The Sixth Lamentation (40 page)

They
ate sitting in a line, passing curious things from one to the other.

‘It’s
rather like
Waiting for Godot,’
said Lucy.

‘Except
this time,’ announced Mr Lachaise, ‘he might come after all, just when he’s not
expected.’

2

At 2.30 p.m. the gardens
closed and, politely expelled, they strolled back to Field Court. Mr Lachaise
left them standing at the gates between the two indifferent protectors.

In the
absence of their intermediary, Max shifted: not clumsily, but though a refined
guilt. Lucy saw its trim, its shine, the self-loathing that came from an
organic relation to evil. A giddy sense of authority unsettled her balance,
like a rush of blood. She could leave him bound, if she wanted. A delicious
splash of something wholly foreign touched her lips. Her tongue tasted malice.
She recoiled from herself and said, ‘Max, to me you are Nightingale, not
Schwermann. There’s a big difference.’

‘It’s
just paper over cracks.’

Lucy
winced at the deliberate use of her words. ‘I should never have said that. I’m
sorry.’

‘Don’t
say that to me, of all people.’

‘I mean
it. We’re all cracked, covered in paper. I’m no different. There’s nothing
wrong with being ordinary.’

As they
walked out of Field Court, away from the ornate garden protected by myths, Max
said, ‘I won’t be coming to the rest of the trial.’

‘Why?’

‘I know
he’s guilty.’

‘How?’

‘I
suppose I’ve known all along,’ he said, ‘but I never suspected that he’d
entrusted me with the proof of his guilt.’

Lucy
understood that elaboration would not come and that it lay in the past — given
to Mr Lachaise while she stood contemplating the avenging, lifeless stones.

‘I’m
glad you liked the picture,’ he said, backing away.

‘I love
it,’ replied Lucy.

A
half-smile broke his face. Something had been achieved. Lucy held out her hand.
‘I’ll be off then,’ said Max as they shook. It was as much goodbye as a
settlement of the past. Lucy watched him leave, threading his way against a
stream. Symbolically self-consciously as in the final cut of a film, she waved
at the back of his head as he vanished among a multitude.

3

Lucy arrived at the Old
Bailey, just in time to catch the learned judge’s final remarks. There was
standing room only.

‘It
should be noted,’ said Mr Justice Pollbrook evenly, ‘that for fifty years no
student of the times knew that Jacques Fougères had a child. This is now
admitted by the family and perforce by the Crown. Why it should ever have been
concealed in the first place escapes my imagination, but that need not trouble you.
The important fact is that the detail came from Mr Brionne.’ He examined the
jurors dispassionately ‘If you are satisfied that having told one significant
truth the rest of his evidence can also be believed, then you are entitled to
infer the boy in fact, survived solely because of the conduct of the Defendant.
If that is your conclusion, then you are left with the anomaly upon which Mr
Bartlett seeks to rely — that it would indeed be strange for the Defendant to
have pledged himself to an enterprise that involved the death or serious harm
of other children. However, ladies and gentlemen, let me say this.’ Mr Justice
Pollbrook stared hard at the jury. ‘In my long experience, people can be very
strange indeed. Look at your own families. How many of them leave you baffled
at every turn? No, you must ask yourselves a different type of question
altogether: if you are sure of what the Prosecution allege, you must find the
Defendant guilty. If you are not sure, you acquit.’

The
judge then went through each count on the indictment, giving a series of
questions designed to determine whether or not the Defendant was guilty — of
the ‘if you decide A, then 13 must follow’ variety. When he had finished, the
judge closed his red book and removed his glasses, saying, ‘Down whichever
avenues your reflections may lead you, please remember this. The ground of
suspicion belongs to the Defendant.’

The
jury then retired, bound by a promise to consider what justice was required
according to the evidence. Mr Justice Pollbrook said at this stage he only
wanted a verdict upon which they were all agreed.

