The Last Judgement

19

It was now after nine and the rush-hour traffic was easing off, allowing the taxi-driver to show what he could do. He drove a vast Mercedes, hopelessly uneconomic from a commercial point of view, in Argyll’s opinion, but undeniably effective in rushing them into Paris as fast as was conceivable.

The only difficulty was that the driver wasn’t all that certain about where they were going. Flavia and Argyll, neither of them exactly experts in Parisian geography themselves, had to lend a hand: Flavia with a map, Argyll with his memory of the last time he had visited Rouxel’s house. With the three of them working together, they made a decent job of the trip; only two wrong turns and one of those not completely disastrous. The driver, feeling quite pleased with himself but not overjoyed to be leaving his fare in the middle of a residential district with no chance of picking up anyone else, dropped them in the next street along from Rouxel’s.

Caution is a virtue, even when it is not necessary. She needn’t have worried too much. No matter how many police would shortly be swooping down when they got their act together and worked out that their captives had fled the airport, no one had turned up yet.

This time the gate was not locked, and opened with a slight squeak.

‘Flavia, before we go any further here, what is this about?’ Argyll asked.

‘Dates,’ she said.

‘What dates?’

‘The dates for the break-up of the Pilot network.’

‘I’m not with you. But no matter. What has that got to do with anything?’

‘We’ll have to ask Rouxel.’

Argyll sniffed. ‘Have it your own way, then. Although I must say that if I didn’t trust you so much, I’d be mightily tempted to go back to the airport.’

‘But you do. So shall we stop talking and go in?’

Cutting off further opportunity for dissent, she wheeled around and rang the doorbell. There was no answer. After waiting awhile and pressing it again, and tapping her foot with impatience, she decided that in the circumstances the social niceties could be disregarded. She turned the handle, found it open and pushed. Walking into other people’s houses seemed to be becoming a habit.

There was a light on in the hallway, which gave on to three rooms, each with the door firmly closed. Under one, there was a faint chink of light. She picked this one to start off, and went in.

It was empty. But evidently someone had been there recently: there was a book open on the carpet and a half-empty glass of brandy by the hearth.

‘I can hear something,’ Argyll said quietly. There was no great need to whisper, but it seemed appropriate.

‘Well?’ she asked, as they stood outside the room that the noise was coming from.

Although it was an absurdly fastidious piece of courtesy on the part of someone who, after all, had just barged uninvited into someone’s house, Flavia knocked softly. There was no answer. So she again reached for the handle and pushed the door open.

‘Who’s that?’ came a quiet voice from the corner as she opened the door and looked in. Rouxel was by a veritable forest of house plants, spraying the leaves with some unguent. Argyll had said he was keen on plants, Flavia thought unnecessarily.

The room was dark except for two pools of light, one by the desk, the other by a nearby armchair which contained Jeanne Armand. It was the study where Argyll had interviewed — or been interviewed by — Rouxel a few days previously. Dark wooden bookshelves lined with leather-bound books filled one wall. Heavy and comfortable armchairs were on either side of the fireplace.

Flavia looked around the room to try and gain a few moments to think. She was becoming confused about how to proceed. On the one hand was her certainty that she finally understood. On the other was a sudden and burning hatred for it all.

‘Who are you?’ Rouxel said again.

‘My name is Flavia di Stefano. I’m with the Rome police.’

He didn’t seem very interested.

‘I’ve been investigating the theft of your picture.’

‘That has been returned.’

‘And the two murders associated with it.’

‘Yes. I was kept informed. But it’s all over now, I think.’

‘I’m afraid you’re wrong. It’s not at all over.’

She walked over to the far wall, on the side of the room opposite the glass doors leading on to the garden. ‘Where is the picture?’

‘Which picture?’

‘The Death of Socrates. The one given to you by your mentor, Jules Hartung.’

‘Ah. Well, you know, it was so much trouble, I had it destroyed.’

‘You what?’

‘It was Jeanne’s idea. She burnt it.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t think I have to explain to you what I do with my own property.’

‘Still, you have others left,’ she said. ‘Like this one.’ She pointed at the small painting hanging beside a mahogany bookcase. It was about the same size as all the others. Argyll’s sort of thing. Christ sat in the centre of the Apostles, in a fashion derived from Leonardo’s Last Supper; they all looked serious, but some of the Apostles had an air of sympathy, even sadness on their faces. Below them was a queue of people, with one kneeling and awaiting his verdict.

