The Sixth Lamentation (42 page)

‘Excuse
me, it’s time to go.

‘I’m
sorry?’ said Lucy stirring. The court and public gallery were empty, except for
herself and Mr Lachaise. She was still holding his hand.

‘It’s
time to go. I have to lock up,’ said the usher, pointing like a curator towards
the door.

Lucy
stood. Mr Lachaise withdrew his pipe and thumbed the bowl reflectively.

‘You
can’t use that in here,’ said the usher officiously.

‘Indeed
not. It’s just an old habit to occupy the hands.’ With a warm glance he said, ‘Go
now, Lucy. ‘

She had
always liked his accent and the engaging depth of his voice, like churning wet
gravel. As she pushed open the swing doors she heard him ask:

‘Would
you be so kind as to do me a small favour …?’

Then
they closed.

Standing
in Newgate Street, the presence of Agnes all around, suffusing metal, stone and
cloud, Lucy hailed a taxi. ‘Hammersmith,’ she said woozily

2

Anselm left Victor
Brionne, knowing he would continue to drink but knowing there was little he
could do to hold him back. Victor — he could call him nothing else — had urged
Anselm to tell Agnes about Robert. It was a secret that could not be withheld
from the little time she had remaining.

Anselm
left shortly before 5 p.m. He dropped into a newsagent, drawn by the blaring of
a radio from behind a curtain over the back room. He leafed through a paper,
waiting for the news on the hour. The shock verdict delivered in the trial led
a series of other items, culminating in the shock transfer of a football
player. Two shocks, one at either end.

Anselm
walked out, dazed, and looked around. It was a lovely dusty, sunny day and
there were children playing in the street.

3

The front door was
slightly ajar. Wilma must have popped out. Lucy walked purposefully through to
Agnes’ room. She kissed her forehead. It was warm and smooth, scented by baby
oil —one of Wilma’s gentle ministrations. Lucy took both of her grandmother’s
hands and said, ‘Gran, they’ve set him free. It’s all over.’

For a
while Agnes did not respond. Her eyelids blinked slowly. Then her head swung to
one side, arching backwards. From her mouth, stretched open, came a thin
squealing exhalation of air that Lucy thought would never end.

In one
scalding flash Lucy saw the snapshots of a lifetime —the catastrophic loss of a
child; the death camps; the rescue of Freddie and Elodie, crowned with failure;
the cost of silence; a remorseless, stripping illness; exclusion from the
trial; and finally when there was little left to take away the vindication of
the man she could, but would not, condemn.

The
front door snapped shut. Wilma was back.

Lucy, completely
detached from her actions, not fully knowing what she was doing, opened the
bedside cupboard, searching for the revolver wrapped in a duster. She placed it
with the four rounds of ammunition in her rucksack. Agnes, still trapped in a
silent howl, tried to clutch at Lucy her head flopping from side to side.

‘Don’t
worry, Gran. I know what I’m doing. This is for Victor Brionne. I’m not going
to get into any trouble,’ said Lucy calm and reassuring, like a nurse.

‘Would
you mind explaining what is going on, madam?’ said Wilma from the wings.

Lucy
ran out, sweeping up the keys for the Duchess.

4

The radio from the
newsagent blasted out an old Elvis hit about a woman, impolitely called a hound
dog, who cried incessantly Anselm set off for Manor House tube station, the
singer’s name having reminded him of a confession he’d once heard. The unseen
face behind the grille had leaned forward, saying darkly fearfully ‘Do you
realise, Father … Elvis is an anagram for “Lives” … but also    Evils”
… the fiend is everywhere.’ Anselm had said ‘God is “dog” spelt backwards… the hound of heaven will protect you.’ And the man had gone away healed.

Upon an
impulse, Anselm patted his right-hand pocket, perhaps because it was lighter
than it had been. The iron keys to St Catherine’s. He’d left them on the
armrest. Irritated, he began to retrace his steps. But there was no rush:
Victor was going nowhere.

5

Lucy had written down
Victor Brionne’s address as he gave it with wavering self-pity to the court. Holmleigh
Road, Stamford Hill. The words had mesmerised her, for they signified a home
and garden — providing a life free of care on the other side of escape. She
parked a few doors down, her eye on the neatly painted window frames. Night
settled upon her conscience. She opened her bag and unrolled the duster. She
pushed open the chamber and fed in the cartridges. Her hands moved quickly
professionally. She watched them, marvelling at their adroit purposefulness,
their separation from her. She walked at a pace, before the light came back and
she lost her nerve. Reaching the door, she struck it hard three times. It swung
slowly back. Brionne appeared, slightly swaying on his feet.

‘Yes?’

‘I am
the adopted granddaughter of Agnes Aubret. I want to talk to you.

He
stared at her through maudlin tears. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Lucy
Embleton.’

‘Come
in, but ignore the mess. I’m just beginning a bad patch.’

She
hated the lurching intimacy of drink, the promise of unwanted confidences. And
she hated him. She said, ‘That doesn’t bother me.’

‘You’re
very kind,’ he replied, retreating into the gloom. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘No,
thank you,’ said Lucy, shutting the door and flipping down the lock. ‘I won’t
be staying that long.’

6

Anselm rounded the corner,
back into Holmleigh Road. The verdict lay upon his mind, pressing down like a
migraine. By a low wall a cluster of young Hasidic Jews, bearded men in black
suits and wide hats, stood talking animatedly; inside a house, Anselm glimpsed
a number of women gesticulating.

Passing
quickly round them, not wanting to hear their conversation, Anselm moved on
towards Victor’s home, further up the road.

