The Last Judgement

16

Before they set out, they did their best to ring in advance to give warning of their arrival. But, as the barman pointed out, it was not so easy as Mrs Richards had no telephone. She had a permanent nurse and an odd-job man who kept the house running. Apart from those two, she saw and talked to virtually no one. He was not convinced she was going to welcome their visit. But if they were friends of her husband’s — he made no attempt to disguise the fact that he found this a little unlikely — she might agree to see them.

Having little alternative, they piled in their car and drove the two miles or so to Turville Manor Farm. It was a much grander establishment than Flavia had expected from the narrow gap in the hedge and the muddy, neglected track that led away from the small road to the house. Nor was it a farm, as far as she could tell; at least, there was no sign of anything remotely agricultural.

However attractive it might have been — Argyll, who knew about this sort of thing, guessed the builders had been at work on it round about the time that Jean Floret was putting the finishing touches to his painting of Socrates — the handsomely proportioned house was not looking its best. Somebody, at some time, had begun painting a few of the dozen windows in the main façade, but had apparently given up after three of them; on the rest the paint was peeling, the wood was rotting and several panes of glass were broken. A creeper had gone wildly out of control along one side of the building. Rather than adorning the house, it showed signs of taking over entirely; another couple of windows had vanished completely under the foliage. The lawn in front was a complete wreck, with weeds and wild flowers spreading luxuriantly over what had once been a gravel driveway. If they hadn’t been told the place was inhabited, both of them would have assumed it was abandoned.

‘Not the do-it-yourself type,’ Argyll observed. ‘Nice house, though.’

‘Personally I find it thoroughly depressing,’ Flavia said as she got out and slammed the door. ‘It’s confirming my already strong feeling that this is a waste of time.’

Privately Argyll agreed, but felt it would be too discouraging to say so. Instead he stood, hands in pockets, a frown on his face, and examined the building.

‘There’s no sign of life at all,’ he said. ‘Come on. Let’s get this over with.’

And he led the way up the crumbling, moss-covered steps to the main door and rang the bell. Then, realizing it didn’t work, he knocked, first gently, then more firmly, on the door.

Nothing. ‘Now what?’ he asked, turning to look at her.

Flavia stepped forward, thumped the door far more aggressively than he had and, when there was again no response, turned the handle.

‘I’m not going all the way back just because someone can’t be bothered to answer,’ she said grimly as she went in.

Then, standing in the hallway, she shouted, ‘Hello? Anybody home?’ and waited while the faint echo died away.

Many years ago it had been an attractively furnished house. No wonderful hidden treasures, certainly, but good solid furniture entirely in keeping with the architecture. Even a good dust and clean would work wonders, Argyll thought as he turned and looked around him. But at the moment the atmosphere of gloom and dereliction was overpowering.

It was also cold. Even though it was about as warm outside as an English autumn could ever get, the house had an air of dampness and decay that only long neglect can produce.

‘I’m starting to hope there isn’t anyone here,’ he said. ‘Then we can get out of this place fast.’

‘Shh,’ she replied. ‘I think I can hear something.’

‘Pity,’ he said.

There was a scraping noise coming from up the dark and heavily carved staircase; now that he stopped and listened, Argyll knew she was right. It was not at all clear what it was, though; certainly not a person walking.

They looked at each other uncertainly for a moment. ‘Hello?’ Argyll said again.

‘There’s no point in standing down there shouting,’ came a thin, querulous voice from the landing. ‘I can’t come down. Come up here if you have any serious business.’

It was not just an old voice, but also a sick one. Quiet but not gentle, unattractive and even unpleasant in tone, as though the speaker could barely be bothered to open her mouth. Odd accent as well.

Argyll and Flavia looked at each other uncertainly. Then she gestured for him to go ahead and he led the way up the stairs. The woman stood half-way along a dimly lit corridor. She was clad in a thick, dark green dressing-gown and her hair hung in long, thin strands around her face. Her legs were encased in thick socks, her hands in woollen mittens. She was clutching on to a tubular steel walking-frame, and it was this, painfully inching its way along the wooden floor, which made the noise they’d heard.

The old woman herself — they assumed this must be the reclusive Mrs Richards — was breathing hard, making a rasping noise as she sucked the air in, as though the effort of walking what appeared to have been only about fifteen feet was more than she could manage.

