Nothing Sacred (33 page)

When I arrive at the hospital she has still not regained consciousness and I am not allowed to see her, have to wait in a large room lit by neon tubing and lined with green plastic seats which cant forward so that the only way to sit is with my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands. Hushed voices around me, the desperate murmur of the frightened and uninformed. A doctor comes to find me after I have been sitting for two hours and explains to me that Maria has suffered significant trauma to her head, that she is in a coma and that at this stage it is impossible to give a prognosis. He speaks quickly and nervously, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, from which they quickly slide again. I thank him and ask if I can see her. He hesitates briefly, pushes his glasses up his nose and then tells me to follow him.

Maria is lying in a room with no other beds. She looks as if she is asleep, peaceful, although she has a bandage wrapped around her head and a tube coming out from the back of her left hand. There are machines quietly doing what they need to do next to her. I do not get close, stop at the foot of her bed and look at her. The doctor is beside me and is clearly uncomfortable, trying to think of something to say to break my foreboding silence.

‘She is your wife?'

‘No.'

‘Ah.' He taps his chin with a pen.

‘Will she be all right?'

He shrugs. ‘It is the brain, Mr…'

‘Connell.'

‘Mr Connell. No way to say. One way or the other.'

‘It won't—' I begin but am interrupted by a knock at the door. I turn and I can see Sergeant Hicklin through the window to the side of the door. He looks at me and beckons, curling all the fingers of one hand.

‘Police?' says the doctor.

‘It's me they want,' I say. ‘Take care of her, will you?'

‘We'll do everything we can.'

I walk to the door and open it. Hicklin looks at me with an expression that is part disappointment, part pity. He rubs his moustache with his hand, then uses it to point down the corridor.

‘Shall we?'

Hicklin tells me that Maria had not only been naked. When she was found outside the main entrance, the hospital staff had not been sure what was on her skin. It was only when she had been placed on a stretcher and curtained into a cubicle that the nurse examining her saw that all over her body were dotted lines marked in thick black ink. They were over her face, described arcs around her ribs, along muscles, across her stomach, her buttocks. They were, Hicklin tells me, the kind of marks plastic surgeons make on skin before beginning to cut. He tells me this looking down at his notepad and reading out what he had written there, without inflection or apparent judgement.

But when Hicklin looks up he seemed at a loss of what to say, of what to think about the information that he has just given me, of what had been done to Maria. I wonder whether she had been unconscious when they drew on her, drew all over her naked skin.

‘But there wasn't…?'

‘No. Nothing like that. Which is something, I guess.'

I rub my hand over my forehead, my eyes, pull down at my skin so hard that it stings. The room we are in is part of the hospital, reserved for the police, for conducting interviews. It is brightly lit, has a table and four chairs, and no windows. It could be a nurse's staff room.

‘You haven't got many friends on the force,' Hicklin says.

I nod. ‘Doesn't surprise me.'

‘After Baldwin… They've been waiting for something like this.'

I shrug.

‘Reason I got here first,' says Hicklin. ‘Before they can get at you.'

‘Think they'd set me up?'

‘First thing they'd try to do,' says Hicklin. ‘You wouldn't see the outside of a prison cell for months.'

‘You're taking charge?'

‘I'm picking this one up,' he says. ‘See that some kind of justice gets done.'

‘Want me to thank you?'

‘What I want, Mr Connell, is for you to tell me what's going on.'

‘No idea.'

‘First that friend of yours, McBride, starts shooting up the place. Next, your girlfriend. She is your girlfriend?'

I do not reply.

Hicklin sighs. ‘You've got no reason to trust us. But' – he breathes loudly through his nose – ‘I think you're in trouble. You're representing Connor Blake, right?'

‘What's this got to do—' I begin, but Hicklin interrupts.

‘Men like you don't represent men like him. Men like him are the very worst.'

‘And what kind of man do you think I am?'

‘You?' Hicklin leans back in his chair, strokes his moustache again. ‘Good, with a very bloody thick layer of arsehole.'

I cannot think of anything to say in response to this.

Hicklin sits forward again. ‘Now, I don't know if what your friend's involved with, and what you're involved with, if they're connected. But something's going on. And it's happening on my manor. I'm not arresting you. But you've got Blake on one side; you've got my lot on the other. Your options, Mr Connell, are getting very thin. Very thin indeed.'

Hicklin threatens me then tries to reason with me, assures me that he will take care of things, that whatever is happening he can guarantee my safety, Maria's safety, Gabe's safety. But as much as I like and trust Hicklin, I know the extent of his powers; know that they are not far-reaching enough, nowhere near. I refuse to comment on my relationship with Connor Blake; invoke client confidentiality, hide behind my status as a lawyer, however hypocritical that might be. Eventually Hicklin gives up. He tells me not to leave town, tells me he'll be in touch. Tells me that I am free to go.

‘Can I see Maria?'

‘You can. And Mr Connell? I wish her all the best.'

I thank Hicklin and watch him amble away down the corridor. I believe that he is a good man and that I can trust him. But whatever is about to happen, I do not want the police anywhere near.

Maria's mother is in Maria's room when I finish with Sergeant Hicklin, sitting on a chair and rubbing Maria's wrist with her thumb, holding her hand carefully so that she does not disturb the needle in its back. She embraces me when I come in and I try to yield to it, but my back is stiff and my muscles tense and she must feel as if she is hugging a tree. Maria is still unconscious and Maria's mother deserves some time with her – deserves it far more than I do. I do not kiss Maria, do not touch her. For some reason I imagine that it might bring her bad luck, might jeopardise her recovery. I leave her with her mother and head for the car park.

I turn my mobile phone back on when I get outside. After it has illuminated it tells me that I have a new message. I open it and do not recognise the number straight away. But then I do. I had called it earlier but nobody had answered. The message is short but tells me all that I need to know. It says, simply:
Too late
.

