When Riley got to Hornchurch Marshes the light was dwindling. Gingerly he trotted down a sloping path that led to the Four Lodges. Years back, a cooling tower had been demolished and all that remained were these rectangular pools. The Council had put some fish in and left them to it.
On the site of the old tower, Riley scoured the grass. Whimpering and swearing, he kicked free some rocks and a blackened two-by-four with rusted nails protruding like a row of buttons. Then he sat on the remnants of a wall, hugging himself, his eyes fixed on the path. He was up a height, feeling nauseous, watching his actions run ahead of him, like they’d done with John Bradshaw At his feet were the weapons, and a torch.
This was only the third time Riley had been here. The last was after the trial, and before that he’d been a boy.
Very early one morning the man Riley wouldn’t call Dad had put the remaining kitten in a sack. The other eight had found good homes. ‘Put your coat on, Graham,’ he said. There was a smell of aftershave – something brash and fiery.
Without speaking, they walked through Dagenham’s empty streets towards the pale light over Hornchurch Marshes. Presently the flats of the Thames opened out like a damp blanket and there, in the middle, were four panes of water, framed and criss-crossed by slippery bricks.
They walked to the edge and Walter’s arm began to swing. His chest blew up and his mouth went firm. Sick at the idea of unwanted life, Riley grabbed the big man’s sleeve, but a backhand sent him flying He was on his hands and knees for the splash, with blood on his lip. The bag turned in the water and sank. Riley watched, transfixed. He’d expected a scream – not from the bag, but from above and all around. But there was no sound… none at all. After the ripples had run off, the surface carried nothing but colour snatched from the brightening sky.
That evening, they came back to the Four Lodges. Midges clung like hats around the fishermen. They sat on boxes and stools, maggots on their bottom lip. That’s how it was done: you warmed it in the mouth. When it hit the cold water the thing wriggled on its hook, attracting the perch and the carp. Walter kept his supply in a Tom Long tobacco tin.
‘Go on, Graham,’ he said distantly.
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.