Nothing Sacred (38 page)

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.

Outside we embraced and I watched them leave, the children chattering happily and Ollie constantly questioning whether they were really going home, really, for good, did she promise? Vick nodded, wiped away a tear, told him she promised, she really did. She turned and smiled at me and whispered,
Thank you.
And that was the last I saw of her.

For Connor Blake, things did not turn out so happily. A week ago, while he was on kitchen duty in prison, another inmate approached him with a pan of boiling water and threw it in his face. The inmate had poured sugar into the water, mixed it in so that the simmering liquid stuck to Blake's skin and continued to burn for some minutes. This I heard on the Essex grapevine; stories this lurid travel fast.

I do not want to believe that a father would order such an act to be carried out on his own son; do not want to believe that monsters like that can live among us. But I have looked into Alex Blake's eyes and, if I am honest with myself, it would not surprise me.

Connor Blake now has a face that people would rather not look at; would wish they could forget once they had. I remember his brilliant blue eyes, his strong jaw, those features so regular they seemed bequeathed by God. But perhaps the face he has now better suits the cruel and worthless soul that always lay beneath those astonishing looks. I can feel no pity for what has happened to him.

My serve is not as elegant as the rangy guy's but it has more bulk behind it and a great deal more residual anger, both recent and seeded in my distant history. I hit an ace with my first serve; my second is out wide and Gabe easily puts away the volley from the indifferent return. At thirty– love up I hit a serve so vicious that the older guy does not have time to play a shot, can only fend it away and out of play. I am feeling so loose and relaxed that match point feels like a formality. I bounce the ball, toss it up and hit it out wide. The rangy guy can only get a rim on it and that is it. We have won.

I feel the usual split-second of unreality, the ping of doubt – did I do that? Then we are shaking hands at the net and Gabe has his arm over my shoulder and there is nothing to do but walk off the court and buy our opponents a beer, if they still have the stomach for one. As we walk back to the clubhouse, George and five other members who have been watching applaud us and I feel as elated and heroic as if I had just won Roland Garros.

Before I met Maria I had lived on my own for years, but the months I spent with her have broken the habit. Now it is evening and I have nothing to do, nobody to speak with, share what has happened, seek reassurance that what I have done over the past weeks has been, on the whole, good and right. I turn on the TV but turn it back off after a couple of minutes, bored with its banality. The truth is that, outside of the tennis court, I can see little point in this life I have. I go to my kitchen and eye a bottle of wine, which will, at least, take the edge off these thoughts. But even as I open it I know that this is not the answer. I have no idea what the answer is, would not know where to begin.

I pour a glass but before I can drink I hear my doorbell ring. I walk to it and open it. Standing on my porch is Maria. She looks pale but still beautiful, and very, very angry.

‘Maria.'

‘So you know who I am?'

‘Of course.'

‘You, Daniel Connell, are some kind of bastard. You know that?'

She is trembling but it is not as cold as it has been today and I can only think that it is rage that is making her shake. She points a finger at me, jabs it into my chest, hard.

‘Think I would never remember? You coward. Getting rid of me like that, just, you…' She shakes her head, runs out of words, awed by what she believes is my cynicism.

‘Maria, it's not, it's nothing like that. It wasn't.'

‘No? Spare me, Daniel.'

‘Maria…'

But I stop because Maria is now crying, tears rolling down her cheeks although her face has lost none of its fury.

‘Please, Maria. Please, come in, let me explain.'

‘Explain what? I was in hospital and I needed you and you just, you just walked away, Daniel. You lied to me and you abandoned me.'

‘I had to.'

‘Please.'

‘Maria, please come in. Please, come inside.'

Maria pulls her hands down her face, clears her tears. She passes me, walks into my house that once felt as much hers as mine. I head into the kitchen and she follows me.

‘Sit down. I need to tell you everything. Everything that happened.'

‘Not a little late?'

‘Hear me out. Just, please. Hear me out.'

Maria sits down at my table, looks up at me. I take a breath, wonder where to start. Wonder how I can make sense of this for her, for us. I think back to the moment Vick walked into my office in tears, her sodden handkerchief, her unimaginable grief and confusion.

‘This,' Maria says, ‘had better be good.'

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My thanks as ever go to my agent Tina and my tough-yet-fair editor, Sara. Thanks also to Maddie, Louise, Anna and everybody at Corvus for their support. Special mentions to Anthony Connell for his expert legal advice, and MH for his inside knowledge on the murky world of private security. The book could not have been written without you.