Iain Pears - The Last Judgement

‘Now what do we do?’ Argyll asked as the bleak northern suburbs of Paris began to rattle past.

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m going to eat. I’m starving.’

They trooped off to the restaurant car and grabbed themselves an early seat. By this time Argyll was beginning to enter into the spirit of things as well: considering what they had been going through in the past few days, rude letters from credit-card managers seemed minor stuff. He ordered two champagne cocktails to start off. Flavia had not only stolen tickets, she’d even managed to steal first-class ones.

‘Did that card give an address?’ Argyll asked as Flavia’s account drew to a close and they launched into supplementary questions.

‘Yes. But it’s about forty years old. I mean, the chances of this Richards man being still alive are a bit small. The address is in Gloucestershire. Where is Gloucestershire?’

Argyll explained.

‘Have you really only got seven francs left? I have twenty. Plus the two hundred I...’

Argyll converted it into lire. ‘We’re going to have fun in London with that. What do you fancy, a bus ride and a glass of water? Flavia? Flavia?’ he prompted again.

‘Hmm? I’m sorry. What was that?’

‘Nothing. I was just prattling. What were you thinking about?’

‘Janet, mainly. I’m very upset. He was Bottando’s closest colleague. Still, it’s not my fault. What were you up to?’

‘Me?’ he said lightly. ‘Just making a major advance in this business, that’s all. Just catching Rouxel in an enormous lie. Nothing serious really, I suppose...’

She gave him the sort of look his complacency merited.

‘I read through old newspapers, back in 1945 and 1946. It took hours.’

‘About Hartung?’

‘Yup. His return, arrest, and suicide. It caused quite a stink, the whole business, even if it’s mainly forgotten now. Fascinating stuff; I was quite engrossed when I finally latched on to it. But the main thing is that it made clear something we already knew.’

‘And that is?’ she asked patiently.

‘And that is Rouxel worked for some war-crimes commission early in his career.’

‘I know. He told you that.’

‘Not only that, he had the job of assembling evidence against people.’

‘Including Hartung?’

‘Above all Hartung. He was the last person to see the man alive. The papers said so. He interviewed him in his cell one evening and Hartung then hanged himself during the night. And it had slipped his memory. “I knew of the case,” he said. Seems to me he knew a damn sight more than that.’

‘Maybe he just doesn’t like talking about it.’

‘Why not?’ he went on insistently. ‘He didn’t do anything wrong. On the right side all the time. What could he have to hide?’

She pushed away her plate, suddenly feeling exhausted. There’d been too much crammed into too short a time. Now that they were on their way to what they hoped was safety, or at least a respite, the effects were sweeping over her. She shook her head once more when Argyll asked if she wanted coffee, and said she’d prefer to go back to their seats and sleep.

‘No point asking me. I want a few hours not thinking about this,’ she said as they made their way back. ‘Perhaps we’ll find the answer in Gloucestershire.’

She slept like a lamb all the way, content to half-rouse herself when Argyll nudged her at Calais, and to follow in his wake as he steered her around the station to get on the boat, then off it on the other side. The customs and immigration people at both ends were admirably lax, staring blank-eyed and uninterestedly as the troop of weary travellers filed past them, scarcely even bothering to look at their passports, let alone examine them with any care. Either the people chasing them in Paris weren’t police, or they hadn’t worked out where they might be going, or official liaison channels were silted up again.

‘Sleep well?’ he asked gently at six o’clock the next morning as he prodded her awake.

She prised open one eye and cautiously looked around her, trying to remember where she was.

‘Well, yes. But not for long enough. What’s the time?’

‘Far too early. But we’ll be at Victoria in twenty minutes, or thereabouts. We have to decide what to do next.’

‘This is your country. What do you recommend?’

‘We need transport and we need money. At the moment I also need a friendly face and a bit of reassurance.’

Flavia looked disapproving. ‘You don’t want to go and visit your mum, do you?’

‘Eh? No. I thought we might drop in on Byrnes. He might be good for a loan. I’m not having you wandering about London acting like something out of Oliver Twist until we have enough.’

‘Very well. I hardly think he’ll be in his gallery waiting for customers at six o’clock in the morning, but we can go and see if you like.’

‘I doubt if he’ll be in the gallery at all. He’s not a shopkeeper, you know. I think we should blow our final cash on a taxi and go to his house. If I can remember where it is.’

Changing their remaining crumpled notes into sterling was a bit of a difficulty, of course: Victoria Station only has some thirty thousand foreigners passing through every day and sees no reason why it should fuss unduly about helping them to get money. Still, the task was done after a while and Argyll led the way to the taxi stand.

Fortunately, considering the time of day, they did not get one of those cheerful cabbies that guidebooks talk about so much. A rather taciturn man, in fact, who said not a word to them all the way along Park Lane, down the Bayswater Road, past Notting Hill and into the white-stuccoed elegance of Holland Park.

‘Art dealing seems to be a more lucrative business in London than it is in Rome,’ Flavia observed as they got out at what Argyll vaguely remembered as Byrnes’s house. ‘His garden shed is bigger than our apartment.’

‘All the more reason to get a new apartment.’

‘Not now, Jonathan.’

‘I know. I’ve often wondered how he does it. Maybe he’s better at art dealing than I am.’

‘Perish the thought.’

One of the advantages of being a highly successful, well-established dealer approaching those sunset years when most of the serious work can be safely left to subordinates is that you no longer have to rise at dawn to get on with the business of making money. As other people are downing rapid cups of coffee, you are still safely dozing in bed. As they are rushing off to the tube station, you are sitting down at the kitchen table for a leisurely breakfast. As they are frenziedly getting into their work, you are contemplating the letters page of the newspaper.

And when bedraggled fugitives ring your doorbell at 6:45 in the morning you are, normally, sound asleep and not at all happy when you are awakened.

Nor, for that matter, is your wife, who gave the new arrivals a very frosty reception when, after Flavia had leant on the doorbell for several minutes, she finally opened up. First impressions were of vagabonds or worse: while both Argyll and Flavia thought of themselves as being moderately presentable with honest, open faces, the sort you trust instantly, Lady Byrnes saw two very scruffy, haggard people in need of a damned good wash. What was more, there was a distinctly furtive look about both of them; and the woman, who might have been attractive had she combed her hair and changed her clothes, had that unfocused, hazy look that Lady Byrnes, like all right-thinking folk who lament declining social standards, instantly associated with drugs or worse. Whoever they were, they looked the sort who were going to ask for money. Here, of course, she was quite correct.