‘Correct.’ The doctor hung the medical notes on the bedstead. ‘The required surgical procedure is rather like patching the inner tube on your bike, but rather more difficult. You may record that for posterity, Edgerton. In the instant case, no post-op complications. One hitch: short-term memory loss. Treatment?’
Glances fell on Louise.
‘In effect, there is none.’ The doctor eyed his patient with pity. ‘To anchor events a routine and supported life is essential. Unless he writes things down, the recent past will draw back like the tide on Dover Beach. In the circumstances, that may not be a bad thing. Last night someone found him soaking wet. He’s now got mild to moderate hypothermia. Treatment, Gardner?’
‘Cover with blankets at room temperature.’
‘Precisely’ he replied. ‘What you see now is a pandemic condition characterised by static posture and reduced but reversible sensitivity to external stimuli. Diagnosis?’
No one spoke.
‘With respect,’ said Mr Hillsden apologetically ‘the term “asleep” has the advantage of economy.
Outside the ward, by a door marked EXIT, Anselm and Mr Hillsden once again faced each other. This time nothing lay between them, save for the kind of awkwardness that might befit separated friends. Anselm looked at the lowered head, the green cagoule and the polished, split brogues. Casually as he might have done on a rather stiff social occasion, he said, ‘Might I ask, to which Inn do you belong?’
For an instant, Mr Hillsden’s washed eyes caught Anselm’s gaze. A faint smile moved beneath the grizzled beard. ‘The Inner Temple.’ The words were barely audible.
‘Which chambers?’ asked Anselm carelessly.
‘3 Vellum Square.’
‘An.’ Anselm knew it well. ‘Facing that glorious magnolia tree?’
Mr Hillsden nodded. ‘There’s a sundial, too…’
Footsteps echoed, moving swiftly Anselm glimpsed the magenta scarf of Inspector Cartwright at the end of the corridor. He called out and she paused, retracing a few steps. With a brief wave, she came towards them.
‘She will be as grateful to you as I am,’ said Anselm, turning back to Mr Hillsden… but he was gone. Anselm ran through the EXIT door into a stairwell. Leaning over a railing, he could see nothing but a shadow thrown across the steps, descending.
‘Come back,’ he shouted.
The staff sounded on the stone like the tapping of a patient carpenter. A door closed out of sight and Anselm found himself alone with Inspector Cartwright.
‘Who’s that?’ she enquired. A breath of lavender came with her approach.
‘Just another member of the Bar,’ he replied.
Anselm and Inspector Cartwright chose window seats in the cafeteria. Down below the Thames seemed not to flow It flickered with light around a reflection of Parliament and Big Ben. The sky was immense, cold and blue.
‘Did you make any sense of those accounts?’ asked the Inspector, stirring foam in a mug of hot chocolate.
‘No,’ replied Anselm. ‘No matter how hard I looked.’
‘I don’t suppose it matters, now that Mr Bradshaw has turned up.
Anselm examined his toast. This was soft, additive-packed, white sliced bread. None of your grains and nuts, like the breeze blocks at Larkwood. It should have been a moment to relish, but his appetite had gone – with Mr Hillsden. ‘The letter from Elizabeth has been destroyed,’ he said shortly ‘George’s clothing was binned at three in the morning. The waste disposal truck came at six. I arrived at half eight. I think that just about explains what’s transpired in our absence.’
‘We’re stuffed, then,’ observed Inspector Cartwright.
‘Not quite,’ said Anselm. He measured his words with care, sharing a thought that had come to him earlier that morning. ‘All manner of fowl are drawn to the monastic life. Some are very talented but for years these guys have to follow the same routine as the rest of us. And then one day… the Prior gives them a job. Suddenly all that unexercised talent breaks out on the laundry, or the kitchens, or – and I have a concrete example in mind – the priory’s accounts. It’s hell for the rest of us, of course, but in that one quarter we have levels of efficiency the Bundesbank couldn’t dream of. All of which persuades me we should send the accounts to Brother Cyril. This is a man who spends the night hours chasing pennies, and he finds them.’