‘Mrs Richards?’ Flavia gently asked the apparition, elbowing her way past Argyll as they approached.

The woman turned and cocked her head as Flavia approached. Then she narrowed her eyes slightly and nodded.

‘My name is Flavia di Stefano. I’m a member of the Rome police force. From Italy. I’m most dreadfully sorry to disturb you, but I wondered if we could ask you some questions.’

Still the woman looked thoughtful, making no response at all, either by sign or speech.

‘It’s extremely important, and we think you may be the only person who can help.’

The woman nodded slowly once more, then looked in the direction of Argyll, standing in the background. ‘Who’s this?

Flavia introduced him.

‘Don’t know where Lucy is,’ she said suddenly.

‘Who?’

‘My nurse. It’s difficult for me to move without her. Would your friend get me back to bed?’

So Argyll came forward while Flavia took away the frame. She was astonished by how gentle he was with the woman; normally he was hopeless in this sort of situation; but now he just lifted her off her feet, walked back down the corridor and softly laid her back into the bed, pulling the bedclothes up around her and assuring himself that she was comfortable.

It was like a furnace in the bedroom; the air was thick with heat and the overpowering odour that goes with sickness and old age. Flavia longed to open the window, to let in some oxygen, to pull back the musty curtains and let in some light. Surely it would make the old lady feel better as well, having some cool, clean air blowing through the room?

‘Come here,’ Mrs Richards commanded, leaning back on the thick pile of pillows which kept her partly upright. Flavia approached and the woman studied her carefully, then ran her fingers over Flavia’s face. It was hard to avoid flinching from the touch.

‘Such a beautiful young woman,’ she said softly. ‘How old are you?’

Flavia told her and she nodded. ‘You’re lucky,’ she said. ‘Very lucky. I looked like you once. A long time ago. There’s a picture of me on the dressing-table. When I was your age.’

‘This one?’ Argyll said, picking up a photograph in a silver frame. It was a picture of a woman in her twenties, her face half turned towards the camera, laughing as though someone had just told a joke. It was a face full of spring and happiness, with not a line of care or worry on it.

‘Yes. Hard to credit, you’re thinking. Such a long time ago.’

Both of the statements were sadly true. There seemed no resemblance, not a shred, between the happy girl in the photograph and the old, lined face lying on the pillow. And in this unkempt, run-down, dirty room, it seemed like a memento from another age.

‘Why are you here? What do you want?’ she asked, switching her attention back to Flavia.

‘It’s about Dr Richards. His experiences in the war.’

She looked puzzled. ‘Harry? You mean about the burns unit? He was a surgeon, you know.’

‘Yes, we know that. It was his other activities we’re interested in.’

‘He didn’t have any, as far as I know.’

‘His work in France. With Pilot, I mean.’

Whatever the woman might say next, Flavia was instantly certain that she knew exactly what Pilot was. And yet her reaction was odd. There was no startled look, or fumbled, amateurish attempt to pretend not to know. Rather there was a certain hooded demeanor, of almost relaxed caution. She seemed suddenly to be back on territory where she felt secure. Almost as though someone had asked her this before.

‘What makes you think that my husband knew anything about this Pilot, then?’

‘Apparently he gave some sort of evidence after the war to a tribunal in Paris. It’s documented.’

‘He gave evidence?’

‘His name’s in the file.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Henry Richards?’

‘Something like that. With this address.’

‘Oh.’

‘Is anything the matter?’

‘I was wondering why all of a sudden anybody is interested in my husband. He’s been dead for years.’

She turned again towards Flavia, considering carefully before she spoke. ‘And now you mention Pilot. You’re from Italy?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re interested in Pilot. Why, might I ask?’

‘Because people are being killed.’

‘Who is being killed?’

‘A man called Muller, and another called Ellman. Both murdered in Rome last week.’

The woman’s head had sagged forward as Flavia spoke and the Italian was half afraid she’d fallen asleep. But now she lifted her head up, her expression thoughtful and cautious.

‘And so you came here.’

‘We thought your husband might be alive. There’s a possibility that anyone who knows something about Pilot might be at risk.’

