The familyof Agnes Embleton (n�e Aubret)

Freddie (father of Lucy)

Lucy

And then the light fell short.

I made a pact with the Devil when the

�Spring Wind� came, when Priam�s son lay bleeding

On the ground. As morning broke the scattered

Stones whispered �God, what have you done?� and yes,

I betrayed you both. Can you forgive me,

Agnes?

(August, 1942)

April 1995.

�Sanctuary.�

�My bottom!�

�Honestly�

The Prior, Father Andrew, was fond of diluting harsher well-known expressions for monastic use, but the sentiment remained largely the same. He was an unconverted Glaswegian tamed by excessive education, but shades of the street fighter were apt to break out when grappling with the more unusual community problems.

�It was abolished ages ago. He can�t be serious.

�Well, he is,� said Anselm.

�When did he come out with that one?�

�This morning, when Wilf asked him to leave.�

The Prior scowled. �I suppose he declined to oblige?�

�Yes. And he told Wilf there�s nowhere he can go.�

The two monks were sitting on a wooden bench on the south transept lawn of the Old Abbey ruin. It was Anselm�s favourite spot at Larkwood. Facing them, on the South Walk cloister wall, were the remnants of the night stairs from the now vanished dorter. Anselm liked to sit here and muse upon his thirteenth-century ancestors, cowled and silent, making their way down for the night hours. The lawn, eaten by moss, spread away, undulating towards the enclosure fencing and beyond that to the bluebell path which led to the convent. It was a sharp morning. The Prior had just come back from a trip to London, having managed to miss the main item on all news bulletins. He�d returned home to find a gaggle of reporters and television crews camped on his doorstep.

�Give it to me again, in order,� said the Prior. He always insisted upon accurate chronologies.

�The story broke in a local newspaper of all places. By the time the nationals got to his home he was here, claiming the protection of the Church.�

�What did Wilf say?�

�Words to the effect that the police wouldn�t pay any heed to Clement III.�

�Who was Clement III?�

�The Pope who granted the Order the right of sanctuary �

�Trust Wilf to know that.� Disconcerted, he added, �How did you know?�

�I had to ask as well:

�That�s all right then.� He returned to his mental listing. �Go on, then what?�

�Wilf rang the police. The first I knew about anything was when the media were at the gates. I had a few words with them, batting back daft questions.�

Father Andrew examined his nails, flicking his thumb upon each finger. �But why claim sanctuary? Where did he get the idea from?�

Anselm shifted uncomfortably He would answer that question at the right moment, not now It was one of the first lessons Anselm had learned after he�d placed himself subject to Holy Obedience: there�s a time and a place for honesty, and it is the privilege of the servant to choose the moment of abasement with his master.

The Prior stood and paced the ground, his arms concealed beneath his scapular. He said, �We are on the two horns of one dilemma.�

�Indeed.�

They looked at each other, silently acknowledging the delicacy of the situation. The Prior spoke for them both.

�If he goes, there�ll be international coverage of an old man protesting his innocence being handed over to the police; if he stays we�ll be damned for supporting a Nazi. Either way, to lapse into the vernacular, we�re shafted.�

�Succinctly put.�

The Prior leaned on a sill beneath an open arcade in the south transept wall, reflectively brushing loose lichen with the back of his hand. Anselm joined him.

�Father, I think one horn is shorter than the other and more comfortably straddled.�

�Go on.�

�The sooner he leaves the better. Otherwise we risk protracted public fascination with why he came here in the first place.�

With a tilt of the head the Prior drew Anselm away, leading him towards the stile gate and the bluebell path. �I�m going to find out what the sisters think. They had a Chapter this morning.�

As they walked through the grass, wet with dew, Anselm pursued his point. �If he�s forced to go now, any uproar will be short-lived. And there is an explanation we can give in the future if we get hammered for throwing an innocent man on to the street.�

�Which is?�

�This is a monastery, not a remand home for the elderly� Anselm was pleased with the phrase. It was pithy and rounded: a good sound bite � prepared earlier.

The Prior nodded, mildly unimpressed. Anselm persevered, eyeing the Prior as he�d often eyed judges in another life when trying to read their minds.

�The alternative is the other, longer horn. If he moves in, and that�s what it will amount to, we�re in trouble. There could be a trial.� Anselm paused. �Nothing we say will convince anyone that we�re not on his side.�

They reached the stile and the Prior climbed over on to the path, gathering his black habit under one arm, the white scapular thrown over one shoulder. Anselm sensed him drifting away, chasing private thoughts. �We�ll find out more tomorrow night. Detective Superintendent Milby�s coming at six. I�d like you and Wilf to be there. Then we�ll have a Special Chapter. Let everyone know, will you?�

�Yes, of course.

Anselm watched Father Andrew disappear along the path, across a haze of blue and purple, his habit swaying in the breeze, his head bowed.

Lucy Embleton made a stab at the washing-up and then took the tube to Brixton, knowing her grandmother would do them again. They�d cleaned out all the beans and even squabbled over the cold ones lying limp in the sieve. It was macabre, for Agnes would soon be gone, and eating had suddenly become a singularly futile activity. Waving goodbye, Lucy sensed every gesture now had another meaning that each of them would recognise, but never articulate, shaped by the torpid proximity of death. Her spirits sank into a chilling silence: a part of her past was almost complete and she�d never even understood it.

The Prior, Anselm and Wilf were seated at a large table. Milby had changed a great deal since Anselm had last seen him. The days of flinging drug suppliers over the bonnets of their cars had ended and, through promotion, he had eased himself into a suit and a certain studied gravitas. As he sat down, Milby announced: �This is a matter for the Metropolitan Police, but conduct of the enquiry will be shared with us because the subject is in our area.� He raised a large hand towards his colleague. �Detective Inspector Armstrong will be handling our involvement.�

Anselm regarded her pensively Her manner suggested self-containment, separation. Short jet-black hair made her stand out sharply from her surroundings, like an etching. Long eyelashes, also black, moved slowly as she scanned a sheaf of notes that lay on the table.

Milby said, �Madeleine, would you explain what�s come to light:

She nodded at Father Andrew, as if he were the one who had invited her contribution. Her voice was even, controlled, with a slightly hard edge.

�His name is Eduard Walter Schwermann. It seems he was a low-ranking SS officer based in Paris during the war. He�s incriminated in the deportation of thousands of Jews to the death camps.�

Father Andrew sat with his hands joined, only the fingertips touching, a characteristic gesture known by Anselm to mean intense, troubled concentration.

�He was captured in January 1945, disguised as a priest and with transit papers for England.�

�A priest?� repeated the Prior.

�I�m afraid so. He was recognised on a train and subsequently arrested. At that point he appears to have informed the military police that he was travelling with someone else, a Frenchman named Victor Brionne. He too was arrested. Both men had false identities. Both were interviewed by a Captain Lawson. Both were released and their passage into this country went ahead.�

The Prior frowned. �Why were they released?�

�We haven�t the faintest idea. I�ll be talking to the interviewing officer in a few days� time. He�s now a Labour Peer. Back then he was a captain in Military Intelligence.�

�Who provided the false identities, the travel papers?�

�We don�t know. But the fact that Schwermann was caught dressed as a priest might suggest an ecclesiastical connection.�

�And then again,� interjected the Prior logically, not defensively, �it might not. There may be a diplomatic link, though I can�t imagine why or how� The Prior drew a hand across his tight lips.

�Of course. The strange thing is� � her manner altered suddenly, becoming warmer, less analytical � �that the false identities appear not to have been recorded. It is as though they were let into the country and the trail to finding them was quietly brushed away�

�By Captain Lawson?�

�So it seems.�

A reflective pause ensued, until Anselm said, �So what happened for the next fifty years?�

�Nothing, until Pascal Foug�res, a young Frenchman and foreign correspondent for Le Monde, found a declassified memo in the United States setting out the information I�ve just given you. It turns out he has a personal interest, because Schwermann was responsible for the deportation of his great�uncle, Jacques Foug�res. Apparently he�s a Resistance hero.�

�So what did he do?� asked Anselm.

�He wrote an article � this is about a year and a half ago �alleging that two war criminals had found a safe haven in Britain. It caused a big splash on the Continent, but only a ripple over here. And then another peculiar thing happened. Foug�res received an anonymous letter giving him the name under which Schwermann had escaped: Nightingale.�

�The number of people who knew that can�t be very large,� said Father Andrew pensively

�No, but Foug�res hasn�t pursued that angle. I have to say I find that puzzling. Anyway, what he did do was contact Jewish and former Resistance organisations in France. They quietly started putting together the case against Schwermann��

�And Brionne?�

�No, not against him, which is even more puzzling. When they had the outline of a case they presented it to the Home Office. Somehow Schwermann found out before we could arrest him and the next thing we know he�s here, claiming sanctuary.�

She glanced at Detective Superintendent Milby who added quickly, with a studious frown, �We find that a little odd, sanctuary.�

�A right granted by Clement III. It has no legal force,� Father Andrew said dismissively

Anselm caught Wilf�s eye � he had been an historian in the world � and read astonishment at the hidden erudition of his Prior.

�But what gave him that idea?� asked DI Armstrong.

�Father Anselm will enlighten you.

Anselm recounted to the police officers what he had told his Prior the previous night just before Compline, when the Great Silence would fall on Larkwood and the chances of reproach were least likely to blossom. On the day of Schwermann�s arrival Anselm had been on the afternoon confessions. No one had come. When he�d left the confessional there had been only one other person in the nave, an old man sitting at the back, as still as a painted figure in a frieze. As Anselm had walked past he�d suddenly moved, grabbing Anselm�s habit, saying, �Father, what does a man do when the world has turned against him?�

Anselm had paused, disconcerted by the tight grip on his clothing rather than the question posed. It was one of those ponderous enquiries, he�d thought, which is the lot of the monk to answer.

�In the old days,� he�d replied, pulling at the cloth, �you�d claim �sanctuary�, the protection of the Church, if the accusation was unjust.�

�And would you be safe?�

�Oh yes.�

�Truly?�

�I promise you.

�Thank you,� the old man had said, with a quiet calm that Anselm had later recognised as the threshold of decision. At the time he had simply walked away reflecting carelessly on the eccentricities of the faithful and the curious things that troubled them.

�Therefore,� Anselm said to Milby and DI Armstrong, �I fear he took words lightly spoken as an invitation.

Father Andrew turned to Brother Wilfred and said, �Now is a good time to tell us what happened next.�

Wilf was the sort of gentle, reflective man who could not talk to the police without feeling as if he had committed a crime. Nervously, he said, �I was talking to Brother Sylvester at reception about a news item I�d just heard to the effect that a local man accused of wartime atrocities had vanished from his home. Then in he walks and says, calmly as you like, he�s claiming sanctuary. I told him it had been abolished. I asked him to leave and he refused, so off I went to call the police.�

�And then,� said Father Andrew, musing, �the troops of Midian arrived at our gates with their panoply of cameras.� He waited for a response, his silver eyebrows slightly raised.

The Detective Superintendent said, �The Press. They�re always one step ahead.�

�Indeed,� said Father Andrew dryly �What happens now?�

�There will be an investigation, and then we�ll review the evidence,� informed DI Armstrong.

�That isn�t quite what I meant,� said Father Andrew gently �I meant how do you propose to remove him?�

DI Armstrong looked at her superior officer with, to Anselm�s judgment, a hardening of expression. Milby leaned across the table in a sort of sprawl. In a confiding way he said, �We�ve given that some thought. If at all possible, we think he should stay here, as a short-term measure at least, if only for his own protection.�

�Detective Superintendent, this is a monastery, not a remand home for the elderly� The words were strangely familiar to Anselm.

�I appreciate that, but��

�And our first duty is to our common life.�

�Of course� �And we have the peculiar sensation of having been deliberately compromised.�

Springing unforeseen from pliable courtesy, the accusation stung the Detective Superintendent. From Anselm�s point of view there followed that delicious silence upon which he had often dined in the past. The embarrassment of the police is every defence barrister�s illicit pleasure and years of committed monastic life had done nothing to diminish his appetite. And, curiously, on this occasion it seemed the delight, ill�suppressed, was shared by DI Armstrong.

Unconvincingly, but ready for a tussle, Milby said, �I�m not sure I follow you.

Father Andrew smiled benignly He never engaged in useless arguments. In the absence of an admission where one was required he abruptly closed a conversation down. It was a powerful, unnerving tool. Returning to his former gentility, he said, �I�ll let you know our position a week from today� He turned his attention to DI Armstrong � �I�m very grateful for all you have told us.�

The meeting over, Anselm walked the police officers to the courtyard in front of Larkwood. The gravel crunched underfoot as the question came from the Detective Superintendent:

�Haven�t we met before?�

�Yes. I used to be at the Bar. I�m sure we had a few courtroom squabbles. I moved on.�

He laughed and said, �Well, you did the right thing. Wish I�d become a monk: He slumped in the back of an unmarked car and slammed the door.

