‘I will.’
Anselm fished out a pencil from his habit pocket and said, ‘I’ve another favour to ask.’
‘I hope you’re not going to surprise me again, Father.’
‘No, this is different. Can I have Lucy Embleton’s telephone number? I’ve got a letter for someone she knows.’
‘Father, since I came to Larkwood Priory I’ve met nothing but mysteries.’
Anselm walked back to the library deep in thought and collected his correspondence, before strolling into the village to post them. On the way he glimpsed a flaming red Fiat Punto with a foreign number plate turning towards Larkwood. It was oddly familiar, but Anselm applied himself to another pressing distraction. Something was nagging at the back of his mind and he could not entice it forward. But he was absolutely certain of one thing: the name Brownlow was familiar, and it went back to his schooldays.
3
Lucy broke her journey home by calling unannounced upon Cathy Glenton. They’d only spoken to each other once since Pascal’s death, when Lucy rang to tell her what had happened. After that Lucy had slipped out of circulation. A couple of messages on her answer machine from Cathy had not been returned. But on leaving Chiswick Mall, Lucy suddenly felt the urge to see her old friend.
The door opened narrowly and Cathy peeped over a lock-chain. Lucy saw the white cotton bathrobe and the towel turban around her head. ‘Is it too late?’
‘Nope.’
They shuffled into the kitchen. ‘So, what are you up to?’ asked Cathy, producing two bottles of beer from the fridge.
‘Attending a war crimes trial.’
‘Why?’
‘Long, long story. I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Fine. How’s your grandmother?’
‘Dying slowly I don’t want to talk about that either:
‘Fine.’
Cathy sat in the corner of the settee, her legs tucked beneath her. She stared into the narrow green neck of the bottle and said, ‘I’m sorry, so sorry, for being such a fool.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Lucy, kicking off her shoes. She sat against a wall.
‘About you and Pascal.’
‘Oh,’ sighed Lucy with surprise, ‘forget it.’
‘When you didn’t call back I thought you were angry with me.
‘No, no,’ replied Lucy with feeling, apologetic. ‘I just wanted to be morose on my own. Now I want to be morose with you.’
‘Fine.’
They drank their beer. ‘It’s always the same,’ said Cathy after a while. ‘You get to our age and every now and then you recover the enthusiasm of childhood, but you just get another slap across the face.’
Lucy glanced over to Cathy and said, ‘You once told me you never think about the past. That’s rubbish, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Suddenly, without brutality, Lucy asked, ‘What happened with Vincent?’
‘I screwed up. Monumentally.’
‘How?’
‘It’s astounding, looking back. I mean, he was really different. No interest in a career, money, all that stuff; did lots of charity work, quietly; said great things I wanted to write down… and I ended it.’
‘Why?’
‘One day he got really, really smashed. We had a row about nothing — a wet towel left on the floor — but he called me an ugly bitch.’ She put her bottle carefully on the floor. ‘The next day I started covering up the scar. He said sorry, didn’t mean it, and so on… and then I realised what had happened: I’d changed, just like that.’ She clicked a thumb and finger. ‘I hadn’t realised my self-confidence was so fragile. We sort of made up, but I steadily edged him away All rather self-indulgent, really I heard the siren call of existential meltdown, thinking it might give me added depths. I suppose I wanted him to chase after me. But he took me at my word. I should have hung on to him.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Married to some other divinity.’
‘Cathy, I’m sorry.’ Lucy felt strangely ashamed of her own appearance.
‘Don’t be. The artwork’s only an interim measure. Inside I’m becoming a goddess that soars over all flesh. There. Are you morose now?’
‘Yes.’
‘So am I. Let’s play Snap.’
Chapter Thirty-One
1
Anselm got back from the post office in time for lunch, which proved to be an unspeakable combination of cold pasta and beetroot without any other benediction to hold them together. Brother Jerome’s news bulletin was a helpful distraction, containing an interesting item on the trial. Anselm determined to read the whole report once he’d escaped from the refectory. Meanwhile, an agenda fell into place: he would see Lucy Embleton and Salomon Lachaise the next day, before heading north to confront Victor Brionne at the weekend — another cold prospect that now filled him with dread. By Sunday night, after sending a fax to Cardinal Vincenzi, his involvement in the whole affair would be over. After lunch Anselm spoke to the Prior and received the necessary permissions. He then pinched the newspaper from the library and made for his bench by the Priory ruins.
After Bartlett had cross-examined Madame Beaussart, he’d surprised the court by volunteering to disclose his client’s defence. As the judge had observed, Schwermann was under no obligation to do so, but Bartlett had said he deemed it right since ‘it could only assist the jury in this particularly difficult case’. Not quite, thought Anselm. It was a ploy to get round the fact Schwermann had not cooperated with the police. A ‘No Reply’ interview always looked suspicious, even if it did pay homage to Goethe. So Bartlett was making Schwermann look as helpful as possible to the jury. And he must have chosen his moment, having got the answers he needed from the witness. Showing Madame Beaussart the photograph was a risky shot, but Bartlett must have noticed the prosecution didn’t formally prove how she knew Schwermann. In the absence of that foundation Bartlett had crept upon her warily, his instinct for the kill growing warm.
Bartlett had said that Schwermann had occupied a minor clerical post in the SS; had never visited a concentration camp; and had never ‘witnessed any of the horrific sights so forcefully described by the courageous lady whose testimony we have just heard’. Schwermann admitted he knew the deportees were going to Auschwitz but he believed this was a staging post on the way to Palestine, part of a wider policy of forced emigration. And as for the smuggling ring, he accepted that he brought to the attention of his superiors information that had come into his possession, but he had no influence or insight into what would happen to them afterwards. While there was no burden on the Defendant to prove his innocence, in this particular case the Prosecution would be shown to flounder without particulars, clutching at circumstantial evidence.
So that was the strategy: four big points, just as Roddy had predicted — three overt and one concealed. The first, a complete denial of ever having seen the machinery of a death camp. Second, a sincere belief that
