The Collaborators

by Reginald Hill

  Corporal Vogel on duty at the door snapped to attention and said, ‘Sir!’

  ‘Yes, Vogel?’

  ‘The lieutenant has a flower on his hat. Sir!’

  He removed his Homburg and studied it. Sure enough, in the hollow lay a sprig of jasmine with three or four tiny flowerlets glowing on its stem. He smiled at the memory of Céci so light and merry on his shoulders.

  He thought of putting the sprig in his lapel, saw Vogel watching him, and said, ‘Corporal.’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Get rid of this for me, will you?’

  Handing over the jasmine, he walked swiftly into the hotel.

  3

  Though Mai did not know it, Janine had been avoiding him just as keenly as he had been avoiding her. Whenever she visited her parents she always listened at the door first to make sure he wasn’t there and on one occasion when he turned up later, she had hidden upstairs till he had gone.

  But it couldn’t go on for ever and now she was glad to have got it over. But in its place there was this new worry. He wanted to see her again. Why? His request filled her with great suspicion and not a little fear. He was not a stupid Boche as she’d thought and he was far from powerless. A mere lieutenant, yet he had managed to get Jean-Paul released. So her hope that one quick orgasm would be the price of her husband’s return was probably as vain as she’d always feared it would be.

  Now more than ever she wanted advice and comfort, but where could she turn? Not to Jean-Paul, that was clear. Her father perhaps? But she shied away from the thought of bringing her pain into that good, simple man’s life. Christian? There was no one else. But not yet. It was best to find out first what the man wanted of her.

  These thoughts ran through her mind as she got ready for her rendezvous on Sunday. Things had fallen well. Jean-Paul was having one of his better days and had gone to have lunch at his mother’s. The two had always been very close even after Jean-Paul’s abandonment of his religion.

  Janine prayed that the time they spent together would speed up his healing.

  The doorbell rang. She heard Pauli’s voice and came out of the bedroom. Standing on the threshold looking down at the boy with a puzzled expression was Maître Delaplanche. He was carrying some parcels.

  She gave him a big smile and said, ‘Christian’s in the kitchen, I think. Just go through. Pauli, are you ready? I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes. See that Céci is all right, will you?’

  She was still worried about Pauli, but the solution seemed simple. Jean-Paul’s relative normality this morning had extended to giving his son a casual peck on the cheek as he left. This unthinking, unthought-out, everyday act of affection had lit up the boy’s face. That was all he needed. Love.

  When she came out into the hallway, Pauli and Céci were standing hand in hand ready to go. She went to the living-room door to say goodbye to Christian but paused at the sound of quarrelling voices inside. Out of the confusion, the lawyer’s suddenly rose loud and clear.

  ‘He’s a Jew? And he was in hospital under a false name? For God’s sake, Christian, what are you thinking of? You’re risking your career, everything, for a self-indulgent impulse. Get rid of them!’

  Janine turned away, forcing herself to smile at the children.

  ‘Let’s go and see the monkeys, shall we?’

  Valois and Delaplanche heard the door open and shut. The lawyer went to the window and watched till they emerged on to the pavement.

  ‘Pretty little thing, in a skinny sort of way,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing between you, I suppose?’

  ‘You asked me that before.’

  ‘Things change,’ said Delaplanche. ‘Listen, Christian, the reason I’ve been away so long was I got a message in Vichy inviting me to visit some friends further south. It turned out de Gaulle has sent an envoy to co-ordinate resistance. Typical bit of arrogance from that big-nosed bastard. But it makes sense to pull together. We’re all being picked off too easily. So for now I’m going along with this fellow. But if de Gaulle imagines this is a step to putting him on top when the war’s over, he’s a fool. The future is ours so long as we have men like you willing to sit and wait.’

  ‘I’d rather stand up and fight,’ said Valois almost sullenly.

  ‘I know. What you’ve got to do takes a special kind of courage. That’s why you mustn’t take foolish unnecessary risks like harbouring a mentally deranged Jew!’