The woman smiled weakly. ‘And what risk is that?’ she said half mockingly.

‘Of being murdered.’

She shook her head. ‘That’s not a risk. That’s an opportunity.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I am the person you are looking for.’

‘Why you?’

‘I was the one who gave that evidence. And signed it. My name is Henriette Richards.’

‘You?’

‘And I’m in a condition where the only thing I feel for this Muller and Ellman is envy.’

‘But will you help us?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because everybody’s dead now. Myself included. There’s no point. It’s something I’ve spent the past half-century trying to forget. I succeeded, until you arrived. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘But please, there’s so much at stake...’

‘My dear, you are young and you are beautiful. Take my advice. This is the stuff of corpses. You will find nothing but pain. It’s an old story and it’s better forgotten. Much better. Nobody will benefit, and I will suffer. Please, leave me in peace. Everybody’s dead.’

‘It’s not true,’ Argyll said quietly from his vantage-point at the window. ‘There’s one person left. If Flavia doesn’t find out what’s going on, there may well be another murder.’

‘What other person?’ she said scornfully. ‘There’s no one.’

‘There’s someone called Rouxel,’ he said. ‘Jean Rouxel. We don’t know why, but he is a candidate for attack as well.’

The statement had a profound effect. Mrs Richards bowed her head once more, but this time when she lifted it her eyes were full of tears.

Flavia felt dreadful. She had no idea what was going on in the woman’s mind, but whatever it was, it was giving her emotional pain; enough, temporarily, to blot out the physical suffering which she endured.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘The last thing we want is to cause you any distress. If it weren’t important, we wouldn’t be here. But if you really feel you can’t tell us, we’ll leave you in peace.’

It was murderously hard to say it, of course; like it or not, this frail old invalid was their last hope of working out what had been happening in the past week or so, and it was formidably difficult to give up any possibility of a solution. But as Flavia uttered the words, she meant them. If the woman had said, OK then, go away, she would have stood up and left. Then they could have gone back to Rome and confessed their failure. Argyll, at least, would be pleased about that.

Fortunately her offer was not accepted. Mrs Richards wiped her eyes, and slowly the mournful sobbing ebbed away and then stopped.

‘Jean?’ she asked. ‘You know this?’ You’re certain?’

Flavia nodded. ‘It seems so.’

‘If he’s in danger, you must save him.’

‘We can’t do much if we don’t know what’s going on.’

She shook her head.

‘If I help you’ll promise?’

‘Very well.’

‘Tell me about these others first. This — what are they called? Ellman? Muller? Who are they? And what is their connection to Jean?’

‘Ellman is a German who apparently changed his name from Schmidt. Muller also changed his name; he was originally called Hartung.’

If mentioning Rouxel had been like hitting Mrs Richards, the name of Hartung had a similar effect. She stared at Flavia silently for a few seconds, then shook her head.

‘Arthur?’ she whispered. ‘Did you say Arthur was dead?’

‘Yes. He was tortured, then shot. We now think by this Ellman man. For a painting stolen from Rouxel, as far as we can tell. Why — well, that’s what we were hoping you could tell us. How did you know his name was Arthur?’

‘He was my son,’ she said simply.

Both Flavia and Argyll were stopped in their tracks by this one; neither had the slightest idea of what to say. And so they said nothing at all. Fortunately, Mrs Richards wasn’t listening anyway; she was off on her own path now.

‘I ended up in England by accident, I suppose you could say. When the Allies liberated Paris, they found me, and evacuated me, to England for treatment. They did that for some people. I was in hospital for several years, and met Harry there. He treated me, did his best to put me back together again. As you see, he didn’t have much to work on. But eventually he asked me to marry him. I had no ties anymore to France, and he was good to me. Kind. So I agreed, and he brought me here.

‘I didn’t love him; I couldn’t. He knew that and accepted it. As I say, he was a good man, much better than I deserved. He tried to help me bury the past, and instead let me bury myself in the countryside.’

She looked at them and gave them a little smile, a sad little effort with no amusement behind it. ‘And here I’ve stayed, with death eluding me. Everybody I’ve ever cared for had died first, and they deserved it much less than I did. I’ve earned it. Except for Jean, and he should live. Even poor Arthur is dead. That goes against nature, don’t you think? Sons should outlive their mothers.’

