Read Online The Collaborators by Reginald Hill - Free Book Online

and pumping bullets into that hated uniform. But if he had a gun would he have the nerve to use it? He realized he was trembling.
    Behind him, Louise re-entered, her face pink with emotion.
    ‘Has he gone? Such behaviour! I don’t know where she gets it from, not my family, I’m sure. She’s never been the same since she married that Jew.’
    She sank to her knees and began collecting chocolates. Janine came in. Ignoring her mother, she said, ‘Christian, no need to worry about Sophie. Soon as the children are well enough, I’ll be coming to stay with her. Will you tell her that, please? I’ll be round later to sort things out.’
    60

    ’It’s a very small flat,’ said Valois. ‘You’ll be awfully crowded.’
    ‘Not as crowded as we are here, knee deep in Boches and their hangers-on.’
    ‘Listen to her. Such ingratitude, she’ll get us all killed,’ muttered Louise, crawling around in search of stray chocolates.
    Pauli came in and looked curiously at his crawling grandmother.
    ‘What’s gramma doing?’ he asked.
    ‘Rooting for truffles,’ said Janine. ‘Goodbye, Christian.’
    Stepping gingerly over Louise, Christian Valois left the bakery. As he walked along the empty street, he began to smile, then to chuckle out loud.
    Unobserved in a doorway on the other side, Günter Mai smiled too.

6
    In October, a census of Jews was announced. They were required to report in alphabetical order to their local police station. When Janine expressed unease, Sophie laughed and said, ‘It’s our own French police I shall see, not the Germans. In any case, would the Marshal have met with Herr Hitler and shaken his hand if there was need to worry?’
    Janine too had taken comfort from the meeting at Montoire. If things were getting back to normal, surely prisoners must soon be released? He wasn’t dead…he couldn’t be dead…
    At the police station there was a long queue. When she reached its head, Sophie filled in her registration form with great care. Only at the Next of Kin section did she hesitate. Something made her look over her shoulder. Behind her, winding around the station vestibule and out of the door, stretched the queue. Conversation was low; most didn’t speak at all, but stood with expressions of stolid resignation, every now and then shuffling forward to whatever fate officialdom had devised for them.
    ‘Come on, old lady,’ said a gendarme. ‘What’s the hold-up?’
    She put a stroke of the pen through Next of Kin.
    ‘What? No family?’
    ‘A son. Until the war.’
    ‘I’m sorry. Thank God it’s all over for the rest of us. Now sign your name and be on your way.’
    It felt good to be out in the street again and her confidence rapidly returned as she walked home as briskly as her rheumatic knee permitted.
    As she reached the apartment building, Maurice Melchior emerged, resplendent in a long astrakhan coat which he’d been given by accident from the cloakroom at the Comédie-Française the previous winter and at last felt safe in wearing.
    ‘Good day, Madame Simonian. And how are you? Taking the air?’
    Piqued at being accused of such unproductive activity, Sophie said sharply, ‘No, monsieur. I’ve been to register.’
    ‘Register?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘How quaint! Good day, madame!’
    Melchior set off at a brisk pace, eager to put as much distance as possible between himself and this silly old Jewess who’d gone voluntarily to put her name on an official census-list. How desperate people were to convince themselves that everything was normal. Normal! All they had to do was stroll along the boulevards and look in the shop windows. Everything had gone. Ration coupons had been introduced the previous month. And the forecast was for a long, hard winter. The only people who had any cause for complacency were the black-marketeers.
    I must make some contacts, thought Melchior. But not today. Today he had more immediate and personal worries.
    Bruno was close to dumping him,