DI Armstrong seemed to hesitate. She glanced around as if not wanting to leave and said, �This is a lovely place. Goodnight, Father.�

It was the stone in his shoe, lodged inadvertently when Anselm visited Larkwood Priory on a school retreat at the age of eighteen. He only signed up to avoid yet another geography trip, plodding in the rain over that wretched limestone pavement near Malbam Tarn. But an extravagant claim on a vocations leaflet caught his eye (laid on a table by a monk who said he�d met Baden-Powell):

�We can�t promise happiness, But if God has called you to be here

You will taste a peace this world cannot give.�

Throughout the years that followed, the words slunk into his mind and out again � not when he was restless but when he was content. The contingent pledge became a goad, an unwanted invitation that reminded him of what he most wanted to forget.

The loss of peace � for that is what it was � had trodden an unknown path. When beset by the dogmatic turbulence of adolescence Anselm turned to Proust. Seeing his life in epic form, he subjected his past to a minute psychological investigation. He easily identified the events that had sent ripples into the present: the death of his mother whom he had hardly known; the nineteenth-century formality of his father; the paradoxical but defining insecurity that arises from being wedged between two older brothers and two younger sisters; the welcome nuance of banishment to a French boarding school for part of his secondary education. Anselm concluded that he, alone among men, was in grave need of internal repair.

When he joined the chambers of Roderick Kemble QC, fondly known as Roddy, and had a few run-ins with some of the more difficult members of the profession, he learned that he wasn�t in that bad a shape after all. Roddy was a red, round and joyous man, loved and bled over profusely by all who knew him. While he was one of the most outstanding advocates of his generation it was compassion that truly set him apart. His one theme of consolation was habitually volunteered when drunk: �None of us get here without being broken to pieces along the way, old son. None of us know why So let�s just bear with one another.� And, lunging for a bottle, he would say, �Now, bring on the fatted calf.�

The dislocation that beset Anselm in his maturity, however, was of a wholly different order and could only be assuaged by long periods of solitude and � prayer: an activity that took him beyond himself, but which collapsed the moment he thought about what he was doing � like falling off a bicycle. And, picking himself up again, he remembered those frightful words on the leaflet. He began to wonder, on a purely theoretical basis, whether for some people (but not him) monastic life was the only way of finding contentment.

He went back to Larkwood out of curiosity, attending an occasional Office and having tea in the village. He visited the Priory more often, dreading the return to London, but without wanting to stay in Suffolk. On the fateful day he met the tourist at the Court of Appeal, Anselm recognised that in brushing against this other life he had sustained a fine wound on the memory, causing a longing, a homesickness that would not let him settle in any place other than the source of injury. And so, Anselm began his return to Larkwood. After two years of visiting, and being politely discouraged (in accordance with The Rule), he became a postulant. He left behind a baffled family He was thirty-four.

Lucy propped herself up in bed and laid the manila envelope carefully on her knees. Agnes had given it to her that afternoon and Lucy had nearly cried. The soft clunking of Grandpa Arthur�s wall clock grew louder, as if he were coming, as if he would take off his hat and coat and sit down.

In the three months that had passed since Agnes had told the family about her illness, the tight pattern of relating, built up over so many years, had begun to fall apart, threatening something more significant, like the one or two loose rocks that topple down a scree. Freddie came to visit his mother more frequently, tussling with the old awkwardness he preferred to avoid; Susan�s spirits rose as she saw the coming together of separate worlds � not just that of her husband and mother-in-law but also their daughter. As Lucy recognised, she had once been the small hub in a wheel where everyone else�s long spindles found a meeting place: that arrangement had splintered a while ago, but now, with the news that Agnes would soon die, a strange re-ordering of things was under way As with all great changes, there was a constant: Lucy came frequently with market vegetables in brown paper bags.

The subtle transformation was not restricted to the inner workings of Lucy and her parents. Agnes, too, was on the move. Arriving unannounced one afternoon, Lucy found a pile of newspapers in the hail. Surreptitiously she leafed through them: two or three bore the same date and cuttings had been taken. As she realigned the pile, puzzled, Lucy halted, suddenly identifying the subtle difference in ambiance that had struck her as soon as she opened the door, but which she had not been able to name: the radio was on. She crept into the kitchen. Grandpa Arthur�s Roberts had been retrieved from some forgotten place and now stood upon the windowsill by the sink. Agnes was twisting the dial, grumbling about modern music.

On another day Lucy rushed into the sitting room chasing a stray cat that had formed an unreciprocated attachment to Agnes but who, out of mercy had been granted a tenancy The beast escaped through the window Turning to go, Lucy caught the tiny twinkle of a red light. She scanned the familiar room as though she were a traveller in a foreign land: the record player was on; the piano lid was open � there was music on the rest. Lucy glanced at the title: �Romance sans parole, No. 2� by Faur�, her grandmother�s favourite melody All at once Lucy saw Agnes, alone, when she knew no one would call, her long fingers finding their way across the keys.

As for Agnes, she was slower, more measured in her movements, and when she walked from one room to another she held out her slender arms like a ballet dancer, touching objects lightly as she passed � sometimes it was only the leaf of a plant � as if dispensing blessings.

�I don�t need to, but I like to feel something on either side,� explained Agnes.

She was losing her balance.

Lucy put the notebook to one side. She was unable to move. Her eyes swam out of focus. Eventually she stumbled into the kitchen. From behind the microwave she fished out a packet of Camel, bought the same day Darren had left her to go back to the wife and kids she hadn�t known about. She�d thrown them unopened across the room when she�d got back from the corner shop. Lucy lit up her first cigarette on the gas cooker, singeing her eyebrows. Sitting on the floor of the living room with a side plate for an ashtray, she smoked and grimaced, calmed by the sudden punch of nicotine.

In reading her grandmother�s story a kaleidoscope had turned, and almost everything Lucy knew about Agnes had tumbled out of place and fallen into a new configuration. Memories of peculiar things her grandmother had said and done in the past, making sense now, burst across her mind. Like that shopping trip after Christmas to the Army and Navy store in Victoria Street. They�d walked across the piazza facing Westminster Cathedral as the sound of the choir had filtered through the open doors. Agnes had suddenly turned and gone inside. She�d sat at the back for something like half an hour. Mosaics had glittered in the distance, and a boy�s voice had spiralled between pillars that rose to hold the darkness overhead. As they were leaving Agnes had said cheerlessly, �The Feast of the Holy Innocents. �

�What�s that, Gran?�

�The remembering of a great slaughter. After the birth of Christ, King Herod wanted him killed. He didn�t know where he was so he ordered the massacre of all children under the age of two.�

�How many was that?�

�Two thousand.�

�What about the one they were after?�

�Warned beforehand, by an angel. The family escaped.�

�Why not warn all the others?�

�A very good question.�

Lucy looked at her gran enquiringly �How do you know all that?�

�A decent education.�

�Do you believe any of that stuff? God, angels, three wise men?�

Agnes hadn�t replied immediately She�d slipped her moorings, as she was prone to do when loosened by an unspoken memory. �Sometimes I think it�s homesickness. But you can�t get back.�

Lucy hadn�t taken the matter further, but Agnes� remarks had stayed in her mind. Now she understood.

During her third cigarette, lolling but seasick on rising waves, she ran for the toilet and vomited. Lucy faced the mirror. She studied her black hair, the colourless oval face, the translucent skin, those dark lashes that always got her into trouble. She was a stranger to herself.

Lucy made a large mug of tea with two heaped teaspoons of sugar, to help swallow the unpalatable. Her mind turned bitterly to Schwermann, who lay protected in a monastery, and to Victor Brionne, the man of fine words, the collaborator who�d betrayed Agnes. But how did he get away after the war? Who on earth could have wanted to help a man deaf to the cries of children?

She poured the tea down the sink and made her way back to bed, knowing that a different person would see the morning. Her old self had closed her eyes for ever. Lucy glanced at the notebook lying open on the floor. What has happened, she thought, in my growing up that I can read such things and not even cry?

3rd April 1995.

After Vespers the monks shuffled in procession out of choir and into the cloister. In the shadow of a pillar stood Father Andrew, waiting for Anselm. With a gesture he led Anselm to his room. Behind a desk, his chin resting upon the backs of his hands joined in an arch, the Prior said, troubled:

�I�ve received a fax. Rome wants someone from the Priory to handle a particular matter on their behalf relating to our guest. I�ve recommended you. The flight has already been arranged.�

Anselm, instantly curious, said, �Have they said anything else?�

�No.�

�Just a fax?� asked Anselm.

�Yes.�

Anselm�s imagination perceived a nuance of irregularity which he tamed: �That�s odd.�

The Prior�s arched hands dropped on to the desk. �Indeed. I rang the Nuncio. Even he didn�t know anything.� He eyed the telephone. �You�d think he�d have been briefed. Very odd.�

14th April 1995.

Anselm�s presence during that harrowing confrontation in the woods had established an understanding between him and Salomon Lachaise such that future relations could never be characterised by mere acquaintance. They had stood on the same burning ground. A few days later, just before his flight to Rome, Anselm knocked unannounced at the door of �The Grange�, a small B&B with a name plaque of heavy iron. He�d planned a walk deep within the monastic enclosure to The Hermitage, a shack by a stream where no one ever went except with the Prior�s permission � which he had obtained. Salomon Lachaise emerged, smiling and expectant, and Anselm led him back to the Priory to a locked oak door in a high wall of Saxon flint.

The bent key was ancient and large and required both of Anselm�s hands in the turning. The door swung open and they stepped through into the hungry silence of the fields. As with many hidden places in the grounds of a monastery, the fact that it was cut off produced in those who entered a surprising sensation of having been freed, set loose from a captivity they had barely recognised. With a light step they set off for The Hermitage in the distance.

�How long will you stay?�

�Until he goes.

Anselm said, with feeling, �It was most unfortunate that you should meet him in the way you did � without warning � or preparation.�

�I could never have prepared myself.� His relaxed face scanned the rolling fields, sunlight flashing upon his heavy glasses. �Anyway, I always look for something to be grateful for.�

Anselm flinched at the notion of thanks. But Salomon Lachaise said, �I am glad my mother was not there, to see him and to see me before him. It would have been��The sentence vanished, not through emotion but because the right word did not exist.

Anselm asked, �Does she know that you are here?�

�She died before he was exposed,� he replied evenly �I am also grateful for that.�

�Tell me about her,� said Anselm, tugging, he suspected, at the one significant thread of a seamless garment.

�In many ways I am here on her behalf. Her story will never be told. And neither will mine.�

Anselm understood that to be an imposing refusal, but Salomon Lachaise continued as though it had been a preface:

�Like so many others, the war told her who she was and who she wasn�t. She thought she was a young Frenchwoman, a Parisian, with a sister, two brothers and the usual clutch of uncles and aunts � and, out of mind, a couple of estranged German grandparents she�d never known. There�s always someone that everybody else isn�t speaking to. Then France fell and the occupier told her she was Jewish � on account of the grandparents. She�d never seen a synagogue in her life.�

Anselm slowed, for Salomon Lachaise was keeping slightly back; but the small man maintained his position, almost out of sight, close to the shoulder of his guide. His deep voice came on the air, while Anselm could only see the empty fields, the wild abundance of the grass.

�My mother and I escaped to Switzerland with the help of a smuggling ring known as The Round Table. Then the border closed. The rest of the family were taken��

Anselm said, to the breeze, �Did she know anyone, where she settled?�

�No. Like all the others she lived waiting, waiting, waiting � during the war� after the war � until she died � in some sense always waiting. But no one else survived.�

The bare grass ran to a long line of trees, their tops hazy where the phosphorescence of the sky fell upon them. Diffuse sunlight picked out against the vague green a sloping wall of The Hermitage.

�Hitler, she liked to say, had been responsible for her conversion. Confronted with such evil, she said, there had to be a God. She crossed the border a believing Jew There were many like her � alone, cut off, yet free � and there was help. She opened a kosher shop beneath a bridge � in a sort of cavern � the shelves were packed with mysteries last seem by Solomon. And yet � paradise? Not quite. The shop became a meeting place for those who�d got out, and all of them were looking for someone, hoping by a wild chance that they might turn up. My mother did what she could to help, refusing payment, wiping the slate clean, but most of all she simply listened. She never mentioned her own loss. Ever since, hope, for me, has not been about anticipation � but endurance. Like the food taken at Passover, from a very early age I was introduced to the bitter and the sweet.�

They reached The Hermitage. Salomon Lachaise stared at the parched silver timbers with wonder, as though they were part of the Holy City. Through age and want of repair the whole shack sloped to one side. A covered veranda fronted a stream that chattered between low banks towards a copse. Anselm said:

�We�re allowed to come here for a few days at a time. There�s tap water, a stove, a couple of chairs and a bed � little else.�

They sat in the shade of the veranda, and Anselm asked, �Did you ever find out anything about your family � those you lost?�

�We only ever talked of them once,� said Salomon Lachaise. �I asked, late one night when I was in bed. She said, �Get up and put your coat on.� I did. Back we went to the shop. She pulled out a cardboard box of photographs and a menorah � and there, by the dim light of eight candles, she gave me through tears the names for the faces � then she put them back under the counter. That was as far as she could go.�

�She kept them in the shop?�

As if explaining what should not be uttered, he replied, �She spent her waking life there, in that cavern.

