Anselm went to bed with the accounts and receipts that had been sent to Inspector Cartwright. Even with his glasses on, he couldn’t make head or tail of a single column (at the Bar, he’d steered clear of cases that had numbers in them), so he put the documents on the floor and gave his attention to something more promising: a cornucopia of intractable problems. A lawyer’s habits made him divide them into two groups.
First, why had Elizabeth sent him to see Mrs Dixon without any clue as to what she might say? What was the point of leaving him powerless, and her powerful – in the sense that she could refuse to talk, which is precisely what happened? Why take another risk that could only harm her prospects of success – for just as George Bradshaw (predictably) had gone missing, so Mrs Dixon (not surprisingly) had refused to talk about her missing son. The only answer Anselm could muster was this: at the heart of Elizabeth’s bid to make good the past was a complete respect for the free choices of the other actors. There would be no cajoling, no forced outcomes.
The next group of problems was, for Anselm, the most intriguing. How did this second mission connect with the first?
What was the link between the missing boy and the bid to bring Riley back to court? While listening to Mrs Dixon, Anselm had noted the vowels resistant to life in the South; the northern intonation in the word ‘cake’ had survived completely intact. It had shone like a tanner in a heap of decimal currency. Who, then, was the missing lad? He’d been a good boy a good son. Reviewing the cornucopia as a whole, Anselm came to a sensible though uncomfortable conclusion: both of the matters that had been entrusted to him by Elizabeth were now well on the way to monumental failure.
Success, however, had come Anselm’s way earlier that evening, albeit from another direction. He had, of course, begun looking into Elizabeth’s past, while she had only expected him to move forward on her behalf. And initial results were interesting.
After leaving Mrs Dixon, Anselm paid a visit to Trespass Place, hoping that George Bradshaw had returned to his patch, but it was silent and bare; so, discouraged, he went back to Hoxton, where he found a bundle of faxed documents from Gray’s Inn. He leafed through them while his shepherd’s pie revolved in the microwave. The librarian had organised, in reverse order, various notices covering legal responsibilities assumed by Elizabeth. It was only when Anselm reached the final sheet that he appreciated his earlier, decisive mistake. It was obvious why this particular Glendinning hadn’t gone to Durham University. Looking down, he read again the list of names. It was a register of those called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn on the fifteenth day of October nineteen hundred and fifty. The librarian had marked the relevant entry: Elizabeth Steadman.
Glendinning was, of course, her married name. Anselm had never known her as anything else. On marrying, most women barristers kept the names under which they began their careers because they carried their reputations. Elizabeth, however, had dropped hers and started all over again. Anselm sat down, suddenly excited because someone else had made the same gaffe as himself, only she didn’t have the excuse of not knowing any better. His thoughts becoming tangled, he picked up the telephone and called the Prior.
‘Sister Dorothy reeled off the history of Mr G, the frustrated inventor, and Mrs G, his uncomplaining wife.’ Anselm paused. ‘But she got the name wrong. It should have been Mr and Mrs Steadman.’
‘Teachers follow the fortunes of their pupils,’ replied Father Andrew confidently ‘Perhaps she learned of Elizabeth’s marriage and switched the names by accident.’
A monk can always contradict his prior. But it has a taste all of its own. ‘My first thought too,’ said Anselm warmly ‘However, she hadn’t had word or sight of Elizabeth in forty years. She shouldn’t even know the Glendinning surname.’
It was hardly caviar, but the hiatus was delicious. Anselm said, ‘But why would Sister Dorothy lie?’
‘Perhaps, like you, she’d given her word,’ said Father Andrew distantly as though he’d turned to the fire. ‘And perhaps,’ he added, ‘that was the first of the many promises that have been sought and obtained.’