‘News of a place to stay travels on the street,’ said George, ‘and that is how I met Elizabeth. I first saw her huddled by a fire in the manager’s office. On her lap was a small red suitcase with a gold lock. We became friends, though I never heard her story, and I never told her mine. Riley was kind … helped her settle in … he watched her. At that stage, he seemed no different to anyone else. But then a change occurred.’ George knitted his fingers on the table. ‘I don’t know whether Riley started it, or whether he moved naturally with the downward drift, but talk moved from cold and hunger to quick money Either way Riley became a leader … feverish … and, in a way ambitious … and that’s when I left. For reasons I will never understand, Elizabeth refused to come with me.’
Anselm sat very still, arms folded on the edge of the table facing George. The room was dark, save for the pool of light thrown between them.
‘After Sister Dorothy found me a place for the night,’ George continued, ‘I came back to Paddington. What I saw, I’ve never forgotten. There she was, beneath a street-light, completely still. Ahead, and to the left, in shadow, stood the squat. On the right, behind a wall topped with broken glass, ran the railway line. Against the sky I could see a footbridge leading from the station. The street was empty. And then I saw some movement on the bridge … two people … one larger than the other. They paused midway and I knew it was Riley looking over towards Sister Dorothy Even back then, he was bony and stooped, strangely angular. He was leading someone by the hand. They came down the steps and onto the road. Again he stopped, facing Sister Dorothy … with Riley holding a hand, and carrying a bag. Slowly with side-steps, he moved into the squat, tugging the arm of another runaway.
George returned to his jigsaw, tapping edges that wouldn’t stay down. He wasn’t concentrating, because some pieces became detached and he left them misaligned. Remotely he said, ‘It was … awful … you see, Riley went to the station because Sister Dorothy had come to the street. It’s as though he’d taken her place on the platform, and, coming back to the squat, he’d let her see the consequences of her choice.’ George found Anselm’s troubled gaze and said, ‘That night I vowed that if I ever got the chance to name Riley for what he was, to bring him down, then I’d seize the day’
The room grew darker, and the lamplight grew harsher. The walls seemed to have vanished. All that existed was this table, this jigsaw and an old man with careful fingers. Anselm sat back, almost in shadow, listening to what had happened to a boy who’d made a solemn promise.
George had got a job at the Bonnington and there he’d met Emily They saved pennies in large bottles and ‘did without’ until they could afford two rooms in a boarding house. Emily went to night school, did a typing course and landed a job with the National Coal Board. George couldn’t forget the quiet street that ran by a railway line in Paddington. When he got the chance, he started work at the Bridges night shelter, first as a helper, and finally as manager. It played havoc with married life, because George was out four nights every week and permanently on calclass="underline" no one seemed to know the system quite so well as George; no one seemed to solve a crisis quite so deftly But, as Emily well understood, this wasn’t ‘work’ for George. The Bridges was his way of reaching back to where he’d come from. It was therefore fitting, observed George, that he should have heard the name Riley from the mouths of children: Anji, Lisa and Beverly ‘But I let them slip over the edge,’ he said.
Anselm stared at the map’s illustrations. Monstrous creatures of the imagination inhabited the extremities; radiant apostles stood upon the lands to which they’d brought the Good News. It was difficult to conceive how such a chart could have served any navigational purpose. He let his mind study the robes: he knew that the unfolding narrative was moving inevitably towards his cross-examination.
‘After leaving Paddington, I never saw Elizabeth again,’ said George. ‘Not until that day at the Old Bailey We’d been told to address our replies to the jury, so I hadn’t noticed her … and it had been over twenty years, so a glance told me nothing. It was only when you began your questions that a glance became a stare. And then I realised: Riley had picked Elizabeth to silence me.’ He breathed heavily through his nose, and leaned back into the obscurity behind the light. A slight agitation raised his voice and his hands began to move with his words. As you were asking your questions, I was trying to work out what was happening. I was sure that this confrontation was a threat … If I stuck to my evidence, then Riley would expose Elizabeth. She was gazing at me, pleading with her eyes, but telling me what? To spare an old friend who’d made a new life? Or to get on with it and condemn Riley … to bring him down while she was watching?’
Anselm knew the answer, because Elizabeth had told him the night before. ‘Do you think Riley is innocent?’ she’d asked him, feet on the table. And when he’d said no, she’d invited him to cross-examine Bradshaw the next morning. ‘This is your chance to do something significant.’ Outwardly Elizabeth had been mildly bored. But inside she’d screamed with fear that George might fail, without dreaming that Anselm might succeed. He stared at the map, with its strangely beautiful but false proportions, and said, ‘And before you could determine if it was mercy she wanted, or sacrifice — for it would mean her public humiliation — I asked you the one question you could not answer.’
George did not reply.
‘Because if you told the court about David,’ said Anselm, ‘it would undermine your own evidence.’
George still did not speak.
And, of all people, it would fall on Elizabeth to argue that the word of George Bradshaw could not be trusted, because he’d made false allegations once before.’ Anselm paused. ‘It must have been a dreadful moment, George, when I pushed you out of that witness box. I’m far sorrier than I can express, all the more so because I gloried in not knowing what I’d done.’
The sounds of feet and low voices were at the door.
No one is more familiar with the varieties of forensic disappointment than a police officer. Sometimes she knows that a man has committed a crime but she can’t bring him to book, either because a witness won’t speak out (unlike Anji) or the assembled facts wouldn’t convince a jury of guilt (as in the case of John Bradshaw). And even if she rolls him through the court door, a wheel can still fall off (as happened with George Bradshaw). But, curiously the greatest disappointment of the lot is the one reserved for objectionable conduct that falls short of an offence.
These sunless thoughts settled upon Anselm as he greeted Inspector Cartwright, noting that she did not smile or look at George, and that she kept her coat wrapped tight despite the rampant efficiency of an institutional heating system. They formed an apprehensive triangle. The main light had been switched on, but the bulb cast a weary glow, as though it were fearful of what might be revealed.
‘There is a simple legal problem,’ said Inspector Cartwright bluntly ‘Riley’s scheme doesn’t constitute a recognised criminal activity. He’s no different to someone using a telephone directory. He sells a number, that’s all. And in his hands, it’s neutral. If there was an arrangement between Riley and the girl, then it might be different. But there isn’t.’
With the back of his hand, George brushed unseen dust off his sleeve. Anselm gazed again at a schoolboy’s motto: the law will be fulfilled by love.
‘Even if charges could be framed,’ continued Inspector Cartwright, ‘it would be a weak case, a case that we couldn’t reasonably pursue.’ She slowed her delivery, hating her role, her obligations. ‘George, this means that Riley is out of my reach, and yours. I’m sorry to say this, but it looks as if he always was, even before you and Elizabeth set out to catch him.’