Anselm held in his mind the image of a woman, alone, the till counted, ready for home. She locks herself in, comes back, lights the candles and reaches for the box, that lid. Ah, thought Anselm � that�s why she turned the key � to let her tears free. He said, �So you never learned anything about them?�

�No. At first, I constructed lives for them. Later, I took refuge in learning. It was a most remarkable sensation that only left me as I got older, but I would read through the night as if those strangers of my blood were there in the room, inhabiting the shadows. That is how I reclaimed them for myself. And, with their help, I did well at school. It was said I had considerable promise.

�That must have been a joy for your mother.�

�It was. But there was very little money around. I was expected to work in the shop, but then � my life changed.�

�What happened?� asked Anselm.

�Something extraordinary. At the beginning of the term I was due to leave school I was summoned to the headmaster�s office. Sitting in his chair was a wiry fellow with a stiff, self-important manner � a lawyer, it turned out � who had come on his client�s behalf to see me. His message was simple enough. He had received funds from �a survivor� to secure me a university education.�

Anselm, marvelling, said, �Some would call that a blessing.�

�Indeed,� replied Salomon Lachaise with a numinous, inquisitive smile. �So you would. My mother did the same. She spent the remainder of her days trawling over the names of all those she had helped, wondering who it might have been so she might thank them. She saw a door open before me, and in due course I passed through to a whole life, a whole universe I would never have otherwise known.�

�And your patron�s identity remained a secret?�

�Yes.�

Salomon Lachaise explained that the lawyer had entrusted administration of the finances to a local solicitor of his choosing � insisting on separate representation in case a conflict of interest arose between his client and the young Lachaise.

�And that is how I met a wonderful man, Josef Bremer, who became something of a father to me. All my life he has been a source of advice and encouragement.�

�Incredible,� said Anselm. �Whoever it was probably knew your mother, knew you, and just did it, forsaking recognition or repayment. It is the sort of thing that makes life worth living.�

�And worth the dying.�

Anselm had the strange sensation of something hot having passed him by A trace was left behind, slightly acrid, like exhaust from an engine, but then it was gone, quickly dispersed by a breath of air. Salomon Lachaise said:

�I found my home in the art of the Middle Ages. It has brought me great joy � and pain � always the bitter and the sweet.�

Not entirely sure the true meaning of the words had reached him, Anselm thought of the rivalry of academics, known to surpass even that of children. Consolingly he said, �Like all homes .�

�And, no doubt, like all monasteries,� said Lachaise.

�Verily� Automatically, insensitively, Anselm said, �You remained alone?�

�Yes� although I nearly got married once �

�What happened?�

After a thoughtful pause, Salomon Lachaise said, �She ran off with the maths teacher.�

�Oh dear.�

They both looked at each other and burst into ringing laughter.

20th April.

Left to his own devices, Anselm would have preferred to walk � a long, irreverent ramble through the vineyards of France, blistering his feet on the Alps, drinking too much wine and then descending, light-headed and a boy again, through the landscape of frescoes on to Rome. Instead, he did as he was told and took the 12.15 p.m. flight from Heathrow to Fiumicino. He was to stay with a community of friars at San Giovanni�s, an international house of studies incongruously situated between two restaurants near Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, beneath the Janiculum Hill. A priest would collect him.

Anselm was standing in the arrivals area in his long black habit, beginning to feel the heat, when he was greeted from behind by a back-slapping friar in cut-off shorts and a T-shirt:

�Hello there, I�m Brandon Conroy But call me Con.�

He had the build of a shaven ox with hands like pit shovels. But the most startling feature was his eyes, china blue, elfin and glittering, deeply set beneath a brow of heavy bone.

�I knew it was you from your outfit,� said Conroy �Here, give us your bag,� and off he went, whistling, while Anselm trailed behind, all pores opening.

Conroy compressed himself into a flaming red Fiat Punto, with Anselm at his side, and took the autostrada to the city.

Crossing the Grande Raccordo Anulare and accelerating towards the west bank of the Tiber, Anselm sensed a gradual disintegration in conventional road positioning. A slanging match of horns, bewildered voices and Latin passion tumbled through the open window, while Conroy made various offensive hand signals to right and left. There seemed to be a wide digital vocabulary the sophistication of which had completely escaped Anselm�s well-informed schooldays. The whole m�l�e was thrashed out under the blessed heat of the sun and a cloudless cobalt sky

�Been here a month now and I�m beginning to get the hang of it,� said Conroy, his gesturing arm at rest on the doorsill. �I thought Rio was bad, sure. But here you�ve got to play to kill. No arsing around, you know, or they�ll have your cojones on pasta.

Anselm didn�t quite know how to respond. It wasn�t the usual language of recreation at Larkwood. He kept a firm grip on the door handle while Conroy clattered on.

�I�m brushing up my theology. Then back to Paula and the kids.�

Paula? Kids? Anselm had to reply He�d start with the children.

�Kids?�

�Yep.�

�How many?�

�Too many� Conroy waved his first and little finger at a priest on a bike.

Anselm�s eyes widened involuntarily �I see,� he observed, politely sympathetic but resolved now to make no further enquiry about Father Brandon Conroy�s domestic arrangements. Each took a side�glance at the other.

�Loosen up, Father, I�m only having a laugh,� chuckled Conroy his hands off the wheel while he scratched his shoulders. �Street kids. The homeless. S�o Paulo. I�ve been at it thirty�five years.

Anselm laughed. Small buttons flew off some carefully ironed garment of childhood restraint. He�d never met anyone like Conroy in his life, except perhaps Roddy: they both gave copiously from the wine of themselves. The Punto weaved its way into the narrow streets of Trastevere and Conroy, tired of rambling, turned to enquiry:

�Anyway, what brings you to Bernini�s twisted columns?�

�My Prior received a fax asking me to attend a meeting at four o�clock tomorrow �

�Sounds serious.�

�It is. We�ve just had a Nazi land on us claiming �sanctuary�.�

�My arse.�

�Funnily enough, that�s what my Prior said:

�Really?� asked Conroy, surprised, gesturing in response to an attack of horns.

�Not in quite the same terms.�

�Thought not.�

They drove on. Conroy was thoughtful. He�d slowed down his driving and the roads were somehow all the quieter for it. He said, �Who�s your meeting with?�

�Cardinal Vincenzi.�

Conroy chewed his bottom lip. �There�s only one other higher than your man, and that�s Himself.� The jester was no longer at the wheel. With the earnestness of experience he asked, �But why you?�

�I used to be a lawyer and I speak French. Our visitor was based in Paris during the war. That�s all I can think of.�

�Father, let me give you some advice, all right? I know this place.�

�What do you mean?�

�Let�s just say I�ve had my little run-ins. If you�re going to get dragged into Church politics, you�re entering one of those tents at the circus packed with curved mirrors, twisting and pulling things out of shape. Be careful. Don�t go by appearances. Nothing�s what it seems here.�

The car came to an abrupt halt and they walked into San Giovanni�s, Conroy restored to his former self, shouting out for peaches, Anselm trailing behind, subdued.

Father Rochet was right about the Germans. Within months of taking control a census of Jews was ordered. At the time I was pregnant, so this would be late 1940. Madame Klein and I had moved out of her apartment to a rental property she owned in the eleventh arrondissement. �I do not want to be too conspicuous,� she said. But it was a strange thing to have done. For while she became just another face among the crowd � the crowd in question was unmistakably Jewish where, with all the others, she would easily be found. It was a poorish neighbourhood but many of her friends from our musical evenings lived there. I think she wanted to be with her people when the end came, for she knew I would be safe, come what may as a �Christian�.

Madame Klein obeyed the census. I did not. The first round-up followed a few months later, of foreign Jews. Shortly afterwards, every Jew had to hand in their wireless to the police. She did, and I didn�t. Then there was a huge round-up in our area, lasting about a week. By the time they�d finished, all our friends from the music group had gone. Do you remember Mr Rozenwerg? I saw him with two gendarmes. He walked calmly on to the bus wearing his prayer shawl and a wonderful big fur hat. Twice they came to our door. Twice they looked at my papers, nodded and told Madame Klein, my �grandmother�, not to bother looking for hers. Isn�t that strange? She would not give herself up to them, but neither would she take any forged papers from Father Rochet. But that was Madame Klein. The net began to close, for the next orders were that Jews could not change their address and had to obey a curfew

They knew where you lived and you couldn�t get out. The whole rotten, stinking business was under way

Then Father Rochet called together his knights.

My Dearest Victor

I�ve often watched you while you sleep. The bad times have even marked your peace. They�ve never really left you and I doubt if they ever will. But you must believe me: you acted for the best in the most difficult of times. 1 was right when I said all those years ago that sometimes there have to be secrets. What a relief it would be if a great wind would blow and sweep it all away! But that is not going to happen. For twenty-six years we�ve had each other and you could turn to me, and now, well, that is coming to an end. So this is what I have to say. Just look at Robert! Look at all his children! Look at them all! This is your testament. They only see the good man I married, even if the world comes to judge you one day out of hand. I know, and I bless the day I met you.

Your ever-loving

Squirrel

Pauline the squirrel: because she never threw anything out. He folded the paper and put it back in his pocket diary. The words had no effect. They never had done. It wasn�t that Victor didn�t see the wonder of his family He did. But each shining face was only a flickering candle against the endless shadow of slaughter he had known.

After his wife died Victor went on a binge. Not a single monumental blow-out but rather a gradual build-up of solitary chaotic sessions, a ritual that gathered pace and eventually left him flat on the floor almost every day He learned what only the gravely fallen know: there�s a sincerity to drinking, a bravery. It�s not an escape � that�s at the amateur level, carried out with newfound comrades, takeaways and taxis. It�s the opposite. It�s standing your ground, utterly alone, as the demons rise to dance and sneer.

In the end, Robert found out what was happening from the parish priest, Father Lacey who found Victor slumped in a confessional. Victor hadn�t eaten or washed for days. A meeting was called. Father Lacey said he knew of a good place, out in the country, but it was expensive. �You�ll have to face the grief, Dad,� Robert implored, and Father Lacey added knowingly, with a stare, �along with your past .

All the family helped, once they were allowed to visit. The professionals involved said Victor hadn�t fully cooperated, implying he�d dodged about rather skilfully, but that he�d �learned a lot about himself� and they�d been over various �coping strategies�. And so Victor came back to �normal life�. For most of the observers it was a matter of a grief under control, a man who�d found a way of living without his wife. Only Victor and his confessor, Father Lacey, knew of the demon legion sleeping out of sight.

Victor often returned to his wife�s letter, hoping the recitation of the lines might yet have some effect, like the workings of a spell that only required a solemn, heartfelt incantation. But he didn�t believe in magic. What about the fragile light of candles? Yes, he believed in those. He lit them every week in the side chapel for Robert. For � a gust of laughter suddenly burst through a door somewhere downstairs � Robert�s wife, Maggie, and the grandchildren, all five of them, two boys and three girls, all �grown and flown, to homes of their own�, as Robert liked to say Victor smiled. Two of them were married. Great-grandchildren had followed. The whole clan came to thirteen � a blessing of biblical proportions. Only, it wasn�t that simple, was it? He caught his reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Even when he smiled he couldn�t hide that ineffable, intractable sadness. Why was it that, after all these years, whenever he looked in a mirror he thought of Agnes and Jacques, her long thick hair and his dark beseeching eyes? And why oh why did their shades always part, with a moan, leaving him with another remembrance that would not be staunched? How could it be that even now, in his mid-seventies, he could not see himself without seeing Eduard Schwermann? Was it any wonder he could not explain to the children why there were no mirrors in granddad�s house?

Here, in Robert�s home, there were many of them, unforgiving windows into his soul, and that of his accomplice. He said under his breath:

�Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust.�

�I won�t be going into hospital at all. I want to die here.�

�But you can�t. �

�I can and I will. This is my home. This is where I�ll die.�

Lucy sank her nails into her thighs, as if they were party of her father�s neck. Susan fiddled with the buttons on her blouse. This was the inevitable confrontation between mother and son. They had all gathered at Chiswick Mall that afternoon, at Freddie�s instigation, to deal with the question �my mother won�t face�.

Agnes walked deliberately across the room as if she had a pile of books on her head. She flopped confidently into her usual chair by the bay window

�Mother, your legs are giving way more often, you� �I know�

��need a wheelchair��

�I know�

�Getting in and out will not be straightforward.� �No.�

�You already need help with washing.�

�Freddie-�

�Before long, there are going to be problems with feeding, talking, moving��

�Freddie,� said Agnes, her voice rising and the muscles on her face beginning to contort.

�The house will need cleaning, sheets washed, bedclothes changed��

�Freddie- �

��what about going to the toilet��

�FREDDIEEeeeeeee!� Agnes� cry became a strange howl, rising and trailing off. She heaved with a sort of anguished laughter, tears gathering in her eyes, her thin hands shaking uncontrollably

�Now look what you�ve done,� snapped Lucy, running towards her. Agnes waved her away, angrily, her mouth locked wide open.

