The Sixth Lamentation (36 page)

Mr
Bartlett followed through quickly and quietly, prompting fluid, hushed replies.

‘How do
you know this?’

‘I saw
it with my own eyes.

‘How
often did the opportunity to act in this way arise?’

‘Just
this once.

‘He
seized it?’

‘He
did.’

Lucy
could not bear it any more. She sidled hurriedly out of her row towards the
court doors as Mr Bartlett sat down and picked up his highlighter.

2

The folder was sealed as
if it were meant to survive the rough handling of a prying child. Max stared at
the unmarked surface, the bands of brown masking tape crossing each other like
planks in a garden fence. His fingers held the corners lightly, reluctantly,
as if the whole might dirty him.

Anselm
had brought Max to the table beneath the wellingtonia tree after he’d arrived
at Larkwood unannounced. A thick stubble dirtied his neck and cheeks. He said: ‘The
day my grandfather came here, he gave me this.’ Max placed it on the table and
drew his hands away. ‘He told me “You’re the only person I can trust, you
always have been, but now it matters more than ever before. Keep this safe.
Show it to no one. If Victor Brionne is found then bring it to me immediately If
not, and I’m convicted, then I want you to burn it. But promise me this; do not
open it.”‘

Anselm’s
mind tracked back to Genesis and the instruction of the Creator: not to eat the
fruit of the tree that gave knowledge of good and evil. Schwermann had played
God with the same rash confidence that obedience would be rendered. Max
continued: ‘Yesterday, the Prosecution asked for an adjournment. In my guts I
knew it was because Brionne had turned up. I’ve just heard a news bulletin. I
was right. The Prosecution have closed their case. As we sit here, Brionne is
giving evidence on my grandfather’s behalf. I’m meant to have brought this to
court’ — he pointed at the folder — ‘but I can’t, not without knowing what’s
inside.’ He pushed it towards Anselm. ‘I can’t open it. I’ve brought the one
part of him he did not bring to Larkwood.’

Somewhere
out of sight, one of the brothers was at work making one of the songs of
spring: the unhurried scrape of sandpaper on outdoor timber, a preparation
before the laying of paint. Anselm took the folder and carefully pulled it
apart. He withdrew three documents held neatly together by a paper-clip. Laid
on the table, their corners lifted lightly in the breeze.

The
dull blue ink had the slight blurring characteristic of print from an old
typewriter. Anselm signalled to Max to come closer, to see for himself.

The
first was headed ‘Drancy—Auschwitz’. It carried a list of numbered names and
was evidently a deportation register. Before Anselm could scan the entire page
his eyes alighted upon a single entry:

4.
AUBRET, Agnes 23.3.1919 Française

The
lower right-hand corner had been signed by Victor Brionne — representing,
presumably, either the compilation of the list or confirmation of its
execution. Anselm turned it over and saw the faded smudge of ink around the
indentations of lettering: the list had been typed upon a carbon sheet. This
was the original. Somewhere there was a duplicate. It was an irrelevant detail
that nonetheless attached itself to Anselm’s concentration.

Anselm
turned to the second document. It was another Drancy-Auschwitz convoy list, a
block of names. The dates of birth caught his eye. He stared at distant trees,
carrying out a spontaneous horrified calculation. They were all children. Each
was marked off as though safely accounted for on a last school trip. And there,
near the top of the page, Anselm saw what he half expected to see: a boy called
Aubret, aged fifteen months, French, and in the margin a broad, unwavering
tick. Again, the paper was signed by Victor Brionne. Instinctively he glanced
at its back. Curiously, the page was clean, without the marks of carbon.

Anselm
turned quickly to the third sheet. It was an SS memorandum dated 8th June 1942
and appeared to be an interrogation record. Although Anselm could not
understand German, the term ‘Judenkinder’ was nauseatingly clear. There was a
sub-heading in French within quotation marks, ‘La Table Ronde’. Beneath it was
a list of names, roughly a dozen, two of which he recognised: Agnes Aubret and
Jacques Fougères. The bottom of the page carried the signature of Victor
Brionne. He turned it over. Once more it was clean, an original text.

Anselm’s
pulse raced in disgust. He put the documents back in the folder. The questions
sprang forward: why had Schwermann kept these at all … and why had he
retained original records, leaving behind a duplicate only in the case of Agnes
Aubret?

‘Max,’
said Anselm. ‘Your grandfather has prepared for this trial, right from the
start, even before he knew the outcome of the war. These show that Brionne was
involved in the betrayal of The Round Table and the deportation system … with
those papers you hold your grandfather’s life in your hands.’

Max was
blinking rapidly He said in a detached, failing voice, ‘He must be blackmailing
Brionne. Whatever Brionne is saying to the court will be a fairy tale …
agreed between them fifty years ago.

‘I’m
afraid you’re right.’

The
soft song of spring played on: the scraping over dry, rough wood. Max bit his
lip and said, ‘Before I go to the police … I’ll have to prepare my family, my
mother …

‘Would
you like me to come with you?’ asked Anselm.

‘Yes.’
The word was barely spoken.

Anselm
didn’t want to say what was pressing upon his mind but he had no choice:

‘Max, I
don’t want to make things worse but there isn’t much time — you need to speak
to the police as soon as possible. The Prosecution will need what you now
possess.’

3

‘Mr Brionne,’ said Miss Matthews
stonily, ‘you have been very public-spirited, coming forward, it would seem,
without any outside compulsion.’

Lucy
had slipped back through the court doors to find Mr Penshaw seated and the
young woman barrister on her feet.

‘Tell
me,’ said Miss Matthews with curiosity, ‘when did you first discover the
Defendant had taken refuge in a monastery?’

‘On the
news.

