by David Thorne
Vick nods, puts her hands together and bends her head in an attitude of prayer. I do not say anything and when she lifts her head there are tears on her cheeks.
‘So… I can tell Ms Armstrong this? Tell her this is what happened?’
‘You can tell her,’ I say. ‘But we don’t have any proof. To her it’s just a story.’
‘Will you come with me?’
‘Yes. I’ll come. But Vick, understand, we don’t have any evidence.’
‘No.’ Vick is quiet again, running everything that I have told her through her mind, grappling with it. She looks at me. ‘This man. Connor Blake. What’s going to happen to him? He can’t get away with it. Can he? He… He killed Ryan. And what he did to my children…’ Her voice rises as she recounts what Blake has done, how he has destroyed her family.
I hold out my hands, pat the air to calm her down. ‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to worry. I’ll take care of Blake.’
37
THAT BLAKE IS in prison has always been the problem. Inside he is safe, untouchable. I cannot get at him. He can taunt me, threaten me, cause harm to the people I love, and I can do nothing but sit opposite him and look into his smug, triumphant eyes. Outside he would not last a minute alone with me. But there he is, locked up under constant scrutiny from the guards.
I have arranged a meeting, told him that I have what he wants and that it is time to call a stop to this thing, get it done. I am going to see him in prison one last time. There will not be a next time, I know this. One way or another.
I pass through the security procedures of Galley Wood and I remember my feeling of near panic when I was here with cocaine hidden in my mouth. They do not X-ray my briefcase and for that I am grateful. I cannot wait to see Blake, feel the pulse-hurrying apprehension I do when warming up before a match. I feel good. Confident. I am looking forward to this, know that I am going in the strong favourite, the form man. For the first time since I met Blake, I can back myself.
The white-haired guard lets me into our meeting room and I sit alone for two or three minutes while he goes to fetch Blake. I look around the room. This is the fourth time that I have been here. I will not miss it, its drab brick and metal furniture and air of gathering oppression as if the steel doors are only just holding back the misery and hatred of the hundreds of inmates beyond. I open my briefcase. I want to be ready.
The door opens and Blake is led in, the guard holding him by the inside of the elbow. Blake is in cuffs and his eye that was black is now green and brown, and he has none of the insolent assurance of the last time that we met.
‘You can take the cuffs off,’ I say.
Blake looks at me, down at his wrists, off balance. ‘You what?’
‘Just get them off,’ I say.
‘Sure?’ says the guard.
‘Yes.’
He shrugs and unlocks the cuffs, unsnaps them, hooks them to his belt. ‘You need me, bang on the door.’
‘Thanks.’
‘And you,’ he says, pointing at Blake, ‘you behave yourself.’
The guard leaves, closes the door behind him. It is just me and Blake.
I point to his chair. ‘Sit.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ he says. ‘D’you think you are?’
‘Just sit down,’ I say.
He looks tired and unsure, and he clearly knows about Magnus. I imagine that Liam was also among the number out at Petroski’s. He cannot be feeling as secure as usual.
‘Heard about your friends,’ I say. ‘Shame.’
‘What d’you know about it?’
I shrug but I cannot keep the delight out of my eyes. ‘Poor Magnus.’
‘You want to watch what you say.’
‘Oh?’
‘What we did to your girlfriend, that’s just the start. A taster.’
Blake’s words have never sounded so empty. His attempt at bravado is as convincing as a drunk challenging a doorman.
‘I’ve got the address,’ I say, offhand. ‘The name of your witness.’
Blake sits forward. His eyes widen. ‘You got it?’
‘Wasn’t easy.’
‘But you got it?’
‘I got it.’
Blake nods rapidly. ‘Go on then.’
‘Question is, what’re you going to do with it?’
‘Fuck’s it to you? Just give it to me.’
‘Liam, Magnus, your crew – they’re all dead. There’s nobody left.’
Blake smiles and for the first time this visit he shows that smug self-confidence, exudes the air of the forever entitled. ‘Nobody left? Fucking please, Daniel. My father, he’s… You think there are limits? There aren’t any limits.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Your dad. Met him the other night. Had an interesting conversation.’
