The Sixth Lamentation

Chapter Thirty-Seven

1

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.

Anselm drove quickly back to Larkwood. He would have to see Father Andrew urgently, given what he had learned from the documents, and what had just happened to them in the hands of someone who could not face what they contained. Sylvester reminded him the Prior was away for two days at a conference, but he’d mislaid the contact number. Anselm left him thumbing scraps of notepaper and sought out Gerald, the sub-Prior. Father Andrew was tracked down and he arranged to return to Larkwood the next night.

Anselm went to his room and tried to be still, knowing the trial was moving towards an ending but that he alone possessed all the keys to its resolution.