The Sixth Lamentation (39 page)

‘If the
Defendant intervened then he did so for reasons we will never know, and to
spare this child a dreadful killing which he knew was prepared for him, like so
many others, at the end of a railway line.’

Mr
Penshaw had almost finished. He put his text aside and spoke with growing
anger. ‘There is only one conclusion you can draw With all his senses and
faculties attuned, this man wilfully played his part in a scheme that was grand
to the twisted dreams of its architects, unthinkable in its proportions,
purpose, and consequences, and whose victims now call out for justice. Do not
forget them when you retire to make your decision.

Mr
Justice Pollbrook thought that a good place to stop for twenty minutes.

2

Anselm tried several times
to contact DI Armstrong. His calls were not returned, so he left a message —
that she should phone him urgently regarding a personal matter. Immediately
afterwards he left for London, driven by Conroy. It had been arranged that
they would lodge at St Catherine’s, an Augustinian house near the Old Bailey As
they passed through the gates of Larkwood, Anselm took a last glimpse of the
monastery, its countless roofs folding in upon the other like so many russet
wings, and he felt an aching as he’d only known when he used to depart for his
old life at the Bar.

The
Prior of St Catherine’s provided large iron keys, fashioned, it seemed, in the
Middle Ages, and the next morning Conroy set off for the library at Heythrop
College. Anselm removed his habit and walked briskly to the court. The Press,
burdened by large bags bulging with lenses, were already circling the entrance.
The big kill would come after the verdict. For the moment they were taking pot
shots at the herd with an intimidating languor. Anselm nipped past, unnoticed,
and entered the ancient hall he’d known so well before he was a monk. At a
reception desk enclosed in thick glass he asked for either Detective Inspector
Armstrong or Detective Superintendent Milby After a long wait a smartly dressed
WPC came to see him. She said:

‘I’m sorry,
both of them are involved in another case. I don’t think they’ll be here until
tomorrow Can I take a message?’

‘No, I
really need their help now, it’s urgent …’ He’d forgotten that criminal
activity was rarely adjourned during a trial.

‘Can I
help?’

‘Well,’
he faltered, ‘I want the home address of Victor Brionne.’

The WPC’s
face hardened, as before a crude sham. ‘That is not our job.’ She began to walk
away.

Anselm
grabbed her arm. ‘I’m not from the Press, really I’m a monk, a priest …’

The WPC
turned, casting a sceptical, tired eye over Anselm’s cords and jumper. ‘I’ll
take a message, that’s all.’ For a joke she added, ‘All right, Father?’

Once
more Anselm left his number for DI Armstrong, saying it was urgent. On his way
out he stopped, arrested by the motto beneath a crest on the wall: ‘Domine
dirige nos’ — Lord direct us. Dirige, reflected Anselm, the Latin root of ‘dirge’,
a lament … and also the first word of Matins in the Office of the Dead.

3

The outstanding feature of
Mr Bartlett’s speech was as much its length as its content. He spoke for no
more than a minute.

‘Ladies
and gentlemen, I think we know each other well enough by now for me to be brief.
You’ve heard the evidence. You know it as well as I do. I shall say nothing
about it whatsoever. But forgive me if I draw one small point to your attention.
Many of you may already be troubled by its significance.’

Mr
Bartlett had an unnerving posture, a mix of the ornithologist and hunter: very
still, watching for hours at a time, fascinated by what he saw, but ready to
kill. He moved a few steps along the Bar towards the jury, away from his ‘hide’,
his body relaxed, becoming Henry the man, not Bartlett the Silk.