There
was no mistaking it, thought Lucy as she left the court. Whatever the judge had
said about the abstract requirements of the law, Schwermann’s innocence or
guilt was going to turn on what the jury thought about the strange story of a
child, believed by them all to be still alive, known by Lucy and Agnes to be
dead.

4

As arranged, Anselm met DI
Armstrong on the steps of St Paul’s.

‘Coffee?’
asked Anselm.

‘No,
thanks. How can I help?’

Anselm
could not but note the perfunctory, professional courtesy.

‘I
would like to speak to Victor Brionne.’

‘So I’m
told.’

‘It’s
important.’

‘You
said as much last time. “In the interests of justice, in its widest sense”, I
think you said:

‘I did.’

‘That’s
not what happened in the courtroom.’

‘I know’

‘Father,
don’t you think your meddling has done enough damage? There’s a chance that
rubbish from Victor Brionne could lead to an acquittal. Are you aware of that?’

Anselm
blazed with humiliation. ‘I promise, I had no idea what he was going to say.

‘Your
promises are not entirely straightforward, I’m afraid.’

‘But
this time I know what I’m doing. Before I was in the dark.’

‘As was
I, and still am. I don’t want to be enlightened. Here’s the address and
telephone number.’ She handed him a piece of paper. It had been written down in
advance.

‘Thank
you.

‘Father,
I’m sorry to say this but I’m giving it to you not because I trust you, but
because it’s a matter of public record. He’s in the telephone book.’

Anselm
put the note in his pocket, his head bent, unable to face his accuser. When he
finally did so, DI Armstrong had already turned around. He stood, emptied,
watching her walk down the steps away from him.

5

Anselm returned to St
Catherine’s and rang Victor Brionne.

‘I
think we ought to have another talk.’

‘Why?
As a result of our last conversation, I came to the court. Now, after my
performance, I have lost my son. I don’t think you and I have anything else to
say to one another.’

‘I want
to talk about Agnes Aubret.’

‘What’s
the point? Your curiosity has too high a price.’

‘She’s
alive.’

‘No,
she’s not,’ he barked. ‘I should know.’

‘Victor,
I know her granddaughter. Agnes survived. She is here in London. I will be
seeing her within the next few days with a message from Mr Snyman.’

The
line went deathly quiet. Anselm could hear the intake of breath.

‘Snyman?’

‘Yes.Victor,
listen to me. Agnes is seriously ill. She will soon die. Now is the time to let
out what you’ve kept back for fifty years.

Chapter Forty-Two

1

The jury reconvened at
9.30 a.m. on the Friday. Throughout the passing hours Lucy and Mr Lachaise sat
on the bench as if awaiting the ministrations of a dentist. By way of
distraction Lucy described the miniature glories of the Duchess who, at that
moment, was probably holding her own court in Chiswick Mall. Lucy had parked
the old girl there in anticipation of the verdict … a verdict Lucy would
probably bring to Agnes that evening. No decision had been reached by
lunchtime. Lucy walked the streets. She kept moving, tiring her limbs, until it
was time to get back to the Old Bailey.

At 2.30
p.m. the jury indicated through the usher that they had a question. Counsel,
solicitors and the Defendant were called into court. Mr Justice Pollbrook came
on to the bench. The jury were summoned. The foreman passed a note to the usher
who gave it to the judge. He opened a sheet of paper, read it and handed it
down to Counsel. The note was passed back to the judge who read it out loud:

‘We
would like to hear some evidence from the person who took the child saved by
the Defendant. Can this be arranged?’

Turning
to the jury, Mr Justice Pollbrook said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you must not
allow yourselves to be distracted by speculation upon evidence that might have
been presented to you. Your task is simply this: to decide the case on the
evidence you have heard and nothing else.’

As
everyone traipsed out Lucy turned to Mr Lachaise and said, ‘They’ve decided he
saved a child and they think it matters.’

‘Like I
said, pity is a sticky sweet,’ he replied. ‘I’ve tasted it myself.’

