William Brodrick - The Gardens of the Dead

‘Good afternoon, Father,’ said Inspector Cartwright pleasantly.

Anselm looked to his right, quickly as if he’d been caught. She was sitting legs crossed on a bench eating crisps. On her lap was a manila envelope. Her ears still carried the weight of a child’s affection.

‘Have a look at these,’ she said. ‘Mrs Glendinning is either playing a game or she’s being very careful.’

Anselm sat beside her, one hand searching an upper pocket for his glasses. Relieved by the unaccustomed sharpness of things, he withdrew a bundle of papers from the packet. To leave him undisturbed, Inspector Cartwright wandered a short distance away.

In fact there were four bundles, each stapled into a kind of booklet. The first was entitled ‘Nancy’s Treasure’, the second ‘Riley’s Junk’. Both of them comprised annual returns, covering three successive years, as submitted to Companies House. Nothing had been flagged or underlined. Anselm flicked through the other two enclosures. Each was made up of photocopied receipts. Again they were labelled with the different business names; again the pages unmarked. He glanced at the dates, noting that each pamphlet spanned the same period framed by the formal accounts. Puzzled, he checked the envelope again and then said, ‘Isn’t there a covering letter?’

Inspector Cartwright licked salt off two fingers and said curtly ‘No.’ She dropped the crisps packet in a bin and came back to the bench. She modified her answer. ‘Well, there was a signed compliments slip. The explanation of the figures must be with George Bradshaw’

‘But why separate the evidence from its meaning?’ mused Anselm.

‘My guess is that Mrs Glendinning didn’t trust the person she asked to send it.’

‘Then why approach whoever it was in the first place?’

‘Maybe he or she – like you and I – was involved in the original trial.’

Anselm took off his glasses and returned to a universe that was faintly and agreeably blurred. ‘But why send the packet at all? Why not give the lot to George Bradshaw?’

Inspector Cartwright replied instantly: ‘Maybe she foresaw that a man with half a memory might get lost before he was found.’

That sounded rather biblical, a thought that might have slowed Anselm down, but he was suddenly close upon Elizabeth’s heels and his mind lurched forward. ‘Which means that the figures you’ve received should speak for themselves.’

‘I agree, but they don’t – at least not to me. I’ve seen the Companies House stuff already so I assume the trick is in the receipts.

Anselm turned the pages with an air of deep concentration. In fact, without his glasses, he couldn’t quite make out the numbers. He grimaced significantly.

‘Would you examine them?’ asked Inspector Cartwright, checking her watch. ‘You might have one of those visions.’

After she’d gone, Anselm wondered why he hadn’t told Inspector Cartwright about the letter he’d received himself. There had been nothing to suggest that the visit to Mrs Dixon should be confidential. But he knew that he should say nothing. Why? He took a pleasant path between the Georgian buildings where, as a student, he’d dreamed of greatness, and he came to the strange conclusion that he was entering Elizabeth’s mind; that he was beginning to sense her will, if not the reason for her calculations.

At High Holborn Anselm bumped into a nun who wasn’t looking where she was going. Struck by a sensible idea, he turned round and went back to Gray’s Inn. Not knowing quite where to place his enquiry, he went to the library situated on South Square. A short woman behind the main desk, it transpired, was used to helping those who were baffled.

‘The archives of the Inn are extensive,’ she said, ‘and not everything has been stored on computer. We’re working backwards.’

‘Of course,’ replied Anselm. ‘You should never start at the beginning.’

He’d meant to be agreeable, but it came out dreadfully Being wise in small respects, he said nothing more. And she, being perceptive, smiled.

‘The point is,’ she resumed, ‘material on Mrs Glendinning could be anywhere. If you leave me a contact number, I’ll dig around this afternoon. In the meantime, I suggest you have a browse through some back numbers of Graya. ’

This publication covered various happenings in the lives of the Inn’s membership. It was an obvious place to look. Anselm wrote down the Hoxton fax number and then settled himself at a table adjacent to the relevant volumes. For over an hour he chased any reference to Elizabeth. He found a small piece upon her becoming a QC, and a longer biographical item following her appointment as a deputy High Court judge. All the background material coincided precisely with what Sister Dorothy had said: birth in Manchester, schooling in Carlisle, university at Durham.

Anselm, however, was disappointed, for he trusted his unruly intuitions. And they had been ruffled. Something wasn’t quite right. Standing in a phone booth outside the library, he rang the administration section of Elizabeth’s former university. He related the details gleaned from Graya. Almost simultaneous with his speaking, he heard a soft tapping followed by the bang of the return key and then a pause.

‘Sorry,’ said a man evenly ‘No one called Elizabeth Glendinning attended the university between those dates.’ The tapping began again. ‘In fact, we’ve never had a student by that name.

Anselm crossed Gray’s Inn Square as if Father Andrew were by his side. Find the child who grew up to wear a gown that was too heavy f or her shoulders.

Neither of them had considered switched identities, or a burned history.

The closer George came to Mitcham, the heavier his body became. He pushed himself along his own street, past the lit windows of Aspen Bank. The televisions were on and the curtains were drawn against evening. Opposite George’s home, across a patch of grass in shadow, was a children’s play area. A low fence and a tiny gate gave it a sense of shape and importance. George sat on a merry-go-round, one leg trailing on the asphalt. He watched Number 37 as though it weren’t really there; as though it might vanish if touched. Emily was upstairs. George could see her shadow, thrown large across the chimney-breast wall. She was moving about quickly.

A quite extraordinary stillness settled upon him. It was a solemn moment – one he would like to have shared with Nino: his life on the street was about to end; he’d walked around the world and made it back to his point of departure. With a shove of one foot, the merry-go-round began to spin, wobbling gently on its axle. George saw his home, the trees, the distant tower blocks, the lights on Aspen Bank and then his home again. Round and round he went, slowly building up the courage to cross the patch of grass and the empty street.

The light upstairs went off.

The light downstairs came on.

George dragged his shoe as a brake and the merry-go-round clinked to a halt.

The front door of Number 37 opened and Emily stepped onto the garden path. She walked a few steps, threading a handbag along one arm. Her hair was different, but the movements of her body its tiny hesitations, were the same.

George stood up and quietly cried, ‘Emily’ He couldn’t get his mouth and lungs to work. He was spent. He could only lift and drop his feet.

Suddenly the light from the open door was blocked. A large man appeared, jangling a set of keys. He angled them to the light, to find the one he was after.

‘Have you got everything?’ he said wryly.

Emily nodded. She was looking up at the stars.

George couldn’t stop his legs. His eyes swam and his hands were joined. He was still in shadow and about to enter the pale orange light.