Again, there was no answer. Rouxel was not resisting her questions, not even resenting them or trying to stop them. Nor did he seem worried. He just wasn’t very interested.

‘“And they were judged every man according to their works,”’ she quoted. ‘Are you prepared for that, monsieur?’

At last she gained a response. Rouxel gave a bleak smile and stirred slightly. ‘Is anybody?’

‘I wonder how long it will take for the cavalry to get here,’ she said, looking at her watch.

‘Who?’ Argyll asked.

‘Montaillou and his friends. They should have arrived by now.’

‘And then what?’

Now it was her turn to look indifferent. ‘I don’t really care. What do you think, Monsieur Rouxel? Should I explain?’

‘You seem like a young woman who believes things can be explained. Accounted for, understood and made comprehensible. At my age, I’m not so sure. What people do and why they do it is often incomprehensible.’

‘Not always.’

‘I think they’re here,’ Argyll said, moving to the window and peering through the curtain. ‘Yes. Montaillou and a few others. One looks as though he’s being told to guard the gate. Another is on the front door. The other two are coming in.’

Montaillou and the other man, whom Argyll had never seen before, came through the front door and into the study. While the Intelligence officer had been polite at their last meeting, now he abandoned even a nominal attempt at courtesy.

The other man seemed more detached. In his late fifties, with close-cropped grey hair and a sharp nose, he had a look of alertness that was now masked by resigned concern.

‘A few hours ago I said I would not charge Mr Argyll or disrupt your career,’ Montaillou said in a clipped voice that barely concealed his fury. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand if I say that I no longer feel able to stand by that.’

Flavia ignored him. Possibly not the best way of disarming his anger, but what the hell? ‘Hello again, Inspector Janet,’ she said. ‘How delightful to see you again.’

The grey-haired man nodded at her uneasily. Argyll gave him a quick look-over, at close quarters, for the first time. The man who was supposedly the only one they could trust. Whatever happened, he thought, Franco-Italian relations over art thefts would take a long time to recover.

‘Hello, Flavia,’ he replied with an almost rueful, apologetic smile. ‘I’m really very sorry all this has happened.’

She shrugged.

‘But why did you come here?’ Janet went on. ‘What was the point?’

‘I know what the point was—’ Montaillou began. But Janet held up his hand to silence him. Flavia noticed that. It was interesting. She’d always known that Janet wielded more power than his status strictly warranted; that unlike Bottando he was one of the cadre of officials who knew a lot of people; who could phone contacts and fix things by having a quiet word. But this was new. Montaillou implicitly accepted the man’s greater authority. And Janet still seemed to acknowledge some sort of obligation, or connection to her and the Italian department. It gave her a chance that, at least, she would be heard.

‘I made a promise,’ she said.

‘You have any explanation? Any evidence?’

‘I think I can give a good account.’

‘It will have to be good.’

‘I don’t think so. I don’t think we’ll need any proof or anything. It’s not that sort of case. I fear this is not going to end with anyone arraigned, or extradited or tried, somehow.’

‘Are you going to suggest that French Intelligence was behind the deaths, then? I do hope not,’ Janet said. ‘However inadequate Monsieur Montaillou’s handling of this case...’

She shook her head again, noting the rift. That could be useful; no great love lost between these two representatives of the French state. ‘No. He — and you — merely made it more difficult to find out what was going on.’

‘So who did kill these people?’

‘She did,’ Flavia said simply, pointing at Jeanne Armand. ‘Or at least, she organized the first murder and committed the second.’

A complete silence greeted this, with not even the woman sitting in the chair breaking it with any protest. Eventually it was Argyll who reacted first.

‘Oh, Flavia, really,’ he said. ‘What an idea! Does she look like a murderer to you?’

‘Do you have any evidence for this, either?’ Janet asked.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing conclusive. But Monsieur Rouxel was in Rome that day, heading a delegation to the Interior Ministry. The call which summoned Ellman to Rome was made from the Hotel Raphael. And in the next room but one to Ellman was a witness that Detective Fabriano interviewed. A Madame Armand. That was you, was it not?’

Jeanne Armand looked up and nodded. ‘Yes. But I told the truth. I heard nothing of any interest. It was a dreadful coincidence that I was staying in the same hotel, of course—’

‘Dreadful,’ Flavia agreed. ‘And not entirely frank of you.’

‘I thought it best to protect my grandfather. I—’

‘— didn’t want his name in the papers just before the prize-giving. Yes, of course.’

