The Sixth Lamentation fa-1 Page 30

  ‘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 Sao Paulo.’

  ‘You got locked up for that?’

  ‘It’s a touch more involved, so, but you can’t make a home for those little divils without upsetting people.’

  The arresting officer summoned Lucy with a flick of his finger. Her pockets were emptied and she signed forms that she didn’t read.

  ‘Now, get your dainty skates on,’ said the Custody Sergeant. A waiting WPC took Lucy firmly by the elbow and escorted her down a colourless corridor to a cell. The heavy blue door slammed into position. Keys turned and jangled. The square peephole opened and banged shut. And, to the echo of withdrawing footsteps, Lucy started to cry.

  The lock rattled as iron turned on iron. The door opened and DI Armstrong entered the cell. She sat on a chair fixed to the wall and said: ‘You have been extraordinarily stupid.’

  Lucy lifted her hands helplessly as if she didn’t understand what she had done. She continued to cry, increasingly terrified by the working out of the legal process upon her.

  DI Armstrong said, ‘I’ll do what I can to smooth things for you but my hands are tied. You are in serious trouble.’

  Lucy nodded, grateful for the promise of a friend, however useless, within the system that would judge her.

  ‘There’s been a development in the Schwermann trial,’ DI Armstrong said, letting compassion slip out — evidently divining Lucy’s undisclosed interest in the verdict. ‘I don’t know what has happened but I expect it will be on the news. You can watch it with me. That is something I can do for you.’

  3

  After the fanfare of headlines and solemn bells, the picture shifted to live coverage of the lead story at the Old Bailey

  Lighting stands and trails of wiring flanked the court entrance. Banks of cameras and boom microphones like slender cranes arched over metal railings on either side. Police officers in fluorescent yellow safety jackets stood at prescribed intervals around a pool of harsh, consuming light. High above the doors was the inscription read by Anselm at the outset of the trial: ‘Defend the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer.’

  A home affairs correspondent explained that after his sensational acquittal Schwermann had been escorted back to the cells, where a discreet exit had been planned. However, as he was about to depart an unidentified male had presented himself to court staff, seeking an urgent interview on what was understood to be a private matter. Upon hearing the name of the man concerned, Schwermann had consented to a meeting.

  ‘One thing we do know is that the consultation is over,’ said the reporter. ‘We’re expecting them to emerge through these doors behind me at any moment. We understand this individual may well be a survivor who… in fact, there’s some movement…’

  The reporter shifted to one side as the court entrance jolted and opened, casting black, cutting shadows across the walls. A small man stepped out, shielding his eyes.

  Lucy recognised the gentleman who’d sat beside her in the public gallery day after day giving her encouragement when it had no rational foundation; the man who had become a friend, Mr Salomon Lachaise. He moved to one side as Schwermann made his way forward. Microphones on angled poles followed him, clawing through the air at his neck and back.

  Schwermann stood on the pavement, transfixed by the light, one hand nervou
sly feeling the lower hem of his jacket. The camera position shifted closer, revealing Max Nightingale behind a policeman, his fists pushed deep into the pockets of his jacket.

  Questions shot out from all sides, making it impossible to hear what was being said except for the constant repetition of Schwermann’s name. Salomon Lachaise looked on from a step — to Anselm’s eyes as if from a judgment seat; to Lucy all of a sudden a man in mourning. When Schwermann looked up from the floor to the cameras the questions abruptly ended.

  Salomon Lachaise stepped back into shadow as Schwermann spoke:

  ‘This court has released me and declared me innocent. Before the eyes of the whole world I committed no crime.’ He started to laugh, his face contracted with pain as if gripped by a spreading cramp. ‘I started the war as one person, came to Paris… and overnight I became someone else… but I carried on doing what I’d done before.’ Small explosions of flashlight struck his face as though he were standing by a crackling, angry fire. ‘I admit I didn’t cry “stop”… but I did do something worthwhile… and it gave me a reason to live… a reason to escape… a reason to fight this trial. All I want to say is this…’

  Max Nightingale shifted his stance from behind the policeman to get a clearer view of his grandfather.

