The British Lion (35 page)

Anja tried to move, so Ma Price twisted her arm a fraction tighter and shook her head.

“Be still now, love.”

Anja did as she was told.

The phone picked up.

“ ’ullo?”

“Fraser?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Ma Price.”

A pause.

“How did you get this number?”

“I need to speak to your old chum Rossett.”

“Who? Do you know what time it is?”

“Don’t piss me about, Fraser; I need to speak to him.”

This time the pause was longer.

“How would I know where he is? We haven’t spoken in years.”

Ma Price sighed.

“I know you’re the only friend he has left in the police, and I also know you shared a cigarette outside the nick and that you’re about the only copper who still speaks to him. Now don’t mess me around. Where is he? And don’t you dare lie to me. I bought you that house, so don’t you dare lie, because I can take it away just as easy. Where is Rossett?”

“I don’t know where he is. I don’t even know where he lives nowadays.”

“How long have I known you, Bill Fraser?”

“Uh, I don’t know, Ma. A few years . . . since the occupation.”

“Long enough for you to know what I do to people who let me down?”

“Yeah . . . long enough.”

“Well then, you know you’d better find out where he is, Bill, because I want to talk to him, and he’ll want to talk to me. If you don’t find him, he’ll want to kill you as much as I will.”

“What if he asks what it’s about?”

Ma Price paused, mulling her options, until eventually she continued.

“If I say this involves a man whose name begins with S, and who is right posh, a peer of the realm no less, do you know who I mean?”

“I do.”

“Well, me and him have got mixed up in something with the Yanks, and Rossett’s boss’s daughter.”

“His daughter?”

“So you give him my number, and you tell him I’ve got Anja Koehler, nothing else . . . You just say I’ve got the girl, I want to do a deal, and he’s got what we want.”

Ma Price put down the phone and looked at Anja, who was still pinned beneath her meaty fist.

“This is power, my girl . . . this.” She twisted Anja’s arm again. “And so is that.” She nodded to the phone. “I can do whatever I want.”

CHAPTER 43

R
O
SSETT WAS DRYING
out for the first time in what seemed like days. The Mercedes was warm, comfortable, fast, and easy to drive.

He’d disabled the phone box in the hamlet and spent ten minutes explaining, with the help of one of the MP40s, that it was in everyone in the village’s best interest to dump the bodies of the dead Germans in a slurry pit and then keep their mouths shut. Nobody had spoken during this lecture; the fifteen or so locals had mostly hung their heads and held their winter coats around them silently as a solitary dog sniffed uncertainly at the dead sergeant on the ground.

As he and Ruth had driven away, Rossett had watched the villagers, arms hanging limp at their sides, watching them fade away into the night.

Death had come to their village and danced through, and yet they seemed dulled, lost, beaten. Not scared, not worried, just beaten and alone.

Like Britain itself.

During the invasion people had fought like lions, raging against the Germans with petrol bombs and stones in some cities. But now it seemed like the fight had left them, just like Churchill and the old king.

A distant memory, resignation in its place.

Sometimes Rossett felt that he was waking up just as Great Britain was falling asleep.

“Are you angry with me?” Ruth broke the silence between them, causing Rossett to snap back into the real world and look at her.

“What?”

“I think you are angry.”

Rossett looked at her again and then went back to driving without replying.

“I understand if you are, but you don’t understand. I had to do it,” Ruth tried again.

“You had to?”

“Yes.”

“Same as you had to stab your boyfriend?” Rossett replied, still staring straight ahead.

“Yes.” A little quieter this time, but just as determined.

Rossett shook his head.

“You’re crazy.”

“No.”

“You kill so easily.”

“So do you.”

“I kill when I need to.”

“You find it easy?” The challenge left her voice.

Rossett looked at her again and then went back to driving. Ten seconds passed before he answered her.

“I used to.”

“But not now?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because . . .” Rossett squinted through the windscreen, as if the words he was looking for were just beyond the reach of the headlamps. “I’m trying to be a better man.”

“But you still kill. I’ve seen you.”

“I have to stay alive.”

“Why are you so special that you have to live, and the people you kill can die?”

Rossett looked at Ruth again, the light from the dashboard casting shadows on his face.

“Don’t play games with me.”

“I’m not. It’s a genuine question: why should you live and the others die?”

“Because I have to save Anja.”

“Why?”

“She’s a child.”

“She’s one child.”

Rossett looked at her and then back out the windscreen.