‘But it was still a coincidence,’ Janet said quietly. ‘Unless you convince us otherwise.’

‘I say again, I have no proof. But I can tell you a story, if you like. You can believe it or not as you wish. Then I will quietly take the next plane home and forget it.’

She looked around, but nobody either urged her on or told her to keep quiet, so she took a deep breath and began.

‘We have a whole loose network of people, spread over several generations and several countries. Some dead, some alive. Jules Hartung, already fairly old when the last war began. Jean Rouxel, Mrs Richards, Ellman, all the same generation and in their twenties in 1940. Much younger was Arthur Muller. Youngest of all is Jeanne Armand here. They came from Switzerland and Canada and England and France. But all of them were profoundly marked by that war, and in particular by what happened on the twenty-seventh of June 1943. The day that the Resistance network dubbed Pilot was broken up by German army Intelligence.

‘If you want, we can talk about that later. First I want to tell you what happened. When Arthur Muller commissioned Besson to steal that picture, he was acting very much out of character. A more upright, honest and straightforward man could scarcely be imagined. He did not do things illegally. But in this case, he got involved quite deliberately in a crime. Why? We know he wanted to examine a picture, but why not write to Jean Rouxel and ask?

‘The answer, I suspect, is simple. He did. And was fobbed off.’

‘That’s not true,’ Rouxel said. ‘I had never heard of the man before last week.’

‘No. Your secretary screens all your mail. She saw the letters, and answered them for you. Initially, I imagine she thought Muller was potty; he had good reason for not being entirely frank and saying why he wanted to look at the picture. Whatever, she blocked all his approaches.’

‘You’ll have a hard job proving that,’ Jeanne said.

‘I know. When you killed Ellman, you made sure you took and destroyed the file of correspondence he’d taken from Muller’s apartment. I imagine that contained all your letters to him.’

‘And maybe not.’

‘Indeed. As I say, I’m just telling a story. When the police arrested Besson, he was interviewed and passed on to Montaillou. He rang to enquire about the painting. You talked to Madame Armand, is that right?’

Montaillou nodded.

‘So she knew the picture was heading for Muller, and she now had an idea why it was so important. She wanted it stopped, so she said that Muller was a complete madman, obsessed with revealing that Rouxel had bungled the inquiry into Hartung’s guilt. It was she who pressed you to get it back before it left the country, warning of possible embarrassment.’

He nodded again.

‘And you failed. As far as she was concerned, by that time it was too late. Even if the painting was recovered from Muller, there was no guarantee that its contents had not been removed. Muller was dangerous and had to be taken care of. And before you interrupt, I will tell you why in a moment.

‘It was a delicate matter, and she needed someone she could trust. So she called Ellman. Phoned him from her hotel, and told him what to do. He agreed.

‘Ellman arrived in Rome and went to Muller. Muller denied having the painting, and was tortured to make him reveal where it was; when he said Argyll had it, he was killed and Ellman left with the documents.

‘Ellman then met Madame Armand, who had stayed behind after Rouxel left for Paris. Perhaps he tried to be too clever; I don’t know. But she shot him with his own gun, then left with all the papers he had in his room. I assume she destroyed them.

‘A couple of days later, Jonathan Argyll returns the picture, free of charge, and Madame Armand, just to be sure, burns it.’

She looked around to see how the audience was taking what was, after all, a pretty weak account. Much supposition, little substance. She could almost hear Bottando grumbling in the background.

The reactions fitted well with her expectations. Argyll looked faintly disappointed; Janet surprised that he had been dragged out late at night for such stuff; Montaillou was contemptuous, and Jeanne Armand seemed almost amused. Only Rouxel himself was unmoved, sitting quietly in his chair as though he had just heard some junior but enthusiastic manager expound something truly outlandish.

‘You must forgive me if I say that this is very thin, young lady,’ he said after it became clear that no one else was going to break the silence. And he smiled, almost apologetically, at her.

‘There is more,’ she said. ‘Except that I don’t know whether you want to hear it.’

‘If it’s as feeble as the first part, I imagine we’ll survive,’ commented Montaillou.

‘Monsieur Rouxel?’ she asked with considerable reluctance. ‘What about you?’

He shook his head. ‘You are committed. You can’t stop now. You know that as well as I do. You have to say what you think, however foolish it may be. My opinion scarcely matters.’

She nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Very well. Now we turn to motive. Both of them. Montaillou for wanting to get hold of that painting so urgently. Jeanne Armand as well.

