Promises of Blood

by David Thorne

  I shake my head but I am not the right person for situations like this, am unable to think of the right words.

  ‘It’s what my husband thought.’

  ‘The police didn’t find anything?’

  ‘Oh, she’ll turn up. Try not to worry. They always come home.’ She laughs, a bitter sound. ‘Fourteen years. Never did.’

  This time she does pick up the photograph and hugs it to her chest. She shakes her head in small spasms like a stuck mechanism. For the first time I wonder about her sanity, what fourteen years in a decaying mansion has done to her mind, surrounded by pictures of a daughter whose disappearance she blames herself for. I take out a card, put it on the top of the piano, next to the photographs.

  ‘Mrs Farrell? If you have any questions about William Gove’s will, please, give me a call.’

  She continues to shake her head and does not answer. Standing immobile in this house surrounded by memories of her vanished daughter, she seems trapped, locked in time like the stopped clock on her wall. I leave her holding the photo of her daughter, as stunned as if she disappeared only hours, rather than years, ago.

  Saskia Gove volunteers as a nurse at a drop-in centre for the homeless, and she calls me from there, asks me if I have ten minutes and if so, could I stop by? She tells me that there are one or two points regarding her father’s will that she would like to discuss, to get some clarity on. The homeless centre is close to Rochelle Farrell’s home and I cannot think of a good reason why I should not go. In truth, I was thrown when she told me where she was working, what she was doing; I did not have Saskia Gove down as an altruist. I agree automatically, trying to picture a woman as glamorous and untouchable as her amongst the down-and-outs, the marginal and filthy.

  But the community centre that Saskia Gove works at is a recently built building in brick and glass and when I arrive she is alone in her nurse’s surgery, peeling off latex gloves; she looks like somebody acting a part, an A-list actress on a medical set. She smiles when she sees me and I notice that she has a bruise on her cheek which she has tried to cover up with foundation.

  ‘Just in time. Finished.’ She unbuttons her white nurse’s tunic. Underneath she is wearing a short summer dress; she looks ready to go to Ascot. Watching her undress makes me feel awkward, as if we are sharing a forbidden intimacy.

  ‘I’ll wait outside.’

  ‘If you like.’ Saskia smiles, raises a mocking eyebrow and I turn and leave before she sees my discomfort. I stand outside the door and a short time later she comes out. She has reapplied make-up and her bruise is almost hidden. I do not comment on it.

  ‘You ready?’ she says, and reaches out to adjust my collar, grazes her fingers against my chin. I feel a shiver of anticipation across my back, a lurch in my chest. She rests her hand on my chest, and it feels as dangerous as a snake.

  ‘Don’t,’ I say.

  ‘No?’ She smiles. ‘You sure?’

  I step back, out of her grasp. There is heat in my face, confusion.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ she says. ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘We can talk here.’

  ‘We can, but I’m hungry. Come on.’ She turns and walks away, stops, turns back. ‘I won’t eat you, Daniel.’

  I should go; I should leave, not get involved, walk away, forget her. I am telling myself this as I walk to my car, pull out and follow her as she drives through town, heads out the other side, hits an A road. The feeling she gives me is like approaching the edge of a cliff; the moment you get too close, start imagining the seductive pull of gravity drawing you over. Although she is nominally a client, or at least involved in a client’s case, I cannot help the feeling that being with her is somehow illicit, and I have to fight guilty thoughts of Maria, of what she is doing, of what she would think.

  We drive for some miles and I am about to call Saskia, call this off, when she takes an exit which brings us on to a roundabout and then a country road. The road twists up through fields and into a village, high stone walls and large houses hidden behind gates. She takes a left into the car park of a hotel which I have not been to before but know by reputation; it is good and also expensive. I turn, crunch over gravel, park next to her. She is already getting out of her car and she turns to smile at me before heading into the hotel. I watch her go inside and wait for a moment before following her in.

  Saskia closes her eyes as she takes a drink from her Bloody Mary, sighs with pleasure. ‘Better,’ she says. She is standing with her back to the bar. I am holding a beer that I do not want. She pokes her drink with a stick of celery. I watch her hand. There is a tension between us that I think she is enjoying but I am not. Again I wonder why I am here, know I should not be.

