The Gardens of the Dead

1

The door opened and Mr Wyecliffe’s face emerged out of a warm gloom. His brown oval suit seemed to join his beard and run up his cheeks, stopping just below the small eyes. ‘Sorry, the light bulb’s just blown. There’s sufficient illumination, however, in my quarters.’ He led Nick to a sort of hole composed of shelves and files. The air was stale and still and seemed to have a colour, as though they were immersed in a yellowish solution carrying a hint of blue from far, far away. Upon a large, chipped bureau stood a yellow plastic air freshener that kept watch over piles of paper in disarray.

‘I thought it best we speak outside office hours.’ He blinked and nodded with a single movement. ‘Can’t say much, mind. Client confidentiality’ He slumped in a chair behind his desk and said, ‘It was a first-class funeral, if you take my meaning. Very nice reception. Lovely house. Nice to see the clients invited. But I am sorry. Dreadful business, if you ask me.’

‘Your clients?’ asked Nick.

‘Quite a few One of them ate the ham sandwiches.’ He spoke as though he were tempting the outrage of a magistrate.

Nick said, ‘You specialise in criminal law?’

‘Not really,’ he reminisced, scratching an ear as he leaned back. ‘I’ve followed the personal injury market. And family work, of course. I’d always done that. Care, divorce, custody. Always lots to do in that neck of the woods.’ His narrow eyes seemed to glaze. ‘I sent your mother more dog’s breakfasts than I care to admit. But she had a knack with parents not disposed to cooperate with expert assistance.’ He blinked in the gloom, regarding the air freshener. ‘But why do you want to know about the Riley case? It was a long time ago… Best forgotten, I should think.’ He almost winked.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Nick. ‘But I found the papers among my mother’s personal things. She kept them for nearly ten years. I wondered if you might be able to tell me why’

Mr Wyecliffe’s eyes enlarged like ink on blotting paper. ‘I’ll do my best.’ He picked up a glass ball containing a log cabin, two fir trees and three reindeer yoked to a sleigh. He shook it and a blizzard swirled against a cobalt sky It was the only movement in the room. ‘Was there anything with the brief?’

‘Why?’

‘Sorry. Silly question. That’s why I keep out of court.’ He watched the flakes of snow sinking. ‘Maybe I should begin before the trial… You don’t mind if I put the odd question do you?’ His eyebrows seemed to nod.

‘Not at all.’

‘That’s fine.’ As if startled by a recollection, he went to a side room. A cupboard door clipped open and then shut. He came back with some envelopes and threw them into a large plastic bin the size of a laundry basket. ‘My out-tray,’ he explained. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes… It’s probably best to start after your mother took silk. You’ll appreciate, I wasn’t in the criminal field that often, so what I know was picked up from here and there.’ Nick saw him at the funeral reception, eyeing the plates, picking at this and that. ‘She’d built a reputation as a prosecutor and was always booked up. But defendants wanted her as well: word gets round. Villains talk while they’re on remand. They play bridge and discuss the relative merits of counsel. So, you see, it wasn’t surprising to have a client who came in asking for your mother. But with Mr Riley it was slightly different.’

‘Why?’

‘He’d never been in trouble with the police.’

Evening had come and the room was weakly lit by a single central light. A dinted shade hung askew, like a hat on a stand-up comic.

‘You mean that Mr Riley asked for my mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he say why he wanted her?’

‘Not right off the bat.’

‘Did you ask?’

‘Yes.’

Annoyance raised Nick’s voice. ‘Well, what did he say?’

‘That he’d heard she was good; so good that she could win without even opening her mouth.’

‘Who’d said that?’

‘He didn’t say’

‘Did you ask how he’d heard of her?’

‘No.’ Mr Wyecliffe raised his hands, like he was offering a platter. ‘Mr Riley had considered a newspaper article about women at the Bar. He picked your mother because he’d read she could see right inside the guilty. Such an aptitude, he said, would be invaluable for the exposure of his detractors.’

‘What’s that got to do with her not having to open her mouth?’

‘An astute question, if I may say so,’ complimented Mr Wyecliffe, ‘for that telling phrase wasn’t in the article.’

Coldly and with apprehension, Nick considered his interrogator. This mound of hair and cloth had been angling for an understanding of the trial ever since he’d cleaned up the plates at St John’s Wood.

Mr Wyecliffe reached for his glass ball and gave it another shake, stirring up the snow The flakes swirled and began to fall slowly Nick said, ‘Please can we open the window?’

‘Sorry. It’s been painted shut.’

The air was still and warm and quietly beating.

‘Where was I?’ asked Mr Wyecliffe pleasantly ‘Oh yes. I arranged a conference and sent the papers off Your mother rang up the next day to say the case didn’t need a silk and suggested I use Mr Duffy instead. But the client wouldn’t agree. So I booked them both — at your mother’s insistence. Speaking of the monk — well, he wasn’t a monk then — do you know him?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘Any idea why she might have selected him?’

‘No. Why?’

‘If I might speak confidentially… He was good if you wanted a trumpet on a sinking ship, but to stay afloat.., there were others. As it happens, I was wrong. He blew the other side out of the water with one question.’

‘Something about calling himself George rather than David.’

‘Yes.’ Mr Wyecliffe twisted the air freshener on its axis. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Mr Duffy told me.’

The solicitor hitched a shoulder and coughed. ‘I trust my nautical metaphor can remain between ourselves.’

‘It can.’

‘Most grateful.’ Mr Wyecliffe scratched his beard. ‘All very peculiar really because the name business came from me — well, I brought it to the attention of instructed counsel — but your mother didn’t like it all.., discouraged it, in fact. I’ve often wondered why because it turned out to be our best point. Are you leaving already?’

Nick said, ‘Perhaps I might buy you a drink?’

A most agreeable proposal.’

Mr Wyecliffe opened a drawer on his desk and pulled out a blue notebook. ‘Funny, really… if you think about it’ — he rattled the drawer shut, toppling the air freshener — ‘given Mr Duffy’s last question, we did win without your mother having to open her mouth. Even Mr Riley was stunned.’

Nick made for the corridor. Dimly, through a grey pane, he could see the lights of Cheapside.

2

Before coming to London Anselm had suffered a bruising — and inevitable — encounter with the cellarer.

‘Are you familiar with the Inland Revenue and its peculiar habits?’

‘Yes,’ said Anselm humbly He had presented himself after lauds to obtain the required funds for the trip.

‘I thought so.’ Cyril was in his office beneath an arcade — an ordered place without ornament, save for colour—coded box files: blue for apples (on the right), and green for plums (on the left). Each carried a date. His one arm was on the table like a cosh. He was large and square. His nose was red and his eyes were yellow He had a cold. ‘They require accurate records supported by all relevant documentation.’

‘They do.’

‘Can you give me an example?’

A receipt.’

Cyril sneezed, slamming his nose with a huge polka dot handkerchief After rattling a box out of sight, he counted out a precise sum to cover anticipated rail and Underground tickets.

‘God bless you, Cyril.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

When Anselm came to London he usually stayed with the Augustinians in Hoxton. Sometimes, however, as on this occasion, he booked a guest room at Gray’s Inn, his former legal home. The practice kept fresh his associations with the Bar; and it afforded an opportunity to see Roddy his old head of chambers. Having studied the Riley papers on the train, Anselm trudged up the narrow wooden stairs to his former place of work. It was evening.

Roddy had just purchased what he called a long blue smoking jacket. He sat with his legs extended, looking like a waterbed in a sari. After some chat about hypnotism as a means of trouncing addictions, Anselm said, ‘Do you remember the Riley trial?’

‘It was the only case you ever did with Elizabeth.’

‘Yes, how did you know?’

‘She remarked upon it recently’ He reached for a large carved pipe. Austrian,’ he said proudly ‘Made of bone.’

Anselm hesitated, letting his mind whirr and clank. When it stopped he perceived that Roddy already knew of the trial and its significance for Elizabeth. With this in mind, Anselm explained about the key, the red valise and the letter to be read after he’d met Mrs Bradshaw Throughout Roddy packed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, prodding it occasionally with his thumb or a knife. Gradually creases gathered across his forehead, revealing agitation and surprise, as if he’d missed something he ought to have foreseen. Anselm’s conclusion snapped into place: Elizabeth’s confidence had not been given to Roddy beyond the trial. It was staggering — for Anselm and for Roddy: she’d held something back from the man who’d nursed her career like a father.

‘It’s been a very long time, Anselm, I’ve forgotten what happened.’ Roddy lit a match as if it were the opening of a ceremony ‘Tell me about Riley… that ruined instrument.’

‘Frank Wyecliffe sent the papers down to chambers for a conference,’ said Anselm. ‘Three teenagers said they’d met Riley at Liverpool Street Station. He’d offered them somewhere to stay free of charge. His story was that when he’d come to London, no one had been there to help him, that he’d spent months in a burnt-out bank near Paddington, that he wouldn’t wish that on anyone else, that people needed a break. They could think about rent once they were earning, and not before. So they moved into this house at Quilling Road in the East End. All he wanted was the contact details of someone they trusted with their lives — in case they did a runner. Then he gave them a key and he left them alone.’

While Anselm spoke Roddy struck matches, stroking them over the bowl.

‘Every now and then he’d come round and ask them how they were getting on, whether they’d found work yet,’ said Anselm. ‘Then, gradually things changed. They’d see him at the end of the street, milling around. Same thing at night. He’d just be standing there, rubbing his hands to keep warm. Then he’d be gone. And later, when he came to the house, asking how the search for work was going, he never said anything about having been in the area the week before. That was how it went on: they’d see him outside, near a street lamp, but then he’d be gone, turning up a few days later, and always at the same spot, as if he was waiting — sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night. Eventually they went out to ask him what was going on.’

On the train to London, Anselm had read several times the witness statement of a girl called Anji. She had recounted the confrontation with Riley:

‘Why do you keep hanging around?’

‘Because I’m frightened.’

‘What of?’

‘Not for myself.., for you lot.’

‘Us?’

‘Yes. Each of you.’

