William Brodrick - The Gardens of the Dead

And then, without waiting for George to reply, Elizabeth set to work telling him what she required.

‘There’ll be two sets of documents – one for each business: that of Riley, and that of Nancy They’re legally separate papers. They’ll be stored separately’

‘Right-o.’

‘The first is “Riley’s Junk”. The second is “Nancy’s Treasure”.’

‘Right-o.’

‘Once you’ve found them, we’ll talk again.’

‘Right-o. And in the meantime?’

‘You introduce yourself to Nancy.’

‘How?’

‘If I were you I’d sleep on her doorstep.’

‘Right-o. But she’ll want to know my name.’

‘Quite right. I suggest an alias. Mr Johnson. How does that sound to you?’

The bantering vanished at the allusion to John’s Christian name. So that’s why Elizabeth had come to this wharf, thought George, on a Saturday, and at might. It was to place John at the heart of her planning. She was at it again: evoking a setting for what she wanted to say like her use of the toast and cocoa. This time it was for what they were going to do. She used these ceremonies to stir up the past and make it present in am unusually active way George couldn’t quite put it into words, but he felt there was something restoring in the revival, even though it summoned his failure. Henceforth, everything they did together occurred among a prickling sense of the closeness of people who’d once been near: the girls whom George had betrayed and the son he had lost.

‘Mr Johnson sounds just fine,’ George had said.

‘Let’s get going then.’

A horn beeped three times. It was Elizabeth’s taxi, come to take her home.

A few days after this conversation another taxi took George and Elizabeth from Trespass Place to the Isle of Dogs. They had agreed that it would be better if he were closer to Nancy’s shop in Bow, which was a short distance from the old docklands.

‘Riley comes once a week on a Thursday afternoon,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He stays about an hour to unload furniture or move things around.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I paid to have him watched.’

‘For how long?’

‘Six weeks.’

‘I could have done that.’

‘No… I’d only just found you.’

The taxi idled for an hour while George mooched around the tall abandoned buildings. Barbed wire topped the walls and chicken netting hung across black windows. Planks had been nailed pell-mell across openings, but down am alley, George found a swinging door. It tapped like a mallet, drawing his attention. The room inside was bare like a cell, its walls stained green as if they were soaking up the river. It would do. Elizabeth appeared behind him.

‘I can pay you know’ She sounded grief-stricken.

‘I’m not ready’ He didn’t understand his own words. Nino did. It was part of the mystery of having lost too much.

She did not press him. Struggling with her voice, she said, ‘We’ll meet twice a week on Lawton’s Wharf.’

‘Right-o.’

The taxi whipped through the murky lanes towards the orange lights of Bow, five minutes away It dropped George at a fish and chip shop near a bridge. Nancy’s place – a shack of wood and corrugated metal – was on the other side of the road. Through the cab’s open door, Elizabeth pressed twenty pounds into George’s hand. Then she was gone.

George scouted around for places where the wind would die – Nino taught him that – and beneath the bridge he found some cardboard. He tracked his way back up the grassy slope and set himself up in Nancy Riley’s doorway He built closefitting walls against the cold. Then he wrote down the happenings of the day in book thirty-seven.

George met Nancy Riley the next morning He’d expected to confront someone flinty and impatient. But her face was soft, and she wore a silly hat, a yellow thing with black spots. She gathered up the cardboard as if it were worth something and brought him inside, out of the freezing cold. She put on a gas fire and went to make him tea in a back room. Thick arms filled out the sleeves of a chunky cardigan. She glanced at him, showing eyes that were large and seemed to smile. The kettle was on top of a grey filing cabinet.

Through the dark glass of his goggles, George looked around at the wardrobes, the mirrors and the ornaments. It was like a home; there was nothing of Riley here. He quickly left the shop and rushed back to the docklands. Elizabeth came to the wharf that night.

‘I can’t do it,’ said George. Nancy was vulnerable in the way he was; tired, like he was; hungry for what might have been, like he was. It was all marked upon her face.

Elizabeth seemed neither surprised nor interested. ‘You saw a filing cabinet?’

‘Yes.’

And everything else was old furniture?’

‘Yes.’

Elizabeth was gratified, like someone ticking a box on a register. ‘I’m glad you left.’

‘Why?’ George was stunned. He’d expected anger.

‘Because now you know what you’re dealing with. She must be an extraordinary woman to have won Riley’s trust without losing something of herself Perhaps you can help her.’

‘How?’

‘By drawing her into something she’d never countenance if you asked her directly Unfortunately, it requires deceit.’

‘But why?’

‘Can you think of another way?’

George had no answer; he just listened to the river lapping against the wharf. Elizabeth left him with a primus stove and a box full of tins.

A week later George went back to the shop. Again, Nancy let him warm up by the fire. While she was helping a customer load some chairs into a van, George went into the back room. The drawers on the filing cabinet were clearly marked: one for the JUNK, and one for the TREASURE. Within minutes he’d placed two official booklets in one of his plastic bags.

‘George,’ said Elizabeth that night on the wharf, ‘I don’t wish to appear ungrateful, but I’ve already seen this lot. These are the annual returns sent to Companies House.’

Elizabeth took George’s notebook and wrote down what she was looking for: acquisition and sales records for each business. She described what they would look like.

‘Stay away for another week, George.’

‘Why?’

‘Since this is love more than deceit, you have to play hard to get.’

Then she went home in a taxi that was waiting outside the perimeter fence.

When George next turned up in Bow, Nancy seemed pleased to see him; perhaps, even, relieved. Again, she made tea. They talked of the weather. She kept glancing at his shoes. After ten minutes she got up again and came back with a basin full of warm, soapy water. ‘Soak your feet, Mr Johnson.’

It was paradise.

In the days that followed, George didn’t get a chance to nip into the back room, so he met Elizabeth at the agreed times. In due course, though, he turned up with a couple of canvas ledgers:

Riley’s were red; Nancy’s were blue. George had found them when Nancy went out to get some milk.

Elizabeth sat on the remainder of a low wall studying the books with George’s torch. She seemed to be checking individual entries, shifting her attention from one ledger to the other.

‘Something’s going on,’ she whispered, irritated, a finger tapping the page.

‘Is it over now? Can I stop lifting things?’

‘I don’t know,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

Elizabeth came back at some ungodly hour while it was still dark. He woke in the abandoned warehouse to find her standing over him.

‘These only show half the picture.’ She handed back the ledgers. ‘I’ve copied them but I need something else. There should be individual receipts.’ She was speaking quickly out of the darkness, and George was still half asleep. ‘You know the sort of books I mean – small with a blue cover. Each page has a number in one corner. The writing is an imprint from carbon paper. The original is with the purchaser.’