‘He wouldn’t even notice you,’ says Blake. ‘He’d make you disappear’ – he snaps his fingers – ‘like that. Gone.’
‘He told me you were dead to him. Told me he didn’t have a son, said you were sick, doesn’t want a bar of you.’
‘Bollocks.’ Blake is smiling and looks entirely confident, at ease.
‘True,’ I say. ‘When’d you last speak to him?’
‘We don’t,’ he says. ‘In here. He’s a businessman, keeps clear of all this. Doesn’t get involved.’
‘How does it feel?’ I say. ‘To be alone?’
‘I ain’t alone.’
‘All alone. There’s nobody left. In fact,’ I say, taking some papers out of my briefcase, ‘I’m all you’ve got.’
‘You want to stop right there,’ says Blake. ‘Don’t make an enemy of me.’
‘Too late for that,’ I say. I take a pen out of the inside pocket of my jacket, pass it to Blake.
‘What’s this?’ he says.
‘I’m giving you a choice,’ I say. ‘Sign here: release me as your lawyer. Just give me your signature.’
Blake looks at me as if I have told a joke that he cannot quite understand, is trying to puzzle it out. ‘What?’
‘Sign here and we’re done.’
‘You said a choice.’
‘I did. If you don’t sign, I’ll beat you to a fucking pulp, right here. It’s a choice. Your choice.’
‘Please,’ says Blake. ‘Here? You’re in prison, keep telling you. Ain’t nothing you can do. Nothing nothing nothing. You must be fucking stupid.’
I shrug, give the pen on the table between us an encouraging nudge. ‘Your choice.’
‘You know, Magnus told me she was like a fucking wildcat. Said she struggled so much it was like holding down an animal, scratching, spitting.’ Blake leans forward, puts his elbows on the table, rubs his hand over his mouth. ‘He never did get the chance to cut her. Can’t tell you how much he was looking forward to it.’
‘Last chance.’
‘Give me that address.’
‘Not going to happen. In a million years.’
‘I’ll see to it. You won’t recognise her, won’t believe it used to be a person.’
I reach back into my briefcase. In the lining I have hidden a weapon, what I have heard they call in prison a shiv. I made it the night before by embedding a razor blade into the handle of a toothbrush. I melted the plastic over my stove and stuck the blade in, let it harden around it. I hid the weapon in the lining at the back of my briefcase, taped it to the bottom with the blade next to the hinges. I had not known if it would pass an X-ray but in the event it had not mattered.
‘Fuck is that?’
Blake has not shown any remorse. He has taken only pleasure in what was done to Maria, to Vick, Ryan, their children. I gave him his choice but he did not take it and now it is my turn.
I hold the handle and I cut a line into my cheek, from below my eye down to my mouth. It does not hurt, only feels a little cold.
‘You like to look inside people, isn’t that right?’ I say to Blake. ‘Like to cut them. Like this?’ I can feel warmth on my face now. I am bleeding. I did not cut ver
y deeply but the blade was sharp. Blake’s mouth is slightly open and he appears transfixed by my wound.
‘I’ve heard of the things you’ve done,’ I say. ‘The people you’ve hurt. Here.’ I toss the shiv onto the table. He had not picked up the pen. I wondered what he would do with this. ‘Want a try?’
Without a second’s hesitation Blake picks up the weapon, looks at the blade, which is slightly discoloured by blood.
‘You do. You really do, you sick little nightmare.’
I can see Blake’s hand tighten on the blade’s handle and I think of all the people he has hurt, the people he has frightened and bullied and mutilated and killed. I think of Maria in hospital and everything that we could have had together, the future we might have shared had it not been ruined by this smug and entitled monstrosity.
Blake stands up with the blade in his hand and that is enough for me. I come around the table and hold his wrist with one hand, put my other hand over his mouth. I can only see his eyes but they look surprised, astonished. I wonder if he has ever had to fight for his life before or whether he has always had people to do it for him. I force him back against the wall. The back of his head makes a sharp impact on the bricks and his eyes close in pain.
