‘Max,’ said Anselm. ‘Your grandfather has prepared for this trial, right from the start, even before he knew the outcome of the war. These show that Brionne was involved in the betrayal of The Round Table and the deportation system… with those papers you hold your grandfather’s life in your hands.’
Max was blinking rapidly He said in a detached, failing voice, ‘He must be blackmailing Brionne. Whatever Brionne is saying to the court will be a fairy tale… agreed between them fifty years ago.
‘I’m afraid you’re right.’
The soft song of spring played on: the scraping over dry, rough wood. Max bit his lip and said, ‘Before I go to the police… I’ll have to prepare my family, my mother…
‘Would you like me to come with you?’ asked Anselm.
‘Yes.’ The word was barely spoken.
Anselm didn’t want to say what was pressing upon his mind but he had no choice:
‘Max, I don’t want to make things worse but there isn’t much time — you need to speak to the police as soon as possible. The Prosecution will need what you now possess.’
3
‘Mr Brionne,’ said Miss Matthews stonily, ‘you have been very public-spirited, coming forward, it would seem, without any outside compulsion.’
Lucy had slipped back through the court doors to find Mr Penshaw seated and the young woman barrister on her feet.
‘Tell me,’ said Miss Matthews with curiosity, ‘when did you first discover the Defendant had taken refuge in a monastery?’
‘On the news.
‘That would be April of 1995, a year ago,’ calculated the barrister. ‘And you made no effort to contact the police?’ She firmly drew out each word.
Brionne turned to the judge, as if for help. Mr Justice Pollbrook stared back dispassionately
‘When did you first discover the Defendant had been formally arrested?’
‘I… I’m not sure, perhaps it was… er…’ ‘Let me help you. On the news?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘That was in mid-August 1995, four months later?’ ‘All right, yes.’
‘Yet you made no effort to contact the police. Why?’ Once again Brionne floundered, like a man with a map he could not understand.
Miss Matthews pressed remorselessly forward. ‘When did you learn the Defendant had actually been charged with murder?’
‘I think it was the next month.’
‘You are right. Yet you made no effort to contact the police. Why?’
‘I can’t explain…’
‘Why not? It strikes me that you have closely followed this case from the day the Defendant fled his home to the day this trial commenced. Is that so?’
‘I have, yes.’
‘Yet it is only at the last hour you come riding into court to tell us what you know Why now?’
Brionne lowered his head, unable or refusing to answer. Miss Matthews patiently leafed through some papers. She looked up and said without a trace of sympathy:
‘Are you frightened of someone, Mr Brionne?’
Still there was no response.
‘Mr Schwermann, perhaps?’
Brionne became totally still. He held on to the sides of the witness box, controlling his breathing. But he would not speak.
‘All right, Mr Brionne, if you won’t reply we’ll move on, said Miss Matthews contentedly ‘When you finally presented yourself to the police a few days ago, after the trial had begun, you related only one great incident of heroism on the part of the Defendant. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nothing about round-ups, internment centres, deportations or death camps. Correct?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Just one, brief, glittering moment when a boy’s life was spared, like Moses against the orders of Pharaoh?’
Lucy wanted to cry out: pick up the convoy sheets in front of you. The boy’s name must be there. Please, please, look now
‘I’m sorry but it’s the truth,’ Brionne said purposefully.
‘Is it indeed?’ Miss Matthews suddenly shifted direction to the dirty underside of the rescue story. Mr Bartlett showed no trace of surprise.
‘You proclaim he saved a boy from certain death at Auschwitz?’
‘That’s what I’ve said.’
‘Then tell me this. Can this jury safely conclude that SS-Unterscharfuhrer Schwermann knew “deportation to the East” meant one thing, and one thing only: brutal execution?’
Brionne started, caught off-balance by the question.
She’s trapped him, thought Lucy as Miss Matthews said, with icy detachment:
‘Either the Defendant separated a boy from his mother for no reason, or he knew about the machinery of death. Which is it?’
Without forcing a reply the interrogator drew a slow line across a page, watching him all the while. Then she sat down, leaving Brionne with his head bowed.
Lucy smiled to herself, her heart racing. Miss Matthews had learned a neat ploy from Mr Bartlett: the strange power of a well-placed, otherwise empty gesture.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
1
The curved timber-frames and weatherboards of the cottage would have been simply captivating but for the wide splattering of red paint. It had soaked into the wood and plaster and would not be hidden, despite attempts to scrub it away This was the home of Sylvia Nightingale, lying by the banks of a river that ran through Walsham-le- Willows, a village thirty miles or so from Larkwood. Anselm drove there on a Friday morning, the day after his meeting with Max, the folder of documents on the seat beside him.
Before leaving Anselm had thought of making photocopies but didn’t. The notion of duplicating the names of the dead seemed somehow irreverent, an act of trespass. Listening to the radio during the short journey, Anselm learned the court would not be sitting until the afternoon owing to Bartlett having asked for time to confer with his client. That, thought Anselm, was an answer to a prayer he had not made. Once the ordeal of the morning was over, he, or the family could call the police, and that would prompt another more significant adjournment.
Max had already arrived when Anselm was shown into the cluttered, homely sitting room. The daubing had occurred two nights ago, explained Mrs Nightingale. It didn’t reflect the attitude of the community for it was almost certainly the act of an outsider. Probably drunk, just a one-off, the police had said, trying to bring reassurance to the terror thrown upon the victim. Their words had brought no comfort. Fear had settled into a rigid mask. She was heavily made up, a crafted brave face, displaying everything she wanted to hide. Rebuffing words of sympathy from Anselm, she was an absurd, pitiable folly of strength. Her hair, wound into a bun, had begun to slip free. The comfortable disarray of things in the lounge suggested the unexpected suspension of a busy life.