‘Madame Armand first. A cultivated, intelligent woman. Who went to university, began a promising career then, gave it up to help her grandfather temporarily. Except that he could never do without her again, and persuaded her to stay when she wanted to get on with her own life rather than looking after his. Despite her abilities, she was treated as little more than his secretary.

‘Monsieur Rouxel married in 1945, his wife died young and he never married again. His daughter died in childbirth. Madame Armand was his nearest relative, and was extremely solicitous of his welfare. Although how she managed it, considering the way she was treated I, for one, do not fully understand. But she worked for him, looked after him, kept the troubles of the world at bay. Is that correct?’

Rouxel nodded. ‘She’s everything an old man could want. Entirely selfless. She’s been wonderful to me, and I must say, if you are going to attack that, I shall begin to get angry...’

‘I presume she is also your heir.’

He shrugged. ‘Of course. That’s no secret. She’s my only family. Who else could possibly be?’

‘How about your son?’ Flavia asked quietly.

A silence so profound followed the question that she wondered if it could ever break. There was not even the slightest sound of breathing to disturb the quiet.

‘Arthur Muller, the first victim in this affair, was your son, monsieur,’ she went on after a while. ‘The son of Henrietta Richards, previously Henriette Hartung. She’s still alive. Your mistress for several years. Muller was born in 1940, at a time when, according to his mother, she and her husband had not had what she termed close relations for a couple of years. You had. She kept who his father was a secret. It would have damaged her son’s chance of inheriting and, by her own lights, she wanted to be a good wife. Which meant being discreet where she couldn’t be faithful. And she didn’t want you going to Hartung to demand that he give her up.’

Rouxel snorted. ‘There was no chance of that.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Me? Marry Henriette? The idea never crossed my mind.’

‘You were in love with her,’ said Flavia, the hatred mounting now.

‘Never,’ he replied contemptuously. ‘She was fun, and attractive and amusing. But love? No. Marry the penniless cast-off of Hartung? Absurd. And I never once told her that.’

‘She loved you.’

Even now, in these circumstances, Rouxel gave a little shrug that was almost vain. Of course, he seemed to imply. ‘She was a silly girl. Always was. And bored and wanting excitement. I gave it to her.’

Flavia paused and studied him more closely, breathing carefully to control herself. As he’d said, she was now committed. No holding back any longer. She owed Henriette Richards that. She’d promised.

‘But she didn’t tell anyone about you, except her son. When he was shipped out of danger to Argentina and then Canada, she told him his father was a great hero. He was only small, but he understood and clung to that belief; even when he was told what had happened to Hartung, he refused to believe it. His adoptive sister thought he was living in a fantasy world. But he believed what his mother had said. It was certain that even before he was accused of treachery Hartung himself was not the stuff of heroism. Therefore his father must be someone else. When he read the letters from his parents, he knew his long belief had been correct, and began to search.

‘He did the obvious thing; that is, wrote to people who were connected to his father and went looking around the archives himself; not that he was any sort of historian. He talked to the archivist in the Jewish documentation centre. His letters to Rouxel that Jeanne intercepted and read, other casual remarks she’d picked up over the years and a certain amount of reading the papers in your office to which she had free access allowed her to work out what he was after. She knew who he was; she knew he was after documents proving it; but she didn’t know where they were.

‘What Muller wanted was the evidence Hartung talked about. In “the last judgement.” He identified it, so he thought, and stole it. It was the worst mistake of his life.

‘When the painting was stolen, and Montaillou told her who had stolen it, everything fell into place. She moved fast. She killed your son, monsieur. Had him murdered in cold blood. Tortured to death by the same man who tortured and destroyed the life of your mistress. That is her repayment for the way you’ve treated her.

‘Do you believe me?’ she said after another, long silence.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. He believed her. The way his shoulders had slumped demonstrated clearly enough that, even if Janet and Montaillou might remain sceptical, Rouxel knew perfectly well that what she was saying was true. No proof; but any trial and punishment the legal system could hand out would be minor in comparison anyway.

‘Henriette Hartung was your mistress around the time her son was conceived?’ she continued.

He nodded.

‘And you never suspected?’

‘I worried, yes. But she told me not to. I was a student, and a poor one. Hartung had been good to me. I owed him everything. And I was having an affair with his wife and didn’t want to stop. But I didn’t want him to find out, either. It wasn’t just that he could have destroyed my career before it had even started, I liked the man as well.’

