GERALD SEYMOUR - THE COLLABORATOR

Gerald Seymour spent fifteen years as an international television news reporter with ITN, covering Vietnam, the Middle East, and terrorism across the world. Seymour was on the streets of Londonderry on Bloody Sunday, and was a witness to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

Seymour's first novel was the acclaimed thriller Harry's Game, set in Belfast. He has since written twenty-four more bestselling novels, of which six have been filmed for television in the UK and US.

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company

Copyright Gerald Seymour 2009

The right of Gerald Seymour to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Epub ISBN: 978-1-848-94621-7

Book ISBN: 978-0-340-91886-9

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

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GERALD SEYMOUR

The Collaborator

www.hodder.co.uk

For Harriet and Georgia and Alfie

It was a hot afternoon, stinking hot, and the sun beat up from the concrete path, dazzling him. A ridiculous afternoon to be out in a London park. Hed met friends for lunch, arranged long back, on the south side of the park two guys from college days but theyd had their girlfriends in tow, like trophies, which had made him feel awkward, as if he, not they, were the intruders. And, truth was, hed been bored because the togetherness of the couples seemed to shred the spirit of mischief that ran in him some called it happy go lucky and his dad Jack the lad and hed wanted to be gone before the loss was terminal. It had all been too damn serious, which seldom fitted well with him.

Hed eaten the meal, coughed up his share of the bill, and walked away from the Underground station, had crossed Kensington Road and gone into the park, over Rotten Row, and been within a few yards of the dog-leg lake before his mind had kicked back into gear. By now, the couples would be talking mortgages and future prospects. He was in the park where heat reverberated off the scorched grass and concrete. There wasnt half a square centimetre of shade close to him, and it was a pretty silly place to be no skateboarders or football to watch, no promenade of stripped-down girls.

He looked for a bench to flop down on. He wasnt stressed by the heat or the lack of entertainment his own little world gave him no grief but it was damn hot.

The bench he saw was blurred, but a haven. He heard, far away, the shouts of children playing at the waters edge, but round the bench there was quiet. His eyes were nearly closed as he sank on to the wooden slats, which grilled his backside and lower spine. Jumbled thoughts loitered in his mind home, parents, work, food, getting back to the north-east of the city, money all easily discarded. With his eyes sealed against the light, maybe he dreamed, maybe he dozed. Time slipped on a July afternoon on the last day of the first week in the month.

The idyll was broken.

Excuse please. A clear, uncluttered voice, an accent. He jolted upright. Im sorry. I

Eddie Deacon never considered that responding might change his life, push it on to a road unrecognised and unexplored His eyes snapped open.

He saw the girl dark hair, light skin, dark eyes. Hadnt been aware of her coming to the bench might even have been there when hed taken his seat

Mutual apologies. Sorry that he had been asleep. Sorry that she had woken him.

She wore a cotton skirt, short, not much of it, a white blouse, brief sleeves, and a textbook lay open on her lap, with an Italian English pocket dictionary.

Strangers pausing, wondering whether to go forward and blurting together.

What can I do?

Please, I am confused.

How can I help?

I do not understand.

They both laughed, chimed with each other. Eddie Deacon pushed hair off his forehead. He saw that when she laughed the gold crucifix, dangling from a chain bounced on her cleavage. That was what he saw and she would have seen? Him writing the script: not a bad-looking guy, pretty well turned-out, good head of hair, a decent complexion and a smile to die for. And she would have heard? A laugh that was infectious, not forced, and a voice with a tone of interest that was honest and not patronising. Well, he was hardly going to short-change himself.

Whats the problem?

I dont understand this turn over. What is turn over?

Eddie Deacon grinned. Is this turn over in bed? Or turnover in business?

Business. It is a book on auditing accounts in English and it says turn over.

He asked, Youre Italian?

Yes.

He said, In Italian, turnover is fatturato. You understand?

Of course, yes, I do and you speak Italian.

He shrugged. A little.

OK, OK She smiled her teeth glowed, her eyes were alight. She riffled again through the pages of her book. Her finger darted down and stabbed at a line. Here For balance we have soppesare in my dictionary, but that is not the Italian word for the commercial balance of an account. What should it be?

To balance an account is bilanciare, and a balance sheet is bilancio di esercizio. Does that help?

She touched his hand fleeting, a natural, spontaneous gesture of gratitude. He felt the tips of her fingers on his skin. He liked girls, liked their touch, but would have admitted, if quizzed, that he was currently between relationships. God, who needed commitments? Hed nearly been engaged, to a local-government kitchen-hygiene inspector, two years back but his mother had become too fond of her too quickly. He hadnt found a soulmate.

I have a very good helper.

Eddie Deacon said he should be good he was a language teacher. He didnt add that if hed put his back into it he might have made interpreter level and gone to Brussels or even the United Nations, but it would have been a hassle. He taught English to overseas students. His core tongues were German, French and Spanish but he also had useful Italian. She told him she was on two courses in London: in the morning she studied English language and in the afternoons she did accounting and bookkeeping. Eddie Deacon wondered why a pretty girl in a tight skirt and a tight blouse, from Italy, bothered with any of that, but didnt take it further. The sun seemed, in mid-afternoon, to spear his forehead and shoulders. The men and women who walked past the bench wore floppy hats or had white war-paint daubed on exposed skin, while little parasols shaded tots in push-chairs. There were squeals and shrieks from the lake, and splashing. He assumed that swimming in the Serpentine was forbidden and that the gauleiter men would be there soon, yelling that it was verboten.

He stood up. Its a bit warm for me. I prefer to be out of the sun.

She said, Where is to be the new classroom? I need all opportunities to speak English. I have a teacher. I do not wish to lose him.

It was, he thought, a challenge. She must have realised he intended to walk away, but her chin had jutted, her shoulders were back and now she was almost blocking his path. He reckoned that she was used to getting what she wanted. He didnt push past her. Now, for the first time since he had woken up, he looked at his self-enrolled pupil. She was lightly built, had narrow hips, a squashed-in waist and a good-sized, but not gross, bosom. Her face fascinated him: a fine jaw, a delicate nose and a high forehead, the hair pushed back. But it was her eyes that caught him. They had authority, did not brook denial. As a general rule, Eddie Deacon did not fight authority. He was one to go with the flow. He didnt look at the hips, waist or breasts of the girl before him but was carried deep into her eyes.