The Gardens of the Dead (11 page)

‘Seen
him recently?’ Mr Wyecliffe’s breath turned to fog.

‘At the
funeral.’

‘Of
course.’ He sniffed. ‘I suppose you mentioned your mother’s triumphant
performance on Mr Riley’s behalf’

‘I did
not.’

Ah.’
That seemed to be the answer he expected. ‘Do you mind if I ask am odd
question?’

‘No.’

Mr
Wyecliffe’s head sank into his collar until it seemed he had no neck. ‘Did your
mother ever mention the Pieman after the trial?’

‘No.’

‘Thought
not.’

‘Why do
you ask?’

He
thrust his little hands into capacious pockets. ‘Silly question, that’s…’

‘—why
you keep out of court?’

Mr
Wyecliffe voiced his surprise. ‘Exactly’

4

George switched on his
torch and counted the scratches on the wall. While he’d been waiting for the
monk, his mind had kept returning to Lawton’s Wharf, for it was there, to the
sound of the river, that he and Elizabeth had planned their campaign.

‘You
are avenging those girls, George.’

That’s
what Elizabeth had said the first time she’d stood on the landing stage.

‘When
you walked out of court you left them behind.’

She
could be harsh, if she wanted.

The day
before, a Friday, she’d said, ‘I’d like to see where John fell.’

They’d
walked from Trespass Place to the Isle of Dogs. Side by side, they followed a
dark, angular lane that ran between tall, silent warehouses, and beneath hoists
like old gibbets. Presently, they reached an immense open space fronting the
river: the premises of H & R Lawton and Co (London) Ltd. All that remained
was a brass nameplate fixed to the perimeter fence with a coat hanger. The
railings were loose, held upright by sheets of mesh wiring. George and
Elizabeth passed through a large gap, as John had probably done. They picked
their way over the remnants of a flattened warehouse into a chill off the
Thames. Moving ahead of George onto the landing stage, Elizabeth said, ‘You are
avenging those girls, George.’ The waves slapped against the timbers. ‘When you
walked out of court you left them behind.’

And
then, without waiting for George to reply, Elizabeth set to work telling him
what she required.

‘There’ll
be two sets of documents — one for each business: that of Riley, and that of
Nancy They’re legally separate papers. They’ll be stored separately’

‘Right-o.’

‘The
first is “Riley’s Junk”. The second is “Nancy’s Treasure”.’

‘Right-o.’

‘Once
you’ve found them, we’ll talk again.’

‘Right-o.
And in the meantime?’

‘You
introduce yourself to Nancy.’

‘How?’

‘If I
were you I’d sleep on her doorstep.’

‘Right-o.
But she’ll want to know my name.’

‘Quite
right. I suggest an alias. Mr Johnson. How does that sound to you?’

The
bantering vanished at the allusion to John’s Christian name. So that’s why Elizabeth
had come to this wharf, thought George, on a Saturday, and at might. It was to place
John at the heart of her planning. She was at it again: evoking a setting for
what she wanted to say like her use of the toast and cocoa. This time it was
for what they were going to do. She used these ceremonies to stir up the past
and make it present in am unusually active way George couldn’t quite put it
into words, but he felt there was something restoring in the revival, even
though it summoned his failure. Henceforth, everything they did together
occurred among a prickling sense of the closeness of people who’d once been
near: the girls whom George had betrayed and the son he had lost.

‘Mr
Johnson sounds just fine,’ George had said.

‘Let’s
get going then.’

A horn
beeped three times. It was Elizabeth’s taxi, come to take her home.

A few days after this
conversation another taxi took George and Elizabeth from Trespass Place to the
Isle of Dogs. They had agreed that it would be better if he were closer to
Nancy’s shop in Bow, which was a short distance from the old docklands.

‘Riley
comes once a week on a Thursday afternoon,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He stays about an
hour to unload furniture or move things around.’

‘How do
you know?’

‘I paid
to have him watched.’

‘For how
long?’

‘Six
weeks.’

‘I
could have done that.’

‘No…
I’d only just found you.’

The
taxi idled for an hour while George mooched around the tall abandoned
buildings. Barbed wire topped the walls and chicken netting hung across black
windows. Planks had been nailed pell-mell across openings, but down am alley,
George found a swinging door. It tapped like a mallet, drawing his attention.
The room inside was bare like a cell, its walls stained green as if they were
soaking up the river. It would do. Elizabeth appeared behind him.

‘I can
pay you know’ She sounded grief-stricken.

‘I’m
not ready’ He didn’t understand his own words. Nino did. It was part of the
mystery of having lost too much.

She did
not press him. Struggling with her voice, she said, ‘We’ll meet twice a week on
Lawton’s Wharf.’

‘Right-o.’

The
taxi whipped through the murky lanes towards the orange lights of Bow, five
minutes away It dropped George at a fish and chip shop near a bridge. Nancy’s
place — a shack of wood and corrugated metal — was on the other side of the
road. Through the cab’s open door, Elizabeth pressed twenty pounds into George’s
hand. Then she was gone.

George
scouted around for places where the wind would die — Nino taught him that — and
beneath the bridge he found some cardboard. He tracked his way back up the
grassy slope and set himself up in Nancy Riley’s doorway He built closefitting
walls against the cold. Then he wrote down the happenings of the day in book
thirty-seven.

George met Nancy Riley the
next morning He’d expected to confront someone flinty and impatient. But her
face was soft, and she wore a silly hat, a yellow thing with black spots. She
gathered up the cardboard as if it were worth something and brought him inside,
out of the freezing cold. She put on a gas fire and went to make him tea in a
back room. Thick arms filled out the sleeves of a chunky cardigan. She glanced
at him, showing eyes that were large and seemed to smile. The kettle was on top
of a grey filing cabinet.

