The Darkest Hour

by Tony Schumacher

  Chapter 41

  “DIAMONDS?” KOEHLER STARED at Kate before slowly lowering his pen onto the incident report he was writing of the events of the night before.

  She nodded, walked around the desk, and sat on it, inches from Koehler, who leaned back in his chair, forced to look up at her. Kate smiled and crossed her legs, leaning forward and resting her elbow on her silk-­covered knee.

  “That’s what the resistance say. Apparently, the boy Rossett sprang from jail had a pocketful of them, plus some gold.”

  Koehler leaned farther back in his chair, averting his eyes from the tops of Kate’s stockings, and shook his head.

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “If the boy had diamonds, they would have been found when he was searched, before they put him in the cell. It just isn’t possible.”

  “Maybe he hid them?”

  Koehler held up a hand to silence her, and Kate pouted and sat up straight on the desk, shifting herself so as to ease her skirt down to a respectable level. Koehler stood up and walked to the tall window that looked out onto the busy road, lost in thought.

  “Rossett would have already had the diamonds. Why risk coming back for the boy?” He was talking to himself, so Kate didn’t answer. She glanced down at the incident report on the desk and then back to Koehler before turning the report so that she could read it.

  Koehler turned, noting that she was reading the report but deciding to ignore it.

  “Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Kate replied.

  “Unless the boy knows where more are hidden.”

  Kate silently rejoiced that Koehler had figured out the next step for himself. It saved her from revealing that the resistance knew there were more. She never gave away more information than she had to.

  The less they thought she knew, the less of a threat she was to them.

  “My contact told me there was an old man with him when Rossett escaped, a communist they’d been questioning.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know, it’s politics. You know they spend almost as much time fighting each other as they do us.”

  Koehler turned back to the window, letting the “us” hang in the air, making Kate feel self-­conscious.

  “This old man, do you know him?” Koehler finally asked.

  “No, he’s just a foot soldier. His name is George Chivers. It looks like he just got lucky when Rossett broke him out.”

  “Chivers?” Koehler half turned to face her.

  She nodded and smiled, then slid off the table and crossed to him. Resting her hands on his chest and standing close, bodies touching, she looked up into his eyes. “You think there are more diamonds?”

  Koehler studied her for a moment, grasped her upper arms, then took a pace back, putting space between them.

  “I need you to discover everything you can about everyone in that Jew house. I want every file looked at and then looked at again; I want them cross-­referenced with the Jewish census we took two years ago. We need to find out who that boy is and where he is from. Get someone to turn Rossett’s office and his lodgings upside down, and bring every scrap of paper over here immediately. And do it quietly. Nobody beyond our team is to know yet. Damage limitation, all right?”

  Kate nodded and lowered her hands. They parted, and she crossed to the large wooden double doors, pausing before she left the room to look at Koehler, who was dragging his coat across his shoulders already preparing to leave.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “I’m going to the boy’s house. There may be something there that can tell us where to look next.”

  “DIAMONDS?” SCHMITT LEANED in close to Hunter’s bloodied face, a long drool of blood and spit hanging from his lips and coming to rest on his chest.

  Hunter nodded his head, barely able to move a fraction, in the affirmative.

  “How do you know?”

  “I . . . I saw them . . .”

  Schmitt stepped back from the meat hook on which Hunter was suspended. He wiped his face with a hand that was soaked in blood and studied Hunter, who hung by his handcuffed wrists, feet inches from the floor, stripped naked, beaten and abused to within an inch of his life.

  The resistance man had been hung over the precipice of death and dragged back several times in the few hours that he had been in the cellar of Charing Cross. Schmitt and his assistant had worked quickly. Schmitt had wanted an edge over Koehler, and now he thought he had one.

  He picked up a small jug off the floor, dipped it into a large bucket, and tossed ice water into the face of Hunter, who writhed in his handcuffs with shock.

  “Where are they?” Schmitt spoke mildly. He turned to the table and put down the jug before picking up a scalpel from a leather roll that contained an array of glinting stainless steel tools.

