‘Best be off,’ said Babycham, checking her watch – it was small and gold with trinkets dangling off the strap: a horse, a pig and a penny ‘I’d stay but I’ve a plane to catch. Winter break.’
‘Very nice.’
‘Who’d’ve thought there’d be an airport between the King George and the Royal Albert. The place was dead.’
With a quite awful longing, Nancy wanted to go back to those days of heavy morning mists… when they’d first arrived at the docks, when she’d tramped up the iron stairs to the office with a view of the river. On some days, you wouldn’t be able to see it until lunchtime. As the sun burnt through the sodden cloud, the waves would appear, here and there, like silver chains. She wanted to wind back time some more, into the yard, by the toilets, when they’d changed their mind about Carmel. They’d felt sorry for her main. Exclusions weren’t so bad, then, although it had felt like it. She said, And who’d’ve thought you’d be cooking dinner for Mr Lawton.’
Babycham pressed a button on a key and a nice car winked. It was like magic.
Nancy said, ‘I’ll see you around, then.’
‘No. You won’t.’ She didn’t deal in returns, Babycham. And she always spoke her mind.
‘Ta-ra, then.’
‘Yes, ta-ra.’
When the bus pulled into the depot, Nancy changed numbers and followed another route, her face set against the window It was useless, but she kept looking for Mr Johnson, while her mind kept turning to Arnold. Her breath steamed up the glass. She gave it a rub with the sleeve of her coat… and out of nowhere, she remembered seeing her man at the top of their street at two in the morning Nancy knew it was him from his walk, and the way his arms swung like loose ropes.
9
As Nick drove through the pinks and thatch of Suffolk, he continued to brood upon the tall figure at the window of the Butterfly Room. Charles had been watching as Nick pulled away on yet another solitary jaunt in the Beetle.
Ironically since Nick had left Australia, a great distance had fallen between them. Nick had been making short expeditions: from Larkwood, to Mr Wyecliffe, to Dr Okoye, to Mrs Dixon and now, coming full circle, back to Larkwood again. And he had said nothing to his father – not since he’d concluded that the dear old buffer hadn’t the faintest idea what his wife had been up to. Driving through the monastery gates, Nick resolved to buy some red mullet and white Burgundy He would cook the meal that his father had planned on the day Elizabeth had died. And, when they were warm and tipsy he’d tell him all that had been happening while they’d both been far away on different continents.
Nick couldn’t take his eyes off his mother’s accomplice: a solemn man in a school blazer that was far too small for him. The white cuffs of an ample shirt stuck out from the sleeves. A blue-and-yellow-striped tie suggested membership of an exclusive cricket club. His eyes were dark, like rings in pale saucers.
Apart from Nick and Mr Bradshaw, seated round the table were Inspector Cartwright and three monks: the Prior of Larkwood, Father Anselm and Brother Cyril – a man whose pinned sleeve would have evoked Admiral Nelson, had it not been for his defining squareness. He seemed to have lost his neck, never mind an arm. They assembled in a cool room of thick white stone. Arched windows threw sunshine across the old flags like banners of yellow cloth.
‘It’s all very simple,’ said Brother Cyril, as if it were a complaint. ‘In a nutshell, it’s a scheme to sell information, but it’s hidden within a legitimate business. I became suspicious because if you look at the receipt numbers and the dates and the description, on one and the same day Mr Riley sometimes sells an object but then buys it back again. I’ll give you an example. Let’s take that ashtray Imagine it’s on Mr Riley’s stall. There’s a little sticker on it marked ‘?15’. But he sells it for?30. Then he buys it back again for ?15. It’s a crazy way of accounting for the fact that he’s made?15 and the ashtray hasn’t left the table.’
‘But that isn’t what we’ve been told,’ said Inspector Cartwright. ‘Our understanding is that people arrive, give him money and then leave.’
‘Of course they do, because that’s exactly what happens: they buy some information.’ Brother Cyril scanned his audience. ‘The shenanigan with the receipts is done afterwards. It only occurs on paper. The ashtray doesn’t even move. But the receipts show that a different kind of sale has occurred. They prove that Riley pocketed?15.’
‘But why do you think he’s selling information?’ asked Father Anselm tentatively.
‘Because otherwise,’ snapped Brother Cyril, ‘someone’s giving him money for nowt.’
