by Iain Pears
‘I can’t imagine anybody would want to stay long here,’ Argyll commented as he looked around their new and, he hoped, very temporary home.
‘I think that most customers are in and out of here so fast they don’t notice the wallpaper. Besides, they’ve probably got other things on their mind. I must say, I never thought of you as a person who went to hotels for loose women.’
‘I never realized you were one. Come on, the sooner we’re out of here the better. Didn’t you say something about ringing Bottando?’
So she had. She’d rather hoped he’d forgotten about that. With great reluctance, she went to a telephone booth in the nearest post office and dialled.
‘I was wondering when you’d turn up,’ the General said when he picked up the phone. ‘Where are you?’
She explained. ‘Jonathan reckons that everything is all sorted out and we should come home. I want to keep on plugging.’
‘Obviously, if you want to curtail your holiday, that’s fine by me. It may well be that you’re wasting your time there.’
‘How’s Fabriano?’
‘Him? Oh, getting nowhere, I gather. Vast piles of information which add up to nothing. Although he has established that the same gun killed Muller and Ellman. And that it belonged to Ellman. Which, I must admit, doesn’t surprise me. He has eliminated dozens of people from his enquiries, which I suppose is negative progress. How are you doing?’
Flavia summarized, and Bottando drew in his breath.
‘Look, my dear, I know what you’re like, but you must be more careful. What on earth are you doing approaching these people on your own? You could have got very badly hurt. Why don’t you just get Janet to pull Besson in? Be simple and straightforward for once.’
‘Because.’
‘Because what?’
‘Because Janet is playing silly buggers, that’s why.’
‘Do you want me to talk to him?’
‘No. I don’t want him to know what I think. You can fight with him later, if you want. He wants me to go home. So does Jonathan. In fact, I’m the only one who really wants to give this a bit more time.’
Bottando thought. ‘I don’t know that I can advise you. The Carabinieri need help, even though Fabriano refuses to acknowledge it, and this is a double murder. But whether or not you are wasting your time I can’t tell you. All I can say is that if you decide to come home you can; then we can tell Fabriano that we’ve done our bit and he’s on his own. Or do you want to show him you’re better at this than he is?’
‘That’s a very unfair question.’
‘It just crossed my mind.’
‘I want to get to the bottom of this.’
‘In that case you’d better hang on. Anything I can do?’
‘One thing,’ she said, looking at the meter ticking away. ‘A phone call to Ellman. It didn’t come from Paris, apparently. I asked Janet to contact the Swiss, but could you put a bit of pressure on them as well?’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘Well?’ asked Argyll as she emerged.
Flavia thought carefully. ‘He’s absolutely adamant that I should carry on. Very keen to continue the investigation,’ she said. ‘Absolutely essential, he reckons.’
‘Oh,’ he replied, a bit disappointed. There was an auction sale just outside Naples the next day he’d been hoping to get to. ‘So I suppose we do, then.’
‘Yes. No choice. Sorry.’
‘We are running awfully short of money, you know.’
‘I know. We’ll just have to improvise.’
‘How do you improvise about money?’
‘I’ll think about it. Meantime, I want to go to this documentation centre. You coming?’
So they walked south, back into the proper, tourist, Guide Michelin part of the city, away from the run-down streets, the hordes of lost and sad-looking inhabitants, across and through the sweat-shop district of overworked women from Asia on whose shoulders rests the city’s reputation for haute couture, and then again east into the ever more elegant Marais, long since shorn of the down-at-heel occupants who once gave the area its charm.
In this part of the world lay the Jewish documentation centre, because that was where the Jewish quarter once was, until the combined efforts of Nazis and, more recently, property developers reduced it to a couple of streets.
The Rue Geoffroy-l’Asnier was not a major street in the tourist itinerary. One building of considerable beauty, a concrete memorial to the deported of the war, and that was about it. The rest had been flattened to make way for something. No one seemed too sure what it was. Even in the sunlight it seemed forlorn and half abandoned.
There was a minor debate as the pair of them stood outside, trying to decide who should take on the task of going inside and searching for useful information. Flavia particularly wanted to go in; she felt as though she should turn her mind once more to the attempt to give form to this hodge-podge of miscellaneous information.
‘So, you or me?’ she said, when her train of thought petered out. ‘Personally, I think I’d be better.’
‘OK. I’ve thought of something else to do anyway. I’m off to see about paintings. See you later.’
Flavia went into the building next to the monument to the deported, checked that Janet had, after all, phoned to say she was coming, signed in and then began making earnest enquiries. The woman at the desk was perfectly happy to help – there was almost nobody else in the building, after all – and she was shown to a vast cabinet full of filing cards. The name Jules Hartung was there, and a dossier number, which she wrote on a request form and handed back in. At the same time, the archivist recommended another series of dossiers on confiscated and looted property. If Hartung was rich and dispossessed, then there might well be some account of him, if only a brief one, in that as well.
She thanked the woman, sat down and waited, filling up the time by reading a pamphlet the dear lady brought to her on the confiscation of property during the occupation. She read it with considerable attention, having half formed in her mind the theory that Hartung’s art collection might be at the bottom of this somewhere.
