The Last Judgement

10

Flavia’s train arrived in Paris at 7:15 the next morning, and she was ejected unceremoniously by the station porters into the cold, windy hall of the Gare de l’Est while still half asleep. It had been a rotten ride: non-stop interruptions from screaming babies, ticket-inspectors, new arrivals in the compartment and sudden, jerking stops waking her up, it seemed, every five minutes. She felt dirty, unkempt and ragged. God, just look at me, she thought as she looked at herself in a mirror. What a mess. At least Jonathan never notices. She was looking forward to seeing him; he was a reassuring person to be around and, even though he was frequently mightily irritating, she found herself pleasurably anticipating a long chat. There hadn’t been much to be cheerful about recently, after all.

She was half inclined to stop and have a coffee and a proper breakfast before heading off to his hotel. What she thought was his hotel, anyway. It had never occurred to her that he might be staying in a different one. Now that it did, she realized she had a potential problem on her hands. How would she ever find him? Equally alarming, what if he’d gone back to Rome?

Worry about that later, she told herself. The more immediate problem was that no bars were yet open, she had no French money, and consequently couldn’t take a taxi.

She walked down the stairway into the Métro, worked out where she was meant to be heading, then stood and watched the passers-by. About one in ten came up to the turnstiles, looked around carefully and vaulted over. Although there were official-looking types around, they paid no attention. When in Paris, do as the Parisians, she thought. Clutching her bag, she hopped over the barrier, then scampered off down to the platform, feeling atrociously guilty.

She had once stayed with Argyll in his usual hotel, and remembered it was somewhere near the Panthéon. Exactly where was more difficult: it is an area with a lot of hotels, and all Flavia could remember was that it had a very ornate door. On the fourth go she didn’t find it, but at least got directions from an early-morning porter to the right place. She finally arrived at 8:15.

Did they have a Jonathan Argyll staying here?

A flipping of pages, then the man at the desk admitted that they did.

Where was he?

Room nine. Did she want him to ring?

No, it was all right. She’d just go up.

And so she did, walking up the stairs, finding the right door and knocking on it vigorously.

‘Jonathan?’ she called. ‘Open up. It’s me.’

There was a long silence. There was no one in. Unlike him, she thought. Not one of the world’s early risers.

She stood outside the door for a few moments, wondering what to do next. Of all the possibilities she’d considered, the idea that he might be out had never crossed her mind.

Fortunately, she did not have to resolve the problem of what to do next on her own. A clumping of feet up the stairs — Argyll was no ballet-dancer — indicated that the decision was made for her.

‘Flavia!’ Argyll said as he appeared, in much the same tone as you’d expect from a stranded mountaineer greeting his favourite St Bernard as it turns up with a keg of brandy.

‘There you are. Where have you been at this ungodly hour?’

‘Me? Oh, nowhere, really. Just to get some cigarettes. That’s all.’

‘Just after eight on a Sunday morning?’

‘Is it? Oh. I couldn’t sleep. I’m so pleased to see you. Here.’

And he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her with a vehemence she had not noticed in him before.

‘You look really beautiful,’ he said, standing back and looking at her admiringly. ‘Quite wonderful.’

‘Is anything the matter?’ she asked.

‘No. Why do you ask? But I had an awful night. Tossing and turning.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Oh, nothing. I was thinking.’

‘About your picture, I suppose?’

‘Eh? No, not about that. I was thinking about life. Us. That sort of thing.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a long story. But I was wondering what it would be like if we split up.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she said, a little perturbed. ‘What makes you think of that?’

‘It would be awful. I couldn’t face it.’

‘Ah. Why is this in your mind at the moment?’

‘No reason,’ he said brightly, thinking about the previous evening and his decision about apartments. She was going to take some persuading. The old charm was going to be needed. Not that he mentioned any of this, with the result that Flavia was forced to conclude that he was going slightly wobbly on her. This sort of gushing he normally kept to himself. He was English, after all.

‘Do you have any money?’ she asked eventually. No point in pursuing this bizarre mood of his, after all. And it was early.

‘Yes. Not much.’

‘Enough to buy me breakfast?’

‘Enough for that, yes.’

‘Good. So take me somewhere. Then you can tell me what you’ve been doing in the few minutes I have before I fall asleep for ever.’

