The Last Judgement

‘And maybe he didn’t. Maybe when he talked to you that evening he accused you of being the traitor. Maybe he said he had proof. Maybe you contacted the Germans to make sure he was silenced, but he escaped before they could catch him. And you ensured that Henriette was kept alive so she could be told her husband was the traitor and could give evidence against him later.’

Rouxel laughed. ‘Purest fantasy, my dear woman. You have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘I’m not so sure. Let us think about it. This Schmidt character. A torturer, and a wanted war criminal. Known personally to your former mistress. When the authorities wanted to arrest him in 1948 he heard about it in advance and vanished, successfully changing his name. But in recent years a financial services company has been paying him sixty thousand Swiss francs a year. Services Financieres. Controlled by you, monsieur. Can you explain why? Did you feel sorry for him or something? Or were you buying his silence?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Of course you do. Don’t lie to me. A payment of that amount was made into Ellman’s account by a company called Services Financieres. Of which you are a board member and former chairman. And a major shareholder. Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Nonsense.’ She paused after this comment, and regathered herself. The last thing she needed was to get herself into a slanging match. She had to proceed methodically and calmly.

‘A last problem,’ she went on. ‘Hartung hanged himself in prison rather than face his trial. Why, though, if he was convinced he could clear his name? Is that a reasonable act for someone who believes he can prove his innocence? Of course not. The official account is that the prosecutor visited him, presented the case and Hartung, seeing no way out, killed himself. He was found in his cell the next day. You were the prosecutor in that case, Monsieur Rouxel. You visited him the night he died. And you hanged him to stop him denouncing you at his trial.’

‘Utter lies and fabrication.’

‘Fortunately we don’t have to rely on your being truthful. There is proof.’

Here she had their full and undivided attention; until then it had been a battle between Flavia and Rouxel. Now everyone else dropped the role of spectator and jerked to attention.

‘What proof?’ asked Janet.

‘The only proof that remains,’ she said. ‘The rest has been systematically hidden, maybe destroyed. Muller’s files. The classified ministry files. I told Janet I’d go to the Jewish documentation centre and someone swept down before me. You, I suppose, Monsieur Montaillou. And that leaves Hartung’s evidence, the stuff he was convinced would clear him. The material all this has been about.’

‘I thought we’d established it didn’t exist.’

‘Oh, it exists. Muller worked out it had been hidden in the last picture of a series of pictures on justice. Of judgements. The Judgement and Death of Socrates, Judgement of Alexander, Judgement of Jesus, Judgement of Solomon. I think those were the four. The Socrates was given to Monsieur Rouxel when he passed his law exams. But there was also the Judgement of Jesus bought and delivered when he was still living at Henriette’s parents. That one there,’ she said pointing at the painting hanging in the corner. ‘Christ and the Apostles in Glory. The Last Judgement. Not Jesus being tried, but Jesus sitting in judgement. Which was hanging in the office where Rouxel and Hartung had their talk in 1943. The least likely place, Hartung said in his letter. And so it was. Do you think we should take it down and look?’

It was a gamble. After all, she didn’t know that there would be anything at all. So she imbued the comment with all the force and conviction she could muster. The next few minutes would prove her correct, or see her make a complete fool of herself.

This time it was Jeanne Armand who broke the silence. She burst out laughing: a harsh, humourless laugh that was all the more disturbing for being so unexpected and inappropriate.

‘What’s the matter?’ Janet asked.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘All that work, all that covering of tracks for decades, to be finally brought down by something that’s been in your own study for forty years. It’s funny. That’s what it is.’

‘Do I take it you accept my explanation?’ Flavia said quickly, hoping to keep her talking.

‘Oh, God, of course.’

‘You asked Ellman to get the painting back?’