The Gardens of the Dead

by William Brodrick

  ‘What was she doing in the East End anyway?’

  Charles began dropping the egg on a plate. ‘She said it was work. A site visit.’

  Nick had in mind the autopsy photographs on his mother’s desk. They were part of the last case she’d worked on. The victim had been killed in Bristol, not London. Nick had checked the instructions to every case in the Green Room before they’d been collected. None had referred to the East End.

  Charles picked at the battered egg with a nail, his face reddening. ‘What are you doing with yourself when you’re out of doors?’ He laughed weakly ‘Going here, heading there. You’re getting like your mother.’

  ‘Oh, just friends and unfinished business.’

  Charles picked up a knife, eyes narrowed. He looked bullish.

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  After breakfast Nick went to the Royal Brompton Hospital in Kensington to deal with the third question: a heart condition that had killed his mother. Its presence and gravity had been unknown to him. ‘She didn’t want to worry you,’ Charles had said the night before the funeral. He’d tweaked his tie. ‘I’d no idea that she might collapse without warning… that the end could come like a bus mounting the pavement.’

  There was no point in pressing his father for details. The anatomy of a butterfly he could grasp, but that of a human being left him dazed. Too many pipes. So Nick contacted his mother’s consultant cardiologist. He didn’t mention it to his father.

  On the desk before Doctor Simbiat Okoye was a slim bundle of medical records. Pensively she leafed through them. Her hair was tightly braided into thick strands and rolled into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. When she spoke, her eyes studied the listener’s face. ‘Your mother had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.’

  Nick let the words settle. This was a hereditary disorder of the heart whereby its muscles become thick and stiff. In turn, this affects blood flow and valve function. There is no cure; and it’s hereditary with a fifty-fifty chance of passing it on to your children.

  ‘You do not have the condition,’ said Doctor Okoye. Her eyes were dark with a flush of rose around the whites.

  ‘She had me screened before I went to Australia, without me realising it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Doctor Okoye explained the history and outcome of his mother’s consultation. Elizabeth had first developed breathlessness and chest pain about ten years ago. She’d put this down to stress at work: she’d recently found herself frightened of court —not the usual nervousness, but a debilitating anxiety that could make her sick. This had been unknown before. Palpitations and light-headedness were placed at the door of the menopause. And then she’d had a blackout about a year ago. A visit to her GP prompted an emergency referral.

  ‘Surgery wasn’t required,’ said Dr Okoye. ‘I prescribed beta-blockers and anti-arrhythmias. The drug therapy was effective but—’

  ‘__with a small number of patients there’s a risk of sudden death… like being hit by a bus. My mother was one of them.’

  ‘Yes. Would you like to see my notes?’

  ‘No thanks.’ He asked the question for which she was waiting ‘How did my mother get it… I mean.., which parent was affected, her father or mother?’

  ‘There’s no way of knowing now,’ said Doctor Okoye. ‘From what I was told, it may have been her father. I understand he died in an armchair with a glass of milk in his hand.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nick. ‘He went out like a light.’

  Nick’s grandmother had followed her husband shortly afterwards, from septicaemia. He’d never known them. And there were no other siblings, so there was no one else in the hereditary tree.

  Doctor Okoye rose and walked to the window With a gesture she drew him beside her. ‘Look down there, in the courtyard.’

  A copper sculpture stood in the centre of a pool. Two adjacent basins channelled a watercourse. Exotic plants with fronds like open scissors stood in tubs positioned along the sides.

  ‘It represents a hidden aspect of heart rhythm,’ said Doctor Okoye. Apart from muscular contraction, blood movement results from surface waves created by the inflowing stream. It’s as though after an initiating shove, circulation could go on for ever, the required energy coming not from a heart, which will one day tire, but through the configuration of cavities and the momentum of blood. Unfortunately, that’s not what happens. As you can see’ — she pointed towards one end of the sculpture — ‘art and nature require a pump.

  Nick looked at the grove, his head against the glass.

