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.
Riley seemed to strike a wall. Slowly he turned around, and came back along the brick ledge beside the water. When he was close, he halted, treading the ground, his head bent and angled. Gusts of fog escaped his mouth as if he’d just run a race.
‘Let me tell you something you don’t know’ He seemed to be struggling, as if a shred of pork were jammed between two teeth. A faint light touched his face, and Nick finally glimpsed his features, judging the man to be not just ill, but profoundly sick. ‘Before she met your father,’ said Riley as if he were forcing out the words, ‘before she got her chance, she was on the street. I might have kept the money… but she earned it.’ Riley looked up with pity, a far-off emotion gathering like water on limestone. Quietly almost gently he said, ‘She was no better than me.’
Riley stepped back and groaned.
All at once a bright light struck Nick’s face. Terrified, he raised his hands… Slowly he let his arms drop. Stunned, feeling light-headed and sick, Nick glared back at the unseen presence behind the torch. Riley must have been observing him intently because he didn’t cut the beam, and, for a very long time, he didn’t move. Then, after a snap, it was dark again.
The last that Nick saw of Riley was of a sunken head, and limp arms against the sky on the brow of a slope.