Freddie pulled at his hair, saying sorry over and over again. Agnes was trying to say something by hand gesture, her head thrown back while she moaned.

Lucy could barely contain her anger. �Just read this, will you? Go on, read it.� She reached over to the bureau and handed her father a piece of paper. Agnes had written an explanation:

Finding the whereabouts of Father Louis Chambray (for he had never been laicised) was a relatively straightforward matter. While a Gilbertine monk like Anselm, he belonged to a different Province, a French strain, which had nonetheless been founded as a result of Henry VIII�s delirious policy of closure that had removed the Gilbertines from English life. Remnants of the Order had sought refuge in Burgundy � mindful, perhaps, that its Dukes had once sold Joan of Arc to the English. Such courtesies promote lasting trust, a commodity the Gilbertines required if they were to survive. For whatever reason the characteristic double-houses (monks and nuns in separate buildings but joined for services on Sundays and feast days) thrived, notwithstanding the various anti-clerical movements that followed the feast of revolution two hundred years later. The French Order subsequently re-established an English presence at Larkwood Priory in the early 1 920s. After that there was little contact between the two Provinces, not least because each house was self-governing. But historic familiarity and a sort of religious entente cordiale helped Anselm�s purpose.

The French Gilbertines� motherhouse in Rome freely supplied Anselm with details about Father Chambray, as they had evidently done on an earlier occasion to an emissary from the Vatican. Chambray kept in contact with his Order once a year, sending a Bonne Ann�e card to a Prior General he had never known. He�d gone, but that one slender tie remained.

�Why�s he so popular all of a sudden?� asked the plump archivist, chewing one of his fingernails.

�Some ancient history, that�s all,� replied Anselm.

�History is never ancient,� said the keeper of the books, blinking solemnly

�Indeed,� said Anselm dryly He wasn�t altogether fond of inversions. They tended to sound good and mean very little. He thanked the young sage, placed the address in his pocket and wandered back to San Giovanni�s. There was much to be done before returning to England.

Before directing his efforts to finding Victor Brionne, Anselm decided to follow the escape trail from Paris to Notre-Dame des Moineaux. Tracing history had its own poetic attraction, but geography and pride were the decisive factors: Chambray now lived in the capital, and since Anselm had to pass that way to reach the monastery he thought he might as well track down the one living survivor from the time. All the more so, coming to the pride, because Anselm considered himself particularly adept at handling individuals described as �uncooperative�. It had been his hallmark at the Bar. Back at San Giovanni�s, Anselm rang Father Andrew to explain matters and get the necessary permissions .

�While you�ve been away,� said the Prior, �there�s been a run of stories in the Press implying that we are sympathetic to Schwermann�s predicament. Worse, there are heavy implications that the Church may have eased his passage out of France in the first place. Just wild guesses.�

�I�m afraid those guesses may not be that wild, but appearances aren�t what they seem.

A troubled pause crept over the line. �Tell me everything when you get home.� The Prior�s voice changed tone. �Anselm, I want you to be careful. Remember, first and last you�re a monk. Protect what you�ve become because it can easily fall apart if you�re careless. In one sense you�ve left the world behind, so in all you have to do you should sense you don�t quite belong. If you begin to feel you do belong, you�re at risk. Remember what one of the desert fathers said. The house caved in not because it was struck by rain but because it was built on sand.�

Anselm and the Prior of Notre-Dame des Moineaux strolled over neat lawns between graceful horse chestnuts to the memorial plaque on the medieval refectory wall. The Gilbertines had taken over an old Benedictine Abbey in the seventeenth century. And so it was that the same Rule had been read on the same spot for eight hundred years.

�This is where he was shot. We commemorate it every year.

A small tablet of stone recorded the name of Prior Morel above an inscription taken from the Prologue to The Rule: We shall persevere in fidelity to his teaching in the monastery until death.

The Prior was a short, stocky man with a rounded back, as if his spine were strapped to a hidden tool of penance. He stood arched over his folded hands, solemn and still.

�It was a most simple operation,� said the Prior, taking Anselm by the arm and turning away �Children were brought here in twos or threes during the day and placed in the orphanage run by the nuns. We had our own printing press, turning out false identification papers, baptismal certificates and the like. The children would then move with couriers into the Occupied Zone and down to Switzerland, hopefully to be reunited with their parents at some point in the future. Frontier guides would take them over. As you know, it was tragically betrayed.�

�By someone unknown?�

�Yes. But whoever it was didn�t know very much. When the Gestapo came, no searches were carried out. Not even the orphanage. They just shot the Prior.�

�Why were the children smuggled here on their own?� asked Anselm, dreading the answer.

�Adults are hard to hide, and easily found, and children were liable to give away their hiding place. But here in broad daylight, among others, their chance of survival was higher. That is one of the terrible things about this whole episode. The parents were desperate. They chose separation from their infants because they were certain it was only a matter of time before they themselves were arrested.�

�We�ve no idea, have we, Father?�

�None at all. And do you know what I find most moving? The knights of The Round Table were students. It was the young saving the still younger from the adults.�

They walked on, momentarily distracted by the growling engine of an old tractor.

�Unfortunately� resumed the Prior, �there�s no one left from that time, so all we have are stories handed on by monks with unreliable memories.�

�Do you mind telling me?�

�Not at all. Come, we�ll walk along part of the escape route. The railway line has gone but it�s a pathway now It is a place charged with the actions of the past.�

They left the Abbey grounds and took the lane to the abandoned station. On the flanks stood endless regiments of vines, thickly woven over low hills, touching the resplendent skies of Burgundy

Agnes sat by the kitchen table, her hands limp upon her lap, palms open. Her head leaned forward slightly and to one side, as if in a trance of concentration. It was, of course, not quite that. Her posture was assuming a life of its own, pulling her body slowly down, with Agnes quietly tugging the other way, her blue eyes bright with resistance. She was still able to look after herself, but not for much longer � Agnes was tired by evening and soon the slumping would encompass the day Freddie knew it but had no idea what to do, given Agnes� refusal to involve anyone skilled or trained in her care. By default, an interim system had emerged to which Agnes did not object. Each evening a member of the family took it in turns to drop by, to make sure everything was fine before she went to bed. And Agnes cooperated not because she required their help but because she knew they needed to come.

Sitting opposite her, Lucy tipped the green beans out of the bag and began the ritual of nipping and throwing, taking off the curled ends and putting the long remaining stems into the waiting pan. Agnes watched.

�What�s he like?� asked Agnes, deadly calm, her eyes following the deft movements of Lucy�s fingers.

�Older than me and younger than me at one and the same time. The past means as much to him as the future, maybe more.

�You�ve missed one,� said Agnes, pointing towards the pan with her head. Lucy retrieved the rogue. The soft clipping of her nails, the patter in the pan, the ticking of a clock in the hail suspended time�s nimble passing. The moment lay open, unexplored, healing, inhabited by them alone. The stray cat, no longer stray but ensconced and enthroned, idled by, surveying his subjects with transcendent scorn.

�He�s known Mr Snyman all his life.�

Lucy glanced over to Agnes and met in her eyes the question, the plea. Lucy turned away She would not provide the answer � no, Pascal did not refer to you� I�m sorry, but he didn�t seem to know that Jacques had had a son. Instead, Lucy said, �Mr Snyman believes that Brionne would probably condemn Schwermann if he got the chance.�

�Does he?� asked Agnes, made alert. �Are you sure?�

�Yes.�

From somewhere immeasurably cold she said, �Maybe he�s right.�

Stung by her grandmother�s remark, Lucy pushed the pan across the table. Agnes lifted a wavering spoon of salt from a bowl and let the grains spill into the water.

Lucy said, �I�ve a small role to play in the trial. I will be there on your behalf.� She would say nothing of her intention to confront Brionne with what she now knew and compel him to enter the courtroom. Her grandmother would discover that in the happening.

Agnes nodded, unblinking, her mouth sloping to one side. It was a smile, against the will of failing muscle and the tiny, dying engines of the nerves. Then she breathed a sort of laugh, leaned back, her face averted, and said: �Victor was no fool.�

Lucy boiled water, mesmerised by the rage becoming steam. It vanished in the air, to reappear upon the window, water once more, streaming down the pane, to be wiped away by Agnes.

�Apollo adored the Sibyl so he offered her anything she wished,� said Pascal, turning a beer mat round in circles. A gathering of other conversations drifted from the debating room out to where they sat on the veranda. Putney Bridge lay black against a scattering of white and orange evening lights.

�And?� said Lucy

�She asked to live for as many years as she had grains of sand in her hand. He granted her wish but she refused to satisfy his passion.�

�Sounds like a good deal to me.�

�Not entirely�

�Why?�

�She forgot to ask for health and youth.�

�Ah.�

�So she grew old and hideous and lived for hundreds of years.

�Doing what?�

�Her old job, writing riddles on leaves, left at the mouth of her cave.� He sipped his drink. �That�s the part of the myth I like, the fragility of what she had to say; words written on leaves, easily made incomprehensible if disturbed by a careless wind.�

Lucy could only think of Agnes, the sand all but gone. She said, �I understand her, though, wanting to live so much.�

�Yes, but life pushed on is always death pulled back. It comes. In a way there�s something dismal about wanting to postpone what you can�t avoid.�

�But it can come too soon.

�That�s what the Sibyl thought.�

Lucy admired his lack of complication � but with nostalgia: her own simplicity had been mislaid. She had seen death at work, its industrious regard for detail, and, like the men who dug up the roads, its preference for doing the job slowly

�I think you�d get on with my grandmother,� she said.

It was a sensible arrangement. At the back of the flat were two bedrooms, side by side, one of which had French windows opening out on to the garden. That was where Agnes slept. The other was for Wilma. They left their doors ajar at night.

Lucy was staggered at Wilma�s cleanliness. For fifteen years she�d bustled from Hammersmith to Shepherd�s Bush, to a drop-in centre by a church. There she showered, took her breakfast and then came back to feed the birds in Ravenscourt Park. She�d met Agnes while tailing a pigeon. A friendship had grown, unknown to anyone in the family including Lucy. It was always that way with Agnes. She had small, secret spaces in her life which were only discovered by accident. Surprise questions were an act of trespass, so the family got used to stumbling upon things and pretending nothing had been uncovered. And so it was here. Wilma�s intimacy with Agnes passed without comment, even though a first, brief association was sufficient to confirm that Wilma was pleasantly and ever so slightly mad.

Agnes now had a wheelchair but she would not sit mm it. She pushed it round the flat, moving slowly and with relaxed deliberation as if negotiating an obstacle course, smiling at little victories and wincing at scuffs upon the furniture. The frontiers of her world were contracting and she rubbed against them. She no longer went to the park, or along the river to watch the boats, but moved from room to room, from chair to bed, and, whenever possible, out to the garden among fresh green things.

He had the poise of a relaxed subject before a sculptor. His short hair was silvered throughout, contrasting with vital and arresting eyes. He sat with one arm resting midway upon a crossed leg.

�Father, for reasons that will become clear, I�d rather not introduce myself. I�m in a delicate situation which forces me to sneak around on tiptoe. �

Returning a smile, Anselm said, �I�m intrigued.�

�What I have to say is not particularly exhilarating, but it�s probably worth knowing. You see, my mother knew Victor Brionne.�

Anselm�s eyes widened. He focused afresh on the clean features, not unduly marked by life�s capricious tricks, the black roll-neck pullover, the soft suede shoes.

�They were very good friends. From what she said I think he would have liked to marry her, otherwise I can�t think why she would have kept his name in mind.� He laughed lightly easily �It�s one of our quirks, I suppose, that we all remember the people we might have married.�

�Yes, I know what you mean,� said Anselm.

�But it wasn�t to be. He became a casualty of the war after all, through sheer bad luck. He was struck by a falling chimney stack weakened by the Blitz. I can�t understand the divine arrangement of things whereby a man could survive a world war and then be killed by bricks tumbling out of the sky.�

�I know,� mused Anselm sombrely �I�ve never yet been able to reconcile providence with experience. But I keep trying.� He moved on, �Your mother met someone else?�.

�Yes, but she never forgot Victor. She can�t have imagined what his past involved. It�s strange to think that my father could have been Victor Brionne, a man who worked alongside a Nazi war criminal. Even so, none of us really know our parents.�

Anselm warmed to the reflective modesty of his guest and said, �Except, perhaps, when they�ve gone.

�Yes, and then it�s too late.�

They smiled at one another as through opposite windows in parallel buildings.

