The Last Judgement

‘Well, what do we do with you two now?’ he went on, to take command of proceedings.

‘How about a proper introduction?’ Flavia asked.

He smiled thinly. ‘Gérard Montaillou,’ he said. ‘Ministry of the Interior.’

‘And an explanation? Like what’s going on?’

‘Oh, that’s simple, if you like. You are a member of a foreign police force and require permission to operate in France. That permission is being denied. So you will go home. As for Mr Argyll, he is lucky not to be charged with smuggling stolen pictures and he will go home as well.’

‘Piffle,’ she said sharply. ‘You never bothered to ask permission when you came to Italy.’

‘I was a civil servant attached to an international delegation.’

‘A spook.’

‘If you like. But I did nothing so awful that anyone is likely to object.’

‘Two people are dead, for God’s sake. Or is that all in a day’s work for you?’

He shook his head. ‘Too many spy stories, mademoiselle. I sit at desks and shunt paper around. A bit like you, really. This sort of thing is all quite exceptional for me.’

‘Which is why you’re not very good at it.’

He didn’t like that very much. If he had been on the verge of relaxing a little, it reversed the process.

‘Maybe,’ he said stiffly.

‘So we go home, I put in an extradition order for you so you can be charged with murder?’

‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ he said. ‘As I say, I push paper around. And every time I’ve wanted to talk to you you’ve hit me. I can prove that when Ellman died I was back in Paris. And I never even met Muller. I went to his apartment, but there was no one there.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

He shrugged dismissively. ‘That’s your problem.’

‘I can make sure it’s yours as well.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘So what were you doing, then?’

‘I don’t need to tell you anything.’

‘What harm would it do? I’m going to raise an almighty stink about this when I get back to Rome. You convince me I shouldn’t.’

He considered this for a moment. ‘Very well, then,’ he said eventually. ‘You are aware, of course, that a painting belonging to Jean Rouxel was stolen.’

‘We had noticed.’

‘At the time, we paid no attention to this. As a member of a department that deals with the security of officials I was notified—’

‘Why?’

‘Because Monsieur Rouxel is a distinguished man, a former minister, and is about to receive an international prize. Prominent public figures are our — my — line of business. My job, mainly, is protection of politicians. It’s all quite normal. It seemed unimportant, but about a week or so ago, the art police arrested a man called Besson. He confessed to an awful lot of things. One of them was stealing this painting.

‘So I was called in to talk to this man. Eventually we did a deal. Besson was let go, and he told us what he knew.’

‘Which was?’

‘Which was that he had been approached by a man over this painting, and asked to acquire it for him. This man Muller said that the price was immaterial, and he was to get hold of this painting at any cost. Naturally Besson pointed out that the picture was hardly likely to be for sale. Muller said that didn’t matter. He wanted the picture and wanted it fast; if he had to steal it, then that was fine. Just get it, but make sure it was untraceable.

‘Besson asked what was so important about this picture, and was told it belonged to Muller’s father. He persisted, saying it was not a very good reason. Muller then said it contained important material about his father.

‘Besson was paid quite a lot of money and, being the sort of person he was, couldn’t resist. He stole it, and routed it through Delorme, then apparently through you. That was when I came in; as far as I was concerned, you were just another illegal courier.’

‘So why not just arrest me?’

‘We were in an awkward position. Clearly this Muller attached significance to the picture, we didn’t know what that significance was, and the timing was very worrying. Rouxel was going to be awarded this prize in a week or so. A very big deal indeed, and it seemed something or other was about to pop up. Maybe it was something trivial, or untrue, or just the lunacy of a complete nutcase. It didn’t really matter. My superiors decided the best thing to do would be to sit on the thing until we could find out what was going on. If we arrested you and Muller found out, he might say something; the idea was to get the picture back and get down to Rome before he worked out what was going on. On top of that, of course, I was very pressed for time.’

Not convincing, Flavia thought as she scrutinized the smoothly talking man opposite. All very curious, this business. She knew that these spooks were not the brightest people on earth, but this was just ridiculous. Of course it would have been more sensible to descend in a posse on the railway station, arrest Argyll and take the picture. To act as he had was simply absurd. Amateurish. Even more, to expect her to believe this was plain insulting. Someone here was being less than perfectly truthful. And it wasn’t her or Argyll.