‘That’s not bad at all,’ she said, two coffees and a measly croissant later. A bit patronizing really, but she was too tired for subtlety. ‘If I grasp it right, you think that Muller may have contacted Besson after this exhibition, Besson pinched the thing and delivered it to Delorme. Then Besson gets arrested, Delorme panics and unloads it on to you. The man with the scar talks to Delorme pretending to be a policeman, finds out that you have the thing, and tries to pinch it at the Gare de Lyon. He then trails you to Rome, goes to Muller and wham. Exit Muller.’

‘An exemplary summary,’ Argyll said. ‘You should have been a civil servant.’

‘I, meanwhile, have discovered that Muller had been obsessed by this picture for the past two years, believing it contained something of value. He thought it belonged to his father who hanged himself. The trouble is this Ellman character. Why would he come to Rome as well? The Paris phone call could have come from your man with the scar, but why would both of them turn up in Rome?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There’s no chance the phone call came from Rouxel?’ she went on.

‘Not according to his granddaughter, no. That is, she’d never heard of Ellman and deals with all Rouxel’s mail and stuff. Besides, she said he’d given up hope of finding the picture. Wasn’t even looking.’

She yawned mightily, then looked at her watch. ‘Oh hell, it’s ten o’clock.’

‘So?’

‘So I hoped to have a bath and a lie-down, but there isn’t time. I have to get to the airport by midday. Ellman’s son is due back. I want to have a little chat with him. Not that I’m looking forward to it.’

‘Oh,’ said Argyll. ‘I was hoping to spend some time with you. You know. Paris. Romance. That sort of thing.’

She looked at him incredulously. His sense of timing was sometimes so bad it defied the imagination.

‘My dear demented art dealer. I have had four hours’ sleep in the past two days or something. I have not had a bath for such a long time I don’t know if I could remember how to run the water. People sitting next to me on the Métro get up and move away. I have no clean clothes, and a lot of work to do. I am not in the mood either for romance or sight-seeing.’

‘Ah,’ he said, continuing the monosyllabic style he had settled on. ‘Shall I come with you to the airport?’

‘No. Why don’t you take that picture back?’

‘I thought you wanted to examine it?’

‘I did. But you tell me there’s nothing to examine...’

‘There isn’t. I’ve been sharing a bed with Socrates for the past day or so. I know it inside and out, up and down. There ain’t nothing there.’

‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘You’re the expert. And I thought, now if you took it back, you might get to talk to Rouxel. See if he knows anything that might be of help. Ask him about Hartung. Ellman. Somebody must connect these two somehow. You know. Probe.’

Then, looking at her watch again and tutting about how late she was, she ran off, leaving Argyll to pay the bill. She came back a few moments later, just for long enough to borrow some money off him.

Getting to Charles de Gaulle is not the sort of thing you do in a taxi if your boyfriend has only grudgingly given you two hundred francs to last the day. Admittedly it was nearly all that he had on him, but not princely. So she took one as far as Châtelet, then wandered around, getting increasingly anxious, in the semi-lit subterranean corridors, wandering where, in this vast underground mausoleum, they actually kept the trains. By the time she’d tracked the right one down, hidden cunningly among the booths and leather-goods stalls, and got on board, she was in no mood to be soothed by the music which wafted across the platform to her ear-drums. She was in a sweat of anxiety which, considering her state, wasn’t a good idea. If she didn’t have a bath soon, she’d have to burn these clothes.

She got to the airport about twenty minutes after Ellman junior’s plane was due to land, and then had to wait for a bus to get to the right terminal. Then she ran all the way up to Arrivals, anxiously scanning the notice-boards. ‘Baggage in hall,’ she was told, damn it. There was not much point in just standing and staring at the tired and weary passengers as they trooped past, so she ran to the enquiries desk and got them to put out a message.

Then she stood around, stifling another fit of yawns, and waited. It wouldn’t be a disaster if she missed him, so she thought. But it would be a great shame, and involve not only her having to go back to Switzerland, but also subjection to Bottando’s ironic looks when he examined her expenses, coupled, no doubt, with muttered comments about attention to detail.

