by David Thorne
I listened to the ringing tone until it picked up and a voice said, ‘Hello?’ It was a small child’s voice, a boy’s – high and wavering and uncertain.
‘Hello,’ I said. I swallowed and when I next spoke, I did not recognise my voice. ‘Is your dad in?’
‘Yeah.’
I paused. ‘Could I speak to him?’
A clunking sound and then fast running feet and the little boy’s distant voice shouting, ‘Daddy!’
I waited on the line and tried not to think about what I was doing: planning to put the life of a child’s father in jeopardy.
‘Hello?’
‘Mr Tyson?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Philip Tyson?’
‘Yes.’ The voice was patient and slow.
‘My name is Joseph and I am a liaison officer with the police.’
‘Yes?’ This said sharply, not without anxiety.
‘Just a courtesy call to see how you are, how you’re coping.’
‘Fine.’
‘We appreciate what you’re doing.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, not at all.’
‘Nobody knows?’
‘Nobody,’ I said.
‘Okay. Just a courtesy call.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Right.’
I did not have anything more to say and I was aware that the more I said the more suspicious he was likely to become. I needed to end this call.
‘We’ll keep in touch. Thanks for your time.’
‘No problem.’
I hung up and leaned back in my chair, rubbed my eyes with the pads of my fingers. I had the proof I needed. I had no doubt that Philip Tyson was Witness A. What I had thought was impossible I had achieved. And though it was an achievement that might save Maria from Blake’s threats, it gave me no pleasure, none at all. I had spoken to the man. He had children. I had to choose between him and Maria. Like I said: sometimes a choice really isn’t a choice at all. At least, not one that I could make.
There is suicide by cop; this then could be suicide by gangster. I have left a letter for Maria on my kitchen table. It explains what I am doing and why. I hope that she never has to read it. It is getting dark outside but it is not dark enough, and I cannot keep sitting here outside Blake’s house. I have some hours left. Enough time to visit a friendly face before the war.
I park in Gabe’s drive and knock on his door. Petroski answers, pulling it open a crack so that nobody passing can see his ravaged face, even though Gabe’s gravel drive is twenty foot long and the street outside is empty in the cold still air.
‘Daniel.’
‘Hi. Gabe around?’
‘Yeah. Not sure.’
‘Not sure?’
Petroski hesitates and I feel irritated, being made to wait on my best friend’s porch where I have stood thousands of times before, been welcomed in by Gabe, by his parents; a house that for years felt as much my home as anywhere else I had to go.
‘He’s…’ Petroski starts but does not say anything more, seems unsure.
‘He’s what?’ I say.
‘He’s not doing so well,’ says Petroski.
‘How about you let me in,’ I say, and push open the door.
Petroski takes a step back and says quickly, ‘Yeah, sorry, Daniel, I just—’
I ignore him. Inside Gabe’s house it is quiet and dark, a spooky mansion occupied by a recluse and his freakish manservant. I stand in the hall not knowing where to go, what to do.
Petroski joins me and whispers, ‘In there.’ I am not sure why he is whispering.
Gabe is sitting at his dining table wearing cut-off running bottoms. He has taken off his prosthetic limb and I can see the pink pig’s knuckle of his knee stump. He looks up as I come in and nods with little interest as if I am a maid bringing in tea. On the table is his normal prosthetic, a complicated steel device that looks harvested from a redundant robot. Next to it is a newer one surrounded by opened packaging and it looks freshly unwrapped, unworn.
‘You all right?’
‘Never better,’ he says and turns away from me, picks up the new prosthetic. It is shiny and a lot less complex than his normal leg; the shaft looks drilled from a single piece of aluminium, almost sculpted, a work of functional art.
‘New leg?’ I say and immediately realise how clumsy it sounds. Gabe raises an eyebrow but does not reply. He picks it up and turns it in his hands. He looks tired and he has not shaved, something I cannot recall ever seeing before. This is not the right time; I should not have come.
‘Listen, Gabe, you took it to those soldiers,’ I say. ‘You saved my life.’