‘You
cannot convict this man of being involved in a joint enterprise of murder. The
edifice constructed by the Crown will not stand. Against others, yes, but not him.’
He leaned back against the bench, sitting on his hands. ‘The cornerstone is missing,
it belongs to a different building. And you possess it. It was retrieved by
Victor Brionne. In August 1942, a young German officer got one chance to save
one boy a Jewish boy. A boy who became a man, and who, as we sit here, probably
still lives and breathes, and will never know that he does so because of Eduard
Schwermann. ‘

Lucy
looked blankly at the line of files in front of Mr Bartlett. One of them should
have contained the deportation records for Agnes’ son, but for some reason it
wasn’t there. It was the final obliteration. He hadn’t even survived on paper.

Mr
Bartlett moved back to his usual place, back into the courtroom, into the
contest.

‘These
were dark, unimaginable times, far from the comfort of this courtroom. Ask
yourselves: if he saved one Jewish child, would he have chosen to harm a hair
upon the head of any other?’

He
looked at the jury with such a hard stare of enquiry that Lucy thought for an
awful moment someone might answer out loud. Then he said, like a command, ‘No,
he would not. Eduard Schwermann was, in his own way a member of The Round
Table, only they never knew it. Ladies and gentlemen, set this man free.’

Mr Justice Pollbrook began
his Summing-Up of the evidence, his voice crisp and dry. After a few sentences
Lucy heard the deep whispering of Mr Lachaise close to her ear: ‘I think we
need a little drink.’

They
found a wine bar and took two stools by the window Mr Lachaise ordered half a
bottle of Brouilly

‘I
trust you are well?’ he enquired paternally.

‘No.’

‘Neither
am I.’

‘Cheers.’

They
sipped a disconsolate communion. Lucy said:

‘I
simply cannot understand Mr Bartlett’s last remark — about saving one child and
therefore not choosing to harm another. It’s rubbish.’

Mr
Lachaise turned his glass in small, tight circles, bringing the wine up to the
rim. ‘It is rhetoric, not logic. Words well used. It is also deliberately
ambiguous. To save a child means opposition to the system of killing, at least
in that one instance. But it also means knowledge of the system that claimed
the lives of all the others — and, given his participation in what happened,
that should be enough to convict him. Mr Bartlett, however, is gambling that
the ambiguity will tilt in his client’s favour. ‘

‘But
why should it? If The Round Table knew what “resettlement” meant, so did
Schwermann,’ said Lucy

‘I know.
And so does Mr Bartlett. That is why he has done what every advocate does with
a strong point that can’t be refuted.’

‘What’s
that?’

‘He’s
ignored it, as if it wasn’t there. In its place he’s planted a seed of pity for
an unsung hero.’

‘But
the jury can’t fall for that.’

Mr
Lachaise shook his head. ‘Sometimes, we all like to think the right answer can
only be found by making the most difficult decision, the one we’re at first
inclined to reject. It shows we took the matter seriously. My dear old mentor,
Mr Bremer, used to say nothing more than pity serves to tip the balance.’

‘I hope
he’s wrong.’

‘So do I.’

He
expressed agreement with such feeling that Lucy looked up, and she was shocked
to see the awesome distress upon his face.

4

By early evening DI
Armstrong had still not returned Anselm’s message. Idle waiting seemed an
offence against the circumstances. He fidgeted anxiously in his room,
rehearsing the future. What if Agnes’ being alive made no difference to Victor
Brionne … and he refused to go to the police voluntarily? A yawning hole
seemed to open before him, all the more frightening because Anselm had already
decided to fall into it. It was not helpful to see the expanding dimensions
beforehand. Without thinking, Anselm picked up the telephone and rang Salomon
Lachaise.

They
met at the same restaurant as before, sat at the same table and were served by
the same waiter. The repetition of the past had the mark of ceremony and under
its weight Anselm disclosed to his companion everything he had concealed on the
last occasion: including his own role in finding Victor Brionne.

‘I am
deeply sorry — I presented one person to you when in fact I was another.’

‘That
is true of all of us,’ replied Salomon Lachaise. ‘Sometimes it cannot be avoided.
You do not need my forgiveness, but you have it.’ He fixed Anselm with a
piercing gaze and said, ‘Are you really prepared to go to the police and bring
down your own life, the reputation of your church, your community?’