She was still thinking along these lines when she noticed the man on the desk pointing her out to a newly arrived traveller. She had formed a picture of Bruno Ellman from the description given by the housekeeper. Not a flattering one at all, despite her attempts to keep an open mind. A playboy type, was what she’d come up with. Expensive khaki trousers, safari gear, a large Nikon. Sunburnt, extravagant and bit of a parasite.

What she got instead was very different. For a start, he was in his forties, if only his early forties. A bit paunchy, with too much starch in his diet. Rumpled clothes whose condition could not be attributed solely to an overnight flight in an aircraft. Hair thinning on top, with what remained turning a little grey.

Must have made a mistake, she thought, as the man came up and introduced himself and proved her wrong. It was Bruno Ellman.

‘I’m so glad you heard the message,’ she said in French. ‘I was afraid I’d missed you. Is French OK?’

He inclined his head. ‘French is fine,’ he replied with a better accent than hers. ‘And here I am. Standing before you, and at something of a disadvantage.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and introduced herself, producing her identity card for good measure. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news. Could we go somewhere quiet to talk?’

‘What bad news?’ he asked, standing his ground.

‘It’s your father.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said with the air of someone almost expecting it. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m afraid he’s dead. Murdered.’

Now this was curious. On first impression — of which Flavia was particularly fond — Ellman held up well. The sort of person you’d trust to give you directions if you were lost. The type who would be a good son, whatever that was. The sort who would be upset to hear of his father dying, and devastated to hear of his being murdered.

But this was not the reaction. Ellman pursed his lips as he digested the information, but produced no further response at all. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘We should go somewhere quiet to talk.’

And he led her off to the bar on the ground floor of the vast concrete building, then disappeared to get coffee.

If he was in any way disconcerted by the sudden fashion in which he was given the news, he had put himself back together by the time he returned. ‘Right,’ he said in a businesslike way. ‘Perhaps you’d better tell me what’s been going on.’

Flavia had no reason not to, so she produced a fairly full account, followed by her increasingly standardized set of questions. Was his father interested in pictures? No. Did he know someone called Muller? No. Or Hartung? No. What about Rouxel?

‘Not such a rare name,’ he said non-committally.

‘It strikes a chord?’

‘Tell me about him.’

‘Jean. A businessman and politician, in his seventies,’ she said succinctly.

‘French?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has he been in the news recently?’

‘He was awarded something called the Europa prize. It’s quite a big deal, so I’m told, so it was probably reported.’

‘Yes,’ Ellman said. ‘That’s the one.’ He thought for a moment, trying to pin the memory down. ‘That’s right,’ he said eventually.

‘Go on.’

‘There’s nothing else to say,’ he said apologetically. ‘I heard about it on the news.’

‘That’s all? No connection with your father?’

‘Not as far as I know. My father was not the sort of person someone like Rouxel would ever associate with, I think. I didn’t myself, normally, except when there were money problems.’

‘Like your allowance being late.’

He looked at her with surprise, noting the faint tone of disapproval that had crept in. ‘You have been doing your work. Been talking to Madame Rouvet as well, I see.’

She nodded.

‘Yes, my allowance, if you want to call it that. Did Madame Rouvet tell you what I do, by the way?’

‘No.’

‘I suppose you got the standard story. Good-for-nothing lay-about. Well, if you like...’

‘OK then. What do you do?’

‘I work for a charity. It sends aid to Africa, mainly francophone. Africa and areas with problems. I’ve been in Chad for the last couple of weeks. There’s an epidemic there.’

‘Oh.’

‘Not on safari, if that’s what you were thinking. My, ah, allowance funds an orphanage for kids so starved they become brain-damaged. If there’s nothing else to be done, we bring them out and try to do what we can in Switzerland. A drop in the bucket, and the money I get from my father — got from my father in fact, as I’ve no doubt it’ll all go to his housekeeper now — was a mere molecule in the bucket.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I got the wrong impression.’

‘At least you’re honest about it. Thank you. Apology accepted. I wouldn’t have brought the subject up at all...’

‘Except for the fact that you thought maybe I was wondering whether you had organized your father’s death for the money.’

He nodded. ‘If it helps you can see my passport. The village I was in was so out of the way that it would have been impossible to sneak out, kill my father and sneak back in anything under five days. My main defence is that he didn’t really have enough money to be worth killing.’