Gabe smiles, does not look up, keeps turning the leg, examining it from all angles. Although the light is dim, the leg catches it, reflecting mistily. ‘Got you abducted, came that close to getting killed. Ambushed by a bunch of half-arsed psychos.’
‘You couldn’t have known the major—’
‘Took you to find out about him,’ says Gabe. ‘You do the hard work, I almost get us killed.’
‘You got us out of there.’
‘Lucky. Shouldn’t have been in that position. Would never have happened before.’
‘You’re being too tough.’
‘You know most of 7 Platoon is over at Petroski’s house? Got it under surveillance. Have done since last night. How I know we’re safe here. They’re all over there.’
I do not ask Gabe how he knows. I think of how tired he is, the shadows under Petroski’s eyes, imagine them crawling through long grass at night, reconnoitring 7 Platoon’s position. This problem of theirs is not going away any more than mine is.
Gabe sighs, shakes his head, says quietly more to himself than to me, ‘Useless. Stupid.’
‘Gabe,’ I start, but he holds the leg up, waves it at me.
‘This? I’m part of a programme,’ he says. ‘I get to try the newest prosthetics. State of the art, apparently.’ He holds it horizontal in both hands. ‘Like it?’
I do not reply, sure that whatever I say will be wrong.
‘Sod it, you’re here. Help me get it on.’ He picks up a neoprene sleeve with a closed end and pulls it over his stump, getting his thumbs inside to work it over his knee, up his thigh. The sleeve has a thick pin at the end. He stands up and hands me the prosthetic leg.
‘Stick a trainer on it,’ he says.
I unlace a Nike trainer that is on the table, put it over the foot at the end of the prosthetic leg and lace it up. As Gabe watches me I am reminded of fathers helping their children in shoe stores, and it is an uncomfortable feeling. I have never considered Gabe as somebody who needed help before.
‘Stand it up,’ says Gabe.
I kneel and hold the leg vertical and Gabe lowers his knee covered with the sleeve. I hold the pin at the end of the sleeve and guide it into a hole at the top of the prosthetic leg. It makes a solid dry click as Gabe puts his weight onto it.
‘In?’
‘Guess so.’ I let go and Gabe takes a careful step, arms out as if he is walking along a rope bridge. He takes another and another, and then puts all his weight on the new prosthetic. It slips and his leg gives out underneath him, and he goes down suddenly like a three a.m. drunk misjudging a kerb, lands heavily on his side.
‘Fuck,’ Gabe says, and hits the floor with his fist, and again. It may be the most emotion that I have ever seen Gabe show.
‘You okay?’
Gabe is on his hands and knees and he cannot get up, cannot get the new leg to obey or get purchase on his polished floor. He gives up, turns, leans back on his hands and his face is so anguished that for a second I have the horrifying thought that he might cry. Men like Gabe cannot cry.
I had not come to Gabe to ask for his help, but I had wanted to feed off his strength, use his unflinching character to shore mine up. This is not what I needed. I hope that this is not the last image I have of Gabe, helpless and anguished. I reach
out a hand to him but he just looks at it, then at me, and shakes his head.
‘If you wouldn’t mind, Danny,’ he says, ‘would you just fuck off and leave me alone?’
I nod and turn and walk away from Gabe where he is sitting on the floor. Outside in the hall I pass Petroski, who looks at me questioningly.
‘Keep an eye on him,’ I say, then open Gabe’s door and leave. I take a deep breath of the cold air and head to my car. Whatever needs to be done, I’ll do it on my own.
I drive past the Blakes’ place, slow, turn, drive past it again. It is still too early. I need zero dark thirty, I believe that is what they call it, although in previous times perhaps it was simply called the witching hour. I drive away, pick up A roads which take me into the heart of the flat country, the sun behind me long since given up the ghost. Events are nearing an end and I do not know how many more sunrises I will see. I have an end-of-the-world feeling of unseen catastrophe and recklessness.
