway, gave him a week. Told him he didn’t get me out, we’d kill his wife. Ex-wife. Do it properly this time.’
‘So he took his own life.’
‘Yeah.’ Contempt in Blake’s voice. Contempt like I had shown Ryan, to my shame. ‘Little prick.’
This is enough for me. ‘We’re done,’ I say, pushing my chair back.
‘Sit down,’ says Blake, amused.
‘I have nothing more to say to you,’ I say, standing up. ‘I’ve seen all I need.’
‘You’re going nowhere. You need to get me out of here.’
‘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 enjoyi
ng 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.’
‘Shou
ld 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.’