looking back, it was only a matter of time before Pascal’s research touched upon Jacques’ life and, by default, upon his father’s understanding of his prospects. It was Pascal’s career, however, that flourished. Appointed as the Washington correspondent for Le Monde, he moved to the United States, and that was when the door to his present life opened. By chance he found the memo referring to Schwermann and Brionne. He said, ‘After reading that I knew there was a good chance of finding them. It was a moment of crisis, believe me.
That moment took Pascal home to a bright Paris morning, the sort that could generate a song. His mother was happily moving in and out of the salon, relieved to have her boy at home again; father and son were enjoying the bashful pleasure of shared manhood come too soon. Pascal spoke, knowing the coming cost, the loss of amity: ‘I want to find him.’
Etienne put down Le Monde, read with a new enthusiasm since his son’s elevation, and stubbed out a cigar. Monique came in, buoyantly suggesting a walk in the park. She withdrew, uneasily, at a signal from her husband.
‘You can’t,’ he said.
That command had a peculiar effect on Pascal, pushing him down the road. ‘I can.’
‘You mustn’t.’
‘What about must?’
Another silence.
‘Pascal, France has suffered enough.’
‘That’s not the test.’
More silence, with a chasm opening wide. Pascal’s father reached over, with both hands: ‘I beg you,’ he said with barely suppressed panic, ‘look at things with older eyes, just for a moment, with the wounds of those who endured the Occupation. Why do you think de Gaulle, of all people, reprieved the death sentence on Vasseur and Klaus Barbie in the sixties? Why do you think d’Estaing honoured Petain at Douaumont in the seventies? Why did Mitterrand shake Kohl’s hand at Verdun in the eighties? Because sometimes we cannot make a synthesis of the past, and there comes a time when we have to forgive what we can, when it is better to forget what cannot be forgiven. Your generation is obsessed with the failures of your forefathers. Let them judge themselves. You wouldn’t have done any better.’
‘I’m sure I wouldn’t, but that’s why an obligation rests on the next generation — to expose the past for what it was. This is not just about Jacques. It’s about history. Getting it right. The same year Barbie was convicted, Le Pen said the gas chambers were a minor detail of the war. There’s a kind of forgetting we have to stop.’
His father, exasperated, said: ‘Pascal, I’m asking you to leave it be. Leave the past alone.’ Etienne went angrily to his study without waiting for a reply as if parental censure was sufficient to deflect a disobedient son.
As with most adult passions, they are born in childhood. The strength of Pascal’s conviction had not come from his family as such but from their butler, Mr Snyman. He’d known Jacques and had told Pascal all about The Round Table. For Pascal he was a patriarch, the only survivor of the times. After his father left the room, Mr Snyman slipped in.
‘Did you hear all of that?’ asked Pascal.
‘Yes.’
‘What would you do?’
‘It’s not what I’d do that matters; it’s what Jacques would do. If he could.’
‘And what’s that?’
Mr Snyman took a step closer, his hands raised as if what he had to say was so fragile it might break if not physically handed over. ‘He’d hunt him down. Schwermann is one of those few people responsible for something that lies on the other side of forgiveness. ‘
Pascal went upstairs and knocked on the study door.
‘Papa, I’m sorry. I have to do this.’
‘You’ll regret ignoring my advice.’ His father stood with his back to his son. With profound disappointment he said, ‘You care more for the dead than the living.’
Monique stood at the door, wavering between husband and son. She was crying.
Then Pascal said something untrue, something he did not mean and which he bitterly regretted afterwards. But it sounded good. ‘And you care more for political preferment than the truth.’
They had, of course, spoken since; and Pascal had said sorry, and his father had said it didn’t matter, and his mother had run out to the patisserie. But it was too late. Certain things, once said, can change at a stroke the interior workings of love, leaving the outside architecture untouched. Perhaps, thought Lucy, that was why Agnes had taken such deep refuge in silence.
Pascal made contact with Jewish groups and Resistance organisations in Paris who formed a consortium: the laborious process of gathering evidence began. The anxiety of the investigators was that Schwermann had kept a low profile as far as the paperwork was concerned. His name rarely appeared in print even though sources demonstrated he must have been at certain meetings and received particular memos. And no one knew the name under which he was hiding. Then Pascal received an anonymous letter posted from Paris. He said, ‘It contained one line: “The name you seek is Nightingale.” I thought it was a hoax but I passed it on.
The problem of building a case strong enough to secure a conviction, however, remained a concern. It was while discussing this matter with Mr Snyman that Pascal had been urged to find Victor. Mr Snyman had said:
‘I knew Victor. He was like a brother to Jacques. Things became difficult between them when they fell in love with the same woman — I forget her name… the war split them further… but now, after so many years, when Jacques is dead… I am sure he would speak out.’
Lucy studied Pascal’s animated face with concealed horror: he seemed to know nothing of Agnes. The narrative moved on, leaving Lucy stunned by the omission. The allegations were formally laid with the Home Office. And, life being what it is, no political discomfort came to trouble Pascal’s father. The lesion between them lay open, through a fear that was never, in fact, realised.
A bell rang, urgent and frantic, for last orders. Pascal and Lucy decided to leave. On their way out Lucy caught the eye of The Don — as she’d named him — that warming fusion of Gandalf and Father Christmas. As before, he bestowed a nod.
Standing outside, Lucy said, ‘Brionne is not going to walk into a police station. It’s a fond hope, nothing else.’
‘I know,’ said Pascal with resignation. ‘We need a miracle.’
‘I thought you said we couldn’t mention God?’
‘In certain circumstances God has a habit of mentioning himself.’
2
Anselm’s confidence in finding Victor Brionne lay not in his investigative powers, for he had none, but in one of the more prosaic features of modern life: the proliferation of countless documents with lists of names and addresses. The Inland Revenue, the Department of Social Security, National Insurance, the National Health Service Central Register, the Drivers Register, and more, beyond imagination. Three things only were needed by an amateur in Anselm’s curious position: the name of the person concerned; a contact in the police involved in the investigation of a serious crime (which opened many closed doors); and a good reason why that contact would reveal what they learned to the amateur.
Anselm was relatively sure he possessed all three conditions. He knew the name; instinct suggested DI Armstrong could be the contact; and her cooperation might be forthcoming if its basis was the finding of a key witness for a major trial, Anselm’s only request being to have the first interview The plan crystallised almost by itself while he was still in Rome. And as it did so, Anselm’s recognition of his own importance in the scheme of things expanded proportionately, producing a sense of power that he tried to suppress but which he acknowledged with a dark flush of pleasure.