‘Why?’

‘The owner of the house is tired of waiting, and he wants his rent.’

‘You said this house was yours.’

‘No I didn’t, I said I had a house. It’s not mine. I’m just the rent collector… for him.’

‘Who?’

‘The Pieman.’

‘What?’

‘The Pieman… that’s what he calls himself He has lots of houses and he likes his rent. I let you use this one because I felt sorry for you. I thought that once you got settled in you’d have the money and we could smooth things over. But you’ve been slow and he’s found out. The Pieman’s not happy. That’s why I’m worried.’

‘How much does he want?’

‘What he’s owed.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Three thousand three hundred.’

The girls were stunned and angry. They swore and shouted. Riley said, ‘I’m here whenever I can to hold him back if he turns up, but this can’t go on. The best thing is to start making a contribution.’

They said they were off, that they were paying nothing to no one. Riley told them, ‘I wouldn’t do anything silly if I were you. The Pieman begins with those you trust. First of all he takes it out on them. Then he comes for you. And he’s a way of finding those who owe him. And I wouldn’t be standing out here, night and day, if I wasn’t worried what he might do. The best thing is to get some quick money, and in the meantime, I’ll calm him down.’

Anselm gave the gist of Anji’s evidence to Roddy At its conclusion, Roddy asked, ‘Who, pray was the Pieman?’

‘I said it was a load of nonsense, but Elizabeth thought I was wrong. She said this figure was very real for Riley, which was why he could make an abstraction so terrifying.’

Roddy opened his mouth as if to say ‘Ah,’ but nothing came out. Anselm continued with his narrative.

‘One of the girls ran off and turned up at the night shelter where George Bradshaw worked. They got talking. She left but came back a week later with the others. They told Bradshaw about Riley and the Pieman and he urged them to make a complaint. If we are to believe Bradshaw, he appreciated that these girls would have difficulty persuading a jury to believe them. They’d all committed offences of dishonesty. Their credibility would be an issue. So Bradshaw persuaded them to go back to Quilling Road. Only this time, he joined them when Riley was due to collect the rent. It was a sort of sting: in the event, they said they were leaving and that provoked Riley to make threats within Bradshaw’s hearing.’

‘Where was he?’

‘In one of the bedrooms. Apparently Riley refused to go up the stairs… he wouldn’t even go near the bottom step. He always made them come down to the hall.’

Roddy chewed his pipe. ‘How peculiar.’

‘So Riley was in deep trouble,’ continued Anselm. A witness of impeccable character would corroborate the girls’ evidence. There was no reason to doubt him except for one significant consideration: Riley, too, had no previous convictions. Bradshaw was therefore of central importance.’

Another match flared in Roddy’s hand.

‘When I arrived for the conference, Elizabeth was already there with Riley She listened while I went through the statements with him.’

Riley came to Anselm with a flash: wiry limbs, the jaw chewing minutely ‘He was calm, even though his defence was based on conjecture: that the girls had framed him when he’d kicked them out for rent arrears; that Bradshaw had been the pimp who’d lost out, which explained his involvement in the scam.

Roddy examined the bowl of his pipe. ‘What did Elizabeth make of that?’

Anselm had found a summary of Elizabeth’s words scribbled on the back of a witness statement — made by himself at the time. ‘Words to the effect, “Mr Riley, I am very familiar with people who pretend to be one thing when in fact they are another; and with people who lie, and they rarely do it without very good reason. If these witnesses did not know you, if by some marvel you received remuneration arising from their work without them realising it, then perhaps we might find a technical route off these charges. But since that does not apply, in order to promote your defence we are going to need far more than ingenuity”’ Anselm paused, as if he were in the room again, stunned by her contempt. ‘It was terrific.’

‘What was his response?’

‘He was smiling.’

‘Smiling?’

‘Yes, and Elizabeth said, “If I may respectfully say so, you do not appear to appreciate the gravity of the situation in which you find yourself” The smile had gone from Riley’s face but he was simmering. He said, “You’re wrong there. I know exactly what position I’m in.” If Elizabeth had thought he’d buckle and plead, she was wrong. There was going to be a trial.’

Roddy tapped his pipe upon an ashtray ‘He sounds like many of the gentlemen I’ve had the honour to represent.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ll have to leave it there. I must commandeer a few words to explain away a point-blank shooting. Tell me the rest tomorrow.’

3

‘The case started all right but then went badly, although it seems that the decline itself was a strategic decision — because your mother was responsible.’ Mr Wyecliffe was lodged on one side of a table in a public house near Saint Paul’s. His small head was sunk into the collar of his overcoat. Nick leaned away from the encroaching confidence. ‘The first witness was the youngest, a kid under sixteen. I saw her in the corridor tattooes above each ear. But she ran off.’

‘Where?’

‘No idea. But that meant that the first charge was in the bin: encouraging a minor or something into the profession, if I might use that word.’ He sipped at his pint. ‘That was bad news for the Crown and good news for us.

‘I don’t follow’

‘It was the easiest allegation to make out because they didn’t have to prove procurement or intimidation. Encouragement is enough. The Crown was on the back foot, so to speak, and it was then that your mother seemed — I stress “seemed” — to help their case. The witness in question had, shall we say, a complicated past: not one that would promote trust in her word. But if I wasn’t familiar with forensic technique, I’d have thought that your mother reviewed it to evoke sympathy Take a look yourself. These are my notes of her cross-examination.’ He opened his notebook and passed it over. Nick read the surprisingly neat transcription, almost hearing his mother’s voice, her reluctance and her understanding.

‘Anji, you’re seventeen?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ve been very brave this morning, telling the court how you came to work on the street — I hope you don’t mind if I use that phrase.’

‘You can call it what you like.’

‘Thank you. I’d like to ask you a little about what happened before you came to London.’

‘Eh?’

About Leeds.’

‘Whatever.’

‘You ran away?’

‘So what?’

‘You ran away from Lambert House, a care home?’

A prison.’

Anji, I’m not going to rake over what happened. This court understands that the places which ought to protect children sometimes fail. Your honour, let me make it plain that__’

Mr Wyecliffe coughed. ‘Do you see that bit about Lambert House?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, the place was eventually closed down because of its moral failings. Now, the prosecution would have been saving that information about the witness for after the defence cross-examination. That way the jury’s last memory of the girl would be sympathetic — because it gave a handle on the running, the lying and the thieving that was to come. But your mother spiked that by getting it in first. It showed she was being fair even as she was stealing the prosecution’s only card. Do you see?’

Nick drew his chair away from the table and continued reading.

Afterwards you ran away from the Amberly Unit?’

‘Yeh?’

‘And then Elstham Place?’

‘And?’

‘Anji, there are nine other projects from which you absconded, aren’t there?’

‘I never counted.’

Nick let the notebook fall. Mr Wyecliffe was examining his beer glass. ‘Tastes mild this stuff but the specific gravity is 5.6. You have to be careful.’

‘Why would my mother… seem to evoke sympathy?’

‘Because she didn’t want to alienate the jury.’ He wiped froth off his moustache. ‘The bedside manner would draw them on side.’

‘How do you know it wasn’t genuine?’

‘As a woman, as a human being, of course she felt for the kid,’ said Mr Wyecliffe, with mock impatience, ‘but as a lawyer that sort of thing becomes part of how you handle a trial. She could make it serve another purpose — to help the client.’

Nick hadn’t quite appreciated that this was the sort of manoeuvring his mother had been obliged to perform if she was to win a case. He turned over the page and his attention latched on to an exchange that Mr Wyecliffe had marked with an asterisk:

‘Anji, you told the court that Mr Riley said, “The one to fear is the Pieman. I’m just the rent collector.” What does the Pieman look like?’

‘I’ve never seen him.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘Nah.’

‘Well, is he in London, or far off?’

‘He’s just round the corner, like, keeping an eye on us all the time.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Mr Riley says so.

‘Have you heard his voice?’

‘Nah.’

‘Why are you frightened of someone you’ve neither seen nor heard?’

‘Cos of what he’ll do if he catches us.

‘What’s that?’

‘He says that when you’re asleep, lying there, with your head all still, the Pieman comes up with a poker.’

‘A poker?’

‘Yeah, and he’ll bash you, just once.’

‘He’s after you, is he?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re in the care of social services at the moment, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re safe, aren’t you?’

‘Nah, cos he knows how to find you, no matter where you are, and he always comes at night, after you’ve closed your eyes. You can’t be looked after all the time, you know. He just watches, like, waiting for your eyes to drop, and when no one’s looking and it’s really dark, that’s when he comes.’

‘Through a window?’

‘Maybes. Wherever there’s an opening. He doesn’t need no keys or nothing.’

‘Anji, from what you’ve said, it’s as though the Pieman is like a bad dream. Is that right?’

‘Yeah, but it’s real.’

‘Thank you, Anji, you’ve been very helpful.’

Nick closed the notebook and handed it back to Mr Wyecliffe. His mother’s work had always been a remote activity: the facts were usually interesting, but it remained on a neutral platform where she’d ‘represented’ someone in ‘a trial’ with ‘evidential difficulties’. Reading the actual questions and answers within their context removed the staging. Each move was determined by one objective: to win. Nothing was sacred, save the rules of the contest. Even compassion was a tool. Nick said, ‘Do you know what happened to George Bradshaw?’

‘I do not.’

‘Do you know what happened to his son?’

‘I do.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘The matter was reported in several newspapers.

‘Who showed you?’

Mr Wyecliffe eyed his beer, admiring the question. ‘Can’t say much,’ he said. ‘Client confidentiality.’

They were back to where they’d started from when Nick had first taken a seat in that dim, stifling office.

On the pavement Mr Wyecliffe whistled at the cold. It came funnelling down Newgate Street from the direction of the Old Bailey. The office blocks were slabs of grey with occasional squares of dim light. ‘I suppose you know Mr Kemble?’

‘Yes.’

‘In a class of his own.

‘Yes.’ Nick, however, thought of his mother and father holding hands upon Skomer. The sea was often wild and the wind could make you shake. It was a world away.