  ‘Anyone ever tell you you don’t look much like a lawyer?’

  ‘Once or twice,’ I say. ‘Didn’t have you down as a nurse.’

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘I do it for the uniform. You like?’

  Instead of answering I avert my gaze, look at the room. I cannot think of anything to say, don’t trust myself to talk. In Saskia’s company I feel like I need to offer something clever, display some level of wit I am not capable of. Saskia drinks. She has nearly finished her Bloody Mary.

  ‘So. You beat Luke at tennis.’

  I nod.

  ‘How’d he take it?’

  ‘I’ve seen worse.’

  ‘Much money on it?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Saskia stirs what is left of her drink. ‘You always this talkative?’

  ‘Sorry.’ I tip my bottle, watch the people in the bar. They are the same types as I saw at Luke Gove’s country club: old, rich, dry. I try to think of something to say. ‘You said there were some issues you wanted clarity on?’

  Saskia Gove sighs in exasperation and I feel that I have done something wrong, failed to live up to expectations. Come up short. She hands her glass to the barman, says, ‘Tim? Another.’ Her tone is high-handed, demanding, and I recognise it from when she called me some days ago. I try to reconcile these different sides of Saskia Gove: the glamorous flirt, the volunteer nurse, the imperious prima donna.

  ‘How much money do you make?’ she says.

  ‘Depends,’ I say.

  ‘On how many ambulances you chase?’ There is a trace of scorn now in her voice and I wonder why I feel so wounded.

  ‘Ten thousand is nothing,’ she says. ‘Just the beginning.’

  So she knew how much I had won from her brother. The way she says it, it is almost as if Luke Gove gave me the money, rather than losing it.

  ‘You could have anything,’ she says. Again she puts a hand on my chest. ‘Anything you like.’

  ‘Already told your brother,’ I say, taking care over the words, keeping my voice even. ‘I’m a lawyer. Not the kind you can buy.’

  Saskia laughs at this. The barman places another Bloody Mary next to her and she picks it up, stirs it.

  ‘I like you, Daniel. My kind of man. Except for the morality. Too Protestant.’ She puts the stick of celery between her lips, takes a bite. The skin underneath her eyes looks bruised too and I wonder how much stress her father’s will is causing her, how many sleepless nights. ‘Not sexy.’

  For some reason this last barb breaks the spell, sets me free from whatever effect Saskia has been having on me. I feel a snap of clarity and with it a dull anger. I have had enough of the Goves, Luke and Saskia, their arrogant assumption that anyone can be bought, either through money or sex. Even their father tried to use his fortune to buy his way into the next life. I have better things to do. Better people to see.

  ‘Your brother bought a young girl a car,’ I say. ‘Tell me, why did he do that?’

  Saskia does not answer, watches me closely over her drink.

  ‘You want to talk about morality,’ I say, ‘look a little closer to home.’

  I take out a twenty, put it on the bar.

  ‘Don’t go,’ says Saskia. ‘We’re not that bad.’ She puts her hand on mine, the same gestu
re she made at her house, the same light, cool touch. But I move my hand and walk away, out of the bar and into the light, back to my car, before Saskia Gove’s hypnotic charm can take hold again. Why is it, I wonder, that every time I encounter her I feel she has taken something from me?

  I spend the rest of the afternoon in my office, and on the way home I stop at Gabe’s. There is no answer when I knock on his door and although it causes me shame, I am relieved that he is not there. I have no news and I am keeping the truth of the situation from him. I do not believe he would be able to forgive me if he found this out. It is a monstrous breach of trust. I need to find a solution, even if it means giving Halliday the deeds to my apartment building and leaving myself at his mercy; even if it means taking on Doolan and Akram, forcing them to admit collusion in Rafiq Jahani’s statement. One thing I am certain of: Gabe will not go to prison because of me.

  13

  CJ TELLS US that her sister did not die fourteen years ago; that she disappeared without explanation and that no sightings were ever reported, no body ever recovered. Maria reaches across the kitchen table where we are eating and puts a hand on CJ’s; I am amazed at the rapport and trust that she has already managed to build.