Through
the dark glass of his goggles, George looked around at the wardrobes, the
mirrors and the ornaments. It was like a home; there was nothing of Riley here.
He quickly left the shop and rushed back to the docklands. Elizabeth came to
the wharf that night.

‘I can’t
do it,’ said George. Nancy was vulnerable in the way he was; tired, like he
was; hungry for what might have been, like he was. It was all marked upon her
face.

Elizabeth
seemed neither surprised nor interested. ‘You saw a filing cabinet?’

‘Yes.’

And
everything else was old furniture?’

‘Yes.’

Elizabeth
was gratified, like someone ticking a box on a register. ‘I’m glad you left.’

‘Why?’
George was stunned. He’d expected anger.

‘Because
now you know what you’re dealing with. She must be an extraordinary woman to
have won Riley’s trust without losing something of herself Perhaps you can help
her.’

‘How?’

‘By
drawing her into something she’d never countenance if you asked her directly Unfortunately,
it requires deceit.’

‘But
why?’

‘Can
you think of another way?’

George
had no answer; he just listened to the river lapping against the wharf.
Elizabeth left him with a primus stove and a box full of tins.

A week
later George went back to the shop. Again, Nancy let him warm up by the fire.
While she was helping a customer load some chairs into a van, George went into
the back room. The drawers on the filing cabinet were clearly marked: one for
the JUNK, and one for the TREASURE. Within minutes he’d placed two official
booklets in one of his plastic bags.

‘George,’
said Elizabeth that night on the wharf, ‘I don’t wish to appear ungrateful, but
I’ve already seen this lot. These are the annual returns sent to Companies
House.’

Elizabeth
took George’s notebook and wrote down what she was looking for: acquisition and
sales records for each business. She described what they would look like.

‘Stay
away for another week, George.’

‘Why?’

‘Since
this is love more than deceit, you have to play hard to get.’

Then
she went home in a taxi that was waiting outside the perimeter fence.

When
George next turned up in Bow, Nancy seemed pleased to see him; perhaps, even,
relieved. Again, she made tea. They talked of the weather. She kept glancing at
his shoes. After ten minutes she got up again and came back with a basin full
of warm, soapy water. ‘Soak your feet, Mr Johnson.’

It was
paradise.

In the days that followed,
George didn’t get a chance to nip into the back room, so he met Elizabeth at
the agreed times. In due course, though, he turned up with a couple of canvas
ledgers:

Riley’s
were red; Nancy’s were blue. George had found them when Nancy went out to get
some milk.

Elizabeth
sat on the remainder of a low wall studying the books with George’s torch. She
seemed to be checking individual entries, shifting her attention from one
ledger to the other.

‘Something’s
going on,’ she whispered, irritated, a finger tapping the page.

‘Is it
over now? Can I stop lifting things?’

‘I don’t
know,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

Elizabeth
came back at some ungodly hour while it was still dark. He woke in the abandoned
warehouse to find her standing over him.

‘These
only show half the picture.’ She handed back the ledgers. ‘I’ve copied them but
I need something else. There should be individual receipts.’ She was speaking
quickly out of the darkness, and George was still half asleep. ‘You know the
sort of books I mean — small with a blue cover. Each page has a number in one
corner. The writing is an imprint from carbon paper. The original is with the
purchaser.’

George
sat up, rubbing his eyes. ‘Do I have to, I mean –’

‘Yes.’
Her voice was raised. She lost control, ever so slightly; just enough to send
him back to Bow ‘You’re not walking away this time, David George Bradshaw’

5

Pale morning light
described Roderick Kemble QC behind his desk, a revolver in one hand and a
document in the other. With savage concentration, he examined the rotation of
the chamber while he slowly depressed the trigger. ‘Take a seat,’ he said after
the click. As if there’d been no interval between now and the night before, he
added, ‘Riley said Bradshaw stood behind the allegations laid against him?’

‘Yes.’

‘How
did you propose to undermine Mr Bradshaw?’

‘Frank
Wyecliffe’s only thought was that it was odd to use your second name when the
first one was ordinary. At the time I thought he’d lost his marbles — so did
Elizabeth.’

Anselm’s
mind tracked back to the rest of that conversation with her. They were in the
common room. She said, ‘Do you think Riley is innocent?’

‘No.’

She
took the last Jaffa cake and ate it with small bites. ‘Would you cross-examine
Bradshaw?’

‘Of
course.’ Ordinarily the QC handles the main witness, not an underling. At the
time Anselm had attached no importance to the request.

A
gentle cough brought him back into Roddy’s presence. Anselm spoke softly
searching for the meaning of words spoken long ago, ‘Elizabeth said, “This is
your chance to do something significant.”’

Anselm’s problem was that
he would have to call Bradshaw a liar — in however polite a fashion — without
any justification. There was no evidence whatsoever that he had conspired with
the girls to frame Riley When Anselm rose to his feet, all he had was an
intuitive awareness that Wyecliffe had been right: the use of one’s middle name
was unusual.

Roddy
once joked that decisive cross-examinations fell into one of three categories. First,
where counsel prevails in a clean argument over facts that will bear more than
one interpretation. Second, where counsel is armed with devastating
information, which need only be revealed at the right moment to clinch the day But
there was a third: where counsel doesn’t know what he is talking about. Anselm
put his encounter with Mr Bradshaw into this last category. Elizabeth might
have thought the change of name worthless, but Anselm was the one at the wheel.
He moved forward tentatively, following the implications of each answer. Most
of Bradshaw’s replies had been ‘Yes.’ It had been an entirely civilised
exchange.