Inspector Cartwright had the original papers: she would fax them to Larkwood as soon as she got back to her office. Anselm wrote out the number, explaining that he’d prepare the way with a call to Father Andrew ‘In the meantime,’ he said, ‘I shall wait for George to wake up.’
What was Riley doing? The question was unspoken but it bound them together. Inspector Cartwright sipped her hot chocolate and Anselm nibbled his cold toast.
2
Riley glared at Prosser, at his felt hat, at the cigar jammed beneath a handle-bar moustache. They’d both set up their stalls in Beckton Park. The air was sharp and a frost had made the grass ribbed and hard. The ‘dealer’, as he called himself, had ambled over to Riley’s patch and was nosing through his goods. He stood with his hands behind his back, picking up this and that with a nod of approval.
‘Keep away from Nancy’ said Riley.
‘Whatever do you mean?’ Smoke came slowly from Prosser’s nostrils.
‘You heard me.’
Prosser stepped away but then hesitated. ‘Look, Riley were both men of business, so I’ll be honest. I’m interested in the shop, not your good lady. You’ve a prime location there. No offence, but I’d say the building requires the sort of investment you can’t afford.’
‘Push off.’
‘I’d give you a good price.’ He walked backwards, winking.
‘I’ll never sell.’
Riley held himself tight, arms wrapped across his chest. A chill had reached his bones and he squirmed, thinking of Wyecliffe’s questions. They’d burrowed into his head and eaten away at what was left of his peace of mind. He’d wanted the solicitor to weave his magic, to do something startling with the law that would protect him. But he couldn’t pull it off, not this time. Instead, he’d made it worse – deliberately – with that remark about the dead being on to Riley’s trail. For the first time, there was no Wyecliffe twitching by his side: he was on his own. Riley hugged himself more securely feeling more exposed than ever. Someone was after him. They were watching and waiting and they would come. A familiar racket began deep in the tissues of the brain: he heard bangs on the wall and screams on an upstairs landing. Riley covered his ears with gloved hands and stood to shake off the sound. Violence swirled inside, making his eyes glaze and dry out.
Riley blinked. Beckton Park appeared as if it hadn’t been there. Trees, grass and people became solid. Prosser was watching, legs crossed on a commode as if it were a throne, puffing on his cigar. Despite the cold, Riley felt sweat sting the corner of his eyes. When his head grew quiet, he sat down, slightly out of breath.
As if someone had turned on a radio by his ear, Riley heard himself talking to Nancy over his breakfast.
‘It was me,’ he said honestly feeling grubby ‘I oiled the wheel and I must have left the cage open.’
Nancy leaned on the counter almost dazed and unable to speak. Riley couldn’t understand it. She’d had three hamsters. When one died, she bought another. It was a routine. But this time it was different. She’d never been so winded.
Riley turned aside to escape the recollection. At once, his eye snagged on a billboard showing a smiling woman with a bottle of milk. Her lips were red and her teeth were as white as the sky There were lots of children in the background looking at the bottle, as if it would make them happy He swore and looked the other way But he saw a mother tabbing by a pram, and beside her a man, hungover, lean and yellow He closed his eyes to escape… everything. When he opened them he saw a newcomer thirty yards away He was reading the name on Riley’s van.
Major Reynolds had once said, ‘You’ve made lots of choices, and
you can make others.’ That one idea had stuck to Riley like pitch. He’d never been able to scrape it off. All he’d wanted was a warm bed for the night, but the Major had given him words that burned. You can make other choices. The idea was horrendous…
The man drew close. He was middle-aged, dressed in a bomber jacket, jeans and a cap. Uncertainty made him fidget with the zip on his jacket. He moved it up and down, and said, ‘Can I buy a number?’
Riley charged his eyes with disgust until they stung. Did he really want to do this any more?
‘Sorry,’ said the man fearfully ‘I’ve made a mistake…’
Riley summoned him back with a flick of the hand and took out a notebook. He flicked through the blank pages until he came to a calling card, picked up from a telephone booth near Trafalgar Square. Slowly he read out the number.
