‘We would like to hear some evidence from the person who took the child saved by the Defendant. Can this be arranged?’
Turning to the jury, Mr Justice Pollbrook said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you must not allow yourselves to be distracted by speculation upon evidence that might have been presented to you. Your task is simply this: to decide the case on the evidence you have heard and nothing else.’
As everyone traipsed out Lucy turned to Mr Lachaise and said, ‘They’ve decided he saved a child and they think it matters.’
‘Like I said, pity is a sticky sweet,’ he replied. ‘I’ve tasted it myself.’
2
Anselm stood facing the home of Victor Brionne. Through the window he could only see books, from floor to ceiling on every wall. He knocked on the door. It opened. A rounded back split by braces receded. Anselm stepped in, along a dark corridor. A small square of greasy daylight hung suspended at the top of the stairs, behind a half-closed toilet door.
‘Take a seat,’ said Victor Brionne, pointing.
They sat in worn, charity shop chairs. A faded burgundy carpet lay in rucks, its pattern now barely distinguishable. Anselm’s eye caught the glint of glass, from a wine bottle, standing close to Victor’s chair like a furtive intruder. Anselm’s keys bit into his thigh. He fished them out and put them on the armrest.
‘If Agnes survived, it’s a miracle,’ Brionne said.
‘She survived.’
Brionne ran a finger along one of the deep creases spreading beneath his large dark eyes. Quietly astonished, he said to himself, ‘If only I had known … all these years …’
‘What difference does it make?’ asked Anselm.
‘What difference?’ Brionne laughed, pulling out a cigarette from a crumpled packet. He struck a match. The flame hissed, lit his face and died. ‘I was there when Rochet asked us to be knights of a Round Table of forgotten chivalry, and they all said, “Yes, yes, bring us our bows of burning gold, our arrows of desire, our shields…”’ He stopped, trying to make out lost faces in the middle distance. ‘Except for me. I asked why.’ He turned to Anselm. ‘I could not see the poetry in self-destruction.’ Blue smoke swirled over his face.
‘I went to see Rochet after the first round-up. He said it was just the beginning. Soon, they’d all be swept away It would be a Babylon the like of which the world had never seen. There would be no weeping by any rivers, no Exodus. I don’t know what came over me. I said I’d join the police.’
Anselm felt heat in a room with no fire.
‘They’d carried out the arrests, so where better place to go? We’d know in advance what the Germans were up to.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Anselm.
Brionne seemed not to hear. ‘Why did I do it? I didn’t think about it at the time, but it was for Agnes: He drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘I had entertained what nineteenth-century novelists call “hopes”. They were dashed in nineteenth-century fashion when I learned she was carrying Jacques’ child. She told me a few months before I went to see Rochet. Somehow the two are linked: the end of my great expectations and me doing something that I knew would command her undying admiration, if ever she found out. There was a poetic symmetry in the self-sacrifice.’
Brionne got up and walked out of the room. He came back with a small, foxed black and white photograph with creased corners. He handed it to Anselm.
‘That’s her. I took it in 1936.’
She had long, straight hair, and had been caught in time as she threw the lot over her shoulder. In the shadow beneath, her mouth was slightly open, her eyes creased with … what was it? Self-consciousness, confidence, suppressed exhilaration … it was all of them and more, the gifts that come just before the parting of youth. Behind stood a young man, serious, his gaze fixed on Agnes … possessive, and wanting to be possessed.
‘That’s Jacques.’ Brionne held out his hand for the photograph. ‘So I joined up and got transferred to Avenue Foch, because of my German. At the time I thought it was the hand of God. Now? I’m not so sure. That was where I met Schwermann.’
Brionne dragged the bottle a few inches across the carpet, into better reach, and poured wine into a stained mug.
‘He was ordinary to look at. The evil ran through his mind. He poisoned himself with pseudo-scientific pamphlets against the Jews. He underlined phrases and ticked margins: He drank, the cigarette locked between two fingers. ‘Anyway Rochet decided he would be my sole contact. My code name was “Bedivere”, and it was known only to him and the Prior of Les Moineaux and his council. If I needed to run, they’d protect me. So, there I was, at the heart of things. I hadn’t been there long when “Spring Wind” was planned, though nothing had been worked out for the children. I told Rochet.’ Brionne grimaced. ‘So many could have been saved if we hadn’t been betrayed.’
‘Who by?’ asked Anselm quietly.
Brionne raised a hand, beseeching patience. ‘The strange thing was that Schwermann changed after The Round Table was broken. He abandoned his pamphlets. To this day I don’t know why, but I believe it had something to do with the arrest of Jacques in June 1942.’
Anselm’s memory spun back to that lunch with Roddy when the old sot had pointed out how odd it was that Jacques had been arrested in the June but the smuggling ring hadn’t been broken until the July. He asked, ‘What happened?’
‘He’d been demonstrating after the Jews had been forced to wear a star — outside the building where I worked. He was picked up and Schwermann was told to give him a scare, so a French speaker wasn’t needed. Anyway Jacques spoke reasonable German, thank God. If Schwermann had needed me my cover would have been blown — which nearly happened when Rochet rolled in, demanding to see Jacques. He was hauled off, slapped about a bit and thrown out. Ten minutes later Agnes turned up, asking for me … I couldn’t believe it, I thought the game was up. So there we are in the corridor — will I help, she asks, for old times’ sake? Then Schwermann appears out of nowhere. He’s staring at me, and her, and I can’t think why … he doesn’t speak French … he’s meant to be giving Jacques the once-over. So I try to say to her, with my eyes, “Not here, not now, I’ll do what I can.”‘ He gulped more wine. ‘She didn’t understand.’
Brionne reached down beside his chair and pulled up the bottle, resting it upon the arm of his chair. The cigarette, unsmoked, had grown to a long finger of ash.
‘Schwermann went back to work, but afterwards he wanted to know about her. Who was she? Did she know Fougères? No, just an old tart, I said. But I was worried. I found her a few days later and told her to keep away from Rochet and Jacques, for which she gave me a smack across the face.’ He filled the mug, spilling wine on to his wrist; the ash broke and fell.
‘Then, one morning, a month later, Schwermann told me he was going to lift a Frenchwoman in the eleventh arrondissement that afternoon and he wanted me to be there. On his desk was a file. After he’d gone, I looked. There was a report to Eichmann and an interrogation record — a handwritten draft and a typed copy — with all the names of the ring set down, spilled within minutes of being slapped about. He’d told them everything.’
‘Who had?’ blurted out Anselm. Brionne stared ahead, smoke pricking his nostrils and eyes, the desperation of the moment fresh upon him.
‘I took the handwritten draft, gambling it wouldn’t be missed. I didn’t have much time. I only had three travel passes, forged by Rochet’s contacts. I dated them and set off. Rochet himself was out. So I went to Anton Fougères. He wouldn’t see me because I was a collabo. So I handed the paperwork to Snyman, who’d answered the door, along with the passes so they could use the trains. There was nothing else I could do. By nightfall The Round Table was shattered.’