‘Marks where they were going to cut,' says Gabe.

‘What Hicklin told me.'

‘You know who did this, right?'

‘I know.'

‘This Blake guy.'

‘His people.'

‘Dan, I'm sorry. She'll be okay.'

‘Yeah. Will she?' I look at Gabe and I can see compassion there in his pale eyes.

He nods slowly. ‘Yes, Danny. She will.'

We are in Gabe's kitchen and I have not yet had a drink of the Scotch that Gabe has poured for me. I want to be sober in case there is any news, any call from the hospital. I think of Maria's skin, marked up as if by some deranged surgeon, her waiting in fear for whatever ordeal of unimaginable pain awaited. I think of Magnus, faceless men behind him. Of Alex Blake and his disgust at the men Connor Blake surrounded himself with. Of Connor Blake's boast of what he could do to Maria. There is so much I could have done. That this is all my fault I do not question. That Maria is lying in a hospital bed because of me is a fact I have to face. Like a sudden attack of nausea, my self-disgust and helplessness rushes through me. I close my eyes and I cannot help it – my throat swells and my eyes tingle as I begin to cry. I am ashamed that Gabe is here to witness this but my shame is distant and unimportant. I cannot stop. Nothing I do, nothing I have ever done, has resulted in anything but hurt. I do not know why, do not know what I have done to deserve all this. But my self-pity only disgusts me further as I think of Maria and what she has been put through. The thought of her causes my stomach to clench in terror. I cannot think about her dying. Under neon lighting. In that bed, alone, surrounded by machines. Please God, do not let her die because of me.

Gabe puts his hand on my shoulder and leaves it there, does not say anything. My silent sobs ebb away, leaving nothing but me, empty and pitiful at this table. Gabe lifts his hand, pushes the Scotch closer to me. I drink. Fuck it. There is nothing to say. She should have known. Should have known that no good would come from being with me.

33

BLAKE CALLS EARLY
the next morning, awakening me from a sleep populated with shadowy figures I dare not look at. Even as I grope for my phone I have the residual impression of being trapped by thick low branches and entangled by thorns in some dark and ancient forest. When he speaks, it seems as if he is speaking to me from within my dream, his voice emanating from that ghastly place.

‘Daniel.'

‘Yes.'

‘What did I tell you, Daniel?'

‘You said six days.'

‘Gave you six days.'

‘No. Five. You… It was only five.'

‘Oh, Daniel.' Blake laughs, a short sound, followed by a rich chuckle that he is barely in control of. ‘Daniel. Seems we've got our wires crossed. You didn't count the day you came to see me, did you?' He laughs again and I imagine him in his cell, speaking into his contraband mobile, shaking his head in delight at our miscommunication. He thinks that it is funny, that what he has done to Maria is a fine joke.

‘Anyway, doesn't matter. Took your sweet time, lost patience. Way it goes.'

‘Fuck you,' I say.

‘No, Daniel. We're not finished. I still need that name.'

‘After what you did?'

‘What I did? No, Daniel. I've barely started.'

‘Nearly killed her.'

‘Magnus tells me she put up quite a fight. Had to be subdued. To be honest, I think he's still pissed off. About you breaking his leg. Took it out on her.'

I do not say anything. I am on Gabe's sofa and my head hurts from the Scotch I drank. I look at my watch. It is still early: too early to visit Maria.

‘You there?'

‘I'm here.'

‘We're not done.'

‘Goodbye.'

‘No, Daniel. Don't—'

I cut Blake off and hang up. I sit up on the sofa, rub my hair with my hands, scratch until it hurts. Gabe's house is quiet. I walk into his kitchen. There is nobody there. Then I remember Gabe telling me something about going to Petroski's place, checking on what was going on, seeing if it was still being staked out by the foot soldiers of Global Armour. I put on coffee and find some painkillers. There is an hour to wait until visiting time at the hospital. Nobody has called and I guess that means that Maria has not died, but also that she has not woken up. I think of her lost in that same dark forest that I have just woken from, alone and distressed and trapped. I sit at Gabe's kitchen table and drink my coffee, waiting until it is time to see her again.

My father suffered a heart attack the previous year and when he was in hospital I had barely visited him, left the doctors and nurses to do what they needed to do. But now with Maria I feel a need to question everything that is being done to her. Why is that tube in her hand? What have they put in that clear bag? Why has that machine made that sound?

I speak to the doctor before I go in to see her and he tells me that there are indications that she will soon come out of her coma, but that I must be aware that there could be associated problems. I ask him what problems and he pushes his glasses up on his nose, hesitates, and says that there could be a change in behaviour, that she might experience confusion, and that in the majority of cases there is some form of memory loss, though whether long- or short-term it is impossible to say.

Now I am sitting in a chair at the end of her bed and watching in silence as she sleeps. I have not touched her, have not stroked her hand or kissed her forehead. I have not even spoken, said her name aloud, although I have heard that speaking to people in comas can have beneficial results. The hospital beyond the door of Maria's room is in full swing, coping with the drunks and the damaged and the detritus of last night's drinking, but here in her room it is quiet and I can hear the gentle reassuring hum of the machine monitoring her breathing and brain activity.

I think of our time together, of what we have done and the things she has said to me. She once told me that it did not matter what we had been; what was important was what we wanted to become, even if it was something that we never achieved. She had told me this after I had spoken to her of my past, of the things that had been done to me by my father, of what I had occasionally done to other people. I had shaken my head at what she told me but she had held my chin and pulled it down, pushed it up, pulled it down, then had gravely intoned:
Yes, Maria, you are right
, until I had smiled and even half believed her. But I do not believe her any longer.