The Gardens of the Dead (8 page)

Shortly
before Nick had gone down under, she’d said, ‘We should settle on beliefs that
are worth the hazards of the race.’

Mildly
irritated, because they were watching
Ben Hur
and it was the exciting
bit when the chariots were crashing into each other, Nick said, ‘Would you
fight for yours?’

‘I
really don’t know.’ She spoke as if the crowds were waiting, but this was St
John’s Wood not the Colosseum.

Thinking
now of his mother on the edge of the sofa, eyes glued to the screen and
worried, Nick decided to ignore the parting advice of a monk. He pulled into a
lay-by and fished out Mr Wyecliffe’s business card. It was stained with oil
from the cashew nuts. He dialled the number on his mobile. The solicitor’s
surprise was forced and his charm predatory, as if he smelled business. An
appointment was made for the next day and Nick resumed the journey home,
wondering about the relief of Mafeking.

11

It was odd, but George
could remember in his sleep. Sometimes his dreams were like the old films shown
at Christmas. He watched with recognition. So when George was slipping away, he
would try to switch on what was lost to him while awake. Most of the time it
worked. But when he snapped upright it was with the horrible fear that he’d
made it all up.

With
the sharp stone, George scratched another day of waiting upon the wall. It was
early evening. Sheets of polythene wrapping flapped in the corner. He turned on
his pocket radio and Sandie Shaw sang ‘Puppet on a String’. He became drowsy,
drugged by the waiting and the cold. Elizabeth’s voice rose in his memory. They’d
often sat in Marco’s listening to the radio echo from the kitchen. Songs like
that were always being dug out. Quite deliberately, George held himself at the
line between sleep and wakefulness.

Elizabeth bought more cocoa
and toast. ‘You really have changed. I barely recognised you.’

‘You
keep saying that.’

‘I’m
sorry.

Elizabeth
picked up a triangle of toast with dainty fingers.

After
the trial Riley sold Quilling Road.’

‘Did
he?’

‘Yes.
And he left the Isle of Dogs. In fact, he was sacked. With the money from the
sale he set up a house clearance business.’

‘Did
he?’

‘Stop
asking if he did something, when I just said that he did.’

‘Fair
enough.’

Elizabeth
licked her thumb and forefinger. ‘He set up two companies. One of them is a
shop run by his wife, Nancy, whom you saw at court. I don’t suppose you met?’

‘No,’
said George. ‘It wasn’t that type of party.’

Elizabeth
dabbed the corners of her mouth. ‘The second business is Riley’s own concern.
He runs it from a transit van, selling odds and ends at fairs and bazaars.’

‘Stuff
from the house clearances?’

‘Yes.
So when he buys a job lot, everything is somehow or other divided between this
shop and his van.

‘So what?’
George wasn’t interested in Riley’s commercial habits.

‘Aren’t
you ever inquisitive?’

‘Not
really’ His eye fell on the last triangle of toast. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘He has
to file accounts at Companies House. I’ve read them.’ Elizabeth pushed the
plate towards George, as if it were a donation. She said, ‘I’m reliably
informed that this business isn’t what it seems.’

George
threw down a crust. ‘You’ve just said that he’s gone straight.’

‘No I
didn’t. I said he’d gone into business.’

‘What’s
the difference?’

‘All
the figures add up perfectly’

George
couldn’t understand lawyers. How could they see a weakness that wasn’t there?
Mind you, that was what the other one had done. How had he known to ask about
David Bradshaw? Duffy was his name. He’d got lots of pages all to himself in
book thirty or so.

Elizabeth
said, ‘To find out what he’s really doing we need to see more than a balance
sheet.’

‘We?’

‘Sorry,’
said Elizabeth with a smile. A slip of the tongue. But now you mention it, I’ve
an idea.’

‘Have
you?’

Elizabeth
glowered at him. ‘Yes. Both companies are registered at Nancy’s shop.’

‘What
does that mean?’