I take a left off the two-lane road and then a right at a T-junction, find myself on a long straight road under massive pylons that stretch to a vast substation I cannot hear but imagine fizzing dangerously in the gloom. I take another left. The road is funnelled by hedges, twisting, and the occasional gate revealing desolate fields waiting for a spring that still has not arrived.
I see headlights in my rear-view and when the road widens out, a big four-by-four rushes past me and disappears around the next bend. Its hectic passage scares dark birds into the air and it is now murky enough that I cannot tell what colour they are; they are only black against the darkening sky.
The road bends and I cannot see around the corner, and when it straightens there is a black Range Rover, perhaps the one that just overtook me, parked across the road, its headlights on and shining into the blackness of a hedge. I have to brake sharply and I come to a stop ten metres away, my beams shining into the Range Rover’s windows. I can see a man in the seat nearest me, the driver, put an arm up to shield his face against the glare, and then his door opens and he steps out. He walks towards my car with his arm still in front of his face. I cannot see his head at all.
I do not wait for him to reach my car. I turn off the ignition and open the door and step out. He stops and we are only a few metres apart. Our breath makes big clouds of steam in the air. He puts his arm down and I see his face. Carl – Alex Blake’s muscle. The man I had hit.
‘Put the hammer down,’ he says.
‘Why?’
‘Mr Blake just wants a word.’
‘Oh?’ The hammer’s handle is rubber and fits my palm. I can sense the heaviness of its head.
‘Drop it,’ says Carl. ‘Ain’t going to need it. Make yourself look silly.’
There are only two of them anyway. I put the hammer back in my car, throw it gently onto the passenger seat.
‘Give me your keys. I’ll get this moved.’
I look at him curiously. The way he has asked me to do this is almost polite.
‘He’s waiting,’ Carl says. ‘Don’t be keeping him waiting.’
Perhaps it is the solicitousness of his tone but I take my keys from my pocket and hand them to him, then pass him and walk towards the Range Rover. The door the other side from me opens and Alex Blake gets out and walks through the headlight beams. He is as good-looking as I remember, and while he is older and not as perfectly handsome as Connor Blake, the resemblance is strong. He is wearing only a polo shirt despite the cold and I recognise the gold watch on his wrist.
‘What you doing parked outside my place?’
I do not reply. Alex Blake looks at me and I wonder whether this is my chance, whether I can take this man now, put an end to all this. But Blake smiles as if he knows what I am thinking and he shakes his head slightly and turns, walks away.
‘This way,’ he says. ‘Walk with me.’
I follow after him and we walk down the quiet lane. I have heard that there are men who can walk into a room and cause silence merely by their presence, by the power they radiate. Alex Blake is so contained and assured that, as I walk behind him, the idea of attacking him seems suddenly inconceivable; he carries a silent authority that makes me feel young, weak and in his thrall. It is nothing I have ever experienced before. As we walk there is no sound, not even birdsong, as if his presence is so forceful that it even subdues nature.
‘You’re Connor’s lawyer,’ he says.
‘Not out of choice,’ I say.
‘Not my concern,’ says Blake. ‘Between you two.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’ll ask again,’ says Blake. ‘What you doing parked outside my place?’
‘You didn’t think I’d come for you?’ I say. But even as I say it, I realise how empty this sounds, no more than the impotent posturing of a wilful child.
‘Been finding out about you,’ says Blake. ‘You’re no mug. So listen.’ He turns to face me. ‘Look me in the eyes, son. That way we’ll understand each other.’
I look into Alex Blake’s eyes. I cannot read any emotion in them except perhaps a trace of boredom, as if these earthly dealings are beneath him.
‘My son,’ he says, ‘is a fucking lost cause. Worse than that. He’s sick, out of control, and he’s no child of mine. What you’ve got going on with him, I don’t want a fucking bar of. You hear me? Nod.’
I nod slowly. I am still looking directly into his eyes and despite being outdoors, I have a feeling of enclosed intimacy, of capture.
‘He’s got his people. Fuck knows where he finds them. Whatever they do, got nothing to do with me anymore. Clear?’
