‘You should be safe here,’ said Robert. They had walked to the north end of the island, overlooking Emmanuel Head.
Victor nodded.
‘I told him what you told me, that Victor Brionne died after the war; and I told him what I told you, that someone else married my mother. I told him the truth. If anyone comes asking questions about you, they’ll be told you’re dead.’
Victor stood once more upon the lip of an abyss. There could be no further discussion. It would have been better if Robert had not gone to the Priory, for he had become a tiny link between Victor and whoever might still want to find him. But he was trying to help his father and that was all that mattered. Robert wasn’t to know that Victor had changed his name a second time. No one knew that, so the chances of anyone looking for Victor Berkeley being led to Victor Brownlow were remote. Perhaps he had been precipitate in disclosing anything to Robert at all. Maybe he should have taken the risk and carried on as if nothing had happened, living his life on the ground he’d laid over the past. But with Schwermann unmasked, the desire to hide had been irresistible; and, despite the burden of secrecy, he’d wanted to tell Robert at least who he had been, to let Robert in, ever so slightly, on the scourge that had laid waste to his father.
Brownlow: Victor liked the name and always had done. It had been an inspired choice.
They turned and walked back, arm in arm, to ‘Pilgrim’s Rest’, Robert’s holiday cottage. A cold sea wind, wet with spray hustled them along. And, with a sadness first born when he was a boy Victor thought of Jacques, and now Pascal Fougeres, whom he had never met and who had wanted to find him. They should have been able to meet as friends and bridge the years, but a great gulf had been fixed between them. Victor followed Robert through the garden gate and thought angrily:
I could never have helped Pascal Fougeres, even if he’d found me — that would only have been possible if Agnes was alive. But she’s dead, as if by my own hand.
Part Three
‘Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare,
Time for the burning of days ended and done…’
(Laurence Binyon, ‘The Burning of the Leaves’, 1942)
Third Prologue
6th January 1996.
The slow, physical destruction was matched by an increased mental clarity, a loosening between flesh and spirit. Agnes often felt a fluttering in her stomach, as though something roped to a ground peg was trying to take off. She wondered if she was going to be sick.
Agnes had lain day after day and night after night upon her back, or on one side and them the other, Wilma doing the dutiful, turning her this way and that. And then came the ointment, and the jokes, for the bedsores. The job done, she was left alone.
Agnes never realised there was so much to contemplate in one room: the paint lifting ever so slightly on the window frame, soon to be a soft curl pulling away from the wood; the pattern of faint shadows changing imperceptibly with the movement of the cloud, lighting little things with a barely noticeable difference. But once Agnes had seen all there was to see she got very bored. And then, for no apparent reason, she remembered how Merlin had taught Wart, the future King Arthur, the art of seeing — by changing him into another animal. So Agnes imagined herself as a bird, looking down from on high at the intricate mingling of things, like a hunting kestrel afloat on a bearing wind.
She saw the boat upon the Channel, bound for France, and her father staring anxiously out to sea with a little girl by his side — a beautiful girl, standing on the first rail, her hair adrift and her red coat about to be thrown leeward before he could stop her or see the abandon upon her face. She saw Father Rochet holding her boy in a parlour, just after the baptism, staring bravely through those infant eyes to another place and another child. She saw Madame Klein by the split boards of a cattle truck, pushing other mouths away from a thin stream of air, standing on a fallen, wheezing mound. Agnes turned into her pillow with a low moan and rose higher still, above the gathering wind. Through the first swirls of evening mist she saw a light upon the Champs-Elysees and a young man behind a desk, checking address lists and the timings of the next day’s work. His face was set hard. Down she swooped, faster and faster, over the chestnut trees heavy with leaves, and into the room, through the slate-blue iris and into his shivering optic nerve.
And Agnes understood. She finally saw into Victor Brionne, the traitor. Slowly she raised her hands, frail fingers extended and shaking. She could not speak. It was too late to write anything now And she could no longer dictate.
Wilma bustled through the door with a cup of ice cubes, a saucer and a teaspoon.
