The Last Judgement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘It’s your father.’

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

‘I’m afraid he’s dead. Murdered.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘It strikes a chord?’

‘Tell me about him.’

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

‘French?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has he been in the news recently?’

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

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

‘Go on.’

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

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

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

‘Like your allowance being late.’

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

She nodded.

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

‘No.’

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

‘OK then. What do you do?’

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

‘Oh.’

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

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

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

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

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