Nothing Sacred (21 page)

For all the love I want to think Maria feels for me, I have never managed to shake the suspicion that she also retains a vestige of caution, a wariness that I might be too hard, have too much history, hold inside too much capacity for wayward aggression. A big dog that you cannot entirely trust around people. I do not want to risk it, do not want to give her reason to fear me, fear being around me. I cannot bear to lose her.

‘It's nothing,' I say. ‘I'm sorry. It's just… with what's going on. Vick. I can't get it out of my head.' It is not a lie, not entirely; but nor is it the truth.

Maria leans down, puts one hand on each side of my face, turns it so that I am looking at her. She gazes at me and again I struggle to meet the honest goodness there, the depth of feeling.

‘I love you, Daniel Connell,' she says. ‘Whatever happens.'

I wish so much that I could believe it. But later, lying next to Maria sleeping, feeling my heart beat against the weight of her arm across my chest, I know that whatever it is that we have is too fragile; that very soon something terrible will happen to make it disappear forever.

20

MARIA IS ASLEEP
and she looks peaceful, her lips slightly parted, one hand half open, palm up, next to her ear. Her hair spills across the pillow in luscious waves. How many times, I wonder, have I looked at her in such a pose, amazed that she is with me, that I have the privilege of watching her sleep? But there is another hand in the picture, and it is holding a screwdriver that dimples the skin of Maria's throat, the suggestion of pressure. It is this that I have been gazing at for the last I do not know how many minutes, wondering how things have reached this stage, what I could have done differently. And wondering, ultimately, if I am capable of protecting her from the men who have taken the photograph and put it through the door of my office, where I picked it up from the floor on entering this morning.

Intimidation relies on the safety net of anonymity, the certainty that no links exist back to whoever is applying the pressure. The assumption is that they know what it is about, you know what it is about, and there should be an end to it. I know who sent the photograph, know what they want. But even if I had been in any doubt about who was behind it, I would not have had long to wonder.

I am pouring coffee in the corridor outside my office when my phone rings. I pick up though I do not recognise the number.

‘Yes?'

‘Daniel. Where do you think this will end?'

‘What do you want?'

He ignores my question. ‘There is nothing we cannot do to you,' he says.

‘What do you want?' I say again. I can think of nothing else to say.

‘Only what I always wanted,' he said. He sounds frustrated. ‘Daniel, there was no need for any of this.'

‘You were in Maria's room.'

‘Not me, Daniel. I'm in prison.'

‘If you weren't, I'd break your legs.'

Connor Blake laughs. ‘Magnus wanted to cut her ear off,' he says. ‘You should be thanking me.'

The statement is so abhorrent that I do not trust myself to respond and there is a silence during which I can hear him breathing.

‘So come on, Daniel. You going to be my lawyer?'

‘Why me?'

‘That other lot, big City lawyers. Hard to persuade. You show up out of the blue, might as well have come tied up with a ribbon.'

‘What makes you think you can intimidate me?' But even as I say it, I realise how empty my words sound. Blake does not even answer but I can hear him laughing softly.

‘What do you want?'

‘We'll talk about that. When you come to see me.'

I have an impression of doors closing all around me, leaving me in a dark place, alone. ‘Come to see you,' I say.

‘We have a lot to talk about. You're going to get me out of here.'

I close my eyes and I cannot think. My mind seems frozen, starved of possibilities and choices. They got into Maria's home. Took photographs. What could I do?

‘There are procedures,' I say eventually. ‘You need to sack your current defence team. We'll need to go to court, a judge will need to sign it off.'

‘See,' says Blake, condescension in his voice as if he is geeing up an uncertain child. ‘That's what I pay you the big bucks for.'

‘Give me your lawyer's name,' I say, and it is as if I am casting off the last rope mooring me to my old life, drifting away into a vast unknown place of malevolence and menace. He gives me a name and I say, ‘I'll see you in court.'

I cut Blake off, push my mobile across the desk far away from me. I look about my office, at my familiar surroundings, and I have no idea what to do, none at all.

While I was contemplating a dark and violent future, Gabe was taking the fight to 7 Platoon, showing a tenacity and appetite for the fray, which only recently I believed he had lost for good. While 7 Platoon may have fired bullets into his home and held a gun to his head, these acts, if anything, only seemed to spur him on. I had always known that Gabe was a contrary man; I had not appreciated quite what little value he put on his own life when there was a mission to be completed.

With the help of Major Strauss, Gabe had tracked down as many members of 7 Platoon as he could; those who had been attached to the platoon at the time of Lance Corporal Creek's death and those immediately before. He had called them, visited them, appealed to their sense of duty, to their better natures. But few had wanted to talk, and those who did had nothing to reveal, other than a deep and abiding hatred and fear of 7 Platoon, of what they had become and what they had done out there in Afghanistan.

But he had spoken to one man who had asked Gabe to stop by and visit. He had not been with 7 Platoon when Gabe was shadowing them in Kunar Province but he had served with them shortly afterwards, up until just before Lance Corporal Creek's death. He gave Gabe an address, told him he was there all day every day, that anytime was fine.