‘I believe you,’ said a chastened and somewhat surprised Flavia. ‘Do you know anything about your father’s finances?’

‘Not a thing. Nor do I want to know.’

‘There was a bank statement and cheque-book in his apartment with monthly payments of money. Quite a lot of money. Where did it come from?’

Ellman sighed. ‘I really don’t know or care. I just know that when it was late, last year, I mentioned it and he said not to worry, he was going to sort it out the next day. The next day I rang and Madame Rouvet said he’d gone on a trip. Sure enough, the money came in regular as clockwork after that. That’s all I can tell you. We barely communicated, except when we had to.

‘My father and I did not get on too well,’ he said. ‘In fact we hated each other. He was a vicious and mean man. A monster in his small-minded way. He didn’t even have the grandeur to be a big monster. He as good as killed my mother through his neglect and cruelty, and I remember my own childhood as being one long nightmare. He sucked people dry. I loathed him.’

‘But you asked for money, and he gave it.’

‘And didn’t he hate it.’

‘But if he was as bad as you say, why did he give it?’

Ellman gave a smile which Flavia thought initially was apologetic, until it became clear that it was a smile of pure pleasure at the memory. ‘Because I was blackmailing him,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’

‘I was blackmailing him. The Swiss are very punctilious people, and my father concealed certain matters when he got his citizenship. Like what his real name was. Had they found out, he would possibly have been prosecuted, and would certainly have lost his citizenship and his job. About a decade ago I found out about it, and suggested then that he started contributing to my charitable work. By way of recompense.’

‘You did that to your own father?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘Why not?’

‘But why did he change his name?’

‘Nothing terrible, you know. He wasn’t a bank-robber on the run or anything. At least, I don’t think so.’

He said it with the tone of someone who had almost certainly made some enquiries. It’s the way it was, it seemed; people wanting to find out about their fathers, the good and the bad. What a lot of trouble it caused.

‘It was the need for a job. The original Ellman was a comrade killed in the war. A childhood friend, I gather, although it’s difficult to imagine my father having friends. My father was the town layabout and thug, Ellman was the studious, hardworking type. Before they both went into the army, my father drank and chased girls, Ellman studied and got a degree. He was killed, so when he came to Switzerland in 1948 my father assumed his name, and the degree, and got a well-paid job on the basis of it. Jobs were short after the war. He reckoned he had a right to all the help he could get. He was like that.’

‘What was his original name?’

‘Franz Schmidt. About as common a name as you can get, really.’

‘I see,’ she said. A new variety of family life, she thought. Which was worse, a father like that, or a son like him? Maybe they deserved each other. Ellman seemed untroubled by what he said; he lived in a topsy-turvy world where bad means corrupted good ends and he was incapable of noticing. What made such a man tick, she wondered after she’d ended the interview and gone back to the train. Did he end up working for an African charity to cancel out his father? Didn’t it occur to him that maybe he was re-creating his father behind a smoke-screen of virtue? It would have been so much easier had he been a simple, straightforward, no-nonsense playboy she could have disliked.

By the time Argyll got back from his errand, Flavia was making up for lost time. She’d bathed, collapsed on the bed, and was so profoundly unconscious she could well have been in advanced rigor mortis. Argyll found her, breathing softly, her mouth open, her head resting on her arm, curled up like a hamster in full hibernation and, much as he wanted to prod her and tell her his little stories, he let her be. Instead, he watched her awhile. Watching her snooze was a favourite occupation of his. How you sleep is a good indication of what you are like: some people thrash around and mutter to themselves, constantly in turmoil; or regress to childhood and stick their thumbs in their mouths; some, like Flavia, manifest a deep-seated tranquillity that is often disguised when they are awake. For Argyll, watching Flavia sleep was almost as restful as sleeping himself.

As spectator sports go, however, it could command the attention for only a short time, and after a while he left to go for a walk. He was feeling quite pleased with himself. See if you can talk to Rouxel, Flavia had instructed and, obedient as he was, that was exactly what he’d done. When he’d left Jeanne Armand, he’d promised to bring the picture round the next day; the implication was that he would take it round to her apartment. But there was no reason why he shouldn’t indulge himself in a little misunderstanding so, taking the picture, a taxi and what money he had, he’d gone out to Neuilly-sur-Seine.

