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The Sixth Lamentation fa-1

Page 16

by William Brodrick


  DI Armstrong frowned, but nodded.

  ‘I know Victor Brionne’s new name. This is what I ask. If I give you the name, and you find him, will you tell me where he is before you do anything and allow me to talk to him first? After that he is all yours.

  DI Armstrong stood and moved away Anselm followed her gaze towards the bare window arches of the old nave. Tangled streamers of vermilion creeper drifted lazily where fragments of glass had once conspired to trap the sun for praise. The swish of the leaves was like a faint pulse, or distant water on a beach of stones. Turning back to Anselm she said, ‘All right. What’s he called?’

  ‘Berkeley, Victor Berkeley’

  Anselm’s bargain had come at a price he had not foreseen. She was taking not only him on trust but also the world he represented, its history, its old stones, once considered sacred without question.

  Anselm walked DI Armstrong to her car. He said, ‘Thank you for the warning. ‘

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  They walked a little further and Anselm, suspicious, said, ‘One other thing. Have you any idea how Father Andrew knew in advance of our first meeting that Milby had slipped a word to the Press about Schwermann?’

  She stopped, smiling broadly, suddenly young and no longer a police officer, simply herself: ‘Yes. I told him.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Anselm frequently observed that the fears he entertained turned out, in the end, to be groundless; but he’d never learned the trick of disregarding new ones at their inception. Like the man in the Parable of the Sower, Anselm invariably found himself unable to protect the seeds from the rocks. A case in point was Victor Brionne, the mention of whose name had only ever caused him to stumble.

  Yet again someone had come to Larkwood with something to say; yet again Father Andrew had summoned Anselm to deal with it; and yet again the person concerned had been brushed by the past, only this time it was simple. Delightfully simple.

  ‘He’s in his mid-fifties, I’d say’ said the Prior. ‘Altogether engaging. I’ve put him in the parlour.’

  They walked down the spiral stairs leading from Anselm’s room to the ground floor. Shafts of sunlight cut through slender windows like a blade. The monks passed through light and dark in silence, to the low patter of their steps.

  ‘He wants to talk about Victor Brionne. I didn’t get his name.’

  He had the poise of a relaxed subject before a sculptor. His short hair was silvered throughout, contrasting with vital and arresting eyes. He sat with one arm resting midway upon a crossed leg.

  ‘Father, for reasons that will become clear, I’d rather not introduce myself. I’m in a delicate situation which forces me to sneak around on tiptoe. ‘

  Returning a smile, Anselm said, ‘I’m intrigued.’

  ‘What I have to say is not particularly exhilarating, but it’s probably worth knowing. You see, my mother knew Victor Brionne.’

  Anselm’s eyes widened. He focused afresh on the clean features, not unduly marked by life’s capricious tricks, the black roll-neck pullover, the soft suede shoes.

  ‘They were very good friends. From what she said I think he would have liked to marry her, otherwise I can’t think why she would have kept his name in mind.’ He laughed lightly easily ‘It’s one of our quirks, I suppose, that we all remember the people we might have married.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ said Anselm.

  ‘But it wasn’t to be. He became a casualty of the war after all, through sheer bad luck. He was struck by a falling chimney stack weakened by the Blitz. I can’t understand the divine arrangement of things whereby a man could survive a world war and then be killed by bricks tumbling out of the sky.’

  ‘I know,’ mused Anselm sombrely ‘I’ve never yet been able to reconcile providence with experience. But I keep trying.’ He moved on, ‘Your mother met someone else?’.

  ‘Yes, but she never forgot Victor. She can’t have imagined what his past involved. It’s strange to think that my father could have been Victor Brionne, a man who worked alongside a Nazi war criminal. Even so, none of us really know our parents.’

  Anselm warmed to the reflective modesty of his guest and said, ‘Except, perhaps, when they’ve gone.

  ‘Yes, and then it’s too late.’

  They smiled at one another as through opposite windows in parallel buildings.