‘It’s
their official business address. Riley is obliged by law to keep all financial
records for seven years. I doubt if he keeps a filing cabinet at home.’

‘So
what do you suggest?’

‘Nancy
is the key. She must have turned aside from so much to have seen so little.’

‘Your
idea… it wouldn’t be me knocking on the door and introducing myself?’

‘Not
far off, George. Imagination and subtlety would have taken you the remaining
distance.’

‘Would
it?’

Elizabeth
glowered again and refused to answer.

A loud flap from the
polythene nudged George into wakefulness. The present moment gathered density,
becoming prickly; he had pins and needles along one arm. The conversation was
still complete, like an echo. He listened to the aftershock, understanding —
for that moment of rebounding — all that had happened over the following
months. But then an awful doubt came over him: had it all been a dream? With a
torch held under his chin, he fumbled through his notebooks. He turned the
pages quickly, his mind growing dim, Elizabeth’s words fading… until he
paused to smooth out a dog-ear at the beginning of book thirty-six. There was
the heading. It brought back her voice: ‘George, this is what you are going to
do.’

12

After compline Anselm
knocked on the Prior’s door. It was the Great Silence, but Father Andrew never
let a rule, however ancient and secure, take primacy over an insistent worry. A
fire had been made. Two chairs had been placed in front of it. The Prior was
already seated, arms on his knees. Light flickered upon broken glasses that had
been repaired with a paperclip.

Anselm
took his place. ‘You know of the key?’

‘I do.’

By the
hearth was a life-size statue that he’d never seen before. Such things turned
up occasionally in the fields, or by the Lark near the abbey ruin. Once cleaned
up, they stood in for garden gnomes in the grounds. This one had lost its head
and an elbow. Whoever it was stood like an observer of sacred things long gone.

‘I
suspect you know everything else,’ said Anselm, grateful to have an ally.

The
Prior shook his head. ‘All I’m sure of is this: in the nicest possible way, we’ve
been set up.’

They
looked at the wrangle of impatient flames. The wood was wet and hissed and
steamed.

While
Larkwood was a deeply impractical place, its traditions were very ordered when
it came to talking — because of the Rule’s insistence on listening.
Back-and-forth dialogue wasn’t the norm with serious matters. You took turns.
At a nod from Anselm, the Prior kept the initiative.

‘Elizabeth
asked to see me — in confidence — the week before you came to Larkwood, which
is to say about ten years ago. Inadvertently it seems, you had given me a
favourable recommendation. Or, at least, the kind that spoke to her.’

Anselm
had said that the Prior pops illusions… it was all he could remember saying.

‘She
made an appointment. She came all the way from London. But she couldn’t speak.
We just looked at each other. And something surfaced while I was watching
her… anger, helplessness… and finally she said, “How can evil be undone?”‘
The Prior scratched his scalp. ‘We spent the next hour exploring this
territory, never approaching a specific issue. And yet I was talking to a
haunted woman.’

Anselm
remembered his own conversations with Elizabeth on those dark Friday nights:
she’d been intellectually tireless, searching out the implications of every
nuance. When she’d come to Finsbury Park, she’d told of a voice that would not
be stilled and Anselm had said that to understand the ways of the heart you
need a guide…

‘Years
later she asked to see me again,’ resumed Father Andrew, eyes on the fire. ‘She
didn’t want you to know of her visit, so we met while you were away In many
respects it was a re-run of our first encounter, only this time the anger and
helplessness had been replaced by despair. As before, she did not speak. So I
asked her a question, “Why are you unhappy?” Almost whispering, she said, “I’m
implicated in a homicide.” And then she seemed to slip away, leaving her body
behind. I said, “I think you need a solicitor not a monk.” She replied, “It’s
not the law that has a claim upon me. It’s my “‘

‘Conscience,’
Anselm interjected. The Prior nodded.

