The Collaborators

by Reginald Hill

  She said, ‘Curiosity. And Miche said you offered to find out about Christian.’

  ‘Offered?’

  ‘Look, I’m not buying, not this time,’ she said.

  ‘And I’m not selling. Your friend was arrested by the Gestapo. He is presently in Fresnes Prison, unharmed as far as I can ascertain.’

  Taken aback by the ease with which she’d got the information, she stammered a thank you.

  ‘What for? It’s not good news. And please don’t tell me he’s innocent. Even more, don’t tell me he’s guilty. I know that already and I don’t want any details.’

  ‘If you’re so sure, why are you helping me?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because you still hope you can turn me into a collabo like Miche?’

  He laughed to hide his absurd hurt.

  ‘That would require surgery,’ he said. ‘So, you’re convinced Germans aren’t capable of altruism?’

  ‘I’m not sure what Germans are capable of,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Just Germans? It was your gendarmes who rounded up your kids and put them in Drancy.’

  ‘There are always idiots who will follow orders,’ she said dismissively. ‘But you’ve got to be sick or evil to give those orders.’

  ‘And which am I?’ he asked. ‘Sick or evil?’

  ‘Not evil,’ she replied at once. ‘But to be part of it, even just to be on the very edge of it, you must be just a little bit sick, I think.’

  ‘You do, do you?’ said Mai feeling himself driven into a corner by the simple intensity of her reasoning. ‘And what does Nurse Simonian prescribe as the cure for this sickness?’

  He saw a smile touch her lips at his effort to escape into ponderous sarcasm.

  ‘Simple,’ she said. ‘I would prescribe a long, long rest. At home.’

  He opened his mouth to destroy her with some fine German metaphysic but instead he let out a huge roar of laughter. And after a moment, seeing that it was her joke he was laughing at and not her, she joined in.

  ‘Thank you for coming to give me this consultation,’ he said, still chuckling. ‘I’ll pass your recommendations on to my superiors.’

  She took his amusement as the cue for release.

  ‘Now I must go,’ she said. ‘Goodbye.’

  She turned away but he was alongside her in a couple of paces.

  ‘Not so quick,’ he said, taking her elbow. ‘Where’re you rushing off to?’

  ‘Home,’ she said.

  ‘You kept me waiting for an hour,’ he said. ‘I’m very cold and rather damp. What I need is hot coffee laced with brandy and in addition I claim at least ten minutes of the hour of your company you’ve cheated me out of.’

  She said, ‘Really, I can’t.’

  ‘Think about it as we walk through the Jardin,’ he said. ‘How are the children? Miche tells me you went to see them.’

  ‘Yes. It wasn’t easy arranging it but Miche helped. Mireille brought them to Lyon and we stayed a few days in a boarding house. They were fine, really fine.’

  He could tell it was painful for her to talk about them.

  ‘Why not go to the farm?’ he asked.

  ‘It seemed better. This way I could have them to myself…’

  And also he guessed she’d wanted to avoid the additional pressure likely to be on her at the farm to make her stay permanent.

  Could this fellow Simonian have any idea of the demands he was making on her love and loyalty? Obviously not. From what Boucher reported, he seemed as keen as anyone for his wife to join the children.

  ‘I’ll stay at the farm next time,’ she went on. ‘I’d like to go at Christmas.’

  ‘Let me know,’ he said. ‘I’ll fix the travel papers. And before you ask, no conditions. Except perhaps that coffee.’

  As they passed through the exit from the Jardin, she said, ‘All right. Ten minutes. No more.’

  ‘No more,’ said Mai, delighted.

  A car was parked at the kerb. Two men got out. His attention was focused on Janine and he scarcely registered them until one of them stepped in front of the woman and said, ‘Madame Simonian!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  The man seized Janine’s other arm. She turned on Mai an expression uncertain whether to be an appeal for help or a Medusa-stare of accusation.

  ‘Hold on!’ cried Mai.