  ‘He’s not mentally deranged,’ protested Valois. ‘He’s the brightest man I know. All right, what he went through has done something to him. In particular, it has made him want to kill Boche. He’s desperate to get an active Resistance job. If someone doesn’t use him soon, I’m scared he’ll just go off by himself and kill Krauts with his bare hands.’

  ‘And get himself traced back here? Jesus.’

  ‘Couldn’t you use him? Oh, I know you don’t do these things personally. Important people like you and me have to keep our hands clean. But Theo, perhaps…’

  ‘Not Theo. He’s too valuable now to land with a wild man. One of the peripheral groups perhaps…but not till he’s long gone from here. Tell him anything, but get him out.’

  There was the sound of a key in a lock, a door opening and shutting.

  ‘You tell him,’ said Valois. ‘But choose your words carefully. He’s a little on edge.’

  The lounge door opened.

  Delaplanche’s first impression was of a slight, almost boyish figure who stood very still in the doorway, like a child too shy to interrupt the adults. But when his eyes met the man’s unblinking gaze, the stillness seemed to grow vibrant with menace.

  ‘Jean-Paul, come in. How was your mother?’ said Valois.

  ‘Well,’ said Simonian. ‘You’re Delaplanche, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. You know me?’

  ‘Only what everyone knows.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I gather you were a guest of our German friends for over a year.’

  ‘Oh, yes. They cared for me and healed me and sent me home,’ sneered Simonian. ‘I’m so grateful. Christian, where’s Janine and the children?’

  ‘They’ve gone for a walk. The Jardin d’Acclimatation, I think.’

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ said Simonian. He turned abruptly and left.

  ‘And that’s the man you want me to employ,’ said Delaplanche drily.

  ‘I tell you, he hates the Boche!’

  ‘Oh yes. I could feel the hate. I hope it’s for the Boche! Christian, I’m all the more certain now, he’s got to be moved out of here. All right, yes, I’ll see if we can use him, always supposing he passes the entrance test! But he’s not for you, my boy. Different worlds, different functions. The chances of that one surviving the war are minute, but you, Christian, you’re the whole future of France!

  ‘Now why don’t you give me a little cognac while I sit and watch you unwrap these belated New Year presents?’

  Janine was late. It was a chilly afternoon, not actually raining but with the gusty wind damp as well as cold against any exposed flesh.

  There weren’t many people about, just a few hardy souls whose Sunday promenade in the Bois wasn’t going to be interrupted by either war or weather.

  He glanced at his watch. Perhaps she wasn’t coming. Then he saw her in the distance and his heart leapt as if he was a lover waiting for his lass instead of an Abwehr intelligence officer waiting for a woman whose body he’d already abused and whose loyalties he was planning to corrupt.

  She greeted him as if it were a chance meeting, presumably for Pauli’s benefit. After they’d entered the Jardin d’Acclimatation Janine wanted to turn immediately into the shelter of the Palais du Jardin d’Hiver, but Pauli said firmly, ‘I’ve promised to show Céci the monkey-house, maman.’

  ‘All right,’ said Janine. ‘But come straight back to the parrot house.’

  ‘Yes, maman,’ said Pauli and the children set off hand in hand.

>   ‘Will they be all right?’ asked Mai anxiously.

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased to be rid of them for a while.’

  ‘Yes, but…they’re so young.’

  ‘I sometimes think Pauli’s older than me,’ said Janine moodily. Then she smiled and added, ‘But thanks for being concerned. Honestly they’ll be all right.’

  ‘Will they mention me?’

  ‘What if they do? An acquaintance met by chance. Anyway, Jean-Paul doesn’t spend much time talking to the children. Nor to me either.’

  ‘To Monsieur Valois then?’

  She seemed to take this as an implied reproach.

  ‘Christian’s his oldest friend. Jean-Paul’s memory’s been affected, you know that. He remembers the fighting and what happened after that. And the further back he goes the more he recalls. It’s just the bit between…’

  ‘The bit with you and the children in it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You must be very grateful to Monsieur Valois. For letting you share his apartment, I mean. Do you plan to stay there long?’

