The Collaborators by Reginald Hill

Author:Reginald Hill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780007290079
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2011-07-01T17:17:47+00:00

As she cycled through the evening streets, Janine forced her mind away from what might lie ahead. She was going too fast, she knew that: too fast for safety, too fast for endurance. Down the steep slope of the Rue Lacépède she sped with the Jardin des Plantes ahead, straight across the Rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire without a glance to left or right, into the long straight Rue Cuvier, still downhill, still gathering speed.

Soon the Seine’s oily surface gleamed like a stream of metal in a foundry through the rails of the Pont de Sully. She kept up her speed till she was across the river, but as she turned along the Quai des Célestins she was already flagging and up the slight rise of the Rue Saint-Paul her breath began to burn her chest. It was dark in the canyons of the north-south streets, a darkness accentuated by the explosions of sunlight at east-west intersections. Above, the sky was bright but down here the shadows lay so thick that her tyres seemed to sink into them like wet sand. Rue Malher, Rue Payenne…and now at last Rue de Thorigny and Sophie’s house.

Too tired and too fearful to go through the usual ritual of chaining up her bike and removing the pump, she let it slip into the gutter and went inside.

There was no sign of Madame Nomary, the concierge. She went upstairs, each step requiring a real effort of strength, and of will. The apartment door was ajar.

‘Sophie?’ she called. ‘Pauli? Céci?’

She pushed open the door, fearing the silence.

‘Oh Jesus, help me!’ she said.

The room was in chaos with furniture overturned, curtains ripped down, and every drawer and cupboard door burst open. There was a smell of urine. She ran through into the bedrooms, the spare one first, then Sophie’s. A movement beneath a tangle of coverlets set her heart pounding, but what emerged was the head of a cat, wide-eyed and fearful.

‘Charlot!’ she said, reaching out her hand.

The animal snarled, struggled out of the bedding and dashed past her through the door. She turned to follow it and stopped dead at the sight of a woman in the doorway.

‘Madame Nomary!’ she cried. ‘What’s happened here? Where are my children?’

‘It’s you, Madame Janine?’ said the old woman as if in doubt. ‘The police came last night. They took everyone away. Everyone who is Jewish, that is.’

‘The police did this?’ exclaimed Janine, gesturing at the wreckage.

‘No. That was the young men, the PPF they call themselves. They did some damage upstairs, but no one was there. Here they did nothing till your mother-in-law and children were taken. Then they came back without the police and asked for my key. I told them I would not give it, I would call the gendarmes, but they broke my phone and said they would break my arm too. I had to give in…’

Janine realized that the old woman was trembling.

‘Please, Madame Nomary, don’t upset yourself,’ she said. ‘But the children…is there nothing you can tell me?’

‘Madame Sophie left a note.

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