‘Did you, indeed?’ she said. ‘You have an odd way of showing your affection.’

Argyll, sitting quietly and watching the proceedings, looked up at this comment. There was an edge to it: a tone of bitter sarcasm that was quite out of character for her. He studied her carefully; her face was quite impassive and controlled, but he — and knowing her best, he was the only one who was aware of it — was fairly certain that something nasty was about to happen. And it was all bad enough already, in his view.

‘Considering he was someone who had helped you so much, whom you admired so greatly, you betrayed him pretty comprehensively.’

Rouxel shrugged. ‘I was young and foolish. It was a bizarre time in Paris then.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘What did you mean, then?’

‘Monsieur Montaillou knows, I think.’

Montaillou shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know. All I know is that you are causing a great deal of distress for no reason. We now know who killed Muller. Ellman killed him. You have no proof about who killed Ellman and I don’t imagine anyone is really so concerned. Leave it be.’

‘No,’ said Janet with surprising vehemence. ‘I’m tired of all this. I want to know. I have been subjected to intolerable pressure and interference in the past week. I have had investigations closed down. I’ve been ordered by your people to obstruct a murder inquiry in Italy and caused enormous damage to relations with colleagues abroad in the process. I caught an important thief whom I’ve been chasing for years and you let him go with a virtual amnesty. I’ve had enough. I want to get to the bottom of this before I launch a major complaint against you, Montaillou. So you continue, Flavia. Explain all this.’

‘I don’t know who Montaillou works for, but I’m damned sure it isn’t some potty little organization to protect public figures. As you say, he’s been throwing his weight around in recent days. You can’t do that if you merely follow diplomats and politicians around to make sure they don’t lock themselves in the shower.

‘Montaillou’s job was to prevent a major embarrassment. He and his department were manipulated, of course, by Madame Armand, just as everyone else was. But he was led to believe that the picture stolen by Muller contained incriminating documents which, if revealed at the right moment, might have involved a very public withdrawal of Monsieur Rouxel from accepting the Europa prize. For which he had been nominated by the French government. His job was to stop that happening.

‘So we have to go back again. To Pilot, and its destruction. Someone was betraying it; operations started to go wrong. But who was it? Rouxel took matters into his own hands. Advance information was selectively given to certain people; if the operations in question went ahead without problems, then those people in the organization were probably in the clear. Others remained under suspicion until they were eliminated. A slow and difficult business, but one which someone had to do. Of course, I know nothing about wartime conditions, but I imagine there could be nothing worse than a slow suspicion eating through morale. The culprit had to be found.

‘And he was. Information given solely to Hartung led to an operation going wrong. It was conclusive evidence, and almost convinced even his wife. So Hartung was summoned to an interview where, according to Mrs Richards, Monsieur Rouxel accused him to his face. And then let him escape. Is that correct?’

Rouxel nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. He was supposed to be taken away and executed. But I couldn’t do it. Sentiment, I suppose, which I regretted immediately. It cost us dearly.’

‘Indeed. Hartung fled, and Pilot was wrapped up quickly. The obvious conclusion being that, knowing the game was up, he alerted the Germans as he left. And this was confirmed by the Germans themselves. Franz Schmidt tormented Hartung’s wife by telling her that her predicament had been caused by her own husband’s betrayal. He hadn’t even tried to save her. Because of that, above all, both she and Rouxel were prepared to pursue him after the war. Is that a fair summary, monsieur?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘that’s about right.’

‘And it’s lies from beginning to end.’

Rouxel shook his head.

‘Hartung was always on the fringes of your cell, and yet he managed to betray it all, every single person in it? How could be possibly have known all that detail? You talked to him on the evening of June the twenty-sixth, round about ten at night, and yet at six-thirty the next morning the Germans swept up the whole lot in a large operation? Which they’d organized from scratch in seven hours? And if that was the case, how did you escape? The only person who really mattered, the leader, the man they were after most of all? The man who really did know the names and identities and location of everyone in the group?’

‘I was lucky,’ he said. ‘And the Gestapo could move very fast when they wanted to. It was called Operation Razor; they were good at that sort of thing.’

‘Yes. Operation Razor. I’ve heard about it.’

Rouxel nodded.

‘To destroy Pilot. Organized on the basis of Hartung’s total betrayal on the night of June the twenty-sixty. Which he did because he knew the game was up after he talked to you.’

Rouxel nodded again.