Nick was amazed. Neither of the other monks was in the least discomfited by the ill temper of their confrere.
‘And why go to such lengths?’ added the Prior. Each eyebrow was like a chewed toothbrush, and his glasses were lopsided, with a paperclip on one side for a screw He had received Nick with surprising warmth.
‘There’s only one explanation,’ said Brother Cyril, raising a thick index finger. ‘If he got rumbled, he could trace every transaction, just like I’ve done. He can account for every penny received. There’s no cash in hand. So he can show that when all’s said and done, he’s paid tax on the lot. In fact, he’s in breach of all manner of accounting rules because this is a completely separate business – and he wouldn’t pay any tax at all if he’d set it up properly And that brings me to the heart of this completely barmy system.’ He laid his arm flat on the table, fingers splayed. ‘On the one hand, he must think that what he’s doing is legal, because he could have sold his information over a pint of beer. Instead, he fills out all this paperwork to demonstrate what he’s doing. On the other hand’ – he shrugged the shoulder with the missing arm – ‘he’s obviously hiding something. And that suggests it’s an illegal activity.’
‘But who, then, is he hiding it from?’ asked Inspector Cartwright.
‘Nancy’ replied a husky voice.
Everyone turned to Mr Bradshaw During Brother Cyril’s explanation, he’d been kneading a temple, but nodding with increasing conviction. Nick couldn’t expel the notion of a gentleman chairing a team of selectors for the England XI.
‘Elizabeth thought he was hiding it from Nancy’ he said, both hands straying to the lapels of his blazer. ‘And himself.’
Nick just caught Father Anselm’s half whisper, ‘Himself?’
‘George,’ said Inspector Cartwright, ‘is this system all about information?’
‘Yes… Something Elizabeth told me has come back, while I’ve been listening.’ He pulled at one of the short sleeves, trying to lengthen it. His mouth sagged, and purplish shadow crept up to his eyes. ‘She said Riley had gone back to where he’d started from, that he was selling… introductions.’
The long banners of light faded with a movement of cloud, and the stone vaulting seemed to contract. No one spoke. Almost everyone, except Brother Cyril, was leaning on the table, arms folded.
And that,’ said Inspector Cartwright finally ‘is called living off immoral earnings. However convoluted the system, and whatever his motives, it’s illegal.’ She thanked Brother Cyril and Mr Bradshaw and then said, ‘I shall arrest Riley tomorrow morning. He, in turn, will want representation from Wyecliffe and Co. All things being equal, the interview will begin at two o’clock’ – she looked to George – ‘I’ll have to reveal how I obtained this paperwork, so Riley will know that you’ve brought him down. There’s an observation room with a mirror-window, so you can attend unseen, if you wish – in fact, any of you can. Father Anselm coughed deliberately ‘Cyril, you said if he’d set this up properly he wouldn’t pay any tax… What’s the turnover? How much are we talking about?’
‘Peanuts.’
‘I’m thinking of a likely sentence when it gets to court,’ said Father Anselm, turning to the Inspector. Reluctantly he said, ‘A judge may think the offence is not the most serious of its kind.’
‘I appreciate that,’ she replied. ‘But in my book, it could hardly be worse.
Do you know why? Because he doesn’t give a toss about the money; he only cares about what he’s doing.’
Outside the monastery, Nick made hasty goodbyes and set off down the track for the car park. Father Anselm came running after him.
‘Nick,’ said the monk, out of breath, ‘you didn’t speak in the meeting… Are you all right?’
‘There’s nothing to say’ he replied. Nick didn’t want to linger; he didn’t want lunch in the guesthouse; he didn’t want a chat with Mr Bradshaw His mind was on his lonely troubled father, a shifting shape behind a tall window.
‘Will you attend the interview?’ asked Father Anselm.
‘No.’ The whole sordid business had thrust him back into Mr Wyecliffe’s fetid burrow He faced the kindly worried man.
‘When I first came to Larkwood you said, “Don’t turn over old stones. Let them lie where they were placed.” You were right. I should have left things be. And now, I just want to go home.’