It was a reasonable hypothesis, after all. Since the Berlin Wall had come down, long-lost treasures had been popping up in the basements of obscure East-European museums like mushrooms. Hundreds of paintings, looted in the war and never seen since, were now giving curators major headaches and exercising the minds of diplomats. Was it possible, she thought as she read, that all this business was stimulated by the possession of a major art collection?
Not that she knew anything about it, she realized as she ploughed her way through the pages. She’d never conceived that the looting was so well and bureaucratically organized. Extracts of letters from a secretary at the German embassy in Paris detailed how a special art force, the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, methodically arrested people, searched houses, confiscated goods and transported the product of their labours to Germany. An interim report of 1943 announced that it had confiscated more than 5,000 paintings. By the time its labours were interrupted by the untimely arrival of the Liberation, it had shifted nearly 22,000 articles to Germany. With the diligence of the committed thief, the plunderers made meticulous notes of their labours. None the less, the article concluded by announcing that a large proportion had never been seen again.
‘Here you are, mademoiselle,’ said the archivist, dragging Flavia from her reading and temporarily confusing her before she realized she was being addressed. The woman handed over a bulky file.
‘Confiscated goods. I hope you read German. We’ll bring you the other document you ordered in a while.’
Flavia’s face fell as she opened the dossier. Bad German handwriting was her idea of a nightmare. Still, she wasn’t there to enjoy herself, so screwing up eyes with concentration, and with the library’s best German dictionary by her side, she did her best.
It wasn’t as bad as she feared. The names of the previous owners were at the top of the
sheet, so in most cases she merely had to check them off, and head on for the next document. Even so, it took two hours of hard work, and a depressing experience it was, skimming through dozens of lists of rings, jewels, prints, drawings, statues and paintings.
She found it at half-past one. Hartung, Jules; 18 Avenue Montaigne. List of goods confiscated on 27 June 1943, pursuant to orders given under Operation Razor on the twenty-third of the same month.
A rich haul, judging by the size of the list. Seventy-five paintings, 200 drawings, 37 bronzes, 12 marbles and 5 boxes of jewellery. Not bad for a morning’s work. A nice collection, she thought, if the objects really were what the inventory claimed. Rubens, Teniers, Claude, Watteau, they were all there.
But nothing by this Floret man, even though she checked twice. Nothing matching the title. Damnation, she thought. There goes another theory. And, if, this was something to do with the man’s collection, why concentrate on a minor painting when there were all these goodies to be had?
‘Mademoiselle di Stefano?’
She looked up again. ‘Yes?’
‘Would you come and see the director, please?’
Not again, she thought, eyeing the fastest route to the door as she stood up. If I have to take to my heels again I shall scream.
But the librarian still seemed friendly enough, almost apologetic in fact, and led her across to an office at the far end of the room without the slightest hint that she was preparing a trap. I’m getting paranoid, she thought.
‘I’m delighted to meet you,’ said the director, extending his hand in greeting as he introduced himself as François Thuillier. ‘I hope you’ve been getting what you need.’
‘So far, yes,’ Flavia replied, still a little cautious about all this. In her experience directors of archives did not personally welcome each customer, no matter how bad trade was. ‘I’m still waiting for another file, though.’
‘Ah, that’ll be the one on Hartung, no?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m afraid we have a problem there.’
Oh, I get it, she thought. I knew life was a little too easy this afternoon. Just saving up the little sting in the tail.
‘It’s very embarrassing to have to admit it, of course, but I’m sorry to tell you that we can’t seem to lay our hands on it at the moment.’
‘You’ve lost it?’
‘Ah, yes. That’s right.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘It’s just not in place. I assume that it wasn’t put back after the last reader –’
‘What last reader? When was this?’
‘I really don’t know,’ he said.
‘And it disappeared?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is it such a popular file?’
‘No, not at all. I’m dreadfully sorry, but I’m sure it will turn up soon.’
Flavia was not so certain, but she smiled her most plaintive smile, and explained her problem. She was running out of money, had little time …
Thuillier smiled sympathetically. ‘Believe me, in the last hour or so we’ve tried very hard. I think it must have been put back in the wrong place. I’m afraid we have no choice but to wait until it turns up. However, if you like I am able to tell you what I know of this case. I can do that, at least.’
She stared at him. What was going on here? she wondered. Thuillier looked very upset about something, and she had an idea she knew what it was.
‘When were you told not to let me see this file?’ she asked.
He spread his hands hopelessly. ‘I can’t answer that,’ he said. ‘But it’s true that we don’t have it.’
‘I see.’
‘And I shouldn’t have said that,’ he went on. ‘But I don’t like interference. So, I will tell you what I can, if you want to hear.’
‘You know what’s in it?’
‘Not word for word, obviously. But occasionally if someone asks for something I have a quick look. We had an enquiry about six months ago about the Hartung family and I looked through the file. Unfortunately the man in question never contacted us again.’
‘What was his name?’
The director frowned. ‘I don’t know whether I should tell you.’
‘Oh, please do. After all, this man might be able to help me as well. You don’t like interference, remember. Nor do I.’
