Riley wanted to please Walter, so he did as he was asked, and Walter looked on, midges circling his head. Riley gazed into his high, tormented eyes: the big man didn’t really want to be like this, but he couldn’t stop himself. However, there and then, Riley’s understanding shrivelled up. Somehow, this couldn’t be right… feeling this thing writhe between his lips. It was the taste of decay.
Riley didn’t trouble himself with questions like why the man he wouldn’t call Dad did what he did – he already knew the answer: Walter had a child of his own; Riley was in the way The big man had lost his job and his self- respect. He wanted a life different from the one he’d got. Those huge lungs were bursting with complaint. The braces weren’t strong enough to hold it in. When Riley lay awake that night, after two visits to the Four Lodges, such thoughts didn’t even ruffle the surface of his mind; no, Riley was more confused by the senseless parade of death: in one day he’d seen a fish taken out of water, and a cat thrown in.
When Riley next came, after the trial, he thought of the Major, who’d never lost faith in the boy who’d turned up at the hostel, who’d seen someone else behind the flesh and blood in front of him – someone lost to Riley’s eyes. Leaving the conference room, Riley had glimpsed something like agony on the old soldier’s face. The Major was asking himself how this beast had turned out the way he had. It was a good question, but who’d have thought that the die was cast when Riley still a boy couldn’t make sense of a brightening sky?
On that glorious day of acquittal, midges gathered around Riley’s head; and he wept as a man on the grass where he’d wept as a boy.
The temperature was dropping fast with the light and Riley shivered. Before him lay the Four Lodges and, on their far side, coming down a sloping path, was a big lad… a lad who was on to Walter.
16
Nancy stood in the yard by the pile of bricks that she’d been collecting for the herb garden.
‘You could have gone places.’
Mr Lawton had said that because Nancy saw the connections between things. It was insulting, she’d thought, because he was implying she’d wasted her life, when all she’d done was work for him and marry Graham Riley.
‘We’ve had a meeting.’
Babycham had been fiery and protective and a friend – her oldest friend, in fact. There’d been a meeting of the clerical staff and everyone was ready to support her. ‘Run for it, girl,’ she’d said.
‘I once had a son.’
Mr Johnson had steamed like a tea bag on the draining board and Nancy had listened with a hand over her mouth. She’d been desperate to know what had happened, but her friend in the goggles had never been able to put words on it.
‘Our son was killed by a bad man.’
Emily Bradshaw had said that to Nancy not knowing who she was; just as Nancy had spoken to George Bradshaw not knowing who he was. She’d listened to neither of them. She’d run out of Aspen Bank chased by the sound of tapping on the window.
‘Maybe your constancy will save him. But what about you?’
That kind man had refused to give up. He’d circled the house, knowing she was inside. He’d come with a cake from Greggs. He’d left his phone number.
They’d all come – even Mr Wyecliffe, with his quip about tossed coins and their tails – but Nancy hadn’t seen any of the connections. No, it was worse than that, far worse. She had seen them. And she’d turned away in the name of trust.
‘My life rests on a heap of lies,’ said Nancy She felt no emotion whatsoever, though she was crying all the same. Her soul was like an arm gone dead, as when you wake up at night and find this heavy thing, limp by your side. All you can do is wait for the tingling to come and bring it back to life.
Nancy knelt down and started counting the bricks, to see how many more were needed.
17
Nick paused at the bottom of the slope. It was almost dark and extremely cold. In the distance he could see the Thames like a black vein. Above it and beyond glowed the lights of south London. To the west stood the motor works, immense and silent. Directly before him, like pools of oil, were the Four Lodges. On the other side, stamped against the skyline, sat Riley He was utterly still; his breath appeared as a coarse mist.
Skirting the water’s edge, Nick suffered a primal desire to run away He subdued it, because the hunched figure had scared his father and possessed his mother. He stopped by the end of a pool, well back from Riley but close enough to hear his words.
A low voice came out of a small fog. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you about me?’
‘No.’
Riley’s elbows were on his thighs. His face and body were completely blacked out. ‘Who gave you the photograph?’
Nick angled his head, trying to see into the dark shape ahead of him, the moving arms. The questions seemed planned, as if they were a test.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Did you post it?’
‘No.’
After a few moments Nick heard something fall to the ground near Riley’s feet with a thump. A long exhalation of mist came from the lowered head. The voice became curious and quieter. ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-seven.’
‘What do you do for a living?’
‘I’m a doctor.’
A doctor…’ It was as though he’d never met one, but had heard of them from magazines and television programmes. ‘What’s your father called?’
‘Charles.’
‘What does he do?’
A banker.’
A banker…’ They were another species from the same glossy pages, off the same screen. Riley stood up and purposefully crossed the five yards between them. As he passed Nick he slowed, saying, ‘Forget about the Pieman.’
Nick turned on his heel, watching the stooped figure tread quickly along the lodge bank, towards the path. ‘Where are you going?’ he called stupidly.
‘Brighton.’
Nick stumbled after him, unable to see where he was going, aware only of a sheet of glinting black water to his left. He grabbed Riley’s shoulder, sensing the sheer physical difference between them. Nick was a big man, towering over a bantam. ‘Tell me what I came here to find out.’
‘No.’ Riley pulled free with a swing of his elbow.
‘Who was he?’
‘Go home… just go home; go back to your patients.’ Riley began to trot, heading up the slope, towards the night sky.
Nick gave up. He cast an eye around Riley’s chosen meeting place: at the cold marshes, the scattering of small lights, and, upstream, the brooding hulks. A spasm of rage made him rebel against this embodiment of his mother’s conscience – at the thought that she felt responsible for Riley’s twisted actions.
‘Before you came along, she was happy’ he bellowed. ‘You shattered what was left of her life.’ His voice bounced off the motor works, falling quiet as if the air had soaked it up.