‘Clear.’
‘You and him, you work it out together. I don’t want his problems at my door. Getting me attention I don’t need.’ He takes a deep breath, looks away, looks back. ‘Do what you have to do. Won’t get no comeback from me. Understand?’
I nod again.
‘You and him, between you two. And you – you fucking stay away from my place.’
‘No comeback?’ I say.
‘None. Do what you have to do. He might be my son but I’m finished with him. He’s better off where he is.’
‘You’re throwing him to the sharks.’
Alex Blake looks me up and down. I regret what I have just said; regret my presumption.
‘Son,’ he says, ‘you ain’t no fucking shark.’
Blake leaves me standing there and after a few moments Carl comes to me and gives me my keys. He looks at me but he does not say anything, then walks back to the Range Rover, climbs in next to Alex Blake and they drive away. When they have gone it is still and quiet, and things suddenly feel very different.
31
I AM ON court coaching juniors when I notice that Maria’s group are still waiting at the clubhouse and part of me is glad that she is not there, that I do not have to confront her today. The juniors are warming up, hitting rallies and volleys before they play doubles. It is cold and they are in running bottoms and hooded tops. None of them look entirely happy to be here. The numbers are down today, only the children of the pushiest parents coerced into making the effort. I tell them to warm up their serves and then push through the wire door of the court, walk around the corner into the clubhouse. George is behind the bar doing the crossword and he looks up as I walk in.
‘No Maria?’ I say.
‘Wouldn’t you be the one to know?’ says George with a sly smile.
‘Her group’s waiting,’ I say.
‘She hasn’t called.’
I take out my mobile and hit her number and I notice that my hands are shaking and it is not from the cold. I listen to the ring tone, hear it go to voicemail. I hang up.
‘No?’ says George.
‘She’ll turn up,’ I say. ‘Give her five minutes.’
‘You all right?’ George has known me for years, put an arm across my shoulders more times than I can remember, even now that I am taller than him. He has always looked out for me.
‘Yeah,’ I say, although I do not fe
el it. I have a sensation of floating; my hands feel big and clumsy, and are tingling. ‘Let me know if you hear anything.’ I walk out of the clubhouse and back onto the court where the juniors are still practising their serves and I have never felt more frightened in my life.
I had woken up unwillingly, knowing what day it was and what needed to be decided. Day six, the final day – the day I was expected to deliver the name and address of Witness A to Connor Blake. I had the number he had given me in prison. All I needed to do was pick up my phone, dial the number, give whoever answered a name, an address. Nothing more. The work of seconds. The betrayal of everything I stood for and held dear.
I thought about Alex Blake, of what he had said to me; how he was not a threat. Instead I was up against a man behind bars and his people who I did not know, could not find. They were like smoke, stealing into houses, whispering threats; I could not fight something that I could not see. I was left with only one solution, one way out – give them Witness A.
I listened to the news, made coffee, put off making a decision. It could wait. Wait until later. I had all day. It could wait.
*
The juniors are halfway through their first sets and George has taken Maria’s group onto the courts the other side of the clubhouse. I have tried her mobile five times and she has not answered. It is okay, I tell myself. She is okay. She doesn’t want to see me. Not after the other night. She is staying away. It is okay. I say things to the juniors, encourage them after a good point, suggest a change to their technique – tell them to finish the shot with their racket over their shoulder, keep their weight going forward.
She is probably at home, watching her mobile ring. She has seen that it is me and does not want to pick up. I am probably bothering her. I should stop calling, stop over-reacting. A boy called Kieran hits a cross-court backhand volley for a winner and I shout across to him, give him the thumbs up. It is okay. She is okay.
George is claiming that the young children he just coached were too much for a man of his age, that they were too good and he would never walk again, he was finished. The children are giggling and jostling each other as he tells them this; George has a natural way with kids that has always seemed magical to me. He winks as I pass him on the way to the clubhouse and I force the ghost of a smile back at him. I am holding a basket full of balls and put them in the office of the clubhouse.