The British Lion (20 page)

“Why what?”

“Why is it ridiculous? I come in here and you are interrogating Miss Smith for no reason that I can yet understand.” Weber’s voice was level, in contrast to Neumann’s, which was rising steadily.

“I was not interrogating her.”

“Was he asking you questions?” Weber looked at Smith, who nodded dumbly, and then back at Neumann, his statement confirmed.

Neumann stared at Weber with an open mouth before turning to look around the canteen, where nearly everyone was looking at him, waiting for his next move.

“I don’t have to stand here and take this from you.” Neumann turned back to Weber, his cheeks reddening.

Weber’s brow furrowed. He was visibly confused by Neumann’s behavior. A second passed between them before Neumann spun on his heel and walked away.

Away from the Gestapo, and as far from the cliff edge as he could get.

Neumann didn’t head back to his office; instead he took the stairs down to the ground floor, two at a time, eventually bursting out into the long corridor that ran the length of the building.

The ground floor was always the busiest part of Scotland Yard. Night and day it seemed to be always full of people, busy people, heading this way and that, opening doors, closing doors, accompanied by the chatter of conversations and typewriters and telephones.

It was place to get lost in, a place to disappear, a place where nobody had time to wonder what you were doing.

Neumann used that confusion to stop and stare at the large iron safe, which stubbornly stared back at him in the inner office behind the inquiry desk.

Two British police sergeants were seated at the front desk, both handwriting entries in identical black leather ledgers. The safe was through a doorway behind them, away from public view, only visible to those inside the station.

It held sundry items: found property that had been handed in and the paperwork that went with it, station keys, important evidence awaiting collection by the property team, the petrol issue vouchers, petty cash, and, most important, the travel warrant book.

Neumann needed that book.

He stroked his mustache and checked up and down the corridor for anyone watching him. Life went on as if he weren’t there. Behind him, through an open door, a telephone was ringing unanswered. Neumann turned and looked into the office where the phone was, wiped a hand across his mouth, and entered.

The phone was making the desk vibrate as it rang, inches from where Neumann was bending over to look in a drawer for an envelope. He scrabbled through the drawer’s contents and brought out a large brown envelope and a pair of old burnished scissors.

He dropped the scissors into the envelope and walked out of the office, closing the door on the ringing telephone. He waited, minutes ticking slowly by, until both desk sergeants were occupied with members of the public making inquiries at the front desk.

“I need to drop this in the evidence basket,” Neumann held up the envelope as he tapped the nearest desk sergeant on the elbow.

The sergeant looked at him, then held up a hand to stop the member of the public talking.

“I’m busy. In a minute.”

“Just give me the keys. I’m pressed for time, I’ll pass them back.”

The member of the public tutted at the delay and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, attracting the attention of the desk sergeant, who sighed, pulled out a bunch of keys, and passed them to Neumann with the desk diary.

“Make an entry in the log.”

“Of course.”

Neumann took the logbook through to the back office, then selected the longest key on the chain and opened the safe. He leaned in and picked up the travel warrant book. It was about six inches long and nearly an inch thick. He rolled it in his hand and then slid it into his inside suit pocket.

“Looking for something?”

Neumann looked over his shoulder at Weber, then tossed the envelope with the scissors into the safe.

“I’m putting evidence in the system.”

“Hmm.”

Neumann made to swing the safe door shut but Weber reached out a hand and caught it, just as the desk sergeant joined them in the little office. Neumann moved back from the safe door. Conscious of the bulge in his suit jacket, he passed the sergeant the ledger and nodded thanks before leaving the office.

Neumann didn’t hear the sounds of Scotland Yard as he walked back to his office; he passed through the crowds in the corridors like a ghost, until he finally turned the handle on the door to his office and entered it.

Koehler was seated at the desk and March stood leaning against the wall, arms folded, staring at the floor.

March looked up, saw his boss’s face, and unfolded his arms slowly as he pushed off the wall.

“Sir?”

Neumann flicked his head, gesturing that March should leave them alone.

The door closed as Neumann flopped into his chair.

“Did you speak to Rossett?” Koehler asked.

“Yes.”

“March says I am to be released?”

“You are, on bail, pending a final decision regarding the charge of assault on me.”

“Anja . . . have you heard anything?”

“No.”

“So I can go?” Koehler rested his hands on the arms of the chair, ready to spring out of it.

