56

The received wisdom is that difficult people must have a background story which explains the rudeness, the hard edges, the outbursts of temper. Something appropriately dramatic. The only question is whether we ever find it out. On that basis, Anselm felt he now understood Dunstan’s fractured character. However, after meeting his brother, Evelyn, Anselm realised a more sophisticated theory would have to be framed, because he was as objectionable and quick-tempered as the firstborn of the Hartley-Wilkinson line. The rest of the family weren’t that different. Their redeeming feature was a certain eccentricity, because Evelyn, irrevocably English but kilted with the vanity of Rob Roy, insisted on playing the bagpipes by the graveside. Warned in advance by the Prior, Anselm thought the spectacle would be utterly excruciating. In fact, it was deeply moving. The low drone gripped his throat and then ‘Amazing Grace’ emerged, echoing through the trees; for Larkwood’s dead lie in a grove of aspens. When Evelyn had finished, everyone drifted away, picking their way towards the sunlight.

The burial was nonetheless a sad affair. It soon became clear that no one in the family knew anything about Dunstan’s experience of Belsen. Neither, of course, did anyone in the community. All those hints at self-importance as an interrogator had been intimations of shame and failure. But no one could have had the slightest idea. And they still didn’t, because Anselm knew he was the bearer of a secret that Dunstan wanted taken to his grave.

‘He never forgave the Service for denying him a career after the war,’ said Evelyn, knowledgeably, making ready to leave in the car park. ‘That’s where his disappointments began. He was a bloody awkward sod.’

They were evidently a plain-speaking family because a number of bystanders nodded in agreement. A spade was a spade. But they couldn’t have known that Dunstan had been exiled from the Service because of a mistake, robbing him of the chance to make amends; that C’s underlings had kept the wound open by retaining him as a talent spotter; that they’d probably scotched any chance he might have had of becoming a Fellow – they couldn’t have him sipping sherry in one of their Alma Maters. All of which, if true, would have made Kafka blink, because while punishing Dunstan, they’d recruited former SS officers to help fight the Russians.

‘He urged me to join the Service,’ said Carrington to Evelyn. ‘But he warned me that the place was jam-packed with – I’m sorry, but I have to quote him – “masons, arseholes, pimps and peers”. He meant no harm, I’m sure. I joined the Lambertines instead.’

The supposed asymmetry brought a smile to Anselm’s face. Carrington wasn’t simply a man of principle, he had a devilish sense of humour which, linked to Dunstan’s acid wit, must have made tutorials on mysticism an unforgettable experience. Strange to think that it was there, in a Cambridge don’s rooms discussing Margery Kempe, that a friendship had been forged that would one day generate a plan to secure Dominic Tabley’s arrest.

The gathering was sad in other respects. Dunstan had so effaced himself in the plan to expose Dominic Tabley that none of his victims could possibly have known that an obscure monk was the architect of the scheme; or that there had even been a scheme. Had Robert Sambourne not stumbled upon the faxed cuttings, no one save Carrington and Littlemore would ever have known at all. As a result, to Anselm’s mind, there was a group missing from the graveside: the Silent Ones. None of them had come – none of them could come – to pay their respects, to thank him for what he’d done: he’d ensured his own invisibility from the outset. For the same reason, there were no representatives of the Brandwell family. If they thanked anyone it was Edmund Littlemore and Anselm. Even Carrington hadn’t made the list.

‘You’ll return to London?’ Anselm was speaking to Edmund as Evelyn was driven away, arguing with a nephew twice-removed who’d said the pipes were out of tune.

‘No, I’m going home.’

‘To Boston?’

‘It’s where I belong; it’s where I’ve always belonged. I should never have run away. I should never have pretended I had nothing to do with changing the future. George taught me that lesson.’

You’re an accomplished liar, thought Anselm. Like Justin, you’ve learned to hide what you know, along with who you are; like Justin, your wounds are hidden wounds, but having your own you were able to see his. No one would ever know that in coming to England you were vindicating your mother, bringing your own father to justice, and doing what could be done to help his other victims. And to think … everyone thought you’d run away from a scandal. No one would ever know your true motives.

You don’t always have to talk about everything.

It was a subtle truth that Tabley had twisted to his advantage; Edmund had made it something noble. They shook hands, promising to keep in touch. There’s a thing called Skype, said Edmund. There are things called pens and paper, replied Anselm. In certain important respects (which Anselm wouldn’t wish to change) Larkwood had remained embedded in the early thirteenth century.

‘London awaits you,’ said Anselm, turning to Carrington.

‘Yes.’

There was nothing else to add. Both of them understood the implications of Anselm’s observation. Carrington would return to deal with the legacy of Dominic Tabley. He’d already been pilloried in the press, simply because he was the man in charge. It was relentless. His evidence in the Littlemore trial had been minutely re-examined. Commentators had judged him – by turns – to be prevaricating, evasive, ambiguous and slippery. He’d been damned as a casuist. A politician. A career cleric. They can’t have known that he’d also sent a message across the courtroom to Anselm. As with Dunstan, his true contribution had remained hidden from view.

‘Why not tell everyone about Dunstan’s plan, and your place in it?’ asked Anselm. ‘I’ll support you. People ought to know.’

Carrington didn’t agree. ‘I have an important role to play in the resolution of things. Someone has to be accountable for what the Order did, for elevating Tabley above his victims. Someone has to be there, physically present, to receive and accept the anger, the outrage, the suffering. I can’t point to Murphy’s grave. I’m the one who was elected. I’m the one who opened the secret archive. I’m the one who has to answer for what I found.’

Anselm was amazed. Perhaps it was the lawyer in him. Perhaps it was the coward. Perhaps it was the sophist that would stress truth-telling without regard to timing. But his first instinct would have been to defend himself. He’d have dodged the avalanche of condemnation. Carrington had done the opposite. He must have known, right at the beginning when he first came to Larkwood, that if Anselm succeeded in his mission, he would be damned. People would point at him as if he was Tabley. He’d always accepted the outcome. He’d welcomed it. And he, like the Silent Ones before him, would have to wait for some future time before he could be vindicated.

‘Dunstan foresaw this, didn’t he?’ said Anselm.

Carrington paused, no doubt recalling the language used. ‘He warned me, yes. But I didn’t really have a choice. He was telling me what had to happen.’

After waving goodbye to Carrington and Edmund, Anselm returned to Dunstan’s grave. He looked at the mound of fresh earth and the simple white wooden cross that bore his name. It was already leaning slightly to one side. He’d lived with Dunstan for years. At no point in that long, shared history had he ever remotely felt an attachment to the man. And now, from nothing, he’d moved to a deep and abiding gratitude. He felt immensely privileged to have been involved in his scheme to bring dignity to those who’d been thrown aside.

‘I hope you found something rather than nothing,’ he said, honouring Dunstan’s last scuffle with doubt. But what’s your epitaph? he wondered. What have you left behind that everyone knows about and for which you’ll always be remembered? What single detail would surface when time had softened the harshest recollections?

Anselm laughed quietly. Dunstan had dealt with that one, too. He’d left clear instructions with Aelred. As a result it could safely be said that Dunstan Hartley-Wilkinson was the only monk in the history of Christendom to have been buried wearing a pink silk cravat.