  ‘Your mother and I stood by this window,’ said Doctor Okoye. ‘She had been distressed. But the heart carries a greater mystery than any frailty.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a wonder that it ever worked at all.’

  On his way out of the hospital, Nick paused in the courtyard to watch the tumble and splash of water between two scoops of metal. He wasn’t thinking of possible worlds but of the inscrutability of this one: his mother had gone to the East End, obtained a set of spoons, and her heart had stopped.

  7

  As far as George was concerned, after he got his head kicked in he woke up in a very nice garden by the Imperial War Museum. In fact, a lot happened in between. Much of it came back of its own accord, and Elizabeth filled in some of the gaps, as best she could. Her voice released other memories and together they’d put a shape to what had happened.

  The preliminaries were straightforward.

  George didn’t like the docks: the warehouse seemed to wake at night with groans in the bricks: it was resonant with lost activity. More to the point, it wasn’t his patch. His territory was south of the river, round Trespass Place. So, a few days after Elizabeth had asked for the receipt books, George walked to Waterloo after nightfall. He was only a few minutes from the fire escape when it happened.

  There was no reason for the attack. George didn’t go down defending an old lady or tackling a thief. He was just sitting on a bench eating popcorn. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a gangly youth in a padded jacket… and then another, with a shaved head. They were laughing and elbowing each other like kids on a school trip. Mischief always ran high when the master wasn’t watching. The one with the jacket asked for some popcorn. George handed it over. The shaved head tipped it over George as if it were a massive salt-cellar. When he stood up they began the kicking, like it was a dance, or a new sport. They panted and grunted and sighed.

  And this is where the confusion began in George’s mind: he had no recollection of being admitted to hospital or discharging himself or making his way to the garden of the Imperial War Museum. After what felt like a drunken sleep, George simply opened his eyes and saw the trees.., and clouds like wisps of cream in a light-blue blancmange… and his first thought was how delicious the world was. The smell of cut grass was so strong he could almost taste it. This must be heaven, he thought. Overjoyed, George walked out of the gates to discover what was waiting for him. It was only then, ambling down magnificent, strangely familiar streets, that he discovered his mind wouldn’t work properly Instinctively, he’d ran back to Trespass Place like a wounded animal, where Elizabeth had finally found him.

  For her part, she’d waited, as usual, on Lawton’s Wharf. When George didn’t turn up, she went to the police, who traced the hospital; but by the time Elizabeth got there, he’d already slipped out of the ward. ‘I knew you would come back here,’ she said affectionately In her hands were his two plastic bags retrieved from the docklands. There and then, beneath the fire escape, she read out the last couple of volumes that covered the known; and together they approached the unknown.

  The line wasn’t clear-cut. The weeks prior to the attack had been shaken. The events were jumbled and some were missing, but thankfully George’s written account was detailed. It provided scaffolding for his memory With gratitude, he rebuilt the past in his mind around the pieces that he’d saved. When Elizabeth had finished reading she said, ‘You have to do this every day to
keep what you’ve got.’ Then they went to Carlo’s. They sat down without ordering. There was going to be no toast and no hot chocolate.

  ‘It’s over,’ said Elizabeth shortly ‘It’s time you came off the street, whether you’re ready or not; and it’s time we let Riley go.

  The mention of that name was like a stab, an injection to the heart.

  ‘I’ve sorted out a rehabilitation clinic,’ said Elizabeth with authority. ‘You can stay there for as long as necessary.’

  ‘No thank you.’ George went to the counter and asked for toast and hot chocolate. He came back with a tray and said, ‘I’m going back to Nancy.’

