Nothing Sacred (25 page)

‘You bought this place?' says Gabe.

‘Yeah,' says Petroski. He looks about him. ‘Estate agents call it potential, right?'

‘You're a long way from people,' says Major Strauss. ‘Is that healthy?'

Petroski shrugs and I see a sadness in his good eye. ‘I guess not. But you know? I can live with looking like this. It hardly hurts any more and sure I've got a missing hand, but…' He stops, and this is the first awkwardness I have felt in his company.

‘I shouldn't have asked,' says Major Strauss. ‘Not my business.'

‘It's just,' says Petroski and again he falters. His face does not betray his emotion but as I look at him a single tear escapes his eye, runs down his creased and melted skin. I wonder if he has parents, what his mother feels when she looks at the legacy of the awful pain he has been made to suffer. It must be heartbreaking. He blinks, clears his eye. ‘Other people. The way they stare. It's not fair on them. On me.' He breathes in, a shudder of grief in his throat. ‘Other people,' he says.

Gabe puts a hand on Petroski's shoulder, grips him hard. ‘I think you are remarkable,' he says. ‘It's a privilege to have met you.'

Petroski smiles, bares his gums, shakes his head, but Gabe has got him in his gaze and will not let him get away, will not allow Petroski his self-deprecation. ‘You are an example to me. Thank you.'

At this Petroski smiles for real; coming from a man with Gabe's reputation and rank, I guess that it must mean something. He does not answer but I hope that Gabe's words register, and that they help sustain him. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for him just to wake up every day, face a world that flinches rather than look at him.

He watches us go, raises a hand as we pull away, once again backlit by his hall's bare bulb.

None of us speak in the car, driving through the darkness in silence, each occupied with his own thoughts. I cannot help but dwell on James Petroski's injuries, examine them and what they must mean for him. He is dreadful to look at but he is a good man – honest and warm and aware only of his luck, not his misfortune. I compare him to Connor Blake – spoilt, indulged and impossibly good-looking – and it only makes me hate him more. How is it that of the two of them, it is Blake who has become such a monster?

24

HOW MANY EYEWITNESSES
can you fit in a toilet? It is a question I am asking myself as I look through the witness statements collected by the police following the murder of Karl Reece, allegedly at the hands of Connor Blake. They are piled on my desk, thirty-two accounts of what the customers at Jamie's Bar saw that night, what they had to say about the brutal act that had played out right in front of them; an act which, I was sure, none of them would ever be able to forget.

I am in my office and it is early, not yet light outside; I again left Maria asleep, drove though empty streets full of the previous evening's debris, broken glass and spilled blood. But now, with Blake's file in front of me, my mind is on that night, the dark early hours when a promising young man was beaten to death for an imagined slight so trivial it would have gone unremarked by the majority of people. There is no light in this story.

Jamie's Bar has been around for years, decades even – a smart storefront bar visited by locals who, generally, know one another and have grown up together. Anyone they don't know, chances are they'll know a brother, father, cousin. Clearly, everybody there knew the Blakes; knew what happens if you crossed them, if you dared implicate one of them in murder.

Of the witness statements I have read so far, twenty-eight of them claim to have been in the toilets while it happened and could not recall having seen anything, neither the build-up to the attack on Karl Reece nor the aftermath, as if it had all happened in another place entirely. Three simply did not say anything, refused to speak. All the accounts are written in the elaborately formal style of police statements: witnesses ‘have no knowledge of the assailant's identity' or ‘confirm their presence in the premises' facilities during said assault'. But behind these statements is another, less precise sentiment: a fear of speaking out, a fervent wish to have been anywhere but there, to have witnessed anything but that.

That, the coroner's report confirms, is the savage beating of Karl Reece followed by a stamp to the back of his neck, which snapped two vertebrae and killed him instantly. The coroner was sure that it was a stamp that had been the cause of death. The tread of the killer's shoes was clearly visible on Karl Reece's skin. Prada, she concluded. This season's. I would expect nothing less of Connor Blake.

Throughout all of this detail I can sense Blake's presence in the gloom of my office, as close as if he is smirking at my shoulder. This wall of silence, the abject excuses of the witnesses, the prosaic details of the coroner's report that somehow only make the reality of what happened more unpalatable; the box that Blake's former solicitors gave me seems a documentation of all the indifference, cruelty and self-interest that society so often stands accused of. And at the centre of it is Blake – arrogant, entitled and as close to evil as I can imagine.

I push the papers aside and pick up my cup of coffee long gone cold, wondering what exactly I am going to say to Blake when I see him. Whether there is any way I can get out of this mess that I am in.

Connor Blake has one black eye, although it is not closed and I can see a glint of mischief in it as he is pushed through the door of our interview room by the same guard who had manhandled him in last time. This time the guard pushes Blake with more force and Blake nearly loses his footing, cuffed as he is.

Blake looks at me, frowns. ‘You going to say anything?'

