A lifeless, loveless face looked back. So great was Riley’s horror at the sight of himself that he didn’t even scream.
PART FOUR
a girl’s progress
1
Anselm faced Mr Hillsden. Between them, in a hospital bed, lay George Bradshaw, a frown holding one side of his face like a paralysis. Clippers had neatly removed his hair and beard, leaving a ragged stubble. The skin around his eyes was pale, as if he’d just returned from two weeks on a sunny alpine piste.
‘I don’t recognise him,’ said Anselm quietly. The man in the witness box had been tall and imposing. Where on earth had he been after he’d walked out of court? What manner of journey could so reduce a man? He said, ‘How did you find him?’
‘With respect,’ said Mr Hillsden, ‘I lodged at Trespass Place.’
‘All this time?’
‘Indeed, on the upper platform of a fire escape.’ He stood with both hands resting on the ornamental knob of his curtain pole. ‘He chose an agreeable location, if I may say so. South-facing and close to all local amenities.’ There was a heavy irony in his voice — that of the commentator who can’t adequately explain what he’s known and seen. His watery blue eyes never strayed higher than Anselm’s folded arms.
It transpired that Mr Hillsden had secured an ambulance by halting it on Blackfriars Bridge with his raised staff. He’d then waited at the hospital all night until the Vault opened, when a sympathetic nurse had made a telephone call to Debbie Lynwood. She had immediately contacted Anselm, who, in turn, had left a message for Inspector Cartwright. It was nine in the morning.
Anselm examined the twisted shape in the bed. According to his witness statement, David George Bradshaw was a married man with one child, a careworker by profession, in the employ of the Bridges night shelter. ‘When you wake,’ said Anselm, detached from his surroundings, ‘please tell me what I did wrong.
The sound of feet and bustle announced the approach of a consultant weighed down by a stethoscope and students. ‘Are you a chaplain?’ he asked. The tone was kindly but implied a treatable deviation from the norm.
‘No.’
His eyes moved onto Mr Hillsden. A relative?’
‘With respect, no.
‘If you don’t mind,’ he said hastily ‘I’ll proceed.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Anselm, stepping back.
The doctor flicked through the medical motes on a clipboard while his young audience formed an arc around the bed. Mr Hillsden did not move and stood among them, head bowed, hands on his staff.
‘Male, sixty-something,’ intoned the consultant. ‘First admitted after a beating at Waterloo Station. Multiple blows to the cranial vault. No patient history’ — he glanced towards an industrious young man with a pad and pen — ‘Edgerton, stop writing and listen. Just think. It’s far more difficult. Outcome: ruptured aneurysm. Louise, a definition, please.’
A sac in a major artery or vein that burst,’ said the young woman, ‘causing a leak of blood into the brain.’
‘Correct.’ The doctor hung the medical notes on the bedstead. ‘The required surgical procedure is rather like patching the inner tube on your bike, but rather more difficult. You may record that for posterity, Edgerton. In the instant case, no post-op complications. One hitch: short-term memory loss. Treatment?’
Glances fell on Louise.
‘In effect, there is none.’ The doctor eyed his patient with pity. ‘To anchor events a routine and supported life is essential. Unless he writes things down, the recent past will draw back like the tide on Dover Beach. In the circumstances, that may not be a bad thing. Last night someone found him soaking wet. He’s now got mild to moderate hypothermia. Treatment, Gardner?’
‘Cover with blankets at room temperature.’
‘Precisely’ he replied. ‘What you see now is a pandemic condition characterised by static posture and reduced but reversible sensitivity to external stimuli. Diagnosis?’
No one spoke.
‘With respect,’ said Mr Hillsden apologetically ‘the term “asleep” has the advantage of economy.
Outside the ward, by a door marked EXIT, Anselm and Mr Hillsden once again faced each other. This time nothing lay between them, save for the kind of awkwardness that might befit separated friends. Anselm looked at the lowered head, the green cagoule and the polished, split brogues. Casually as he might have done on a rather stiff social occasion, he said, ‘Might I ask, to which Inn do you belong?’
For an instant, Mr Hillsden’s washed eyes caught Anselm’s gaze. A faint smile moved beneath the grizzled beard. ‘The Inner Temple.’ The words were barely audible.
‘Which chambers?’ asked Anselm carelessly.
‘3 Vellum Square.’
‘An.’ Anselm knew it well. ‘Facing that glorious magnolia tree?’
Mr Hillsden nodded. ‘There’s a sundial, too …’
Footsteps echoed, moving swiftly Anselm glimpsed the magenta scarf of Inspector Cartwright at the end of the corridor. He called out and she paused, retracing a few steps. With a brief wave, she came towards them.
‘She will be as grateful to you as I am,’ said Anselm, turning back to Mr Hillsden … but he was gone. Anselm ran through the EXIT door into a stairwell. Leaning over a railing, he could see nothing but a shadow thrown across the steps, descending.
‘Come back,’ he shouted.
The staff sounded on the stone like the tapping of a patient carpenter. A door closed out of sight and Anselm found himself alone with Inspector Cartwright.
‘Who’s that?’ she enquired. A breath of lavender came with her approach.
‘Just another member of the Bar,’ he replied.
Anselm and Inspector Cartwright chose window seats in the cafeteria. Down below the Thames seemed not to flow It flickered with light around a reflection of Parliament and Big Ben. The sky was immense, cold and blue.
‘Did you make any sense of those accounts?’ asked the Inspector, stirring foam in a mug of hot chocolate.
‘No,’ replied Anselm. ‘No matter how hard I looked.’
‘I don’t suppose it matters, now that Mr Bradshaw has turned up.
Anselm examined his toast. This was soft, additive-packed, white sliced bread. None of your grains and nuts, like the breeze blocks at Larkwood. It should have been a moment to relish, but his appetite had gone — with Mr Hillsden. ‘The letter from Elizabeth has been destroyed,’ he said shortly ‘George’s clothing was binned at three in the morning. The waste disposal truck came at six. I arrived at half eight. I think that just about explains what’s transpired in our absence.’
‘We’re stuffed, then,’ observed Inspector Cartwright.
‘Not quite,’ said Anselm. He measured his words with care, sharing a thought that had come to him earlier that morning. ‘All manner of fowl are drawn to the monastic life. Some are very talented but for years these guys have to follow the same routine as the rest of us. And then one day … the Prior gives them a job. Suddenly all that unexercised talent breaks out on the laundry, or the kitchens, or — and I have a concrete example in mind — the priory’s accounts. It’s hell for the rest of us, of course, but in that one quarter we have levels of efficiency the Bundesbank couldn’t dream of. All of which persuades me we should send the accounts to Brother Cyril. This is a man who spends the night hours chasing pennies, and he finds them.’