‘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 work
s 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.
PART THREE
a boy’s progress
1
‘I’m no fool, Arnold,’ said Nancy Riley to the hamster. ‘It all adds up.’
It was early morning and she’d just slipped into the kitchen, leaving her man groaning in his sleep.
Nancy could see the connections between things. Always had done. When she’d worked for Harold Lawton on the Isle of Dogs she’d once spotted a petty fraud at the hands of the wharf manager.
‘When I showed the boss how it was done,’ murmured Nancy ‘he said I could’ve gone places.’
That was a long time ago, but the same sensation of discovery had settled on Nancy all over again: there was a link between things that didn’t seem to be connected: the death of that barrister, the photograph that arrived in the post and the change in her man’s nightmares.
A couple of weeks back, Nancy had bought a paper. A name on page five caught her eye. Elizabeth Glendinning QC, a well-known barrister, had been found dead at the wheel of a car parked in the East End. She had died of heart failure while trying to call for help. That evening Nancy showed the article to her man.
‘What a coincidence,’ said Nancy ‘She was just up the road from Mile End Park.’
Riley nodded, staring at the paper.
‘Did you see her at the fair?’ asked Nancy.
Riley’s jaw moved as if his gums were itching.
‘They found some old spoons on the seat,’ continued Nancy pensively ‘It’s sad if you ask me.’
During the night Riley moaned like he was being fried on a low heat. His face was hot and wet. And then, a couple of days ago, the letter came. Well, it wasn’t a letter. Riley tore it open and out popped a photograph. The two of them stared at the crimped black and white square on the table. Nancy noticed a booming chest and wide braces, a shirt without a collar.
Riley’s hand slammed onto the smiling face as if it were a wasp.
Nancy jumped. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked, shaken.
‘No one.’ His e
yes were trained hard on his fingers as if something might crawl out.
Nancy didn’t press her man. She’d learned not to. She could read the signs. He was like hot water in a pan, close to the boil. That night he screamed. In itself, that was no surprise: Riley had suffered nightmares since the trial. (‘Occupational hazard,’ said Mr Wyecliffe, as if he had them too.) They were always the same: he was running for dear life, chased by something like a dog they’d once seen at the races, and then he was falling… but this time it was slightly different.
‘What is it?’ wailed Nancy She’d been listening to his muttering but the cry had come like a brick through the window. To her astonishment he buried his head into her neck.
‘I’m falling’ – Nancy stroked his wet scalp. It was bony like a rock on the beach. His hand covered hers and they stayed like that, as if they were waiting for an ambulance; and then Riley added the bit that was new, the change in the dream – ‘I’m just falling down an endless stairwell.’
A stairwell? Strange things, are dreams.
From that day on, Riley’s nightmares got worse. To make himself tired, he started walking in the middle of the night along Limehouse Cut, the canal that ran through Bow to the Thames. He’d listen to the foxes in the old warehouses. But that was later. On this night, when he’d calmed down, Riley turned his back on Nancy and she felt her own stomach fail, for he was always moving away and she’d never got used to it. And Nancy said to herself, I’m not stupid. This dream, the photo and the death of that barrister are tied up somehow Mr Lawton hadn’t believed her, but in the end she’d been proved right, and he’d said, ‘You could’ve gone places.’
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