‘Seen him recently?’ Mr Wyecliffe’s breath turned to fog.

‘At the funeral.’

‘Of course.’ He sniffed. ‘I suppose you mentioned your mother’s triumphant performance on Mr Riley’s behalf’

‘I did not.’

Ah.’ That seemed to be the answer he expected. ‘Do you mind if I ask am odd question?’

‘No.’

Mr Wyecliffe’s head sank into his collar until it seemed he had no neck. ‘Did your mother ever mention the Pieman after the trial?’

‘No.’

‘Thought not.’

‘Why do you ask?’

He thrust his little hands into capacious pockets. ‘Silly question, that’s…’

‘—why you keep out of court?’

Mr Wyecliffe voiced his surprise. ‘Exactly’

4

George switched on his torch and counted the scratches on the wall. While he’d been waiting for the monk, his mind had kept returning to Lawton’s Wharf, for it was there, to the sound of the river, that he and Elizabeth had planned their campaign.

‘You are avenging those girls, George.’

That’s what Elizabeth had said the first time she’d stood on the landing stage.

‘When you walked out of court you left them behind.’

She could be harsh, if she wanted.

The day before, a Friday, she’d said, ‘I’d like to see where John fell.’

They’d walked from Trespass Place to the Isle of Dogs. Side by side, they followed a dark, angular lane that ran between tall, silent warehouses, and beneath hoists like old gibbets. Presently, they reached an immense open space fronting the river: the premises of H & R Lawton and Co (London) Ltd. All that remained was a brass nameplate fixed to the perimeter fence with a coat hanger. The railings were loose, held upright by sheets of mesh wiring. George and Elizabeth passed through a large gap, as John had probably done. They picked their way over the remnants of a flattened warehouse into a chill off the Thames. Moving ahead of George onto the landing stage, Elizabeth said, ‘You are avenging those girls, George.’ The waves slapped against the timbers. ‘When you walked out of court you left them behind.’

And then, without waiting for George to reply, Elizabeth set to work telling him what she required.

‘There’ll be two sets of documents — one for each business: that of Riley, and that of Nancy They’re legally separate papers. They’ll be stored separately’

‘Right-o.’

‘The first is “Riley’s Junk”. The second is “Nancy’s Treasure”.’

‘Right-o.’

‘Once you’ve found them, we’ll talk again.’

‘Right-o. And in the meantime?’

‘You introduce yourself to Nancy.’

‘How?’

‘If I were you I’d sleep on her doorstep.’

‘Right-o. But she’ll want to know my name.’

‘Quite right. I suggest an alias. Mr Johnson. How does that sound to you?’

The bantering vanished at the allusion to John’s Christian name. So that’s why Elizabeth had come to this wharf, thought George, on a Saturday, and at might. It was to place John at the heart of her planning. She was at it again: evoking a setting for what she wanted to say like her use of the toast and cocoa. This time it was for what they were going to do. She used these ceremonies to stir up the past and make it present in am unusually active way George couldn’t quite put it into words, but he felt there was something restoring in the revival, even though it summoned his failure. Henceforth, everything they did together occurred among a prickling sense of the closeness of people who’d once been near: the girls whom George had betrayed and the son he had lost.

‘Mr Johnson sounds just fine,’ George had said.

‘Let’s get going then.’

A horn beeped three times. It was Elizabeth’s taxi, come to take her home.

A few days after this conversation another taxi took George and Elizabeth from Trespass Place to the Isle of Dogs. They had agreed that it would be better if he were closer to Nancy’s shop in Bow, which was a short distance from the old docklands.

‘Riley comes once a week on a Thursday afternoon,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He stays about an hour to unload furniture or move things around.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I paid to have him watched.’

‘For how long?’

‘Six weeks.’

‘I could have done that.’

‘No… I’d only just found you.’

The taxi idled for an hour while George mooched around the tall abandoned buildings. Barbed wire topped the walls and chicken netting hung across black windows. Planks had been nailed pell-mell across openings, but down am alley, George found a swinging door. It tapped like a mallet, drawing his attention. The room inside was bare like a cell, its walls stained green as if they were soaking up the river. It would do. Elizabeth appeared behind him.

‘I can pay you know’ She sounded grief-stricken.

‘I’m not ready’ He didn’t understand his own words. Nino did. It was part of the mystery of having lost too much.

She did not press him. Struggling with her voice, she said, ‘We’ll meet twice a week on Lawton’s Wharf.’

‘Right-o.’

The taxi whipped through the murky lanes towards the orange lights of Bow, five minutes away It dropped George at a fish and chip shop near a bridge. Nancy’s place — a shack of wood and corrugated metal — was on the other side of the road. Through the cab’s open door, Elizabeth pressed twenty pounds into George’s hand. Then she was gone.

George scouted around for places where the wind would die — Nino taught him that — and beneath the bridge he found some cardboard. He tracked his way back up the grassy slope and set himself up in Nancy Riley’s doorway He built closefitting walls against the cold. Then he wrote down the happenings of the day in book thirty-seven.

George met Nancy Riley the next morning He’d expected to confront someone flinty and impatient. But her face was soft, and she wore a silly hat, a yellow thing with black spots. She gathered up the cardboard as if it were worth something and brought him inside, out of the freezing cold. She put on a gas fire and went to make him tea in a back room. Thick arms filled out the sleeves of a chunky cardigan. She glanced at him, showing eyes that were large and seemed to smile. The kettle was on top of a grey filing cabinet.

Through the dark glass of his goggles, George looked around at the wardrobes, the mirrors and the ornaments. It was like a home; there was nothing of Riley here. He quickly left the shop and rushed back to the docklands. Elizabeth came to the wharf that night.

‘I can’t do it,’ said George. Nancy was vulnerable in the way he was; tired, like he was; hungry for what might have been, like he was. It was all marked upon her face.

Elizabeth seemed neither surprised nor interested. ‘You saw a filing cabinet?’

‘Yes.’

And everything else was old furniture?’

‘Yes.’

Elizabeth was gratified, like someone ticking a box on a register. ‘I’m glad you left.’

‘Why?’ George was stunned. He’d expected anger.

‘Because now you know what you’re dealing with. She must be an extraordinary woman to have won Riley’s trust without losing something of herself Perhaps you can help her.’

‘How?’

‘By drawing her into something she’d never countenance if you asked her directly Unfortunately, it requires deceit.’

‘But why?’

‘Can you think of another way?’

George had no answer; he just listened to the river lapping against the wharf. Elizabeth left him with a primus stove and a box full of tins.

A week later George went back to the shop. Again, Nancy let him warm up by the fire. While she was helping a customer load some chairs into a van, George went into the back room. The drawers on the filing cabinet were clearly marked: one for the JUNK, and one for the TREASURE. Within minutes he’d placed two official booklets in one of his plastic bags.

‘George,’ said Elizabeth that night on the wharf, ‘I don’t wish to appear ungrateful, but I’ve already seen this lot. These are the annual returns sent to Companies House.’

Elizabeth took George’s notebook and wrote down what she was looking for: acquisition and sales records for each business. She described what they would look like.

‘Stay away for another week, George.’

‘Why?’

‘Since this is love more than deceit, you have to play hard to get.’

Then she went home in a taxi that was waiting outside the perimeter fence.

When George next turned up in Bow, Nancy seemed pleased to see him; perhaps, even, relieved. Again, she made tea. They talked of the weather. She kept glancing at his shoes. After ten minutes she got up again and came back with a basin full of warm, soapy water. ‘Soak your feet, Mr Johnson.’

It was paradise.

In the days that followed, George didn’t get a chance to nip into the back room, so he met Elizabeth at the agreed times. In due course, though, he turned up with a couple of canvas ledgers:

Riley’s were red; Nancy’s were blue. George had found them when Nancy went out to get some milk.

Elizabeth sat on the remainder of a low wall studying the books with George’s torch. She seemed to be checking individual entries, shifting her attention from one ledger to the other.

‘Something’s going on,’ she whispered, irritated, a finger tapping the page.

‘Is it over now? Can I stop lifting things?’

‘I don’t know,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

Elizabeth came back at some ungodly hour while it was still dark. He woke in the abandoned warehouse to find her standing over him.

‘These only show half the picture.’ She handed back the ledgers. ‘I’ve copied them but I need something else. There should be individual receipts.’ She was speaking quickly out of the darkness, and George was still half asleep. ‘You know the sort of books I mean — small with a blue cover. Each page has a number in one corner. The writing is an imprint from carbon paper. The original is with the purchaser.’

George sat up, rubbing his eyes. ‘Do I have to, I mean –’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was raised. She lost control, ever so slightly; just enough to send him back to Bow ‘You’re not walking away this time, David George Bradshaw’

5

Pale morning light described Roderick Kemble QC behind his desk, a revolver in one hand and a document in the other. With savage concentration, he examined the rotation of the chamber while he slowly depressed the trigger. ‘Take a seat,’ he said after the click. As if there’d been no interval between now and the night before, he added, ‘Riley said Bradshaw stood behind the allegations laid against him?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you propose to undermine Mr Bradshaw?’

‘Frank Wyecliffe’s only thought was that it was odd to use your second name when the first one was ordinary. At the time I thought he’d lost his marbles — so did Elizabeth.’

Anselm’s mind tracked back to the rest of that conversation with her. They were in the common room. She said, ‘Do you think Riley is innocent?’

‘No.’

She took the last Jaffa cake and ate it with small bites. ‘Would you cross-examine Bradshaw?’

‘Of course.’ Ordinarily the QC handles the main witness, not an underling. At the time Anselm had attached no importance to the request.

A gentle cough brought him back into Roddy’s presence. Anselm spoke softly searching for the meaning of words spoken long ago, ‘Elizabeth said, “This is your chance to do something significant.”’

Anselm’s problem was that he would have to call Bradshaw a liar — in however polite a fashion — without any justification. There was no evidence whatsoever that he had conspired with the girls to frame Riley When Anselm rose to his feet, all he had was an intuitive awareness that Wyecliffe had been right: the use of one’s middle name was unusual.