Chapter Twenty-Six
1
The trial of Eduard Walter Schwermann opened on a warm morning in the second week after Easter. Queues for the public gallery stretched from the Old Bailey towards Ludgate. The Body Public sat on canvas chairs nibbling sandwiches. Flasks of tea stood like skittles on the pavement. Many in due course would be turned away when the Porters informed them there were no storage facilities for their hampers. Anselm, on his way to meet Roddy, was forced off the kerb. He crossed the street and looked back at the noble inscription high upon the court wall: ‘Defend the children of the poor and punish the wrongdoer.’ Anselm gazed upon the crowds and moved on, discomposed by the faint hint of carnival always attendant upon the airing of other people’s tragedy
Two weeks beforehand, Schwermann had moved out of Larkwood at six in the morning, hidden among a loud convoy of vehicles and motorbikes. He would be held on remand for the duration, Milby had said with yawning indifference. Schwermann’s stay at the Priory had lasted a year. That same afternoon, Anselm and Salomon Lachaise met at The Hermitage for a glass of port over a game of chess. Reviewing their many matches, Anselm had been judged the overall winner, although that did not reflect the distribution of talent between them. Luck, it seemed, had played the better part. The ensuing match was a draw, each not truly wanting to win. Salomon Lachaise had left the next day for London. He would be staying in a small flat above Anselm’s former chambers, overlooking the main square of Gray’s Inn and a short walking distance from the Old Bailey The offer had come from Roddy on his last visit to Larkwood (while he didn’t believe in God, he often came to the Priory just to ‘peep over the rim’). Such an offer, from the old rogue’s mouth, meant no expenses would accrue. And thus the subject of remuneration, always delicate for the recipient of kindness, was quietly and happily dismissed.
Walking briskly, Anselm turned his thoughts to what lay ahead. First, he’d arranged to meet Roddy at chambers for a low-down on the principal players in the trial — a taste of old times. Afterwards, however, Anselm would catch a train to Paris to see the Fougeres family — for a more unpalatable task. Milby through DI Armstrong, had suggested he might go on their behalf, given the unpleasant legal realities that required sensitive explanation.
‘I think the boss is right,’ DI Armstrong had said. ‘It would be better coming from someone like you.’
Anselm had agreed, but had found himself seizing the opportunity to request another favour, made tawdry by a hint of bargaining: ‘I have something to ask of you. It relates to Victor Brionne.’
‘He’s gone, I’m afraid.’
‘Can I have the same assurance as last time? If I tell you what more I know, will you allow me a first interview?’
DI Armstrong had looked Anselm directly in the face. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing, Father, but you must have crossed a line, morally and legally I think you should step back. Go home.’
‘I’d like to, but I can’t. I haven’t yet worked out where the line was.
‘No, Father, we all know where it is.’
‘I’ve said something very similar to other people in the confessional. I’ll never say it again.’
‘I can’t forgive sins, you know that.’
‘I give you the same assurance as I did last time. What I am doing is in the interests of justice.’
‘All right,
go on.
‘A man came to see me. He told me Brionne died after the war. In a peculiar way everything he said struck me as true — and it still does, even though I am sure now it was false. Intuition tells me he’s related to Victor Brionne.’ He’d given the signposts he had remembered: Robert B, the Tablet subscription and the rest. She’d written them down in a notebook, saying, ‘Father, you really don’t have to make a deal with me. I’d do this even if you refused to go and see the Fougeres family’
Anselm had reddened under the reprimand, all the more so because he sensed DI Armstrong no longer saw him in quite the same light. The monk wasn’t that different after all.
Roddy was languidly smoking a cigarette while studying a wall of closed files as if they were strange objects uncovered by the Natural History Museum. He was dutifully engaged in that old internal debate, the outcome of which was already decided: to read or not to read?
‘VAT fraud,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘I find the facts tend to get in the way of a good defence. Good to see you.
He turned away, chortling, and reached for Anselm’s hand. After covering gossip about the latest string of inexplicable judicial appointments, Roddy moved on to the Schwermann trial.