‘For all of the people you’ve hurt,’ I say. I take my hand away from his mouth and punch him in the cheek and this time his head bounces off the brick and his knees give. I step back and punch him in the temple, hard, and he goes down on the ground. He is still holding the blade. I kneel down next to him and peel his fingers off the handle, take it off him. I hold it to his face, up to his eye, press it just underneath, press a little harder.
‘How many times have you done this to somebody?’ I say. ‘How many?’
Blake does not say anything but I can hear his breathing. It is fast and uneven.
‘Shall I?’ I say, and press the blade still harder. It is touching the bottom of his eyeball and he blinks quickly but he dare not shake his head.
‘You would,’ I say. ‘You have done. Tell me why I shouldn’t?’
Since my very first encounter with Connor Blake I have never seen him anything but composed, never seen anything in his eyes but assurance and disdain. Now I can see fear. He does not know what is happening, how this has occurred; he has no idea what I am going to do or what I am capable of. He is alone and vulnerable and I suspect that it is a feeling he has never experienced before. This is all I wanted. Just this. To make him understand what it is like, what he has made other people feel so often. Just fear, nothing more.
‘Please,’ he says.
That is enough for me. I stand up and walk to the door and bang on it, hard and fast, a reasonable impression of a frenzied panic. The white-haired guard opens up in a hurry and he sees my face dripping with blood and he rushes in, calls out for help. Blake is still on the floor. The guard looks at me in confusion.
‘He came at me with a knife,’ I say. ‘Didn’t have a choice.’
I stand by the door as one, two, and finally a third guard arrive in the room. They must be nearly as sick of Connor Blake’s odious presence as I am. Certainly the way they subdue him is at the very end of the reasonable force spectrum. The first thing that the white-haired guard does is stamp on Blake’s nose as he lies on the ground. There is a wet crunch like tearing lettuce and I imagine that those good looks of his might just have been ruined forever.
I watch for a while, back against the wall and arms folded, take it all in, enjoy the spectacle. Then one of the guards remembers who I am, realises that I should not be witnessing this, any of this. But as he walks me out I tell him not to worry, tell him that it’s okay, really, I understand. Tell him the bastard had it coming.
38
THE OLDER GUY is disputing yet another call and I am losing patience; he is hitting the ball too hard and it is going long, but he questions every time we call it out. We are deep into the third set and still I do not know which way it is going to go. It may only be club tennis but this match has as much needle as a Tour final.
‘Want your eyes testing,’ he says.
‘Need to practise your ground strokes,’ I say. ‘Learn where the baseline is.’
‘Wanker,’ the man says, but he turns as he says it so that it is not to my face, an act that marks him out as a coward in my book.
I am at the net and Gabe is serving. I turn around and wink at him. He grins back, bounces the ball at his feet. The older guy is at the net, his partner receiving serve, a rangy thirty-year-old with a truly sublime service action.
Gabe tosses up the ball and hits his serve. Because of his leg he cannot get the leap he used to and relies on putting action on his serve to keep us in the point. He is serving into the backhand court and hits a top spin that jumps up and to the right on impact, pulling the rangy guy out wide. But he is tall and fast and he wraps his backhand around it, pulls it cross-court too wide for me to intercept and too wide for Gabe to chase down. In truth it is a punishing and unreturnable shot. There is nothing to do but watch it land in the tramlines halfway up the court.
‘Shot,’ says Gabe.
‘Have some of it,’ says the older guy, an entirely unnecessary comment, which causes Gabe to stop in his walk to the other side of the court, stand and dead-eye him.
Gabe is now serving to the older guy and we are thirty– forty down, facing break point to go three–five down in the final set. This serve matters. I hope that Gabe does not lose his composure, let the older guy’s taunts go to his head.
He bounces the ball, tosses it up and mistimes the contact point and the ball slaps the net cord and falls back into court our side. He turns, walks to the back of the court, talks to himself.
I walk back to him. ‘Don’t worry. Just get it over and in. Don’t give him the satisfaction.’