The visitor said, �I�ve told you this because I expect there must be plenty of people who would like to find Victor, and, to speak plainly, neither I nor anyone in my family particularly want to get involved. We live a peaceful life far away from those times. My mother�s dead, so she can�t make a statement to the police, and I wouldn�t relish tabloid attention on the little we know made into a feast for the curious. Our link with the man was a very long time ago and we�d like to leave it like that.�

�That�s most understandable.�

�I realise that keeping my name back must be unattractive,� said the visitor, �.but it�s as an excess of caution, not distrust. Should anyone ever knock on our door, and that�s possible, I�d like to know in advance that the Priory played no part in the finding, however accidental it might be.�

�Yes, I see what you mean,� said Anselm, thinking of Brother Sylvester whose progress towards sanctity had left the discretion of the serpent well behind.

�As long as you are obliged to house your guest, if I can put it like that��

�You may; that�s exactly the situation��

�Then this could be the place where those with a legitimate concern will come. So do feel free to repeat what I�ve said, but I�d rather it was left unattributed.�

�I understand.�

In certain circumstances Anselm had a fondness for death. It tended to resolve all manner of complications for the living, especially in families, though few were prepared to admit it. But this was an example of the principle�s wider application. The death of Victor Brionne might have caused grief elsewhere but it simplified things enormously.

The visitor stayed for Vespers and afterwards Anselm walked him to his car.

�I�ve a long drive ahead.�

�I won�t ask where to,� replied Anselm. At that moment his eye latched on to the distinctive red lettering of The Tablet, a Catholic weekly lying by the back window Anselm always read it cover to cover, after which he feigned intimate knowledge of world and religious affairs. As the visitor slammed the car door, Anselm, unable to restrain his curiosity, stepped closer �he�d noticed the small white address label. He just caught Mr Robert B � and then the vehicle crunched away across the gravel.

Anselm waved farewell. It had been one of those encounters, all too short, that could only end with pages left unturned. In the withdrawn life of a monk it wasn�t every day that Anselm met someone like Mr Robert B. The vehicle moved slowly and Anselm noted the stickers on the rear screen: �National Trust�, �Whitley Bay Jazz Festival�, �Cullercoats RNLI� � each a snapshot of a life�s enthusiasms.

Walking back to the Priory, Anselm thought he wouldn�t say anything to DI Armstrong just yet. Her research would confirm what he�d been told. The death of Victor Berkeley would become public knowledge and he could write to Rome and let them know that the old collaborator had been struck by bricks from heaven.

And while he was smiling to himself, the one peculiarity of his conversation with Robert B struck him. At no point had they mentioned the identifying feature of the dead renegade: his false name, the name by which he must have been known.

The idea of going to Larkwood Priory came to Lucy late at night after she had been grilled by Cathy about �the Frenchman� � an expression that, for Lucy included Victor Brionne. The next morning Lucy forsook a lecture on the Romantic era and rang Pascal.

�I�ve had an idea. It�s a one-off, but it might yield something.�

�Go on.�

�Wherever Brionne might be, he is bound to know that Schwermann has claimed sanctuary at Larkwood Priory There�s a chance he, too, might contact the monks. Either he�s looking for somewhere to hide, or he may want to speak out but doesn�t want to go to the police � there are all sorts of possibilities.�

The line hummed lightly Pascal said, �It�s worth a shot.�

�I�ll pick you up in the Duchess, a Morris Minor built and bought before we were born.�

Pascal rang Lucy on her mobile while she was having lunch with her parents. Her father sat at the head of the table; her mother had just left the dining room for the kitchen. The opening bars of Beethoven�s Fifth, electrified and appalling, blared out from Lucy�s pocket.

�Destiny, I presume?� asked Freddie woodenly

Lucy took the call.

�I think a little miracle happened when we were at Larkwood Priory.�

�It passed me by�

�Meeting Max Nightingale.�

�You�re joking.� She thought of him with revulsion. �I call that unfortunate. �

A long moan of hopes betrayed floated out from the kitchen. As usual her mother was battling with milk and powder, strong adversaries that would not be reconciled.

Pascal said, �I don�t know why he threw that question in about your grandmother but he hadn�t the faintest idea who she was.�

�That�s not a miracle.�

�But if he knows of her, he may well know of Victor Brionne � and his name.

Her father realigned his plate, clinking it against a neatly laid dessert spoon.

Lucy said, �But he�s not going to tell you, is he?�

�I�d like to find out.�

�You�re joking again.� Lucy sensed the future, predatory and inevitable.

�I�m not. In a way he�s no different to you or me-Lucy spat, �How?�

�He�s part of the aftermath. He�s not a criminal. I�d like to meet him, it�s just� right � and I couldn�t be bothered to work out why�

�I have to go,� said Lucy The approval of her father flowered in a smile. Phone calls during meals were not encouraged. It had been one of Darren�s specialities, done on purpose.

The call ended, and Lucy�s father said, �Dreadful things those. Who was that?�

�Just a friend.� The barricade on her private life appeared. Her father scouted around for an opening, looking for light between the slats: �How�s your study getting along?�

�Not so bad.� The phrase sealed a gap. Lucy had detected the true meaning beneath her father�s question: �You made a hash of Cambridge so please don�t fail again.� She thought: fail who? You or me? Who do you really think lost out in my growing up? Shocked by her own charity she answered: we both did, terribly and she suddenly wanted to touch him. She took her father�s empty plate and laid it on hers. When were they ever going to forget the past? Why were they cursed to remember everything?

Her mother came into the room, hands on her hips, her face fallen: �I�m afraid there�s lots of lumps in the custard.�

�Oh God, not again,� said her father as he reached out for Susan�s hand.

3

Lucy met Pascal on a wet pavement outside Sibyl�s Cave on a Friday night. She said, �It�s seething.�

�We�ll be all right: He rubbed his hands confidently, as if about to spin a couple of dice down the felt. He winked and Lucy bridled. She couldn�t split the gesture from scaffolds and whistling beery cheek. He said, �I have a good feeling about this.�

Pascal had obtained Max Nightingale�s phone number from Father Anselm. The meeting was set up. Apparently he�d been keen. When Pascal had told Lucy she�d felt a sharp, churning disgust. �Good,� she�d said.

Lucy yanked at the pub door, releasing from the bright hallway a gasp of heat and noise. The lounge was packed with competition, professionals loudly shedding the pressures of work. They glanced into a small smoking room. Thick blue swirls hung above the tables like belchings from so many garden fires. Empty glasses stood in tight crowds. A young girl in a short black skirt pushed past gripping a damp cloth. They forced their way towards the veranda entrance. Pinned to a jamb was a forbidding notice: Private Party. Through the window panel Lucy saw suits, legs crossed while standing, wine glasses pressed to the chest: the boss was leaving. Pascal pulled her by the arm towards the debating room.

The appetite for argument was on the wane � young bloods were heading for the bar or home, leaving disparate clusters of older men. Where were the women? thought Lucy Her gaze shifted and she saw Max Nightingale sitting in a corner. On the table was a black motorcycle helmet. It stared at Lucy and she thought of an empty, severed head. They joined him, pulling up chairs.

�Who�s Sibyl?� asked Max Nightingale. Lucy noticed dark grime beneath his nails: a trace of his grandfather�s dirt. Catching her glance he said, �Paint. I�ve been painting.�

�Papered cracks?�

�No, pictures.�

�Oh.�

�Sibyl?� he repeated.

Pascal said, �She�s the maim player in a tragic myth, a mystic who pushed off death and spent centuries in a cave. She wrote out riddles on leaves but left them to the mercy of the wind.�

Max Nightingale stared back blankly �I thought she was the landlord.�

Lucy laughed, against the will to scoff � she who hadn�t known either.

Pascal said, �You asked a question at the Priory � about Agnes and a child. Where did you get the name from?�

�My grandfather.� He spoke frankly quickly

�Do you know who she is?�

�No.�

Pascal seemed to see suspicion and caution peeling away �I�d like to ask you a question, but first I just want to say something.�

Max Nightingale removed the helmet from the table. A space opened up, flat, ready to be crossed. Lucy regarded it with horror.

Pascal said, �We�ve been born on different sides of a nightmare, but it�s worth saying � I�ve got nothing against you.

Max Nightingale flinched. Then, recovered, he said, �Ask me your question. �

Lucy heard a shuffle: standing almost over them was the man she called The Don.

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-Elys�es 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.

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 Foug�res 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 Foug�res 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.

Anselm left Mr Roderick Kemble QC prostrate in a cab at Waterloo and hurried through the Eurostar terminal, finding his seat a matter of minutes before the train lurched forward.

He gloomily skimmed a cutting on The Round Table Wilf had given to him. He�d shown the text to Roddy who�d glanced over it while he ate, raising an aimless question as to why Jacques was interrogated in the June when the ring was not broken until the July With affection, Anselm had filled the Master�s glass. As expected Roddy appeared not to have read the cutting. The June arrest had had nothing to do with the events of the following month. Only a Silk of Roddy�s standing could get away with that sort of blunder � and he did, frequently with breathtaking aplomb.

Once in Paris, Anselm took a room in a cheap hotel near Sacr� Coeur. The next morning he set off for the Boulevard de Courcelles, near Parc Monceau, to the Foug�res home, wondering how he was going to phrase the application of the law to the death of their son.

All the witnesses were agreed on the basic facts: the pensioner, Mr Ogden, had grabbed the man with the white beard (Milby never named him. Instead he used a rather coarse term of art) . The man with the beard had told him to let go, but Mr Ogden had then drawn back his fist. So the other had struck out. At that point Pascal Foug�res had slipped and fallen, banging his head. The terms of the conversation prior to the altercation had also been agreed. But, as the investigating officer repeatedly pointed out to the outraged witnesses, nothing said by the man with the beard constituted a criminal offence. Milby told Anselm that the police would have liked to nail him, ideally with a manslaughter charge under the doctrine of transferred malice � on the understanding that the backhand slap directed at Mr Ogden technically �shifted� to Pascal. But that ignored the only compelling legal analysis: Mr Ogden was the aggressor and the response of his victim was not an unlawful act. The brute fact was that the terms of every other potential charge could not be stretched to accommodate the offensiveness of the victim.

After it became known that Pascal had died, the man with the white beard informed the police that he would not insist on charges being laid against Mr Ogden.

Anselm got back to Larkwood just after Vespers, in time for a brief conference with Father Andrew before supper. They sat in the Prior�s study, looking out over the cloister garth. It was a calm evening and long shadows lay on the neat grass like canvas sheets of scenery fallen flat.

Father Andrew asked, �How did they respond when you said the police were powerless?�

�With inspiring equanimity. I�d prepared myself for bewildered anger.�

�Those close to politics often understand better than most the limits of the law�

�There was something between them though, coming I think from the mother, something like an accusation. That is where the anger lay, the confusion. And by accident I think I trespassed upon it:

�.Anselm,� said the Prior dryly, �most of your accidents stem from intuition let loose. What did you say?�

�We were talking about Pascal and I mentioned Agnes, that she had had a child, and I asked if she�d ever been known to the family�

�And?�

�The mother said absolutely nothing but the father said Jacques never knew anyone called Agnes � we weren�t talking about Jacques but he made the link.�

�And you call that an accident?�

Anselm remonstrated, �Not far off. My best cross-examinations were always by mistake. I didn�t realise how clever it looked until it was done:

The Prior smiled with faint indulgence. Anselm continued, �Anyway I then had a most peculiar encounter with the butler. Throughout he pours the tea, sidles in, says nothing, sidles out � but when he shows me the door he tells me he knew Agnes and held her child. He then gives me a letter to deliver to Agnes from Jacques, a letter he�d guarded since the war on the off-chance she survived.�

The two monks pondered in silence. Frowning, Father Andrew said, �It is clear from what Max Nightingale said to you that his grandfather, somehow, knew both Jacques and Agnes. In this whole tragic business they seem to be the only ones to have reduced him to a state of panic. So they must have come across each other during the war �� He rounded on Anselm: �What was that riddle you were told about Schwermann at Les Moineaux?�

�That he had risked his life to save life.�

The Prior tilted his head as though straining to catch distant voices. His glittering eyes vanished behind long creases � but whatever he�d sensed was slipping out of reach.

The bell rang for supper. Anselm said, �The strange thing is, how do Etienne Foug�res and his wife come to know about Agnes and her child?�

They rose and entered the corridor. The busy sound of other feet heading down to the refectory echoed from a stairwell. The Prior replied, �Jacques� family must have passed it on after his death� � he followed his insight through � �and in due course Etienne told his wife � but they did not tell their son, Pascal � a secret known by a paid servant, a butler � now, why�s that?�

Intuition failed them both and they went into the refectory.

The court rose for the day after Mr Bartlett had made his surprising announcement that followed the completion of Madame Beaussart�s evidence.

�That seems a good place to stop, gentlemen,� said Mr Justice Pollbrook.

Bile stung Lucy�s gut and she thought bitterly: You�re right. There�s no point in going on. It�s a mess; a bloody, senseless mess. Max Nightingale hurriedly brushed by, his mouth set tight. The man in the cardigan beside her stood to make way, his features relaxed as if by an expectation painfully fulfilled. Lucy left the court in a sort of panic, as though the air had swollen with a stench. She ran to St Paul�s tube station and shoved herself into the doorway of a heaving train. Elbows, staking their claim, stiffened. The carriage door slid shut, scraping across her back. I endure this, she thought, so that I can give my grandmother a summary of �the day�s play�. That�s what one barrister had called it.