‘So how is it that the orders for Operation Razor were made out on June the twenty-third?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The dossier about Hartung’s art collection in the Jewish documentation centre. It states quite clearly that they were acting in accordance with instructions for Operation Razor given on June the twenty-third. Three days before Hartung was accused, before he fled and before, according to you, he betrayed you.’

‘So maybe he betrayed us before.’

‘And maybe he didn’t. Maybe when he talked to you that evening he accused you of being the traitor. Maybe he said he had proof. Maybe you contacted the Germans to make sure he was silenced, but he escaped before they could catch him. And you ensured that Henriette was kept alive so she could be told her husband was the traitor and could give evidence against him later.’

Rouxel laughed. ‘Purest fantasy, my dear woman. You have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘I’m not so sure. Let us think about it. This Schmidt character. A torturer, and a wanted war criminal. Known personally to your former mistress. When the authorities wanted to arrest him in 1948 he heard about it in advance and vanished, successfully changing his name. But in recent years a financial services company has been paying him sixty thousand Swiss francs a year. Services Financieres. Controlled by you, monsieur. Can you explain why? Did you feel sorry for him or something? Or were you buying his silence?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Of course you do. Don’t lie to me. A payment of that amount was made into Ellman’s account by a company called Services Financieres. Of which you are a board member and former chairman. And a major shareholder. Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Nonsense.’ She paused after this comment, and regathered herself. The last thing she needed was to get herself into a slanging match. She had to proceed methodically and calmly.

‘A last problem,’ she went on. ‘Hartung hanged himself in prison rather than face his trial. Why, though, if he was convinced he could clear his name? Is that a reasonable act for someone who believes he can prove his innocence? Of course not. The official account is that the prosecutor visited him, presented the case and Hartung, seeing no way out, killed himself. He was found in his cell the next day. You were the prosecutor in that case, Monsieur Rouxel. You visited him the night he died. And you hanged him to stop him denouncing you at his trial.’

‘Utter lies and fabrication.’

‘Fortunately we don’t have to rely on your being truthful. There is proof.’

Here she had their full and undivided attention; until then it had been a battle between Flavia and Rouxel. Now everyone else dropped the role of spectator and jerked to attention.

‘What proof?’ asked Janet.

‘The only proof that remains,’ she said. ‘The rest has been systematically hidden, maybe destroyed. Muller’s files. The classified ministry files. I told Janet I’d go to the Jewish documentation centre and someone swept down before me. You, I suppose, Monsieur Montaillou. And that leaves Hartung’s evidence, the stuff he was convinced would clear him. The material all this has been about.’

‘I thought we’d established it didn’t exist.’

‘Oh, it exists. Muller worked out it had been hidden in the last picture of a series of pictures on justice. Of judgements. The Judgement and Death of Socrates, Judgement of Alexander, Judgement of Jesus, Judgement of Solomon. I think those were the four. The Socrates was given to Monsieur Rouxel when he passed his law exams. But there was also the Judgement of Jesus bought and delivered when he was still living at Henriette’s parents. That one there,’ she said pointing at the painting hanging in the corner. ‘Christ and the Apostles in Glory. The Last Judgement. Not Jesus being tried, but Jesus sitting in judgement. Which was hanging in the office where Rouxel and Hartung had their talk in 1943. The least likely place, Hartung said in his letter. And so it was. Do you think we should take it down and look?’

It was a gamble. After all, she didn’t know that there would be anything at all. So she imbued the comment with all the force and conviction she could muster. The next few minutes would prove her correct, or see her make a complete fool of herself.

This time it was Jeanne Armand who broke the silence. She burst out laughing: a harsh, humourless laugh that was all the more disturbing for being so unexpected and inappropriate.

‘What’s the matter?’ Janet asked.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘All that work, all that covering of tracks for decades, to be finally brought down by something that’s been in your own study for forty years. It’s funny. That’s what it is.’

‘Do I take it you accept my explanation?’ Flavia said quickly, hoping to keep her talking.

‘Oh, God, of course.’

‘You asked Ellman to get the painting back?’

‘Yes. I knew who Muller was, and I was damned if he was going to sweep in here and deny me my rights. I’ve slaved for that man for years. He begged me to work for him, saying he needed me so much, an old man like him with no one else in the world. He’s very persuasive, you know that. So I did; to honour the family hero. I gave up everything and all I got in return was reproach that I wasn’t a grandson he could be truly proud of. To carry on the Rouxel name, as though that meant anything. And then this man turns up. I could see it: the tear-filled meeting, the formal adoption, the gracious welcoming into the family bosom. A son: the final crowning of a golden life of achievement. Oh, no. I wasn’t going to be shoved out of my deserved place like that. I knew about this man Ellman.’

