Riley had studied the Major’s cap-badge motto, ‘Blood and Fire’, in a panic, unable to comprehend why this man should care at all.
‘I know myself better than you ever will, Major. I’ve been places.., in here’ — he’d pointed savagely at his head, as if it were a distant continent — ‘that you’ve only heard about.’
‘I don’t mean what you’ve done. I mean who you are. The man behind the mistakes and the wrong turns.’ The Major leaned forwards, placing a hand on each knee, like the medic on a football pitch. He stared at Riley his eyes clean and unbearably merciful. ‘They’re not the same, you know’
They’re not the same. The strange words spiralled down forty years into an empty house in Tottenham. Riley’s mind grew dark — even his eyes seemed to drain of light. How could you separate a man from what he’d done? Like a flicker of flame in the grate, Riley remembered himself standing at the bedroom door, a boy in pyjamas, watching Walter punch and stab the air.
4
Anselm was drinking tea in a café ten minutes early for his meeting with Inspector Cartwright. Roughly ten minutes after the agreed time he saw a figure dodging between the cars on Coptic Street. A magenta scarf fluttered against a long black overcoat.
Anselm had first met Inspector Cartwright during the Riley trial. Afterwards he’d seen her once or twice smoking in the corridors of the Bailey. Their eyes had met; and Anselm, being the sensitive sort, had detected a measure of hostility. That expression, it seemed, had not left her face.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said sweetly sitting down, ‘three kids under five. Don’t do it.’
‘I’ll try not to.’ Each ear was weighted with a substantial holly-berry earring, irregular in shape, probably painful to wear and undoubtedly made by one of the under-fives. Her hair was a deep, rusty brown; it had been cut very short, leaving precise lines. ‘I think when we last met,’ she said kindly ‘you’d just opened the door to let Mr Riley out.’
And now,’ replied Anselm, ‘I hope to open another that will bring him back in.
Inspector Cartwright was, of course, wholly unaware of Elizabeth’s hope to ‘take away Riley’s good name’ and her contingency plan should death overtake the fulfilment of her project, so Anselm related what had transpired since the day he received the key.
‘Unfortunately’ he said, in conclusion, ‘I came to my responsibility a mite later than she anticipated. When I got to Trespass Place, George had gone.’
Inspector Cartwright had listened with fixed attention, a hand at intervals repositioning an earring. She glanced at the cake selection, saying, ‘I’ve already played a part in this business, only I didn’t realise it until now Would you hang on a moment?’ She waved at the counter and asked for a date slice. ‘Kids. I need sugar.’ The waiter returned with a small plate and a small cake. After reflecting for a moment she began to speak.
A few years ago a friend of mine put a file on my desk. He has an informant in the field called Prosser who trades in antiques at the bottom end of the market. He goes round the fairs and fêtes. He’s on a retainer to tell us what he sees and hears. Usually it’s handling stolen goods — stuff being moved on for cash without a receipt. Sometimes it’s drugs. It happens that he’d filed three reports on Riley’ She leaned on the table, one hand on top of the other. ‘Prosser said Riley was up to something, but he couldn’t pin it down. But he was sure that people came to Riley’s stall, handed over cash and left with nothing.’
‘A payment?’
‘Apparently.’
‘The same people?’
‘Not always, but often.’
‘Paying protection?’
‘We had him watched but he does nothing but empty dead men’s houses and sell on what they’ve left behind.’
Anselm called up the sorts of questions that were once basic to his trade: ‘Is the profit margin too high for his kind of business?’
‘No. And the accounts are perfect — all filed on time at Companies House.’
‘Is he funding a lifestyle beyond his earnings?’
The Inspector shook her head. ‘He’s got a tatty bungalow, no car and never goes on holiday. So we dropped it.’
‘But people still give him money for nothing?’ said Anselm.
‘Yes, they do.’
Anselm waited.
A couple of years ago I was at the Bailey for a trial,’ said the Inspector. ‘One morning I was in the canteen and Mrs Glendinning took a seat right in front of me. Without saying hello, she asked if I’d heard about the death of John
Bradshaw I said I had. And then, like a timetable enquiry, she said, “Will you get Riley in the dock for the killing?” I shook my head and she just made an ‘Ah,” as if a train had been delayed. And then she said, “I wonder if he’s gone straight?” That’s when I told her about Prosser, but she didn’t seem that interested.’
Anselm smiled to himself. With two straightforward questions, Elizabeth had learned what she wanted to know: the state of the police inquiry into John’s death, and whether Riley was still believed to be involved in crime. Armed with this information, she’d tracked down George and begun her scheme. In a reverie, Anselm saw afresh its crucial antecedents: her troubled visits to Finsbury Park and Larkwood, where she’d worked out the framework for her actions.
Inspector Cartwright tapped her plate with a teaspoon. ‘Hello.’ She seemed to be peering into a pipe. ‘I’m a police officer. Put your hands up.’
‘Forgive me,’ said Anselm, blinking. ‘I was distracted by a kind of vision.’
‘Really? What did you see?’
‘That Elizabeth drew you forward; as she drew my Prior; as she drew me.’
For a time neither of them spoke.
‘I suppose that makes us comrades,’ Inspector Cartwright said at last. She held out her hand. As their palms met Anselm saw Elizabeth leaning over a box of Milk Tray — when it had all begun. Her hair had fallen like a curtain. In his imagination, Anselm peered behind it, and caught her faint smile. ‘I’ve been tidying up my life,’ she’d said.
‘I never heard from Mrs Glendinning again,’ resumed the Inspector. ‘On the day she died, she left a message on my answer machine. She just said, “Leave it to Anselm.”‘
They both now understood what that meant. But Anselm wanted to know something else. ‘How would you describe her tone of voice?’
‘Supremely confident.’
Standing outside the café, Anselm said, ‘Out of interest, did you ever take the Pieman seriously?’
‘We ran the name past all our contacts in the field,’ said the Inspector, ‘and we pushed it through the computer, but nothing came up. When I interviewed Riley he wouldn’t answer a single question, but I kept coming back to that name.’
‘Why?’
‘I noticed it made him sweat.’
Anselm left Inspector Cartwright on the understanding that he would contact her as and when he heard from Mr Hillsden. Watching her walk down Coptic Street, Anselm recalled Lamb’s question to the old benchers of the Inner Temple: ‘Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled?’
5
One freezing morning Nancy had walked from Poplar to her shop. Dumped across the entrance was a pile of cardboard marked FRAGILE in red. She reached over with her keys, glancing down to keep her balance. That’s when she saw the finger poking out. She gasped, thinking it must be a body from a gangland war. She tapped the surface with her foot, wondering if the man had been cut up into bits, but the finger moved and a flap opened like a trap door and there was this man, his face black and hairy, his eyes hidden by goggles. She’d thought he must have been a fighter pilot from the First World War.
This man rolled onto his side, drawing up his knees. Then he felt his way up the door, using the handle to lift himself out of the cardboard… It was packaging for a fridge.