‘True. Just a moment.’
And he rummaged in his desk for a diary and flicked through the pages. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Here we are. His name was Muller. With an address in Rome. Have you heard of him?’
‘Oh, yes. I know him well,’ Flavia said, her heart beating a little faster at the news. So she wasn’t wasting her time after all.
‘And, as I say, I had a look at the file.’
She waited, and he smiled at her.
‘Well? Go on, then. Please tell me.’
Thuillier placed the tips of his fingers together in scholastic mode. ‘You must remember,’ he began cautiously, ‘that it is far from being a full account. For that you would need the judicial dossiers prepared in advance of his trial.’
‘Where can I get those?’
He smiled. ‘I very much doubt that you can. They’re classified. Not to be released for a century.’
‘I can ask.’
‘You can. All I can say is that I think you’d be wasting your time.’
‘I think you’re right.’
‘Tell me, how much exactly do you know about this period? Or about Hartung?’
Flavia confessed that she didn’t know much. What she’d learnt at school, mainly, together with what she’d found out about Hartung in the investigation.
‘Hartung’s son was trying to find out about him. I suppose that’s natural, but it did lead to his death. He was some sort of industrialist, wasn’t he?’
Thuillier nodded. ‘That’s right. Chemicals, mainly, but many other things as well. Very large family firm, founded about the turn of the century. He was the second generation and was the main figure who built it up. None of this, by the way, is in the files. It’s just what I know.’
‘The more the better. I think I may find out more by listening to you than I would have by reading. I’m quite glad now the file’s lost.’
Thuillier smiled and, suitably encouraged by her perfectly genuine appreciation, went on.
‘Well then. He was born in the 1890s and his family was a long-established part of the Jewish community in Paris. Even before Hartung et Cie took off they were wealthy, from various sorts of trade. Hartung was both a capitalist and a liberal. Workers’ housing projects, educational schemes, all the usual sort of thing you find in the more enlightened entrepreneurs of the day. He was one of the few employers to support the idea of statutory paid holidays for workers in the 1930s. He fought in the First World War and, if I remember correctly, was injured and decorated. I could find out the details if you want …’
‘No, no,’ she said, holding up her hand. ‘Perhaps later if it’s needed.’
‘As you wish. From the 1930s onwards, his career took on a new aspect. Like many French Jews, he had relations in Germany and, unlike many, he was perceptive enough to realize that the rise of Hitler was not something that would just go away if he kept his head down. So he appears to have embarked on a double-edged policy. On the one hand, helping Jews in Germany, and on the other keeping up contacts with the authorities there and with the French Right.
‘Now, with hindsight, it is clear that this was opportunism, playing the market both ways, so to speak. His lack of principle is obvious – now. Then, it was less clear. Lots of people were doing exactly the same; many were far more open in supporting the Right than he was. As in many crises, a lot of people merely wanted to keep themselves and their families safe, and would do whatever was necessary.’
‘But Hartung was different.’
‘Not really. He wanted to keep safe, and to keep his factories going. And he was successful; his factories were left surprisingly alone. H
e said, I believe, that this was due to his skill, the fact that they produced essential goods and his ability to pay vast bribes to fend off confiscation. Certainly he talked more and more about running out of funds.
‘He had a wife, very much younger than himself and very much more politically minded. I don’t think it was a close marriage, but they observed all the formalities. She was drawn more and more into the Resistance, and he inevitably got to know something of what she was doing. He was only on the fringes, mind; he was never allowed close in. But through her, he knew much more than he would have done otherwise. This, it seemed, was a fatal mistake.’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ Flavia said quickly, looking up from her note-pad, into which she had been writing as furiously and as fast as she could go. ‘His family. They got out?’
‘That’s right. His wife stayed, though. But his son was smuggled abroad at some stage.’
‘Yes. That checks. I’m sorry. I interrupted.’
‘That’s all right. Hartung’s wife was associated with a Resistance cell code-named Pilot. Do you know about those?’
‘A little.’
‘They were given code-names, mainly for radio identification purposes or for bureaucratic and security reasons in England. They were strictly isolated from each other to limit the damage if anything should go wrong. In this case, there was some overlap with another, bigger group called Pascal. In all, about a hundred and fifty people were involved.’
Thuillier rubbed his glasses and paused for a while to collect his thoughts. Flavia looked suitably sombre and encouraging. She was having a hard time imagining all this.
‘There were rumours of a traitor, of course. Perhaps that was part of the secretive life these people had to live. It was inevitable that suspicion and mistrust should thrive. But there was enough evidence that there was some basis to it. Operations went wrong; saboteurs would go out to find the Germans waiting for them. Supplies were dropped, and the Germans were there to catch them.
‘Eventually, as suspicion without proof mounted, they set a trap. A false operation was concocted, and news of it was given to Hartung alone. It worked: the Germans turned up again. Hartung fled, and the Germans responded fast. He’d told them more than anyone dreamed possible; within twelve hours, they’d swept up the whole of Pilot. Only a small handful survived; and they provided the damning evidence against Hartung after the war.’