REGINALD HILL
THE COLLABORATORS
Copyright
Harper An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1987
Copyright © Reginald Hill 1987
Reginald Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007212064
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2015 ISBN: 9780007290079 Version: 2015-09-16
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE
Chapter 1
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
PART TWO
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
PART THREE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
PART FOUR
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
PART FIVE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
PART SIX
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
PART SEVEN
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
PART EIGHT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
By Reginald Hill
About the Publisher
Dedication
Car la collaboration, comme le suicide,
comme le crime, est un phenomène normal.
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Qu’est-ce qu’un collaborateur?
Chacun son Boche
Communist rallying cry, August 1944
Acknowledgements
For permission to reprint copyright material the author and publishers wish to thank the following: Éditions Gallimard, for quotations from the work of Louis Aragon and Jean-Paul Sartre; Les Éditions de Minuit, for two extracts from Paul Éluard’s collection Au rendez-vous allemand; and Macmillan, for a quotation from Vercors’ Le silence de la mer.
Prologue
March 1945
Sur mes refuges détruits Sur mes phares écroulés Sur les murs de mon ennui J’écris ton nom
Paul Éluard, Liberté
1
She dreamt of the children.
They were picnicking on the edge of a corn field, Pauli hiding from his sister, Céci giggling with delight as she crawled through the forest of green stalks. Now she too was out of sight, but her happy laughter and her brother’s encouraging cries drifted back to their mother, dozing in the warm sunshine.
Suddenly there was silence, and a shadow between her and the sun, and a shape leaning over her, and a hand shaking her shoulder.