The British Lion (17 page)

He stuck out his chin.

“You release me, take me to somewhere where I am safe, and I’ll tell you.”

Ma Price raised an eyebrow, gave him a motherly smile, rose from the chair, and crossed the room. She rested her hand on the Prof’s shoulder and lowered herself down until her face was inches from Eric’s, so close he could smell a faint whiff of carbolic soap.

“You aren’t getting released, my lover. I’m sorry, but you’re not leaving here alive. I wish I could tell you different, but I haven’t got time, so I’m not going to lie to you. Now, the only choice you’ve got left is the choice to make this easy or hard. So save yourself some bother and tell me the address before I have to ask you again.”

Ma Price moved back a few inches and smiled at Eric.

Eric started to cry.

CHAPTER 21

T
HE SNOW WAS
coming down hard and fast by the time Rossett made it to the café. The morning had passed at a snail’s pace since he and Koehler had parted. He’d taken a taxi back to his lodgings, paying the driver to wait while he had skirted the property on foot, checking for any sign that his house was under surveillance. Ideally Rossett would have stayed clear, but he had little money and no transport, both of which were waiting for him at home.

Once inside, he had made a call to Wapping Police Station and tentatively inquired whether anyone was looking for him. The desk sergeant there had sounded bored, tired, and uninterested in Rossett. This meant that so far, he wasn’t a wanted man after the previous night’s incident involving Neumann and March.

Maybe Koehler had been right? Maybe they weren’t interested in him?

Rossett had taken the precaution of setting up a mutually agreed rendezvous, where they could leave messages in the unlikely event that they had been split up.

That unlikely event had arisen, and in the minutes before he was due to set off to Cambridge after eating and changing into warmer clothes, he had telephoned the café. They were used to him checking in through the day; he’d used the café for years as a meeting place and message point, in an attempt to stay out of the pubs and clubs where police work was so often done. In truth he hadn’t expected to hear from Koehler. In fact, he wondered if he would ever hear from him again, so when the waitress told him there was a message, he wondered if it was a trap.

“Meet Ernst at one
P.M.
”

“That’s what it says?”

“Yes, Mr. Rossett.”

“Who took the message?”

“Ethel, sir.”

“Is she there now?”

“Gone home, sir.”

Rossett had placed the phone down and stared at the wallpaper in the hallway.

If it was a trap, why not stake out his lodgings and arrest him there?

He looked at the frosted stained-glass front door and half expected a team of storm troopers to come kicking their way into the hallway.

They didn’t.

Maybe Koehler had been released?

Maybe the joint mission was back on?

He’d picked up the phone again and rung around a few police stations, checking overnight logs. He spoke to the few detectives and sergeants who would still speak to him, checking for anything out of the ordinary.

He came up blank.

He’d had a few hours before the scheduled meeting at the café, so he had driven around the dark side of the city, rolling a few old underworld informants out of bed in search of information about Lotte and Anja, but again, nothing had come to light.

All of which led him to believe Koehler was right: the kidnappers weren’t locals. This was something that went beyond the usual villains and resistance operators.

He was in uncharted waters, alone and surrounded by sharks.

And he loved it.

HE’D WALKED AROUND
the block four times before deciding to enter the café himself. Everything seemed normal, so he bit the bullet and went inside to get out of the cold.

The waitress spilled his tea when she put it on the table in front of him; he wiped the spill with a napkin and checked his watch: quarter past one. Koehler was late.

Nothing new there.

Rossett glanced out the window at the growling blizzard outside. He could barely see the other side of the street, it was coming down so thick and fast. A taxi driver was scraping some snow off the roof of his cab next to the window, head buried in his shoulders, sweeping armfuls into piles next to the cab. Rossett wrapped his hands around his hot tea in sympathy.

Maybe Koehler hadn’t made it through the snow? He took out his cigarettes, put one in his mouth, and started to pat his pockets for matches.

“Do you mind not lighting that?”

Rossett looked up.

Neumann looked down.

Rossett stopped patting his pockets and took the cigarette out of his mouth. Holding it in his left hand, he tilted his head, checking to see if March was loitering around.

