Free Yesterday's Spy by Len Deighton Page B

of the Hamburg trials. Pina saw it in a Paris newspaper.’
    â€˜But you did nothing.’
    â€˜Oh, it wasn’t quite like that. Our bitterness was based upon our natural aversion for the betrayer – as yours is now. But Claude did not betray anyone. He was a German. He passed himself off as a Frenchman in order to help his own country …’
    â€˜Sophistry!’
    â€˜Can you remember Claude’s accent when he was working with us?’
    â€˜He said he was from the north.’
    â€˜And none of us had travelled very much, or we might have detected quite a bit of Boche there, eh?’
    â€˜None of us had travelled enough – except for Marius. So he made sure that Marius died.’
    â€˜I think so,’ said Serge calmly. ‘But Claude’s life was in danger all the time he was with us, did you ever think of that?’
    â€˜They were our people, Serge. And they died in squalid camps and torture chambers. Am I supposed to admire your calm and rational attitude? Well, I don’t. And perhaps it would be better if you stopped being so godlike …’
    â€˜We Jews, you mean?’
    â€˜I don’t know what I meant.’
    â€˜This is not in character, Charles. You are the one who stayed so calm. Without you we would have been out on the streets fighting, instead of silently building almost the only network that lasted till the end.’ He cocked his head. ‘Are you now saying that was wrong?’
    I didn’t reply. I picked up some of his valuable envelopes and went through the motions of studying them.
    â€˜You’re fighting the wrong enemy,’ said Serge. ‘That’s all over, that war! I’m more interested in what our friend Champion is doing with his import and export business with the Arabs.’
    â€˜Guns, you mean?’
    â€˜Who said anything about guns?’ Behind him was the skyline of old Nice. The afternoon was dying a slow death, spilling its gory sunlight all over the shiny rooftops.
    â€˜You’ve resurrected the old network, haven’t you?’ I said.
    He pointed to a large lamp that occupied most of the sofa upon which I was sitting. ‘Move that infra-red lamp, if it’s in your way. This weather is bad for my arthritis.’
    â€˜The Guernica network …’ I said. He watched me as I pieced together my suspicions and the hints and half-truths that only now began to make sense to me. ‘You’re playing at spies … for money? … for old times’ sake? … Because you all hate Champion? Tell me, why?’
    He didn’t deny it, but that didn’t prove I was right, for he was not the sort of man who would leap in to correct your grammar – especially when there might be a deportation order awarded for the right answer.
    â€˜Curiosity – even nosiness – is not yet against the law, even in France,’ he said.
    â€˜I saw Champion today,’ I admitted.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Serge, ‘at the
Herren Klub
.’
    It was a shrewd jibe, not because it described the club or its members, but because it provided an image of the
Fressenwelle
– Mercedes limousines, silent chauffeurs, astrakhan collars, the whiff of Havana and a muffled belch – I’d never before realized how well Champion fitted into such a scene.
    â€˜You are having him followed?’ I asked.
    Serge picked up an envelope and removed it from its clear plastic cover. ‘I sent this to a customer last month. He complained that its condition was not good enough for his collection. Today I had it back from a second customer who says it looks too new to be genuine.’ He looked up and smiled at me to make sure I shared the joke.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. It was no good pushing him.
    â€˜It’s a pre-adhesive cover – 1847 – by ship from Port Mauritius to Bordeaux. It got that ship-letter cachet in southern Ireland. It was postmarked again in Dublin as a