  “I don’t know. Windsor said Rossett knew,” Hunter replied, his voice a mere whisper of exhaled breath.

  Schmitt moved beside Hunter, his face close to the injured man’s armpit. He rested the scalpel against Hunter’s chest. The touch of the cold steel caused Hunter to open his swollen eyes and look down. He squirmed when he saw it, straining to lift himself up and away, and failing miserably.

  “The man you know as Windsor said that Rossett knows where the diamonds are?”

  “He said the boy told him that Rossett knew.” Hunter’s breath was coming quickly now. He was clearly panicked by the scalpel, his imagination doing the torturer’s job.

  Schmitt turned to his assistant, who was washing off a wooden baton in the ice water, businesslike, paying little heed to the conversation that was happening a few feet away.

  “And Rossett escaped from the warehouse with the boy and an old communist called Chivers?” Schmitt whispered.

  “Yeah, I swear.”

  Schmitt pondered the information, reaching up to put his hand on Hunter’s cramping shoulders as he did, patting the man lightly on the back.

  “And that’s all you know?”

  “Yes, I was just a guard, I swear.” Hunter opened his eyes to look at Schmitt, desperate to be believed. “Don’t hurt me again . . . please don’t hurt me.”

  Schmitt nodded, gently touched Hunter’s face, then swiped the scalpel and cut off his nipple.

  They heard the scream two floors up.

  Chapter 42

  THE LATE-­AFTERNOON SUN was hiding behind the houses opposite the kitchen, where Chivers was searching for food in the cupboards. In the half-­light, the old man had emptied nearly every one and found only pots, pans, dust, and four scabrous potatoes that sat in a chipped ceramic bowl like castaways in a sinking lifeboat.

  “There ’as to be more than four old spuds, there ’as to be!” he said.

  Jacob stood meekly staring at the potatoes, hands resting on the countertop, like a choirboy about to pray. Chivers emerged from the cupboard and looked at him.

  “You must have ’id the food somewhere?”

  Jacob shook his head.

  “There must be a tin of bully beef or rice puddin’, at least?”

  Jacob shook his head.

  “All you ate was old spuds?”

  Jacob nodded his head before saying, “Sometimes we had cabbage.”

  “You ’ad gold and diamonds and all you was eating was taters and cabbage?”

  “We couldn’t eat the gold.”

  Chivers stared at the boy, shook his head, then held out his hand.

  “Pull me up, boy.”

  Jacob took the old man’s hand and, leaning back, dragged Chivers to his feet as the old man groaned. Once upright, Chivers inspected the potatoes, picking them up one after the other and then putting them back into the bowl. He sighed when the last one went down, rested his hands on the countertop, and loo
ked at Jacob.

  “Well, that’s Christmas dinner sorted, but I don’t know what we’re gonna do for New Year.”

  Jacob didn’t understand the joke, so he decided to stare at the potatoes while Chivers ruffled his hair.

  Rossett entered the kitchen, stripped to the waist, hair wet, and pulling at some buttons on a striped shirt that had a worn collar and a faded dark stain on the breast.

  Jacob looked at Rossett and saw the scars for the first time, thick and angry like tiger stripes, that covered his chest and leaked down onto his stomach and around to his back. Next to them were new injuries, inflicted the night before, the worst a dirty brown bruise that covered his left side. The little boy stared for too long, and Rossett smiled to hide his embarrassment.

  “Bloody ’ell,” Chivers said, looking at Rossett’s torso, “ ’ow’d you get those?”

  Rossett finally managed to get the last button open on the shirt and he pulled it around his shoulders, wincing as it went.

  “What have we got to eat?”

  “Four taters and a dead mouse. Seems these ­people lived on fresh air.”

  Rossett looked at the potatoes and then at Jacob.

  “Where did you get your food? Who did the shopping?”

  “We couldn’t shop. We weren’t allowed to.”

  “Who said?”