Neumann read Rossett’s mind. “He’s waiting in the car. May I sit?”

“I’m waiting for someone.”

“I know: me.”

Neumann put his hat down on the table, which was still damp from the tea spill. Rossett thought about telling him but didn’t bother, and instead went back to patting his pockets looking for his matches, eyes all the while on Neumann’s.

Neumann sat down after growing tired of waiting for the invite. Rossett found the matches and put the cigarette back in his mouth. He took out a match and struck it against the side of the box, letting it flare, and waiting for a reaction.

“Please, Inspector, I’d much rather you didn’t. I have a chest complaint.”

Rossett touched the match to the cigarette, shook out it out, and dropped it in the ashtray.

They sat in silence, Neumann leaning back from the smoke, as the bustle of the café crashed around them. Rossett took another drag and then removed the cigarette from out of his mouth, smoke drifting between them.

“Can I get you anything?” The waitress hovered.

“No, thank you,” Neumann replied without looking at her.

Neumann turned to the window, then back to Rossett.

“I’d heard you were an arsehole,” he finally said.

Rossett didn’t reply, so Neumann continued. “We’ve all heard of you, even before this case. Everyone knows that you are impossible to work with.”

Rossett still didn’t reply.

“I have to add, I don’t buy all this ‘British Lion’ bullshit, either. The British were desperate for a hero and you came along. You were lucky.”

“You were lucky,” Rossett echoed impassively.

“What?” Neumann raised an eyebrow.

“You were lucky I didn’t kill you last night.”

“You’re lucky I don’t arrest you right now.”

“You’re lucky you haven’t tried.”

The boiler behind the counter started to hiss and Neumann looked across toward it, and then back at Rossett.

“Look,” Neumann tried again, shifting in his seat. “Koehler sent me.” He lowered his hand from his mouth and placed it flat on the table next to his hat.

“Where is he?”

“Scotland Yard.” Neumann lifted his hand, inspected his palm, and then looked at the damp patch on the table.

“Is he in custody?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I had him arrested.”

“But you’re here.”

“Indeed.” Neumann slid his hat away from the damp spot and then looked at Rossett.

“And you haven’t tried to arrest me.”

“No.”

“So what do you want?”

“To pass on a message.”

“What message?”

“Koehler’s wife is dead.”

“How?”

“Shot. Found by the Thames, east of St. Katharine Docks.”

“Koehler didn’t do it.”

“I know.”

“But you’ve arrested him?”

“After issuing a countrywide warrant I couldn’t do much else, could I?”

Rossett didn’t reply, the cigarette now at his lips.

“We don’t know where his daughter is.” Neumann’s voice took on a gentler tone.

“Anja?”

“Anja,” Neumann repeated.

“Why are you here?”

“I have a daughter.” Neumann shrugged and looked at the table. “If she was hurt, or in danger, I’d do anything to help her. I think Koehler is a fool, but . . . it is his daughter, so I did as he asked.”

Rossett nodded. “Koehler wanted you to come to me.”

“To give you a message.”

“Go on.”

“It’s all up to you now.”

Rossett stubbed out the cigarette. “That’s it?”

Neumann reached into his pocket and then passed an envelope across.

“A travel warrant. You’ll need it to get past the checkpoints in London. It’ll be reported stolen or missing, but that won’t matter for a few days. I can’t afford to be tied to this if you fail. Do you do have a car?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t do much to help you, you understand that?”

“You could release Koehler.”

“I can’t. It would leave me embarrassed, especially with his wife being found dead. We circulated his name, stating he had assaulted me in the course of an inquiry into her disappearance. He has to be charged, at the very least, with my assault, and he’ll probably face some sort of fine and disciplinary action, but he’ll live, don’t worry.”

“So he stays in jail because you’re embarrassed?”

“Embarrassment is a dangerous thing. I have to hold him for an acceptable period, then I have to get my superiors to agree to his release.”

“Will they?”

Neumann shrugged and Rossett nodded.

“I trust you’ll be discreet?” Neumann lowered his voice.

“I will.”

“It’s time for you to go and be the hero.” Neumann leaned back from the table.