  George didn’t go to the shop for a while. He studied his notebooks. By pooling memories with Elizabeth, he brought his own up to date. Then he went to the Embankment, to the other people on the street. He was like a man with a new toy or a strange weapon: he had to get used to handling his changed mind. He had to learn again how to relate. It took practice and patience. Rather than write events down at the end of the day he did it soon after they happened. He made lists of things to be done. And throughout the day he made frequent reference to both. It was like turning a timer before the sand ran out. Each minute became precious even though he knew it was ultimately lost. The essential had been written down, so he could let the rest go. Of course, the notebook and the lists covered no matters of importance — nothing that happened to George was important — they dealt only with the commonplace, but in this way George became confident, once more, with the little things. He still slept at Trespass Place, and Elizabeth came in the evening. She tested him on his current list. Gradually he began to do quite well. If there had been a prize, he’d have won it. And when he’d got the hang of himself, he went back to the warehouse on the Isle of Dogs. And he went back to Nancy’s shop in Bow.

  On his first day, they sat by the gas fire, and George told her he’d lost half his mind; and that he’d lost his son: it happened naturally because the recent past had gone, and his loss was ever fresh. But it was also somehow necessary to tell Nancy because she was close to the man responsible. She listened, forgetting to take off her yellow hat with its black spots. He watched her through his goggles, knowing that she thought him blind, that her expressions of horror went unseen.

  The following morning, thinking George wouldn’t remember what she was about to say Nancy told of her life at Lawton’s, how she’d met Riley, and about a trial… but she left out the details, and kept it vague, just as George had done when talking of his son. That evening, George wrote nothing down of the day’s revelations but one sharp fragment survived into the morning: ‘He’s not a bad man, you know He’s just… lost.’

  The receipt books were blue, as Elizabeth had suspected. George eventually found them in shoeboxes on a bookcase opposite the filing cabinet. Taking them was difficult, because Elizabeth had been insistent that she needed a selection from each business covering the same period of time. ‘Don’t just grab them, look at the dates.’ So George spent about two weeks snatching glimpses whenever Nancy dealt with a customer or went out to get some milk. One morning he placed four of them in his plastic bag. That night Elizabeth was tense when she took them.

  ‘You do realise that this is your only chance?’

  George nodded, not quite following.

  ‘I hope I’m right,’ she said anxiously ‘so that you’re the one who finally traps him.’

  ‘And if you’re wrong?’

  ‘I’ve another string to my bow’

  George nodded again, utterly baffled.

  Elizabeth returned with the books in the morning darkness.

  ‘Well?’ said George to the dark outline.

  ‘I need more time,’ she said, and the shape vanished as if it hadn’t been there.

  8

  The home of Mr and Mrs Bradshaw stood within a leafy, secluded terrace in Mitcham. Porches and windows were situated in identical positions like enormous stickers. Anselm hadn’t knocked, but the door opened slowly, and a slim woman in her sixties with ruffled hair emerged holding a paintbrush. Her skin was freckled with emulsion. The sleeves of a large, shapeless shirt were loosely rolled to the elbow She looked at Anselm as if he were familiar.

  ‘Mrs Bradshaw?’

  She wiped paint from her brow with the back of a hand and said, ‘She told me you might turn up one day’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Mrs Glendinning.’ She roused herself, like she was about to get to work. ‘I suppose you’d better come in.

  Anselm entered the hallway. The carpet was covered with sheets. The rucks lapped against the skirting board like milky floodwater. He followed Mrs Bradshaw into the sitting room. All the furniture was draped and the walls were bare. She’d been painting a ceiling rose. The ladder stood beneath it, with a tin on a stand. They stood regarding each other, Anselm’s fingers moving impulsively behind his back; Mrs Bradshaw remained quite still, the paintbrush at her side.

  ‘Mrs Glendinning has died,’ said Anselm. ‘She left me a key to a small red case, which I have opened. I am brought back to a trial I had forgotten, and a letter I had never seen. And I have learned of your great loss.’ Instinct kept Anselm away from John’s name. He watched her, willing her head to rise, for a mighty hand to tear away the drapes. He said, ‘I want to say sorry.., to you and your husband… only I don’t know how to reach the extent of what has happened to you both. If I’d read sooner what you’d written, I would not have waited so long in coming here.’