‘But—’

‘Harry was my second husband. My first was Jules Hartung.’

‘But I was told you were dead,’ Flavia said a little tactlessly.

‘I know. I should be. You seem confused.’

‘You could say that.’

‘I’ll start at the beginning then, shall I? I don’t suppose you’ll find it at all interesting, but if there’s anything that can help Jean, you’ll be welcome to it. You will help him, won’t you?’

‘If he needs it.’

‘Good. As I say, my first husband was Jules Hartung. We married in 1938, and I was lucky to have him. Or at least, that’s what I was told. I was born into a family that lost everything in the Depression. We’d had a good life — servants, holidays, a large apartment on the Boulevard St-Germain — but with the collapse, it all began to disappear. My father was used to high society and gave it up unwillingly; his expenses always exceeded his income, and progressively we got poorer. The servants went, to be replaced by lodgers. Even my father ultimately saw the need to get a job, although he waited until my mother had got one first.

‘Eventually I met Jules, who seemed to fall in love with me. Or at least, he thought I would be a suitable wife and mother. He proposed — to my parents, not to me, and they accepted. That was that. He was nearly thirty years older than I was. It was a marriage without any passion or tenderness; very formal — we used to call each other vous and were always very respectful. I don’t mean that he was a bad man, far from it. At least to me, he was always correct, courteous and, I suppose, even devoted in his way. You see I am telling you my story without the benefit of hindsight.

‘I was eighteen and he was nearly fifty. I was exuberant and I suppose very immature, he was middle-aged, responsible, and a serious man of business. He ran his companies, made money, collected his art and read his books. I liked to go dancing, to sit in cafés and talk; and, of course I had the politics of youth whereas Jules had the outlook of the middle-aged industrialist.

‘I found myself visiting my parents more and more often; not to see them, of course, they were as dull as Jules and not half as kind, but to spend time with the lodgers and students who increasingly filled up their house.

‘My father, you see, had assumed that once I was married, a nice flow of money would pour from my new husband and restore him to his accustomed style of life. Jules didn’t see it like that. He didn’t like my father and had not the slightest intention of supporting someone who openly despised him.

‘He was an odd man in many ways. For a start, I wasn’t Jewish, and for him to marry me was something of a scandal. But he went ahead anyway, saying he was too old to worry about what other people thought. He was also quite easy-going; wanted me to go with him to functions and act as his hostess, but otherwise let me be. I liked him; he provided everything I needed, except love.

‘And I needed that; I needed to be in love. Then the war came.

‘We were going to leave, the moment that it became clear the whole thing would be a disaster. Jules saw it; whatever his limitations, he was perceptive. He knew the French had no stomach for a fight, and knew that people like him would get rough treatment. He’d prepared for it, and we were about to head for Spain when I went into labour.

‘It was a bad birth; I was bed-bound for several weeks in dreadful conditions; everybody had left Paris, the hospitals weren’t working properly and were overflowing with wounded. Few nurses, fewer doctors, little medicine. I couldn’t move and Arthur was so fragile he would have died. So Jules stayed too, to be with me, and by the time we could go it was too late; you couldn’t get out without permission and someone like him couldn’t get it.

‘And life sort of drifted back — not to normality, obviously, but to something which seemed understandable and bearable. Jules became wrapped up in trying to preserve his business, and I went back to my life with students. And we sat and decided we should do something to fight back. The government and the army had failed us, so now it was time for us to show what being French was all about.

‘Not everyone thought like us; in fact very few people did. Jules, as I say, merely wanted to keep out of trouble; in the case of my parents — well, they had always been on the right. Bit by bit the students departed, to be replaced by German officers billeted on them. They liked that, my parents. Getting in well with the new order. Their natural tendencies had been reinforced by Jules’s refusal to hand over money; now it was encouraged, they became openly anti-Semitic as well.

‘About a year after the armistice, there was only one student left, a young lawyer who’d been there for years. I’d always liked him, had introduced him to Jules, and they’d taken to each other like father and son. Jean was just the sort of son Jules had always wanted. Handsome, strong, honest, intelligent, open-minded; he had everything except a decent family, and Jules set about providing that. He paid his fees until he qualified; encouraged him in every way; introduced him to important people; set about giving him the chances he needed and deserved. Even gave him presents. They got on so very well. It was wonderful while it lasted.’