Ex-Private Shane Foster was a small man with a restless energy he could not quite contain; he ducked and weaved as he spoke as if he was sparring with Gabe, rather than simply talking. He was wearing a t-shirt with the arms cut-off and had crude tattoos on his wiry arms, but around his eyes were lines left by an easy laugh and he emanated an aggressive goodwill. Foster worked at a boxing gym, a small building with a flat roof and two full-size rings inside, punch bags and speed balls and weights at the far end, smell of sweat and leather and vapour rub. Two boys in headgear were throwing jabs at one another in one of the rings, and while Foster spoke to Gabe he kept an eye on them, throwing instructions and profanities their way as they slipped or shipped punches.

‘Creek, right, I heard he was killed. Fucking shame. He was a good man, I liked him. Phil, fuck's sake cover up. You like getting hit?'

‘Yes,' said Gabe. ‘He was a good man. Knew him well?'

‘Well enough. Enough to know he was different.' Foster started to walk around the ring and Gabe had to follow, speak to his profile as Foster watched the boys box.

‘Different?'

‘Yeah, not like the rest of them, of us. Always thinking, always asking questions. Phil, don't slap, you ain't a girl. Are you? Phil? You a girl?'

One of the boys who Gabe presumed was Phil looked down at Foster and shook his head. The other boy took the opportunity to hit him, a crisp right to the temple. Phil staggered sideways and Foster laughed.

‘Gal, you're a little shit, know that?' He turned to Gabe. ‘So. You reckon, what? He weren't killed kosher?'

Gabe nodded. ‘But nobody's talking. Can't get anywhere. You hear anything, see anything?'

Foster shook his head. ‘I'd left by then, and not a day too soon, I'll be honest with you. Banyan, Burgess, Shine, all of them, gone over the other side, hadn't they. Gone.'

‘Think they could have killed Creek?'

‘That lot?' Foster stopped walking, was momentarily stilled. ‘Reckon they'd kill anything.'

Foster climbed into the ring and spoke to the boys, made sure they met his eye as he told them what they had done well and what they needed to improve on. He dismissed them, cuffing both across the back of the head as they escaped, wriggling through the ropes. He did not come down, spoke to Gabe from up where he was.

‘I wanted to see you, check you out before I spoke to you,' he said. ‘Never know.'

‘Worried about 7 Platoon?'

‘Never want to see them again.'

‘So you've got something to tell me,' said Gabe.

Foster nodded down at Gabe's leg. ‘You exercising?'

‘Tennis.'

Foster nodded again. ‘You want to box, that leg won't stop you.'

‘I'll bear it in mind.'

‘There was a guy, a soldier, don't know how he spelled it but think he was called Petroski. Came in on attachment, don't know where from either. Him and Creek, you know what Creek was like, didn't have many friends, did people's heads in, if I'm honest. But this one, Petroski, they were tight.'

Foster threw a body shot at the ring's top rope, making it quiver, then put out a hand to still it as he thought.

‘He knew something. Said something, talked about how wasn't any way it was legit, Creek getting shot. Said he knew something about it, said it needed to be known.'

‘Petroski?' It was not a name Gabe had heard before. ‘Know where I can find him?'

‘Got flown out. Caught up in some incident, roadside bomb, never got the details. Last I heard of him.'

‘Know where I can find him?'

‘Wouldn't have a clue. How many Petroskis can there be?'

Foster took a mop from the corner of the ring and started to clean the canvas floor. Gabe stood there for some moments but it seemed as if the meeting was over.

He turned and headed for the door but as he reached it, Foster called, ‘Sir? Serious. You want to box, you come back here.'

Gabe called in favours and spoke to army personnel staff, who turned up only one Petroski – James, a private who had recently been discharged from service, invalided out. They pointed him to a hospital, told him that was the last record they had of him. But when Gabe called the hospital, they told him that Petroski was no longer with them and that no, they could not tell him his whereabouts, that that information was limited to family and he was not family, was he?

Gabe pulled rank, turned on the charm. No joy: dead end. Petroski might as well have dropped off the planet.

He tells me this sitting across from me in my office the following day, asks me if there are any legal channels he can pursue, issue a subpoena.

‘Doubt it,' I say. ‘On what grounds? That he may or may not know something about the death of somebody who may or may not have been wrongfully killed? You'll need a lot more than you've got.'

‘He could be important.'

‘“Could be” isn't something the law takes very seriously.'

Gabe puts his hands behind his neck, eases out some tightness. ‘Understood.'

‘Strauss can't help?'

‘Civilian matter now is what they say. Family only.'

‘Phone book? Voting registers?'

‘Nothing. Guy's just disappeared.'

‘Sorry.'

‘Yeah.' Gabe looks about my office. ‘And you? What's happening?'

I have not told Gabe about the photograph of Maria. What could he do? I shrug, affect nonchalance. ‘Not much.'

Though, if I am honest, not much is the only answer I can give. I have contacted Blake's solicitors and have made a date to stand before the judge to take on his case. Maria and I have seen each other, and although I have tried to appear normal, I know that she has sensed a difference in me. I am unwilling to touch her, want to keep her at arm's length as if getting close to me will put her at more risk. Over dinner she seemed on the verge of saying something, readying herself to confront my behaviour, how it is affecting us. But she said nothing and we are maintaining an uneasy peace.

‘Not much,' I say again. I think of Maria, the photograph, the screwdriver. Of how I have capitulated to Connor Blake, agreed to represent him. Of how cowardice and love seem inseparable, one a companion to the other. ‘Nothing at all.'

21