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Stacey.’

  ‘Did she run away?’

  CJ shrugs. ‘Mum and Dad, they never talked about it. Hardly mentioned her. Stacey. Like, it was forbidden. Just said she disappeared.’

  ‘Must have been hard for your mother,’ Maria says.

  ‘Never knew what she was like before,’ says CJ. ‘But growing up, she weren’t hardly there most of the time. Like, in her head. Spent most of the time in bed, watching telly. Smoking, watching telly.’

  I do not say anything, think of Rochelle Farrell. Of her daughter, who disappeared at the same time, fourteen years ago. Two girls missing, Jessica Farrell and Stacey Millar. Both their parents made beneficiaries of William Gove’s will. I believe in coincidence but this is too much.

  ‘Dad said it killed her. Mum. She died when I was nine.’

  ‘Your dad brought you up?’ says Maria.

  CJ laughs. ‘You want to call it that.’

  I look at CJ, at her hard little frame, elbows tucked into her body as she eats as if expecting an attack, some hostile act at any time. She must weigh less than half what I do, yet I cannot help but see our similarities. A tough childhood is something you never successfully grow out of. I would put an arm across her shoulders if I did not know it would frighten her.

  ‘It was hard?’ I say. ‘Growing up with him?’

  CJ does not answer, eats with her eyes on her plate. She swallows, drinks water, and when she speaks her voice breaks although she tries to control it. ‘Sometimes. When he was drinking, yeah. Then.’

  I think of my own father, of the weekends he would disappear, of the abuse I would receive when he came back, regardless of how good a time he had had. Of CJ’s joyless, fearful upbringing. The sins of the father. William Gove: what was it you did?

  Maria has taken CJ to the hairdresser’s and manicurist; when I got home, CJ’s eyes were bright with excitement at what had happened, at the attention she had received. Maria asked me what I thought and CJ turned her head away in embarrassment. I said that I thought they both looked lovely. CJ stole a look at me before leaving the room, and I could see that she was smiling.

  Now she pushes her plate aside, asks Maria if she can leave the table. Maria smiles.

  ‘Of course.’

  CJ scrapes her chair back and stands up awkwardly, leaving the kitchen without looking at us. Then she comes back and says, from the doorway, ‘Thank you,’ before ducking away.

  ‘Go okay?’ I ask Maria.

  ‘Went well. She’s a nice kid.’

  ‘She talk about what happened? In that place?’

  Maria shakes her head. ‘Plenty of time for that,’ she says. ‘Right now it’s about safety, about giving her somewhere to feel secure. Where she’ll be fed.’

  I nod, wonder at Maria’s wisdom, her easy understanding of priorities. But what she says next throws me completely.

  ‘Who’s Saskia?’

  ‘Saskia? Why?’

  ‘She left a note. Through the door.’

  ‘And?’ Yet as I say this I wonder how she knows where I live, where we live.

  ‘Here.’ Maria stands up, takes paper from her jeans pocket. ‘Know her well?’

  ‘William Gove’s daughter,’ I say, as offhandedly as I can.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ says Maria.

  I open the paper, read. Saskia has confident, stylish handwriting, big flourishes on the Ys and Gs.

  Dear Daniel. Was it something I said? I feel that you think the worst of me and I do not understand why. Nor do I think I deserve it. Next time, I buy the drinks. Saskia Gove.

  Maria is watching me read, eyebrows raised. ‘So go on, Casanova. Spill.’

  ‘She’s a strange woman,’ I say.

  ‘Oh,’ says Maria. ‘She’s strange. Well okay then.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘She’s…’ I think of Saskia Gove, of how she manipulated me, as if I was a frustrated schoolboy. ‘Used to getting her own way. Born into privilege. I can’t work her out.’

  ‘Try keeping away from her?’

  ‘I’m trying. That family, the Goves. Something’s not right.’

  But Maria is no longer listening to me, looking at something over my shoulder. I turn and CJ is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a plastic bag in each hand holding the clothes Maria bought her today.

  ‘I’ll see you,’ she says.

  Maria stands up. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Mate’s place. Said it’d be all right.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘And after?’