Roddy once joked that decisive cross-examinations fell into one of three categories. First, where counsel prevails in a clean argument over facts that will bear more than one interpretation. Second, where counsel is armed with devastating information, which need only be revealed at the right moment to clinch the day But there was a third: where counsel doesn’t know what he is talking about. Anselm put his encounter with Mr Bradshaw into this last category. Elizabeth might have thought the change of name worthless, but Anselm was the one at the wheel. He moved forward tentatively, following the implications of each answer. Most of Bradshaw’s replies had been ‘Yes.’ It had been an entirely civilised exchange.

‘You call yourself George, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘But your first name is David?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did you come to call yourself by your second name?’

‘I didn’t like the first one.’

Most barristers develop a keen sense of intuition — because they have failed to see the obvious time and again. It’s a kind of hunting instinct, a sniffing for a scent. And the dislike of an ordinary first name struck Anselm as unconvincing. Without instructions or vindicating facts, Anselm decided to follow his nose.

‘People change their names for all sorts of reasons?’

‘Yes.’

‘More often than not it is to turn over a new leaf.’

‘Yes.’

‘One life ends, so to speak, and another begins?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that what you did?’

‘Yes.’

Anselm paused, letting his imagination loose.

‘It meant, I suppose, David slipped quietly away?’

‘Yes.’

‘And George stepped forward?’

‘Yes.’

Anselm didn’t make the mistake of asking ‘Why?’ Instead he shifted ground completely, still feeling his way.

‘You are the manager of the Bridges night shelter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where you have worked for twenty-three years.’

‘Yes.’

‘You are there to serve the needs of a highly vulnerable client group, are you not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Indeed, as I understand it, you’ve had people in your care as young as nine?’

‘Yes.’

‘I expect an employee in your position must be of the very highest character?’

‘Yes.’

Anselm paused, watching every inflection on the face of the witness.

‘Tell me, Mr Bradshaw, whom did the night shelter employ:

David or George?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘What name did you give on the application form?’

‘George.’

The next amateur question would have been another ‘Why?’ Anselm avoided that temptation: the important point to appreciate at this stage was that everything Bradshaw had said might go in one of two directions: innocent or compromising. Roddy often said that with an honest witness, the wider the question the better, because they are disposed to impose relevance upon it —their consciences take them to the crucial, unknown detail. Anselm needed to find out if there was a link between Bradshaw’s dropping his first name and his taking employment under the second.

‘Mr Bradshaw, have you ever done anything that came to the attention of the police?’

‘Yes.’

‘Now, would that have been as David or George?’

‘David.’

Now Anselm had to make his final move. There was no other territory to explore. Bradshaw was either going to exonerate himself completely by revealing an unpaid parking fine, or he just might divulge something that could be used against his integrity. He said: ‘What did David do that George wanted to forget?’

The courtroom makes everyone a voyeur. The witness is often stripped bare, way beyond what clothing can conceal. It is darkly fascinating and can leave the viewer stained with pleasure. These things Anselm had learned long ago. But as he spoke to Roddy the electricity of this particular spectacle surged through him as if this were the first, forbidden time. Bradshaw stared across the well of the court, his face pale. The jury watched him — as did the lawyers, the ushers, the reporters and the bystanders. Looking down on this exhibition, a judge held his pen above a page. Not a shred of detail would be lost to the official record. Then, as if someone had called his name, David George Bradshaw stepped out of the witness box and walked out of the court. Half an hour later Riley went through the same door, a free man.

Roddy kept his papers and court dress in a tartan suitcase on wheels. It bounced and ratted after him as he pulled it through chambers and onto the stairs that led to Gray’s Inn Square. Anselm followed, convinced that Roddy’s close examination of the revolver — an exhibit taken out of court with permission —had served some useful purpose, but that the true reason was the commotion that would shortly erupt when he tried to take it back in. Anselm, though, had other concerns. ‘Something shot over my head in that trial.’

‘Isn’t it always thus?’ He waddled along the pavement as if he were on the way to Corfu.

‘This time it was different. I’ve been wondering why Elizabeth kept the brief in the first place.’

Roddy bounced his valise over a kerb. ‘Sorry, old son. The question never entered my head.’ He became studious. ‘Forgive me, I must now dwell upon triggers and safety catches. Do you know, in certain circumstances, it’s rather difficult to press one without putting pressure on the other? That ought to kick up some doubt.’

They parted and Anselm watched Roddy nod greetings to left and right as he trundled down Holborn towards the Bailey The rogue never asked the question, thought Anselm, because he’d always known the answer.

6

The memory of Mr Wyecliffe ruined Nick’s cornflakes. It was like sour milk. He had never quite appreciated the twilight world of compromise that his mother had inhabited. Nick had woken troubled by three questions. He would deal with two of them over breakfast. His father sat opposite him, examining a boiled egg.

‘I wonder what Mum was doing with those spoons?’

‘Spoons?’ Charles tapped the egg as if it were the door to the MD’s office.

‘The ones that were found on the passenger seat.’

‘Bought them in a shop, I suppose.

Not on a Sunday, thought Nick. He didn’t want to disturb any of the conclusions his father might have framed about Elizabeth’s behaviour prior to her death. But the spoons seemed innocuous and important at the same time. She had obtained them, in all likelihood, shortly before her death. There was another incidental detail that remained unexplained, which prompted the second question.

‘What was she doing in the East End anyway?’

Charles began dropping the egg on a plate. ‘She said it was work. A site visit.’

Nick had in mind the autopsy photographs on his mother’s desk. They were part of the last case she’d worked on. The victim had been killed in Bristol, not London. Nick had checked the instructions to every case in the Green Room before they’d been collected. None had referred to the East End.

Charles picked at the battered egg with a nail, his face reddening. ‘What are you doing with yourself when you’re out of doors?’ He laughed weakly ‘Going here, heading there. You’re getting like your mother.’

‘Oh, just friends and unfinished business.’

Charles picked up a knife, eyes narrowed. He looked bullish.

‘That’s what she said.’

After breakfast Nick went to the Royal Brompton Hospital in Kensington to deal with the third question: a heart condition that had killed his mother. Its presence and gravity had been unknown to him. ‘She didn’t want to worry you,’ Charles had said the night before the funeral. He’d tweaked his tie. ‘I’d no idea that she might collapse without warning… that the end could come like a bus mounting the pavement.’

There was no point in pressing his father for details. The anatomy of a butterfly he could grasp, but that of a human being left him dazed. Too many pipes. So Nick contacted his mother’s consultant cardiologist. He didn’t mention it to his father.

On the desk before Doctor Simbiat Okoye was a slim bundle of medical records. Pensively she leafed through them. Her hair was tightly braided into thick strands and rolled into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. When she spoke, her eyes studied the listener’s face. ‘Your mother had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.’

Nick let the words settle. This was a hereditary disorder of the heart whereby its muscles become thick and stiff. In turn, this affects blood flow and valve function. There is no cure; and it’s hereditary with a fifty-fifty chance of passing it on to your children.

‘You do not have the condition,’ said Doctor Okoye. Her eyes were dark with a flush of rose around the whites.

‘She had me screened before I went to Australia, without me realising it?’

‘Yes.’

Doctor Okoye explained the history and outcome of his mother’s consultation. Elizabeth had first developed breathlessness and chest pain about ten years ago. She’d put this down to stress at work: she’d recently found herself frightened of court —not the usual nervousness, but a debilitating anxiety that could make her sick. This had been unknown before. Palpitations and light-headedness were placed at the door of the menopause. And then she’d had a blackout about a year ago. A visit to her GP prompted an emergency referral.

‘Surgery wasn’t required,’ said Dr Okoye. ‘I prescribed beta-blockers and anti-arrhythmias. The drug therapy was effective but—’

‘__with a small number of patients there’s a risk of sudden death… like being hit by a bus. My mother was one of them.’

‘Yes. Would you like to see my notes?’

‘No thanks.’ He asked the question for which she was waiting ‘How did my mother get it… I mean.., which parent was affected, her father or mother?’

‘There’s no way of knowing now,’ said Doctor Okoye. ‘From what I was told, it may have been her father. I understand he died in an armchair with a glass of milk in his hand.’

‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘He went out like a light.’

Nick’s grandmother had followed her husband shortly afterwards, from septicaemia. He’d never known them. And there were no other siblings, so there was no one else in the hereditary tree.

Doctor Okoye rose and walked to the window With a gesture she drew him beside her. ‘Look down there, in the courtyard.’

A copper sculpture stood in the centre of a pool. Two adjacent basins channelled a watercourse. Exotic plants with fronds like open scissors stood in tubs positioned along the sides.

‘It represents a hidden aspect of heart rhythm,’ said Doctor Okoye. Apart from muscular contraction, blood movement results from surface waves created by the inflowing stream. It’s as though after an initiating shove, circulation could go on for ever, the required energy coming not from a heart, which will one day tire, but through the configuration of cavities and the momentum of blood. Unfortunately, that’s not what happens. As you can see’ — she pointed towards one end of the sculpture — ‘art and nature require a pump.

Nick looked at the grove, his head against the glass.

‘Your mother and I stood by this window,’ said Doctor Okoye. ‘She had been distressed. But the heart carries a greater mystery than any frailty.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a wonder that it ever worked at all.’

On his way out of the hospital, Nick paused in the courtyard to watch the tumble and splash of water between two scoops of metal. He wasn’t thinking of possible worlds but of the inscrutability of this one: his mother had gone to the East End, obtained a set of spoons, and her heart had stopped.

7

As far as George was concerned, after he got his head kicked in he woke up in a very nice garden by the Imperial War Museum. In fact, a lot happened in between. Much of it came back of its own accord, and Elizabeth filled in some of the gaps, as best she could. Her voice released other memories and together they’d put a shape to what had happened.

The preliminaries were straightforward.

George didn’t like the docks: the warehouse seemed to wake at night with groans in the bricks: it was resonant with lost activity. More to the point, it wasn’t his patch. His territory was south of the river, round Trespass Place. So, a few days after Elizabeth had asked for the receipt books, George walked to Waterloo after nightfall. He was only a few minutes from the fire escape when it happened.