“You never told me he was a killer.”

“Who?”

“Rossett.”

“What’s he done?”

“Killed two men at a checkpoint outside Cambridge.”

The tension seemed to leave Koehler’s arms and he settled back into the chair.

“You’re sure?”

Neumann nodded.

“Fuck,” Koehler said softly, leaning his head back and looking at the ceiling.

“Yes.” Neumann rubbed the lump on his scalp again. “I gave him the travel warrant. If they trace it to me, I’m as dead as the men at the checkpoint, and so are you.”

“Do they know it was Rossett?”

“Possibly.” Neumann adjusted his suit jacket, pulling it across his chest to hide the warrants from Koehler, embarrassed at his panic and the theft of the book. He inspected his fingertips. “If not now, they will if he gets caught or stopped again.”

Koehler placed the palm of his hand against his mouth and breathed out through his fingers.

“I was crazy to get involved,” Neumann said quietly.

Koehler looked at him, slowly lowering his hand.

“You’re a detective?”

“Of course I am.”

“Let’s find Anja and the scientist. Maybe we can turn this around.”

“Around?”

“If we find Rossett, after we find Anja, we can get the scientist and look like heroes.”

“And Rossett?”

“He’ll do as he is told. He trusts me.”

“Can I?”

“We’re in this together, Neumann; I don’t think you’ve got much of a choice.”

“No . . . I don’t think I have,” Neumann replied, producing the travel warrants from his jacket.

CHAPTER 26

E
RIC COOK WAS
covered in blood. His head hung to the side, and he traced his tongue around the gap where one of his front teeth had been knocked out, then moaned a low moan that said, I can’t take any more.

Ma Price disagreed; she took another sip of tea from her cup and nodded her head to Mustache.

Mustache punched Eric hard on the left side of his face with a ripping downward right hook that caused Eric’s remaining teeth to clatter together and his jaw to feel like it had been dislodged.

His ears rang, the room spun, and then came the pain.

His head hung to the side as the agony ebbed and the room steadied.

His eyes were puffed up so badly he could barely see through them. The sound of his breath snorting through his broken nose was the only noise in the room. Mustache stepped back, took a quick look at his knuckles to check for damage, then waited for the nod from Ma Price to continue.

“Ask him,” Ma Price said to the Prof.

“Tell her the address where the German is to take the scientist. Please, I promise this’ll be over quickly if you do.”

Eric half lifted his head and through one puffy eye managed to look at the old man.

“Tell her to release me and I will.” Eric barely managed to speak the words, lisping them through the gap in his teeth, before his head dropped again.

The bedroom door opened before the Prof could pass the message, and the other heavy stuck in his head.

“It’s ready,” he said to Price, who in turn indicated that he should help Mustache get Eric out of his seat.

They carried Eric into the front room, followed by the others. Eric squinted against the bright light beaming through the high windows, dazzling him after the boarded-up blackness in the back room.

Blinking, looked around as he was half carried, half dragged in.

The room was almost empty except for an electricity cable that hung from the ceiling light to a wooden box, which sat next to a tin bath full of water.

Eric stiffened and tried to stop them from taking him farther into the room, but his body had been weakened by the battering it had taken for the last hour, and he barely managed to slow them a fraction.

They dropped him into the bath. Water slopped out over the sides onto the floorboards as he struggled not to go under. Eric gasped as the cold soaked through his clothes, chilling him into snatched half breaths. Mustache pushed down on Eric’s head as the other man dragged his feet up into the air.

Eric found new strength; even though his hands were tied, he thrashed his body and kicked his feet in a desperate attempt to keep his head out of the water.

It was no good; he was helpless, gagging and choking as water filled his mouth and eyes.

It seemed he was under forever.

The cold faded, the pain faded, the light that dappled down to his half-closed eyes faded. He was succumbing to the darkness when he vaguely felt his hair being gripped, and then he was pulled upward. He weakly tried to lift his hands as his face cleared the water and he began to cough and retch.

It was like he was dreaming—the noise, the blurred vision, the light, and the cold air.

That was the moment he knew it was his last day on earth.

He knew he was going to die.

He knew he had nearly died just then.

He wished he had.

He looked at Mustache.

These people cared nothing for him; they weren’t human.

Eric wanted to cry but barely had the breath. A sudden sense of hopelessness enveloped him almost as much as the water had.