  CJ shrugs. ‘Find somewhere.’

  ‘You’re not happy here?’

  ‘It’s your house. Not mine.’

  ‘CJ,’ says Maria in a tone I suspect she saves for the less biddable children in her classroom. ‘We invited you in. Did you think we would then turn you out?’

  ‘Don’t have to,’ says CJ. ‘I’m leaving.’

  I remember the promise I made to Ms Armstrong, that I would keep an eye on CJ, look after her. I cannot let her leave.

  ‘This place is yours,’ I say, ‘for as long as you need it. Doesn’t matter how long. You’re welcome here.’

  CJ shakes her head at this, a half-smile on her lips; I wonder how many times she has been given similar assurances, how often they have proved illusory. I stand up, walk to her and kneel down, as I had done when I first met her.

  ‘You’ve been let down, betrayed, your whole life, I understand that.’ She glances at me but will not hold my eye. ‘Adults lie. Can’t be trusted. Say one thing one day, another thing the next. Right?’

  She frowns, half nods, still does not meet my eye although our heads are only inches apart.

  ‘When I was eleven, my father took me on holiday. Can’t remember where, some caravan park. Whole load of his mates were there. He went out drinking one night, came back three days later.’ CJ looks at me. ‘I was so ashamed, I didn’t leave the caravan. Didn’t want anyone to know my dad couldn’t give a shit about his own son. Ran out of food but I’d rather have starved than have people know.’ CJ’s eyes are almost too big for her face, round and grey and grave, a doll’s open gaze. I put a hand on the top of her arm and she does not flinch from my touch. ‘Adults lie. Can’t be trusted. I know this, CJ. I do. So please. Stay with us. For as long as you need to.’

  CJ looks at me for a long time, then nods once, twice. ‘A couple of nights.’

  ‘However many you want.’

  She nods again, picks up her bags and walks back upstairs. I turn around and Maria is sitting with her back to the kitchen table, legs crossed, her chin in her hands, and she is smiling at me and shaking her head very, very slowly.

  While we were persuading CJ to stay, Gabe was on his way to
the gym, looking for a release from the frustration he had been feeling for over a week now. He was a man used to having a target, orders, an enemy to engage. With Rafiq in a coma, he had nothing to do but wonder why this was happening, why a stranger had attacked him and then pinned an attempted murder on him. He got into his car and headed off into the evening light.

  On patrol through hostile cities and villages in Iraq and Afghanistan Gabe had developed a sixth sense for the things which did not seem right, which seemed out of place. Somebody dressed in the wrong clothes for a part of town. A car that was too new, a face too pale, a group of people too large, too unoccupied, too casual. At a set of lights on the way to the gym he saw a white Transit van with three men in the front seats. The driver had dark skin and a slender, hard face, the skin tight over his bone structure. Next to him were two big men. None of them were talking. He had seen them before, a couple of days ago. Same men, same van. They followed him all the way to his gym but when he turned off they passed by. He parked, opened his boot, took out his gym bag and looked for them, waited five minutes, but they did not come back.

  Gabe has visited the same gym for over three years, used it weekly as part of his physical rehabilitation. They know him there, the receptionists and personal trainers and boxing instructors, respect him for the work he has done over the months to get back into shape, the determination he has shown that his physical injuries will never get the better of him.

  He headed for the free weights and started doing arm curls, dead lifts, sets of repetitions until the veins on his biceps were raised and the front of his T-shirt wore a dark V of sweat. At this time of night the gym was almost empty although there was an aerobics class in the studio next door, fifteen women working out behind floor-to-ceiling windows. Gabe watched in the mirrors of the gym as he lifted weights and got a fifteen-second look at two of the men he had seen in the van before they saw him. They were wearing dark tracksuits but did not look like men who had come to work out. One of them saw him through the machinery of the gym, weight benches and cross trainers and treadmills, said something to the other man. They walked towards him with purpose, the lean-faced man in front, the larger man behind him. The leading man walked with difficulty, something wrong with his leg. They got to within a couple of metres and stopped. The man in front took out a piece of paper, opened it. Gabe was sitting on a bench, a weight in one hand. He did not move, watched them.