There was no reason for the attack. George didn’t go down defending an old lady or tackling a thief. He was just sitting on a bench eating popcorn. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a gangly youth in a padded jacket… and then another, with a shaved head. They were laughing and elbowing each other like kids on a school trip. Mischief always ran high when the master wasn’t watching. The one with the jacket asked for some popcorn. George handed it over. The shaved head tipped it over George as if it were a massive salt-cellar. When he stood up they began the kicking, like it was a dance, or a new sport. They panted and grunted and sighed.

And this is where the confusion began in George’s mind: he had no recollection of being admitted to hospital or discharging himself or making his way to the garden of the Imperial War Museum. After what felt like a drunken sleep, George simply opened his eyes and saw the trees.., and clouds like wisps of cream in a light-blue blancmange… and his first thought was how delicious the world was. The smell of cut grass was so strong he could almost taste it. This must be heaven, he thought. Overjoyed, George walked out of the gates to discover what was waiting for him. It was only then, ambling down magnificent, strangely familiar streets, that he discovered his mind wouldn’t work properly Instinctively, he’d ran back to Trespass Place like a wounded animal, where Elizabeth had finally found him.

For her part, she’d waited, as usual, on Lawton’s Wharf. When George didn’t turn up, she went to the police, who traced the hospital; but by the time Elizabeth got there, he’d already slipped out of the ward. ‘I knew you would come back here,’ she said affectionately In her hands were his two plastic bags retrieved from the docklands. There and then, beneath the fire escape, she read out the last couple of volumes that covered the known; and together they approached the unknown.

The line wasn’t clear-cut. The weeks prior to the attack had been shaken. The events were jumbled and some were missing, but thankfully George’s written account was detailed. It provided scaffolding for his memory With gratitude, he rebuilt the past in his mind around the pieces that he’d saved. When Elizabeth had finished reading she said, ‘You have to do this every day to keep what you’ve got.’ Then they went to Carlo’s. They sat down without ordering. There was going to be no toast and no hot chocolate.

‘It’s over,’ said Elizabeth shortly ‘It’s time you came off the street, whether you’re ready or not; and it’s time we let Riley go.

The mention of that name was like a stab, an injection to the heart.

‘I’ve sorted out a rehabilitation clinic,’ said Elizabeth with authority. ‘You can stay there for as long as necessary.’

‘No thank you.’ George went to the counter and asked for toast and hot chocolate. He came back with a tray and said, ‘I’m going back to Nancy.’

George didn’t go to the shop for a while. He studied his notebooks. By pooling memories with Elizabeth, he brought his own up to date. Then he went to the Embankment, to the other people on the street. He was like a man with a new toy or a strange weapon: he had to get used to handling his changed mind. He had to learn again how to relate. It took practice and patience. Rather than write events down at the end of the day he did it soon after they happened. He made lists of things to be done. And throughout the day he made frequent reference to both. It was like turning a timer before the sand ran out. Each minute became precious even though he knew it was ultimately lost. The essential had been written down, so he could let the rest go. Of course, the notebook and the lists covered no matters of importance — nothing that happened to George was important — they dealt only with the commonplace, but in this way George became confident, once more, with the little things. He still slept at Trespass Place, and Elizabeth came in the evening. She tested him on his current list. Gradually he began to do quite well. If there had been a prize, he’d have won it. And when he’d got the hang of himself, he went back to the warehouse on the Isle of Dogs. And he went back to Nancy’s shop in Bow.

On his first day, they sat by the gas fire, and George told her he’d lost half his mind; and that he’d lost his son: it happened naturally because the recent past had gone, and his loss was ever fresh. But it was also somehow necessary to tell Nancy because she was close to the man responsible. She listened, forgetting to take off her yellow hat with its black spots. He watched her through his goggles, knowing that she thought him blind, that her expressions of horror went unseen.

The following morning, thinking George wouldn’t remember what she was about to say Nancy told of her life at Lawton’s, how she’d met Riley, and about a trial… but she left out the details, and kept it vague, just as George had done when talking of his son. That evening, George wrote nothing down of the day’s revelations but one sharp fragment survived into the morning: ‘He’s not a bad man, you know He’s just… lost.’

The receipt books were blue, as Elizabeth had suspected. George eventually found them in shoeboxes on a bookcase opposite the filing cabinet. Taking them was difficult, because Elizabeth had been insistent that she needed a selection from each business covering the same period of time. ‘Don’t just grab them, look at the dates.’ So George spent about two weeks snatching glimpses whenever Nancy dealt with a customer or went out to get some milk. One morning he placed four of them in his plastic bag. That night Elizabeth was tense when she took them.

‘You do realise that this is your only chance?’

George nodded, not quite following.

‘I hope I’m right,’ she said anxiously ‘so that you’re the one who finally traps him.’

‘And if you’re wrong?’

‘I’ve another string to my bow’

George nodded again, utterly baffled.

Elizabeth returned with the books in the morning darkness.

‘Well?’ said George to the dark outline.

‘I need more time,’ she said, and the shape vanished as if it hadn’t been there.

8

The home of Mr and Mrs Bradshaw stood within a leafy, secluded terrace in Mitcham. Porches and windows were situated in identical positions like enormous stickers. Anselm hadn’t knocked, but the door opened slowly, and a slim woman in her sixties with ruffled hair emerged holding a paintbrush. Her skin was freckled with emulsion. The sleeves of a large, shapeless shirt were loosely rolled to the elbow She looked at Anselm as if he were familiar.

‘Mrs Bradshaw?’

She wiped paint from her brow with the back of a hand and said, ‘She told me you might turn up one day’

‘Sorry?’

‘Mrs Glendinning.’ She roused herself, like she was about to get to work. ‘I suppose you’d better come in.

Anselm entered the hallway. The carpet was covered with sheets. The rucks lapped against the skirting board like milky floodwater. He followed Mrs Bradshaw into the sitting room. All the furniture was draped and the walls were bare. She’d been painting a ceiling rose. The ladder stood beneath it, with a tin on a stand. They stood regarding each other, Anselm’s fingers moving impulsively behind his back; Mrs Bradshaw remained quite still, the paintbrush at her side.

‘Mrs Glendinning has died,’ said Anselm. ‘She left me a key to a small red case, which I have opened. I am brought back to a trial I had forgotten, and a letter I had never seen. And I have learned of your great loss.’ Instinct kept Anselm away from John’s name. He watched her, willing her head to rise, for a mighty hand to tear away the drapes. He said, ‘I want to say sorry.., to you and your husband… only I don’t know how to reach the extent of what has happened to you both. If I’d read sooner what you’d written, I would not have waited so long in coming here.’

Mrs Bradshaw began tugging a button on her shirt. It was blue with a British Gas badge on one side. She seemed foreign to her own home. It was as if she’d just turned up to read the meter.

‘Mrs Glendinning told me you’d become a monk,’ she said. ‘I asked her not to tell you.

‘Why?’ asked Anselm.

‘Because I didn’t want to disturb your peace.’ She spoke as if he’d found what she wanted for herself. ‘And I felt ashamed of what I wrote.’ The paintbrush began to swing slightly ‘I showed myself up for what I am. A bitter woman.’

Anselm shrank from the self-loathing. ‘You were honest, that’s all.’

‘I expect like Mrs Glendinning you want to see George,’ she said remotely ‘But he’s gone, I’m afraid. He’s a lost man.’

Anselm could feel the depth of quiet in the house. His chest grew tight and he felt he was drowning. This was the first time he’d met someone from ‘the other side’ in a case he’d won. Apprehensively he listened.

‘After the trial,’ said Mrs Bradshaw, ‘George lost his job. He was dismissed for gross misconduct. Not for the fiasco at court, but because he’d got involved with those kids in the first place. He should have kept his distance… like a lawyer.., but he didn’t, he couldn’t. Afterwards he fell to pieces, here, at home. Then we lost John. I don’t know what happened — but George did, only he couldn’t tell me. No, that’s not true’ — she was struggling, as she’d struggled then; with her mind and body she twisted in her big shirt — ‘George couldn’t have known, but he felt responsible.’ She breathed evenly, becoming still. ‘One Saturday night John went out. He didn’t come back. He’d gone to Lawton’s Wharf__’

‘Where Riley had worked,’ added Anselm.

She nodded, biting her lip. ‘But the police could do nothing. A link like that meant something, of course, but it just wasn’t strong enough. The fact remains, John was killed because George stood up to that man.’ She put the brush on the ladder and knelt, worked her hand beneath a drape that lay upon a sideboard. Without looking, she found the letter from Inspector Jennifer Cartwright.

It was long, detailed and deeply sympathetic but, finally, uncompromising There was no prospect of arrest, never mind conviction. Anselm gave the letter back and Mrs Bradshaw knelt again, working her hand beneath the drape. She rose unsteadily and reached for the paintbrush and, as if it were a handle, she lowered herself onto a covered chair.

The pit of Anselm’s stomach turned. He saw the walls primed with undercoat. Yesterday’s patterns had only just been stripped away Outside rain began to fall, at first gently, and then gathering weight. The low cloud seemed to soak up the light.

‘George could no longer live with himself or me,’ said Mrs Bradshaw, ‘and I could no longer live with him. You cannot imagine the anger that comes between you. It eats up everything. I blamed George. George blamed himself. He blamed me for blaming him. That’s what anger does: it makes you hate what you once loved. It finds a way, even if you can’t imagine how. And when it finally grows quiet you’re empty and changed and you can’t get back. You’re left with the wrong kind of peace. What can you do? Nothing comes of nothing.’

Anselm looked down, wanting to be on the same level, but he dared not disturb the drapes. Like mounds of snow they couldn’t be touched without a kind of vandalism.

