by Iain Pears
‘Better late than never.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Does it help?’ Bottando asked.
She thought about that. ‘It will confirm – or refute – my general idea. If there’s anything there. I think, you know, it’s time to bring this case to an end of some sort. One way or another.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘I think so. Yes.’
‘Isn’t she clever?’ Argyll said admiringly. ‘Whatever did you do before she worked for you, General?’
‘Oh, I just had to struggle along,’ he replied.
‘I’m so glad we’re getting married,’ he continued. ‘Such a smart person to have as a wife.’
Bottando thought this was getting irrelevant. ‘Congratulations,’ he said drily. ‘I hope you’ll be very happy. Not before time, in my opinion. Now, Flavia, dear. Are you sure you can wrap this up?’
‘Let me put it like this. I can either find a solution, or make sure no solution will ever be found. Whatever, the case will come to an end. Do you want me to do that?’
Bottando nodded. ‘It would probably be best. Ideally, I would like to bring a murderer or two to book. But if that’s not possible, I want it off our hands. How do you propose to go about it?’
She smiled faintly. ‘I think first of all we have to consult. That is, we go through tried and trusted channels. We will go back to Paris.’
18
Whatever happened, this had better be over soon, Flavia thought to herself as she trooped wearily on to the plane. She couldn’t keep this up much longer. Some businessmen, it seemed, could do this sort of thing perpetually. Three countries a day, airport-hopping. She couldn’t. She could barely even remember what day it was. All she knew was that the moment she thought she’d reached a place where she could lay her head and have a quiet, uninterrupted night’s sleep, the opportunity was whisked away again. She’d had one decent night’s sleep in the last week. She was haggard, confused, upset and thoroughly miserable. A short fuse. A little time bomb waiting to blow.
Argyll, who recognized the signs all too well, left her alone throughout the flight, lost in his own thoughts. He knew perfectly well that to try conversation, or even to attempt to brighten her life with his little jokes, would be counter-productive to say the least.
Besides, he wasn’t feeling like little jokes either. He didn’t know what was going on in Flavia’s mind, but he did know he was mightily sick of this business. People trotting around stealing pictures is one thing. Even murder wasn’t so bad, once you got used to it. But this case involved too much long-term unhappiness for his taste. Argyll liked people to be content; however naïve it made him appear, he had always considered contentment to be the most basic of human rights. And this case was full of people who had missed it. Muller, living all his life with the desolation of being virtually parentless, of having to deal with his family heritage. At least he was spared the anguish of knowing his mother was still alive in such a condition. And his mother, leading a shady half-life, a sort of hobbling corpse for forty years or more. Even Ellman’s son had been corrupted by it all, effectively blackmailing his own father and justifying himself by saying it was all in a good cause. Only Rouxel and his family were untouched. The distinguished man, the beautiful granddaughter, sailing serenely through life, unaware of the misery swirling all around them. Perhaps they were about to be enveloped as well. Something had reached out of the past; Rouxel was the only one it had left untouched. So far.
Dear old Byrnes had driven them to the airport, lent them money and even paid for their tickets, saying that he was certain that the Italian state would take care of it eventually. Even his frosty wife had recovered from the early-morning affront to make them sandwiches for the trip. As Argyll had tried to explain, she wasn’t so bad really. English ladies are occasionally like this: hearts of marshmallow, heavily protected by a covering of solid titanium. They can be quite kind, as long as no one notices and points it out. Then they get brusque and insist that they’re nothing of the sort. An odd national characteristic, really.
Bottando had stayed behind, nattering to Elizabeth Byrnes. These two had hit it off quite nicely, and as Flavia and Argyll dragged their weary steps to the car, they’d left Bottando in the kitchen drinking wine and watching his hostess potter around doing the cooking. Of course the General would stay for dinner and stay the night. No trouble at all.
Hmmph. This was approximately the thought of both Flavia and Argyll as they’d driven off. Somehow the division of labour seemed a touch unfair. They ran around like beheaded chickens, Bottando settled down for a comfortable night. His mentioning the privileges of rank as they’d left hadn’t helped either. Nor did his contribution – ringing Janet to tell him they were on their way – seem exactly like overworking himself. Argyll had protested about this, saying Janet’s track record for being helpful hadn’t exactly been exemplary, but Flavia had insisted. That was the point, she’d said; besides, this time she thought Janet would turn out to be useful.
But, as Bottando had said, this was Flavia’s case. She’d started it, she should finish. See it as a mark of trust, he’d said. Besides, she knew all the ins and outs; he didn’t. And of course, she was the one who wanted to show Fabriano a thing or two.
Charles de Gaulle was relatively empty, and they got off the plane fast, making their way along the mechanized walkways quickly to the exit. Then to passport control, and the line for holders of EC passports. Generally this is simple: frequently the immigration officials don’t even bother to examine passports. Especially in the evening, a gruff nod and a bored look at the cover is about as big a welcome as a traveller can expect.
But not in this case. Whether he was young and enthusiastic, or had just come on his shift or whatever, this one was insisting on doing his job properly. Each passport was opened, each face scrutinized, each person sent on his or her way with a courteous ‘Thank you sir, enjoy your stay.’
Whoever heard of a courteous immigration official at an airport? Everybody knew there was an international training-school somewhere which drilled them in basic offensiveness and advanced sneering.
‘Madame, m’sieur,’ he said in greeting as they handed over their documents, Flavia feeling ever more like a lamb being led to the slaughter.