The judge was a safe pair of hands: Mr Justice Pollbrook, known as Shere-Khan because of his patrician vowels and his tendency to strangle weak arguments while scratching his nose. Leading Counsel for the Crown was Oliver Penshaw ‘Terribly mice chap, rather solemn, engaging bedside manner — which is probably why he’s got the briefbut he’s far too decent. Has a tendency to let the witness go, just when he should finish ‘em off.’ Roddy turned to Anselm, adding, ‘. That’s why they’ve given him Victoria Matthews as a Junior.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘Young, charming and, to the unsuspecting witness, apparently harmless. But that just hides the knife. They’re a good team. Balanced. If Oliver has any sense he’ll keep her wrapped up for any witness who might wreck his case.’
‘What about the Defence?’
‘Henry Bartlett, without a Junior. A small man with vast talent. He’ll choose two or three cracking points and admit everything else. Short cross-examinations. By the time the jury retire there’s a good chance they’ll only remember what Henry chose to demolish.’ Roddy drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘It’ll be an interesting match. Have you got a ticket?’
‘No,’ said Anselm from afar. The hunt, the chase, going in for the kill, the runners and riders, hitting the crossbar, caught behind, nose-enders. It all sounded rather distasteful now: the understandable levity of soldiers on the front line.
Roddy looked at his VAT files as one nudged by a conscience often ignored by more astute experience. ‘I do hope your life of abstinence can be suspended for two hours. We haven’t had lunch in years.’
‘It can, Roddy But keep it simple. I’ve a train to catch.’
‘What on earth are you expecting, old son?’ said the Head of Chambers, his reputation for moderation sorely offended.
2
A section of the court had been set aside for survivors and their relatives. Old and young were side by side. Lucy could not look upon them for long. Here, in this place, at this time, they had a majesty at once subdued and harrowing. She wondered if there was anyone else like her who could not take their proper place because of the tangled weave of history.
With that thought she found a seat beside a small man in his mid-fifties. He wore an old cardigan with the stem of a pipe poking out of a side pocket and heavy, thick-set glasses. He gave a nod of greeting as she sat down. Further along she noticed Max Nightingale. She had not seen him since Pascal’s death, although he had left his number with the police should she want to speak to him. She didn’t. She felt she should, but could not do it. And she was too weary of spirit to work out whether or not it was fair. Who cared what was fair after what had happened? Fairness was a word for children, to ensure everyone got a turn. Life, she had learned, was no playground.
The Defendant chose not to be present while the submissions on Abuse of Process were advanced on his behalf. The court was not occupied for long. Mr Justice Pollbrook slashed his way through anticipated arguments and contrived courtesies with languorous ease.
‘Let’s get on, shall we?’ he said lazily, surveying the field of slain propositions.
The jury were empanelled. The Defendant was summoned. Doors opened and banged. He emerged flanked by guards, as if he had been drawn up from a hole in the ground. His appearance astonished Lucy: she had expected to glimpse the shape of evil but this man was no different from any other pensioner she had seen. A dark grey suit and a slight stoop produced an effect of respectful vulnerability. He stood, thumbing the hem of his jacket, while the indictment was read out.
The Defendant faced various counts of murder between 1942 and 1943. After each charge was put to him he entered a plea, his eyes fixed above the judge to the Crown Court emblem with its dictum: ‘Dieu et mon Droit.’
‘Not guilty.’ The lingering guttural intonation had not quite been spent.
‘Louder, please.’
‘Not guilty.’
‘Thank you, Mr Schwermann. You may sit down,’ said the judge in scarlet and black, seated higher than all others among worn leather and panels of oak. From the Bar below, paper rustled and bewigged heads turned and leaned, whispering among themselves. Outstretched arms passed folded notes back and forth. The judge opened a notebook and lifted his pen.