Mrs Bradshaw put her hands to her head, the paintbrush sticking up like a feather. ‘One morning, five years ago, George walked down the stairs for breakfast, only he walked out of the door. I knew he was leaving. And I didn’t even get up to watch him go. It had been exactly the same with John.’ Her hands fell. ‘I told Inspector Cartwright that he’d vanished. She put the missing persons team on to him. That was a very long time ago.’

Anselm sank to her side but there was nothing he could say. This was the place where everyone’s fault was smudged, where ‘Sorry’ didn’t quite work any more. Where something more powerful was needed. On one knee he thought of Elizabeth, her key and her final words: ‘Leave it to Anselm.’

In the hallway, Mrs Bradshaw said, ‘I didn’t understand your job — at the trial or afterwards. But I do now Mrs Glendinning explained where you were standing.’

On an island, she had said, the cold place of not knowing, and not being able to care.

When Mrs Bradshaw opened the front door, a strong wind carried the sound of shaking trees and rain.

‘I asked your husband a question,’ said Anselm, feeling queasy, ‘… What did David do that George wanted to forget?… I was being clever within the rules, but I was blind to what it meant… I’m sorry.’

‘Maybe one day he’ll tell you.’ She didn’t mean it; she couldn’t. He’d gone: he was a lost man. ‘Here, take this. I found it on the Tube.’ She handed him a man’s umbrella from a stand.

Anselm stumbled on the sill. He turned, staring past Mrs Bradshaw at the sheets. ‘I think that Mrs Glendinning found your husband before she died.’

‘Where is he?’ She dropped the paintbrush.

‘I don’t know yet, but…’

Mrs Bradshaw’s mouth fell slightly open and she quickly closed the door as if she were ashamed.

Anselm strode along the terrace, angling his umbrella towards the rain. He felt a churning violence against Riley and the dominion of his kind, their endless thriving. He would bring them down, if he could, with all the vigour with which he’d once defended them. Of course, Anselm had seen the link between the trial and John’s death as soon as he’d considered the contents of the case. So had Nicholas; so had Roddy.

However, meeting Mrs Bradshaw had foreshortened his understanding and it made him shiver. Riley’s presence moved in his mind: arms coiled across a narrow chest, the jaw bony and strangely lax.

Anselm took refuge beneath the first bus shelter and read the letter from Elizabeth. The Prior had been right. She had carefully drawn them both into a daring purpose.

9

Elizabeth’s taxi came along the cobbles chased by kids. George was at Lawton’s perimeter fence when he heard the racket. He stopped, one leg through the wire, and watched. These grubby vagabonds crawled all over the docks. They challenged intruders great or small. George had already seen them in action against a fire engine and had kept out of sight ever since. When the taxi pulled up, they danced around it clapping and shouting. The driver sped off, leaving Elizabeth in the street. Unabashed, she walked towards George, followed by a chanting crowd.., well, there were only five or six of them, but they took over the place… and yet he didn’t dwell on their antics. Elizabeth was jubilant.

They went through the fence and picked their way towards the wharf. A couple of kids tailed them, but then vanished.

‘We’ve done it,’ said Elizabeth. A trial had taken her out of London, so they hadn’t met for three weeks. She sat on the remnant of wall, glad to be back, her heels tapping like a dancer’s. ‘He appears to be doing one thing, but hidden within the numbers is another animal. He keeps it right under Nancy’s nose.’

‘Would you write that down, please?’ George reached for his notebook.

‘In due course.’ Elizabeth fished in her bag for the whisky and the beakers. ‘There’s more to say, more that’s worth keeping; but now we celebrate.’ Out of a carrier bag she produced beef and horseradish sandwiches, and a tub of cherry tomatoes. The surface of the Thames ran upon itself with ripples. On the far bank empty barges hovered in a mist.

‘George, there’s something you need to remember… to dwell on, as I have. The stone you throw is small, picked from his own garden, but it will take away something he values above all else, and behind which he hides: a good character: the gift bestowed by the law upon the righteous, as well as the man who is never found out.’

George frowned. ‘Have you got a pen?’

Elizabeth laughed. She put a tomato in her mouth and took the notebook.

‘And lay off the stones and gardens stuff. I’d like it in black and white.’

‘I’ll give you both.’

When she’d finished, Elizabeth fetched out some Greek yoghurt with honey George was reading the label when an envelope wrapped in plastic blocked his vision.

‘Put this in a safe place,’ she said. ‘Inside is a detailed explanation of Riley’s scheme. It’s complicated and by no means obvious.’

‘What am I to do with it?’

‘For now, nothing. Tomorrow he’ll be at Mile End Park for an early Christmas fair. In all we have done, I’ve reserved for myself a small part: to see him face to face once more, and to accuse him.’

And what’s mine?’ He looked at the yoghurt pot. Nino had said the stuff was bad for the arteries.

‘You will deliver the explanation to Inspector Cartwright. It is the material upon which Riley’s conviction will stand. That belongs to you.

George shifted with importance and pride. The moment had become solemn. He felt he should stand up and make a brief speech.

‘Have you got a spoon?’ he said.

Elizabeth grimaced. ‘I completely forgot.’

Elizabeth stayed late that evening. As night fell, lights appeared upon the river, shuddering.

George said, ‘You asked me, once, if I’d ever thought of evil… whether it could be undone. I wrote it down, but I’ve been unable to forget the idea. It’s impossible. It’s greater than anything I can imagine.’

Elizabeth was writing in George’s notebook (recording what would happen in the morning, and where they’d meet). Without looking up, she said, ‘Many years ago, a wonderful monk told me we could only undo evil to the extent that it has touched us. I can’t do it for you; you can’t do it for me. It’s a wholly personal quest.’

George thought there should be a manual for this sort of thing — instructions with diagrams and a page at the back for troubleshooting. It would make life a hell of a lot easier.

‘I was told it’s more deadly than vengeance,’ she said, narrow-eyed, as if aiming.

‘What is?’

‘The forgiveness of the victim,’ she muttered, making a precise full stop. ‘It goes right to the heart.’

George wasn’t especially impressed. He’d expected a revelation, something to make you sit up.

‘I’m told it’s the only way evil can be undone,’ she said, closing the book. Becoming practical, she added sternly ‘Whatever happens, wait at Trespass Place.’

From beyond the bed of broken brick, outside the fence, a horn beeped three times. Elizabeth stood and faced George. She gave him fifty pounds, and checked that he had understood all that would happen tomorrow, confirming that they would meet in the afternoon at Trespass Place.

‘George,’ she said, with a sigh, ‘even tonight will you not stay inside? How about the Bonnington?’

He refused and she smiled fondly, placing a hand on each of his shoulders. As far as he could recall, she kissed him for the first time. Her hands remained there, heavy and reassuring. Perhaps it was the openness of her face that made George say what he hadn’t planned. It seemed to devastate her, on this the night of celebration.

‘John’s death had nothing to do with you. You didn’t bring Riley into court, I did.’

‘Yes, I know’ She spoke as if she were haunted; as if she didn’t mean what she said. Her arms dropped and she walked carefully along the edge of the wharf. At the far end she stopped and stared for an age into the black water. It chopped around the timber supports like a clock gone wrong, ticking in spasms.

Three times more the taxi beeped its horn.

10

The smooth running of great schemes relies upon the small details. Elizabeth’s directions to Trespass Place were rather vague, so Anselm ran to a newsagent, where he checked an A to Z. The fact that Mr Bradshaw was waiting — and had been for over ten days — raised a spirit of urgency that made Anselm fumble and swear. He hurried to the Underground while the wind clutched at the umbrella as if to hold him back.

The train was packed and damp. Wet coats pushed against him. He forced his way to a corner and unfolded Elizabeth’s instructions.

Dear Anselm,

Ten years ago I helped Graham Riley to leave the court as an innocent man. He was, I am sure, guilty. I now require your help to bring him back again.

In the first place you needed to be reminded of the trial; to read the letter and the cutting. This prepared you, I hope, for the meeting with Mrs Bradshaw It was her place to reveal what happened after the Riley trial. It is mine to explain what I have done about it.

Anselm read the first sentence again, not quite believing that an officer of the court would behave in such a way regardless of any crisis of conscience.

No evidence is likely to emerge which would demonstrate how or why Riley killed John Bradshaw Something can still be done. George and I have set about taking away from Riley the one thing he does not deserve: a good name.

Anselm ducked beneath an arm to check the name of a station. A territorial shove put him back in the corner.

Riley has remained criminally active. The details are set out in a document retained by George. He keeps it in his inside left jacket pocket. His task is to deliver this, the basis of a future conviction, to Inspector Cartwright. Yours is to bring them together.

You will find him waiting beneath a fire escape in Trespass Place, a courtyard off Blackfriars Road. On the street he is known as Blind George, although he sees further than you or me (don’t be troubled by the welding goggles). A senseless attack, however, has damaged his short-term memory He can only retain events by writing them down.

Anselm wriggled into a tight space nearer the doors. Legs and bodies stiffened around him.

This project is of the greatest importance to him. I hope that through its fulfilment he will recover sufficient self-respect to start the journey home. You might elbow him in that direction when you get the chance. He’ll need it.

Best wishes,

Elizabeth.

Anselm folded the letter away His time at the Bar had taught him never to accept any document at face value — you had to scratch between the commas, and, in the final analysis, give the writer a going-over. That lost option was no longer available, and was, in these circumstances, unnecessary The letter corroborated everything Anselm had already concluded about Elizabeth: she had lost her confidence in a system that, perhaps, she had never questioned with sufficient vitality.

Anselm sighed audibly — and not because someone had stamped on his foot. He’d felt an idiot when he’d seen Nicholas Glendinning. Now, at last, he knew what to say — well, sort of, only it was difficult to articulate with accuracy and nuance. How would he explain to him that Elizabeth had been changed by her encounter with Riley? Like a gift, Locard’s Principle came to mind. And Anselm, in the secrecy of his soul, felt modestly satisfied with himself, and not a little clever — an agreeable sensation instantly consumed by the recollection of Mrs Bradshaw standing harrowed in a doorway and that awful phrase: nothing comes of nothing.