A suburb just outside Paris proper, Neuilly is very much a place for the rich middle classes who have the funds to indulge their tastes. Apartment blocks began to spring up in the 1960s, but many of the villas built there still survive, small monuments to France’s first flirtation with the Anglo-Saxon ideal of gardens and privacy and peace and quiet.

Jean Rouxel lived in one such villa, an 1890s’ rusticated art nouveau affair, surrounded by high walls and iron gates. When he arrived, Argyll rang the bell, waited for the little buzzer indicating that the gate had been unlocked, then marched up the garden path.

Rouxel had taken the possession of a garden seriously. Although the English eye could fault the excessive use of gravel and look a little scornfully at the state of the lawn, at least there was a lawn to look scornfully at. The plants were laid out with care as well, with a distinct attempt at the cottage-garden look of domesticated wildness. Certainly there was none of the Cartesian regimentalism with which the French so frequently like to coerce nature. Just as well; however geometrically satisfying, there is always something painful to the English eye about French gardens, creating a tendency to purse the lips and feel sorry for the plants. Rouxel was different; you could tell at a glance that the owner was inclined to let nature take its course. It was a liberal garden, if you can attribute political qualities to horticulture. Owned by someone who was comfortable with the way things were, and didn’t want to tell them how they should be. Good man, thought Argyll as he crunched up the path. It is dangerous to form an opinion about someone merely on his choice of wisteria, but Argyll was half inclined to like Rouxel even before they’d met.

He was even more so inclined when he did. He found Rouxel outside, around the side of the house, looking pensively at a small flower-bed. He was dressed as people should be on a Sunday morning. As with gardens themselves, there are two schools of thought on this: the Anglo-Saxon, which prefers to slope around looking like a vagabond, in old trousers, crumpled shirt and sweater with holes symmetrically located at both elbows. Then there is the Continental school which dons its best and presents itself to the outside world in a haze of eau-de-Cologne after hours of preparation.

However much he was the epitome of French values, Rouxel belonged, sartorially, on English territory. Or at least on an off-shore island: the jacket was a bit too high-quality, the trousers still had a crease in them and the sweater only had one, very small, hole in it. But he was trying, no doubt about it.

As Argyll approached with an amiable smile on his face and Socrates under his arm, Rouxel grunted, bent over — stiffly, as you’d expect from a man in his seventies, but with signs of suppleness none the less — and pounced on a weed, which he ripped out and eyed with triumph. He then placed it carefully in a small wicker basket hanging on his right arm.

‘They’re a devil, aren’t they?’ said Argyll walking up. ‘Weeds, I mean.’

Rouxel turned round and looked at him puzzled for a moment. Then he noted the package and smiled.

‘You’ll be Monsieur Argyll, I imagine,’ he said.

‘Yes. Do forgive me for disturbing you,’ Argyll said as Rouxel looked placidly at him. ‘I hope your granddaughter told you I would be coming...’

‘Jeanne? She did mention she’d met you. I didn’t realize you’d be coming here, though. No matter, you’re most welcome. Let me just get this little one here...’

And he bent down again and resumed the attack on his incipient bindweed problem. ‘There,’ he said with satisfaction when this too had been consigned to the basket. ‘I do love my garden, but I must confess it is becoming a bit of a burden. A brutal occupation, don’t you think? Constantly killing, and spraying and rooting out.’

He had an impressive voice, mellow and well modulated with an underlying vitality of considerable power. Of course, he had been a lawyer, so it was probably part of the job; but from the voice alone, Argyll could see why a run at politics had been tempting. It was the sort of voice that people trust — as well as being the sort of well-honed instrument that could change in a flash to threat, anger and outrage. Not a de Gaulle voice; not the rolling oratorical style which gains your wholehearted support even if, like Argyll when he first heard one of the General’s speeches, you don’t have a clue what he’s talking about because it’s all in French. But certainly a match for all modern French politicians Argyll had ever heard.

So while they both looked carefully for any more weeds, Argyll apologized once more and explained that he’d wanted to return the picture as soon as possible so he could get back to Rome. As he’d hoped, Rouxel was delighted, considerably surprised, and, as any well-brought-up gentleman should, responded by insisting, absolutely insisting, that dear Mr Argyll should come in and take a cup of coffee and tell him the whole story.

