‘Constancy’. She’d looked it up in the dictionary, knowing that with every second the trial was unfolding. While all those dreadful things were being said out loud, she’d folded back the corner and marked the definition in red biro.
When Nancy got back to Poplar there was a policeman at the gate. The hems on his trouser legs were far too high, but he was very polite. A radio kept talking on his shoulder.
‘I was hoping to go to Brighton,’ said Nancy distantly when he’d finished.
‘I’m sorry, madam.’ He gave her a note with an address on it. ‘Inspector Cartwright would like to speak to you as soon as possible.’
After he’d gone, Nancy crumpled the paper, thinking of constancy and that kind man tapping on the window long ago.
11
Anselm sat beside George facing a tinted window Ahead, through the weak bluish haze, were a table, four chairs and a tape machine. A door banged shut. Inspector Cartwright walked to her place, followed by another police officer and Mr Wyecliffe – more aged to Anselm’s eyes, but still in his brown suit. Suddenly Riley appeared at the window, his nose against the glass. He checked his teeth as if in a mirror and he smiled rage and impatience and… Anselm thought it might be exhilaration.
Inspector Cartwright began the litany of warnings prescribed by the Codes of Practice, while Riley searched the window with the flat of his hands, his face wet and sallow Unblinking, he backed towards the table.
‘Now the preliminaries have been completed,’ said Mr Wyecliffe, twitching, ‘there’s the technical issue of intentional trespass and the theft of my client’s property, grave matters which -’
‘Belt up, will you,’ said Riley He slouched in a chair and smiled. ‘Hurry up, Cartwright, I want to go to Brighton.’
Step by step, the inspector presented the system disclosed by the financial records. She invited Riley to confirm her explanation, but he turned aside, gazing back towards Anselm and George. His fingers tapped erratically on the table, and he said, ‘Come on, get on with it.’
Judiciously Inspector Cartwright said, ‘I suggest that you are receiving remuneration arising from prostitution.’
Riley crouched, angry and bored. ‘Correct.’
Mr Wyecliffe, who’d been absorbed in the blank pages of a yellow notepad, put down a chewed biro, and said soothingly ‘Can we just pause there for one moment…’
‘Shut up, Wyecliffe,’ whispered Riley.
Inspector Cartwright said, ‘You have a list of telephone numbers?’
‘Correct.’
‘You provide contact details in return for a payment?’
‘Yep.’
‘How long have you been doing this?’
‘Yonks.’ A frown displaced the resentment and laughter. An agony of confusion seemed to hold him. He shouted towards the ceiling light, ‘I should be on the Brighton road by now’
‘You’ve had a long enough holiday.’
‘Have I?’ The swing from euphoria to despair was complete, and menacing.
‘Graham Riley you are charged with living wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution contrary to section -’
‘It’s all legal.’
Inspector Cartwright turned on Wyecliffe, ‘Can you enlighten me?’
‘Certainly not. How dare you.’
Riley stood up, looking down upon his interviewer, ‘I get the numbers from magazines and phone booths. They’re already in the public domain. I sell them to people who think I have a special connection.’
‘That is still an offence.’
‘Is it?’ Riley seemed to rise higher. He appeared mighty over a domain of dirty facts. This was his patch. He didn’t take lessons. ‘I sell numbers that anyone could find if they knew where to look.’ He swaggered on the spot, bony hands on his hips. ‘Whoever’s on the end of the line doesn’t know me. I don’t know them. They don’t know I’ve been paid. They don’t know nothing.’ He spat out the word as if it were a failing, something that should be punished. ‘They just do what they do, and I get paid… for nothing.’ Glaring outrage and disgust, Riley swept Mr Wyecliffe’s papers off the table.
‘Sit down,’ ordered Inspector Cartwright.
‘No. I’m off to Brighton. You can check the law’
‘I will.’
