The Collaborators by Reginald Hill Page B

last saw her she’d become a young woman and a very beautiful one. She tucked her arm through his in delight and led him to where their mother was waiting.
    ‘Where’s father?’ asked Valois as they approached.
    ‘Busy. He sends his apologies.’
    ‘No. I understand. Without his constant efforts, the country would be ground down under the conqueror’s heel.’
    ‘Shut up and behave! I don’t want my birthday spoilt!’

    He just about managed to obey the injunction, but there were difficult moments. Vichy disgusted him with its opulent façades all draped with tricolours. Everywhere he looked, red, white and blue, like make-up on a leprous face. He preferred the stark truth of those swastikas he could see from his office window flapping lazily over the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli. The people, most of them, were the same. ‘Like characters on a film set,’ he told his sister. ‘Or worse. Vichy is like a folk-tale village in a pop-up book. Only a child thinks it’s really magic.’
    ‘I agree,’ said Marie-Rose. ‘It’s so boring here. That’s why I want to come back to Paris with you!’
    He looked at her in alarm. This was the first he’d heard of this idea and the more he thought about it, the less he liked it. In Paris, by himself, his decisions only concerned himself; it was a time of danger and it would get worse.
    He tried to explain this to Marie-Rose and they quarrelled. But by way of compensation, he found an area of common ground with his father who was absolutely opposed to any such move.
    Indeed he and his father kept the peace till the time came to part. His mother presented him with a bag full of ‘goodies’ and his father with a piece of paper.
    ‘It’s a permit to use the car, the Renault. I’ll want to use it myself whenever I come to Paris and it’s absurd for it to stand in the garage all the time, so I got a permit for you too.’
    His instinct was to tear the paper in half and it showed on his face.
    ‘What’s the matter?’
    ‘Father, have you any idea what it’s like in Paris? The kind of people who’re still driving around in cars, well, they’re not the kind of people I want to be associated with. There’s still a war on, father, believe me!’
    ‘No, there’s an armistice on, you’d better believe me!’ snapped Léon Valois. ‘Face up to reality, even if you don’t like it. The facts are that the Germans are in control and likely to stay that way. With or without us, they’ll rule. Without us…well, I dread to think how it might be. With us, we can restrain, influence, perhaps eventually control! They’re a rigid race, good for soldiering, poor for politics. Believe me, Christian, my way’s the only way to build a future for France!’
    He spoke with passionate sincerity but there was no place for them to meet. The one good thing about their quarrel was that it reunited him with his sister just as their row had temporarily brought him closer to his parents. She kissed him tenderly at parting and asked, ‘Is it really so awful under the Boche? I worry about you.’
    ‘Oh it’s not so bad really,’ he assured her.
    ‘No? Well, no matter what you say, one day I’ll surprise you and come and see for myself!’
    She grinned in a most unseventeen-like way and hugged him once more with a childish lack of restraint before he got on the train.
    He leaned out of the window and waved as long as he could see her on the platform. As he turned to sit down, the compartment door opened.
    ‘We meet again,’ said Delaplanche. ‘How was your trip? What did you think of Vichy?’
    His eyes glanced at Madame Valois’s bagful of expensive cans, as if he were reading the labels through the cloth, and when they returned to Valois, he felt as if the man could see through to the car permit in his pocket.
    ‘I’ll tell you what I thought of Vichy,’ he said savagely.
    Delaplanche listened in silence. Finished at last, Valois waited for approval.
    ‘I hope you’re not