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 c& 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 �evacuation� meant just what it said. And third, the fate of the smuggling ring had been handed over to others. Technically, this meant Schwermann denied being part of a joint enterprise whose object or possible outcome was death or serious harm. Bartlett sensibly avoided stating his fourth argument because its inherently comic properties undermined its force: the �I was only obeying orders� defence. But Anselm knew the jurors would be led along by frequent references to Schwermann�s youth, his lowly rank and the power of others. There would be no laughter and the point would be forcibly made. It might even coalesce into pity.

Bartlett�s disclosure, however, was alarming in other respects: there was no reference to Les Moineaux and no mention of Schwermann having saved life rather than taken it away The riddle remained an unexplained secret. Anselm had just turned to the obituary pages in search of light entertainment when he heard a sober voice at his elbow

�Father, if we hadn�t shared the cup of plenty I�d think you were hiding from me.�

Anselm blenched.

�I thought I�d give my legs a big stretch, before hitting S�o Paulo. And I have a few answers from the realm of Sticky Fingers.�

Having spent the afternoon listening to an historian recount the exploits of The Round Table, Lucy left the court and made her way to Chiswick Mall for a conference organised by her father. On the tube she rehearsed the various interventions of Mr Bartlett, most of which seemed to be largely insignificant. But they left the impression of a man who cared about the detail, regardless of whether or not it helped his client�s case. He was fair, judicious and yielding. He helped his opponent. He helped the court. And no doubt the jury thought he was helping them in all his little ways. Turning her mind from that, Lucy anxiously thought of the other meeting proposed with such enthusiasm by Mr Lachaise as they had left the court. Upon enquiry, Max Nightingale had said he was a painter. Mr Lachaise had instantly suggested the three of them go together to see �Max�s work� on Saturday afternoon. Lucy had been so completely unsettled by the innocence of his manner that she could not bring herself to refuse. But that was another day Tonight had to be endured first.

They all sat in the front room. Doctor Scott, the Senior Social Worker, a Regional Care Adviser from the Motor Neurone Disease Association, Freddie, Susan, Lucy and Wilma.

�The reason why we�re all here,� said Pam from Social Services, �is to discuss Agnes� future.�

�She hasn�t got one, � said Wilma.

Pam blinked uncomfortably �We need to coordinate a care plan, to make sure Agnes is empowered to face the future in her own way

Doctor Scott winced. Freddie didn�t like it either, although probably for different reasons. He had his own scheme and Lucy saw it at once, before he spilled out his demands. He wanted professionals in (and, by implication, Wilma out). He wanted volunteer visitors from the MND Association to come round every day He wanted equipment loaned or bought. Anything and everything that would clean up the messiness of dying, although that word was studiously avoided. Freddie preferred to use convoluted expressions which, by their abstraction, focused all the more sharply on the reality he could not bring himself to name.

A potential structure of care (Pam�s phrase) was constructed. Freddie enthusiastically endorsed all the proposals, perhaps not quite understanding Pam�s reverent doxology that �empowerment was to do with having choices�.

The package (Pam�s phrase) was taken through to Agnes. She listened as Pam explained the options, Freddie making confirmatory interjections as she went along. When she�d finished, Agnes nodded towards her bedside table. Wilma fetched the alphabet card.

T-H-A-N-K-.Y-O-U

Pause.

V-E-R-Y

Pause.

M-U-C-H

Longer pause.

I

Pause.

O-N-L-Y

Pause.

W-A-N-T

Pause.

W-I-L-M-A

Freddie embarked upon an appeal for sense to prevail until professionally disengaged by Pam using low-key techniques. Back in the sitting room, she translated what �empowerment for choice� actually meant. Exasperated, but in control, Pam said, �It�s her death, not yours. Let her go in her own way� She was unrelenting and mercilessly firm.

Freddie, confused, said, �You don�t understand. I just don�t want to see her suffer.� He couldn�t stay to discuss it any further. Overwhelmed, lie left brusquely, blinking quickly to mask the well of tears.

Pam gave her number to Lucy, saying she could call her at any time, night or day, �given what was to come�.

In the natural course of things, Father Andrew made many decisions, passed off as �suggestions�, that Anselm was unable to fathom. One such was the proposal that Anselm �might� show Father Conroy the North Country on the way to finding Victor Brionne. To Anselm�s mind sightseeing did not blend with the task of confronting a fugitive collaborator. But the �suggestion� had been made. There was some sense to the proposal: it transpired that Con was writing another book after all (only this time he intended to ignore its likely condemnation by Rome) . Frequent travel to the library at Heythrop College, London, and hours of drafting at Larkwood had worn him out. He needed a break.

And so, on the day Lucy listened to the considered views of Doctor Pierre Vallon, the two men left Larkwood first thing after Lauds. With Conroy at the wheel they sped north, the skies getting wider and brighter, the horizon flatter and longer. Anselm�s mind opened like a plain and he saw scattered here and there, like totems, the outline of those who had recently crossed his path; and Conroy sang wonderfully mournful songs to himself about a betrayed woman and her abandoned child, a young father on a British prison ship and a ditty on violent child abuse. You had to cry; you had to laugh.

Anselm turned his mind to the conversation with Father Chambray the night before, noting bitterly how apposite it was that the truth should finally have made its way out in a confessional. Father Pleyon, a monk of Les Moineaux, had betrayed The Round Table. Unforeseen executions had followed. And by an inexplicable, almost comic quirk of circumstance, Father Pleyon had become the new Prior. Why was it, thought Anselm, that chance so often assisted the wicked? Schwermann and Brionne had been handed a lifeline just when they might have been brought to justice: their accomplice had become the Prior and had lived long enough to secure their escape.

But Father Chambray had pieced together some fragments. He had read the signs. He had told Rome and they had done nothing. And, in dismay, he had left his Priory and his church, a priest for ever in a wilderness without sacraments.

�Con,� said Anselm, �would you mind not singing for a moment?�

�All right, so.�

�Tell me again what Sticky Fingers told you.� Anselm had already been told, but he wanted to place the little Conroy had found out in context now that he had spoken to Chambray

Conroy pursed his lips, thinking. �The Vatican Secret Archive holds two reports from Les Moineaux, and both had been withdrawn by your man Renaldi in early April 1995.�

�Just after Schwermann was exposed.�

�Aye. The first was written by Chambray shortly after the end of the war.

Anselm knew what it contained, and he would soon see a copy

�The second was written a year or so afterwards by Pleyon, just before the Lord called him to Himself. It was sent on to Rome by the new Prior with a note saying the old skin didn�t get a chance to finish whatever he wanted to say

Anselm, like Father Chambray, could now read the signs that had fallen into his hands. He placed himself before an earnest, sincere Monsignor quietly watched by an attentive Cardinal, each knowing the whole narrative set out by Chambray But they had only disclosed the incomplete report of Pleyon, knowing it was the beginnings of a self-preserving fiction. �I�m trying to protect the future from the past,� the Cardinal had said.

Conroy returned to his singing and Anselm slept. They lunched and then pressed on, saying little. As late afternoon cloud gathered over the rolling Cheviot Hills, Conroy pointed to the signpost directing them to Victor Brionne�s hideaway After a few miles of empty, windswept road they reached a display board, informing the unwary that Lindisfarne was a tidal island. They were just in time to cross the narrow causeway before the cold, slate-blue sea crept over the sands and cut them off from the mainland. By the time they had found their bed and breakfast, booked by Wilf the night before, no one could reach or leave the island.

When night fell, Anselm left his companion in the bar and wandered outside, over to a cluster of solid monastic ruins, a fortress carved out of the sky. Standing alone with the wind in his face, he joined himself to the Celtic monks who had once gathered beneath brooding arches by a sea that ran to the ends of the earth; he said the psalms of Compline, as they had once done, while the sharp night enclosed him. Then he walked along a rocky shore towards a large house with its windows lit, the curtains left open. A wooden plaque on a gatepost bore the name �Pilgrim�s Rest�. Anselm leaned on the adjoining wall, concealed by darkness, looking in upon a play of domestic contentment.

Robert Brownlow sat at a piano. Adults and children, seemingly endless in number, passed to and fro across the glass as if on a stage, each with a walk-on part. Most were laughing, cans or cups in their hands, little boys and girls with beakers spiked with straws, and no one seemed to notice the old man seated by the window, looking out into the night as if he were alone.

That must be Victor Brionne, thought Anselm, and none of his family realise he carries a secret, except perhaps Robert. All available generations had gathered for a bash, untouched by the trial in London that had never been more than words in a news-. paper, remote but disturbing if read, destined to be thrown out with the cold leftovers within a day or so. Anselm suffered a stab of grief on their behalf, Was it really necessary to pull down what had been built over fifty years? Should the little boy with the beaker have to lose the grandfather he thought he had? Or go to school and hear whisperings or taunts? But then Agnes Embleton was approaching death, unknown to the judicial process, a forgotten victim. Lucy had once been a child with a beaker spiked by a straw but she had not been spared by ignorance. The vindication of one family entailed the destruction of another.

Anselm turned away heavily, wishing dearly that he did not have a part of his own to play: the awful role of the minor character who brings the news he does not understand, whose brief speech shatters unsuspecting lives, and who then walks off for a smoke in the dressing room. That would be Anselm�s contribution to the Brownlow family history.

Brownlow Again Anselm strained to recover a stirring at the back of his mind evoking a pleasant sensation. It was a name he�d known as a boy

Lucy took �Sibyl�s Cave� home with her and placed it over the mantelpiece. For the rest of the weekend she kept re�entering the room to look at it. In that hint of a face drawn by the sweeping paint she saw Agnes, young and old, transcendent, aloft her disappointment.

When Lucy met Max and Mr Lachaise at court on Monday morning they all shook hands. Something like ease was growing between them. This was all the more remarkable because she (and presumably Max) had no idea as to who Mr Lachaise, their convener, might be. There was a disarming quality to his simplicity, like dealing with a child. Only he was nothing of the kind. He seemed older than anyone Lucy had ever known. And she recognised in his every move a type of empathy, something indefinable, that he held in common with her grandmother. She would have liked them to have met.

Lucy returned to court unable to forget the look of hope that had smoothed the anxious face of Eduard Schwermann. But now, sitting in the dock, he looked to the public gallery with growing agitation, directly towards the empty seat of Max Nightingale.

Mr Lachaise was uncharacteristically wearied, like the front-runner who unexpectedly limps to one side, unable to continue with the race. Another man, roughly the same age as Mr Lachaise, caught Lucy�s attention, being a new observer among what had become a familiar throng. He stood out not through that difference but through the imprint of tension. His short silvered hair, neatly cut and parted, suggested the boy as much as the man. She suspected that he was here with Victor Brionne, who was about to give evidence on behalf of the Prosecution.

When Counsel were all assembled, the judge came on to the bench in the absence of the jury

�My Lord,� said Mr Penshaw, rising to his feet, �the adjournment has been of considerable assistance. If I may briefly explain��

�Please do.�

�An individual came forward from whom it was thought a contemporaneous account of events involving Mr Schwermann might be forthcoming. A statement was taken by the police which your Lordship has no doubt seen.

�I have.�

�There is nothing deposed therein which adds anything of significance to the Prosecution case. I do not propose to call the witness.�

The judge languidly raised an eyebrow �Has Mr Bartlett seen the statement?�

�He has.�

�Good.�

�My Lord,� said Mr Penshaw �That completes the evidence for the Crown.�

�Mr Bartlett, are you ready to proceed?�

�I am.�

�Call the jury please,� said Mr Justice Pollbrook, turning a fresh page in his notebook.

Desperate and confused, Lucy grasped for an understanding of what had happened. How could the Prosecution case come to an end without evidence from Victor Brionne? What had he said to the police that was of so little value? As she threw the questions like flints around her mind the jury returned to their seats, the Crown closed their case and all eyes locked on to Schwermann who, at any moment, would make his way from the dock to the witness stand. Mr Bartlett made a few ponderous notes with his pencil. He sipped water. A collective apprehension rapidly spread throughout the court. The judge patiently waited and then, just as he opened his mouth to speak, Mr Bartlett suddenly rose, saying:

�My Lord, notwithstanding the usual practice of calling the Defendant first, in this particular case I call Victor Brionne.�

�What?� said Lucy, aghast.

Mr Lachaise leaned towards her and said in a low, strong voice, �Do not worry.� With an affection tainted by anger she thought: it�s always the powerless who are most generous with their comfort.

Victor Brionne walked through the great doors. The appearance of the man who had haunted so many lives mocked expectation. He was wholly ordinary � shortish, with a wide, laboured gait; owlish eyes, his skin dark and deeply lined � the sort of man you�d meet in the market. He took the oath. His eyes avoided the dock, and he turned only once towards the handsome man three or four seats away from Mr Lachaise. Then he faced the jury.

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.

