The Silent Ones

by William Brodrick

  Harry didn’t know what to think. He’d rebuffed his grandfather and Uncle Justin. They’d both come to him almost on their knees begging for forgiveness and he’d looked past them into the garden, trying not to blink until the two of them had gone. He hadn’t offered them a glance or a word; and he’d almost enjoyed their hopeless pleading. But looking at this shrine, this mountain of lies and manipulation, Harry felt something very different in the warmth of a dawning light. He saw the two men again, heads bowed. They’d been trapped. Like Harry, they’d been exploited and twisted into doing things they would never have wanted to do. The three of them had been forced into the one invisible prison, kept apart and set against each other. In their case, for the sake of his grandma and her belief in Father Tabley. In Harry’s case, for the sake of a would-be father, broken by the loss of children he’d never had.

  Staring at the mound of flowers, the warming light grew stronger still: it was for the sake of Ryan and Katie and Ellie, because of the real experiences that Harry had shared with them, that Harry would try and forgive his relatives. If he could never understand the actions of Fraser, he could totally understand the mistakes of his uncle and grandfather. There was something he could save from the tangle of betrayal and coercion because there was something they’d shared in common. Sanjay had named it as he’d closed his folder.

  ‘You’ve all been victims. And victims have to stick together.’

  Harry went home making a number of resolutions. The New Year’s kind. Sincere and easily broken because they were secret. But it was a beginning. First, he’d ask to go back to ‘Speakers’ Corner’ with his Uncle Justin. Second, he’d suggest going to a concert at the bandstand with his granddad. And third, he’d say sorry to Gutsy for having lied. He’d broken the golden rule between blood brothers; and they were halfway there now, because Gutsy had gone and cut himself on the kitchen knife.

  53

  Father Dominic Tabley was arrested on the same day that Justin Brandwell made a complaint of historical abuse to the police. He admitted everything. Writing in the Guardian, Robert revisited evidence adduced in the Littlemore trial, covering the allegations in great detail. Other papers followed suit. A public discussion was underway as people who’d known the great man in Newcastle made sense of the monster who’d terrorised a boy in London. One question arose with sickening inevitability: were there others, like Justin, who’d felt unable to contact the police? Robert followed up his report with a series of essays exploring the anatomy of abuse, the allure of secrecy, and the inner devastation that always came with silence. He spoke to survivors – of violence, exploitation, torture and kidnap – observing that redemption always began with talking. Closing the paper on the final article, Anselm found himself waiting with quiet if melancholic anticipation. Would the others follow Justin’s example? Would those who needed a trial to find closure actually find the confidence to come forward?

  Only time would tell.

  In the meantime there was a hiatus. And Larkwood’s Prior decided to fill it. Given the sophistication (not to mention the deceit) involved in Dunstan’s plan – his use of Anselm and Larkwood in the hands of others to expose Dominic Tabley – the Prior organised a meeting of the entire community, to be addressed by the two protagonists, Edmund Littlemore and George Carrington. There was a need for a great gathering in. There were many questions to be answered. And so everyone assembled in the circular Chapter Room. A candle was lit on a central stand behind the chairs of the invited speakers. Anselm, seated in his recess in the wall, listened intently.

  ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget the day of my election,’ said Carrington. ‘First I took the oath of secrecy regarding the contents of the secret archive, then there was a celebratory meal, and later I spent the evening reading a monograph on Ruusbroec, but I couldn’t concentrate. Shortly before he died, Owen Murphy got blind drunk. I found him crying, inconsolable, and all he’d say was that if he could have his time again he’d never have allowed himself to be elected Provincial. I don’t know why, but I threw the article aside and went straight to the safe. On opening the door I saw a pile of brown envelopes. Dominic Tabley’s name was written on them all.’

  Carrington had come to a swift, if assumed, conclusion. Sailing close to the wind, he’d called two of the named parties inviting them to contribute funds to one of Tabley’s social projects. The icy refusals had confirmed his suspicions. The legendary hermit had a buried past.

