The Last Judgement

Listen to me, he thought as eventually he made his way to a vacant plastic desk with a pile of reference books. Worse than my grandfather. I don’t know what’s coming over me.

But at least it had some of the books he needed, so he tried to take his mind off the surroundings, and concentrate instead on the reason he was there. Rouxel, he said to himself. Find out, then get out. He worked his way through the material to find out about Jean-Xavier-Marie Rouxel. From a good Catholic family, he thought to himself, with brilliant insight.

Born 1919, the French Who’s Who assured him, which made him around about seventy-four. No chicken he. Hobbies: tennis, collecting medieval manuscripts, time with his family, poetry and duck-breeding. So, a well-preserved all-rounder. Address: 19 Boulevard de la Saussaye, Neuilly-sur-Seine, and Château de la Jonquille in Normandy. A rich well-preserved all-rounder. Married Jeanne Marie de la Richemont-Maupense, 1945. Oh, ho, he thought, going up in the world, eh? Daughter of the aristocracy. Bet that helped the career. One daughter, born 1945, quick work. Wife dies 1950, daughter dies 1963. École Polytechnique, graduating 1944, in the middle of the war. Board member of Elf-Aquitaine, the French oil company. Then chairman of Banque du Nord. Then Axmund Frères stock-brokers; Services Financiers du Midi; Assurances Générales de Toulouse; no end to it. Still on the board of some. Deputy in the Assembly, 1958 to 1977. Minister of the Interior, 1967. A high-flyer, thought Argyll. Didn’t agree with him though. No more politics after that. Legion d’Honneur, 1947. Croix de Guerre, 1945. Hmm. High-ranking war-hero type. I wonder when he fitted that in. Must have joined up at the Liberation. Member of war-crimes tribunal 1945. Private practice for a few years thereafter before the leap into industry and politics. Then a list of clubs, publications, jobs held, honours given. Standard stuff. A model citizen. Even lends his pictures for exhibitions, although after this experience I doubt if he’ll do it again.

Other volumes fleshed out the picture but added few new facts. Rouxel was not a very successful politician, it seemed. He had been popular with colleagues but somehow or other had got up de Gaulle’s nose. He was given a trial run for only eighteen months in government then was chucked out and never succeeded in attracting attention again. Or maybe it was the other way round and he didn’t like high office; perhaps the pay wasn’t good enough or he was more of a backroom man than a fast-talking minister type. Whatever, he still did the odd job — committees here, advisory boards there, governing bodies all over the place. One of the great and the good, the old regulars who pop up time and again in every country, serving the public and keeping their well-manicured hands firmly, if discreetly, on the reins of power in the process. Doing well by doing good; reading between the lines, Rouxel did not come from a wealthy family. He had certainly made it now.

Unfair, thought Argyll as he left. Mere jealousy because you will never be asked to do anything like that. Or just because you’re in a bad mood from that library. Such were his thoughts as he marched boldly along the Rue de Francs-Bourgeois to his rendezvous with what he gloomily expected would been spinsterish, twittering type of personal assistant; the sort who was good at writing letters but not exactly a live wire. Didn’t even know if her employer had been burgled. He might well have to spend an entire evening doing his best to be charming and gallant to this woman and would get nothing useful out of it at all. Had he been consulted, he would have pleaded a previous engagement and held out to see Rouxel himself. But he was stuck with it now, he thought morosely as he rounded the corner at last into the Place des Vosges. Might as well get on with it.

So with scarcely a pause to admire the scenery — which showed what a bad mood he was getting into, it being his favourite bit of the city — he surveyed the crowd inside the restaurant. Little elderly lady, sitting on your own — where are you?

No luck. No such person. Typical. So incompetent she couldn’t even show up on time. He checked his watch.

‘M’sieur?’ said a waiter sliding up alongside. Odd about Parisian waiters, how much they can squeeze into one word. Their most simple greeting can exude so much contempt and loathing it can quite put you off your food, and inspire foreigners with terrors of cultural inferiority. In this case, what the waiter meant was ‘Listen, if you’re just a gawping tourist, clear off and stop blocking the way. If you want to sit down and eat, say so, but get a move on, we’re busy and I don’t have time to waste.’

Argyll explained he was meant to be meeting someone.

‘Is your name Argyll?’ said the waiter, with a passable stab at wrapping his tongue round the surname.

Argyll admitted it.

‘This way. I was asked to show you to madame’s table.’