William Brodrick - The Sixth Lamentation

Conroy took his bearings and began a steady pulling of the oars.

‘He can’t obey Twice he lies. First, because he’s dazzled by its beauty. Next, because he asks a cracking good question: “Were it well to obey then, if a king demand an act unprofitable against himself?”‘

Conroy nodded knowledgably

‘So he lies. “What did you see or hear?” asks Arthur. “Just ripples and lapping.” But the king knows the answer isn’t true. He’s waiting anxiously for something outside the usual order of things.’

The oar-blades cut the surface of the lake.

“‘I’ll rise and kill you with my hands if you fail me this last time,” the king says, and the well-trusted knight runs for his very life to the shore and, with eyes shut, flings Excalibur far into the night. He’s obeyed but expects his old lie to come true. But something undreamed-of happens, at the very last moment. ‘

They were nearing the middle of the lake.

‘When he looks again, an arm clothed in white samite rises from the water and catches the hilt. Thrice it’s brandished, and drawn gently beneath the mere.’

Conroy rested and scratched his thick arms.

‘Overwhelmed, Bedivere runs back to tell the king what he’s seen. There the king lies, among the stones of a chapel ruin. He’s lost everything he cared about in this life. The Round Table is no more; its knights, man by man, having fallen under the sword. But the dream for which he hoped and waited has happened. The hand that gave him the sword has taken it back. His life has meaning. He does not die bewildered.’

Conroy pulled the oars through their locks, letting the boat gently turn and drift as it pleased.

‘I’ve always had a soft spot for Sir Bedivere,’ said Anselm. ‘He’s a bemused English empiricist, ill at ease with mysticism. And, rather unfairly he gets his head bitten off for keeping his feet on the ground:

Conroy made a pillow from his jumper, lodged it in the prow and lay back.

Anselm said, ‘As a boy I often used to wonder how Arthur would have died if Bedivere had come back and said, honestly this time, “Truly I saw nothing but water lapping on the crag. She did not come.

A slight wind threw ripples upon the lake, chasing shadows and reflections into a dark shiver. The boat turned in circles. Conroy was lying back, legs outstretched and arms crossed upon his chest. Unnoticed, the oars quietly slipped from their locks and bobbed away

‘“And God fulfils himself in many ways”,’ cited Conroy

‘Where’s that from?’ asked Anselm.

‘The same poem; part of the old king’s final testament, just before he dies as I’d like to die.’

‘How’s that?’

Conroy sat up, his face alight, mischievous. ‘In the arms of three beautiful weeping women.

Lucy and her parents sat at a table playing Scrabble in the small courtyard garden of Chiswick Mall. Agnes, propped up, watched from her bed through the open French windows.

Susan glared at the row of letters on her stand. Lucy leaned back to sneak a look: Q, F, X, L, B… She turned away, gratified. Her mother was choking without vowels. The game produced in Lucy a ruthless competitive urge that permitted minor infractions of the rules. It was her father’s turn. He put the small tablets carefully on the board:

Y-A-W

‘That’s not a word,’ said Susan petulantly

‘Is that a challenge?’ replied Freddie, his hand on the dictionary as if it were a gun.

‘No.’

Lucy studied her own predicament: Z, Q, K, 0, 5, 0, A. It was hopeless. ‘Would anyone like some tea?’

Her mother nodded fiercely.

Lucy passed through the French windows and sat by her grandmother’s side. She leaned forward and said, ‘What do you make of this lot?’ She recited her letters. Agnes thought for a moment while Lucy retrieved the alphabet card from the side of the bed. Agnes replied:

Z-O-O-K-S

Lucy said, doubtfully, ‘Are you sure?’

Agnes nodded with her eyelids.

‘Thanks.’

Lucy went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. A noise behind startled her. It was her father.

‘Anything wrong?’ she asked innocently

‘Lucy,’ he said gravely ‘I saw you on the news, in the back-ground, coming out of a court…

Lucy thrust both hands into her hair, disarranging the carefully placed grips and clips. Her father struggled to continue. ‘It’s to do with Gran, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Lucy not curtly or reluctantly but with mercy.

‘She knows that Nazi bastard, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes, Dad, she does.’

‘My God.’ He arranged his tie and rubbed an eyebrow, saying, ‘Will I ever know what happened?’

Without reflection but with something approaching passion, Lucy said, ‘Yes, you will, I promise, but it can’t be now’

‘All right.’ He spoke like a beggar on the street promised a sandwich instead of money. The reversal of power stung. She filled the pot with steaming water.

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 Fougeres.’

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.

Anselm tried several times to contact DI Armstrong. His calls were not returned, so he left a message — that she should phone him urgently regarding a personal matter. Immediately afterwards he left for London, driven by Conroy. It had been arranged that they would lodge at St Catherine’s, an Augustinian house near the Old Bailey As they passed through the gates of Larkwood, Anselm took a last glimpse of the monastery, its countless roofs folding in upon the other like so many russet wings, and he felt an aching as he’d only known when he used to depart for his old life at the Bar.

The Prior of St Catherine’s provided large iron keys, fashioned, it seemed, in the Middle Ages, and the next morning Conroy set off for the library at Heythrop College. Anselm removed his habit and walked briskly to the court. The Press, burdened by large bags bulging with lenses, were already circling the entrance. The big kill would come after the verdict. For the moment they were taking pot shots at the herd with an intimidating languor. Anselm nipped past, unnoticed, and entered the ancient hall he’d known so well before he was a monk. At a reception desk enclosed in thick glass he asked for either Detective Inspector Armstrong or Detective Superintendent Milby After a long wait a smartly dressed WPC came to see him. She said: