He put his empty plate on the floor and picked up a chicken bone, gnawing on it, reflectively.

‘You know what I think? I’ve never said this to anyone, because it never came off, this plan. I think that was the point of it. It wasn’t for the glory of taking a high-ranking SS officer, it was in order to provoke reprisals. And where would they have fallen, do you think?’

He paused. The question was real rather than rhetorical.

‘Bonnemort?’ Theo suggested.

‘You’re dead right.’

Theo pondered what he had learned. In any alliance in which the allies hate one another only marginally less than they hate the enemy there comes a moment, at victory, or when victory is within sight, when the alliance cracks.

‘So you think that the FTP wanted to use the Germans to wipe out their rivals, so when the SS had gone they would have a clear field in the region.’

Nikola stroked his beard, pleased to find that Theo understood. ‘That’s it.’

‘Vernhes wanted to eliminate Henri.’

‘That’s it.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘Oh, nothing. It aborted. The major didn’t turn up where he was expected. Perhaps he got suspicious. Then we were into a new plan, and that one was forgotten.’

Nikola threw his chicken bone into the fire, and leaned back, picking his teeth with a black thumbnail. ‘The old mayor of Lepech Perdrissou was still there, Gargaud. Like I said, many of the mayors had gone, resigned. The gendarmes had gone over to the Resistance. But in Lepech, Gargaud hung on. He’s a stubborn old bugger, now up on a charge of collaboration. But although he was always keen on the Matshal, he was never pro-Nazi; he never denounced anyone, as far as I know.

‘The plan was for the Resistance to take over the town and drive Gargaud out. It was the FTP leader who was especially keen on this, and you won’t be surprised to hear that he is now our new mayor. But it had to be both groups who entered the town, the Secret Army as well, not just the FTP. Why? Because it would have looked like a communist takeover and he knew that the people wouldn’t stand for it.’

As Nikola, whose rate of consumption was at least twice that of Theo, poured himself more vodka, Theo asked, ‘When was this, exactly?’

‘Oh, this was right at the end, in August. This was the culmination of our three years of heroic struggle against the Germans.’

Although Theo did not find that the Russian’s heavy accent and odd way of expressing himself impeded his understanding of what he said, it did make it more difficult to understand what he meant. Or was it the vodka? Was this last remark satirical, mocking the petty battles of a handful of amateurs who had, in truth, done little to fight against the Germans during the Occupation? Or was he trying to put Henri’s death into context, glamorising war to justify his death, to say that it was worthwhile, that he didn’t die in vain?