Mission accomplished, Argyll thought as he settled himself down in an extremely comfortable stuffed armchair. Another point in the man’s favour. Of all the houses Argyll had ever been in in France, this was the first one to have even remotely comfortable furniture. Elegance, yes. Style aplenty. Expensive, in many cases. But comfortable? It always seemed designed to do to the human body what French gardeners liked to do to privet hedges, that is, bend and distort them out of all recognition. They just have a different idea of what relaxation is.

And on top of that, Argyll even approved of his pictures. He was in the man’s study, and it was lined with a comfortable jumble of paintings and photographs and bronzes and books. By the large glass doors leading on to the garden was further evidence of Rouxel’s enthusiasm for gardening: an impressive array of healthy, and no doubt well-sprayed, house plants. Faded Persian rugs on the floor, evidence of a large dog from the excessive amounts of moulted hair scattered around. One wall was covered in mementoes of a career in and out of public service. Rouxel and the General. Rouxel and Giscard. Rouxel and Johnson. Rouxel and Churchill even. Pictures of awards, records of honorary degrees, this and that. Argyll found it charming. No false modesty, but no boasting either. Just a quiet pride, hitting exactly the right tone.

The pictures were an electric jumble, from Renaissance to modern; no masterpieces but nicely done. Apparently hung at random but, in fact, with a distinct pattern to them. A tiny little Madonna, Florentine school probably, matched by what looked suspiciously like a Picasso drawing of a woman in pretty much the same posture. A seventeenth-century Dutch interior paralleled by an impressionist interior. An eighteenth-century version of Christ enthroned in Glory with Apostles, which Argyll studied carefully for a moment, and alongside it — a bit blasphemously, really — a socialist-realist painting of a meeting of the Third International. Evidently the owner had a slightly impish sense of humour as well.

As Argyll was looking around, Rouxel rang a small bell by the side of the marble fireplace. In due course it produced Jeanne Armand.

‘Yes, Grandfather?’ she asked, then saw Argyll. ‘Oh, hello,’ she said, a bit flatly. Argyll was surprised by this; considering the way they’d hit it off the previous evening, he expected her to be as pleased to see him as he was to see her. Evidently not. Maybe she hadn’t slept well, either.

‘Coffee, please, Jeanne,’ Rouxel said. ‘Two cups.’

Then he turned his attention back to Argyll, and his granddaughter left without saying another word. Again, Argyll found this a little perplexing. There was a brusqueness, almost an impoliteness, which contrasted strangely with the way the charm suddenly returned as the old man indicated a chair for his visitor on one side of the fireplace and settled himself into another one nearby.

‘Now, dear sir, do tell me. I’m dying to hear how this painting has come back to me in such an unexpected fashion. Has it, by the way, been damaged at all?’

Argyll shook his head. ‘No. Considering that in the past few days it’s been hurled around train stations and hidden under beds, it’s in perfect condition. Please examine it, if you want.’

So Rouxel did, and expressed satisfaction once again. Then he gently probed the entire story out of Argyll.

‘Besson,’ Rouxel said half-way through the rendition. ‘Yes. I remember him. He came to the château to measure up and take it away for the exhibition. I must say, I didn’t take to him at all. Although I never would have suspected—’

‘It is only a suspicion, you understand. I wouldn’t want the police—’

Rouxel held up his hand. ‘Goodness, no. I have no intention of bothering the police. I did have a word with one I knew when it was stolen and he told me, frankly, that it would be a waste of time to try and get it back. Now I have got it back, it would be perfectly pointless.’

Jeanne re-entered, bearing a tray with a pot of steaming coffee, milk, and sugar. And three cups. Rouxel looked at the tray with a frown.

‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘I said two cups.’

‘I want a cup myself,’ she said.

‘Oh, no. I’m sorry. But you know how pressed I am. Stop being a gossiping woman and get back to your work. Those letters really must be finished today. Please attend to them.’