‘This was Rouxel, I take it?’ Flavia asked quietly.

She nodded. ‘Yes. We were about the same age. He took a room at my parents’ and I saw a lot of him. If it hadn’t been for Jules, I imagine we would have been married; as it was, we had to content ourselves with being lovers. The first man I loved. In a sense, I suppose, the last as well. With Jules — well, what passion he had was used up shortly after we married. And Harry was a good man; but not like that, and it was too late then anyway.

‘I imagine you find that — what? Surprising? Disgusting even, to look at me now. An old wizened cripple as I am. I was different then. Another person, you might say. Do you smoke?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Do you smoke? Do you have any cigarettes?’

‘Ah, well. Yes, I do. Why?’

‘Give me one.’

Somewhat surprised by this departure from the way the conversation had developed thus far, Flavia fished around in her bag and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She handed them over and gave one to the woman, who tugged it awkwardly from the packet with her gloved hands.

‘Thank you,’ she said when it was lit. Then she broke into an appalling hacking cough. ‘I haven’t had a cigarette for years.’

Argyll and Flavia looked at each other with raised eyebrows wondering if they’d lost her for good. If she drifted off the subject now, it might be impossible to steer her back on to it.

‘I gave up when I was in the asylum,’ she said after smelling the burning cigarette with interest for a while. It was strange; her voice had become louder, more solid in tone now that she had begun to talk.

‘Don’t look like that,’ she went on after a while. ‘I know. No one ever knows what to say. So don’t say anything. I went mad. It was simple enough. I spent two years in there, in between operations. Harry did his best to look after me. He was a very good man, so kind and gentle. I missed him when he died.

‘I got the best of treatment, you know. No expense spared. I have no complaints at all. The finest doctors, the best private asylum. We were looked after as well as possible. Many soldiers got much rougher treatment.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘I will tell you. As the war went on, Jean began to become more enthusiastic about the Resistance, more convinced the Germans could be beaten. He became the effective leader of this group called Pilot; established links with England, worked out targets and strategies. He was a wonderful man. He lived in the most appalling danger constantly. And yet he was always there to reassure, encourage. Once he was picked up by the Germans and held for a few days, then he escaped. It was Christmas Day 1942, and the guards were lax. He just walked out and had vanished before anyone noticed. Extraordinary man; he had real style, you know. But he was changed after that: very much more serious and wary. He guarded us carefully, often refusing to sanction operations he judged too dangerous, always keeping at least one step ahead of the Germans.

‘Of course they knew we existed, and they were after us. But they had no success. At times it was almost like a game; sometimes we ended up laughing uproariously about what we were doing.

‘And all the time he was there: calm, assured and utterly confident that we would win. I can’t tell you how rare that was in Paris then. We would win. Not a wish, or a calculation, or a hope. Just a simple certainty. He was an inspiration to us. To me particularly.’

She switched her attention back to Flavia, this time with the faintest shadow of a sad smile.

‘When I was with him, in his arms, I felt superhuman. I could do anything, take any risks, court any danger. He strengthened me and would always protect me. He told me that. Whatever happened, he said, he’d look after me. Sooner or later something would go wrong, but he’d make sure I got a head start.

‘Without him, it would have been so different. Someone would have slipped up and been caught much sooner. And eventually it was too much even for him. He was too caring. That was our downfall.

‘We needed places to hide, money, equipment, all that sort of thing, and we had to approach people on the outside, hoping they could be trusted. One of these was Jules. He was worried about our activities, and even discouraged them because he was afraid, but Jean tried to persuade him to help. Jules agreed, but very reluctantly.

‘Jules was terrified about what would happen if the Germans ever discovered him. He was Jewish after all, and many of his people had vanished already. He survived — so he said — by paying out massive bribes, and slowly giving up his possessions. A fighting retreat, he called it. Of course he had his final option of running, but he didn’t want to leave until he had to. So he said.

