The Gardens of the Dead (36 page)

The
room grew darker, and the lamplight grew harsher. The walls seemed to have
vanished. All that existed was this table, this jigsaw and an old man with
careful fingers. Anselm sat back, almost in shadow, listening to what had
happened to a boy who’d made a solemn promise.

George
had got a job at the Bonnington and there he’d met Emily They saved pennies in
large bottles and ‘did without’ until they could afford two rooms in a boarding
house. Emily went to night school, did a typing course and landed a job with
the National Coal Board. George couldn’t forget the quiet street that ran by a
railway line in Paddington. When he got the chance, he started work at the
Bridges night shelter, first as a helper, and finally as manager. It played
havoc with married life, because George was out four nights every week and
permanently on call: no one seemed to know the system quite so well as George;
no one seemed to solve a crisis quite so deftly But, as Emily well understood,
this wasn’t ‘work’ for George. The Bridges was his way of reaching back to
where he’d come from. It was therefore fitting, observed George, that he should
have heard the name Riley from the mouths of children: Anji, Lisa and Beverly ‘But
I let them slip over the edge,’ he said.

Anselm
stared at the map’s illustrations. Monstrous creatures of the imagination
inhabited the extremities; radiant apostles stood upon the lands to which they’d
brought the Good News. It was difficult to conceive how such a chart could have
served any navigational purpose. He let his mind study the robes: he knew that
the unfolding narrative was moving inevitably towards his cross-examination.

‘After
leaving Paddington, I never saw Elizabeth again,’ said George. ‘Not until that
day at the Old Bailey We’d been told to address our replies to the jury, so I
hadn’t noticed her … and it had been over twenty years, so a glance told me
nothing. It was only when you began your questions that a glance became a
stare. And then I realised: Riley had picked Elizabeth to silence me.’ He
breathed heavily through his nose, and leaned back into the obscurity behind
the light. A slight agitation raised his voice and his hands began to move with
his words. As you were asking your questions, I was trying to work out what was
happening. I was sure that this confrontation was a threat … If I stuck to
my evidence, then Riley would expose Elizabeth. She was gazing at me, pleading
with her eyes, but telling me what? To spare an old friend who’d made a new
life? Or to get on with it and condemn Riley … to bring him down while she
was watching?’

Anselm
knew the answer, because Elizabeth had told him the night before. ‘Do you think
Riley is innocent?’ she’d asked him, feet on the table. And when he’d said no,
she’d invited him to cross-examine Bradshaw the next morning. ‘This is your
chance to do something significant.’ Outwardly Elizabeth had been mildly bored.
But inside she’d screamed with fear that George might fail, without dreaming
that Anselm might succeed. He stared at the map, with its strangely beautiful
but false proportions, and said, ‘And before you could determine if it was
mercy she wanted, or sacrifice — for it would mean her public humiliation — I
asked you the one question you could not answer.’

George
did not reply.

‘Because
if you told the court about David,’ said Anselm, ‘it would undermine your own
evidence.’

George
still did not speak.

And, of
all people, it would fall on Elizabeth to argue that the word of George
Bradshaw could not be trusted, because he’d made false allegations once before.’
Anselm paused. ‘It must have been a dreadful moment, George, when I pushed you
out of that witness box. I’m far sorrier than I can express, all the more so
because I gloried in not knowing what I’d done.’

The
sounds of feet and low voices were at the door.

No one is more familiar
with the varieties of forensic disappointment than a police officer. Sometimes
she knows that a man has committed a crime but she can’t bring him to book,
either because a witness won’t speak out (unlike Anji) or the assembled facts
wouldn’t convince a jury of guilt (as in the case of John Bradshaw). And even
if she rolls him through the court door, a wheel can still fall off (as
happened with George Bradshaw). But, curiously the greatest disappointment of
the lot is the one reserved for objectionable conduct that falls short of an
offence.

These
sunless thoughts settled upon Anselm as he greeted Inspector Cartwright, noting
that she did not smile or look at George, and that she kept her coat wrapped
tight despite the rampant efficiency of an institutional heating system. They
formed an apprehensive triangle. The main light had been switched on, but the bulb
cast a weary glow, as though it were fearful of what might be revealed.

‘There
is a simple legal problem,’ said Inspector Cartwright bluntly ‘Riley’s scheme
doesn’t constitute a recognised criminal activity. He’s no different to someone
using a telephone directory. He sells a number, that’s all. And in his hands,
it’s neutral. If there was an arrangement between Riley and the girl, then it
might be different. But there isn’t.’

With
the back of his hand, George brushed unseen dust off his sleeve. Anselm gazed
again at a schoolboy’s motto: the law will be fulfilled by love.

‘Even
if charges could be framed,’ continued Inspector Cartwright, ‘it would be a
weak case, a case that we couldn’t reasonably pursue.’ She slowed her delivery,
hating her role, her obligations. ‘George, this means that Riley is out of my
reach, and yours. I’m sorry to say this, but it looks as if he always was, even
before you and Elizabeth set out to catch him.’

It
struck Anselm that the last observation belonged to the category of things
that need not be said, even though true.

‘Would
you mind writing that down for me?’ asked George appreciatively as if he’d
received complex travel directions. ‘I’ll need to remind myself in the days to
come.

With a
frown of concentration, he tapped his blazer pockets, not quite sure where he’d
left his notebook.

Anselm had foreseen that
the lateness of the hour might preclude a return to Larkwood. Accordingly
after Inspector Cartwright had gone, George was left in place poring over a
table, and Anselm was directed to a narrow storeroom with a camp bed that
snapped shut when he sat in the middle. Surprisingly — and in the morning, he
thought, indecently —Anselm fell asleep easily He began compline, but didn’t
get beyond the first verse of the opening psalm. When daylight came, he knocked
on George’s bedroom with all the worry and regret that he’d thought would keep
him awake. The door was ajar and swung a little at his touch. Entering, Anselm
found the bed unused and the jigsaw completed.