It was late afternoon when Nick cut the ignition in the back lane at St John’s Wood, thinking of his mother, not wanting to diminish her achievement. But he couldn’t help himself: a key in a book, a letter to a monk, a parcel for the police and all the conspiring with Mr Bradshaw: such effort expended to the moment of her dying, but for what? A fixation with a two-bit crook peddling a two-bit crime. In a liberating moment of self-realisation, Nick let the whole matter drop, as if it were someone else’s suitcase. This was his mother’s life, not his. He was free. He always had been.
As he reached for the key Nick’s eye caught on a small orange triangle. A paper dog-ear had been trapped in the closed ashtray He tugged out a flyer for an antiques fair. The various participants were listed beside their phone numbers. Towards the bottom, circled in biro, he saw a name that he knew:
Graham Riley
Nick pushed open the back gate, remembering Mrs Dixon, who shared one thing in common with his mother: they both knew what it was like to lose someone.
10
Nancy was bewildered. There was a spring in Riley’s step like she’d never seen before. Over breakfast he’d rung Prosser and offered him the business, there and then, if the price was right. That had led to a bit of swearing, but the two men had agreed to meet.
‘It’s going to happen, Nancy’ said her man, heading out. ‘We’re off to Brighton.’
‘For the weekend?’
‘For good.’
He’d driven to Wanstead Park laughing at the wheel. That had never happened before. Nor had the stunning experience of the night before. They’d been lying in bed, side by side, discussing Uncle Bertie’s liver. Nancy’s arm had strayed into the narrow corridor between them. Still talking of poison, Riley’s hand lightly touched her fingers, and then her wrist; he’d held on, like in the films when someone tumbles over the edge of a boat or a cliff; but there was no panic or hollering, he just carried on talking in a husky voice about percentage proof and damaged organs. He let go as he fell asleep, and he didn’t dream. Intuitively Nancy was worried. She’d always seen her man as a barrel, wrapped with iron bands, and wondered what might happen if they fell off. And, in a way they had… and there had been no explosion. Somehow, it wasn’t quite right.
That said, the notion of a house in Brighton made Nancy excited beyond measure. But there were two hiccups, one small, the other large: Arnold hadn’t turned up, and neither had Mr Johnson. The bigger problem took her to the plastic bag in the shop that would soon belong to Prosser. For once she had a reason to leaf through the pages – to find the address of Emily Nancy would give her all the books that her husband had written. What else could she do with them?
Sitting on a stool, listening to traffic fly over the bump, Nancy flicked through some pages, until her eye caught on a name. She caught her breath and read from the top:
… wouldn’t believe me. She said Grandad was a war veteran. He’d survived the Atlantic convoys. He’d been given a brass lamp by the shareholders when he’d retired. You carry his Christian name. You’re David George Bradshaw What could I say? That was all true, but it had nothing to do with what I’d found out. So I told my father. He kept puffing on his pipe. After a while I noticed, that his neck was red. He was like that when he was angry or frightened. For a good ten minutes I didn’t know which it was. In the end he said, ‘Have you any idea what you’re saying? What it means?’
George Bradshaw The man from the trial. Nancy went dreadfully still. She’d been played upon… something had happened, under her nose, and she didn’t know what it was. But that’s not what made her breath pull short. No, it was Mr Johnson. He’d been genuine. Their times by the fire had not been make-believe – she knew that, in her bones. She’d made friends with an old gentleman who’d lost his son, and half his mind. The man in goggles who’d stumbled out of a cardboard box had been homeless, for real: it was in his skin, that deep grey with black speckles like asphalt. But he was still… that other man Bradshaw. Her head began to beat, and she hastily checked the other books, getting nowhere, until she paused at the inside cover of Book One: there it was, an address in Mitcham.
When the front door opened, Nancy held up the plastic bag as if she were making a delivery for Tesco. ‘Your husband left these in my shop.’
The woman made no response. It was as though she had been anaesthetised.
‘Are you Mrs Bradshaw?’
The woman nodded, staring at the bag.
‘I know George,’ said Nancy all friendly but wanting to shout and cry. ‘I sort of looked after him.’
‘Come in,’ said Mrs Emily Bradshaw ‘I’ll make some tea. ‘What a nice house, thought Nancy There was a faint smell of fresh paint. All the wallpaper was new – expensive stuff, too… a soft corn yellow with silver lines, straight as cheese wire. None of it had been scuffed yet. Pictures had been hung close together, not one of them askew: a cathedral rising out of some trees, a field with cows by a river, someone praying by a windmill, ducks taking off. The settee had matching armchairs. Nancy sat down, noticing that the covers were stiff and the cushions were firm. Yes, it was very nice and new But something was missing. There was an immense hole that the catalogue hadn’t been able to fill or paint or cover.