I walk back to the net. Gabe bounces the ball again, throws it higher. He arches his back and I can tell that he is not playing safe, second serve or not – he is putting everything into this one. He brings his racket back behind his shoulders then whips it through, makes sound contact and the ball hits the T-line in the centre of the court dead on, the action he puts on it taking it away from the older guy, who in any case hasn’t moved, is just watching as the ball blurs past.
He points at the spot the ball landed as if to question whether it was in but his partner shakes his head. It was probably the serve of the day. To challenge it would be a crime.
‘Deuce,’ says Gabe.
I turn around. ‘We’ve got this one,’ I tell him.
Gabe is playing better than I have seen in weeks, months; possibly the best he has played since he lost his leg. I suspect that he is still on a high after what happened with 7 Platoon. He has proved himself against the best that the British Army can throw his way and he has come out emphatically on top.
The ex-soldiers of 7 Platoon who were found near Petroski’s house that night were picked up, charged with murder and are now awaiting trial. There will be no issue of witness intimidation for them: they were found with the murder weapons, their fingerprints all over them. They are going down, and for a long time.
But of course this was never Gabe’s primary mission. He was always after justice for what they did to Lance Corporal Creek, the killing that Gabe believes he had the power to stop yet did not, the killing for which he feels culpable. But Petroski’s affidavit has been enough to reopen the inquest into his death and this, along with the more recent killings involving the ex-members of 7 Platoon, should be enough. Justice, Gabe is certain, will be served.
Perhaps it is too much to expect happy endings to any story. Major Strauss had managed to keep his distance from the actions of 7 Platoon. As far as Gabe knew, he was in the clear, untouched by what happened at Petroski’s house. But the story of Global Armour had broken in the nationals and as an organisation they were dead in the water: nobody would use them, their reputation ruined, chances of winning any kind of contract blown irrevocably. Strauss may have got away with it, but he was left with
nothing.
Gabe serves out our game and we are four–all in the final set. It is the rangy guy’s serve and so far in this match we have not broken him. His serve is too consistent, too well directed, and about twenty miles an hour too fast.
Gabe stays at the net when he is not serving and it is up to me to return. The rangy guy’s first serve is an ace down the middle, the second into the body and onto me so quickly that I do not have time to make room and hit a shot, take it directly in front of me and can only fend it into the net. But I guess right for the next serve, make room and hit a forehand down the line, lace it down the tramlines and the older guy at the net can only watch it pass. I have a look at a second serve for the next point and return it fast cross-court. We rally three, four shots and then I hit a forehand with both feet off the ground, which comes off my racket sweet and hard, bouncing inches from the baseline and is good, far too good to be returned.
Thirty all and we are in with a shout. I push the next serve up the middle of the court and the older guy intercepts, hits it straight at Gabe who can only get his racket in the way of it. He gets lucky as it loops over the volleyer’s head and into open court, bounces twice before the rangy guy can chase it down.
We win the game on the next point. I get hold of the rangy guy’s serve and cream a return right at the older guy at the net, bad etiquette though it may be. It hits him in the gut and he goes down on one knee. I hold my racket up, apologise with a scandalous lack of sincerity. He just looks at me, shakes his head in disgust. Gabe has to turn away from the net so that our opponents do not see him laugh. There are moments in life that feel so good that we never want them to end.
We change ends and I stop at the net, take a drink. It is up to me to serve for the match and the pressure is on. But I feel as confident as I did before visiting Blake; I still have a lot of aggression left to unleash.
Connor Blake’s brief reign of terror came to an official end yesterday when Vick and I met with Ms Armstrong and laid out what had been happening, the real explanation for what had been done to Vick’s children. She had heard us out, told us to wait in her office, and left for thirty, forty minutes. When she had eventually come back she had asked us to follow her and we had been shown into the same room where Vick had met her children that first time after they were taken from her. Ms Armstrong had again left us but this time for only minutes, coming back with Ollie and Gwynn with her. She told Vick that she had sorted out the paperwork, that she was free to take her children home and that she was sorry, so very sorry, for all that she had been made to go through.