The feeling was strengthened when he looked intently at the photographs, studied their faces with care, then referred to a book of computer printout on the desk.
‘Bugger,’ said Argyll under his breath.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said.
‘Would you mind coming with me, please?’ said the official.
‘Not at all,’ she replied sweetly. ‘But we are in an enormous rush. We have no time to waste at all.’
‘I’m so sorry. But it will only take a few seconds. I’m sure you understand. Routine checks.’
Like hell, she thought. But there was no chance of doing anything but march off dutifully as instructed. She’d noticed the four armed policemen earlier. Perhaps the guns weren’t loaded; she didn’t know, and had no intention of finding out.
She had the feeling that the little cubicle they were ushered into had been deliberately designed to be depressing. Dingy white walls, no windows, uncomfortable seats and a metal and plastic table all combined to create an atmosphere that reduced you to being an administrative problem, best solved by ejection.
There were two doors, the one through which they entered, and the other which opened shortly after they had come in and sat down in uncomfortable and worried silence. So this is what it feels like to be an illegal immigrant, Flavia thought.
‘Surprise, surprise,’ Argyll said as he saw the person who came in.
‘Jonathan. Good to see you again,’ said the man who, in recent days, had been tackled, hit with bottles, thumped with handbags and tripped up. Despite the words, he didn’t seem at all happy to see them. He had a large piece of sticking-plaster above his left eye. Flavia suppressed a slight snigger and decided not to mention th
eir last meeting. No point in being provocative.
‘The feeling is not reciprocated,’ Argyll said.
‘I thought it might not be. No matter,’ he replied as he sat down. He then opened a bulky file of papers and studied some – more for effect than anything else, Flavia suspected – before looking up at them with a vaguely concerned air.
‘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.
She glanced to her side and saw Argyll fidgeting as well, looking unconvinced. So, as discreetly as possible, she poked him and gave him a keep-your-mouth-shut look.
‘And you made a mess of it,’ she said. Just because she was going along with his story didn’t mean she had to let him off easily.
Montaillou looked not at all embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he said with an easy smile.
‘And so to Rome, where you went to visit Muller.’
‘Who was out. I never saw the man.’
‘And phoned Argyll, asking for the picture back.’
‘Yes,’ he said with a much more convincing display of being honest. ‘That’s right.’
‘And then your superiors contacted you, told you Muller had been murdered and told you to get the hell out of there fast.’
He nodded.
‘Thus hampering a murder investigation.’
He varied the diet by shrugging this time.
‘Did you phone Ellman in Basle? Tell him to get the painting?’
‘I’d never heard of the man. Really. I still have no idea how he was involved.’
‘Rouxel knew what you were up to?’
‘Not the details. That is, I talked to him, and kept his assistant informed.’
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘And, as far as you’re concerned, there’s nothing more to be said. That is, two murders in Rome are none of your business. The picture is back in place and Rouxel is not going to be touched by anything embarrassing.’
He nodded. ‘That’s correct. All that remains is for you to be sent home. Please don’t think I’m being obstructive –’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘If at any stage you come across real evidence identifying the murderer, we will of course act on it.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Of course. But at the moment, your probing is just stirring things up. You have no suspects, I believe? No hard evidence to accuse anyone?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I thought so. I suggest you contact me when you have something a bit more substantial.’
‘Right,’ she said, as he got up, bade them a good evening, picked up his file of papers and left.
‘You’re very co-operative all of a sudden,’ Argyll said as the door clicked shut. Her sudden shift to contrite acquiescence he found something of a surprise. Not really like her.
‘Go with the flow, that’s what I say. What d
id you think of all that?’
‘I think I was right all along. I told you phoning Janet wasn’t such a good idea. Of course that man was going to be here to welcome us to France.’
‘I know,’ she said, a little irritated by his being so slow on the uptake. ‘That was the point. I needed to talk to him. How else could I get hold of him? I had to know what his role was. So, what do you think of him? What he said?’
‘I thought it was a little bit peculiar,’ he said. ‘I mean, I know these people do make a mess of things from time to time, but they seem to have gone out of their way to make this whole business unnecessarily complicated.’
‘You reckon.’
‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘Dealing with this picture would have been all very simple. And they went out of their way to introduce all sorts of contortions.’
‘So you’re inclined to the incompetence theory.’
‘Do you have something better to suggest?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘No.’
‘That does make me feel better. I do.’
‘Stop being secretive. Just tell me.’
‘No. There isn’t any time. We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘We will be out soon.’
‘I don’t mean getting on a plane and going meekly back to Rome, either. I want to visit Rouxel.’
‘But they don’t want us to,’ Argyll said. ‘At least, I assume that’s what those men with machine-guns are there for.’
‘And it’s not occurred to you that an armed guard is perhaps a little excessive?’
‘I don’t know. And you won’t tell me. All I know is that there’s a man with a machine-gun on the other side of that door.’
She nodded. ‘But probably not on the other side of that one. Come along, Jonathan,’ she added as she tugged at the handle of the door Montaillou had used. ‘We’re in a hurry.’
The little cubicle where they were confined was one of a series in which unfortunates trying to get into the country could be interrogated and kept waiting for hours. On the one side, a series of doors along a wall of the passport-control area admitted the would-be immigrants; on the other a parallel series of doors giving on to a corridor allowed immigration officials to come in to do their business. The corridor had a wall at one end, and at the other, blocking the way to freedom, was a guard with a gun.
