The Silent Ones

by William Brodrick

  Anselm kicked a few pebbles, wondering how to make his request. There was no easy way. An ambulance flashed by without its siren blaring. Help on the way in silence.

  ‘I’d like you to open the secret archive.’

  ‘I knew you were going to say that.’

  ‘I need to know what it contains. You might not believe this, but there may be a link between this trial and historical complaints against members of your Order.’

  ‘You’re insane.’

  ‘No, I’m merely feeling my way. I’m on the trail of a cover-up – the sort of thing you tried to leave behind.’

  ‘Where did you get that from?’

  Anselm couldn’t say: if Littlemore was innocent, then so was Carrington; and Carrington wanted Anselm to work in the dark. He’d have his reasons.

  ‘Here’s the combination,’ said Anselm, holding out a folded piece of paper. ‘You want to keep things simple? You trust Harry Brandwell? I’ll accept that. But you accept this: if Harry sticks to his story on Monday, throw that paper in the bin. But if he retracts his evidence, open that safe. And you can do it for the sake of men like Dominic Tabley.’

  38

  Anselm got back to Larkwood late that night having left Kester to struggle with his conscience. He was exhausted by so many things: the trial, the substance of the trial, the obligation to unsettle people who would otherwise look to him for understanding, the effort involved in maintaining confidence in Edmund Littlemore; and more. Kester had unnerved him: he’d kept things simple, believing a child’s credible allegations. Anselm was out on a limb, believing a man with a complex history and an implausible explanation. On pushing open the arched door at reception, he made a deep sigh of relief. There was a very particular aroma at Larkwood, impossible to describe or name, but unforgettable: a blend of incense, warm wax, flowers, old wood, fresh air, bleach and history; the history of men on their knees: that too, left a certain something in the air. On opening his eyes, he saw Sylvester. He was in his dressing gown – a tattered thing from his youth without a belt, held in place by frayed garden twine.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘I didn’t like him at first. But he’s a good lad. Knows his knots. He’s got something to show you. This time the Weaver’s gone too far.’

  Anselm wouldn’t have called Robert Sambourne a lad, any more than he’d have called Carrington shifty. He was a serious and composed young man. Perhaps Anselm had been looking at the Brandwells for too long, but he also detected suppressed sorrow. It marks the mouth and eyes.

  ‘You’re about to get Littlemore off this charge,’ he said. ‘He’s played this very cleverly – the not-talking routine. He’s outwitted you … and Carrington.’

  The journalist had taken a folder out of his rucksack. Opening it he removed a letter and began to read: ‘“Why have you given up? Victims always need help to speak out. Otherwise they get silenced by private agreements. Don’t let that happen. The American is hiding at Larkwood Priory. Do not delay. If he leaves, you’ll never find him again.”’ Robert passed over the single sheet of paper. ‘That’s the original. I’ve made a copy for you.’

  Anselm studied the indentations more than the words: the misaligned stamp of an old typewriter. Like Dunstan’s. Anselm handed the letter back, declining the duplicate. Its contents had been etched into his memory.

  ‘I’m fairly sure Carrington wrote it,’ said Robert. ‘He certainly sent Littlemore these.’

  Robert produced a number of enlarged photographs: pictures of news cuttings. Anselm glanced at a marked passage: I venture to call him naive and he agrees, almost happily. I ask why help the perpetrator? Sadly, our conversation ended there. And then another: I wonder if his capacity to trust is almost blinding. Over the page: A disciple of the fifties trad jazz revival … a horror of mobile phones. Further down: A sort of guestmaster for the homeless.

  ‘There’s a page of notes on jazz history, too.’ Robert leaned back. ‘I imagine he researched West End musicals to get near Emily Brandwell. He learned the words to the songs.’

  ‘Where did you get these?’ Anselm was barely able to speak. He was staring at the cuttings.

  ‘They were hidden at Littlemore’s place. You’ve been targeted.’

