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.’
On an island, she had said, the cold place of not knowing, and not being able to care.
When Mrs Bradshaw opened the front door, a strong wind carried the sound of shaking trees and rain.
‘I asked your husband a question,’ said Anselm, feeling queasy, ‘… What did David do that George wanted to forget?… I was being clever within the rules, but I was blind to what it meant… I’m sorry.’
‘Maybe one day he’ll tell you.’ She didn’t mean it; she couldn’t. He’d gone: he was a lost man. ‘Here, take this. I found it on the Tube.’ She handed him a man’s umbrella from a stand.
Anselm stumbled on the sill. He turned, staring past Mrs Bradshaw at the sheets. ‘I think that Mrs Glendinning found your husband before she died.’
‘Where is he?’ She dropped the paintbrush.
‘I don’t know yet, but…’
Mrs Bradshaw’s mouth fell slightly open and she quickly closed the door as if she were ashamed.
Anselm strode along the terrace, angling his umbrella towards the rain. He felt a churning violence against Riley and the dominion of his kind, their endless thriving. He would bring them down, if he could, with all the vigour with which he’d once defended them. Of course, Anselm had seen the link between the trial and John’s death as soon as he’d considered the contents of the case. So had Nicholas; so had Roddy.
However, meeting Mrs Bradshaw had foreshortened his understanding and it made him shiver. Riley’s presence moved in his mind: arms coiled across a narrow chest, the jaw bony and strangely lax.
Anselm took refuge beneath the first bus shelter and read the letter from Elizabeth. The Prior had been right. She had carefully drawn them both into a daring purpose.
9
Elizabeth’s taxi came along the cobbles chased by kids. George was at Lawton’s perimeter fence when he heard the racket. He stopped, one leg through the wire, and watched. These grubby vagabonds crawled all over the docks. They challenged intruders great or small. George had already seen them in action against a fire engine and had kept out of sight ever since. When the taxi pulled up, they danced around it clapping and shouting. The driver sped off, leaving Elizabeth in the street. Unabashed, she walked towards George, followed by a chanting crowd.., well, there were only five or six of them, but they took over the place… and yet he didn’t dwell on their antics. Elizabeth was jubilant.
They went through the fence and picked their way towards the wharf. A couple of kids tailed them, but then vanished.
‘We’ve done it,’ said Elizabeth. A trial had taken her out of London, so they hadn’t met for three weeks. She sat on the remnant of wall, glad to be back, her heels tapping like a dancer’s. ‘He appears to be doing one thing, but hidden within the numbers is another animal. He keeps it right under Nancy’s nose.’
‘Would you write that down, please?’ George reached for his notebook.
‘In due course.’ Elizabeth fished in her bag for the whisky and the beakers. ‘There’s more to say, more that’s worth keeping; but now we celebrate.’ Out of a carrier bag she produced beef and horseradish sandwiches, and a tub of cherry tomatoes. The surface of the Thames ran upon itself with ripples. On the far bank empty barges hovered in a mist.
‘George, there’s something you need to remember… to dwell on, as I have. The stone you throw is small, picked from his own garden, but it will take away something he values above all else, and behind which he hides: a good character: the gift bestowed by the law upon the righteous, as well as the man who is never found out.’