The Gardens of the Dead (13 page)

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.