David
George Bradshaw had gone.

PART FIVE

of beginnings and ends

1

Anselm joined Father
Andrew in the cloister. They sat on a low wall beneath one of the arches,
looking onto the garth. At the insistence of an MCC benefactor the square had
been laid with turf from Lord’s cricket ground — ‘Father, we’ll lay a
sand-based, fast-draining outfield’ — but rank disobedience to the maintenance
regime had permitted this corner of the English soul to be eaten by moss. The
square was now a deep emerald sponge that held on to water.

The
Riley business was, they both concluded, a sorry affair. Their involvement left
the bitter aftertaste of shared failure: as if they might have done something
to prevent the outcome — the dereliction of a dead woman’s hopes. She had set out
to alter the appearance and effect of the past. That her entire project should
founder on a mistake of law was unfortunate. That the correct legal analysis
should have come from her mouth in the first place was a tragedy.

Learning
of Elizabeth’s background ought to have surprised Anselm, but it did not (he
said, letting his eyes rest on the crisp, frosted lawn). The manner of her
living now made sense: a life in compartments, the zeal for prosecuting and,
like an arch, her inventiveness. In retrospect, Anselm could see her quietly
working out the knots of her history, as when she, who had lost her father,
had drawn from him the loss of his mother. They’d discussed its manner and
meaning, but she’d applied its lessons elsewhere. From the outset childhood
grief had bound them together, though he’d never known it. Perhaps that’s why
she turned to him — instinctively — when she saw ‘Riley’ typed on the front of
the trial brief, when she read the name of David George Bradshaw on the witness
list. She must have seen what Riley was hoping to do: that he might well
succeed; that he could do so only if Elizabeth sacrificed the identity she had
so carefully constructed. Professionally speaking, in that one trial, unseen
by the public and her peers, Elizabeth had committed suicide: she should have
withdrawn from the case; she should probably have gone further, and revealed
what she knew of her client, ‘this wounded instrument’. There were lots of shoulds,
but they were not enough when weighed against her need for self-preservation.
Or — to be just — was it yet another murder that could never be laid at Riley’s
door? As he had been from the beginning, Anselm was linked to Elizabeth by a
kind of grieving that he didn’t fully understand. Her dying words to an answer
machine seemed preposterous, now: ‘Leave it to Anselm.’

‘What
was I supposed to do,’ asked Anselm, drawing breath, ‘sweep up the pieces?
Explain to George the limitations of the law — as if he didn’t know already?’

‘No,’
said the Prior patiently ‘the message related to a project she knew had failed,
otherwise she wouldn’t have called the police. They’re words of hope, urging
Inspector Cartwright to remain confident, despite appearances.

‘The
point remains,’ said Anselm, with mock testiness, ‘what is it that I’m meant to
be doing?’

‘It
sometimes helps to shift tenses,’ said the Prior, nudging his glasses. ‘What
are you meant to have
done?’

‘Find
George,’ replied Anselm smartly for there he had succeeded, before he’d lost
him again. (Before coming home, he’d checked Trespass Place, left messages at
homeless shelters in London and written a letter for the kind attention of F
Hillsden Esq.)

‘What
else?’ asked the Prior routinely He seemed to be slipping away drawn by
adjacent thoughts.

‘Visit
Mrs Dixon.’

Anselm
pondered these twin duties while the Prior fiddled with the paperclip on his
glasses. Slowly like water clearing in a stream, Anselm began to understand
Elizabeth’s last wish. Answering the Prior’s questions had placed George and
Mrs Dixon side by side. And, seen like that, their link grew strong.

Mrs
Dixon, with her drawn-out rogue vowels, hailed from the north of England. She’d
lost her son. She’d remarried. She was utterly extrinsic to Elizabeth’s scheme
of retribution.

George
had run from a good northern home, leaving behind a truth that wouldn’t go away
But George’s father may well have died by now. The burden of loyalty on the
mother would have been lifted. Perhaps she’d built a new life with another man.
That woman could be Mrs Dixon … it
had
to be.

Leave
it to Anselm, he thought excitedly gratefully.

Who
better to bring George back to that place of first departure, than Anselm,
whose question had reached so deep into the Bradshaw history? Elizabeth had
prepared the means by which Anselm could reclaim his own regret.

Leave
it to Anselm.

Why say
this to Inspector Cartwright? Because Elizabeth foresaw that this tireless
policewoman would be devastated —because she was a servant of the law that
would once again disappoint an honourable man.

Leave
it to Anselm.

‘Can I
visit Mrs Dixon?’ said Anselm keenly turning to the Prior.

‘Yes.’
He’d taken to examining the garth, as though the benefactor had demanded a
written report with several appendices. ‘What were Elizabeth’s stipulations?’
he asked, rising.

‘To call
uninvited and to listen rather than speak.’

‘Sound
advice,’ replied the Prior. He smiled benignly and then shuffled through the
cloister, hands thrust behind his belt.

Anselm went to check for
mail in the bursar’s office, expecting to find some fresh tobacco, obtained by
stealth at the hands of Louis, who’d had business in the village. On the way
Anselm fell to thinking about Nicholas Glendinning. There was no need for him
to know what Sister Dorothy had disclosed. It all happened a long time ago. And
since then Elizabeth had become someone totally different. The truth need not
be told, he thought awkwardly.

Brooding
on this conundrum, Anselm reached into his pigeon-hole. There were two items.
One was a manila envelope from Louis wrapped in tape. The other was a letter
from an unknown hand, postmarked London. He opened it and read:

Dear Father
Anselm,