William Brodrick - The Sixth Lamentation

‘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.’

A monk called Father Anselm led them to an unkempt herb garden and a table beneath an ancient wellingtonia tree, talking of his schooldays in Paris. At the first natural break Pascal said, ‘Father, let me say I for one haven’t swallowed the story that the Priory has any sympathy for “Schwermann’s predicament” — I think that was the phrase. I used to be a journalist so I recognise the musings of a hack when I see them.’

‘I’m very grateful for that,’ said Father Anselm, not, it seemed, entirely at ease. ‘It would appear we live in a time when any swipe at the Church sounds credible, which is probably the Church’s fault as much as anyone else’s.’

‘Maybe, but one of the first things I learned as a journalist was that if you set anything down in print, however bizarre, it looks plausible.’

The monk said, ‘Unfortunately some stories about the Church are both bizarre and true.’

Turning to the subject of their visit, Pascal said, ‘Father, Eduard Schwermann is one of those alarming people who diligently went to work within a system of killing as if it was a Peugeot factory. After that, someone hid him.’

The monk seemed unsurprised at something that had always struck Lucy as astonishing.

Pascal continued, ‘There will be a trial, but it doesn’t follow that justice will be done. Turning over the past is a bit like waking Leviathan. Anything can happen, and sometimes it’s the innocent that get devoured.’

‘I’ve seen the devastation many times.’

‘To stop that happening we need someone who knew him and saw him at work.’

‘Who?’ The question seemed artificial.

‘A man called Victor Brionne. That’s why we’re here. I know it’s unlikely but if he makes contact with the Priory for any reason, will you urge him to come forward? I’m not asking him to go to the police, just to talk with me and my colleague in private.’ Pascal nodded his head towards Lucy