  The visitor said, ‘I’ve told you this because I expect there must be plenty of people who would like to find Victor, and, to speak plainly, neither I nor anyone in my family particularly want to get involved. We live a peaceful life far away from those times. My mother’s dead, so she can’t make a statement to the police, and I wouldn’t relish tabloid attention on the little we know made into a feast for the curious. Our link with the man was a very long time ago and we’d like to leave it like that.’

  ‘That’s most understandable.’

  ‘I realise that keeping my name back must be unattractive,’ said the visitor, ‘. but it’s as an excess of caution, not distrust. Should anyone ever knock on our door, and that’s possible, I’d like to know in advance that the Priory played no part in the finding, however accidental it might be.’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ said Anselm, thinking of Brother Sylvester whose progress towards sanctity had left the discretion of the serpent well behind.

  ‘As long as you are obliged to house your guest, if I can put it like that-’

  ‘You may; that’s exactly the situation-’

  ‘Then this could be the place where those with a legitimate concern will come. So do feel free to repeat what I’ve said, but I’d rather it was left unattributed.’

  ‘I understand.’

  In certain circumstances Anselm had a fondness for death. It tended to resolve all manner of complications for the living, especially in families, though few were prepared to admit it. But this was an example of the principle’s wider application. The death of Victor Brionne might have caused grief elsewhere but it simplified things enormously.

  The visitor stayed for Vespers and afterwards Anselm walked him to his car.

  ‘I’ve a long drive ahead.’

  ‘I won’t ask where to,’ replied Anselm. At that moment his eye latched on to the distinctive red lettering of The Tablet, a Catholic weekly lying by the back window Anselm always read it cover to cover, after which he feigned intimate knowledge of world and religious affairs. As the visitor slammed the car door, Anselm, unable to restrain his curiosity, stepped closer — he’d noticed the small white address label. He just caught Mr Robert B… and then the vehicle crunched away across the gravel.

  Anselm waved farewell. It had been one of those encounters, all too short, that could only end with pages left unturned. In the withdrawn life of a monk it wasn’t every day that Anselm met someone like Mr Robert B. The vehicle moved slowly and Anselm noted the stickers on the rear screen: ‘National Trust’, ‘Whitley Bay Jazz Festival’, ‘Cullercoats RNLI’ — each a snapshot of a life’s enthusiasms.

  Walking back to the Priory, Anselm thought he wouldn’t say anything to DI Armstrong just yet. Her research would confirm what he’d been told. The death of Victor Berkeley would become public knowledge and he could write to Rome and let them know that the old collaborator had been struck by bricks from heaven.

  And while he was smiling to himself, the one peculiarity of his conversation with Robert B struck him. At no point had they mentioned the identifying feature of the dead renegade: his false name, the name by which he must have been known.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  1

  The idea of going to Larkwood Priory came to Lucy late at night after she had been grilled by Cathy about ‘the Frenchman’ — an expression that, for Lucy included Victor Brionne. The next morning Lucy forsook a lecture on the Romantic era and rang Pascal.

  ‘I’ve had an idea. It’s a one-off, but it might yield something.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Wherever Brionne might be,
he is bound to know that Schwermann has claimed sanctuary at Larkwood Priory There’s a chance he, too, might contact the monks. Either he’s looking for somewhere to hide, or he may want to speak out but doesn’t want to go to the police… there are all sorts of possibilities.’

  The line hummed lightly Pascal said, ‘It’s worth a shot.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up in the Duchess, a Morris Minor built and bought before we were born.’

  A monk called Father Anselm led them to an unkempt herb garden and a table beneath an ancient wellingtonia tree, talking of his schooldays in Paris. At the first natural break Pascal said, ‘Father, let me say I for one haven’t swallowed the story that the Priory has any sympathy for “Schwermann’s predicament” — I think that was the phrase. I used to be a journalist so I recognise the musings of a hack when I see them.’

