The Last Judgement

‘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.’

‘And his wife?’

‘She was arrested and was presumably executed. He didn’t even try and save her. He had, apparently, made a bargain; he passed on what he knew and the Germans left him alone. When he fled, he told them and they swooped down before their information became too old to be useful.’

Flavia looked at him for a long time, nodding to herself and chewing this one over. ‘And most of what you’ve just told me came from the missing file?’

‘A lot of it, yes.’

‘Not from the material assembled by the prosecutor?’

‘Not directly. That was bound to be confidential until any trial — which of course didn’t happen. But I imagine it would have covered a lot of the same ground, and there were leaks and newspaper reports at the time.’

‘What happened to Hartung? I know he came back and was arrested.’

‘Perfectly simple, I think; he was interrogated by the prosecutor’s office. It must have become increasingly clear that the case against him was overwhelming, and what the verdict would be. He had a choice of waiting and being guillotined, or cutting short the agony and committing suicide. He chose the latter.’

‘And there’s no doubt that he was a traitor?’

‘Absolutely none. We also conduct our interviews, to build up our dossiers of material; we talked to some people ourselves about what happened.’

‘What did they say?’

Thuillier smiled. ‘There you are pressing my memory too far, I’m afraid. It was a long time ago and I haven’t read those statements. All I can supply there is the names. Not that they will be of much use.’

She smiled at him, and asked for the names. He led her out of his office to a bank of card-index drawers. ‘This may take some time,’ he said.

So she wandered off to the desk by the entrance. There was one other thing which she needed to do before she left.

‘I know it’s a little bit irregular,’ she began when the librarian lady smiled apologetically and asked what she needed. ‘But would it be so dreadful to know who else is interested in my files. Just paranoia, I know. But if the documents don’t turn up, I might be able to approach him and see if he has any notes...?’

‘We don’t normally do that, you know,’ she said. ‘But in the circumstances, I’m sure we could bend the rules a bit.’

She rummaged under the desk and took out a book. ‘No computerized technology here, I’m afraid. We just write it all down in this book. Let’s see. A few months back, I’m told. I was on holiday then, otherwise I’d be able to help you.’

Flavia flicked through the pages, frowned, then flicked through them again. There was Muller’s name, bold and clear. She tore the page out and stuffed it in her handbag. It probably wouldn’t be there if she came back for it.

Then she wandered back to Thuillier, still labouring with the file cards. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘I’m being less help than I hoped. After all that, I can only find one name. The others also seem to have been mislaid.’

‘What a pity,’ she said drily.

He handed over an old file card, with a handwritten annotation on it. H. Richards, it said. With an address in England.

‘And who is this?’

‘I’ve no idea. I imagine he must have been a liaison officer in the British army or something like that. We have an awful lot of cross-references to material in other libraries and centres. This one, you can see from the reference number, is to papers in the Justice Ministry. It wasn’t with the rest, which is why it’s still there. I assume that it was testimony collected for the trial. And that means, of course, that it is confidential.’

‘So you have no idea what’s in it?’

‘Not a clue. And I doubt you’ll be allowed to look. In fact, I know you won’t.’

‘And you don’t know if this man is still alive?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

14