The Last Judgement

Montaillou shook his head. ‘No, I don’t know. All I know is that you are causing a great deal of distress for no reason. We now know who killed Muller. Ellman killed him. You have no proof about who killed Ellman and I don’t imagine anyone is really so concerned. Leave it be.’

‘No,’ said Janet with surprising vehemence. ‘I’m tired of all this. I want to know. I have been subjected to intolerable pressure and interference in the past week. I have had investigations closed down. I’ve been ordered by your people to obstruct a murder inquiry in Italy and caused enormous damage to relations with colleagues abroad in the process. I caught an important thief whom I’ve been chasing for years and you let him go with a virtual amnesty. I’ve had enough. I want to get to the bottom of this before I launch a major complaint against you, Montaillou. So you continue, Flavia. Explain all this.’

‘I don’t know who Montaillou works for, but I’m damned sure it isn’t some potty little organization to protect public figures. As you say, he’s been throwing his weight around in recent days. You can’t do that if you merely follow diplomats and politicians around to make sure they don’t lock themselves in the shower.

‘Montaillou’s job was to prevent a major embarrassment. He and his department were manipulated, of course, by Madame Armand, just as everyone else was. But he was led to believe that the picture stolen by Muller contained incriminating documents which, if revealed at the right moment, might have involved a very public withdrawal of Monsieur Rouxel from accepting the Europa prize. For which he had been nominated by the French government. His job was to stop that happening.

‘So we have to go back again. To Pilot, and its destruction. Someone was betraying it; operations started to go wrong. But who was it? Rouxel took matters into his own hands. Advance information was selectively given to certain people; if the operations in question went ahead without problems, then those people in the organization were probably in the clear. Others remained under suspicion until they were eliminated. A slow and difficult business, but one which someone had to do. Of course, I know nothing about wartime conditions, but I imagine there could be nothing worse than a slow suspicion eating through morale. The culprit had to be found.

‘And he was. Information given solely to Hartung led to an operation going wrong. It was conclusive evidence, and almost convinced even his wife. So Hartung was summoned to an interview where, according to Mrs Richards, Monsieur Rouxel accused him to his face. And then let him escape. Is that correct?’

Rouxel nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. He was supposed to be taken away and executed. But I couldn’t do it. Sentiment, I suppose, which I regretted immediately. It cost us dearly.’

‘Indeed. Hartung fled, and Pilot was wrapped up quickly. The obvious conclusion being that, knowing the game was up, he alerted the Germans as he left. And this was confirmed by the Germans themselves. Franz Schmidt tormented Hartung’s wife by telling her that her predicament had been caused by her own husband’s betrayal. He hadn’t even tried to save her. Because of that, above all, both she and Rouxel were prepared to pursue him after the war. Is that a fair summary, monsieur?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘that’s about right.’

‘And it’s lies from beginning to end.’

Rouxel shook his head.

‘Hartung was always on the fringes of your cell, and yet he managed to betray it all, every single person in it? How could be possibly have known all that detail? You talked to him on the evening of June the twenty-sixth, round about ten at night, and yet at six-thirty the next morning the Germans swept up the whole lot in a large operation? Which they’d organized from scratch in seven hours? And if that was the case, how did you escape? The only person who really mattered, the leader, the man they were after most of all? The man who really did know the names and identities and location of everyone in the group?’

‘I was lucky,’ he said. ‘And the Gestapo could move very fast when they wanted to. It was called Operation Razor; they were good at that sort of thing.’

‘Yes. Operation Razor. I’ve heard about it.’

Rouxel nodded.

‘To destroy Pilot. Organized on the basis of Hartung’s total betrayal on the night of June the twenty-sixty. Which he did because he knew the game was up after he talked to you.’

Rouxel nodded again.

‘So how is it that the orders for Operation Razor were made out on June the twenty-third?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The dossier about Hartung’s art collection in the Jewish documentation centre. It states quite clearly that they were acting in accordance with instructions for Operation Razor given on June the twenty-third. Three days before Hartung was accused, before he fled and before, according to you, he betrayed you.’

‘So maybe he betrayed us before.’