  ‘Given my oath of secrecy,’ said Carrington, ‘I was powerless to act. However, I’d noticed that all the named parties were resident in England. There were no … arrangements between Father Tabley and anyone in Sierra Leone.’

  Given the recurring nature of the crime, Carrington refused to believe that Tabley’s offending had been confined to his time in London. And so he saw a way forward: if he could unearth an offending history in Sierra Leone, then criminal proceedings might be possible over there, which would pave the way for an investigation here in England. The problem was how to get someone onto Tabley’s past without telling them what they were actually doing.

  ‘I was the solution,’ said Edmund, wryly. ‘George sent me to Freetown. Told me to find anyone who remembered Father Tabley and remind them his jubilee was approaching. Extend invitations. Suggest they contribute to the celebration.’

  In this way Carrington had sent Edmund towards potential victims whose experiences had not been brought to the attention of the Order. The scheme worked. Summoned to meet a dying man, Edmund found himself at the beside of a tormented witness, a onetime school janitor whose later preferment had been bought with silence. In tears, he revealed a history of abuse at St Lambert’s Academy that had never been openly addressed. The school had simply been closed and the perpetrators brought back to England, Dominic Tabley chief among them. Literally. But that status, linked to the fact that the officials who’d negotiated the closure were now distinguished public figures, meant that powerful people had a vested interest in keeping a hidden scandal hidden. No sooner had Edmund begun asking questions than vague but damaging accusations were made against him and his visa was promptly withdrawn – almost certainly by the same people who stood to face censure if Edmund’s enquiries continued.

  ‘I was annoyed with George,’ confessed Edmund. ‘I’d come to England to get away from one scandal and he’d sent me towards another. I said just that, on the day I got back to London. I made a lot of noise. And then he pointed out that I’d left England at the age of two. That if my parents had stayed together in London, I could have grown to be one of the victims – which shut me up because he was right. Father Tabley had been very close to my mother, more than just a friend. He’d done the same thing in Freetown. Made himself part of the family. Displaced a few fathers. The man had a system.’

  The recognition of his good fortune transformed Edmund’s understanding of why he’d come to England. All the more so because, shortly afterwards, he received a message on a postcard from the widow of the man who’d died plagued by guilt. There’d been no accusation. Just a stark warning that Dominic Tabley couldn’t have changed. A warning that couldn’t be ignored. Under the pretext of compiling a secret memoir, Edmund set out to find the children he might have harmed. It had become a very personal project, watched with seeming detachment by Carrington. Edmund, of course, could not have known about the secret archive, or its contents.

  ‘After tracing Justin Brandwell I was certain that he was a burdened man. I pursued him, hoping he’d be the one to speak out first, making it that little bit easier for any others, but he refused. He bound me to silence, along with George, and I thought the project had foundered. But then – and I don’t want to be misunderstood, because the experience has been awful – I had the good fortune to be falsely accused.’

  The ensuing nightmare put Edmund right at the centre of the secrets which crippled the Brandwell family; secrets linking Harry Brandwell to Justin and Justin to Dominic Tabley. Although that’s not how Edmund saw
it at the time. He’d gone to George Carrington who sat frozen with shock for something like five minutes before he lifted the phone and said, ‘I know an extremely unpleasant man who’ll know what to do … if there’s anything that can be done.’

  That man was, of course, Father Dunstan Hartley-Wilkinson, Carrington’s former tutor at Cambridge. He’d listened in disgruntled silence and then hung up. The next morning, he called back. Carrington’s recollection of the exchange was so vivid, Anselm almost felt he’d been there, gripping a second receiver.

  ‘There’s only one solution,’ said Dunstan. ‘It probably won’t work but it’s worth a shot. Do as I say, for once.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘This Littlemore, has he got any guts?’

  ‘I really don’t know. But he cares.’

  ‘Caring is not enough. He’ll need something like hate or anger if he’s to survive. Love betrayed would be ideal, but a man can’t choose his wounds.’