‘How?’

‘I told you. I organized grandfather’s life. All his letters, all his finances. All his old papers. I knew about these payments but couldn’t work out what they were for. So I stopped them a year ago. A month or so later Ellman turned up. He told me a great deal about my heroic grandfather. I did a little looking around in Grandfather’s papers; enough to know that Ellman was the sort of person who could do a job like that and would have good reason to keep quiet. I didn’t think Montaillou would do it for me. What if Montaillou visited this man, and got a full explanation? Do you think he would have destroyed the evidence about who Muller was? Not a chance. That wasn’t what his job was. He would have considered that a harmless domestic matter and left it alone. I needed someone who would get the evidence and destroy it. And I didn’t know that he was going to commit murder. I never wanted that. I just wanted Muller’s proof.’

‘So why was he killed?’

‘Because I underestimated how nasty a man Ellman was. He didn’t want a rival muscling in on his territory, I think. He was worried Muller might be some investigator who’d go to the newspapers. And, of course, if that happened he might be discovered and prosecuted as well.’

‘And you killed Ellman in turn?’

‘Yes, I did,’ she said perfectly calmly. ‘He deserved it. He told me he had recovered the painting and, if it was so important, I would have to pay a million francs. I had no choice. I didn’t know he was lying and had found nothing. So I shot him with his own gun. So what? Does anybody here think he deserved to live? He should have been hanged years ago. Would have been, had the scourge of injustice here not protected him.’

She nodded to herself, then looked at Flavia as though she was the only person who really understood. What else could any reasonable person do? she seemed to be asking.

‘You say Ellman told you about your grandfather?’

‘Yes. I couldn’t believe it. The great man, you know. So upright and honourable. And the government had never done anything about it...’

‘They knew, of course,’ Flavia said. ‘That’s why Montaillou was given carte blanche.’

‘I knew nothing of the sort,’ Montaillou said stiffly. Good. He was wavering as well.

‘There I believe you,’ Flavia replied. ‘I don’t think you did. Your superiors probably did, though.’

‘Schmidt, Ellman, whatever his name was,’ Jeanne continued, ‘told me that in 1942 or something, Grandfather was arrested and threatened with torture. He caved in immediately. Didn’t even try to put up a fight. Ellman held him in total contempt. Said he would have done anything to be let go. And did. In return for his freedom, he offered to hand over the names of everybody he could think of.

‘The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. And now you tell me there’s proof. Good. I’m glad of that. At least it clears up any uncertainty. I can be sure I didn’t do anything so wrong. Not in comparison with everyone else.’

Flavia breathed an enormous sigh of relief. But she got no satisfaction from having proven her case. ‘Monsieur Rouxel? If you want to prove me wrong, you can.’

But Rouxel had abandoned the struggle as well. He knew as well as Flavia that it didn’t matter now whether there was any proof or not. Everybody in the room knew that what she’d said was correct.

‘One mistake,’ he said wearily after a while. ‘One failing. And I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to make up for it. I have, you know. I’ve worked hard — tirelessly, I might say — for this country. That’s what this prize was for. And I earned it. I deserved it. You can’t take that away.’

‘Nobody is—’

‘It was the pain. I couldn’t stand it. Even the idea. I was arrested by accident. Stupid bad luck, that was all. And I was handed over to Schmidt. He was a terrible man; a monster. Really, I’d never dreamt that people like him existed. He liked hurting people. It was his natural calling. I think it was realizing that interrogating me would give him pleasure that I couldn’t stand. And I knew I’d break eventually. Everybody did. So I gave in. They let me go — pretend to escape — in return for information.’

‘There was no need to co-operate quite so fully, was there?’

‘Oh, yes. They knew where I was. If I hadn’t, they could have come and got me at any time.’

He looked around him to see if what he was saying was having any impact. Evidently he decided he didn’t care one way or the other. ‘Then the war began to turn. The Americans had come in and everybody knew the Germans were going to lose. I met Schmidt, and he offered a deal. Not that I had any chance of refusing. He’d keep my secret, and I’d keep his. He knew that when the Allies won he’d be a wanted man; we needed each other.

