Part 26 (1/2)

'Let's see if we can find an answer. You knew Jacques Fougeres?' The barrister was speaking quietly now.

'We were the best of friends. The best ...' He'd become a mourner in a dream.

'Mr Brionne, did Jacques Fougeres have a child?' Lucy sat forward.

'Yes.'

'A boy or a girl?' 'A little boy.'

'Did you know the mother?'

'Yes. Agues Aubret.'

'By reference to the racial regulations implemented by the n.a.z.is, to which ethnic group did she belong?'

'She was Jewish.'

'And the boy?'

'The same. He was Jewish.'

'Even though the father was a French Catholic?'

'Yes.'

'As far as Mr Schwermann's superior officers were concerned, the boy, if found, would unquestionably have been deported?'

'Yes, unless she had forged papers to conceal her Jewishness.' 'Where is Agnes Aubret now?' asked Mr Bartlett quietly 'She perished. Auschwitz.'

Brionne was unable to continue. His face shuddered repeatedly with such violence that the judge suggested he might like to sit down, but Mr Bartlett pressed on urgently: 'And the boy, the boy; what happened to the boy?'

'He was saved,' mumbled Brionne, turning quickly to the dock. 'Mr Schwermann took the child, before the arrests were carried out, and hid him with a good family.'

Mr Bartlett followed through quickly and quietly, prompting fluid, hushed replies.

'How do you know this?'

'I saw it with my own eyes.

'How often did the opportunity to act in this way arise?'

'Just this once.

'He seized it?'

'He did.'

Lucy could not bear it any more. She sidled hurriedly out of her row towards the court doors as Mr Bartlett sat down and picked up his highlighter.

2.

The folder was sealed as if it were meant to survive the rough handling of a prying child. Max stared at the unmarked surface, the bands of brown masking tape crossing each other like planks in a garden fence. His fingers held the corners lightly, reluctantly, as if the whole might dirty him.

Anselm had brought Max to the table beneath the wellingtonia tree after he'd arrived at Larkwood unannounced. A thick stubble dirtied his neck and cheeks. He said: 'The day my grandfather came here, he gave me this.' Max placed it on the table and drew his hands away. 'He told me ”You're the only person I can trust, you always have been, but now it matters more than ever before. Keep this safe. Show it to no one. If Victor Brionne is found then bring it to me immediately If not, and I'm convicted, then I want you to burn it. But promise me this; do not open it.”'

Anselm's mind tracked back to Genesis and the instruction of the Creator: not to eat the fruit of the tree that gave knowledge of good and evil. Schwermann had played G.o.d with the same rash confidence that obedience would be rendered. Max continued: 'Yesterday, the Prosecution asked for an adjournment. In my guts I knew it was because Brionne had turned up. I've just heard a news bulletin. I was right. The Prosecution have closed their case. As we sit here, Brionne is giving evidence on my grandfather's behalf. I'm meant to have brought this to court' - he pointed at the folder - 'but I can't, not without knowing what's inside.' He pushed it towards Anselm. 'I can't open it. I've brought the one part of him he did not bring to Larkwood.'

Somewhere out of sight, one of the brothers was at work making one of the songs of spring: the unhurried sc.r.a.pe of sandpaper on outdoor timber, a preparation before the laying of paint. Anselm took the folder and carefully pulled it apart. He withdrew three doc.u.ments held neatly together by a paper-clip. Laid on the table, their corners lifted lightly in the breeze.

The dull blue ink had the slight blurring characteristic of print from an old typewriter. Anselm signalled to Max to come closer, to see for himself.

The first was headed 'Drancy-Auschwitz'. It carried a list of numbered names and was evidently a deportation register. Before Anselm could scan the entire page his eyes alighted upon a single entry: 4. AUBRET, Agnes 23.3.1919 Francaise The lower right-hand corner had been signed by Victor Brionne - representing, presumably, either the compilation of the list or confirmation of its execution. Anselm turned it over and saw the faded smudge of ink around the indentations of lettering: the list had been typed upon a carbon sheet. This was the original. Somewhere there was a duplicate. It was an irrelevant detail that nonetheless attached itself to Anselm's concentration.

Anselm turned to the second doc.u.ment. It was another Drancy-Auschwitz convoy list, a block of names. The dates of birth caught his eye. He stared at distant trees, carrying out a spontaneous horrified calculation. They were all children. Each was marked off as though safely accounted for on a last school trip. And there, near the top of the page, Anselm saw what he half expected to see: a boy called Aubret, aged fifteen months, French, and in the margin a broad, unwavering tick. Again, the paper was signed by Victor Brionne. Instinctively he glanced at its back. Curiously, the page was clean, without the marks of carbon.

Anselm turned quickly to the third sheet. It was an SS memorandum dated 8th June 1942 and appeared to be an interrogation record. Although Anselm could not understand German, the term 'Judenkinder' was nauseatingly clear. There was a sub-heading in French within quotation marks, 'La Table Ronde'. Beneath it was a list of names, roughly a dozen, two of which he recognised: Agnes Aubret and Jacques Fougeres. The bottom of the page carried the signature of Victor Brionne. He turned it over. Once more it was clean, an original text.

Anselm's pulse raced in disgust. He put the doc.u.ments back in the folder. The questions sprang forward: why had Schwermann kept these at all ... and why had he retained original records, leaving behind a duplicate only in the case of Agnes Aubret?

'Max,' said Anselm. 'Your grandfather has prepared for this trial, right from the start, even before he knew the outcome of the war. These show that Brionne was involved in the betrayal of The Round Table and the deportation system ... with those papers you hold your grandfather's life in your hands.'

Max was blinking rapidly He said in a detached, failing voice, 'He must be blackmailing Brionne. Whatever Brionne is saying to the court will be a fairy tale ... agreed between them fifty years ago.

'I'm afraid you're right.'

The soft song of spring played on: the sc.r.a.ping over dry, rough wood. Max bit his lip and said, 'Before I go to the police ... I'll have to prepare my family, my mother ...

'Would you like me to come with you?' asked Anselm.

'Yes.' The word was barely spoken.

Anselm didn't want to say what was pressing upon his mind but he had no choice: 'Max, I don't want to make things worse but there isn't much time - you need to speak to the police as soon as possible. The Prosecution will need what you now possess.'

3.

'Mr Brionne,' said Miss Matthews stonily, 'you have been very public-spirited, coming forward, it would seem, without any outside compulsion.'

Lucy had slipped back through the court doors to find Mr Penshaw seated and the young woman barrister on her feet.