‘Is there a reason for this rough treatment?' I ask the guard mildly.

‘Yeah,' the guard says. He is in his fifties with short white hair, has the nose of an ex-boxer, big hands and a neck as wide as his head. ‘Your client's been causing trouble.'

‘I notice he has a black eye,' I say. ‘Care to talk me through that one?'

‘Can do,' says the guard. ‘If you insist.'

In truth, I do not care either way; I have only been playing the role of concerned advocate. But I nod all the same. Since I have started, I might as well play the role convincingly.

‘Fight in the kitchen couple of days ago,' the guard says. ‘Where Blake's been working. I say working.'

Blake sniggers and I wonder how the guard can resist hitting him. I am struggling myself.

‘Seems your client's taken against an inmate called Chambers. Big black fella, in for armed robbery. So Chambers has hit him. Fucking fair play, I say.'

‘Okay,' I say. ‘If you could get to the point.'

‘The point,' says the guard. ‘Right. Point is, Chambers give him this black eye. So next day, Blake's heated up a wire on the gas stove and put it through Chambers' eye. Right through the middle.'

‘I did no such thing, by the way,' says Blake. He is leaning up against the wall opposite me and grinning as if he is in possession of a marvellous joke he can barely contain.

‘Well, Chambers ain't talking,' says the guard. ‘Won't see out of that eye again either.' He shakes his head and looks at the floor, and I half expect him to spit. ‘Fucking Blakes.'

‘What was that?' Blake has his arms folded but he is no longer smiling and his chin is tilted up in challenge. ‘What you
fucking
say?'

Perhaps it is because the guard has had enough for one day and lacks the will to challenge Blake. I hope so, do not want to consider the other possibility – that the Blakes' reputation is such that this guard hesitates to speak ill of them even within the sacrosanct walls of this prison. Whichever, he turns away from Blake, says, ‘Nothing.'

‘What I thought you said,' says Blake.

The guard is pushing open the door but at this he stops, perhaps recalls who he is and what he stands for. He raises his shoulders, turns deliberately and says to me with a glance of frank disgust, ‘How you can stand to work for scum like that.'

He walks through the door, pulls it to quickly behind him, and as it closes I feel as if it is me rather than Blake who is the prisoner in this place.

‘So,' Blake says, taking a seat. ‘Name. Address. Go.'

‘What was it your previous lawyer said to you?'

‘Said he couldn't give it to me.'

‘He was right. He couldn't.' Blake is watching me closely. This is his shot at getting out of here, his chance to get at the only witness against him. He is perfectly still and I sense that he is holding his breath. ‘I can't give it to you either,' I say.

Blake closes his eyes, does not say anything for a moment. ‘Daniel. You don't want to do this.'

‘Not me,' I say. ‘They've got him or her in special measures. Protected identity. I don't know who it is.'

‘No.' Blake shakes his head. ‘No, no, fucking no, no, no.' He raises a finger, points it at me. ‘No.'

‘Listen,' I say. ‘This is what happens when the police have reason to believe a witness might be intimidated.' Blake has his eyes closed but he is still pointing his finger at me like a drunk trying to make a point. ‘They protect their name; give them an initial. No address, no name, nothing.'

‘You know I can do anything. Kill her, hurt her. Make it so you won't recognise her. Anything I say will happen.'

‘Are you listening? What you're asking me to do – I can't do it.' I cannot get through to this man but I need to, need him to understand. He must understand.

‘They always do what I say.' Now he has his eyes open and his clear blue gaze is an invasion; I can feel it under my skin, probing places he has no right to be.

‘Connor, I am going to go now. I cannot help you.'

‘I'll make the call today.'

‘No.'

‘Yes, Daniel.'

‘You won't touch her.'

Blake laughs. ‘Daniel. Look at me. Look at me and wake the fuck up. I'm in prison. You think there's anything we won't do?'

‘She has nothing to do with this.'

‘You'll find out who that witness is. You know what we can do.'

After reading the statement of Witness A, I have a better idea than ever. His was the last I read and was unique in that it was more than a single page long and it contained more than a simple denial of all knowledge. His interview had been transcribed, set out in impersonal black and white across five pages; but his outrage and disgust at what he had witnessed that night came through as if he was speaking out loud.

Witness A had been drinking with friends. Their names were blacked out in the transcript, all ties to his identity meticulously erased. What was clear was that Witness A had been close to the events, that he had seen everything, that he was a good and brave man, one of the rare few who refuse to allow atrocities to go unchallenged on principal, regardless of personal risk.

Although the transcript does not indicate it, I imagine that this last word was delivered with a bewildered, questioning force. At this stage I think it likely that Witness A was in tears, his mind replaying the moment of Karl Reece's death and the transcendent look on Connor Blake's face, wondering how it could be, how men like Blake could exist among us.

The interview was suspended at this point and the time code shows that it took Witness A over thirty minutes to resume.