  ‘Survive what?’

  ‘You’ll receive some cuttings after this call. They’re character assessments of Anselm. You’ve heard of him. He’s ideal for this operation. Give them to Littlemore. Tell him to study them carefully.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I don’t require interjections. Just make notes. He must go homeless for a month, turn up at Larkwood using a false name, befriend Anselm and contrive to remain here. After six months I’ll write to the journalist and expose him. You must come here at the same time and ask Anselm to find Littlemore. We’ll liaise. Hopefully their paths will cross and then we’ll all be damned in the public eye. That will raise the profile of the coming trial.’

  ‘What trial? The boy hasn’t spoken.’

  ‘Arrange for Anselm to meet the Brandwells. He’ll be stumped. He won’t say that Littlemore is at Larkwood because Littlemore isn’t wanted by the police. But if he meets the boy – and we have to pray that he does – he’ll tell him to speak out. And this is the weakest point; it could all fall apart here, because we have to pray that the boy sticks to his story. There’s a chance. He’s lied once so he might lie again, especially if he thinks Littlemore is out of reach. Are you noting this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Some indication would be helpful. Next. After his arrest, Littlemore is to say nothing to the police. He can only speak to Anselm, and when he does, it is to ask him to defend him; that by defending him, he’ll reach the Silent Ones.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Silent Ones. Use that exact phrase. It will draw Anselm back into court. Thereafter, everything should fall into place. Here and abroad.’

  Carrington didn’t know what to say. He looked at the receiver as if he’d been connected to Wonderland.

  ‘You doubt me?’ called Dunstan, sounding mad. ‘Think it through and you’ll see there’s no other way to help the people who need to be helped and to expose those who need to be exposed.’

  Carrington had put the phone down thinking he’d wasted his time. But his mind kept returning to the elements of Dunstan’s so-called operation, and the more he did so, the more he became convinced that it might actually work … that it showed a certain genius.

  ‘He’d built something extraordinary around Edmund’s failed investigation. While it was outlandish, if successful it would overcome every complication in the case, meet every difficulty, respect every sensitivity. I was astounded at his intellectual and moral daring.’

  Carrington embellished his point by explaining the restrictions inherent to his circumstances. He couldn’t go to the police because there was no crime to report – not that he actually knew of. He’d been sworn to secrecy in respect of confidentiality agreements made before his election and he couldn’t go behind them: the individuals concerned had a right to anonymity and he had to respect their elected silence. For that very reason he couldn’t confront Tabley himself. At the same time, Carrington suspected that each individual had almost certainly thought they’d been an isolated case, but he couldn’t take the initiative to disabuse them, since that would involve not only breaking his oath, but violating the secrecy attached to each separate agreement. Moreover – and critically – with each victim compartmentalised, they’d lost any sense of a greater identity, along with any consequent sense of solidarity, shared power and mutual authority. Each of them would have thought that in exposing Dominic Tabley – by then an acclaimed figure – they would be assuming all the responsibility for any scandal.

  ‘And then I realised what Dunstan was trying to do in using the press,’ said Carrington. ‘It wasn’t to provoke outrage. He saw publicity as the only means to reach the people who were lost to the public eye, but who formed the public eye … the people who quietly read the papers and watched the television and listened to the radio, thinking that their story was their own story and no one else’s. A story best left untold.’

  Dunstan had evidently realised that, if Anselm went back into court, he’d be faced with the evidence collected by Edmund. He’d have to try and make sense of the fact that Edmund had been investigating Tabley. All he’d have to do is find out why Harry Brandwell had been silenced and that would lead him to Justin’s great secret.

