The Sixth Lamentation (4 page)

The
most interesting aspect of this episode was that Agnes didn’t like Darren
either. But she knew instinctively that it had to run its course. As a
consequence, while Lucy knew Darren she kept visiting her grandmother; she
rarely went home. That was the thing about Agnes, and in it lay a mystery:
while she was inaccessible to ‘normal’ people the route was left open for ‘outsiders’;
like the bag-lady she frequently met in the park; like Lucy, in a way

Then,
long after Darren had left the scene, Lucy turned up at Chiswick Mall, Agnes’
home, while her father was listening to the cricket (he’d lately discovered its
secret joys, but only after the other two ‘had been bowled out’).

‘Dad, I’ve
got a place to read English at King’s College.’

‘Cambridge?’
he said, alight.

‘No,
London.’

He
smiled broadly At least it had the same name as his alma mater. Susan baked a
cake. And Agnes, the person who had always been there, to whom there was never
a homecoming, pretended nothing had happened.

3

In leaving the cut and
thrust of chair sales and becoming an undergraduate, Lucy entered another sort
of No Man’s Land that was not altogether unattractive. She had made no lasting
friendships in the office and her new youthful companions at King’s were
broadly interested in drinking and running through the preliminary stages of an
emotional crisis that would probably flower in the second year. This was
familiar, uninviting territory. And so, in her first year studying English,
aged twenty-five, Lucy found herself between a life she had left behind and a
future that was yet to find a shape.

Lucy
did retain, however, a small link with her past. It presented itself one
morning when she was walking down High Holborn. Among the bobbing heads she
caught sight of blonde hair and a stare of enquiry that turned rapidly into
recognition. It was Cathy Glenton, a girl Lucy had known at Cambridge. She was
one of the few people with whom Lucy had found any affinity. Their mutual
attraction appeared to lie in sheer difference. Cathy was effortlessly
brilliant and endowed with generalised talent, more like a machine that
smoothly went to work on any activity she cared to assume. Between hot-air
ballooning and acting in the drama club she discharged high marks in all her
papers. She ate what she liked without putting on weight. She had it all,
including a sublime boyfriend called Vincent. Even misfortune seemed toothless
before Cathy’s exuberance. Shortly into her first year she had had an accident
in a drunken bicycle race, striking a pot-hole on a narrow bridge over Hobson’s
Brook, flying off her bike and landing on the railings, cutting her hands and
face. She had been left with an almost insignificant scar, more of a twisting
in the skin, situated upon her left cheek. For anyone else such an outcome
would have teetered on the edge of psychological importance. But not for Cathy
She couldn’t have cared less. When Lucy met her in High Holborn she noted the
subtle presence of pink foundation, something Cathy had never used, and
wondered why it should be needed now. After the preliminaries and the
truncated histories, Lucy said, ‘Still ballooning?’

‘Nope.’

‘Acting?’

‘Nope.’

‘How’s
Vincent?’

‘Gone
with the wind.’

‘Oh.’

‘Just
work. Nothing but bloody work. And Turkish baths for pleasure.’

‘Turkish
baths?’

‘Every
week,’ she laughed.

Cathy
had gone into advertising, thinking up clever ways to persuade people that they
wanted what they didn’t really need. ‘I’m a sorcerer,’ she said. They exchanged
numbers and thereafter each of them lurched for the phone every once in a
while. They met, had a laugh and parted without planning another meeting, which
somehow felt right. For different reasons they were both alone, crossing
different fields.

4

Lucy stepped out into the
cool night air and made her way to her flat in Acre Lane, trying yet again to
move around the various bits of history which put together properly might give
a coherent explanation for her family’s broken ways. There was the war; the
camps; a swift marriage; and the mystery that was Agnes. How did they all fit
together? Was there something else? God alone knew.

Lucy’s
persisting regret was that things could so easily have been different for
everyone: Agnes needn’t have been lost to those around her; Grandpa Arthur
needn’t have sacrificed himself so much; Freddie needn’t have felt rejected;
Susan needn’t have been run down by someone else’s past; and Lucy could have
had a childhood, at least for a while. They had all, to a greater or lesser
extent, been unnecessarily damaged. Looking at the workings of the world and
all therein, it seemed to Lucy that everything had been put together quite
nicely at some point in the past, only now it didn’t work very well. And no one
knew why But now that her gran was dying, explanations were of no consequence.
If there was one, only Agnes knew it, and maybe it was better she take it with
her.

When she got to her flat,
Lucy switched on the television and drew the curtains, shutting out the night.
On impulse she rang her grandmother, just as the news was about to begin.

‘Are
you all right?’

‘Of course
I am. Don’t worry’

‘Are
you frightened?’ It was a personal question, the sort she’d never asked before.

The
answer came smoothly: ‘No. There’s not much more in this life to be scared
about, is there?’

‘I
suppose not. Goodnight, Gran.’

‘Goodnight,
Lucy’

Lucy watched the news with
interest. She thought the monk handled the silly question about complicity
rather well.

Chapter Three

Brother Sylvester, the
Gatekeeper, escorted Detective Superintendent Robert Milby and Detective
Inspector Madeleine Armstrong into the parlour at the main entrance of the
Priory. At ninety-three years of age Sylvester’s memory was now best equipped
to deal with his youth, the subsequent decades having become somewhat
indistinct. His mind was often somewhere else, and most visitors were treated
to forays into his past without the need for any particular enquiry.

‘You’ll
be going back to Martlesham tonight, Detective Superintendent?’

‘No,
no, I’ve got to go on to London. No rest for the wicked.’

