to rest. Intellectually, he knew there was no chance of Vance's appeal succeeding. But while it was pending, there would always be that niggle of uncertainty. He'd helped put Vance away, but the arrogant killer had always maintained he would find a loophole that would set him free. Tony hoped the road to freedom was only a figment of Vance's imagination.
As the car wound down the hill towards the seafront cottage Tony had bought a year ago, he wondered if Carol knew about the appeal. He'd e-mail her tonight to make sure. Thank God for electronic communication. It avoided so many of the occasions for awkwardness that seemed to occur when they were face to face, or even talking on the phone. He was conscious of having failed Carol, and, in the process, himself. She was never far from his thoughts, but to tell her that would have been a kind of betrayal he couldn't bring himself to Perform.
Tony pulled up in the narrow street outside his cottage, parking the car half on the kerb. There was a light on in the living room. Once, such a sight would have set the cold hand of fear clutching his heart. But his world had changed in mo^ ways than he could ever have dreamed of. Now, he want everything to stay the same; clear, manageable, boxed off. It wasn't perfect, not by a long way. But it was better tha bearable. And for Tony, better than bearable was as good it had ever been.
The throb of the engines soothed him, as it always had. Ba things had never happened to him on the water. For as lor as he could remember, boats had protected him. There wei rules of life on board, rules that had always been clear an simple, rules that existed for good and logical reasons. Bu even when he'd been too young to understand, when he'< inadvertently done things he shouldn't have, the punishmen had never descended on him until they went ashore. He^ known it was coming, but he had always managed to hoi the fear at bay while the engines rumbled and the mingle smells of men's unwashed bodies, stale cooking fat and dies fumes filled his nostrils.
The pain had only ever been visited on him when they 1? their life on the water behind and returned to the stinl apartment by the fish docks in Hamburg where his granc ther demonstrated the power he held over the young boy his care. While he was still staggering to recover his land k the punishments would begin.
Even now when he thought about it, the air in his lun? seemed to condense. His skin felt as if it were writhing owe his flesh. For years, he'd tried not to think about it becaus< it made him feel so fractured, so fragile. But slowly he ha