Iain Pears - The Last Judgement

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 their 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.