�Charity work,� she said, pointing towards a pile of leaflets, �until they said it was better if I didn�t help any more. I�ve become an embarrassment. �

The three of them sat as a triangle, reminding Anselm of a parish visit after a death but before the funeral. He explained, as sensitively as he could, the issues faced by the court, concluding with the revelation that Max had been entrusted with a folder of crucially important documents. Mrs Nightingale looked at her son, astounded, becoming angry.

�Why didn�t you say anything, to me at least?�

Max said, �He made it sound as though the truth could only come out if no one knew anything about his secret.�

�Listen to yourself, that�s utter nonsense.

�I know�

�Then why the hell did you � Oh Max.� She looked aside, away from her son, with a look of total understanding.

�Mrs Nightingale,� said Anselm. �These papers demonstrate that your father prepared himself for this trial as soon as the war came to a close. He kept a record of one man�s betrayal, a disclosure that was made to him. That man gave evidence yesterday in your father�s defence. He must have done so under duress, to save himself. Nothing he said can be relied upon.

Mrs Nightingale stared at the carpet, her eyes brightening with resentment.

�There are other records,� said Anselm reluctantly She looked up. �They list the names of adults and children sent to Auschwitz.�

�No,� she said, shortly �No.� She used the word as if it were a racket, knocking back what she had heard, a slam past her opponent.

�It�s true, Mum, I�ve seen them,� said Max.

�Shut up, you,� she snapped. �Let me see.� She threw out her hand aggressively towards Anselm.

Anselm withdrew the three sheets of paper and handed them to Mrs Nightingale. She looked over each of them erratically scanning up and down, flipping from one to the other, incapable of measured scrutiny her face becoming moist. �What do you want me to do?� she asked, for the first time transparently unprotected, her anger subsiding into dread.

�Absolutely nothing,� replied Anselm reassuringly �The police will handle everything.�

�The police?� she said with the specific, tragic astonishment that is the last defence of those who cannot face the obvious. She sat rigid on the edge of her seat. �Have you any idea what this has meant for my family, for Max, for me?� Her voice rose eerily. �How do you know what these mean anyway?� She flapped the papers in the air, like rags. �Who the hell are you to tell me what has to be done? We�re the ones who have to live afterwards, not you �� Standing up, she raised the flimsy sheets before her eyes, crumpling their edges in her grip. She shook the papers back and forth, as if they were the smooth, indifferent lapels of circumstance; she let her despair loose into her hands, a groan breaking out of her mouth.

Anselm, scared by the unravelling emotion, sprang forward to retrieve the documents, now slightly torn. In an instant he saw the dainty bracelet and rings: old gifts, keepsakes of a lifetime, intimating the vast expanse of all she held dear, brought down in public ruin without warning, without having done anything to deserve the advent of shame. She stepped back, pulling her arms apart. In the tearing that followed they all stood still, each suddenly horrified. She walked hastily out of the room. Anselm looked at the few remaining shreds on the floor, hearing the swift striking of a match in another room.

Mrs Nightingale walked back into the room with the unsettling equanimity that might come after a righteous killing.

�I�m terribly sorry.� Her voice was light and fresh, as if from another woman. She sat down, smoothed her skirt and wept.

Anselm let himself out. As he walked away from the cottage he turned and saw the mother held in the arms of her son.

Mr Justice Pollbrook adjourned the case, allowing time for Counsel to prepare their speeches and him his Summing-Up. By the time the judge had finished his remarks to the jury Mr Lachaise had recovered his customary self�possession. He suggested they have a coffee and a biscuit. Sitting in a small caf� off Newgate Street Lucy said, �Why isn�t he going to defend himself?�

�It�s far too dangerous,� said Mr Lachaise. �If he was cross-examined, his present position, however precarious, could only be harmed. He is on a knife-edge, illustrated by the rather good point made by Miss Matthews � he either separated a boy from his mother for no reason or he knew what was going on at Auschwitz but managed to save a single life. I hadn�t thought of that before.� He looked exhausted again, but continued, �Of course, the second alternative is not a defence. If true, it�s a plea for sympathy against the enormity of what he must have done. With a jury, pity is a sticky sweet. It�s often savoured over justice.�

Lucy asked, �Are you a lawyer?�

�No, but I grew up alongside a wonderful man called Bremer � the family solicitor � and he passed on to me the maxims of his craft. I have made them my own.

�Mr Lachaise,� said Lucy tentatively probing the inscrutable expression on his face. �My grandmother was a member of The Round Table, and that explains me. But can I ask, why are you here?�

His large eyes glistened behind the heavy spectacles. Lucy could only fractionally recognise the meaning of his smile: it had something to do with misfortune. Mr Lachaise said: �You may ask me any question under the sun, but not that one.� His voice dwindled to a whisper: �I do not know the answer.

Lucy�s parents had arranged to collect their daughter on Sunday morning on their way back from a short break in Canterbury. Father, mother and daughter would then go to Chiswick Mall for an afternoon with Agnes.

The doorbell tore through the air twice. It was a buzzer more suited to the requirements of the fire brigade. Lucy could not hear the electric shriek without thinking urgency stood panting on the street. Her mother peeped her head round the door, eyelids aflutter. She stepped inside, commenting on Grandpa Arthur�s clock as if he were there, nodding, on the wall. Her father followed, handing Lucy a mug with a picture of a cathedral on its surface. �From the gift shop,� he said.

�Lovely glass,� said Susan, turning round, �makes you think.�

Lucy snipped the door shut. When she joined them a moment later her mother was discreetly checking for dust; her father stood before �Sibyl�s Cave�.

�It�s absorbing,� he said. Lucy joined him; their eyes met and she understood. His daughter had a life of her own, choosing pictures, banging nails into walls, all the little things unknown to him.

�Where did you find it?� he asked cheerily

�A friend gave it to me.� The first two words almost dried her mouth. She did not expect to describe Max Nightingale in those terms, but having done so it could not be withdrawn. Instantaneously she thought of Pascal, the last time they�d met, and the old monk, known to Father Anselm, who�d died saying all that mattered were insignificant reconciliations.

�He�s very generous,� said Susan, adding, as if she�d peered inside an envelope, �assuming he�s a he.�

�You�re right, said Lucy reaching for her coat. She moved into the hall, to a safe distance. �He�s a painter.�

�An artist,� called Susan encouragingly. �How lovely�

Mr Penshaw began his speech on the Monday morning with an ordered but piecemeal presentation of bare facts, in themselves not particularly startling. But something unstated imperceptibly emerged which, once before the mind of the court, grew minute by minute until Mr Penshaw named it with contempt.

�It takes an effort of charity to concede a man could play his part within the apparatus of mass murder and not know the dreadful end towards which his efforts were engaged.�

Mr Penshaw turned quizzically to the dock, bringing the eyes of the jurors on to Schwermann.

�Is it conceivable that an impressionable young man could be left in any doubt as to the fate of the children that passed through his hands? Is it credible that an intelligent young man could grind out euphemisms without knowing the terrible truth they concealed?�

He paused, returning his gaze to those whose task it was to answer the questions.

�No, he could not. And how do we know? Because of Victor Brionne. The penitent collaborator, the knight errant, the best friend of Jacques Foug�res.�

Two others were conjured into the courtroom. The jury would think of Agnes Aubret, who died at Auschwitz, and her little boy who was held back from the pit. Lucy could have wept. It was literally the other way round.

�If the Defendant intervened then he did so for reasons we will never know, and to spare this child a dreadful killing which he knew was prepared for him, like so many others, at the end of a railway line.�

Mr Penshaw had almost finished. He put his text aside and spoke with growing anger. �There is only one conclusion you can draw With all his senses and faculties attuned, this man wilfully played his part in a scheme that was grand to the twisted dreams of its architects, unthinkable in its proportions, purpose, and consequences, and whose victims now call out for justice. Do not forget them when you retire to make your decision.

Mr Justice Pollbrook thought that a good place to stop for twenty minutes.

Mr Lachaise rang Lucy and suggested they meet for lunch in Gray�s Inn Gardens at half past one. He did not propose to attend the end of the Summing-Up. Neither did Lucy at least not all of it. The slow treading-over of the evidence was an unbearable form of waiting.

The gardens lay off Theobald�s Road, neatly circumscribed by mansions of the law, elegant screens of pale magenta brick with regular white-framed windows like rows of pictures. Lucy strolled along a narrow passage into Field Court, a tight enclosure adjacent to an ornate pair of wrought-iron gates, resting between two pillars. Surmounting each was a fabulous beast with the head and wings of an eagle. She paused to study the strange, seated guardians. They threatened to suddenly move, relinquishing stone; to slink, warm-breathed, off their pedestals and wreak wrath and mercy upon High Holborn. What did they protect? Nothing. Whom did they save? No one. When would the day of reckoning come? Never. What were they other than dismal protestations at the absence of angels?

Lucy passed between them into the gardens. A lane of polished gravel unrolled between short trees, plump courtiers on afternoon parade. Benches, set well apart, secured leisure with privacy. Upon one of them sat Mr Lachaise, talking earnestly to Max Nightingale.

They did not hear her approach. Lucy sidled to the edge of the path, in line with the bench, reducing the chance of being seen. She harboured a not altogether irrational suspicion that Mr Lachaise had met Max first on purpose. As she drew near, she heard his distinctive, appealing voice say:

�Regardless of what you have said, do as I ask. Do nothing. Rest assured, there is no need.�

Then, unfortunately she was seen. However, the conversation ran on in an entirely innocent fashion, which rather disappointed Lucy. She had liked the idea of consecutive meetings, up�turned collars and secret conversations. Mr Lachaise continued talking as he beckoned Lucy with his hand:

�You might think your paintings are not especially good, but I�m confident my colleagues will come to another conclusion. As I have said, leave it all to me. The University will issue the invitation; after that it�s all very simple. Ah, Lucy do join us.

Lucy shook Max�s hand. Seeing him outside the courtroom lit his absence from the trial as a sort of failure, as though he�d left her and Mr Lachaise on the front line. How peculiar, she reflected. He�s from the other side.

�I�ve brought along some very Jewish provisions, said Mr Lachaise, opening a large plastic bag. �It�s always bitter or sweet � I�ll explain as we go along.�

They ate sitting in a line, passing curious things from one to the other.

�It�s rather like Waiting for Godot,� said Lucy.

�Except this time,� announced Mr Lachaise, �he might come after all, just when he�s not expected.�

The jury reconvened at 9.30 a.m. on the Friday. Throughout the passing hours Lucy and Mr Lachaise sat on the bench as if awaiting the ministrations of a dentist. By way of distraction Lucy described the miniature glories of the Duchess who, at that moment, was probably holding her own court in Chiswick Mall. Lucy had parked the old girl there in anticipation of the verdict � a verdict Lucy would probably bring to Agnes that evening. No decision had been reached by lunchtime. Lucy walked the streets. She kept moving, tiring her limbs, until it was time to get back to the Old Bailey.

At 2.30 p.m. the jury indicated through the usher that they had a question. Counsel, solicitors and the Defendant were called into court. Mr Justice Pollbrook came on to the bench. The jury were summoned. The foreman passed a note to the usher who gave it to the judge. He opened a sheet of paper, read it and handed it down to Counsel. The note was passed back to the judge who read it out loud:

�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.�

The foreman was a young woman in her mid-thirties, wearing narrow glasses that insinuated bookish gravity. She wore black but her skin was paper-white. Upon hearing the first verdict, Lucy lost all memory of the previous questions and replies; they were swallowed up by her final, irrevocable judgment:

�Not guilty.�

The tidy phrase was hardly spent before a most awful collective gasp arose from one side of the courtroom. The survivors and their relatives who had watched the whole process of the trial, mute but concentrated, broke out in an agony of protest. Lucy released a shuddering sound, horribly similar to a laugh. She turned to Mr Lachaise. He sat still, with a repose wholly alien to the moment. His hand reached out to Lucy�s. They were joined like father and daughter.

The other counts on the indictment were read out. Each received the same verdict: �Not guilty.�

Lucy sat in a trance out of time, hearing words but unable to link them coherently. She could not dispel the image of Agnes, lying absolutely still, defenceless, consumed by silence. Everyone stood as Mr Justice Pollbrook left the Bench. And then from all around came echoing shuffles and bangs as though the court was being dismantled by stagehands impatient for home. The clatter became erratic, less insistent, and then faded.

�Excuse me, it�s time to go.

�I�m sorry?� said Lucy stirring. The court and public gallery were empty, except for herself and Mr Lachaise. She was still holding his hand.

�It�s time to go. I have to lock up,� said the usher, pointing like a curator towards the door.

Lucy stood. Mr Lachaise withdrew his pipe and thumbed the bowl reflectively.

�You can�t use that in here,� said the usher officiously.

�Indeed not. It�s just an old habit to occupy the hands.� With a warm glance he said, �Go now, Lucy. �

She had always liked his accent and the engaging depth of his voice, like churning wet gravel. As she pushed open the swing doors she heard him ask:

�Would you be so kind as to do me a small favour �?�

Then they closed.