  But before he could take more than half a step forward, his left arm was seized from behind, twisted round and forced up between his shoulder-blades till he doubled forward, screaming with pain.

  The man holding him didn’t relax his grip, but relaxed his attention to look towards the car for instruction.

  ‘Bring him too,’ came the order.

  But the relaxation was enough for Mai, who drove his heel hard beneath his captor’s right knee, then stamped viciously on his left toe as he hopped in pain. The man crashed to the ground needing both hands to break his fall. Mai straightened up. Janine, inspired by his example, had flung herself at the man holding her and her nails had drawn blood from his face. Mai’s impulse was to go to her aid, but a third man was emerging from the car and in his hand was a pistol.

  ‘You idiots!’ screamed Mai in his best parade ground voice. ‘You blockheads! You stupid, half-witted botchers! I’ll have you on the Russian Front for this. I’ll see that you’re still up to your arseholes in snow when your mates back here are ankle-deep in daffodils!’

  The man with the gun looked at him in bewilderment modulating to concern. Janine’s captor released her. Even the man on the floor showed signs through his pain of a suspicion that all was not as it should be.

  Janine, bewildered by events and all this incomprehensible yelling, was leaning against the parked car, drawing in deep shock-absorbing breaths. Her first cogent thought had been that Mai had led her into a trap. His behaviour now seemed to disprove that. Or perhaps it was just that the trap had been sprung too soon, the men hadn’t waited for his command?

  The man with the gun spoke. His voice was respectful but he still held the weapon loosely ready and it snapped up into the aim position as Mai reached inside his overcoat.

  What he came out with was a leather wallet. He opened it, took something out, probably his card of identity, and handed it over. The gun man examined it, returned it, put the gun away and, stiffening momentarily to attention, spoke in a conciliatory voice. Mai replied in kind. The gun man gestured towards Janine and spoke again. Mai’s reply this time was emphatic and urgent. The gun man looked dubious. For a couple of phrases, Mai returned to his earlier, frighteningly authoritarian manner. This seemed to do the trick. A few more words and some rudimentary salutes were exchanged. The man Janine had scratched helped the man Mai had kicked into the car and it accelerated away.

  Mai watched them go. As he stood there he felt Janine’s hand take hold of his arm.

  ‘Günter,’ she said. ‘Who were they? What’s going on?’

  It occurred to him that never before had she addressed him so familiarly, so naturally. Nothing like a bit of fear for breaking down barriers, he thought cynically. Well, she was right to be afraid.

  ‘Gestapo,’ he said. ‘Who else? They were going to arrest you.’

  He paused then went on, ‘No, not arrest you in the legal sense. If they’d had a formal warrant with the signature of a high-ranking officer on it, nothing I said would have stopped them. They were just going to take you in for a little unofficial questioning. People have been known to survive.’

  ‘But why? What have I done?’

  He turned to her, looked into her eyes and said sadly, ‘Janine, stop playing the innocent. There’s no protection in it, not from us, not from your own people.’

  ‘My own people? Why should I need protection from them?’

  ‘You’re standing here talking to a German officer, for a start. Don’t you imagine there’ll be Frenchmen willing to believe what I hope those Gestapo hoodlums believe?�
�

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘How do you think I got rid of them? I told them who I was and said that you were one of my best agents. Janine, I’m afraid you’re back on my books again.’

  She showed neither gratitude nor surprise. Her mind was still occupied with working out what had happened. Why her? Why here?

  They must have been on watch near the flat in the Quartier Mouffetard.

  She felt faint at the thought of what would have happened if she’d abandoned the rendezvous with Mai entirely and headed straight back to Jean-Paul. The Geste agents must have decided that while one was worth following, two were worth picking up. Thank God the other had been Mai.

  Impulsively she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Now I’ve got to go.’

  Rushing off to warn her precious husband, thought Mai. And why should he need warning?

  Alarm bells were sounding in his own mind. He’d been right in his suspicions about Christian Valois. And from the sound of him, Simonian was an even more likely member of the Resistance, and not in any passive, sleeping capacity either.