‘Anyway, things started going wrong. We were being betrayed, and it was clear it was coming from inside. The speed and accuracy of the German reaction was just too neat. They had to have inside knowledge. Jean was desperate. For a start it was clear we were all in danger; him in particular, as he felt he was being followed. Nothing concrete, but he had this strong feeling of a noose tightening around him. Then when he finally accepted we had a traitor, he took it personally. He couldn’t believe a friend of his, someone he trusted, could do such a thing. So he prepared a trap. Bits of information given out to different people, to see where the leak was coming from.

‘One operation — a very simple pick-up of equipment — went wrong: the Germans were there. Only Jules had been told about it.’

Here Flavia wanted to break in, but she was transfixed by the story and dared not interrupt in case the flow was broken. The old woman probably wouldn’t have heard her anyway.

‘Jean was devastated, and so was I. Jules had been playing his own survival game and kept his distance — for our sake as much as his, he said — but nobody ever suspected he might sell us to preserve himself. Doubt remained, but one evening, after a confrontation with Jean in his little lawyer’s office, he fled to Spain and the Germans swooped down on us.

‘They just rolled us up. Fast, efficiently and brutally. I don’t know how many of us there were, maybe fifty or sixty. Maybe more.

‘I remember that day. Every second of every minute of it. In effect it was the last day of my life. I spent the night with Jean and got back home about seven in the morning. Jules had gone. It was a Sunday. The twenty-seventh of June 1943. A beautiful morning. I thought Jules had just gone to the office or something, so I had a bath and went to bed. I was still asleep an hour or so later when the door was kicked in.’

‘And Rouxel?’

‘I assumed he’d been killed. He was too courageous to last long. But apparently not: it seemed that by mere good fortune he slipped through their net. Unlike most people he stayed in Paris rather than run, and began to reorganize.

‘In a sense I was lucky, if you can call it that. A lot of them were shot or sent off to a death camp. I wasn’t. For the first three months I was treated quite well. Solitary confinement and being beaten up alternated with good food and gentle persuasion.

‘They wanted everything I knew, and to make sure I gave it, they told me everything they did know already. There was little I could add. They had a complete picture. Drop-points, meeting-points, names, addresses, numbers. I couldn’t believe it. Then they told me how they’d got it all. Your husband, they said. He told us everything. Jules must have been spying on us and listening and reading scraps of paper for months to have accumulated it all. It was a systematic, complete and cold betrayal. And he got out, scot-free.’

‘Who told you all this?’ Flavia said with sudden urgency.

‘The interrogating officer,’ she said. ‘Sergeant Franz Schmidt.’

Another pause greeted this remark as the old woman coolly assessed how they were taking her story, and whether it was being believed. Eventually she felt able to go on.

‘I never said anything, and they were prepared to take their time. But at the start of 1944 that changed. They were getting more panicked. They knew the invasion was on its way soon and they needed any result fast. Schmidt stepped up the pressure.’

She stopped, and in the half-light of the room pulled off the glove from her left hand. Flavia felt her throat rising in protest at the sight. Argyll looked, then turned away quickly.

‘Fifteen operations in all, I think it was, and Harry was the best there was. They wanted to give him a knighthood for his expertise. This hand was his greatest success with me. As for the rest...’

With enormous difficulty, she pulled the glove over the hand again. Even when the scarred, brown claw with its two remaining misshapen fingers had vanished underneath its covering, Flavia could still see it, and still felt sick. Nothing could bring her to offer any assistance.

‘But I survived, after a fashion. I was still in Paris at the Liberation. They couldn’t be bothered to send me east, and didn’t have time to shoot me before the troops arrived. As quickly as possible, I was shipped to England. To the hospital, the asylum, and finally here. Then you come; to remind me, and tell me it’s not all over yet.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Flavia said in a whisper.

‘I know. You needed information, and I’ve told you what I know. Now you must repay me by helping Jean.’

‘What happened afterwards? To your husband?’

She shrugged. ‘He got let off lightly. He came back to France after the war, expecting that nobody would know what had happened. But Jean and I had survived. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t see him. Jean was behind the push to get him brought to justice. Not for revenge, but for the sake of the people who’d died. Despite everything, he felt it was like condemning his own father. The commission wrote to me; very reluctantly, I agreed to give evidence.

‘Fortunately it wasn’t necessary. When he was confronted with the facts and the promise of our testimony, Jules killed himself. Simple as that.’

