William Brodrick - The Day of the Lie

‘Why did he let me go without a fight?’ pursued Anselm, fearlessly ‘Can’t you guess? Or are you just plain stupid?’

‘There are two schools of thought on that one. But seriously why?’

‘Exodus Twenty-two.’

‘Yer wot?’

‘Defend the widow and the orphan:

Anselm gave a knowing sigh, but before he could pull away Sylvester gestured him closer, nodding towards John. ‘I’ve seen him before.’

‘You have.’

‘Thought so.

‘Countless times.’

‘Really? Well, I forgot to ask… was he ever in the scouts?’

‘No.’

‘Ah, that’s a pity’ The Watchman tried to fathom a boyhood without a knife, a ball of string and nights under canvas. ‘It would have made all the difference.’

‘Steady on, he was still the outdoor type,’ objected Anselm defensively ‘Took his trombone into the bush, damn it. Marched through nettles.’

‘Good heavens.’ The old man frowned, reluctantly won over. ‘All right, you can tell him.’

‘Tell him what?’

‘That as a lad I met Baden Powell. At Olympia. Shook his hand, I did. Do you know, it was during the Second Matabele War that he first…’

After lunch Anselm drove John to Cambridge. They waited on the platform, John tapping an erratic rhythm on his toecaps. Anselm wanted to snatch the half-white stick and break it over his knee. A sort of chasm had been growing between them since they’d left the parlour. It had been filled by practical chat and Baden Powell and, finally, that tat-tat-tatting. But both of them knew that something of importance had been left unsaid. As the train approached, Anselm took a deep breath and stepped back nearly three decades.

‘Do you remember I asked for a character witness? Someone who could speak to your professional integrity?’

‘Yes:

In the car, Anselm had suffered a sudden and terrible premonition that John still loved her; that part of his desire to fulfil Roza’s appeal was a crazy attempt to somehow win her back. He didn’t dare say it, and he couldn’t say it now. But he sensed he was close to the reason for their separation.

‘Did you ask Celina?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘She refused.’

‘Do you know why?’

John’s stick made a sort of full stop and the carriages crashed along the rails. ‘I never asked. She’d gone before I could pop the question.’

It was not, perhaps, the most prudent decision. Having decided to brush up his German, Anselm had turned not to the likes of Der Spiegel or any number of crackling long-wave radio programmes, but to the ruminations of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Drawn by the remark, ‘I don’t know why we’re here but I’m pretty sure that it isn’t to enjoy ourselves’ he’d made a cursory examination of selected oeuvres (expecting more laughs) only to find the insight unambiguously confirmed. It was therefore with mild relief that he abandoned a knotty paragraph in Philosophische Untersuchungen to answer the library telephone. It was from the Prior. Ten minutes later they were on the Bluebell Walk, heading towards Our Lady’s Lake. The summons had been far from unexpected. Since John’s departure two days earlier, Larkwood’s guardian had been observing Anselm across the nave with a paternal, subdued disquiet.

‘I want you to be vigilant, Anselm,’ began the Prior, watching where he was putting his feet. Branches had fallen during the recent bout of high winds. His solemn manner evoked the conference, erasing the interlude. ‘I don’t wish to offend you, but regardless of your many years in the criminal courts, you have no experience of the place to which you’re now going and the dangers it holds. It’s not the Old Bailey, with hefty policemen at the door. Nor is it a prison cell where you’re protected by that strange respect which even the most violent men hold for representatives of the law, including those who propose to demonstrate their guilt. You’ll be entering the world of Otto Brack, this frightening man who learned how to bring about evil by exploiting someone who is good, laying — in part — the evil at their door. I have never come across that before. You must take special precautions.’

Anselm was unnerved by the Prior’s declamatory tone. It was reserved for funerals. He was surprised, too, by the warning. The plan was to fly to Warsaw, open a file, have a quick read, eat some pickled cucumber, drink himself senseless, and then come home, The chances of mishap were remote. He said so.

‘I hope you’re right,’ replied the Prior. ‘Perhaps you can walk into Brack’s world and walk out again unscathed, but I have my doubts. Twisted people lead twisted lives and the roads they build around them are never straight and true. You might find yourself on some back street wondering where to turn next.’

The evening sun filtered through the copper leaves overhead. Water glinted at the end of the winding track. Listening to the fall of each other’s feet, they stepped out from under the trees on to a pebble beach that skirted the edge of the lake. To one side lay a blackened railway sleeper, sunk deep into the bank by Sylvester when he was a young man who couldn’t stop talking. He’d been banished here by his novice master to work alone and learn the infinite vocabulary of silence. It was here, too, that Father Herbert Moore, one of the founding fathers, had broken the rule against speaking to suggest a name for the derelict buildings under restoration, for this hidden school dedicated to sane living. He’d uttered one word: ‘Larkwood’.

‘You mentioned precautions,’ said Anselm, hitching his habit to sit by the Prior. He picked up a handful of stones and threw one towards the reflections of yellow and crimson cloud. John had sat here thirty years back when the Prior didn’t need glasses. Anselm had wondered what the Prior had been saying.

‘First, your task isn’t simply to find a name. Anyone can read a word upon the page. You need to look far deeper. You can’t arrange to meet this informer until you know why they betrayed Roza. They, like Brack, occupy a world very different to yours, but you must enter it, seeking to understand its logic, its values, its Gods and idols… its empty spaces that long for meaning. All you will have are the papers in the file. Peel back the words. Look inside.’

Anselm nodded and threw another pebble along the same trajectory as the first. The water creased and the colours ran from the splash of light and dark.

‘Remember they have lived unchallenged for over thirty years, continued the Prior. ‘They’ll have restructured their past to make it manageable, perhaps even attractive and virtuous. We all do. We all write these narratives so that we have something good to read when we wake up at night, troubled and unsure. You need to find a better story. That’s the only way to bring them back on to Roza’s side of tragedy and injustice.’

Anselm nodded again and lobbed another stone.

‘Secondly, bring this place with you. Bring all it represents and means. Though you leave the enclosure keep faith with the rhythms of our day This is your best precaution on entering Brack’s world. I don’t know why, but it changes what you do, how you see things and what you say It’s what separates you from many a better detective.’

The Prior had finished. He picked up a dried twig and cast it high in the air. It landed almost without a sound, floating on the water’s surface, barely visible against the reflected evening sky. Beyond, on a plinth in the middle of the lake, the statue of a woman looked down in calm resignation, isolated but resplendent.

‘Be careful, Anselm,’ he said, quietly ‘Don’t let Brack know that you’re coming.’

A week later, after Lauds, Anselm knelt down in the nave to receive Larkwood’s traditional blessing for the travelling monk. Surrounded by hunched figures who almost certainly weren’t listening, the Prior commended his son to the dispensations of Providence, adding a few suggestions for compliance with best practice: to guide his steps, thoughts, and deeds, and procure a safe return. In the afternoon Anselm met John for lunch at the airport. They sat in a bar, Anselm stirring a preposterously large carton of strong coffee, John — forbidden by law to smoke — nervously chewing a match, his hand squeezing a pack of crumpled Black Russians. As if in tandem with the Prior, he, too, had come with warnings and a kind of blessing.