  ‘Victor Brionne told the truth… but even he didn’t know what he was saying…’ Schwermann fell into a menacing, private fascination. The fine, smooth clattering of the cameras grew faster and louder; sheets of instantaneous flame danced and died, one after the other. Quietly, remonstrating with the light, he said, ‘A boy was saved.’

  His right hand shakily fingered his jacket hem. Eyes wide, like a painted toy he said, ‘Hasn’t that made a difference?’

  Eduard Walter Schwermann suddenly fell to his knees. The face of Salomon Lachaise moved into the light. A policeman lunged a step and halted, confused, as Schwermann, lifting the lower flap of his jacket, pulled at the inside lining. He fished something out and put it in his mouth, closed his eyes, bit and dropped like a marionette whose strings had been severed with a single cut.

  As the commotion unfurled, the discerning viewer could easily see the diminutive figure of Salomon Lachaise in the background, walking heavily away from the pandemonium, into the shadows and out of sight.

  4

  Wilma unplugged the television and left the bedroom. The door clipped shut. For a long while Anselm tried to read the motionless face of the woman waiting to die. Nothing moved. There was just a slow blinking and then a welling-up of tears that ran into the soft creases of her skin.

  Now was as good a time as any, thought Anselm. On this day of death there should be powerful words about life. He cleared his throat. ‘Agnes, I have something to tell you.’

  She raised a finger off the bedspread.

  ‘I know you had a son, Robert, and that he was taken away from you.

  She reached for his hand.

  ‘You have lived as though he were dead.’

  She turned her head, applying the lightest of pressure to Anselm’s fingers.

  ‘Victor did not betray you. He took your boy and protected him. I have met Robert. He is very much alive.’

  Agnes suddenly raised herself from the bed, startling Anselm, and rasped out a thick sound of pain or wonder. She fell back, gripping Anselm’s hand. Her mouth moved round the shape of words but nothing broke into sound.

  Anselm said, ‘He’s tall.’ A squeeze.

  ‘In comparison to me, moderately handsome.’ A squeeze.

  ‘I understand he’s a prodigy on the piano.’

  A frail, lingering squeeze.

  ‘He’s married to a charming woman. She’s called Maggie.’

  Her strength had gone; her fingers lay warm and still within Anselm’s hands.

  ‘They have five children. Some of them are married and they, too, have children. Agnes, you are not only a mother… you are a grandmother and a great-grandmother.’

  Her lips pursed into a loop, her eyes wide and swimming. Somehow the years were stripped back and Anselm sensed the ambiance of youth, captured by Victor Brionne in the photograph seen earlier that afternoon. He immediately recognised her for who she was, and who she had become; they were one and the same.

  Wilma bustled in, carrying a teaspoon, a saucer and a bowl of ice cubes.

  5

  Lucy was taken back to her cell. Half an hour later the heavy door swung open with a bang. Lucy was waved out by an impatient hand and taken to the Custody Sergeant’s desk. Father Conroy was still there, beside DI Armstrong, who said: ‘The Detective Superintendent says you can go home. You’re bailed for a week. When you come back there’ll be an interview After that you may be charged.’

  Lucy collected her personal belongings, signed more forms and Father Conroy led her outside. On the street he said, ‘Come on, I’ll drive you home.’

  As he pulled away into a stream of traffic, Lucy said evenly:

  ‘They both deserved to die.’

  ‘Say that to Father Anselm.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s always full of surprises.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Convincing appearances.

  They did not speak for the rest of the journey Father Conroy dropped her in Acre Lane.’ near her flat. As Lucy stepped on to the pavement he said, ‘Nothing’s what it seems, you know Don’t worry.

  Out in the cold she walked hurriedly to her door, fighting a growing sense of having stained herself by wanting to savour revenge, because she hoped Agnes had seen the news and felt the same: that she too had sought pleasure in watching the keeper of the flame extinguish himself.