He was going to die.

This was it, all his life, leading to this moment, all so pointless.

Ma Price appeared at his side and sadly shook her head.

“Why are you doing this to yourself, my love? Tell us what the address is.” She gently touched the back of his head, as if holding a newborn baby.

The room seemed to spin.

“Please . . . a minute . . . please?” Eric whispered. Ma Price stepped back and nodded to Mustache, who immediately pushed down again on Eric’s head, sending him back under the water.

Eric thrashed.

Water slapped onto the bare floorboards, enough to soak all around, but not enough to empty the bath that was becoming his tomb.

The darkness was coming again as Eric was yanked back into the cold air, coughing and crying.

“We’re going to fry you in that bath now, burn you with electricity. I don’t want to have to do it. It’s up to you. Please don’t make me.” Ma Price shook her head. “We can keep it going all day and all night, until you tell us the address.”

Eric sobbed and gasped in reply, unable to string together words.

THE BOY NEEDS
to think. You’re going to kill him before he has a chance to tell you anything,” the Prof said to Ma Price. “Do we need the address that much?”

Ma Price stared at Eric sadly and then turned to the Prof, beckoning him closer. “Whoever Koehler is getting for the Yanks obviously matters a lot. So much so that they have gone to all this trouble. Imagine how hard that must have been to organize? Kidnapping an SS major’s daughter, spiriting someone from Cambridge, getting them out of the country? Think about it.”

“I understand, but—”

“You don’t understand, that’s the problem. If you understood, you would know that all the trouble they’ve gone to makes whoever they are kidnapping very important. And people pay lots of money for things that are very important. People pay a bleedin’ lot. Once we have the address, then we have whoever was kidnapped, and then we have the money. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“We can name a price, or, if we want to, we can negotiate something else from the Yanks. We can get out of ’ere, maybe, out of the country, get to safety, yes?”

“But . . . this . . .” Prof gestured to the bath and the bloody swollen mess that was lying in it. “This is barbaric. Aside from the fact that you’ll kill him before he has a chance to speak, it is downright barbaric. If the Americans think we have done this to one of their people they will never help us, never.”

“They’ll never know, because we’ll never tell them.”

“We’re human beings; we shouldn’t be doing . . . this.” The Prof gestured to Eric, who was shaking uncontrollably.

Ma Price stared at the Prof and then looked at Eric, head hung over the side of the bath; his face now swollen beyond recognition. She looked at the floor and then at Mustache.

“Give him five minutes.”

She left the room followed by the second henchman. The Prof crossed to Eric and struggled down to his knees to speak to him.

“You have five minutes’ rest. You’ll not get another chance: tell her what she needs to know and end this suffering.”

Eric’s head jerked slightly, seemingly almost a reflex at the sound of the Prof’s voice speaking so gently. He visibly struggled to open his eyes.

“Please . . . take me out of the water. I’m so cold,” Eric whispered, his voice barely audible behind the chattering of his remaining teeth and gasps of breath.

“He wants to get out of the bath. Can you help him?” the Prof asked Mustache, who looked at the closed door and then nodded.

“Come on then, five minutes.” Mustache gripped Eric under the arms, bodily lifting him out of the bath with a grunt.

Mustache tried to support Eric while attempting to avoid the water that was dripping off him. He waited as Eric struggled to lift first one leg out of the bath and then the other.

Water drained off his sodden clothes onto the floor. Eric struggled to remain upright under his own steam, his knees locking and unlocking under him seemingly at random until he managed to finally stand, head hanging, on his own two feet.

Mustache took another step back to prevent himself from getting soaked.

That was when Eric went for the window.

Mustache was blocked by the Prof as Eric staggered toward the far side of the room.

HE DIDN’T WANT
to escape, he wanted to die.

He figured that to fall through the glass, and then the twenty feet to the road below, would be a better way to die than at the hands of these English barbarians.

He felt a hand grab his shoulder. Eric spun, still moving forward, twisting as he went, desperate for the release that the window offered, out into the light.

He broke free and took another step, spiraling, his legs unsteady. The next step would pitch him into the glass. Eric prayed that when he hit it he would have enough momentum to smash through.

He was falling before he struck the window. Plunging downward, his head shattered the pane and he spun end over end out into the street, splinters of glass all around him as he went.