She retreated once more, flushed with humiliation at the publicly dismissive tone of his order. Argyll could well understand why. It hardly matched up with the glowing portrait she’d sketched out the previous evening. Far from being the highly valued, indispensable organizer of his life, the devoted and doted-on granddaughter, it seemed that in reality she was little more than a secretary. A bit awkward to have her fantasies unveiled in such a way.

Rouxel carried on as though this small domestic scene had not happened, returning to the conversation as though there’d been no break in it at all. The charm was back in full force.

Then the litany of questions, buried in the running account of the case so far. And at each point, Rouxel shook his head. Muller didn’t ring a bell. Nor Ellman. But at the mention of Hartung, he nodded.

‘Of course, I remember the name,’ he said. ‘It was quite a cause célèbre. And as I was involved with the prosecutor’s office in Paris at the time I knew of the case.’

‘What happened?’

He spread his hands. ‘What can one say? He was a traitor, who caused the death of many, many people. He was arrested and would have been tried. And, I’ve no doubt, found guilty and guillotined, had he not killed himself first. A bad business, all around. There was a hysteria in the air then. Lots of old scores to be paid off, many collaborators and traitors to be rooted out. Fortunately it died down quickly, but we French are still a little sensitive on the question of what happened during the war. It was not a happy time.’

Now there was an understatement, Argyll thought.

‘So what are your conclusions?’ he asked with a smile. ‘You seem to have done a considerable amount of hard work on my behalf over this.’

‘The only thing which makes sense is that Muller was completely potty,’ he said. This was a bit disingenuous, but he had decided he didn’t wholly like or trust the old man. Just prejudice, and he certainly didn’t have the full facts, but he was almost shocked by the way Rouxel had spoken to his granddaughter. Families have their own little ways, of course, and it is a foolhardy outsider who rushes to pass judgement on them. But Argyll did not approve of the contrast between the cold family man and the warm, charming version being presented to him. Too much of the politician, there.

‘And you have no idea what Muller was after?’

‘All I know is that somebody else took it seriously enough to kill him. And you now have the picture. It’s none of my business, I know, but I would beg you to be a little more careful. I would never forgive myself—’

Rouxel waved his hand dismissively. ‘Pah. I’m an old man, Mr Argyll. What possible point could there be in killing me? I shall be dead soon enough anyway. I’m sure I’m in no danger at all.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Argyll replied. Then he got up to leave, an exit accompanied by a satisfying jousting between Rouxel who wanted to ply him with cheques for having been so kind and helpful, and Argyll who, desperately as he needed the money, felt it would spoil his gesture if he accepted. He parted instead with a heavy hint that, if ever Rouxel wanted to sell some pictures and needed an agent...

Back in the garden, after he had left Rouxel, he spied Jeanne Armand again. She was clearly waiting for him, so he gave her a wave and waited for her to come over.

‘How are you this morning,’ he asked breezily, noting that she didn’t look so happy.

‘Quite well, thank you. I wanted to explain.’

‘You don’t owe me any explanations, you know.’

‘I know. But it’s important to me. About Grandfather.’

‘Explain away, then.’

‘He’s under enormous pressure at the moment. What with the preparations for the prize, and being on this international financial committee and all the rest. He overdoes it, and that reminds him that he’s getting old. So he gets ill-tempered sometimes.’

‘And takes it out on you.’

‘Yes. But we really are very close. He’s such a great man, you know. I... I just didn’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m all he has. His one close relative. Close enough to be irritable with.’

‘Right,’ said Argyll, thoroughly mystified by why she felt obliged to tell him this.

‘And of course he’s never really forgiven me.’

‘What for?’

‘For not being a grandson.’

‘You’re not serious?’

‘Oh, yes. It was important to him. He wanted to found a great dynasty, I think. But his wife gave him a daughter and then died. And his daughter produced me. And I’m divorced. He hated it when I left my husband. I think it makes him wonder what it’s all been for. Of course, he never says that,’ she went on quickly. ‘But I know he thinks it sometimes.’

‘It’s ridiculous.’

‘Just old-fashioned. That’s all. He’s an old man.’

‘But still.’

‘And he never refers to it, and never really holds anything against me. And is generally the kindest and most loving of grandfathers.’

‘Fine,’ Argyll said. ‘Whatever you say.’

‘I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression.’

‘No.’

And they smiled distantly at each other, and she let him out of the gate.