Page 135 of Marble Hall Murders

Two days later, Pünd and Voltaire met for the last time.

James Fraser was overseeing the departure from the Grand-Hôtel, checking the porters had brought down all the cases and settling the account. He would have been happy to stay another week, but Pünd wanted to be on his way. The death of Lady Chalfont had affected him more than he had expected because it had been so arbitrary. It wasn’t even as if she had been the real target. She had never harmed or offended anybody and hadn’t deserved her life ending this way, even if he could console himself that it was already over and it was perhaps only a few weeks that had been taken from her. Pünd was feeling a chill wind in the Riviera sunshine and knew that he had to go home. This time, he and Fraser were taking the plane.

He had not expected the Frenchman to come to the hotel. Voltaire himself was on his way back to Paris, travelling on his own. There is nothing a police officer finds more disagreeable than paperwork, but there was a mountain of it for him to process as a result of the five arrests he had made. More than anything, he longed to be back with his wife and son in theirappartementin Montparnasse. He looked worn out. From the way he walked, clutching his injured arm and holding it closely to his side, it was clear that the wounds he had suffered fifteen years ago were still plaguing him.

He was waiting in the reception area when Pünd came out of the lift.

‘Monsieur Pünd!’

‘Monsieur Voltaire. I hoped I would see you again.’

‘You are leaving.’

‘We have a flight in two hours.’

‘Then perhaps you will allow me a few minutes? There is something I wish to say.’

‘Of course. Perhaps a last drink on the terrace?’

‘That would be excellent.’

They found a table close to where Pünd had met with the art expert, Harlan Scott. Voltaire orderedun grand crême. Pünd chose mineral water.

‘I will be brief,’ Voltaire began. ‘I wish, first of all, to apologise for the antagonism that I displayed when we first met. I will be honest and say I was irritated to be advised by my superiors that a crime committed on French soil was to be investigated by a detective from England. But for reasons that will be obvious to you, I also considered us to be enemies. It was foolish of me and I regret my error.’

Pünd held up a hand. ‘Please do not concern yourself, Frédéric. I may call you that? My work would have been a great deal more difficult without you and I fully understand your perspective. I might have felt the same had our positions been reversed.’

‘I also want to say that I was astounded by your perspicacity. All the evidence was there before me. I was present at almost every single one of the interviews you conducted. I met every suspect. And yet I saw nothing. It was only through the brilliance of your mind that the true circumstances of this terrible crime came to light. Everything they say about you is true, Atticus. You are a remarkable man.’

Pünd smiled – but modestly. ‘You are too kind.’

Voltaire’s eyes clouded. ‘It seems strange to me that an entire family should be so tainted. Robert Waysmith is evidently a psychopath, but his father is little better. And asfor Jeffrey and Lola Chalfont and Harry and Judith Lyttleton, they allowed themselves to be led down a very dangerous path, to risk their liberty, their wealth and even their lives simply to rid themselves of a man who might not have been as much of a threat to them as they believed.’

‘You will arrest Elmer Waysmith?’

‘I think it is quite possible that he will escape justice. But he will have lost his wife, his son and his reputation. He will spend the rest of his life waiting for the knock on the door that will tell him his crimes have caught up with him. Are you a religious man, Atticus?’

‘My belief in God was taken from me by my experiences in the war.’

‘That is a shame. I have a belief in, if not God, then the possibility of divine retribution and it is this that has been delivered to Elmer Waysmith as surely as human justice will lay claim to his son.’ He paused. ‘You are not well, Atticus.’

‘You can see it?’

‘I do not need to. You told us all that this was your last case. You also said that you had met Lady Chalfont in a doctor’s waiting room. It is serious?’

‘My time is limited.’

‘The world will be a poorer place without you.’

‘Do not be sorry for me.’ Pünd smiled. ‘I must tell you, Frédéric, that I am at peace with my life and the leaving of it.Je suis fatigué.I have been tired for a long time. It is strange, do you not think, the life of the detective. We are not like other people. We make our living from evil and from inhumanity. Lady Chalfont is poisoned. The poor girl, Alice Carling, is strangled, just like the actress Melissa James. Sir Magnus Pyeis decapitated. His housekeeper is pushed down the stairs. On and on it goes. We arrive, we ask questions, we find the killers and they themselves are arrested and perhaps executed. But what have we really achieved? For every Robert Waysmith there is another malefactor waiting in the wings, preparing for his entry onto the stage.

‘And it is inevitable that they will bring us down to their level. We will walk through the streets and we will see this person and that person and we will wonder what they are thinking, what they are planning, who they hate, how far they are prepared to go to achieve their ends. Every day, we see only the worst of humanity until we come to believe that every person on the planet may be tempted to do evil. Murder, blackmail, larceny, revenge … they become what you would call our raison d’être. That is our life. The detective has no escape. Without evil, there is no reason for him to exist.

‘I will not miss it. I am looking forward to the great tranquillity that must come to all of us. You speak to me of divine retribution and I find in that some consolation. I do not know where I am going, but when I think of the time we have spent together and the work we have done, I take great comfort in what I leave behind.’

‘I understand exactly what you say. I have a wife and a son. Were it not for them, I might feel the same.’

The drinks had arrived while they were talking. Pünd lifted his water and looked at the bubbles dancing to the surface, each and every one of them reflecting the sunlight. ‘Au revoir, mon ami,’ he said.

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