‘Yes.’
He was embarrassed by the simplicity of his reply.

Salomon
Lachaise removed his heavy framed spectacles, revealing the vulnerable skin
kept behind thick glass. He said, ‘Anselm, go to see Victor Brionne, by all
means. And deliver the message to Agnes Aubret. But promise me two things.’

‘Of
course.

‘First
do nothing else until after the case is over—’

‘But—’

‘Promise
me.’ His voice ground out the words.

‘All
right.’

‘And
secondly,’ he said, ‘please put your habit back on. To me you’re a monk to the
core … and appearances matter.’

Anselm got back to St
Catherine’s to find a message pinned to his door: DI Armstrong had rung and
would meet him on Thursday evening at 5 p.m. on the steps of St Paul’s. She
could see him no earlier because of a murder enquiry. Anselm entered his room
and immediately lifted his habit off the bed and smuggled himself into its
folds. He then tiptoed down to the oratory on the first floor. Sitting in the
dark, he could not escape the sensation that Salomon Lachaise had already known
a great deal of what he had said, but one question in particular returned again
and again: why had he forbidden Anselm to act to his detriment when it was
required by what he had done and what he knew? Anselm’s imagination was perhaps
too easily excited, but he sensed his mysterious friend was about to cast an
appalling light upon the tragedy that had engulfed him.

Chapter Forty-One

1

Mr Lachaise rang Lucy and
suggested they meet for lunch in Gray’s Inn Gardens at half past one. He did
not propose to attend the end of the Summing-Up. Neither did Lucy at least not
all of it. The slow treading-over of the evidence was an unbearable form of
waiting.

The gardens
lay off Theobald’s Road, neatly circumscribed by mansions of the law, elegant
screens of pale magenta brick with regular white-framed windows like rows of
pictures. Lucy strolled along a narrow passage into Field Court, a tight enclosure
adjacent to an ornate pair of wrought-iron gates, resting between two pillars.
Surmounting each was a fabulous beast with the head and wings of an eagle. She
paused to study the strange, seated guardians. They threatened to suddenly
move, relinquishing stone; to slink, warm-breathed, off their pedestals and
wreak wrath and mercy upon High Holborn. What did they protect? Nothing. Whom
did they save? No one. When would the day of reckoning come? Never. What were
they other than dismal protestations at the absence of angels?

Lucy
passed between them into the gardens. A lane of polished gravel unrolled
between short trees, plump courtiers on afternoon parade. Benches, set well
apart, secured leisure with privacy. Upon one of them sat Mr Lachaise, talking
earnestly to Max Nightingale.

They
did not hear her approach. Lucy sidled to the edge of the path, in line with
the bench, reducing the chance of being seen. She harboured a not altogether
irrational suspicion that Mr Lachaise had met Max first on purpose. As she drew
near, she heard his distinctive, appealing voice say:

‘Regardless
of what you have said, do as I ask. Do nothing. Rest assured, there is no need.’

Then,
unfortunately she was seen. However, the conversation ran on in an entirely
innocent fashion, which rather disappointed Lucy. She had liked the idea of
consecutive meetings, up—turned collars and secret conversations. Mr Lachaise
continued talking as he beckoned Lucy with his hand:

‘You
might think your paintings are not especially good, but I’m confident my colleagues
will come to another conclusion. As I have said, leave it all to me. The
University will issue the invitation; after that it’s all very simple. Ah, Lucy
do join us.

Lucy
shook Max’s hand. Seeing him outside the courtroom lit his absence from the
trial as a sort of failure, as though he’d left her and Mr Lachaise on the
front line. How peculiar, she reflected. He’s from the other side.

‘I’ve
brought along some very Jewish provisions, said Mr Lachaise, opening a large
plastic bag. ‘It’s always bitter or sweet … I’ll explain as we go along.’