‘That
would be April of 1995, a year ago,’ calculated the barrister. ‘And you made no
effort to contact the police?’ She firmly drew out each word.

Brionne
turned to the judge, as if for help. Mr Justice Pollbrook stared back
dispassionately

‘When
did you first discover the Defendant had been formally
arrested?’

‘I… I’m not sure, perhaps it was … er …’ ‘Let me help you. On the news?’

‘Yes,
that’s right.’

‘That
was in mid-August 1995, four months later?’ ‘All right, yes.’

‘Yet
you made no effort to contact the police. Why?’ Once again Brionne floundered,
like a man with a map he could not understand.

Miss
Matthews pressed remorselessly forward. ‘When did you learn the Defendant had
actually been
charged
with murder?’

‘I
think it was the next month.’

‘You
are right. Yet you made no effort to contact the police. Why?’

‘I can’t
explain …’

‘Why
not? It strikes me that you have closely followed this case from the day the
Defendant fled his home to the day this trial commenced. Is that so?’

‘I
have, yes.’

‘Yet it
is only at the last hour you come riding into court to tell us what you know Why
now?’

Brionne
lowered his head, unable or refusing to answer. Miss Matthews patiently leafed
through some papers. She looked up and said without a trace of sympathy:

‘Are
you frightened of someone, Mr Brionne?’

Still
there was no response.

‘Mr
Schwermann, perhaps?’

Brionne
became totally still. He held on to the sides of the witness box, controlling
his breathing. But he would not speak.

‘All
right, Mr Brionne, if you won’t reply we’ll move on, said Miss Matthews
contentedly ‘When you finally presented yourself to the police a few days ago,
after the trial had begun, you related only one great incident of heroism on
the part of the Defendant. Is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nothing
about round-ups, internment centres, deportations or death camps. Correct?’

‘That’s
right.’

‘Just
one, brief, glittering moment when a boy’s life was spared, like Moses against
the orders of Pharaoh?’

Lucy
wanted to cry out: pick up the convoy sheets in front of you. The boy’s name
must be there. Please, please, look now

‘I’m
sorry but it’s the truth,’ Brionne said purposefully.

‘Is it
indeed?’ Miss Matthews suddenly shifted direction to the dirty underside of the
rescue story. Mr Bartlett showed no trace of surprise.

‘You
proclaim he saved a boy from certain death at Auschwitz?’

‘That’s
what I’ve said.’

‘Then
tell me this. Can this jury safely conclude that SS-Unterscharführer Schwermann
knew “deportation to the East” meant one thing, and one thing only: brutal
execution?’

Brionne
started, caught off-balance by the question.

She’s
trapped him, thought Lucy as Miss Matthews said, with icy detachment:

‘Either
the Defendant separated a boy from his mother for no reason, or he knew about
the machinery of death. Which is it?’

Without
forcing a reply the interrogator drew a slow line across a page, watching him
all the while. Then she sat down, leaving Brionne with his head bowed.

Lucy
smiled to herself, her heart racing. Miss Matthews had learned a neat ploy from
Mr Bartlett: the strange power of a well-placed, otherwise empty gesture.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

1

The curved timber-frames
and weatherboards of the cottage would have been simply captivating but for the
wide splattering of red paint. It had soaked into the wood and plaster and
would not be hidden, despite attempts to scrub it away This was the home of
Sylvia Nightingale, lying by the banks of a river that ran through
Walsham-le-Willows, a village thirty miles or so from Larkwood. Anselm drove
there on a Friday morning, the day after his meeting with Max, the folder of
documents on the seat beside him.

Before
leaving Anselm had thought of making photocopies but didn’t. The notion of
duplicating the names of the dead seemed somehow irreverent, an act of
trespass. Listening to the radio during the short journey, Anselm learned the
court would not be sitting until the afternoon owing to Bartlett having asked
for time to confer with his client. That, thought Anselm, was an answer to a
prayer he had not made. Once the ordeal of the morning was over, he, or the
family could call the police, and that would prompt another more significant
adjournment.

Max had
already arrived when Anselm was shown into the cluttered, homely sitting room.
The daubing had occurred two nights ago, explained Mrs Nightingale. It didn’t
reflect the attitude of the community for it was almost certainly the act of an
outsider. Probably drunk, just a one-off, the police had said, trying to bring
reassurance to the terror thrown upon the victim. Their words had brought no
comfort. Fear had settled into a rigid mask. She was heavily made up, a crafted
brave face, displaying everything she wanted to hide. Rebuffing words of
sympathy from Anselm, she was an absurd, pitiable folly of strength. Her hair,
wound into a bun, had begun to slip free. The comfortable disarray of things in
the lounge suggested the unexpected suspension of a busy life.

‘Charity
work,’ she said, pointing towards a pile of leaflets, ‘until they said it was
better if I didn’t help any more. I’ve become an embarrassment. ‘

The
three of them sat as a triangle, reminding Anselm of a parish visit after a
death but before the funeral. He explained, as sensitively as he could, the
issues faced by the court, concluding with the revelation that Max had been
entrusted with a folder of crucially important documents. Mrs Nightingale
looked at her son, astounded, becoming angry.

‘Why
didn’t you say anything, to me at least?’

Max
said, ‘He made it sound as though the truth could only come out if no one knew
anything about his secret.’

‘Listen
to yourself, that’s utter nonsense.

‘I know’

‘Then
why the hell did you … Oh Max.’ She looked aside, away from her son, with a
look of total understanding.

‘Mrs
Nightingale,’ said Anselm. ‘These papers demonstrate that your father prepared
himself for this trial as soon as the war came to a close. He kept a record of
one man’s betrayal, a disclosure that was made to him. That man gave evidence
yesterday in your father’s defence. He must have done so under duress, to save
himself. Nothing he said can be relied upon.