The man seemed to wake up, patting his pockets, trying to be normal. He took out a crumpled envelope and a pencil.
‘I’ll read that again,’ said Riley his attention shifting to Prosser. The dealer had sidled from behind his stall and was watching every movement. He lit a new cigar and studied the glow of red ash.
After jotting down the number, the man said, ‘I understand it’s fifteen quid?’
‘We don’t talk,’ said Riley taking the money ‘It’s the only rule.’
The man walked quickly away between the trestle tables and the moochers, tracked by Riley’s contempt. When he was out of view, Riley went through the motions (his mind returning at intervals to the sight of Nancy winded by the counter). He selected a vase from his table marked for sale at ‘?15’. He wrapped it in newspaper and put it in a crate – for transfer to the shop in Bow Then he opened a pad labelled ‘Van Sales’. He made out a receipt to record a fictional transaction: ‘One Vase. ?30 received in Cash.’ Carefully he detached the original from the blue duplicate beneath. Ordinarily this would go to the customer, but since there wasn’t one, Riley tore it to pieces. He then opened another pad marked Acquisitions’ and wrote out a second receipt – for an imaginary purchase: ‘One vase.?15 paid in Cash.’
When he’d finished, Riley dropped the pads into a cardboard box at his feet. He looked at them, at the bones of his system. Not since his childhood had he felt so strongly the desire to run away: from the voices, the billboards, the sheer filth of his existence. But he’d learned long, long ago, there was a most unusual pleasure that came with the staying.
Prosser ambled along a path puffing smoke. He was pretending to stretch his fat legs, to get some heat into his toes. In fact, he was trying to work out what had taken place before his eyes… just as Riley that morning – feeling queasy – had tried to make sense of Nancy.
3
‘Don’t use wise words falsely’ quoted Father Andrew.
Anselm had rung Larkwood to forewarn the Prior that a fax would shortly arrive for Cyril’s kind attention – it was an unlikely outcome, admittedly but it was important not to hold a man to his past. In the background he’d heard a bell, and, feeling abruptly homesick, Anselm had opened his heart: he didn’t know what to say to George Bradshaw; he was ailing with a strain of guilt. And that had provoked the familiar quotation from a Desert Father.
Anselm put the receiver down. Thoughtfully mouthing the phrase, he returned to the ward, where a nurse informed him that George was not only awake, but in a chair and anxious to meet him.
Anselm paused at the entrance. From a tinny radio, Bunny Berigan was playing ‘I Can’t Get Started’. The trumpet soared while Anselm examined the bandaged feet and dinted legs. Then Bun gave it voice:
I’ve flown around the world in a plane,
I’ve settled revolutions in Spain,
The North Pole I have charted,
But still I can’t get started with you.
Remembering Emily Bradshaw in Mitcham, Anselm entered the ward.
George had been conducting, but instantly he rose, his wrists quivering on the armrests as they took the strain. ‘Elizabeth said you’d come,’ he exclaimed, hand outstretched. ‘Funny thing is’ – he laughed quietly at the coming joke – ‘I can’t remember why.’
Anselm smiled thinly and he flinched at the old man’s grip. Mumbling how nice it was to see him, he sat on the edge of the bed, still wondering how to approach what had to be said. He couldn’t look at George, any more than Mr Hillsden had been unable to look at Anselm. Something tied them together, though, because they were both held spellbound by Bunny Berigan’s trumpet solo.
‘Even Louis Armstrong wouldn’t touch that number,’ observed Anselm, at the end of the song. It was hardly wise, but at least it wasn’t false.
George gave Anselm a friendly shove, as if they were pals sharing half a pint of mild. ‘These days,’ he said, ‘I’ve no choice about what I remember. Tomorrow, if we meet, don’t expect to pick up where you left off. Begin all over again. With me, I’m afraid, you’re always starting afresh… That’s not so bad, is it?’
