The Sixth Lamentation

Chapter Twenty-Seven

1

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 Sacré Coeur. The next morning he set off for the Boulevard de Courcelles, near Parc Monceau, to the Fougères 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 Fougères 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.

2

Etienne was the son of Claude Fougères and the nephew of Jacques, the Resistance hero. After the war the family had remained in the South — until the eighties when Etienne’s political career rose from local to national level. That prompted the return to Paris. The house had been rented out for nearly forty years, so it was a real homecoming.

‘And then, just when things got back to where they were before the war, Pascal was taken away

Anselm gleaned this and more from the mumbling old butler who opened the great black front door and took him slowly to a drawing room on the third floor.

Monsieur and Madame Fougères were subdued elegance itself, sitting apart on either end of a pink chaise longue, their faces darkened by grief. Anselm moved gently over the terrain of sympathy, explaining the predicament faced by the police enquiry. To his surprise, they understood perfectly They made no complaint: no sallies against the Law; no plea for a fairer world. They did not expect the legal system to give them something it was not designed, and could not be designed, to produce: a civic response proportionate to their loss. But while he spoke Anselm observed, painfully the cleft that had opened between mother and father. It was freshly cut.

‘I begged him not to go after that man. Begged him. But he would not listen,’ said Etienne.

Monique Fougères closed her eyes slowly, her hands cupped upon her lap.

‘I wish he’d left the past alone,’ said Etienne. ‘It’s not a safe place while it touches on the living.’

Madame Fougères lowered her head, speaking quietly ‘Tell me anything he said, Father, anything at all. I want to imagine his voice.’

‘We only spoke about Schwermann … and someone called Agnes.’

Anselm threw in the last half-truth as the door opened and the butler brought forth tea. Etienne’s facial muscles had seized. The butler poured. Etienne reached for a small cup.

‘Agnes?’ he said, enquiringly

‘Yes. I got the impression she was once known to the family’

‘No, I’m afraid not.’

Anselm thought: you’re lying. He said, ‘Apparently she had a child.’

‘Pardon?’ said Etienne, an eyebrow raised, offering milk for the English palate.

‘A child.’

‘I’m sorry, no. As far as I know, Jacques never knew anyone called Agnes.’

Anselm felt the warm trembling of success: we were talking about Pascal, not Jacques…

Monique Fougères looked at her husband across a void. The butler softly closed the doors and the cleft between mother and father fell open wide.

3

By the great entrance cars chased each other down the Boulevard de Courcelles. The butler stepped outside with Anselm, his eyes towards the ornate gates of Parc Monceau. He said, ‘I knew Agnes Aubret.’

Anselm only just caught the words.

‘I held her child.’

The raucous sound of children spilled out from the park, scattering through the passing cars.

‘Is she alive?’ The butler spoke as though he would die.

‘I’m not sure, but I think so. I’ve met a young woman who knows her.’

The butler pushed his hand deep into his pocket and produced a tattered envelope.

‘Father, please, find out if she’s alive. Give her this. It’s from Jacques. He asked me to get it to her after the war, if he was caught and she survived.’

Anselm took the envelope.

‘Say Mr Snyman has borne it for fifty years.’

The butler stepped back and the door swung shut. Anselm stood still, slightly stunned. He took another walk through the park to calm himself. It was crawling with children on their lunch break, arriving in cohorts from a nearby school. He paused by the gates into Avenue Hoche. A group entered two by two, each child wearing a white sash. And on the sash was the name of the school and a telephone number so that not one of them could be lost.