‘Make sure it’s a silk-’
He bit his lip, not finishing the jibe, and Anselm’s mind reeled back to that first conference when Elizabeth’s poise had failed. Instantly – and horrified – he understood: Riley’s system had grown from the seed of Elizabeth’s words: she’d said that if he’d received payments linked to the girls’ activity, but without them knowing, then there would be a technical defence…
Anselm heard a soft noise behind him. The door opened and a woman entered wearing a peculiar yellow hat with black spots. Her red, trembling hands were crumpling and reopening a small piece of paper. Timidly she checked the room, until her attention settled on George. Then, her mouth open, she looked into the blue haze.
‘If I can help in any other way’ said Riley ‘don’t hesitate to contact me.
He made to leave, but halted before the window. Confused and deliberating, his eyes shot towards the door, as if the cry of gulls had carried from the seaside, calling him to another life of deckchairs and ice cream. Instead Riley turned back to examine his reflection.
It was an awful scene, because Anselm knew that Riley had sensed their presence – at least George’s – and he was staring through the image of himself at what he thought was on the other side: but, in fact, he was looking directly at this haunting woman in her yellow spotted hat.
‘When you came, Inspector,’ said Riley faintly eyes on the glass, ‘I thought it was about John Bradshaw’ His face was a like a mask, thick and oxidised.
‘I’m bringing this interview to a close,’ said Inspector Cartwright. She rattled off the date and time and the names of those present and hit the tape machine, turning it off. She walked up to Riley’s shoulder, seething, ‘You have blood on your hands.’
They were both staring towards the poor woman who was crumpling a scrap of paper.
Very clearly Riley replied, ‘Yes, I know.’
Inspector Cartwright blinked a few times, not quite believing what she’d heard, and George, who did, stepped towards the window, pressing both hands to the glass. The woman moved beside him and together they watched what was about to unfold.
Inspector Cartwright switched on the tape machine, reamed off the necessary details, and said, ‘I would like to confirm the exchange that has just taken place. You have blood on your hands?’
Riley circled the room, his arms swinging like chains. ‘Yes, but not much.’
‘Does the quantity matter?’
‘No. It was still innocent.’
Mr Wyecliffe patted his hands on the table, as though to calm a family spat. ‘Stop the tape please. I’d like to discuss matters with my client.’
‘Forget it,’ said Riley falling into a chair. ‘It’s too late now’ Anselm had seen this sort of thing before: it was part of the psychology of wanting to be caught. Conscience was elemental: a small quantity could produce an explosion of truth that could obliterate a lifetime of deceptions. The change in Riley a moment ago strutting and now cowed, was shocking.
Inspector Cartwright said, ‘How did you kill him?’
‘I knew he couldn’t swim.’
‘Go on.’
Riley leaned on his knees, his head angled down, showing the spine bones of his neck. ‘In the middle of the night I put him in a plastic bag with an apple.’
‘This is no time for jokes.’
Riley shook his head. ‘Then I threw him into Limehouse Cut.’
‘Who?’
‘Arnold.’
‘Arnold?’
‘Nancy’s hamster.’
Cartwright turned off the tape, without the usual formalities. ‘You are a bastard,’ she said.
Riley looked up and said, ‘Inspector, that’s the first thing
you’ve got right today.’
The hands of the woman crumpling paper became still and George said, ‘I’m sorry, Nancy.’
She nodded and quietly left the room.
The door behind Anselm swung open and Inspector Cartwright entered, saying, ‘I’m sure he’s wrong, George, but I need to check this out, all right?’
‘Of course.’ He coughed like a patient who didn’t believe in doctors.
‘Is there anywhere you could wait?’ she said to Anselm. She was weary and angry and upset. ‘It could take the rest of the day.’
After a phone call had been made to Debbie Lynwood, it was agreed that they would meet that evening at the Vault Day Centre. Anselm took George’s arm. He felt as if he were guiding a man who was so much older than before, a man who could no longer see.
12
Riley pushed open the swing door, leaving Wyecliffe flapping behind. At the end of a corridor he kicked another and strode past the custody desk, barging aside people and things to reach the pavement. There, in the street, he saw Nancy.
‘What are you doing here?’ His jaw began to work.
‘An officer came to tell me you’d been lifted.’
‘Have you been inside?’
‘I’ve just arrived. What’s happened?’
He groaned with relief. ‘They’ve been chasing me again. For nothing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’ve never given up, not since that trial. Come on.’ He pulled Nancy’s arm and they walked down the street. He turned a corner, any corner. He didn’t know where he was going. He swung on her, ‘Cartwright’s been looking at my business, but I’ve done nothing wrong.
‘What did she say you were doing?’
‘The same as last time.’ Riley didn’t use the words that would hurt her.
‘Oh God.’ Nancy sat down on a low wall. The railings had been cut down during the war, leaving black stubs in the stone.
‘But it’s nothing, Nancy Nothing.’ Riley plucked at his jacket and shirt. Sweat itched his stomach. Inside, behind that wet lining, he was ruptured with anxiety and rage. The lot of them had put Nancy through the mill for nothing. That was meant to be all gone. He’d put himself out of reach. He said, ‘Look, we’re off to Brighton, right?’
Nancy pulled off her hat, disarranging her hair. She looked faint. ‘It’s too late, far too late.’
Riley watched her, as he’d once gazed into the waters of the Four Lodges. If you kept still, you could see the perch dart around in the green-black water. They were like torn scraps of aluminium foil. Something seemed to move in Nancy’s face. ‘I really wanted to go to Brighton’ – she looked down at the flagstones, the weeds in the cracks, the fag ends – ‘I really fancied the sound of the sea. A walk on the beach. And maybe a stick of rock. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it?’
‘No,’ urged Riley taking her hands, ‘and it still isn’t. We can still make it.’
‘Can we?’
‘We’re selling up, we’re moving out. We’ll leave this place behind.’
Nancy normally didn’t stare. She’d always been demure, one step back, a bit scared. At Lawton’s her shyness had kept her head to the page, even when he’d tapped on the counter. Now she faced him with wide, tired eyes. They were like polythene bags from the tackle shop, full of clear water. Something orange flickered, wanting to get out.
‘Nancy head off home, I’m going to see Prosser.’
Riley moaned as he ran. He knew that Elizabeth had worked out what he was doing when she turned up at Mile End Park. She held up a set of spoons and went through the same routine as Cartwright.
‘But you taught me how to do it.’ He was mocking her.
She frowned – a bit like Nancy a few moments ago – while he reminded her of that conference in her chambers. ‘You can keep the spoons,’ he said, and she sagged as if he’d squeezed her heart.
He ran even faster. All that manoeuvring, that hunger to win back something, belonged by a stream of deceit – the one he’d tasted with Nancy He just didn’t want it any more. It lay behind him – with every stride. ‘I’m going to Brighton,’ he shouted, knocking into some codgers by a newsstand. His arms flung out: they were in his way. The whole world was in his way He crashed against a bin, and spun, thinking Nancy had dropped a notch: she wasn’t in the usual place, and it terrified him.
13
There were no red mullet left, so the fishmonger at Smithfield Market suggested tench, a freshwater fish which, when duly cooked at St John’s Wood, turned out to be utterly disgusting. But they’d already drunk a bottle and a half of Macon Lugny so it didn’t matter. Charles was laughing like a schoolboy because he’d spilled half a glass on his tie when Nick said abruptly ‘Did Mum ever mention the Pieman?’
It was meant to be an introduction to what Nick had prepared himself to reveal. He was seeking a small piece of common territory upon which to build.
Charles carried on laughing and dabbed his chest with a napkin. Lining up his knife and fork, he replied, ‘I’ll thank you kindly never to mention that name in this house again.’
The laughter had ceased, and Charles’s face was bitten, his lips pursed. He moved his plate an inch.
‘Is he for real… this bogeyman?’ asked Nick, incredulous.
