Lucy arrived at the Old Bailey, just in time to catch the learned judge’s final remarks. There was standing room only.
‘It should be noted,’ said Mr Justice Pollbrook evenly, ‘that for fifty years no student of the times knew that Jacques Fougeres had a child. This is now admitted by the family and perforce by the Crown. Why it should ever have been concealed in the first place escapes my imagination, but that need not trouble you. The important fact is that the detail came from Mr Brionne.’ He examined the jurors dispassionately ‘If you are satisfied that having told one significant truth the rest of his evidence can also be believed, then you are entitled to infer the boy in fact, survived solely because of the conduct of the Defendant. If that is your conclusion, then you are left with the anomaly upon which Mr Bartlett seeks to rely – that it would indeed be strange for the Defendant to have pledged himself to an enterprise that involved the death or serious harm of other children. However, ladies and gentlemen, let me say this.’ Mr Justice Pollbrook stared hard at the jury. ‘In my long experience, people can be very strange indeed. Look at your own families. How many of them leave you baffled at every turn? No, you must ask yourselves a different type of question altogether: if you are sure of what the Prosecution allege, you must find the Defendant guilty. If you are not sure, you acquit.’
The judge then went through each count on the indictment, giving a series of questions designed to determine whether or not the Defendant was guilty – of the ‘if you decide A, then 13 must follow’ variety. When he had finished, the judge closed his red book and removed his glasses, saying, ‘Down whichever avenues your reflections may lead you, please remember this. The ground of suspicion belongs to the Defendant.’
The jury then retired, bound by a promise to consider what justice was required according to the evidence. Mr Justice Pollbrook said at this stage he only wanted a verdict upon which they were all agreed.
There was no mistaking it, thought Lucy as she left the court. Whatever the judge had said about the abstract requirements of the law, Schwermann’s innocence or guilt was going to turn on what the jury thought about the strange story of a child, believed by them all to be still alive, known by Lucy and Agnes to be dead.