The train roared into Elephant and Castle and Anselm burrowed between steadfast shoulders. He stood on the platform hot and wet but triumphant. Through a window he saw a head pressed against the glass examining the handle of Mrs Bradshaw’s umbrella.

11

Trespass Place normally protected George from the elements. The fire escape was vast and constructed of sheet metal. But there was a problem when a wind blew It whirled around the tiny courtyard, throwing the water onto a horizontal plane. George had been wiping his face for ten minutes when he decided to head for Carlo’s. He clambered to his feet and grasped his two plastic bags.., and then he paused, looking down.

In one of them, beneath his rolled-up scarf, was an old carton of milk, a loaf of greenish bread and some tins. This wasn’t his bag. He checked the other and immediately understood. He’d picked up Nancy’s shopping, misled by the sight of his scarf. He must have put it on top, not noticing. And that meant that he’d left behind volumes one to twenty-two. With growing dread, George checked number twenty-three, to locate himself in his own story. There was no doubt about it. He’d left behind half his life: a childhood in Harrogate, hitching to London in his teens and, of course, his tangled relations with Graham Riley.

The wind moaned and wrested with the bins and sacks. George grabbed his sleeping bag and the carrier that held the other half of his life. He ran to Marco’s and took a seat in a far corner, beneath one of the heaters. Without his having to ask or pay, a plate of toast presently appeared, alongside a mug of hot chocolate.

12

Anselm had forgotten the plan on the A to Z, so at Waterloo Station he went looking for another newsagent. He studied the map, committing to memory the rights and lefts. Then he nipped back into the rain.

Five minutes later he surveyed Trespass Place: its towering walls; its back doors without handles; its signs that read KEEP CLEAR. He walked towards a mammoth fire escape at the far end. To thwart the burglar the bottom section was raised on a cantilever — a measure defeated by the attachment of a long chain that twirled slowly on its axis. Beneath this shelter stood a queue of green plastic sacks with yellow ties. Cardboard was propped against the wall. A shopping bag lay open. The milk was clotted and the bread was furry with mould. Anselm checked the sell-by dates. This lot had been bought before Elizabeth died. George Bradshaw hadn’t waited long at all. And who could blame him? Anselm looked at the drainpipes, the tangled tape and the wheelie-bins. A client had once told him that hell was Sunderland Magistrates Court. He was wrong. Anselm moved under the raised steps and pulled back the cardboard. Upon the wall, neatly scratched, was a block of short vertical lines.

Anselm walked briskly out of the courtyard, his head bowed against the rain. Further up the road he saw the bright lights of a café He ran and sheltered in the doorway, wondering what to do next.

13

One of the great things about Marco’s was the style of electric wall heater. They were high up and old-fashioned — orange bars against curved shining metal. They hummed while they worked, like Marco himself.

George sipped hot chocolate, wondering what to do about his missing books. It would be impossible to roll up, take his bag and disappear again. No, he couldn’t see Nancy not until it was all over — when Riley had been arrested. Then George could explain why he’d vanished, and why he’d deceived her. But that left open the possibility that she might leaf through volume twenty, where her husband made his first appearance. It was a risk he’d have to take. She wouldn’t look, though.., she wasn’t like that. She’d been well brought up.

The windows were grey and streaming with condensation. Through the glass door George saw a dark figure swaying left and right in the cold. George stirred milky froth and thought of Graham Riley.

It had been one of the stranger things about the whole trial. Jennifer Cartwright — she’d been a detective sergeant back then — had quizzed him very carefully about Quilling Road. He’d drawn a plan of the house. He’d described the wallpaper. He’d labelled each room with numbers and names. He’d told her of Riley’s strange manner.., his never going up the stairs, his insistence on meeting everyone near the bottom step. And DS Cartwright had written it all down, smoking incessantly Months later he’d had a meeting with a CPS solicitor called Miss Lowell. This time there’d been typed-up depositions and a colour-coded floor plan. George had told his story all over again. The details were cross-referred to other witness statements, confirming their coherence with the broader picture. Finally there’d been a conference with a barrister called Pagett, a tall fellow in a morning suit — the kind of thing you got married in. George could almost recite his statement by now Again, he went over what he’d seen and heard, and what he knew of Riley’s idiosyncratic behaviour. But the strange thing was this: neither DS Cartwright nor Miss Lowell nor Mr Pagett thought to ask George if he had met Graham Riley before. None of them wondered why George had been so prepared to help these three girls in the first place. They weren’t like the barrister Riley had on his side — the one who’d asked, ‘What did David do that George wanted to forget?’ If he’d been at the conference with DS Cartwright and Miss Lowell, he’d have rumbled George, of that there was little doubt.

The figure at the door swayed side to side. It had the bulk of a man. George wondered why he didn’t step inside. The heaters were just out of this world.

14

Anselm’s predicament illustrated the perils of the monastic path. Cyril had given him just enough to cover the cost of public transport. So Anselm, freezing and wet, had enough money to buy what he wanted, but only at the expense of what he needed. A cup of restoring coffee was there, behind his back, but only if he walked to his lodgings in the rain.

Anselm brooded over the choice but finally surrendered his thoughts to a more serious problem. Elizabeth had failed to anticipate something far more basic than Anselm’s delay in using the key. She hadn’t given any weight to the reasonable expectation that a man with half a memory might wander off and leave his dinner behind, never mind his role in her scheme. How could he even begin to know where to look?

A flame of protest made Anselm restive. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as if he were ready to leave his corner and fight. He recalled Mrs Bradshaw when she dropped the paintbrush, mouth open and appalled at the thought that her husband might come home. Her hope had become too terrible to contemplate.

Anselm blinked at the sodden sky. It was getting worse. He ran to the Underground, dodging puddles and rivulets. In a livid fancy, he grabbed Cyril’s remaining arm and chained it to a drainpipe.

15

Beneath Marco’s humming heater, George wrote of waiting, a storm and a restless man at the door. (Once George had committed the past to paper, Nino had told him to gather up the present moment. ‘It keeps you in the here and now’) When the rain became fitful he made his way back to Trespass Place.

The recollection of Nino’s words made his stomach turn. There was something foolish in what George was doing: sitting beneath a fire escape expecting a monk to appear around the corner. It was like pretending that Elizabeth hadn’t died, or that her death would have no consequences. In the here and now, Elizabeth was dead. His recollection of all they had done together was a kind of grieving, but also a running away because it lay back there in the past, when she’d been alive. He shivered with cold and anxiety as if a harsh truth were creeping across Trespass Place: accepting Elizabeth’s death meant accepting that Riley would get away after all. They were the two sides of the one coin. Spinning it in the air day after day was just an illusion.

Wrapping his arms around his legs, he remembered that Elizabeth’s optimism had been without limit. And it worked backwards as well as forwards: she’d said the past is up for grabs.

16

When evening came, Nick went to the Green Room and opened The Following of Christ. On account of the hole it was impossible to read the first page, or indeed, most of the following chapters. Why cut out the heart of a book, unless you knew it by heart? While he tried to complete a broken sentence by guessing the missing words, the telephone rang. Father Anselm was in London, and wanted to meet him that evening. He said, ‘I now have at least one of the answers you were looking for.’

An arrangement made, Nick closed the book with the thought that his mother was a comparable enigma.

Nick parked the yellow Beetle facing the old stones of Gray’s Inn Chapel. Beneath a nearby street lamp stood Father Anselm, his close-cropped head angled to one side as though he were puzzled by the ingenuity of modern contraptions. Against the arched windows, he would have cut a medieval figure, but for the shapeless duffel coat. They crossed Holborn into Chancery Lane, heading towards the South Bank. The afternoon’s storm had cleared the air, and the streets were shining and wet. At the frontage of Ede and Ravenscroft, the court tailors, Father Anselm peered at the wigs, the collars and the sharp suits. Afterwards he was quiet for a while. In the middle of Hungerford Bridge Nick broke step and leaned on the rail, arms folded. The swollen river beneath glittered at its banks, but the central flow was black and mysterious, seeming deeper and magnetic on that account. A small boat jigged on the surface. Nick watched its eerie survival, and a monk’s voice sounded at his side.

‘Forensic scientists say that every contact leaves a trace. ‘Father Anselm was also looking down into the silent waters. ‘It’s called Locard’s Principle. The idea is that if you touch an object, you leave behind something that wasn’t there in the first place — a little of yourself. By the same token, you take away something that wasn’t on you when you came — part of the object. It’s an alarming fact. We can’t do anything without this interchange occurring.

Out of the darkness, Nick perceived a rope between the small craft and a buoy His mother’s attachment had been to Saint Martin’s Haven. The wind and rain had cleansed her mind for what she had to do. He recognised that now A busker’s flute began to whistle in the distance.

‘Locard wasn’t thinking of lawyers,’ continued Father Anselm thoughtfully ‘Had he done so, had he applied the Principle to conduct, rather than contact, they’d be the exception to the rule, because nothing sticks to their robes. They can prosecute the innocent and defend the guilty and they remain — as they should — altogether blameless. In a way, their sincerity is determined not through principle, but by accident. It can’t be otherwise. They stand urging you to believe one thing, whereas, if the other side had got there first, they’d be persuading you to think the opposite — with equal fervour, regardless of any price differential. It has nothing to do with what they might actually believe or, despite popular opinion to the contrary, what they’re subsequently paid. Their allegiance is to the evidence and the instructions of their client. For this many would risk life and limb. As for themselves, when they go home.., they’re an island people, isolated by not knowing and by not being able to care. The Riley trial changed all that for your mother. The contact left a trace.’

The monk wormed a hand into a pocket beneath the duffel coat. He passed Nick a letter, and said, ‘Having helped Riley to escape, she set out to bring him back to court.., to take away his good name. In the event of her death, she’s asked me to fulfil what she began.’

Nick read the instructions, his mind swimming. Why had she not shared this crisis with him? Why had it remained so very private? He stared at the neat sentences as Father Anselm explained his understanding of events: Elizabeth’s faith in her professional identity had collapsed; this was the defence case that had brought down the ardent prosecutor; she’d kept the brief at the time because of what it represented; but then she’d learned of John Bradshaw’s death, a killing with a connection to Riley that could never be demonstrated. He paused, and he seemed to reach out to Nick without moving. ‘I think she wanted you to understand that she was culpable but without blame.’

