Anselm sat beside George facing a tinted window Ahead, through the weak bluish haze, were a table, four chairs and a tape machine. A door banged shut. Inspector Cartwright walked to her place, followed by another police officer and Mr Wyecliffe – more aged to Anselm’s eyes, but still in his brown suit. Suddenly Riley appeared at the window, his nose against the glass. He checked his teeth as if in a mirror and he smiled rage and impatience and… Anselm thought it might be exhilaration.
Inspector Cartwright began the litany of warnings prescribed by the Codes of Practice, while Riley searched the window with the flat of his hands, his face wet and sallow Unblinking, he backed towards the table.
‘Now the preliminaries have been completed,’ said Mr Wyecliffe, twitching, ‘there’s the technical issue of intentional trespass and the theft of my client’s property, grave matters which -’
‘Belt up, will you,’ said Riley He slouched in a chair and smiled. ‘Hurry up, Cartwright, I want to go to Brighton.’
Step by step, the inspector presented the system disclosed by the financial records. She invited Riley to confirm her explanation, but he turned aside, gazing back towards Anselm and George. His fingers tapped erratically on the table, and he said, ‘Come on, get on with it.’
Judiciously Inspector Cartwright said, ‘I suggest that you are receiving remuneration arising from prostitution.’
Riley crouched, angry and bored. ‘Correct.’
Mr Wyecliffe, who’d been absorbed in the blank pages of a yellow notepad, put down a chewed biro, and said soothingly ‘Can we just pause there for one moment…’
‘Shut up, Wyecliffe,’ whispered Riley.
Inspector Cartwright said, ‘You have a list of telephone numbers?’
‘Correct.’
‘You provide contact details in return for a payment?’
‘Yep.’
‘How long have you been doing this?’
‘Yonks.’ A frown displaced the resentment and laughter. An agony of confusion seemed to hold him. He shouted towards the ceiling light, ‘I should be on the Brighton road by now’
‘You’ve had a long enough holiday.’
‘Have I?’ The swing from euphoria to despair was complete, and menacing.
‘Graham Riley you are charged with living wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution contrary to section -’
‘It’s all legal.’
Inspector Cartwright turned on Wyecliffe, ‘Can you enlighten me?’
‘Certainly not. How dare you.’
Riley stood up, looking down upon his interviewer, ‘I get the numbers from magazines and phone booths. They’re already in the public domain. I sell them to people who think I have a special connection.’
‘That is still an offence.’
‘Is it?’ Riley seemed to rise higher. He appeared mighty over a domain of dirty facts. This was his patch. He didn’t take lessons. ‘I sell numbers that anyone could find if they knew where to look.’ He swaggered on the spot, bony hands on his hips. ‘Whoever’s on the end of the line doesn’t know me. I don’t know them. They don’t know I’ve been paid. They don’t know nothing.’ He spat out the word as if it were a failing, something that should be punished. ‘They just do what they do, and I get paid… for nothing.’ Glaring outrage and disgust, Riley swept Mr Wyecliffe’s papers off the table.
‘Sit down,’ ordered Inspector Cartwright.
‘No. I’m off to Brighton. You can check the law’
‘I will.’
‘Make sure it’s a silk-’
He bit his lip, not finishing the jibe, and Anselm’s mind reeled back to that first conference when Elizabeth’s poise had failed. Instantly – and horrified – he understood: Riley’s system had grown from the seed of Elizabeth’s words: she’d said that if he’d received payments linked to the girls’ activity, but without them knowing, then there would be a technical defence…
Anselm heard a soft noise behind him. The door opened and a woman entered wearing a peculiar yellow hat with black spots. Her red, trembling hands were crumpling and reopening a small piece of paper. Timidly she checked the room, until her attention settled on George. Then, her mouth open, she looked into the blue haze.
‘If I can help in any other way’ said Riley ‘don’t hesitate to contact me.
He made to leave, but halted before the window. Confused and deliberating, his eyes shot towards the door, as if the cry of gulls had carried from the seaside, calling him to another life of deckchairs and ice cream. Instead Riley turned back to examine his reflection.
It was an awful scene, because Anselm knew that Riley had sensed their presence – at least George’s – and he was staring through the image of himself at what he thought was on the other side: but, in fact, he was looking directly at this haunting woman in her yellow spotted hat.
‘When you came, Inspector,’ said Riley faintly eyes on the glass, ‘I thought it was about John Bradshaw’ His face was a like a mask, thick and oxidised.
‘I’m bringing this interview to a close,’ said Inspector Cartwright. She rattled off the date and time and the names of those present and hit the tape machine, turning it off. She walked up to Riley’s shoulder, seething, ‘You have blood on your hands.’
They were both staring towards the poor woman who was crumpling a scrap of paper.
Very clearly Riley replied, ‘Yes, I know.’
Inspector Cartwright blinked a few times, not quite believing what she’d heard, and George, who did, stepped towards the window, pressing both hands to the glass. The woman moved beside him and together they watched what was about to unfold.
Inspector Cartwright switched on the tape machine, reamed off the necessary details, and said, ‘I would like to confirm the exchange that has just taken place. You have blood on your hands?’
Riley circled the room, his arms swinging like chains. ‘Yes, but not much.’
‘Does the quantity matter?’
‘No. It was still innocent.’
Mr Wyecliffe patted his hands on the table, as though to calm a family spat. ‘Stop the tape please. I’d like to discuss matters with my client.’
‘Forget it,’ said Riley falling into a chair. ‘It’s too late now’ Anselm had seen this sort of thing before: it was part of the psychology of wanting to be caught. Conscience was elemental: a small quantity could produce an explosion of truth that could obliterate a lifetime of deceptions. The change in Riley a moment ago strutting and now cowed, was shocking.
Inspector Cartwright said, ‘How did you kill him?’
‘I knew he couldn’t swim.’
‘Go on.’
Riley leaned on his knees, his head angled down, showing the spine bones of his neck. ‘In the middle of the night I put him in a plastic bag with an apple.’
‘This is no time for jokes.’
Riley shook his head. ‘Then I threw him into Limehouse Cut.’
‘Who?’
‘Arnold.’
‘Arnold?’
‘Nancy’s hamster.’
Cartwright turned off the tape, without the usual formalities. ‘You are a bastard,’ she said.
Riley looked up and said, ‘Inspector, that’s the first thing you’ve got right today.’
The hands of the woman crumpling paper became still and George said, ‘I’m sorry, Nancy.’
She nodded and quietly left the room.
The door behind Anselm swung open and Inspector Cartwright entered, saying, ‘I’m sure he’s wrong, George, but I need to check this out, all right?’
‘Of course.’ He coughed like a patient who didn’t believe in doctors.
‘Is there anywhere you could wait?’ she said to Anselm. She was weary and angry and upset. ‘It could take the rest of the day.’
After a phone call had been made to Debbie Lynwood, it was agreed that they would meet that evening at the Vault Day Centre. Anselm took George’s arm. He felt as if he were guiding a man who was so much older than before, a man who could no longer see.