  Robert explained: Littlemore must have confessed to Carrington, aiming to use the sacrament as a shield. Carrington, finding himself silenced, sent Littlemore to Larkwood planning to expose him afterwards. Littlemore? He must have thought Carrington was helping him to protect the Order’s reputation. But he also …

  Anselm had ceased to listen. He was totally absorbed by the cuttings. Or, to be precise, the border. He recognised the album in which they’d been preserved. It was shelved in the library downstairs. For a long while he just stared at Bede’s handiwork. Robert’s voice finally broke through:

  ‘… so Carrington used me to get maximum press coverage and he used you to make sure Littlemore went down. Unfortunately, you’ve—’

  ‘The letter was written by Dunstan.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Anselm looked up. ‘I know who wrote the letter. He’s a member of my community. He’s dying thirty yards or so from where we’re sitting.’

  ‘Postmarked Glasgow?’

  Anselm nodded. ‘His brother Evelyn lives there. He sent the cuttings, too – I assume to Carrington who then faxed them to Littlemore. There’s no other explanation. Carrington must have contacted Dunstan … told him about Littlemore and then asked his advice.’

  ‘Told him he was guilty?’ ventured Robert. ‘Broke the Seal?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How then?’

  ‘There are ways of saying you’ve got a problem on your hands; ways of asking for help.’

  But Carrington had told Dunstan enough to get his warped imagination going. This entire scheme was evidently Dunstan’s invention.

  ‘How does this Dunstan know Carrington?’ asked Robert.

  ‘I’ve absolutely no idea.’

  And it didn’t matter: the evidence was there on the table before Anselm; it was there, in his memory, recalling Dunstan’s performance in the Scriptorium. He’d urged Anselm not to take the trial in the full knowledge that Anselm would do the opposite; knowing that Anselm didn’t want to be like him, unable to trust. Anselm felt a fool. And naive, only this time he wasn’t happy about it. Robert cleared Anselm’s mind by returning to the trial.

  ‘Littlemore is going to walk free. You’ve found someone else to blame.’

  ‘No. I’ve found evidence.’ Agitated, Anselm came to his feet and began pacing the room. ‘Something happened to Harry Brandwell in North Wales before he got home. He was with his uncle. And that uncle—’

  ‘Haven’t you considered that Littlemore and Justin could be in this together?’

  Anselm had explicitly rejected the possibility. With uncharacteristic petulance, he snapped back: ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I followed your cross-examination; and I agree: Harry was attacked at Harlech by his uncle. But these people often work in groups. They help each other. And it looks like the uncle passed his nephew on to Littlemore six months later.’

  Anselm was shaking his head. Perhaps he was out of his depth. Perhaps he’d been out of court too long. But he refused to accept what Robert was saying: it was unimaginable … and it would mean that Littlemore’s plea for the Silent Ones, all that stuff about ‘changing how we’re seen’, his longing to claim back some integrity – it would mean that the entire speech had been a cynical move to lure Anselm on side.

  ‘I’ve been contacted by a man called George Timbo,’ said Robert.

  ‘Who?’ Anselm felt like a man who’d tried to run away only to find that the door was locked. He sat down.

  ‘He’s a career civil servant from Sierra Leone. I traced him because I found out that Littlemore had been kicked out of the country. I wanted to know why and he told me.’

  ‘And?’

  Robert produced anothe
r glossy sheet: this time a print of a postcard. It showed children dancing in the sea. Anselm couldn’t make sense of the writing and he didn’t try.

  ‘It’s Krio,’ said Robert. ‘It’s an accusation. Basically it means you can’t hide who you are for ever. It’ll come out eventually.’ He took back the picture. ‘Littlemore didn’t get the chance to commit an offence because they stopped him first. He was travelling around, playing the same game he played here in England, getting near children he had no cause to meet or know. They put him on a plane. Didn’t take any chances.’

  Anselm glanced at a copied cutting, saved reluctantly by Bede: For a man who has confronted extreme evil he remains surprisingly buoyant about the human condition.

  ‘What was I thinking?’ he murmured.

  ‘The best of people, I imagine,’ said Robert. He collected his papers and put the folder back in his rucksack. Then, rising to his feet, he placed his business card on the table. ‘If there’s anything you think I can do, give me a call. I’ll let myself out.’