  ‘This is why I decided to endorse the scheme,’ said Carrington. ‘Because I recognised that Dunstan was right: there was no other way to save Edmund, no other way to save Justin and no other way to save Harry. And no other way to reach the Silent Ones. He’d devised a means of not only flushing out the crimes of Dominic Tabley and the mistakes of my Order, but also exposing the well-intentioned secrets that were crippling the Brandwell family, a family that stood as a symbol for all the others. And he’d done that by convoking not the police, whom he couldn’t approach in any event, but representatives of the very institution that had failed the victims in the first place. I have to admit, I was awed by the breadth of his vision. And moved … because the prospects of success rested not upon his planning or Edmund’s daring … but two short prayers.’ Carrington looked around the room, taking his time to make eye contact with every member of the community. Reaching Anselm he stopped, and said, ‘I apologise without reservation for the duplicity involved. I hope it was justified by the seriousness of our purpose and, I dare say, the obedience of a pupil to an obnoxious teacher who wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

  The Prior thanked the two speakers and then asked the question that was on Anselm’s mind: ‘What’s happening about Sierra Leone?’

  ‘This, too, is part of Dunstan’s programme,’ replied Carrington. ‘If you like, we’ve turned full circle. I’d hoped people would come forward in Freetown prompting revelations here in London. Now it’s the other way around. We can only wait. It is a deeply private and personal decision. Our objective has simply been to create the conditions in which a free and fearless choice can be made.’

  At the conclusion of the meeting Anselm thanked his collaborators and then quickly retired to his cell. The ‘gathering in’ had exhausted him. While Carrington had maintained the fretful detachment of an agent handler, Anselm (like Edmund) had relived the anxiety of the man on the ground who’d taken significant risks, not knowing if his stumbling in the dark would lead anywhere. He’d been worn out by the recollection of trusting Edmund against the odds, trying to reach Harry Brandwell, accepting the dismay of his parents, struggling to interpret Justin’s behaviour, invigilating the disintegration of flawed relationships … the sheer mechanics of aiming to bring a true and lasting resolution to the problems of a gravely damaged family. As a kind of animated backdrop, playing constantly even as Carrington joked about Dunstan, he kept seeing Fraser tip backwards, arms extended, eyes closed. In the split-second coldness of the moment, no part of Anselm had wanted to reach forward to save him. A callous disregard for a ruined life had emerged just as Harry came running towards him. And now he felt a peculiar species of guilt. That recollection was exhausting too. All this had flowed from Dunstan’s plan, crafted overnight in a cell ten yards from his own. Turning off the light, Anse
lm thought of the old man, confined now to the infirmary. He’d never liked him, and he still didn’t like him, though he now had a grudging admiration. Most of all, however – and for the first time – he wanted to understand him. Being twisted and embittered didn’t explain Dunstan’s feverish desire to unmask Dominic Tabley. There had to be another reason. Something like hate or anger. Or love betrayed.

  54

  The Silent Ones grew day by day. Some openly, some anonymously. A special kind of voice was taking shape, gathering depth and colour. Its volume was growing. Police officers, using the memoir collated by Edmund, were able to approach individuals and sensitively explore the past, opening the door for a voluntary disclosure. Some took the opportunity; others did not. They’d been given the choice. Articles in the Guardian and other papers brought these testimonies together, creating a bond between people who’d never met one another. Among those who found the courage to speak was Maisie Brandwell. But not in public. She came to Larkwood by appointment to see Anselm.

  ‘I’ve a confession to make,’ she said, leaving Martin to pick some plums.

  They sat at a table beneath a wellingtonia tree in an enclosed herb garden. Limes and chestnuts gave shade to the flowers and weeds that grew by the surrounding white fence. Small fish nipped the surface of a large green pond in the centre.

  ‘I think I was in love with him,’ said Maisie. ‘Awful, isn’t it? I was a married woman with children. I used to imagine that if anything terrible happened to Martin while he was out in Cambodia then maybe Dominic would leave his Order. It was all nonsense, of course. All in the mind. But it’s what I used to think. One of those dreams that you’d never take seriously. But you keep returning to it.’

  It seemed to Anselm that Maisie had fragmented. She spoke coherently, but moving around, like someone stepping from one stone to another, leaving behind what she’d just said. She’d lost her blinkers and couldn’t see straight.