Lakewood Priory, Suffolk. It is following his afternoon confessions that Father Anselm is stopped by an old man in the nave. What, he is asked, should a man do when the world has turned against him? Anselm's response, to claim sanctuary, is to have greater resonance than he could ever have imagined. For that evening the old man returns, demanding the protection of the Church. His name is Eduard Schwermann and he is wanted by the police as a suspected war criminal.
With her life running out, Agnes Aubret feels it is time to unburden to her granddaughter Lucy the secrets she has been carrying for so long. Fifty years earlier, Agnes had been living in Occupied Paris, a member of a small group risking their lives to smuggle Jewish children to safety - until they were exposed by a young SS Officer: Eduard Schwermann . . .
But as Father Anselm discovers, history is more slippery, more complicated than it first appears. For not only has the Church given Schwermann sanctuary before, in 1955 it helped him escape from France and begin a new life in Britain.