‘This conversation is over.’ Charles had that pale, helpless look that must have driven them all mad in the bank when explanations were in demand. He said, ‘You don’t need to know. Your mother’s dead. It’s over.’
They both became completely still, hands on their laps, concentrating on a half-eaten fish. This, I suppose, thought Nick, is what passes as a moment of truth. He’d been convinced that his father knew nothing of his wife’s crisis; but in that opening Edwardian rebuke he’d shown that he must know everything, that he always had done, and that he’d held back even the barest of explanations from his son. He’d watched Nick scuttling around in a yellow Beetle; he’d stood at doors and windows clocking that a parental secret had been breached: and he’d said absolutely nothing – and never had done, except to commend the merits of a trip to Australia… and Papua New Guinea.
Something like rage and love and fear swooped upon Nick: anger at the antics of his parents, passion for their protective concern, but a certain dread at what had driven them to behave like that in the first place. His mother had wanted to bring him home, to tell him; but his father hadn’t agreed: he’d been scared. ‘The Bundi do a butterfly dance,’ he’d said.
And Charles was still scared. But of what? And who? And why?
Nick folded up his napkin and went upstairs to the Green Room. This was where she’d planned it all, and this was where it would end – for him and his father. The only person who knew what the hell was going on was a half-wit crook, whose grubbing around had demolished Elizabeth’s self-respect.
Nick took the orange flyer out of his pocket. The wine had made him foolish, he knew, but also perceptive. Colours were slightly brighter than usual – like his insight; things wouldn’t keep still – like his resolve.
He dialled the number and listened.
He’d been a fool. He hadn’t seen the true crisis, even though he’d found the key and opened the box. The ‘not knowing and not being able to care’, Locard’s Principle (as applied), the ‘responsibility without blame’ – it was all good stuff, but these had only pointed towards a rarefied conscience. And yet there’d been something else in the box, right from the outset.
An answer machine clicked into action. Nick stubbed the button and dialled again. He waited, getting jumpy.
Nick had actually hit upon the critical question long ago, in a dingy pub near Cheapside. He’d ignored it, wanting to turn away from the idea that Elizabeth’s compassion had been a commodity for the client, a bonus thrown in with the brief fee.
But now he wanted to know what had really happened when his mother had risen to cross-examine Riley’s pitiable victim. For Anji, who’d had the guts to step into a witness box, the Pieman h
ad been a dread presence, a reality that still exercised Mr Wyecliffe’s fascination ten years later. And what had Elizabeth done? She’d skilfully – and compassionately – made the Pieman into a figure from Anji’s tormented mind; she’d explained him away she’d made him a dream…
The phone was answered.
It had to be the wine, but Nick shrank from the voice, for it was otherworldly in its harshness. He pictured his father before a half-eaten tench… It was safe downstairs… and there was another half bottle of Macon Lugny waiting… but he wanted to know the answer to his question.
‘Who was the Pieman?’
Nick had to ask because he felt, obscurely that his mother had known all along, even as she’d taken Anji by the hand; that he had found the secret spring of Elizabeth’s disgrace.
Twenty minutes later Nick was at the wheel, over the limit, and driving east towards Hornchurch Marshes. He’d expected a reluctant conversation, not a demand for a meeting.
14
The Prior frequently reminded the community in chapter that, as the Rule made clear, there are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.
With this counsel in mind, Anselm guided George to the Vault, saying very little. Before withdrawing, Debbie Lynwood led them to a simply furnished bedroom away from the bustle of the day centre. On a sideboard was a selection of games and puzzles in battered boxes. George studied the lids meditatively ‘Riley knew I was there,’ he said. ‘He was speaking to me.’
Anselm nodded at the rounded back of this lean, honourable man in his honourable blazer and tie. Adam’s sin, said Genesis, was that he wanted to be like God, to direct the great arrangement of things into which he had been wonderfully born; to know why good was good, and why evil was evil; maybe to make a few discreet changes. There are occasions, thought Anselm, when I would like to be God: long enough to understand this man’s fall, and to do something about it.
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