Reading other people’s letters without permission was the sort of thing that Freddie considered abhorrent. It was one of the many admonitions he had stressed when Lucy was a child and he was laying out the benchmarks for upright living. Which of course turned out to be ironic because he would dearly have loved to learn about his daughter if she would but tell him, and she wouldn’t, and that left peeping at her mail, which he never did, not even when Darren’s distinctive letters had fallen upon the doormat and Lucy had left them open in her unlocked room. She had done that on purpose, knowing he would want to look, and knowing that he would not.
So it was genuinely an accident when her father picked up a letter to Lucy from her college tutor referring her to Myriam Anderson, the counsellor, and giving her permission to miss lectures and tutorials for several weeks. It had fallen on the floor, out of a coat pocket, while she was visiting her parents, and Lucy had left for Brixton none the wiser. He gave it back to her, with an apology, a day or so later at Chiswick Mall. They were standing in the hallway, just as Lucy was about to leave. She took it, flushing, and answered the trapped question he would not ask:
‘I’ve not dropped out.’
Freddie studied her face for a long while. ‘But why, Lucy? What’s wrong?’ She’d expected anger, more of the old dashed expectations spilling forth like dirty water. But that didn’t happen. For once, he seemed lost, unsure of how to keep hold of the threads that linked him to his daughter. He raised his hands and Lucy felt the lightest of pulls towards him. She said, quickly, ‘I had a friend who died.’
The telling seemed to leave him winded. He didn’t even know about the friend, never mind the death. To her astonishment he came forward and put an arm around her, drawing her head into his neck. Lucy could not remember when that had last happened. She started crying, not for Pascal, not for Agnes, but for herself… and for her father.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he said.
‘So am I.’
And they both knew that their words went far deeper than a reference to recent grief. They reached back, further than either of them could ever have intended or imagined, deep into the unlit past.
As Lucy pulled herself away, she met her father’s open gaze with dismay: how would it ever be possible to tell him about the trial, about Agnes’ notebook, and about his very self?
Lucy attended court the next morning and took her seat. She asked Max what he’d done the night before. Waiting on tables, he said. How awful, she replied. Pays the rent, he responded. Mr Lachaise polished his glasses reflectively, listening to their quick, simple exchange.
The barristers filed into court but, unusually, the jury were not summoned. Mr Justice Pollbrook came on to the bench. Mr Penshaw rose to his feet:
‘My Lord, owing to a rather surprising development in this case, I fear it may be necessary to have a substantial adjournment so that-’
‘How long, Mr Penshaw?’
‘At least the rest of the day’
‘You can have this morning.’
‘My Lord, the development is significant, and I anticipate the need to serve additional evidence upon my Learned Friend. He will need to consider it most carefully’
There was a pause. Mr Penshaw had spoken in Bar-code. The judge quickly scanned the lawyers below
‘Very well. You can have until two-thirty tomorrow That’s a day and a half. Mr Bartlett, any objections?’
‘No, my Lord, I’ve always enjoyed little surprises.’
‘Court rise.’
Lucy thought, faster than she could order her mind: it’s Victor Brionne. He must have decided to speak out. Why else would he have come out of hiding? Why else would the Crown so enjoy expressing their concern for Mr Bartlett? He comes to strike down his former master.
Suffused with exultation, Lucy turned on Schwermann in the dock, but was stunned to see his relief and the slight trembling of repressed emotion: the look of one who has heard the soft approach of his saviour.