‘Yes,
there is,’ said Brother Sylvester. He leaned upon the open door, in
contemplation of a distant glimmering. ‘The last time I was in London was with
Baden-Powell…’

‘Brother,
thank you.’ The Prior’s words were firm, with an undertone of familiar
entreaty. Brother Sylvester, a little startled, reluctantly withdrew

The Prior, Anselm and Wilf
were seated at a large table. Milby had changed a great deal since Anselm had
last seen him. The days of flinging drug suppliers over the bonnets of their
cars had ended and, through promotion, he had eased himself into a suit and a
certain studied gravitas. As he sat down, Milby announced: ‘This is a matter
for the Metropolitan Police, but conduct of the enquiry will be shared with us
because the subject is in our area.’ He raised a large hand towards his
colleague. ‘Detective Inspector Armstrong will be handling our involvement.’

Anselm
regarded her pensively Her manner suggested self-containment, separation. Short
jet-black hair made her stand out sharply from her surroundings, like an etching.
Long eyelashes, also black, moved slowly as she scanned a sheaf of notes that
lay on the table.

Milby
said, ‘Madeleine, would you explain what’s come to light:

She
nodded at Father Andrew, as if he were the one who had invited her
contribution. Her voice was even, controlled, with a slightly hard edge.

‘His
name is Eduard Walter Schwermann. It seems he was a low-ranking SS officer
based in Paris during the war. He’s incriminated in the deportation of
thousands of Jews to the death camps.’

Father
Andrew sat with his hands joined, only the fingertips touching, a
characteristic gesture known by Anselm to mean intense, troubled concentration.

‘He was
captured in January 1945, disguised as a priest and with transit papers for
England.’

‘A
priest?’ repeated the Prior.

‘I’m
afraid so. He was recognised on a train and subsequently arrested. At that
point he appears to have informed the military police that he was travelling
with someone else, a Frenchman named Victor Brionne. He too was arrested. Both
men had false identities. Both were interviewed by a Captain Lawson. Both were
released and their passage into this country went ahead.’

The
Prior frowned. ‘Why were they released?’

‘We
haven’t the faintest idea. I’ll be talking to the interviewing officer in a
few days’ time. He’s now a Labour Peer. Back then he was a captain in Military
Intelligence.’

‘Who
provided the false identities, the travel papers?’

‘We don’t
know. But the fact that Schwermann was caught dressed as a priest might suggest
an ecclesiastical connection.’

‘And
then again,’ interjected the Prior logically, not defensively, ‘it might not.
There may be a diplomatic link, though I can’t imagine why or how’ The Prior
drew a hand across his tight lips.

‘Of
course. The strange thing is’ — her manner altered suddenly, becoming warmer,
less analytical — ‘that the false identities appear not to have been recorded.
It is as though they were let into the country and the trail to finding them
was quietly brushed away’

‘By
Captain Lawson?’

‘So it
seems.’

A reflective
pause ensued, until Anselm said, ‘So what happened for the next fifty years?’

‘Nothing,
until Pascal Fougères, a young Frenchman and foreign correspondent for
Le
Monde,
found a declassified memo in the United States setting out the
information I’ve just given you. It turns out he has a personal interest,
because Schwermann was responsible for the deportation of his great—uncle,
Jacques Fougères. Apparently he’s a Resistance hero.’

‘So
what did he do?’ asked Anselm.

‘He
wrote an article — this is about a year and a half ago —alleging that two war
criminals had found a safe haven in Britain. It caused a big splash on the
Continent, but only a ripple over here. And then another peculiar thing
happened. Fougères received an anonymous letter giving him the name under which
Schwermann had escaped: Nightingale.’

‘The
number of people who knew that can’t be very large,’ said Father Andrew
pensively

‘No,
but Fougères hasn’t pursued that angle. I have to say I find that puzzling.
Anyway, what he did do was contact Jewish and former Resistance organisations
in France. They quietly started putting together the case against Schwermann—’

‘And
Brionne?’

‘No,
not against him, which is even more puzzling. When they had the outline of a
case they presented it to the Home Office. Somehow Schwermann found out before
we could arrest him and the next thing we know he’s here, claiming sanctuary.’

She
glanced at Detective Superintendent Milby who added quickly, with a studious
frown, ‘We find that a little odd, sanctuary.’

‘A
right granted by Clement III. It has no legal force,’ Father Andrew said
dismissively

Anselm
caught Wilf’s eye — he had been an historian in the world — and read
astonishment at the hidden erudition of his Prior.

‘But
what gave him that idea?’ asked DI Armstrong.

‘Father
Anselm will enlighten you.

Anselm
recounted to the police officers what he had told his Prior the previous night
just before Compline, when the Great Silence would fall on Larkwood and the
chances of reproach were least likely to blossom. On the day of Schwermann’s
arrival Anselm had been on the afternoon confessions. No one had come. When he’d
left the confessional there had been only one other person in the nave, an old
man sitting at the back, as still as a painted figure in a frieze. As Anselm
had walked past he’d suddenly moved, grabbing Anselm’s habit, saying, ‘Father,
what does a man do when the world has turned against him?’

Anselm
had paused, disconcerted by the tight grip on his clothing rather than the
question posed. It was one of those ponderous enquiries, he’d thought, which is
the lot of the monk to answer.

‘In the
old days,’ he’d replied, pulling at the cloth, ‘you’d claim “sanctuary”, the
protection of the Church, if the accusation was unjust.’

‘And
would you be safe?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Truly?’

‘I
promise you.

‘Thank
you,’ the old man had said, with a quiet calm that Anselm had later recognised
as the threshold of decision. At the time he had simply walked away reflecting
carelessly on the eccentricities of the faithful and the curious things that
troubled them.