  ‘I’m very grateful for that,’ said Father Anselm, not, it seemed, entirely at ease. ‘It would appear we live in a time when any swipe at the Church sounds credible, which is probably the Church’s fault as much as anyone else’s.’

  ‘Maybe, but one of the first things I learned as a journalist was that if you set anything down in print, however bizarre, it looks plausible.’

  The monk said, ‘Unfortunately some stories about the Church are both bizarre and true.’

  Turning to the subject of their visit, Pascal said, ‘Father, Eduard Schwermann is one of those alarming people who diligently went to work within a system of killing as if it was a Peugeot factory. After that, someone hid him.’

  The monk seemed unsurprised at something that had always struck Lucy as astonishing.

  Pascal continued, ‘There will be a trial, but it doesn’t follow that justice will be done. Turning over the past is a bit like waking Leviathan. Anything can happen, and sometimes it’s the innocent that get devoured.’

  ‘I’ve seen the devastation many times.’

  ‘To stop that happening we need someone who knew him and saw him at work.’

  ‘Who?’ The question seemed artificial.

  ‘A man called Victor Brionne. That’s why we’re here. I know it’s unlikely but if he makes contact with the Priory for any reason, will you urge him to come forward? I’m not asking him to go to the police, just to talk with me and my colleague in private.’ Pascal nodded his head towards Lucy

  The monk leaned forward, his expression a miniature of regret and slight confusion. ‘I used to be a lawyer,’ he said, as if disclosing a forgiven sin, ‘so I know how important a witness like Victor Brionne could be in a case such as this. And, as it happens, someone did come here to talk about him, a man whose mother had known him. But he came only to say that Brionne had died in an accident. The man kept his anonymity because he didn’t want to get involved.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘He was hit by a falling chimney stack.’ The monk seemed to find his own reply transparently unsatisfactory.

  Pascal frowned. ‘A falling chimney stack? Didn’t that strike you as convenient?’

  ‘I had no reason to doubt him.’

  Lucy sensed growing discomfort.

  Pascal said, sharply, ‘Did he know the name, the name he hid behind?’

  The monk paled.

  ‘Did the person mention the name?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘So there’s no way of confirming what you were told? Death produces more paper than anything else.’

  Lucy glanced from Pascal to the monk, who now seemed slightly adrift from the conversation. He looked up, as though to speak, when his mouth froze. Lucy turned in the direction of his gaze and saw an elderly monk walking across the grass with a young man about the same age as herself.

  ‘Brother Sylvester,’ said Father Anselm weakly

  ‘I knew I’d find you hiding here,’ said the old monk, waving over his companion. ‘This is Max Nightingale. Used to be in the Scouts, you know’

  2

  Brother Sylvester’s distinctive contribution to community life inspired two extreme reactions: protective affection and a desire to kill. The ground in between was narrow and easily traversed. Watching Sylvester potter back to the reception, halting here and there to rub and smell herbs along the way Anselm stepped swiftly from the first to the second.

  As Porter, it was one of Sylvester’s tasks to answer the telephone and take messages. The considered view of all was that about half got through. Therefore, Anselm had no idea Max Nightingale was coming, and Sylvester had now airily brought him into contact with the man who had exposed his grandfather.

  Pascal rose stiffly saying, ‘Thank you for your time, Father. We’d better be going. If the nameless visitor calls again, I’d ask him some more questions.’ He walked quickly after Brother Sylvester, followed by Miss Embleton.

  ‘Is that Pascal Fougeres?’ asked Max.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Anselm resignedly

  Max took a step, halted and then called out, ‘Hold on… just a second… tell me about Agnes… and a child…’

  The young woman who’d said hardly anything throughout their short meeting turned abruptly showing an involuntary flash of pain. She hurried past Fougeres and out through the gate.

  ‘I showed my grandfather a cutting last week,’ said Max, watching them part. ‘It was about him, Pascal Fougeres. My grandfather hadn’t realised he was involved in the group that had exposed him…’ He blinked rapidly, half squinting, ‘The next thing I know he’s walking back and forth… mumbling… and out spills that name… as though he could see her there, in the room… I barely heard him after that… but he said “child” as if he’d seen flesh and blood.’

