by Iain Pears
‘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 vehemen
ce. ‘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 i
t 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.’