  All Mai wanted was to establish some kind of timetable for his campaign, but her reply intrigued him.

  ‘I knew we couldn’t rely on staying for ever but I thought we would see the winter out. Now, I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh. Why’s that?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ she said indignantly. ‘It’s you people of course.’

  Taken aback by the accusation, Mai protested, ‘But, my dear Janine, what have I done? Except bring your husband home to you?’

  It wouldn’t do her any harm to be reminded of her obligation.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you personally. But Christian’s a civil servant. And of course it’s the Boche that really run the Government. So if they found out he had someone like Jean-Paul staying in his flat, it could mean trouble for him.’

  There was no denying this was true, but it had been true from the start. What had made it an issue now?

  He asked, ‘Did Monsieur Valois say this?’

  ‘No. He’s far too generous to say anything like that. I overheard one of his friends spelling it out to him today.’

  ‘One of his colleagues, you mean?’ he said casually. But suddenly she was alert. The hunted animal too has its sensors, as finely tuned as the hunter’s. To this point she had been saying nothing which she believed was new to him. It was his interest in what should not have been interesting that alerted her.

  She said, ‘I expect so. I didn’t know the man.’

  He smiled. Alert she might be, liar she wasn’t. It didn’t matter. All he had to do was check with the man he had watching Valois’s apartment. If it turned out that Maître Delaplanche, just back from Vichy, had dropped in…

  He felt impatient to be off, but a sudden departure would confirm any suspicions she might have. Besides it was more important than ever to keep the line on which he was playing this woman taut. It was good to feel himself in such a purely professional relationship with her.

  They were in the parrot house now. It was crowded with visitors, both French and German, looking at the bright-feathered, beady-eyed birds. He turned to whisper to her that here was not a good place to continue their conversation but before he could speak, Pauli’s voice called excitedly, ‘Maman, maman, papa’s here!’

  Without looking round, Mai moved slowly away and exchanged a few joking words with a couple who were trying to get a big yellow-headed bird to talk to them. After a few moments, he pulled out his pipe, and under cover of lighting it he looked towards the doorway.

  Standing there was a slim dark man. The resemblance between him and Pauli would have marked him out even if he hadn’t been carrying Céci in his arms. Janine and the boy joined him now. Even at a distance it was possible to see Janine’s joy at meeting him. Mai felt a crazy urge to go across and introduce himself.

  ‘Hey, no smoking,’ said an attendant pointing at a sign.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Mai. Instantly he realized he had spoken in German. It didn’t matter. The attendant had moved away and no one else paid any attention. But Mai turned back to the parrots and concentrated his mind on the source of this slip and that even less comprehensible urge to blow his cover.

  It wasn’t hard to find, but finding it brought little comfort.

  It had been the sight of Janine going with such obvious joy to that man.

  It had been jealousy.

  4

  As usual Janine paused outside the bakehouse door and listened carefully. It was a month since her last meeting with Mai and though she knew he could pick her up any time he liked, she sensed that he preferred these more casual and therefore more disarming encounters.

  What he wanted from her she was still not certain. What could she know or do that would interest him professionally? But without doubt he wanted something.

  Today she could hear voices inside. As she strained to identify them, Pauli’s sharper ears beat her to it.

  ‘It’s Uncle Miche,’ he cried and rushed through the door.

  Looking more piratical than ever, Boucher was leaning up against the big, permanently closed oven talking to her father. His face split with pleasure when he saw them and he swept Pauli up in his right arm and Céci in his left and spun round with them. They screamed with delight and continued the spinning motion after he set them down.

  Céci cried, ‘We’re moving house! We’re moving house!’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Claude Crozier.

  ‘It’s not certain, only Christian’s found us a flat we can afford. We’ve just been looking at it. I liked it but I’ve left the men to sort out the details.’

  In fact she had sensed a quarrel developing between the two men. She didn’t know its origins but she knew she didn’t want the children to see their father and their ‘Uncle’ Christian at each other’s throats.