  How deep was he willing to plunge in his increasingly ambiguous relationship with Janine? Mai asked himself.

  When did he reach the point where protecting her meant also protecting men whose main aim was to kill German soldiers?

  Meanwhile, talking of protection he’d better set about protecting himself. The Gestapo men were probably reporting in already.

  Janine was turning to go.

  He said, ‘Hold on. If you want to see me, ring the Lutétia and just leave a time. I’ll meet you an hour earlier at the Balzac the same day.’

  ‘An hour earlier?’ she said puzzled.

  ‘Just so you won’t keep me waiting,’ he joked. Then, because it was no joking matter, he spelt it out. ‘For security. You’re one of my best agents, remember?’

  He watched her run away along the damp pavement towards the Jussieu métro. Slim-hipped, she ran with an athlete’s grace, like a winning runner.

  ‘One of my best agents,’ he repeated without irony.

  Then he set off up the steep incline of the Rue Lacépède with the short aggressive steps of a man who may not go fast but knows that he can keep going for ever.

  6

  ‘Where the hell did you hear that?’ demanded Jean-Paul Simonian.

  She’d been full of her news. It might not be good but she’d got it herself despite their attempts to freeze her out. Now all her elation drained away.

  ‘Miche found out,’ she said. It was a believable lie. She hadn’t been able to think of one to cover her close escape from the Gestapo.

  ‘That treacherous bastard! I’ve told you to keep away from him.’

  ‘At least he can find things out which none of your patriotic friends can manage,’ she retorted.

  ‘You think not,’ he said. He looked pleased with himself. ‘Well, at least we can confirm that for once your Géstapiste cousin is telling the truth.’

  ‘Jean-Paul! You’ve found out something too?’

  He sat beside her, his outburst of temper forgotten as he spoke of his friend.

  ‘Yes, he’s in Fresnes. There’s a warder there who wants to keep on the right side of the Resistance against the day he’s called to account. He says Christian’s in the German section of the prison. He looks a bit bruised about the face but otherwise all right. The word is that Vichy father of his got on to it quick enough to pull strings before the Gestapo really got to work.’

  ‘So he’s safe? Will his father be able to get him out?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Once Theo talked, and he must have said something, Christian was a dead man. Old Valois can hold things up for a bit, but the Geste will be given a free hand eventually and once that happens there’s no way that Christian won’t tell everything he knows.’

  ‘Is that all you’re worried about?’ she cried. ‘That Christian may break and tell them something about your precious group?’

  He rushed forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him. His grip was so tight she cried out in pain. His face only a few inches from hers was no longer emotionless.

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he said in a voice low with the effort of restraint. ‘What do you know about what I feel for Christian? He’s been my friend, my dearest friend, for years. I know the risks he took to get me back home after the canal raid. I know that if I were in Fresnes, he wouldn’t rest till he got me out. Don’t tell me what my reasons are for wanting to rescue him.’

  ‘Oh I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she said, trying to turn their closeness into an embrace. ‘Rescue him, you say? But how? From Fresnes? Surely it’s impossible!’

  He let her go and turned away to light a cigarette.

  ‘That’s a word the Boche like to use,’ he said. ‘They haven’t realized yet it doesn’t mean the same here as in Berlin.’

  ‘And what does it mean here, Jean-Paul?’ asked Janine.

  He let out a joyful laugh.

  ‘It means Christian will be back safe with us tomorrow!’

  The Department of Sanitation truck coughed its way under the arch of the main entrance to Fresnes Prison. It slowed almost to a halt so that the guard could scan the driver’s familiar face. They exchanged greetings, the man next to the driver joining in, then the truck accelerated laboriously across the courtyard, following the familiar route to the kitchen block where the greatest concentration of refuse was stacked.

