Free The Collaborators by Reginald Hill Page A

they do it.’
    They managed to get off at the next station. Janine wanted to cross platforms and head straight home, but Sophie ignored her pleas and, clutching her small posy of Michaelmas daisies, marched out of the station and turned up the avenue towards l’Étoile.
    Janine half-expected to find a howling mob. Instead what she saw was a lot of people, scattered enough for passage among them to be relatively easy, and not making a great deal of mob-noise. But the atmosphere felt electric.
    ‘Janine! Madame Simonian! What are you doing here?’
    It was Valois, his sallow face flushed with excitement.
    Janine told him and Sophie flourished her posy.
    ‘I’d get rid of those,’ said Valois. ‘The Boche seem allergic to flowers. Oh Christ, here they come!’
    An armoured car was moving steadily down the centre of the avenue with soldiers fanning out on either side. They held their rifles at the port and their trotting feet kept perfect time so that the thud of the boots was a powerful heartbeat under the panicking cries of the crowd.
    People started to scatter and run.
    ‘Come on!’ urged Valois.
    But Sophie had neither the strength nor the inclination to flee and the best Janine could manage was to pull her behind an advertising stand which would at least part the advancing line.
    The soldiers broke, re-formed, passed on. Except one, a cadaverous, pock-faced man who looked frightened enough to be brutal.
    ‘Go on,’ he snarled. ‘Fuck off out of it quick! Run! Run! Run!’
    He thrust at them with his rifle as he spoke. Janine and Valois tried to protect Sophie but she pushed between them.
    ‘I’m going to the tomb,’ she said clearly. ‘To lay these flowers.’
    She held out the posy. The soldier looked at it in puzzlement as if imagining it was being offered to him. Then he struck it from her grasp and said, ‘Get off out of it, you old bag. I won’t tell you again.’
    ‘You bastard!’ cried Valois. Before he could move, Janine flung her arms round him. She could see the soldier was keyed up enough to shoot.
    ‘We must get Sophie away,’ she urged.
    Valois’s tense body relaxed. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘There’ll be time for that.’
    They hurried the old lady to the station. A sergeant and two privates were lounging there, cheerfully waving back anyone still trying to emerge. When they saw that the newcomers wanted to go in, they politely stood aside.
    ‘That’s right, darling,’ said the sergeant. ‘Home’s best today. I wish I was coming with you!’
    And the soldiers’ mocking laughter followed them down the stairs.

    Half a mile away, a German corporal was growing very irritated. He’d been up since before midnight, first of all lying in wait to quell an assault on the Embassy which never happened. Then, when at last he was stood down, he’d just had time to have some breakfast and stretch himself out on his bunk before he was ordered out again to deal with some real demonstrations. All was quiet now, and he could be thinking of getting back to that bunk if this funny little twerp would stop babbling at him in broken German.
    Maurice Melchior had woken up to a terrifying silence. No one was talking about midnight marches and torchlight processions and assaults on the Embassy. He was supposed to meet Zeller early to collect Émile’s pay-off, but he had the sense not to keep that appointment. He did go to the Orangerie, however, and hung around in growing despair till news of the disturbances at l’Étoile had brought him hurrying here, hoping against hope that somehow his disturbances had moved on in space and time.
    The corporal grew angry. The little fairy was apparently taking the piss about last night’s abortive ambush! Only his eagerness to get to bed stopped him from arresting him. He turned away. The Frenchie grasped his shoulder! That did it. He turned and hit him in the gut. Melchior sank to the ground. The corporal swung back his foot.
    ‘No,’ said a voice from a