  They were alone, now, in a scented garden.

  Max said, ‘I asked him today what he meant and all he’d say was that Victor Brionne knew the answer.’

  Anselm felt a sudden affiliation with the young man. They were both relying on the missing Frenchman to make sense of strained loyalties.

  ‘You know, Father,’ said Max, ‘I think we are in much the same position. My grandfather planted himself here, behind these walls, and I sometimes wonder if he took refuge in my childhood… another secluded place where questions don’t have to be answered.’ He looked blankly at traces of paint beneath his nails. ‘But now I’ve grown up.

  ‘Unfortunately’ said Anselm, ‘that is never more apparent than when we ask the first forbidden question. Maybe that’s when we really cease to be children.’ Thinking of the young woman with the haunted eyes, Anselm went on, ‘I wonder who Agnes might be?’

  Max said, ‘I get the feeling Pascal Fougeres doesn’t know… but the girl does.’ He made to go, saying with a tinge of disinterest, ‘I just came to let you know there’s no sign of Victor Brionne as yet. ‘

  ‘There’s still time,’ said Anselm hopefully ‘Something will have found its way on to paper.

  After Max had gone Anselm devoted half an hour to John Cassian’s Sixteenth Conference, On Friendship. Putting down the text at the bell for Vespers, Anselm was struck by an answer, on the face of things, unrelated to his reading, even before he’d formulated the question. Did Agnes know Victor? Yes, she did; she most certainly did. And they had both known Jacques — an interesting fact that had escaped the family education of Pascal Fougeres.

  Anselm shook his head, ruing the scheme of things that only allowed him to discover great truths by accident.

  3

  They travelled in silence for a mile or so. The roads were empty and the evening sun was beginning to dip behind the darkening trees.

  ‘Who’s Agnes?’ Pascal said.

  A cold, crawling sensation spread over Lucy’s scalp: it’s a fact, he’s never even heard of her. Proudly vehemently, she said, ‘My grandmother.’

  ‘And the child?’

  ‘Her son.’

  ‘The father?’ He’d guessed the answer: his own history, the redactor’s script, had been torn in two.

  Lucy checked her mirror and pulled into a lay-by near a farm gate. The sun slipped f
urther down, a dying blaze. She said, ‘Jacques Fougeres, your great-uncle:

  ‘What happened to the boy?’

  Lucy couldn’t read his expression. Resentment and despair choked the words.

  The whole story would now tumble forth. Pascal wound down his window, pulling in a slap of cold fresh air, and Lucy broke her promise to Agnes.

  The late evening sky had acquired a faint glamour, like the surface of the sea, deep but impenetrable. Lucy drove into the advancing night, the obstacles that had lain between her and Pascal floating all around — broken words on a rising wave, a swell made of two rivers suddenly joined.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  1

  Pascal rang Lucy on her mobile while she was having lunch with her parents. Her father sat at the head of the table; her mother had just left the dining room for the kitchen. The opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth, electrified and appalling, blared out from Lucy’s pocket.

  ‘Destiny, I presume?’ asked Freddie woodenly

  Lucy took the call.

  ‘I think a little miracle happened when we were at Larkwood Priory.’

  ‘It passed me by’

  ‘Meeting Max Nightingale.’

  ‘You’re joking.’ She thought of him with revulsion. ‘I call that unfortunate. ‘

  A long moan of hopes betrayed floated out from the kitchen. As usual her mother was battling with milk and powder, strong adversaries that would not be reconciled.

  Pascal said, ‘I don’t know why he threw that question in about your grandmother but he hadn’t the faintest idea who she was.’

  ‘That’s not a miracle.’

  ‘But if he knows of her, he may well know of Victor Brionne… and his name.

  Her father realigned his plate, clinking it against a neatly laid dessert spoon.

 

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