  The passenger got out, stretched, beat his mittened hands against his chest against the winter chill, then wandered round to the back of the truck. After glancing casually around, he rapped on the tailboard. A moment later, a man slipped down from the truck. He was dressed in the uniform of a warder. He made no effort to move away but stood chatting casually to the garbage man, as if he’d just come out to supervise the loading.

  ‘How do I look?’ said Jean-Paul Simonian.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Henri, eyeing him critically. ‘Except maybe for that cabbage leaf on your hat.’

  ‘What?’ Simonian raised his hand, found nothing, realized his lieutenant was joking. A great respect had grown between these two since the débâcle at the canal. ‘He’s a mad bugger and he may get us all killed yet,’ Henri would declare to others of Les Pêcheurs. ‘But not without getting himself killed first, trying to save us.’

  Now the two men smiled at each other.

  ‘I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘Don’t forget your parcel.’

  ‘I’ve got it.’

  He reached into the truck and extracted a neatly wrapped box with the name of a well-known pâtisserie on it.

  ‘Back in twenty minutes,’ said Simonian.

  ‘Make it fifteen,’ said Henri. ‘This is one place we don’t hang around on the job. Good luck.’

  He watched the Fisherman stride boldly away.

  ‘Good luck,’ he repeated to himself. They were going to need it. In fact, they were going to need a whole year’s supply of it for this crazy scheme to succeed.

  Simonian had no such doubts. It was at moments like this that he felt most truly in control, most passionately alive. He could do anything, be anything. For the moment he felt that he actually was a prison warder who’d just taken delivery of a cake addressed to the guard commander of the German prison block at Fresnes and who was rather irritated at having to waste his time carrying the thing around.

  He burst through the door with a suddenness which had the corporal at the desk leaping to attention before he spotted the inconsequential uniform.

  ‘A cake,’ he announced, banging the box on to the desk.

  ‘A cake?’ said the corporal. ‘Oh yes. It’s his birthday.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Simonian, who’d obtained this and much more information about lay-out, procedure and timing, not to mention his uniform, from the warder who’d first revealed that Christian Valois was here.

  ‘He must have rich fr
iends,’ he continued. ‘Ask me when I last had a decent slice of cake. Shortages, they say. This doesn’t look very short to me.’

  He shook the box.

  ‘Careful,’ said the corporal, alarmed. ‘He’ll play hell if you muck it up.’

  ‘No. It’s all right, I’m sure. Let’s take a look.’

  He undid the elegant bow, lifted a corner of the box, smiled his approval, then, to the corporal’s round-eyed shock, he inserted his hand into the box as though to scrape at the icing.

  ‘Here, none of that!’ said the corporal. ‘None of…’

  He stopped speaking as a second and more powerful wave of shock stifled his voice. Simonian’s hand had come out of the box with a revolver in it.

  ‘Open up,’ ordered Jean-Paul. ‘Take me to the prisoner Valois. Shout, resist, even delay, and I’ll put a bullet right at the base of your spine. It won’t kill you. It will just paralyse you from the neck down for the rest of your life. Move.’

  He spoke quietly but with the same utter conviction as he’d brought to his previous role.

  The corporal was pale and trembling slightly. For a second Simonian feared he might have got himself a true Teutonic hero. Then the man rose, took his keys and, with the swiftness of one who wants to get an unpleasant duty over, he began unlocking the inner door.

  Using the cake box to conceal the gun, Simonian followed close behind. They passed a couple of German guards coming the other way but the men paid no heed to the common sight of a French warder’s uniform. Fresnes was a big enough prison for the Occupation Force to have its own section, but overall administrative control still lay with the local authorities.

  The corporal stopped and opened a cell.

  He stood aside as if to usher Simonian courteously before him.

  ‘Get in,’ snarled Simonian.

  The man entered. Simonian followed close behind. As the corporal’s leading foot touched the floor of the cell, the gun barrel came down on the nape of his neck. He slumped to the floor and Christian Valois, squatting on the end of his trestle bed, had to leap upright out of his way.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he exclaimed in alarm. ‘What the hell…Jean-Paul!’