  Anselm didn’t move: his memory was turning back the pages. He’d sat like this, numbed, after Carrington had gone; he’d been thinking about John Joe Collins the wanderer from Boston, Massachusetts. Eventually, he’d left the parlour concluding that his life was about to become a little complicated. His naivety had been stratospheric. Humiliated, Anselm switched off the light. Rather than retire to his cell, he went to the infirmary.

  Dunstan lay perfectly still in bed, his thin arms lying on the white top sheet and tartan blanket. His dark glasses were on a side table. His eyes were closed. The sockets were black. His chest rose slowly and fell again. He was a few steps ahead of Father Tabley: the sand had almost gone from the timer. It was slowing now, as it does, just before the end. Anselm sat down on a chair.

  ‘Why not tell me, Dunstan?’ he said to the sleeping man. ‘Why make a fool of me – if only in your eyes? Couldn’t you have told me what you knew? Wouldn’t that have been a better way to die – to have worked with me, rather than against me? We could have handled Littlemore together, openly, simply, decisively. Now, I’ve raised a doubt in the jury’s mind.’

  Anselm stood and opened the door. But as the handle turned, Dunstan made a sigh, and then he spoke in his sleep, his face creased with pain.

  ‘I shared an office with Blunt, you know,’ he whispered. ‘Always knew he was bent.’

  39

  The Prior informed the community of Robert Sambourne’s disclosure the next morning and the upshot was astonishment at Dunstan’s eccentric interference and unqualified support for Anselm; at last they rallied around a single flag: pity for the fool who should have known better. They passed him in the cloister, strangely polite. Benedict and Jerome offered to take his turn washing the refectory floor. No one had any idea how Anselm might extricate himself from his predicament: he would return to court knowing his client was guilty but obliged to discredit his victim. Only Sylvester had words for the moment, disclosed on Monday morning:

  ‘Be prepared.’

  For what? Anselm thought, walking slowly along Holborn. The unexpected? That had already happened; and Anselm hadn’t been prepared. There was nothing he could do to resolve the situation. If Littlemore was convicted, that left Justin Brandwell free; if Littlemore was acquitted, the two of them would remain at large, all the wiser, far more careful, incapable of truly recognising the scale of harm they’d caused and might well cause again. The two of them plagued by a perverse, self-affirming guilt that would never lead to change. A narcissistic guilt, very close to pleasure, that fed on continual offending. Anselm could have wept. And not just for Harry. That phrase ‘the Silent Ones’ had captured his indignation and sense of purpose. It had brought within reach the silent suffering he’d known about but had never encountered. And it had all been a mirage, an alluring distraction to draw Anselm away from the awful truth. It had brought him on side to help the very people who thrived on silence.

  ‘Canna have a minute of yer time, Father?’

  Anselm stopped and turned. Standing in a closed shop doorway was a wiry, hunched figure, head shaven, hollow-cheeked, the forehead scarred above brown, childlike eyes. It was Fraser.

  ‘You need to know something, okay?’

  Another unwanted revelation? thought Anselm. He waited, already wearied.

  ‘I think you should know that there’s something passin’ between the granddaddy, Martin, and his son … Justin. I dunna know wha’ it is … but I’m sure it’s important, al’right? And I dinna like tellin’ ye, but I’ve got to think of the wee fella.’

  Anselm, of course, was hardly surprised; he didn’t need to be told, but he waited some more.

  ‘I followed Martin to a café where he met Justin.’

  Anselm nodded.

  ‘And Justin was all upset – cryin’ and that, and I’m a startin’ to think maybes he’s not the man I thought he was, you get ma meanin’?’

  Anselm did; he nodded sympathetically. Fraser’s hero and saviour was turning out to be the kind of man that had put people like Fraser on the street in the first place. His soft brown eyes were misting with a refusal to think that far, but he couldn’t stop his mouth:

  ‘I think summat might have happened to the wee fella on that holiday … I heard what you were sayin’ in court and I caught your drift, okay … and I just thought ye should know that the granddaddy seems to know already. I followed him to a café …’

  What could Anselm say? He went for phrases he’d often used at the Bar to calm those distraught relatives who couldn’t face an emerging truth about one of their kin:

  ‘A great deal can still happen. Everything can change its appearance. The trial is never over until the jury comes back with a verdict. Until then, try not to come to any conclusions.’