Kierkegaard
had called it ‘an affair of the heart’. Anselm’s rebelled. He’d been in the
same position as Elizabeth: they’d both defended guilty men before. And if
Riley were connected to the death of John Bradshaw, conscience could not hold
either Elizabeth or Anselm to be responsible. There was no link between
anything they had done and that outcome. So how had the discomfort become
anguish? Mechanically, Anselm surmised that this particular visit to Larkwood
must have occurred shortly after Elizabeth had received the letter from Mrs
Bradshaw.

‘We sat
in silence,’ continued the Prior, gazing into the fire. ‘Gradually, as it were,
she came back, and we talked of her work — of revenge and fair dealing, of
injury and restoration, of judges and juries: these ideas, and their
connections, seemed to fill her mind, and she sifted through them as if she
were doing a jigsaw whose picture it was desperately important to complete…
and keep out of view.’

The
Prior leaned forward and threw another log on the fire. Flakes of orange ash
burst free and rose and turned instantly to grey.

‘The
last time I saw her was a month ago. She wanted to talk to you, but only after
a meeting with me — which was, however, to remain confidential. She was neither
angry, nor helpless, nor desolate. I found her composed; you might even say at
peace. He took off his glasses and fiddled with the paperclip. ‘Going back to
the jigsaw, I think the gathering of the pieces was over. She said, “I’ve
thought a great deal about our previous discussions and, as a result, I’ve
been tidying up my life.” I waited, expecting her to tell me what this had all
been about, but she confided nothing. So I said, “If ever I can help again, don’t
hesitate to ask.” She smiled, saying, ‘Actually, I’ve a small favour to ask.”
And at that strange moment, I felt like the first domino in a queue.’ The Prior
repositioned his glasses and looked to Anselm, as if inviting the next in line
to relate the fall.

Anselm
said, ‘She wondered if I might be free to run an errand on her behalf.’

‘She
did,’ said the Prior. ‘And I agreed.’

‘She
then said, “May I give him a key to be used in the event of my death?”’

‘She
did. And I agreed.’ The Prior pursed his lips, thinking. ‘What you will not
know are the instructions she then gave me regarding what should happen after
you had opened the box. They were precise. As regards myself, I was to wait,
otherwise you would not understand what I was to say As regards yourself, she
said, “Firstly Anselm should visit a Mrs Bradshaw She wrote to both of us many
years ago. She deserves a reply” Does that mean anything to you?’

‘I’ve
just read it.’

While
Anselm explained what had been written, the Prior went to his desk and opened a
drawer. ‘She then said, “Secondly please give him this letter. He should open
it when he has left Mrs Bradshaw After that, everything should fall into place.”
And she added, ‘A police officer called Inspector Cartwright will one day thank
you, as I do.” I’d have called a halt to this drama, if it hadn’t been for her
resolve and.., her pain.’

Anselm
took the envelope. It bore his name in her small, painstaking hand. ‘And then,
to evoke the past, she sought me out with a box of chocolates.’

The
Prior sat down with a sigh, rubbing the back of his head — a gesture possibly
from his younger days in Glasgow ‘Tell me all about it; from when you first met
her.’

From
when you first met her. The Prior, like Anselm, was already looking further
back than appearances would warrant. Accordingly, Anselm began with a
conversation on a Friday night long before the Riley trial, a talk about
parents, children and dying.

It was late when Anselm
finished. Larkwood’s owl — heard but never seen — had taken flight, and was
hooting round the spire, permanently baffled by the fearlessness of the
partridge weathervane.

‘I
suppose Sylvester told everyone that Inspector Cartwright came here?’ asked the
Prior.

‘Not
quite, but the bulk of the message got through.’

‘She
believes that John Bradshaw’s death was a revenge killing linked to the Riley
trial, although the mechanics were beyond proving. We decided that Elizabeth
must have come to a similar conclusion, because this was undoubtedly the homicide
to which she’d referred. This, however, was not the only matter we discussed.
It transpired that in the seconds before she died, Elizabeth had made a
telephone call to Inspector Cartwright.’