Despite the thick layer of snow, he hit the cobbles hard. What little air his lungs still held was jolted out, but he felt no real pain.

He rolled onto his back and looked up into the gray sky above. His face felt warm and wet, and he blinked through the slits of his eyelids.

He was disappointed he hadn’t died, but he knew didn’t have long to go. He felt strangely calm as he realized blood was leaking into his mouth from somewhere.

He’d be gone soon.

They couldn’t hurt him now.

FRANK KING WAS
idly spinning his empty teacup in its saucer when he heard the crash. He looked out through the net curtains, where he saw Eric lying in the street with tiny shards of glass falling all around him like flakes of diamond snow from the sky.

It took a moment for what he was looking at to sink in.

King looked up at the broken window and saw a big man with a mustache staring down at Eric in the street below. King stood up, pulled his pistol out of his pocket, and crossed the tiny room to the front door. He turned the handle and then stopped.

Crouching slightly, he stepped back to the edge of the window, trying to see through the curtains without disturbing them.

The snow around Eric was staining crimson. King’s heart thudded in his chest, and he fought the urge to rush outside to help.

He swallowed, waited, and watched, knuckles white as they gripped the pistol, the old lady on the floor behind him forgotten for now.

He didn’t wait long.

The front door of the house opposite flew open and the man with the mustache, a second heavy, and a fat woman charged out into the street.

MUSTACHE HAD WATCHED
Eric go out of the window and barely believed his eyes. He hadn’t thought the American capable of standing unaided, let alone running to the window and jumping through.

He had been shouting for help before the Yank had hit the ground, and he was halfway down the stairs when he saw Ma Price and the other man coming out of the kitchen at a run.

Mustache had had to pull the sticky front door two or three times to get it open, and as he’d run onto the street, he could see the American lying still, staring at the sky.

KING WATCHED THE
three of them running to Eric; he worked the slide on the gun, waiting for the right moment.

As he saw the first big man crouching down, King went to the front door and twisted the handle.

One . . . two . . . three . . .

He burst out into the street lifting his pistol as he ran, shooting the man with the mustache twice as he looked up with open mouth and wide eyes.

Two in the chest.

Mustache tried to rise and then stumbled backward, ending up sitting in the snow, looking down into his lap.

The woman slipped as she stumbled back toward the door. King ignored her and shot the second man high on the left side of his chest, and then once again, hitting him just above his right hip as he spun.

Sending him down, sprawling in the snow.

Something caught King’s attention off to his right; he spun dropping to one knee. Three children were running as fast as they could in the opposite direction up the street, away from the shooting and the blood-soaked snow.

King processed them and turned back to his main threat.

The house opposite.

The woman was being bundled through the door by another man, older, tall and spindly, in a dusty old black suit.

King stared down the sights, took a breath, and then lifted the pistol. They weren’t a threat. The old man turned and stumbled into the hallway, kicking the door shut behind him, only for it to bounce half open again.

The second man King had shot rolled onto his back and fired his revolver. The boom of the shot caused King to flinch before he redirected his aim and fired once.

The revolver dropped into the snow.

The second man was dead.

Mustache slowly keeled sideways onto the ground from his sitting position, just as the door opposite King finally slammed shut. King adjusted his aim and pointed his pistol at the door, then realized that the slide was back.

He was empty.

He released the magazine and in one quick movement inserted another and dropped the slide.

A second and a half and he was ready to go again.

Silence.

Nothing moved.

King was panting as he stared down the pistol sights at the front door. He looked quickly left and right, up and down the street. Several houses down, somebody poked out a head and then ducked back in, but all else was quiet.

He rose up from his knee, which was wet from the snow. He moved quickly, half crouching, with the Mauser still pointing at the house opposite. He snatched up the heavy revolver that was lying on the ground next to the second man, dropping it into his overcoat pocket as a reserve. He moved back toward Mustache, his gun still trained on the door, and quickly patted him down in a search of a weapon.

Nothing.

Mustache was watching him with strong, steady eyes, giving no sign of the pain he was in, struggling to control his breathing.

Frank stared back at Mustache and then went to Eric. He looked down at his friend, the young inexperienced clerk who did nothing but talk about girls, and saw the faintest flicker of life on his lips.

King dropped to his knees, one eye on the door opposite.

“Eric?”

Eric opened his bloodshot eyes and searched the sky for King.