Standing in Newgate Street, the presence of Agnes all around, suffusing metal, stone and cloud, Lucy hailed a taxi. �Hammersmith,� she said woozily

The provision of an ambulance for Victor Brionne struck Anselm as incongruous given the circumstances. Standard procedure, said Detective Superintendent Milby with disinterest, dropping the gun into a plastic sample bag. He handed it to a colleague who stored it with the damaged book. �All in a day�s work,� he added, surveying the waste of Victor Brionne�s life. Empty bottles, scatterings of fag-ash and an open packet of broken biscuits lay upon the floor.

�Pig,� said Milby

An officer bending over an armchair recovered a set of keys, holding them up like a fish at the market.

�Ah, they�re mine actually� said Anselm.

The Detective Superintendent scrutinised his old adversary but let the puzzle pass. He said, �Any chance of a favour?�

�Depends.�

�The girl wants someone to explain to her grandmother what�s happened. Bit unwell apparently. More your scene than mine.

�What�s going to happen to her?� asked Anselm flatly gesturing towards Lucy

�Firearms. You know the game.�

�Favours sometimes have a price.

�You should have been in the Drug Squad.�

Anselm urged the arresting officer to contact DI Armstrong, to ask if she would visit Lucy at the station. And then he accepted the offer of a lift to Chiswick Mall in a Detective Superintendent�s carriage.

The reliability of a wartime revolver after decades in a cupboard was literally a hit and miss affair. Unlike capsules of potassium cyanide. Which struck Anselm as a happy imbalance in the scheme of things, given Lucy�s misguided attempt to provoke Victor�s suicide.

It transpired that Victor had had no intention of killing himself at all. Like all men who have known grave dependence on alcohol, he had a certain clarity of mind that was sharpened when drunk. And so, confronted with a young woman whose level of foolishness reflected the degree of her distress, he�d thought it prudent to accept the offered gun. After Lucy had gone he�d pointed the barrel at his face, looking into the dark, narrow hole. It had been, he said, a sort of playing, an acting out of the preliminary steps to an oblivion that had its attractions but which he would not choose. How could he? No matter what personal suffering he had endured, no matter the scale of moral compromise, there was Robert, the children and the grandchildren. They rose like flowers from the catastrophe of his life, and their splendour, however circumscribed, had a fragile, redemptive quality. He lived for them. And now, Victor had learned that they lived for Agnes.

And yet, but for the protecting hand of luck, Victor would have shot himself. Upon lowering the barrel, the hammer suddenly discharged, held back (it turned out) by a hairline trigger. The round went off, destroying a rare copy of Doctor Johnson�s dictionary that had cost Victor most of his retirement lump sum.

Victor was kept in hospital overnight, on account of his bitten lip and presumed shock, and released the next morning, whereupon Anselm paid him a welcome visit at home.

�As I told you before,� said Victor, �I had always seen the irony of my predicament � on paper, I was the one who had betrayed The Round Table. So when I came to England I decided to set the record straight, if you will forgive the expression. The idea came to me when I was wondering how I might conceal my identity still further. I decided to change my name a second time. What name? I thought.�

�Brownlow?� interjected Anselm with a faint, querying smile.

�The man who rescued Oliver Twist,� replied Victor. For him it was an old joke, lame but enduring, a sniff at adversity.

�Of course,� snapped Anselm. �I knew I recognised it.�

Abandoning the advantages his education and talent would have brought him, Victor then chose factory work as a long-term hiding place. For most of his employed life he stood by a conveyor belt putting lids on jars of mustard. He saved what he could for Robert�s precocious talent at the piano. He met Pauline, his wife-to-be, at a church fair bookstall. Nature ran its course and she became a mother to Robert, but he was old enough to remember her coming into his life.

�When he was old enough to understand, I told him his real mother had died during an air raid. Disasters are always convincing.�

For twenty-six years Pauline had been his strength, the woman to whom he confided all that had happened. When she knew she was going to die from a rare kidney complaint she wrote Victor a letter, to help him after she had gone. But they were lifeless words, shapes in ink. He used to stare at them, trying to summon up the voice that had once spoken to him, her passion, her belief in him, her constant forgiveness for the wrongs of which he was a part. He�d been to confession.

�He gave me absolution,� Victor remembered, �but he refused to give me a penance. Keep talking to Pauline, he said. And I did. But her kidneys packed up and she died. That�s when I started drinking.�

All the family thought it was grief, which was true, but it was also the other burden he could no longer carry alone. He attended an expensive rehabilitation programme sorted out by Robert and found it completely humiliating � not because he was proud but because he could not disclose the reasons for his collapse.

�They thought I was �avoiding the pain required to face the truth about myself�. I found that judgment distinctly unpalatable. It was, as with so much of my life, a hideous misunderstanding.�

They sat in silence until Anselm rose. He had a train to catch.

�Robert will have to be told everything,� Victor said, exhausted. �Difficult as that might be, the thought of it done is like � an accomplishment.�

�I have already arranged to see him,� said Anselm.

Cautiously, reflectively. Victor said, �It�s all been an inexplicable mix of misfortune and luck. But since I�m a religious man, I look to Providence. Only that rather complicates things, don�t you think? Because there�s no accounting for the graces received, set against what went wrong, without hindrance, for so long.�

Anselm didn�t have a reply for that particular observation.

Salomon Lachaise had finished speaking. The wild chase of water beneath their feet grew loud. Anselm repeated what he�d read in the papers:

�The police found capsules in two of his jackets, sewn into the same corner below the left pocket, with a loose thread ready to be pulled when needed.�

�So I understand.�

�Presumably they were taken out and put back after every visit to the dry cleaner�s.�

�Yes, I expect you are right.�

Anselm thought of the private ritual, the unpicking and the sewing up over the years, the constant preparedness to escape a judgment imposed by anyone other than himself. Before Anselm could pursue his reflections, Salomon Lachaise said, with closing authority: �I shall never talk of him again.�

As at a signal, they both clambered on to their knees and stood, Anselm helping his companion gain balance. Strolling back to The Hermitage, Anselm said, �What will you do now?�

�Travel. I want to keep moving. I have no commitments, no dependants.�

�You�ll remain in Geneva?�

�Yes. As much as I have left the University, it remains something of a home. Anyway� � he smiled brightly � �I intend to arrange a small exhibition of young Max�s paintings. Have you seen them?�

�No.�

�You should. They possess alarming innocence. I shall try to use the ignominy of his background to his advantage. Otherwise it will remain a curse.

�That is kind.�

�Nothing done for pleasure is kind.�

They reached The Hermitage shack, and Anselm made to amble back to the Priory. Pointing at the open door, Salomon Lachaise said, �Can you join me for a final glass of port? I never go anywhere without a bottle.�

They sat on wobbling wooden chairs, sipping in silence, until Anselm said, �Would you like to meet Agnes Aubret?�

Salomon Lachaise, with tears in his eyes, could not reply.

Lucy met her father in the noble gardens of Gray�s Inn. As they entered, she pointed at the stone beasts on the gate columns. �Griffins,� said her father knowledgably. �Protectors of paradise. Don�t they teach you anything about myths these days?�

His suit was crafted to his body immaculately creased and cut. In his own world, thought Lucy he was powerful and successful and wore the uniform of esteemed competence. When they found a bench, he dusted off dry particles of nothing with the back of a hand. Sitting like two lone strays at a matinee, each with their legs crossed, Lucy began the stripping of her father.

�Dad, none of us are who we think we are.�

Her father, enjoying a tease, replied, �And I suppose no one else is who we think they are.

�No, quite right.� She cut through the smart cloth of known appearances to the soft epidermis. �It�s true of Gran� � he looked suddenly wary � �and it is especially true of you.

Lucy explained to her father how he had been saved from Ravensbr�ck by Agnes, that he was born of unknown, murdered parents, from an unknown place, that they were buried no one knew where. And she told him Agnes was the mother of a son whom she�d lost, a son who had been found. He listened, entranced and dismayed, fingering the constricting knot of his tie. When Lucy had finished he sat stunned, as though waiting for the lights to come on in a theatre, the only one left in a curved, empty stall.

�Do you know,� he said faintly �I think she nearly told me once.

�When?�

�Years and years ago � before the rot set in � I was fifteen or sixteen and I gave her a mouthful about her silence� � again he reached for his restricting collar � �I said she�d never cared, not even when I�d fallen as a boy and cut my knee.�

�What did she say?� asked Lucy

Her father sat upright, the movement of feet scuffing a gleaming shoe. He wiped his dry lips with a handkerchief and said, �Nothing, actually at first. But her face crumpled � in a way that 1 have never been able to forget � and just when I thought she was going to tell me something she was gone, into herself ��

�She didn�t speak?�

He nodded, his face flushed and shining. �She said, �Oh Freddie, say anything about me but not that, not that:� He joined his hands in hopeless, abject supplication. �God, I have to see her � I have to tell her I�m sorry ��

The day before Agnes� first and last reunion with her family it rained: a bombarding, cruel inundation that bled the sky. Bloated cloud hung low, shrouding high-rise flats and sharp steeples. For once Lucy didn�t want to be on her own. She rang Cathy and asked if she could stay the night.

Lucy took the tube to Pimlico and dashed through the puddles, her head bent into her chest. By the time she got to Cathy�s flat she was drenched. After a bath, she wrapped herself in a large, warmed towel. When she padded into the sitting room she saw takeaway cartons lined up on a tray Cathy looked up and said, �Mongolian. Honestly�

Lucy noticed the absence of make-up. Cathy looked younger, like she�d been at Cambridge but without the confident aggression. Outside, the rain thumped upon dull, empty pavements; and, as the night fell, Lucy told Cathy what would happen the next day. Cathy listened, moving food around her plate with tiny flicks of a fork. It was in the telling that Lucy had another idea. While they were preparing for bed, she stuck her head around the bathroom door and said, �Would you like to meet someone?�

�Who?�

�A man.�

�I need a bit more than that.�

�He knows how to use a pallet knife.�

�Set it up.�

Lucy lay awake, longing for the wind and rain to be reconciled, or at least to put off their fight for another day. The weather was going to wreck the plans for the morrow. While she worked out an alternative strategy sleep crept upon her by surprise. When Lucy woke the next morning, weak sunshine stole between a gap in the curtains and lit the wall with a shaft of subdued flame. Throwing open the window, she listened with gratitude to the silent work of heat upon water, a union that always recaptured the first freshness of things.

After breakfast, Lucy abandoned the trousers and top she�d bought the day before and dressed in one of Cathy�s smart conversation-stoppers: a navy blue dress with hand-painted enamel buttons. Standing on the doorstep Cathy warned, �If you stain that, I�ll weep.�

Lucy caught a glint of tears.

�I hope everything goes fine,� Cathy said.

Anselm stood awkwardly facing Conroy on the forecourt to the Priory. His sabbatical was over. He�d finished his book and found a publisher with an appetite for trouble, and now the big man was heading back to Rome. After handing the manuscript over to his Order�s censors, he�d catch a flight home to S�o Paulo and his children.

They shook hands, Anselm wincing at the grip. Conroy compressed himself into the driving seat and wound down a window

�I�ll wend my way so.

�Come back.�

�Sure, I�m taking something of the place with me.�

�And you�re leaving something of you and your work behind.�

�Pray for my kids.�

Anselm waved and the chariot of fire left Larkwood.

Beneath a pale sun without heat, Anselm wandered back into Parc Monceau, back to the quiet spot opposite the former home of Madame Klein, and sat on a bench just beneath what was once her window

He thought of Salomon Lachaise: had he known that Schwermann was his father? His mother hadn�t told him. It was a secret too painful to disclose. Involuntarily Anselm suddenly recalled their first meeting, when he�d seen the small dark figure by the lake, cut out against the sky Salomon Lachaise had said, �I�ve come to look upon the father of my grief,� and then, moments later, he�d fallen on his knees before a man, a first meeting with a stranger, exclaiming, �I am the son of the Sixth Lamentation.� Then Anselm remembered his friend�s description of his mother, poring over the photographs of their lost family by candlelight with never a passing reference to the father he�d never known � the man whose name he�d never once mentioned in Anselm�s presence. She had kept her secret, somehow, but Salomon Lachaise had eventually divined its shape� perhaps when she, struck with terror, had begged her son to leave the past alone after he�d announced his intention to help track down the man whom she knew to be his father. Yes � for sure � Salomon Lachaise had known� and he�d waited until the final moment before issuing a condemnation that only he could give.

Anselm looked around, ready to cry The calm of Parc Monceau had been chased away by children; irrepressible, joyful, not yet hating school. Two or three darted past him, trails of sand falling from cupped fingers. His eye picked out the approach of a young woman aged about twenty-three or four. She glanced at her watch and lifted high a small bell, the kind Anselm had once seen round the necks of goats in Provence. She rang it vigorously releasing a thin tinkling heard more by its pitch than its volume. At the signal, other teachers casually appeared and ushered their urchins into a line of twos. Each child held the tail of the coat in front, forming a train. When the counting was over they were led off, singing a song that vanished on the wind.

After they had gone, Anselm rose and walked slowly after them, out through the ornamental gates and into the empty street.