Riley pushed open the swing door, leaving Wyecliffe flapping behind. At the end of a corridor he kicked another and strode past the custody desk, barging aside people and things to reach the pavement. There, in the street, he saw Nancy.
‘What are you doing here?’ His jaw began to work.
‘An officer came to tell me you’d been lifted.’
‘Have you been inside?’
‘I’ve just arrived. What’s happened?’
He groaned with relief. ‘They’ve been chasing me again. For nothing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’ve never given up, not since that trial. Come on.’ He pulled Nancy’s arm and they walked down the street. He turned a corner, any corner. He didn’t know where he was going. He swung on her, ‘Cartwright’s been looking at my business, but I’ve done nothing wrong.
‘What did she say you were doing?’
‘The same as last time.’ Riley didn’t use the words that would hurt her.
‘Oh God.’ Nancy sat down on a low wall. The railings had been cut down during the war, leaving black stubs in the stone.
‘But it’s nothing, Nancy Nothing.’ Riley plucked at his jacket and shirt. Sweat itched his stomach. Inside, behind that wet lining, he was ruptured with anxiety and rage. The lot of them had put Nancy through the mill for nothing. That was meant to be all gone. He’d put himself out of reach. He said, ‘Look, we’re off to Brighton, right?’
Nancy pulled off her hat, disarranging her hair. She looked faint. ‘It’s too late, far too late.’
Riley watched her, as he’d once gazed into the waters of the Four Lodges. If you kept still, you could see the perch dart around in the green-black water. They were like torn scraps of aluminium foil. Something seemed to move in Nancy’s face. ‘I really wanted to go to Brighton’ – she looked down at the flagstones, the weeds in the cracks, the fag ends – ‘I really fancied the sound of the sea. A walk on the beach. And maybe a stick of rock. It wasn’t too much to ask, was it?’
‘No,’ urged Riley taking her hands, ‘and it still isn’t. We can still make it.’
‘Can we?’
‘We’re selling up, we’re moving out. We’ll leave this place behind.’
Nancy normally didn’t stare. She’d always been demure, one step back, a bit scared. At Lawton’s her shyness had kept her head to the page, even when he’d tapped on the counter. Now she faced him with wide, tired eyes. They were like polythene bags from the tackle shop, full of clear water. Something orange flickered, wanting to get out.
‘Nancy head off home, I’m going to see Prosser.’
Riley moaned as he ran. He knew that Elizabeth had worked out what he was doing when she turned up at Mile End Park. She held up a set of spoons and went through the same routine as Cartwright.
‘But you taught me how to do it.’ He was mocking her.
She frowned – a bit like Nancy a few moments ago – while he reminded her of that conference in her chambers. ‘You can keep the spoons,’ he said, and she sagged as if he’d squeezed her heart.
He ran even faster. All that manoeuvring, that hunger to win back something, belonged by a stream of deceit – the one he’d tasted with Nancy He just didn’t want it any more. It lay behind him – with every stride. ‘I’m going to Brighton,’ he shouted, knocking into some codgers by a newsstand. His arms flung out: they were in his way. The whole world was in his way He crashed against a bin, and spun, thinking Nancy had dropped a notch: she wasn’t in the usual place, and it terrified him.