2

Anselm stood facing the
home of Victor Brionne. Through the window he could only see books, from floor
to ceiling on every wall. He knocked on the door. It opened. A rounded back
split by braces receded. Anselm stepped in, along a dark corridor. A small
square of greasy daylight hung suspended at the top of the stairs, behind a
half-closed toilet door.

‘Take a
seat,’ said Victor Brionne, pointing.

They
sat in worn, charity shop chairs. A faded burgundy carpet lay in rucks, its
pattern now barely distinguishable. Anselm’s eye caught the glint of glass,
from a wine bottle, standing close to Victor’s chair like a furtive intruder.
Anselm’s keys bit into his thigh. He fished them out and put them on the
armrest.

‘If
Agnes survived, it’s a miracle,’ Brionne said.

‘She
survived.’

Brionne
ran a finger along one of the deep creases spreading beneath his large dark
eyes. Quietly astonished, he said to himself, ‘If only I had known … all
these years …’

‘What
difference does it make?’ asked Anselm.

‘What
difference?’ Brionne laughed, pulling out a cigarette from a crumpled packet.
He struck a match. The flame hissed, lit his face and died. ‘I was there when
Rochet asked us to be knights of a Round Table of forgotten chivalry, and they
all said, “Yes, yes, bring us our bows of burning gold, our arrows of desire,
our shields…”’ He stopped, trying to make out lost faces in the middle
distance. ‘Except for me. I asked why.’ He turned to Anselm. ‘I could not see
the poetry in self-destruction.’ Blue smoke swirled over his face.

‘I went
to see Rochet after the first round-up. He said it was just the beginning.
Soon, they’d all be swept away It would be a Babylon the like of which the
world had never seen. There would be no weeping by any rivers, no Exodus. I don’t
know what came over me. I said I’d join the police.’

Anselm
felt heat in a room with no fire.

‘They’d
carried out the arrests, so where better place to go? We’d know in advance what
the Germans were up to.’

‘What?’
exclaimed Anselm.

Brionne
seemed not to hear. ‘Why did I do it? I didn’t think about it at the time, but
it was for Agnes: He drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘I had entertained what
nineteenth-century novelists call “hopes”. They were dashed in
nineteenth-century fashion when I learned she was carrying Jacques’ child. She
told me a few months before I went to see Rochet. Somehow the two are linked:
the end of my great expectations and me doing something that I knew would command
her undying admiration, if ever she found out. There was a poetic symmetry in
the self-sacrifice.’

Brionne
got up and walked out of the room. He came back with a small, foxed black and
white photograph with creased corners. He handed it to Anselm.

‘That’s
her. I took it in 1936.’

She had
long, straight hair, and had been caught in time as she threw the lot over her
shoulder. In the shadow beneath, her mouth was slightly open, her eyes creased
with … what was it? Self-consciousness, confidence, suppressed exhilaration
… it was all of them and more, the gifts that come just before the parting of
youth. Behind stood a young man, serious, his gaze fixed on Agnes …
possessive, and wanting to be possessed.

‘That’s
Jacques.’ Brionne held out his hand for the photograph. ‘So I joined up and
got transferred to Avenue Foch, because of my German. At the time I thought it
was the hand of God. Now? I’m not so sure. That was where I met Schwermann.’

Brionne
dragged the bottle a few inches across the carpet, into better reach, and
poured wine into a stained mug.

‘He was
ordinary to look at. The evil ran through his mind. He poisoned himself with
pseudo-scientific pamphlets against the Jews. He underlined phrases and ticked
margins: He drank, the cigarette locked between two fingers. ‘Anyway Rochet
decided he would be my sole contact. My code name was “Bedivere”, and it was
known only to him and the Prior of Les Moineaux and his council. If I needed to
run, they’d protect me. So, there I was, at the heart of things. I hadn’t been
there long when “Spring Wind” was planned, though nothing had been worked out
for the children. I told Rochet.’ Brionne grimaced. ‘So many could have been
saved if we hadn’t been betrayed.’