‘And Arthur?’

‘He was better off where he was. He thought I was dead, and he had a good family to look after him. Better he didn’t know. I wrote to his foster-parents, and they agreed to keep him. What could I do for him? I couldn’t even look after myself. He needed to start afresh, without any memories from the past, of either his father or mother. I asked them to make sure he knew nothing of either of us. They agreed.’

‘Rouxel?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to see him. His memory of what I was like was all I had left. I couldn’t bear to have him come into my hospital room and see his face change into one of sympathetic horror the way yours did. I know. There’s nothing you could do. It’s an involuntary reaction. People can’t help it. I loved him, and he loved me; I didn’t want that destroyed by his seeing me. No love could survive that.’

‘Did he not want to see you?’

‘He respected my wishes,’ she said simply.

Something unsaid there, Flavia thought. ‘But surely...’

‘He was married,’ she said. ‘Not to a woman he loved, not someone like me. But he married when he thought I was dead. After the war he discovered the truth; he wrote to me, saying that if he’d been free... But he wasn’t. It was better like that. So I accepted Harry’s offer as well.’

‘Do you know anything about Hartung’s paintings?’ Argyll asked, changing the subject somewhat dramatically.

She looked puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘All this started off with a picture which belonged to him. Called The Death of Socrates. Did your husband give it to Rouxel?’

‘Oh, that. I remember that. Yes, he did. Just after the armistice. He decided that the Germans would probably take them anyway, so he gave some pictures away to friends for safe-keeping. Jean got that, to go with one he’d already been given. A religious one, that was. Jean was quite perplexed and didn’t really want it, I think.’

‘Did Hartung know about you and Rouxel?’

She shook her head once more. ‘No. Never a murmur. I owed him that. Within his limits he was a good husband. Within mine I was a good wife. I never wanted to hurt him. He never had the slightest idea. And I was always careful with Jean as well. He was a hot-blooded, passionate man. I was terrified he might go to Jules and tell him, hoping he’d divorce.’

She’d begun to cry again, at all the memories and the lost joys of life. Flavia had to decide whether to stay and offer comfort or just leave. She wanted to know more. What did she mean, she’d been careful with Rouxel? But she seemed to have had enough, and any comfort offered was not going to do much good. Flavia stood up, and turned to face the bed. ‘Mrs Richards. I can only thank you for your time. I know we’ve made you remember things you want to forget. Please forgive us.’

‘I will forgive you. But only if you fulfil your side of the bargain. Help Jean, if he needs it. And when you do, tell him that it was my last gift of love to him. Will you do that? You promise?’

Flavia promised.

Going back out into the cool fresh air and feeling the soft warmth of the sun was like waking up after a nightmare and finding that the horrors were not real after all. Neither of them said anything as they walked to the car, got in, and Argyll started the engine and drove off.

A mile down the road, Flavia grabbed his arm and said: ‘Stop the car. Quickly.’

He did as she asked, and she got out. There was a break in a hedge near by, and she walked through it into a pasture. On the far side there were some cows grazing.

Argyll caught up, to find her staring across the field at nothing, breathing heavily.

‘You OK?’

‘Yes. I’m OK. I just wanted some air. I felt I was suffocating in there. God, that was horrible.’

There was no need either to comment or even to agree with her. Side by side they walked slowly around the field in silence.

‘You’re thoughtful,’ he said eventually. ‘Something beginning to make sense?’

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Not there yet, but it’s coming. I wish it wasn’t.’

‘Come on,’ he said softly after a while. ‘Let’s get going. You’ll feel better once we start doing something.’

She nodded and he led her back, then drove to the hotel where he steered her into the bar, ordered a whisky and made her drink it.

In all, it took her nearly an hour plunged in thought before she was able to lift her head and say, ‘What do you think?’

And Argyll wasn’t concentrating on anything, either. ‘I think it’s the first time I’ve ever met anyone where I could honestly say she’d be better off dead. But I suppose that’s not what you meant.’

‘I didn’t mean anything. I just wanted to hear someone talk normally. Anything. Even you seem to have lost your flippant style.’

‘All I know is that we now have another good reason for working this mess out. It’s not going to make much difference to her life, but someone owes her a little. Even if it’s just guarding her memories.’