Amid a silence the like of which Lucy had never heard before, Mr Penshaw rose to his feet.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Penshaw I prosecute in this case, assisted by the lady behind me, Miss Matthews. The gentleman on my left, nearest to you, is Mr Bartlett. He represents the Defendant. My first task is to give you a summary of the case against the accused.’ Mr Penshaw rested his arms upon a small stand in front of him, referring now and then to a sheaf of notes. ‘You are about to try an ordinary man charged with an extraordinary crime. The state calls upon you for one purpose: to decide his innocence or guilt. The Crown says he devoted the best years of his early manhood to the systematic deportation of Jews from Paris to Auschwitz. A three-day journey to the East in cattle wagons, where they were gassed upon arrival or worked to death. You will listen to the voices of those who survived, They will tell you of the terrible things they saw, from which you will instinctively wish to turn away But you must not. You will have to listen and look dispassionately upon the actions of this man, whose crimes occupy one of the darkest chapters of history. And I’m afraid I must tell you now it is with the massacre of innocent children that you will be most concerned.’
Lucy was lost to her surroundings. No one seemed to breathe or move. There was just the calm evocation of a time long past, strangely alive to her as though it were part of her own memory.
‘SS-Unterscharfuhrer Eduard Schwermann was posted to Paris in July 1940, a month after the city fell into German hands and the Occupation began. He was twenty-three years of age and a volunteer. For one of low rank, he was astonishingly close to the highest echelons of his masters. Based in the Jewish Affairs Service of the Gestapo, he was an aide to its chief, the personal representative of Adolf Eichmann. The latter was Head of the Jewish Affairs office at Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, eventually captured, tried and executed by the State of Israel in 1962. By the end of the war, this small department had presided over the deportation of seventy-five thousand, seven hundred Jews from France, most of them to Auschwitz.’
For economy the Crown had restricted the evidence against Schwermann to operations in Paris during 1942. The case would focus on his participation in the notorious ‘Vel d’Hiv’ round-up (code-named ‘Vent Printanier’, or ‘Spring Wind’), and the destruction of a smuggling ring whose purpose had been to save some of the children likely to be arrested.
Mr Penshaw went on to explain that at 4 a.m. on 16th July 1942, 888 arrest squads broke into Jewish homes throughout the city. For two days, amid s
creams and shouts, young and old were hauled through the streets to collection points. Coaches, once used for public transport, took them away — either to the Velodrome d’Hiver, or to Drancy, an unfinished housing complex on the edge of the city. Time and again these squads returned to the old Jewish quarter, whose history stretched back to the Middle Ages and whose winding streets had been a refuge since the Revolution. News of the round-up spread like fire. Panic set in. Over a hundred people committed suicide. Paris watched, dumbstruck. No one could have foreseen this aspect of Occupation — 12,884 people vanished, including 4051 children.
In due course, as the Defence formally admitted, families taken in the Vel d’Hiv round-up were first sent to other internment centres in the Loiret, either Pithiviers or Beaune-la- Rolande (known as the ‘Loiret Camps’), or Compiegne. There, the children were separated from their families before being transferred to Drancy The parents were deported to Auschwitz. The children, all under sixteen, later made the same journey and suffered the same fate. It was thought 300 or so may have survived.
In the months prior to ‘Spring Wind’, rumours of a massive round-up spread throughout Paris. A group of young French students, all roughly Schwermann’s age, decided to act. Led by Jacques Fougeres, a smuggling ring known as The Round Table was formed, linked to Jewish and other Resistance groups in the city. The aim was to collect Jewish children from various ‘drop off’ points in Paris and hide them in monasteries outside the city. From there they would be taken to Switzerland. It was am heroic and tragic effort. Heroic because they could never have protected the thousands at risk; tragic because they were all captured in the days before the round-up began.
So what bearing did these events have upon the young German officer now brought before the court in the autumn of his life? He was a member of the team that planned ‘Spring Wind’; he stalked the rue des Rosiers and the rue des Blancs- Manteaux, overseeing wave after wave of arrests; he supervised the final departure of children from Drancy to Auschwitz. And as for The Round Table, he managed to infiltrate its ranks and secured the arrest of each member, before they could save any more children from the coming storm. The students were later transported to Mauthausen concentration camp where they met their deaths. The Jury would see the personal commendation Schwermann received from Eichmann, congratulating him on this ‘achievement’.
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