Rossett didn’t reply.

“Will you do it? Get his daughter?”

“Has he told you what is going on?”

“Enough to know it isn’t going to be easy, enough for me to question if you’re the man for the job. I still think Koehler is a fool. He has the whole of the German occupying forces to call on and he chooses you.”

“He chose right.”

The two men stared at each other in silence until Neumann nodded, picked up his hat, and stood.

“Thank you,” said Rossett.

Neumann scratched his forehead and took a half step away from the table.

“Don’t thank me. You’re his last chance.”

“Tell Koehler I’ll make it, and when I have Anja, I’ll deal with them all.”

CHAPTER 22

A
NJA TRIED TO
turn herself to take some of the pressure off her left shoulder, but failed. The weight of the boots resting on her back increased the second she tried to shift, hurting her, pushing her down.

She tried to speak through the rag that had been stuffed in her mouth, and failed all over again. She felt sick, dizzy, scared, and a long way from home.

She blinked, turning her head in the sack in the hope that gravity would help her in her struggle with the gag, but it didn’t.

She wanted to scream.

Her arms felt cramped and she couldn’t straighten her legs. The urge to scream and twist herself free tortured her as the drone of the engine squeezed her head, filling her ears.

“Is she all right?” she heard the mechanic say in front of her, but nobody answered.

They hit a pothole, and the car made another one of the thousand turns it had seemed to make for the last however long she had been in it.

However long.

It seemed so very long, and Anja felt the panic rising inside again.

She tried to look inward, tried to see the fear and reason with it.

The fear washed close to her, like a wave on the beach she was teasing, just missing her; ebbing away, about to catch her next time.

She took some comfort from Jack and the mechanic being in the car with her. Even if the mechanic had sold her out to the men who had turned up, tied her up, stuffed her head into a bag, and then thrown her on the floor of the car, he was still worrying about her.

“Are you sure she can breathe in that?” Jack had said as the bag had gone on in the garage.

Anja thought about Jack’s eyes, the last thing she had seen as the darkness was inflicted on her. He was upset and confused.

He wasn’t a bad boy. He cared.

Another pothole slammed her hard; she used the bounce from the blow to turn slightly, easing her shoulder, lessening the pain, lessening the panic.

The feet pushed again.

The gag shifted.

She wanted to cry.

The brakes whined, the car slowed, and she felt herself rolling in the footwell as it lurched to a halt. The engine died. Silence, then the handbrake ratcheted and Anja forgot about the gag, the pain, and the fear.

She’d arrived.

“Get her out,” someone said outside the car, and all of a sudden the doors all around her opened as one. She felt the feet pushing down one last time as the person they belonged to got out.

Anja shivered. It was cold, and the draft from the door next to her head seemed to claw its way through the bag.

Someone grabbed her and dragged her. She tried to kick with her legs to push herself free, but whoever was pulling was too quick. Another hand under her arm and then she was pulled from the car and dropped a few inches.

The ground was hard, solid, and flat, and there was no snow. She wondered if she was under a shelter or maybe inside. What little light made its way through the hood gave no clues, so she rolled onto her back, searching under it, looking down toward her feet without bending her neck, desperate for a clue as to where she was.

She didn’t need to bother. Someone ripped the hood off her head and Anja closed her eyes against the sudden light. She waited. Nothing happened. She opened her eyes, blinked, and looked up.

She was in a large shed, maybe a warehouse. Above her she could see the wooden roof, about forty feet up, resting on thin steel rafters. The shingles were in poor repair, because she could see shafts of daylight shining through a few gaps in the gloom.

Daylight made her think of freedom, and she twisted her wrists, rolled onto her side, and looked behind her.

Five men, the mechanic and Jack included, stood and stared at her. One of them, a big man, well dressed in a sharp suit, held the sack that had been over her head in a hairy hand that looked like a ham.

She looked at his feet. Black boots with heavy soles, toe caps, and solid heels.

Anja had him to thank for the bruises on her back.

“Get her up, please,” one of the men said. He was older, his words precise, so clear you could almost hear every letter, as if there were a gap between them.

He was in charge. His kind was always in charge.