As he
approached the gate through which he had passed only a short while before,
Anselm heard a voice from behind:

‘Excuse
me, Father, but could you spare a word …’

7

‘I know exactly what you
did to Agnes,’ said Lucy at length. Brionne nodded.

‘I know
what you did to her child.’ He nodded again, his eyes widening.

‘And I
know what you did at the trial.’

He
moved towards a bottle and back, seeing it was empty.

‘Agnes
will die within the month. I would like you to die first.’

‘How
would you like me to oblige?’

‘I have
a gun.

‘That
was very thoughtful of you.’

Lucy
opened her bag and took out Grandpa Arthur’s revolver. She cocked the hammer. ‘It’s
already loaded.’

‘Do you
propose to do it yourself?’

‘No.’
She stretched from her seat and handed it to Brionne. ‘I intend to sit here
telling you every detail I know about Agnes, everything I know about my father,
and everything about myself — and I will go on until you either shoot me or
yourself.’

Brionne
held the gun with a look of dark, drunken fascination. Gingerly he raised the
barrel, his eyes glazed and black. He bit a cracked lip and a spurt of blood
ran on to his chin.

‘I suggest
you go now.’

8

‘Father,’ said a thin
woman, walking down the path from an open front door, ‘I saw you passing and,
well, I wondered if you could say a prayer for a special intention.’ She wore a
head-scarf and florid apron, the combination redolent of wartime courage: wives
on their knees scrubbing doorsteps, despite the nightly visits of German
bombers.

‘Of
course,’ said Anselm, retracing a few steps. Every street was the same, he
thought: hidden behind each small facade was a universe of disappointment and
hope.

‘We don’t
see
our kind
here very often,’ she said, nodding significantly at Anselm’s
habit and tilting her head down the road towards the other kind.

‘I see,’
said Anselm. A bitter, foreign urge to slap the bony face warmed him like a
flush of blood.

‘I’m
Catholic, of course, like your good self.’

‘I’m
sorry but I’m an Anglican,’ lied Anselm, his hand rising, the palm open; he put
it on the gate.

‘Oh,’
she replied, discomfited, pushing stray dyed hairs under the scarf’s fold. ‘That
must be nice.’

‘It is.’

‘Lovely
Well, then.’

‘You
have a special intention?’

‘Well,
I won’t trouble you, it’s just one of the family playing up … won’t go to
Mass … not a problem for your sort …

Anselm
heard the clip of a gate and looked round. To his amazement there was Lucy
wavering on the pavement, her hands loose by her side. He ran, exclaiming, ‘Are
you all right? What are you doing here?’

Dreamily
Lucy looked aside to the bay window Anselm swiftly followed her drugged gaze:
towards Victor, swaying uncertainly the barrel of a gun pointing at his face. Anselm
rushed for the door, throwing his full bodyweight against the lock. He bounced
back, mocked by strength. Wildly he struck it again, as though its tongues and
grooves had given out all the needless griefs he’d ever known. And then,
across a pause in the hammering, came a deafening short crack. Lucy cried out,
like at a birth. Anselm held his breath until the tightness in his chest pushed
out an oath. The woman in the apron and scarf scampered indoors to ring the
police.

Chapter Forty-Four

1

The provision of an
ambulance for Victor Brionne struck Anselm as incongruous given the
circumstances. Standard procedure, said Detective Superintendent Milby with
disinterest, dropping the gun into a plastic sample bag. He handed it to a
colleague who stored it with the damaged book. ‘All in a day’s work,’ he added,
surveying the waste of Victor Brionne’s life. Empty bottles, scatterings of
fag-ash and an open packet of broken biscuits lay upon the floor.

‘Pig,’
said Milby

An
officer bending over an armchair recovered a set of keys, holding them up like
a fish at the market.

‘Ah,
they’re mine actually’ said Anselm.

The
Detective Superintendent scrutinised his old adversary but let the puzzle pass.
He said, ‘Any chance of a favour?’

‘Depends.’

‘The
girl wants someone to explain to her grandmother what’s happened. Bit unwell
apparently. More your scene than mine.

‘What’s
going to happen to her?’ asked Anselm flatly gesturing towards Lucy

‘Firearms.
You know the game.’

‘Favours
sometimes have a price.

‘You
should have been in the Drug Squad.’

Anselm
urged the arresting officer to contact DI Armstrong, to ask if she would visit
Lucy at the station. And then he accepted the offer of a lift to Chiswick Mall
in a Detective Superintendent’s carriage.

Anselm spoke assurances to
Agnes.’ trying to assuage her trapped anxiety. He pulled his chair closer to
the bed so as to read the alphabet card, but then the housekeeper entered
pushing a television on a small serving trolley.

‘Vicar,
now is not the time to speak of The Last Things,’ she admonished. ‘You may
preach, but after the news.

2

Lucy sat on a bench
opposite the Custody Sergeant’s desk, waiting to be processed. Beside her sat
Father Conroy summoned at Father Anselm’s request.

‘At
least you didn’t pull the trigger,’ said the priest.

‘Would
it have made any difference?’

‘I was
never that good at moral theology. But I do know about people who send other
people to prison, and they think there is a difference. ‘

The declaration
carried a weight. With the peculiar acuity that comes with anxiety, Lucy asked,
‘Have you been to prison?’

‘Yes.’
He scratched the hairs on his thick arms. ‘Several times.’

A
liberating curiosity surfaced over the panic. ‘What for?’

‘Working
with street kids in São Paulo.’

‘You
got locked up for that?’