Anselm raised his eyes, suddenly aware that a kind of pardon had been given to him. George’s thoughts seemed to mark his face like stippling on a reef, as though one might understand him by watching. There were no barriers left: the surface was the depth. Anselm was staring at George – right into him – and there was no anger, no resentment, no pride, just a certain shining quality, which might be the brightness of the light… and yet, which might not. Fumbling for confidence, he said, ‘Mr Bradshaw, about the trial, I asked you a very particular question.’
George raised a hand. ‘I’m no longer troubled by anything I can remember,’ he said simply ‘I’ve let it fall away… like a stone in the Thames.’ He patted Anselm’s arm, signalling the end of that particular conversation.
Anselm was disorientated, for this broken man spoke an idiom whose meaning he could barely follow (he’d had a similar problem with a traffic policeman in Czechoslovakia). On the one hand, the forgiveness had been given quickly and comprehensively; but on the other, it had come from a spirit of detachment that Anselm had never met before, save in some of the older monks at Larkwood. Anselm had no time to ponder either mystery because George had already moved on.
‘We went after Riley and I got hold of the works, like Elizabeth told me to.’
‘Yes.’
‘And she discovered what he was doing – it was there, in the numbers, plain to be seen. Once she’d cracked it she went to see him.’
‘Who?’
‘Riley.’
This was not something Anselm had anticipated. ‘What happened?’
‘She died,’ replied George. ‘I’m not saying he did anything, it’s just that death follows him around.’
Tentatively Anselm said, ‘Did she explain Riley’s scheme to you?’
‘Several times.’
‘Do you recall what she said?’
There was no doubt about it: George’s facial expressions revealed his thoughts. And at this moment it was evident that he considered Anselm to be rather slow ‘What do you think?’
‘No,’ replied Anselm apologetically.
‘Exactly’ George, however, was not especially troubled. ‘Elizabeth wrote it down. It’s in my jacket.’
Gently Anselm explained what had happened to George’s clothing, and, therefore, the letter, but the old fellow just made an ‘Ah’. That, it seemed, was just another stone in the river. Anselm was astonished. He said, as though to comfort himself, ‘But there’s still hope. Inspector Cartwright received all the business records through the post.’ He was struck by an idea. ‘Did you send them?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Anselm fetched up a grin. ‘Of course not. Sorry.’
‘I doubt if I posted anything, somehow’ George rubbed a finger into his brow, trying to knead a splintered thought to the surface. It wouldn’t come. He shrugged at the deep itch and said, ‘Can the Inspector understand them?’
‘No.’
‘Ah.’
‘But someone with an eye for these things will be considering them
shortly’
‘Very good.’
‘You’ve done your part,’ said Anselm, wanting to give something back to this man who’d given so much. ‘Now you can rest.’
George raised his legs, looking down at the bandaged feet. ‘I lost my shoes, somehow, and I got terribly wet and cold.’ He became confused, his mind in suspension; he seemed to have heard a noise, like a scratching behind the wall. Quietly he said to himself, ‘No… no… It’s gone.’
Later in the day Anselm would ring Inspector Cartwright to recount the conversation that revealed how little George knew, and how much. But first, there was something else to be done. He reached deep into the oldest part of anyone’s memory, saying, ‘Would you like to go home, George?’
4
Nick Glendinning sat in the sitting room at St John’s Wood twirling a piece of paper between his fingers. Written on it was the telephone number of the woman who’d asked about ‘her lad’, the woman who’d probably received his mother’s last words. She hadn’t rung Charles, or the police or the medical services. She’d rung this stranger. What had she said, before dying?
At first, Nick told himself that Father Anselm was handling Elizabeth’s final dispensations – she’d planned it that way – so he tried to forget the question: he signed up as a locum, and he tried to assume a normal life – until it dawned on him that he’d stumbled on another secret, his mother’s last; and that whatever she’d said was more important than the key or anything retained in its box. This realisation haunted him. It made him pick up the telephone.
‘My name is Nicholas Glendinning,’ he said. ‘I understand you know my mother.’
He pressed the receiver against his ear, to stop his hand from shaking. All he could make out was laboured breathing.
‘Can I meet you?’ said Nick, pressing harder.
The air whistled in his ear. ‘Did she tell you about me?’
‘No.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To talk about my mother.’
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