  With those words, he left Fraser wringing a flat cap as if it were a dish-cloth. Anselm was almost distraught himself: a broken man’s reconstructed world was about to be dismantled again, and this time there wouldn’t be much chance of building something new afterwards.

  Anselm turned into Old Bailey. He could see the court ahead and the group of steadfast protesters. He could see the banner held in silence by two people who’d used scripture to speak for them: ‘What you hear in the dark, you must speak in the light.’ But Anselm had heard nothing. He’d been in the dark and now he was approaching the light. What else could he do, except to cross-examine Harry Brandwell?

  40

  Robert wondered what the monk was going to do. Withdraw from the case? Pursue the line of attack upon Justin Brandwell? Or what? He could hardly contradict Harry Brandwell, not after what Robert had told him. The court clerk appeared. Mr Justice Keating came onto the bench. Grainger stood up, so did the monk, but he said nothing, resuming his seat to place his head in his hands, leaving Grainger to call his child witness.

  The TV monitors flickered into life, joining the court to the link room. Harry Brandwell appeared like the winner of a children’s competition, only his expression said he wished he’d lost. Robert had seen happier rabbits in his headlights. Harry took the oath. The live transmission cut and Grainger asked for the first video recording to be played. Moments later Harry appeared again, only this time younger. The evidence was fresh in Robert’s mind: Harry’s initial ‘complaint’ had been made to his mother by nodding at her questions. The police had been called. This interview had been the result.

  Robert watched intently: Harry sat there, staring towards the ground, ignoring the questions from Sanjay. He was like someone trained to resist a hostile interrogation, only Sanjay couldn’t have been nicer. The tape ended and Grainger asked for the second recording to be played.

  This time a very different boy appeared on screen: Sanjay barely had to ask any questions because Harry had heard them before; this time he was giving the answers … beginning from the moment ‘Father Eddie’ had lured him into the presbytery by a promise of chess stardom.

  Robert glanced over at Father Anselm. His head w
as still in his hands. He was listening rather than watching – or was he thinking, wondering what to do? Harry’s voice was loud and clear, flowing without hesitation. Sanjay teased out some detail, but with very little effort. Harry’s only impediment, it seemed, was natural embarrassment. There was no fear or anxiety. As if making the same observation the monk suddenly looked up and stared at the screen, this time appearing to watch rather than listen. Robert stared too, wondering what the monk was noting, because Harry was utterly convincing: this boy was telling the truth. There was a slight, trembling relief in his voice, as if the words spoken out loud were creaks in an opening gate, and he could see a new world on the other side of silence. And as Harry finished, he smiled … an unforgettable smile, because to Robert’s eyes – and no doubt to those of the jurors – he was a simple boy again; he’d retrieved something of his innocence, the unexpected gift that comes with absolute honesty. At a signal from Grainger, the recording ended and Harry appeared on the screen, sitting in the link room. He looked helpless and exposed. It was time to be cross-examined.

  ‘The Ring of Kerry is just incredible, isn’t it?’ Father Anselm had removed his wig. He was seated, looking at the small screen in front of him.

  Harry nodded.

  ‘Admit it, though, you pushed your bike up the hills?’

  Harry nodded again.

  ‘Me, too. Did you see Kate Kearney’s Cottage? The Blue Pool? And those incredible beehive cells on Skellig Michael?’

  Harry was nodding all the time.

  ‘How about Ladies View? Do you know why it’s called Ladies View?’

  ‘Because of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting. They liked the view.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Harry smiled nervously and Father Anselm turned whimsical: ‘I can’t think of anywhere in the world to compare with that little corner of south-west Ireland. What do you think?’

  ‘It’s really something else.’

  ‘Close to paradise … when it doesn’t rain?’