‘It was a mistake. It was the meeting, I think, that Hartung heard about. How he knew I never discovered. But he got hold of something: a photograph, a diary, whatever. He began treating me strangely, and so we came up with this idea, Schmidt and I. Solve all our problems in one go. We concocted a scheme in which Hartung would be told about an operation, it would go wrong and I could place the blame on him.

‘Just as everything was ready, he came to my office and accused me to my face of being a traitor. Of course, I denied it, but he must have guessed something.’

‘Was he ever alone there?’

Rouxel shrugged, co-operative, even helpful now. ‘Perhaps yes. Maybe that was when he concealed his evidence. Next day he fled, and the Germans missed him. I don’t know how he got away, but he did. They caught everyone else.

‘After the war he came back. That was easy. I was working for the commission, so it was simple to have him arrested and to prepare the case. My own testimony, that of his wife. Watertight. But when I visited him in jail to interrogate him, he said he was looking forward to the trial. Then he would produce his evidence.

‘Did he have some? I didn’t know, but he seemed confident. I had no choice again, you see. I couldn’t let him make a statement in court. So he was found hanged. It was the same with Schmidt; I couldn’t allow him to be tried either. So when I heard the Germans were looking for him, I tipped him off, and helped him get a new identity. He started blackmailing me properly about ten years ago. Said his son was expensive. Of course I paid.

‘And now it comes to this. I discover I had a son, and that my own granddaughter had him murdered. I can think of no more severe punishment you could mete out.’

Then he lapsed into total silence, and everybody looked around wondering what to do next.

‘I think we ought to have a little talk,’ Janet said. ‘I’m sure you realize this creates problems far beyond a mere murder, however serious that might be. Montaillou here can take Madame Armand away to the police station for further questioning. And you, Flavia, I would like to talk over a few matters with you.’

She thought quickly and looked at Rouxel. If there had ever been any doubt in her mind, the sight of him dispelled it. He was a broken man. All his defences and protests had crumbled into nothing when Jeanne Armand began to talk. He was a man whose life had come to an end. There was not much danger of his running away. And what would it matter, really, if he did? So she nodded.

‘Fine. Shall we go outside?’

And while a very deflated Montaillou led the woman away, Janet and Flavia, with Argyll in attendance, stood in the hallway and talked quietly.

‘Firstly,’ the Frenchman said, ‘I hope you’ll accept my apologies. I really had little choice.’

‘Don’t worry. Bottando’s feathers are a bit ruffled, but I’m sure that won’t last long.’

‘Good. Now, the question is, what do we do now? I don’t know about you, but I think that proper tests might well indicate that Madame Armand is mentally unbalanced.’

‘Which means you want to put her in a hospital?’

‘Yes. I think that would be best.’

‘No trial? No publicity?’

He nodded.

‘Part one of a cover-up? What’s part two?’

He shifted uneasily on his feet. ‘What else can we do?’

‘Bring charges against Rouxel?’

‘Too long ago. No matter what evidence is in that painting, it’s all far too long ago. Besides, can you really imagine the government sanctioning charges against a man they themselves nominated for this prize? When there’s a danger it will come out that they knew about him all along? How damning is this evidence?’

She shrugged. ‘We’ll have to see. I doubt if it would be so good now. Backed up by the testimony of others it might have been enough to acquit Hartung fifty years ago, but now...’

‘So there’s probably no solid evidence? No proof? Almost nothing for anyone even to build a rumour on?’

She shook her head. ‘I doubt it. But you know it’s the truth, though. So does he in there.’ She gestured towards the door leading into Rouxel’s study.

‘What we know and what we can prove are different.’

‘True.’

‘Shall we go back in again?’

She nodded, and opened the door. ‘I think it’s time,’ she said quietly.

She heard Janet’s gasp as it swung open to reveal the scene inside. Rouxel was dying, tormented by agony but bearing the pain with dignity. On the floor beside him was a phial that had dropped from his hand. It took little intelligence to realize it had contained poison: the insect-killer he had been using on his plants when Flavia and Argyll had arrived. His skin was pale and his hand, clenched into a fist, hung loosely towards the ground.

It was his face, though, that grabbed the attention. The eyes were open and glazed, but it had a dignity and tranquillity. It was the face of someone who knew he would be mourned.

Janet stood still to take in the scene, then swung round on Flavia with sudden anguish. ‘You knew,’ he yelled at her. ‘Damn you. You knew he would do this.’

She shrugged indifferently.

‘I had no proof,’ she said.

Then turned to go.