The Gardens of the Dead (33 page)

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 had 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 Mâcon 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.

George
chose a jigsaw — a medieval map of the known world. Anselm left George and took
a bus to Camberwell. Once more he was directed to the garden and the corridor
of chestnut trees. Sister Dorothy was in the same place, at the far end. Tartan
blankets kept her warm; the brown pakol had been pulled down to protect her
ears. She glanced at Anselm as he sat down beside her on a stone bench, and
said, ‘She was a very clever girl, but naughty. Didn’t take to the rules at
first. She spent her first months in detention every Sunday afternoon. I used
to visit her with parcels from the tuck shop.’

‘I take
it you mean Elizabeth Steadman, and not Elizabeth Glendinning,’ said Anselm.

‘What a
very
silly mistake,’ she replied, closing her eyes. The fracture in her
nose caught the low, slanting light, and it appeared dark and grotesque.

‘I was
completely fooled,’ said Anselm.

Sister
Dorothy might have admitted defeat, but she was shrewd enough to wait and see
just how much territory had been lost. Anselm smuggled an arm into each wide
sleeve, taking hold of his elbows. It was cold. Three ravens watched him from
the branches of an oak beyond the convent wall.

‘I
imagine that it was in the evening,’ said Anselm, ‘and that it had grown dark
outside. Elizabeth was alone in the Green Room at St John’s Wood. She opened
The
Following of Christ
— a book that went back, perhaps, to her last meeting
with you —and she cut a hole in the pages deep enough to hold a key Much later
she came to Larkwood with a duplicate and asked me to use it if, by chance, she
were to die. Her last words to me were, “You can’t always explain things to
your children. If need be, will you help Nicholas understand?” At first, I
thought she meant help him come to terms with grief. Then I thought she wanted
me to explain that you couldn’t be a lawyer without a sort of innocent
compromise. But now I fear she meant something very different –’

Sister
Dorothy made a low groan of surrender. ‘Mr Kemble said you might come.’

The
ravens hopped onto higher branches, and then flew off in different directions.

‘You
know
Roddy?’
Anselm had the sort of sensation that might occur if you
turned a corner in a familiar street, only to find you were in a different
country.

‘Oh
yes, we’re old friends,’ said Sister Dorothy ‘I met him during a prison visit.
My veil charmed him. In those days it was like a marquee. He wanted to know how
it was fixed, whether it was comfortable. I rather thought he was jealous.’

‘He’s
never mentioned you.’

‘I
should hope not.’

‘Why?’

‘Because
that is what we agreed.’

Anselm
tried to stop his intuition racing ahead of his questions. ‘Sister, did you
introduce Elizabeth to Mr Kemble?’

‘Not
quite.’ Sister Dorothy seemed proud of her own machinations. ‘I told Roddy all
about Elizabeth when she began her studies for the Bar. He wangled several
accidental meetings and eventually urged her to apply to his chambers.
Elizabeth never found out.’

Anselm’s
inkling was like a rush of blood. He said, ‘You didn’t meet Elizabeth in
Carlisle, did you? You met here in Camberwell … This is the hostel where you
were based … before the architects put in those corridors …’

Sister
Dorothy gazed high above the convent wall, as if she could see ridges, peaks
and snow ‘Wheel me inside, please, and tell me about the key’ she said.

As
happens in November, darkness had come like a thief, and quickly.

15

When Riley got to
Hornchurch Marshes the light was dwindling. Gingerly he trotted down a sloping
path that led to the Four Lodges. Years back, a cooling tower had been
demolished and all that remained were these rectangular pools. The Council had
put some fish in and left them to it.

On the
site of the old tower, Riley scoured the grass. Whimpering and swearing, he
kicked free some rocks and a blackened two-by-four with rusted nails protruding
like a row of buttons. Then he sat on the remnants of a wall, hugging himself,
his eyes fixed on the path. He was up a height, feeling nauseous, watching his
actions run ahead of him, like they’d done with John Bradshaw At his feet were
the weapons, and a torch.

This
was only the third time Riley had been here. The last was after the trial, and
before that he’d been a boy.

Very early one morning the
man Riley wouldn’t call Dad had put the remaining kitten in a sack. The other
eight had found good homes. ‘Put your coat on, Graham,’ he said. There was a
smell of aftershave — something brash and fiery.

Without
speaking, they walked through Dagenham’s empty streets towards the pale light
over Hornchurch Marshes. Presently the flats of the Thames opened out like a
damp blanket and there, in the middle, were four panes of water, framed and
criss-crossed by slippery bricks.

They
walked to the edge and Walter’s arm began to swing. His chest blew up and his
mouth went firm. Sick at the idea of unwanted life, Riley grabbed the big man’s
sleeve, but a backhand sent him flying He was on his hands and knees for the
splash, with blood on his lip. The bag turned in the water and sank. Riley
watched, transfixed. He’d expected a scream — not from the bag, but from above
and all around. But there was no sound … none at all. After the ripples had
run off, the surface carried nothing but colour snatched from the brightening
sky.

That
evening, they came back to the Four Lodges. Midges clung like hats around the
fishermen. They sat on boxes and stools, maggots on their bottom lip. That’s
how it was done: you warmed it in the mouth. When it hit the cold water the
thing wriggled on its hook, attracting the perch and the carp. Walter kept his
supply in a Tom Long tobacco tin.

‘Go on,
Graham,’ he said distantly.

Riley
wanted to please Walter, so he did as he was asked, and Walter looked on,
midges circling his head. Riley gazed into his high, tormented eyes: the big
man didn’t really want to be like this, but he couldn’t stop himself. However,
there and then, Riley’s understanding shrivelled up. Somehow, this couldn’t be
right … feeling this thing writhe between his lips. It was the taste of decay.

Riley
didn’t trouble himself with questions like why the man he wouldn’t call Dad did
what he did — he already knew the answer: Walter had a child of his own; Riley
was in the way The big man had lost his job and his self-respect. He wanted a
life different from the one he’d got. Those huge lungs were bursting with
complaint. The braces weren’t strong enough to hold it in. When Riley lay awake
that night, after two visits to the Four Lodges, such thoughts didn’t even
ruffle the surface of his mind; no, Riley was more confused by the senseless
parade of death: in one day he’d seen a fish taken out of water, and a cat
thrown in.

When
Riley next came, after the trial, he thought of the Major, who’d never lost
faith in the boy who’d turned up at the hostel, who’d seen someone else behind
the flesh and blood in front of him — someone lost to Riley’s eyes. Leaving the
conference room, Riley had glimpsed something like agony on the old soldier’s
face. The Major was asking himself how this beast had turned out the way he
had. It was a good question, but who’d have thought that the die was cast when
Riley still a boy couldn’t make sense of a brightening sky?

On that
glorious day of acquittal, midges gathered around Riley’s head; and he wept as
a man on the grass where he’d wept as a boy.

The temperature was
dropping fast with the light and Riley shivered. Before him lay the Four Lodges
and, on their far side, coming down a sloping path, was a big lad … a lad who
was on to Walter.