  ‘Where is it?’ asked her father.

  ‘Quartier Mouffetard, off Rue Monge, quite close.’

  ‘That’s marvellous,’ said Crozier. ‘Come on, children, let’s go and tell your gramma.’

  Boucher pulled a handful of coins from his pocket and jingled them in his huge fist.

  ‘Céci, are you eating your greens and helping your mother to dust? Pauli, are you doing your schoolwork and still not using the blade on that knife, like you promised?’

  ‘Yes, Uncle Miche,’ cried the children in unison.

  ‘Then here you are,’ said Boucher pouring the coins into their upraised hands. They screamed their thanks and followed their grandfather into the house.

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ said Janine.

  ‘Why not? I like to share what I’ve got. Listen, you should have come to me about a flat. I’d have found you somewhere a cut above the Quartier Mouffetard.’

  ‘Thanks, Miche, but I think this will do us nicely,’ she said.

  He read between the words and said shrewdly, ‘Jean-Paul wouldn’t like it, eh?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ she lied. In fact when Jean-Paul had got wind of Boucher’s current employment, Janine had been terrified by the intensity of his reaction. In his eyes any association with the Germans was vile. ‘The time will come,’ he said with chilling certainty, ‘when we’ll purify this country. Then let them watch out.’ Janine had thought of Günter Mai and shuddered.

  ‘How’s Hélène?’ she asked to change the subject.

  Boucher frowned.

  ‘Fine,’ he said shortly. ‘No, look, to tell the truth, Jan, she’s got herself pregnant.’

  He spoke with such hurt indignation that Janine had to laugh.

  ‘She did it all by herself, did she? Clever girl,’ she said.

  Boucher grinned sheepishly.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean…it’s only that things were going so well… first time in my life I’ve really had enough money to enjoy myself without the law breathing down my neck…in fact in a manner of speaking I suppose I’m with the law now. Miche the Butcher a lawman, now there’s a laug
h.’

  Janine took a deep breath. What Miche’s precise job was she did not know and did not want to know.

  ‘Do you want the baby, Miche?’ she asked.

  ‘Does Hélène want it, you mean. I think so.’

  ‘No. Do you want it?’

  He looked as if the question had never occurred to him.

  ‘Me?’ His face registered a growing amazement. ‘Yeah, I do. I really do!’

  ‘Then ask Hélène to marry you. Settle down. Become a citizen.’

  He roared with laughter.

  ‘Jan,’ he said. ‘You’re a marvel. I might just do that. I just might.’

  In the empty apartment off the Rue Monge, Jean-Paul Simonian and Christian Valois were quarrelling.

  ‘You want rid of us,’ said Simonian flatly.

  ‘Nonsense. As I say, a friend mentioned this place. It’s roomy, it’s handy for Janine’s parents, and Sophie’s place isn’t a million miles away across the river. And it’s cheap.’

  ‘You’re quite a salesman, Christian,’ said Simonian, not pleasantly.

  Valois grew angry and replied, ‘Look, do you want it or not? You can’t stay in Passy for ever. My apartment belongs to my father. He comes back to Paris from time to time and won’t take kindly to finding he can’t use it. As for Janine, she needs her own place. Every woman does…’

  ‘You didn’t use to be so concerned about Janine,’ said Simonian. ‘You used to think she was a common little shopgirl who’d somehow got her claws into me.’

  ‘I never said that! But whatever I thought, I’ve seen how she loves you, how she missed you. She deserves a bit of happiness now.’

  ‘Very touching,’ mocked Simonian. ‘You want us out, that’s all there is to it. All I need to know is why? There was a time when you’d have filled the flat with Hottentots to annoy your father! No, it’s something else that’s turned you into a hypocrite. Delaplanche! Is that it? He wouldn’t happen to be this friend who just happened to mention this place, would he?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Valois, aware of how unconvincing he sounded. He’d allowed his friend’s illness to obscure the memory of just how sharp Jean-Paul’s mind was.