They both gazed into the dark river, towards a lonely boat.

‘But I would never have accused her,’ said Nick.

‘Me neither.’ Father Anselm seemed melancholy ‘I sometimes wonder if conscience calls us back to a world very different from this one, making us strangers.’

Nick found his eyes filled with tears. She was so remote, now: not only in death but also in life. And, despite his confusion and distress, Nick felt disappointed. He’d anticipated a spectacular explanation for his mother’s behaviour — withholding evidence or misleading the court; something that would account for her secrecy her outlandish actions and the troubled letters that had brought him home. But it had all turned on acute sensibilities.

Nick pulled away, and together they walked back to Gray’s Inn.

The orderly streets of St John’s Wood were empty. Nick parked the Beetle and sat in the darkness rehearsing Father Anselm’s last words. ‘Get on with your life,’ he’d said, ‘I’m looking after your mother’s.’ They’d laughed, even though his task seemed pretty hopeless with Mr Bradshaw astray Idly, Nick slapped the dashboard: he’d forgotten to ask about the relief of Mafeking.

Something rattled… his mother’s mobile phone.

Either a paramedic or the police must have put it back on its stand.

Slowly Nick detached it. He looked at the face. There was a thumbprint on the glass. It could be the last mark his mother had made; all that was left of her. He pressed the redial button and listened.

A knocking sound cut the ringing tone… in the background a buzzer rang. Instantly there was applause and cheering.

‘Hello?… yes?’ It was a woman’s voice. ‘Who is it?’

Nick flushed with heat. But he couldn’t reply.

‘Are you there?’

The woman waited, and Nick listened, unable to cut the line. She was old, her tone wavering. Nick could hear her breathing. He could imagine a hand shaking.

‘Wait… is that you … is that my lad?’

Nick looked at the phone’s screen. The thumbprint was like an etching. Behind it was the dialled number. He fumbled for a pen and jotted it down upon his palm.

‘Say something…’ The voice was far off and desperate. Nick pressed the off button. His mouth was parched.

17

Anselm caught the last train to Cambridge, where Father Andrew met him on the station concourse. Since the Prior had never quite come to appreciate the relationship of co-operation that prevails between the clutch and the synchromesh gearbox, Anselm offered to drive back to Larkwood. Thus the Prior was free to study, by the light of a pocket torch, Elizabeth’s brief account of moral upheaval and her attempt to make amends. When he slowly folded up the letter, Anselm explained what had come to pass with Mrs Bradshaw, how she’d used a terrible phrase: nothing comes of nothing He concluded by saying, ‘And when I got to Trespass Place, her husband had gone. Elizabeth’s scheme is already in ruins, within two weeks of her death.’

The car trundled out of the city and it was only after several miles that Anselm, from the smell, realised he’d left the handbrake on. Discreetly he released it, and dropped his window by an inch. Apparently’ he said, ‘Elizabeth had a heart condition that meant she could die at any moment. It must clear the mind wonderfully to know that each breath could be your last…’

‘It did,’ said the Prior. ‘She called me on the day of the consultation.’

‘When was that?’

‘Shortly after she’d come to Larkwood… when she’d spoken of a homicide.’

Anselm slowed down to concentrate. Whatever the Prior had gone on to say had almost certainly pushed Elizabeth into action.

‘I didn’t mention this before,’ said the Prior, ‘because I felt… self-conscious about what I said to her. She began to cry because there was so much that she would change, but it was out of reach.’ Father Andrew tugged at am eyebrow ‘I tried to comfort her, saying it’s not the beginning that matters, but rather the undiscovered end, because it completely transforms our understanding of where we came from, what we’ve done, who we ultimately are… I said it was never too late, that even last words or a final act could bring about this fantastic change… that it was like magic. The line seemed to go dead but then I heard her say “Thank you.” I next saw her on the day she gave you the key.’

‘The day’ said Anselm, ‘that she prepared for what is now unfolding.’

Gradually the wide roads narrowed and street lamps vanished. The stars were hidden and the moon faintly lit the edge of a cloud. Beneath it Larkwood appeared like a crowd of fireflies. After parking beneath the plum trees they trudged along a winding path towards the monastery. Anselm could barely see the Prior but he heard his voice clearly ‘You must go back to London, I’m afraid. You owe it to Elizabeth and to George, to his wife and to his son. Perhaps it’s owed to Mr Riley; perhaps, also, to yourself.’

Anselm didn’t like that final coupling, but he took it as an accident of sentence construction. ‘When should I go?’

‘Tomorrow night. There’s no time left for thinking. As you say her plan is already falling apart.’

Anselm thought of George in welding goggles, stumbling down an alley ‘How do I find a man who’s lost to himself?’

‘I’ll speak to Cyril’s niece.

‘Pardon?’

‘Cyril’s niece, Debbie. She works with the homeless near Euston.’

Anselm pictured a large, annoyed oblong with clipped hair and a mouth like a post-box. ‘An inspired idea,’ he said magnanimously.

At the entrance to Larkwood the Prior fiddled with a huge key wrought from iron hundreds of years ago. As the door swung open, the Prior took Anselm’s arm, and they paused on the threshold. ‘Find out who Elizabeth was,’ he said, ‘find the child who grew up to wear a gown that was too heavy for her shoulders.’

He seemed to have vanished, so deep was the darkness.

‘Where shall I start?’ asked Anselm, sharply awake to the presence in front of him.

‘The fly-leaf of an incomparable book.’

Anselm recalled the inscription in The Following of Christ, written by a nun, and he smiled at the figure before him as it clanked and fumbled once more with the lock.

By late afternoon the next day all the necessary arrangements for Anselm’s trip to London had been made: a room had been secured with the Augustinians in Hoxton; consecutive meetings had been organised with Debbie Lynwood and Inspector Cartwright (who, of course, knew nothing of Elizabeth’s floundering project and the evidence held by George Bradshaw); after a long and entertaining conversation between Anselm and the Provincial of the Daughters of Charity, an appointment had been made with Sister Dorothy — a maverick soul, it transpired, who now endured forced retirement in Camberwell; and, finally the Prior had produced an envelope containing sufficient funds for a week, a generous act that had spared Anselm a reunion with the cellarer.

After vespers Father Andrew called Anselm out of his stall to the centre of the choir. Following ancient custom, no one left Larkwood on a journey without the Prior’s blessing. He had a little book full of well-phrased send-offs. You’d kneel wondering which one you were going to get.

Anselm bowed his head but, like a blasphemy he thought of Riley: the bobbing knee, jangling gold on a bony wrist and thin, fixed lips. The image turned Anselm cold, and he woke, as if stunned, for the Prior’s concluding words:

‘May the light guide your steps, your thoughts, your words and your deeds; and may it bring you safely home, if needs be by a different path.’

18

Night had fallen and George felt a sudden urge to stay in a spike. As institutions devoted to the needs of those without shelter, they didn’t compare favourably with the Bonnington, but they had three things in common: a roof, lots of beds and an effective heating system. The combination had its attractions when — like now — it was so wet that the air itself seemed to advance like the Atlantic. The council was responsible for these night shelters. In some you had to lie awake holding your shoes against your chest; if you closed your eyes you’d lose your laces. The first time George had rolled up at a spike in Camden, he’d been given a bed near a white brick wall with posters dotted here and there to add a splash of colour. That night he’d met an old man, who’d told him an old story.

The fellow had matted hair and an overcoat that almost reached his shoes. A scarf with blue and red stripes trailed down his back. He was examining a picture of trekkers following a mountain ridge: the sky was blue and the hills were another kind of blue. In this refuge of chipped bedsteads, of strong odours and shouting, it was ethereal. Written on the bottom in red letters was ‘Andorra’. The man muttered, ‘You’d think it wasn’t there.’ He turned around and said, as if mildly surprised, ‘What brings you here?’

George said, ‘I’m tired.’

‘Then you’re in the wrong place.’

‘So what about you?’

‘I like the pictures. You’re new to this school, aren’t you?’ He didn’t mean the spike; he meant the street.

‘Yes.’ George’s eyes watered, but he ground his teeth. He no longer had the right to cry.

The man was called Nino. He’d been a traffic warden. After his ‘early retirement’ he had obtained membership in every library that didn’t require a fixed abode. His bed was beside George’s. When the lights were out Nino began to whisper.

‘Have you heard of Pandora?’

‘Yes. She had a box.’

‘That’s right. Hesiod says she was the first woman that ever lived. Do you know what she was made of?

‘No.’

‘Clay Do you know what was in the box?’

‘Worms?’

‘No. You’re confusing it with the expression “a can of worms”, which, I grant you, has considerable bearing upon the matter in hand. Before I go on, let me say at once that Pandora has been much maligned — I’ve checked every library in north London. The classical mind, like that of ancient religion, tends to blame women when it comes to moral catastrophe. I dissociate myself entirely from that tradition.’

George wanted to cry again. It was like being a boy once more, having a story told at night that he couldn’t quite follow His grandfather, David — whose name he carried and had abandoned — had been a wonderful reader of stories. Listening to Nino, George could imagine big pictures in a big book: a beautiful princess with long, golden hair, her fair hands holding a small, golden casket.

Nino said, ‘Now in that box stirred every imaginable evil. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

A very foolish fellow lifted the lid. Are you listening, stranger to the road?’

‘I am.’ George had started to cry. George bit his pillow and his hands gripped the mattress and his leg. Far off there was shouting. Someone cried in a scuffle.

‘The evils escaped,’ said Nino softly ‘and they caused great suffering. But do you know what was at the bottom of the box?’

George dared not release the pillow from his mouth. But Nino wouldn’t go on until George had spoken. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he gasped.

Nino’s whisper grew fainter, making George raise his head.

‘The last thing to rise from that unimaginable quarter was hope.’

George blinked, resolved to wait a little longer. There were tears in his eyes.