Ruth waited for his response, but none came, so she tried once more.

“Did you fight in the war?”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Start to finish. I was in France, then England.”

“You were captured?”

“Yes.”

“Then when you were released you became a policeman?”

“I was a policeman before the war, then a soldier, then a policeman again . . . then . . .”

“What?”

“Then I worked for the Germans.” Rossett looked at her.

“What did you do?”

He looked away.

“I rounded up Jews.”

Ruth touched the star of David on her coat subconsciously.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“Do you still . . . do you still do that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Like I said, I’m trying to be a better man.”

“Why did you change?”

“I woke up.”

Ruth shook her head and played with a loose thread from the star on her coat.

“No.”

“No what?” He looked at her again.

“People who do bad things aren’t asleep.”

“My wife and boy died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It . . . it changed me. The war, my family . . . it changed me. I lost myself, lost my way.”

Ruth turned to look at Rossett as he continued.

“Last year, I woke up, I saw what I’d become, what I was doing . . . I’m trying to be better.”

“Are you better?”

“I’m trying.” Rossett looked at Ruth and nodded before saying it again. “I’m trying.”

They drove a few more miles before Ruth spoke again.

“The men I killed, at the village . . . Horst . . . I had to.”

“Forget it.”

“Look at this.” Ruth pulled at the front of her coat, twisting it so that the star of David was visible to Rossett, who glanced at it and then looked back at the road. “This means I had to kill them, do you understand?”

Rossett didn’t reply.

“This thing, this little bit of felt, held on with this shitty thread . . . this means they had to die. I loved Horst. You might not believe it, but I did. But he had to die because of this. The men in the village? I made their widows cry, all because of this.” Ruth looked down in the gloom at the star and then back at Rossett, still holding it toward him. “As long as there are people in power who make others wear this—English, German, Nazis, as long as someone makes someone else wear this . . . people have to die because we can’t afford to let them win.”

Still Rossett stared straight ahead.

“If your friend’s daughter dies, she dies; it isn’t my fault, even if it is me who pulls the trigger. Do you understand? I need to live, I need to get away, I need to keep working to stop this. That is all you need to remember. I need to live to stop this.” She gestured with the star. “If you want to be a better man, if you really want to be a better man, you’ll make that happen.”

Ruth let go of the star of David. She turned in her seat to look out of the side window at the passing hedgerows, which gave occasional glimpses of the snow-covered fields beyond.

Rossett watched her a moment, then turned back to the windscreen as the snow started to fall again.

THEY DIDN’T SPEAK
for an hour until Rossett gently nudged her leg and held up a penknife.

“Use this to cut off the star.”

“What?”

“Take off the star.” Rossett gestured with the penknife in his hand, offering it to Ruth. “You can’t walk around London with that thing on your coat. Cut it off.”

Ruth took the penknife and began to pick at the thread. It came away easily; her mother had sewn it on in a hurry, fretting that the cotton was a different shade of yellow from the badge itself on that final day that they had parted forever.

Ruth held the star in her hand. It seemed so light and yet it felt so heavy whenever she put on the coat. She opened the window and thought about throwing it away, but then changed her mind and slipped it into her pocket along with the thread.

She wanted to remember her mother, how upset she had been. Ruth never wanted to forget.

CHAPTER 44

H
E SAYS HE
wants to speak to Mr. Rossett. Seeing as you’re his boss, I thought . . .” The waitress offered the phone to Koehler, who looked at his watch, wondering why a friend of Rossett’s would be ringing a café at six thirty in the morning.

“Did he give a name?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Koehler nodded, waiting for the waitress to move away. It took her a moment to get the message. She paused, then realized and walked off down the counter.

Koehler adopted the same position as before, one eye on King, as he held the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“John?”

“Who’s this?”

“Who’s that?”

“Major Ernst Koehler.”

There was a pause.

“Major Koehler, sir.”

“Who is this?”

“I’m a friend of Jo . . . Mr. Rossett’s.”

“Rossett doesn’t have any friends. Who is this?”

“It don’t matter who I am, sir.”

“I’m going to hang up unless you give me a name. How can I trust someone who claims to be a friend but who won’t give me a name?”

“I can’t, sir.”

“Good-bye.” Koehler put down the phone.

He stood stock still, staring at the receiver, his hand hovering just above it, willing it to ring again.

Seconds passed. Koehler felt a flutter of panic, his attempt to wrestle back control seeming to fail.