The big man walked toward Anja. She felt like a doll as he grabbed her arms and lifted; she seemed to float to her feet. He stepped back, holding one hand out to catch her in case she fell.

She didn’t, she just glared at him and then at the man in charge.

“Bring her inside.”

The big man took Anja’s arm, but she was already following the man in charge. The big man let go and placed his hand in the small of her back. She was surprised at his gentleness and she looked at him.

He smiled sadly. “Do as you’re told, there’s a good girl,” he whispered.

The man in charge led the group through a door with a frosted glass windowpane. It opened onto a dark corridor, with more doors and wood-paneled walls, which seemed to crowd in on Anja as they made their way along it in single file.

For every two doors that led off to the side, there was another partitioning the corridor into self-contained cells that reminded her of carriages on a train. Anja guessed they were in a block of offices that dealt with the paperwork for the warehouse.

But the warehouse was empty, and the offices were silent, and she was alone.

All the side doors were solid wood, while the corridor doors were glass. The big man almost had to turn sideways each time they passed through a glass door, until they eventually stopped, halfway down the corridor at one of the office doors.

The man in charge opened the lock with a bunch of keys, stepped back, and gestured that Anja should enter. She paused, then felt the gentle hand in the small of her back again. She turned to look at the big man, who nodded his head.

Anja went in.

There was a table, four chairs, wooden walls, and a shabby two-seater couch; hanging from the ceiling, a bright lightbulb that made the dust look dustier as it floated round the room.

The solitary decoration was a calendar on the wall that reckoned it was still October 1940.

“Take off the gag and unbind her.” The man in charge again.

Anja turned to look at the big man, who gently spun her away from him. She faced the wall, looking at the picture on the calendar; it was a black-and-white picture of a duck in a lake.

Anja felt fat fingers pulling at the gag. The knot caught her hair, but she ignored the pain as the fingers tugged and the gag came loose.

She spat it out, coughing as it dragged along her tongue and fell to the floor. Suddenly her hands were free, and she turned to face the men behind her.

She wasn’t afraid anymore. She was angry.

“What do you think you are doing? How dare you treat me like this? I would not have screamed. There was no call for a gag.”

Nobody argued with her. Jack looked at the floor and the mechanic nodded, openly agreeing with her.

Anja felt the wind drifting out of her sails. She looked at the big man, who scratched at his nose and then lowered his eyes.

“Sorry, miss,” he said before offering her a freshly ironed white handkerchief.

Anja took it, even though she didn’t want it, and looked at the man in charge. He smiled, held out his hands apologetically, then gestured that she should sit.

“Tea?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” Anja said.

The man in charge smiled, and then looked at the mechanic and Jack.

“There are makings next door, gentlemen, if you would be so kind?”

Anja watched as the mechanic nodded, then backed out of the room.

“Maybe a sandwich as well, boy?” The man in charge smiled at Jack, who took the hint and left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Please, sit.” The man in charge removed a thin leather glove and pointed to a chair at the table.

Anja hesitated and then sat. It was better than the floor of the car. The man sat opposite and studied her face for a moment before speaking again.

“I must apologize for your manner of arrival. I was unsure how you would react to my bringing you here. I thank you for your cooperation.”

Anja nodded, thinking that she hadn’t had much choice when it came to cooperation.

“I’m led to believe you are Ernst Koehler’s daughter. Is this correct?”

Anja nodded, then coughed to clear her throat. “Yes, I am.”

“My associates tell me you were kidnapped by two men.”

“Yes.”

“This was to coerce your father into carrying out a task?”

“Coerce?” Anja’s English was good, but it wasn’t that good.

The man in charge tried again.

“Make your father do a job? He is to kidnap someone?”

Anja shrugged and watched as the man in charge pulled his other glove off, then placed his hand on his leg delicately, almost like a dancer might.

Anja wasn’t good with ages, but she guessed him to be about fifty or sixty. He was pale, sickly. His face looked greasy and his eyes looked pink-rimmed and sore—angry eyes that didn’t get enough sleep.

He had nice clothes, his shoes shone, and his hands were smooth like those of the men who worked in her father’s office.