  Part Four

  ‘They will come again, the leaf and the flower, to arise

  From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour…’

  (Laurence Binyon, ‘The Burning of the Leaves’, 1942)

  Fourth Prologue

  Agnes could no longer lift her arms or head, but her fingers moved and she could still use the alphabet card if everything was held in place. There were still some things that had to be said.

  She was fed by drip now, procured by Freddie when he insisted that his mother would not die in a hospital bed but in her own home. Everyone diligently fussed over her needs, not realising that Agnes didn’t care, knowing nothing of the carnival that raged out of sight.

  For within her the heavens were lit by repeated explosions of fireworks, with every shade of blue and green and yellow and red, splintering into trillions of gleaming particles against a vast stream of silver, dancing stars. They fell as a shower upon her raised head, on to her lashes, balancing precariously on each curved, counted hair before tumbling joyously over into the abyss beneath, where she would soon follow after the reunion with Robert that would surely come. She had entered upon a timeless, enduring, secret benediction.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  1

  The reliability of a wartime revolver after decades in a cupboard was literally a hit and miss affair. Unlike capsules of potassium cyanide. Which struck Anselm as a happy imbalance in the scheme of things, given Lucy’s misguided attempt to provoke Victor’s suicide.

  It transpired that Victor had had no intention of killing himself at all. Like all men who have known grave dependence on alcohol, he had a certain clarity of mind that was sharpened when drunk. And so, confronted with a young woman whose level of foolishness reflected the degree of her distress, he’d thought it prudent to accept the offered gun. After Lucy had gone he’d pointed the barrel at his face, looking into the dark, narrow hole. It had been, he said, a sort of playing, an acting out of the preliminary steps to an oblivion that had its attractions but which he would not choose. How could he? No matter what personal suffering he had endured, no matter the scale of moral compromise, there was Robert, the children and the grandchildren. They rose like flowers from the catastrophe of his life, and their splendour, however circumscribed, had a fragile, redemptive quality. He lived for them. And now, Victor had learned t
hat they lived for Agnes.

  And yet, but for the protecting hand of luck, Victor would have shot himself. Upon lowering the barrel, the hammer suddenly discharged, held back (it turned out) by a hairline trigger. The round went off, destroying a rare copy of Doctor Johnson’s dictionary that had cost Victor most of his retirement lump sum.

  Victor was kept in hospital overnight, on account of his bitten lip and presumed shock, and released the next morning, whereupon Anselm paid him a welcome visit at home.

  ‘As I told you before,’ said Victor, ‘I had always seen the irony of my predicament — on paper, I was the one who had betrayed The Round Table. So when I came to England I decided to set the record straight, if you will forgive the expression. The idea came to me when I was wondering how I might conceal my identity still further. I decided to change my name a second time. What name? I thought.’

  ‘Brownlow?’ interjected Anselm with a faint, querying smile.

  ‘The man who rescued Oliver Twist,’ replied Victor. For him it was an old joke, lame but enduring, a sniff at adversity.

  ‘Of course,’ snapped Anselm. ‘I knew I recognised it.’

  Abandoning the advantages his education and talent would have brought him, Victor then chose factory work as a long-term hiding place. For most of his employed life he stood by a conveyor belt putting lids on jars of mustard. He saved what he could for Robert’s precocious talent at the piano. He met Pauline, his wife-to-be, at a church fair bookstall. Nature ran its course and she became a mother to Robert, but he was old enough to remember her coming into his life.

  ‘When he was old enough to understand, I told him his real mother had died during an air raid. Disasters are always convincing.’

  For twenty-six years Pauline had been his strength, the woman to whom he confided all that had happened. When she knew she was going to die from a rare kidney complaint she wrote Victor a letter, to help him after she had gone. But they were lifeless words, shapes in ink. He used to stare at them, trying to summon up the voice that had once spoken to him, her passion, her belief in him, her constant forgiveness for the wrongs of which he was a part. He’d been to confession.