William Brodrick - The Gardens of the Dead

Thinking now of his mother on the edge of the sofa, eyes glued to the screen and worried, Nick decided to ignore the parting advice of a monk. He pulled into a lay-by and fished out Mr Wyecliffe’s business card. It was stained with oil from the cashew nuts. He dialled the number on his mobile. The solicitor’s surprise was forced and his charm predatory, as if he smelled business. An appointment was made for the next day and Nick resumed the journey home, wondering about the relief of Mafeking.

It was odd, but George could remember in his sleep. Sometimes his dreams were like the old films shown at Christmas. He watched with recognition. So when George was slipping away, he would try to switch on what was lost to him while awake. Most of the time it worked. But when he snapped upright it was with the horrible fear that he’d made it all up.

With the sharp stone, George scratched another day of waiting upon the wall. It was early evening. Sheets of polythene wrapping flapped in the corner. He turned on his pocket radio and Sandie Shaw sang ‘Puppet on a String’. He became drowsy, drugged by the waiting and the cold. Elizabeth’s voice rose in his memory. They’d often sat in Marco’s listening to the radio echo from the kitchen. Songs like that were always being dug out. Quite deliberately, George held himself at the line between sleep and wakefulness.

Elizabeth bought more cocoa and toast. ‘You really have changed. I barely recognised you.’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘I’m sorry.

Elizabeth picked up a triangle of toast with dainty fingers.

After the trial Riley sold Quilling Road.’

‘Did he?’

‘Yes. And he left the Isle of Dogs. In fact, he was sacked. With the money from the sale he set up a house clearance business.’

‘Did he?’

‘Stop asking if he did something, when I just said that he did.’

‘Fair enough.’

Elizabeth licked her thumb and forefinger. ‘He set up two companies. One of them is a shop run by his wife, Nancy, whom you saw at court. I don’t suppose you met?’

‘No,’ said George. ‘It wasn’t that type of party.’

Elizabeth dabbed the corners of her mouth. ‘The second business is Riley’s own concern. He runs it from a transit van, selling odds and ends at fairs and bazaars.’

‘Stuff from the house clearances?’

‘Yes. So when he buys a job lot, everything is somehow or other divided between this shop and his van.

‘So what?’ George wasn’t interested in Riley’s commercial habits.

‘Aren’t you ever inquisitive?’

‘Not really’ His eye fell on the last triangle of toast. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘He has to file accounts at Companies House. I’ve read them.’ Elizabeth pushed the plate towards George, as if it were a donation. She said, ‘I’m reliably informed that this business isn’t what it seems.’

George threw down a crust. ‘You’ve just said that he’s gone straight.’

‘No I didn’t. I said he’d gone into business.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘All the figures add up perfectly’

George couldn’t understand lawyers. How could they see a weakness that wasn’t there? Mind you, that was what the other one had done. How had he known to ask about David Bradshaw? Duffy was his name. He’d got lots of pages all to himself in book thirty or so.

Elizabeth said, ‘To find out what he’s really doing we need to see more than a balance sheet.’

‘We?’

‘Sorry,’ said Elizabeth with a smile. A slip of the tongue. But now you mention it, I’ve an idea.’

‘Have you?’

Elizabeth glowered at him. ‘Yes. Both companies are registered at Nancy’s shop.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s their official business address. Riley is obliged by law to keep all financial records for seven years. I doubt if he keeps a filing cabinet at home.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘Nancy is the key. She must have turned aside from so much to have seen so little.’

‘Your idea… it wouldn’t be me knocking on the door and introducing myself?’

‘Not far off, George. Imagination and subtlety would have taken you the remaining distance.’

‘Would it?’

Elizabeth glowered again and refused to answer.

A loud flap from the polythene nudged George into wakefulness. The present moment gathered density, becoming prickly; he had pins and needles along one arm. The conversation was still complete, like an echo. He listened to the aftershock, understanding – for that moment of rebounding – all that had happened over the following months. But then an awful doubt came over him: had it all been a dream? With a torch held under his chin, he fumbled through his notebooks. He turned the pages quickly, his mind growing dim, Elizabeth’s words fading… until he paused to smooth out a dog-ear at the beginning of book thirty-six. There was the heading. It brought back her voice: ‘George, this is what you are going to do.’

After compline Anselm knocked on the Prior’s door. It was the Great Silence, but Father Andrew never let a rule, however ancient and secure, take primacy over an insistent worry. A fire had been made. Two chairs had been placed in front of it. The Prior was already seated, arms on his knees. Light flickered upon broken glasses that had been repaired with a paperclip.

Anselm took his place. ‘You know of the key?’

‘I do.’

By the hearth was a life-size statue that he’d never seen before. Such things turned up occasionally in the fields, or by the Lark near the abbey ruin. Once cleaned up, they stood in for garden gnomes in the grounds. This one had lost its head and an elbow. Whoever it was stood like an observer of sacred things long gone.

‘I suspect you know everything else,’ said Anselm, grateful to have an ally.

The Prior shook his head. ‘All I’m sure of is this: in the nicest possible way, we’ve been set up.’

They looked at the wrangle of impatient flames. The wood was wet and hissed and steamed.

While Larkwood was a deeply impractical place, its traditions were very ordered when it came to talking – because of the Rule’s insistence on listening. Back-and-forth dialogue wasn’t the norm with serious matters. You took turns. At a nod from Anselm, the Prior kept the initiative.

‘Elizabeth asked to see me – in confidence – the week before you came to Larkwood, which is to say about ten years ago. Inadvertently it seems, you had given me a favourable recommendation. Or, at least, the kind that spoke to her.’

Anselm had said that the Prior pops illusions… it was all he could remember saying.

‘She made an appointment. She came all the way from London. But she couldn’t speak. We just looked at each other. And something surfaced while I was watching her… anger, helplessness… and finally she said, “How can evil be undone?”‘ The Prior scratched his scalp. ‘We spent the next hour exploring this territory, never approaching a specific issue. And yet I was talking to a haunted woman.’

Anselm remembered his own conversations with Elizabeth on those dark Friday nights: she’d been intellectually tireless, searching out the implications of every nuance. When she’d come to Finsbury Park, she’d told of a voice that would not be stilled and Anselm had said that to understand the ways of the heart you need a guide…

‘Years later she asked to see me again,’ resumed Father Andrew, eyes on the fire. ‘She didn’t want you to know of her visit, so we met while you were away In many respects it was a re-run of our first encounter, only this time the anger and helplessness had been replaced by despair. As before, she did not speak. So I asked her a question, “Why are you unhappy?” Almost whispering, she said, “I’m implicated in a homicide.” And then she seemed to slip away, leaving her body behind. I said, “I think you need a solicitor not a monk.” She replied, “It’s not the law that has a claim upon me. It’s my “‘