The phone rang.

He picked it up, holding it to his ear but not speaking.

The line crackled.

“Bill Fraser. My name is Bill Fraser. I used to work with John. I’m trying to help you.”

“How?”

“I need to give you a message, about your daughter, sir.”

“You have my daughter?”

“No, sir! Good God, no, sir. I’m a . . . I wouldn’t be involved in something like that, sir, no way, not at all.”

“You are involved in something like that.”

“I’m trying to help you, sir. I’ve been asked to get a message to you and him.”

“What is it?”

“Do you know who Ma Price is, sir?”

“I’ve heard of her.”

“She has told me to tell John, and I suppose you, that she has your daughter, sir. She wants to speak, so this can all come to an end. Have you got a pen?”

Koehler patted his pocket and then gestured to the waitress for some paper. She ripped a sheet off her pad and approached him to hand it over.

“Go.” Koehler spoke to the waitress and Fraser at the same time with the same command.

“Spitalfields 2127.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all she said.”

“How well do you know this woman?”

“Hardly, sir. I hardly know her at all.”

“Do you know where she is based, where she does business?”

“No, sir.”

“I’m not the kind of person you want to lie to.”

“I know that, sir. I’m trying to help.”

“You have, Bill, and I’ll remember that.”

Fraser hung up.

Koehler listened to the purr on the line and then put down the phone. He glanced at King, then turned back to the phone, picking it up and dialing, not bothering to ask for permission from the waitress this time.

It rang once.

“Hello?”

“Price?”

“Is this Inspector Rossett?”

“It’s Koehler.”

“Ah.”

“You’ve got my daughter?”

“I have.”

“Give her to me.”

“It isn’t that easy, Mr. Koehler.”

“Do you know who I am? Do you know what I do?”

“I do,” Ma Price answered matter-of-factly.

“No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. You have no idea of what I can do to you. You couldn’t imagine it. I’m a dangerous man, dangerous to those who have done me no harm, so imagine what I can do to those who have. I’ll bring the weight of the world down on you, I’ll crush you and everyone around you, I’ll kill your family, I’ll kill your friends, I’ll wage war on you . . . and that will be only the beginning.” Koehler tilted his head forward, his knuckles white on the receiver.

The line popped and crackled in his ear.

Ma Price answered evenly.

“Do you feel better now?”

Koehler lifted his head an inch.

“What?”

“Do you feel better?”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No.”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“And you ask me do I feel better?”

“Look, we haven’t got time for this. Are you going to listen?”

“Give me my daughter,” Koehler heard himself say.

“Listen to me, my darling. You keep your temper now, and listen to me. Do you know me?”

“I’ve heard of you.”

“Good, then you’ll know I’ll kill her if I have to.”

“If you so much as—”

“Listen to me, please, and don’t interrupt.” Ma Price waited for Koehler to respond.

“Speak.”

“All right, as I was saying, if I have to, you can be in no doubt I’ll kill her, okay?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now you need to know that I won’t, not unless you make me do it, understand?”

“Yes.”

“I like the girl; she is very brave, very strong.”

“What do you want?”

“I want the scientist.”

“You can have her.”

“Good, that keeps it simple. I trust you realize that if you involve anyone else but me, you, and old Mr. Rossett it will make this agreement invalid?”

Koehler looked at King and then back at the wall.

“I have the American you need to get the scientist out.”

“Do you now?”

“I do. Just so you know, we both have something the other needs. You harm Anja and I’ll gut this American and post him to you in pieces. Then, when you have all of him? I’ll come for you.”

“We both know where we stand, then?”

“We do.”

“When you have the scientist, you call this number.”

“Yes.”

“When you ring we can sort something out.”

“I want to speak to Anja.”

“When you have the scientist.”

“Now.”

“Say hello to your father, Anja,” Koehler heard her say away from the phone.

“Daddy!” Koehler’s heart jumped in his chest at the sound of her voice, but Ma Price immediately came back on the line.

“Don’t cause problems, Mr. Koehler, there’s a good fellow.”

Ma Price hung up. Koehler cradled the receiver and turned to look at the waitress.

“Two teas, two breakfasts.”

“You hungry now?”

Koehler ignored her and picked his way across the café to sit down opposite King.

“Are you hungry?” said King, looking at the waitress, who pulled a face at Koehler’s back.

“Never go into battle on an empty stomach,” replied Koehler.