  Mrs Bradshaw began tugging a button on her shirt. It was blue with a British Gas badge on one side. She seemed foreign to her own home. It was as if she’d just turned up to read the meter.

  ‘Mrs Glendinning told me you’d become a monk,’ she said. ‘I asked her not to tell you.

  ‘Why?’ asked Anselm.

  ‘Because I didn’t want to disturb your peace.’ She spoke as if he’d found what she wanted for herself. ‘And I felt ashamed of what I wrote.’ The paintbrush began to swing slightly ‘I showed myself up for what I am. A bitter woman.’

  Anselm shrank from the self-loathing. ‘You were honest, that’s all.’

  ‘I expect like Mrs Glendinning you want to see George,’ she said remotely ‘But he’s gone, I’m afraid. He’s a lost man.’

  Anselm could feel the depth of quiet in the house. His chest grew tight and he felt he was drowning. This was the first time he’d met someone from ‘the other side’ in a case he’d won. Apprehensively he listened.

  ‘After the trial,’ said Mrs Bradshaw, ‘George lost his job. He was dismissed for gross misconduct. Not for the fiasco at court, but because he’d got involved with those kids in the first place. He should have kept his distance… like a lawyer.., but he didn’t, he couldn’t. Afterwards he fell to pieces, here, at home. Then we lost John. I don’t know what happened — but George did, only he couldn’t tell me. No, that’s not true’ — she was struggling, as she’d struggled then; with her mind and body she twisted in her big shirt — ‘George couldn’t have known, but he felt responsible.’ She breathed evenly, becoming still. ‘One Saturday night John went out. He didn’t come back. He’d gone to Lawton’s Wharf__’

  ‘Where Riley had worked,’ added Anselm.

  She nodded, biting her lip. ‘But the police could do nothing. A link like that meant something, of course, but it just wasn’t strong enough. The fact remains, John was killed because George stood up to that man.’ She put the brush on the ladder and knelt, worked her hand beneath a drape that lay upon a sideboard. Without looking, she found the letter from Inspector Jennifer Cartwright.

  It was long, detailed and deeply sympathetic but, finally, uncompromising There was no prospect of arrest, never mind conviction. Anselm gave the letter back and Mrs Bradshaw knelt again, working her hand beneath the drape. She rose unsteadily and reached for the paintbrush and, as if it were a handle, she lowered herself onto a covered chair.

  The pit of Anselm’s stomach turned. He saw the walls primed with
undercoat. Yesterday’s patterns had only just been stripped away Outside rain began to fall, at first gently, and then gathering weight. The low cloud seemed to soak up the light.

  ‘George could no longer live with himself or me,’ said Mrs Bradshaw, ‘and I could no longer live with him. You cannot imagine the anger that comes between you. It eats up everything. I blamed George. George blamed himself. He blamed me for blaming him. That’s what anger does: it makes you hate what you once loved. It finds a way, even if you can’t imagine how. And when it finally grows quiet you’re empty and changed and you can’t get back. You’re left with the wrong kind of peace. What can you do? Nothing comes of nothing.’

  Anselm looked down, wanting to be on the same level, but he dared not disturb the drapes. Like mounds of snow they couldn’t be touched without a kind of vandalism.

  Mrs Bradshaw put her hands to her head, the paintbrush sticking up like a feather. ‘One morning, five years ago, George walked down the stairs for breakfast, only he walked out of the door. I knew he was leaving. And I didn’t even get up to watch him go. It had been exactly the same with John.’ Her hands fell. ‘I told Inspector Cartwright that he’d vanished. She put the missing persons team on to him. That was a very long time ago.’

  Anselm sank to her side but there was nothing he could say. This was the place where everyone’s fault was smudged, where ‘Sorry’ didn’t quite work any more. Where something more powerful was needed. On one knee he thought of Elizabeth, her key and her final words: ‘Leave it to Anselm.’

  In the hallway, Mrs Bradshaw said, ‘I didn’t understand your job — at the trial or afterwards. But I do now Mrs Glendinning explained where you were standing.’