‘Milk and sugar?’
A cloud and two lumps,’ said Nancy It was very quiet, like a dentist’s waiting room. ‘How is he?’ asked Mrs Bradshaw automatically ‘Not so bad.’
‘Oh.’ She kept her head down, eyes in her mug ‘Well,’ said Nancy ‘he’s blind, and he wears these massive goggles, and he can’t remember much because someone bashed his head in.’
Nancy hadn’t wanted to speak so bluntly She’d planned a few nice phrases, but here, before his wife, she abandoned niceness. It seemed more kind.
Mrs Bradshaw didn’t drink her tea, and she didn’t look up. She was stuck on the end of her chair, her knees held tightly together. Nancy liked the checked slippers. One of them had a hole in it, near the big toe.
‘His memory works, mind you,’ said Nancy The plastic bag of notebooks was on her lap. ‘He talks of his days in Yorkshire, of the Bonnington, of you, and your son. All that is bright and clear. He can recall your white pinafore… even the frills. It’s what’s happened recently that he can’t hold on to. He once said that he wished it was the other way round. But he didn’t mean that for a minute. He’s a clown, your husband.’
Nancy had seen wine tasters once, on the television, and they looked just like Mrs Bradshaw: a frown, concentration and a mouth barely moving. Any second now, she’d spit.
‘What happened?’ asked Nancy She shouldn’t have asked; it was prying. But this woman’s husband had played on her, despite his battered brains, and she didn’t know why he’d done it. And she was confused. She’d come to Mitcham thinking she might go mad, because this was George Bradshaw’s house, the man who’d played on Riley But she’d found an ordinary home, with a big hole in it, and an ordinary woman, who was empty.
Mrs Bradshaw said, ‘Our son was killed by a bad man.’ S
he held on to the mug like it was a rope on a winch, wanting to get away from Nancy and her simple question. ‘But I blamed George.’
An obvious fact hit Nancy like a swipe from a rolling pin. The son Mr Johnson had spoken about was indeed lost: he’d died off Lawton’s Wharf, and Inspector Cartwright had made insinuations, and Babycham’s husband had been fined by the Health and Safety, and Riley’s van had broken down. Nancy too, wanted to escape. She stood up, putting her mug on the shiny table, but something in her soul held on to the memory of Mr Johnson, steaming by the fire, his hands raised in surrender. ‘Here’s your husband’s notebooks,’ she said generously ‘He’s written everything down, from his birth onwards. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but if you dip in, as I’ve done, you’ll see him as he was: the brave boy who left Harrogate and made it to Mitcham.’
Nancy walked quickly along Aspen Bank, hounded by noise. It came from the hollering in her mind, and a low voice that shoved hers to one side. ‘Some men are like a coin,’ yawned Mr Wyecliffe confidentially at the Old Bailey ‘He shows you his head. But give him a spin and, if you’re lucky you’ll find his tail.’ Nancy had gone cold, because he could have meant Bradshaw, or her man. She’d left the building half an hour later.
At the end of Aspen Bank she broke into a run, because an even quieter sound was growing louder: a tap-tapping at the window.
Having left the court, she’d hidden at home and wouldn’t answer the bell. Then the tapping had started, moving round the house. On and on it went, like someone needing help, until she’d opened the door to a smartly dressed man from the Salvation Army.
‘I’ve got no money’ she’d said through a crack.
‘Have you a plate?’ He’d held up a cake from Greggs. ‘I’m Major Reynolds.’
He knew Riley from way back. They talked of Lawton’s and the loss of jobs left, right and centre. He’d been watching her, giving her the chance to cry. But she’d kept a good grip, taking note of things that didn’t matter: that his uniform was smart but old; that his polished shoes had split, that the laces were new At the door he shook her hand and wouldn’t let go. ‘Nancy maybe your constancy will save him. But what about you?’ He waited, his black eyebrows knitted with worry. ‘If you ever want my help, call this number.’ She’d taken the slip of paper and thrown his cheek in the bin.
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