He looked normal except for his sore, angry eyes.

She needed to take care.

“You told my associate that the men who abducted you and your mother were American, is that correct?”

Anja swallowed and looked at the big man again over her shoulder.

“I’ve no wish to hurt you, child,” the man in charge said softly.

“Then let me go.”

“If you answer my questions I shall.”

“How do I know you’re not a liar?”

“I am a gentleman, my dear; as you grow older you’ll learn that you can trust a gentleman to keep his word. Now, if you answer my questions, I’ll do all I can to ensure that you get the opportunity to grow older. If you don’t . . . you won’t.”

Anja felt a flutter in her chest and looked at him.

“They were Americans.”

“How do you know?”

“Their accents, and they also said they worked at the embassy.”

“They gave no indication to you what they wanted of your father?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Did they have names?”

“Frank and Eric.”

“Frank?”

“Yes.”

The man in charge frowned and leaned back slightly.

“How old were they?”

“Not very. One was maybe twenty-five, the other a little older, I think. I’m not very—”

“Frank was older?”

“Yes.”

“And they said they were Americans?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I said they had American accents, like in the movies, and they mentioned an embassy, so I
think
they were.”

“But you’re sure they were not English?”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely sure?”

“They had good teeth.”

The man in charge lifted an eyebrow and smiled, keeping his mouth closed as he did so.

“This man, Frank, did he have light-colored hair, like your father?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Anja.” The man in charge smiled again.

“Can I go home now?”

“Not yet, child; hopefully soon, though.”

There was a knock at the door, and the man in charge half turned in his seat and nodded to the big man to open it. Harris the policeman stood there, out of uniform, nervously holding a flat cap across his chest. He seemed smaller, less confident.

Anja wondered if it was the lack of uniform or the man in charge who was sapping his confidence.

“I got a message to come see Sir James Sterling?” said Harris, confused, checking out the various men who were dotted around the room and in the corridor.

The man in charge visibly flinched, turned to look at Anja, and then smiled.

“I’m so terribly sorry, my dear, so very sorry.” He lightly slapped his gloves against his leg, then turned to Harris. “You really are an arse.”

“What?” Harris replied, looking around the room once more, searching for support this time.

Sterling gave a tiny bow toward Anja and then left the room, taking Harris with him. The door clicked shut behind him.

The big man who had removed Anja’s gag smiled sadly at her.

“Make yourself comfortable, girl, this could take a while.”

Anja twisted the handkerchief in her hand again, then looked back at the duck in the calendar.

She wished she were back in 1940 as well.

STERLING TOOK HIS
tea without milk, strong, a decent brew. The kind of tea that put fur in your mouth before it went down, the kind of tea you could taste before you drank it. That was the reason he was frowning into the enamel mug Jack had just placed on his desk with a clunk. The mug was filled with a greasy brew; there were small gray dots of slimy stale milk turning like stars in a miserable brown galaxy.

Sterling gestured to Jack to remove the mug and its murky contents from out of his sight.

“It really is most urgent,” Sterling said into the telephone that was pressed against his ear, as he watched Jack retreat with the tea. “Most urgent indeed.”

“I’m afraid the ambassador is extremely busy, sir. I can maybe schedule a call for you later in the week?”

“This is a matter of utmost importance. You are aware of who I am?”

“I am, sir, but again, the ambassador is extremely . . .”

Sterling was barely listening to the secretary on the other end of the line, such was his frustration. There had been a time, back when the occupation was new, that the Americans treated senior British civil servants with respect, courtesy, even urgency. But over time the English had slid further down the order of importance, especially in light of the new diplomatic push toward cooperation with the Germans.

Now he was lucky to even get to speak to a secretary.

Sterling knew that the Americans were aware he was the senior royalist resistance commander in London. He and the Americans had worked closely on occasion over the last few years. They had once had respect for him, but now, he knew he was falling out of favor and very much in danger of becoming an embarrassment.

And that was why he had to listen to this ridiculous woman brush him off on the phone. He was walking a tightrope with the Americans. They could drop his name into conversation at any time they wanted, casually toss him to the Nazis.