  Jacob looked at the floor.

  “You did.”

  Rossett reeled and shook his head. His mouth moved, but no words came out; there was nothing he could say.

  Chivers left the kitchen, followed by Jacob. Rossett crossed to the window and looked at the houses opposite, which were silhouetted now against a clear blue sky by the low sun.

  He leaned against the old enamel basin and turned on the solitary tap, which coughed and eventually spat out some water. He rinsed his face, then drank from his hand.

  After a moment’s reflection, he walked into the back room to find Jacob and Chivers sitting on an old settee that had more stuffing outside the threadbare arms than in. Chivers scratched at his chest and frowned.

  “I think I’ve got fleas from bein’ ’ere,” Chivers said.

  “I’m going to finish getting dressed and then we’ll leave,” he said. “Chivers, go get the car, and bring it to the end of the alley.”

  “Where are we goin’?” Chivers looked up.

  “You are going home. I’m going to get Jacob sorted.”

  “Oh no, oh no no no.” Chivers pulled himself out of the armchair, stood in front of Rossett, and pointed at Jacob. “I ain’t leavin’ ’im till I know ’e’s safe.”

  “He’s safe with me.”

  “Yeah, for now. ’Ow do I know once you get your ’ands on the diamonds you ain’t goin’ to be off leavin’ ’im?”

  “I’m not. Besides, there may not be any diamonds.”

  “I’m comin’ with you.”

  Rossett stared at Chivers. He knew that one swipe of his hand would knock the old man out cold and give them enough time to walk away, leaving him long behind, but he also knew the old man had resistance contacts, and those contacts could allay the suspicion Rossett would arouse by trying to get the boy out of the country.

  Diamonds or not, he needed Chivers.

  “Okay, go get the car. We’ll go together.”

  “No funny business?”

  “We’ll go together.”

  Chivers nodded slowly, then looked down at Jacob.

  “Come on, son. Let’s go get the car.”

  Rossett turned as they left the room and started to tuck the shirt into his pants and pull his suspenders over his shoulders. Suddenly he froze.

  “Chivers!”

  “What?” Chivers was half out the back door when Rossett ran into the kitchen.

  Their eyes met and Rossett raised a finger.

  “We go together. From now we go everywhere together, the three of us. Okay?”

  Chivers shrugged, took hold of Jacob’s hand, and led him back through the kitchen toward the rear sitting room.

  As he passed Rossett, he said, “Goin’ to be like that, eh?”

  “Yes, it’s going to be like that.” Rossett forced himself to smile at Jacob, who stared back at him blankly, not giving anything away, as usual.

  “I’m going to get my coat and then we can get going, okay?”

  Chivers sat down and shrugged.

  “You stick near me, boy, you understand?” Chivers leaned close to Jacob, looking to the door as he did so.

  “My grandfather said I should stay with the sergeant.”

  “You pay no ’eed to what ’e said; ’e ain’t ’ere now, is ’e?”

  “No.”

  “No, ’e ain’t, because that sergeant got rid of ’im, that’s why.”

  Jacob considered what the old man had said.

  “But the sergeant is a policeman. You should always do what a policeman tells you.”

  “Not this one. ’E’s a bad man. You just stay with me, all right?” Chivers took Jacob’s hand as he spoke and the little boy frowned, looking at Chivers’s swollen knuckles and liver spots, aware of how cold the old man felt. He was nothing like his grandfather, who was always warm, even when there was ice on the windows.

  Jacob nodded and slid his hand away from Chivers.

  “We’re partners, you and me, boy, partners all the way.”

  Chapter 43

  KOEHLER HAD DRIVEN himself, stopping off at his flat to get changed out of the damned uniform that had chafed his neck all afternoon.

  He had parked at the end of Caroline Street and walked slowly along it, looking at the houses that were crammed in, like soldiers on parade, shoulder to shoulder.

  He stopped and lit a cigarette, pausing to watch the children playing on the far side of the road with some rope hanging from the streetlamp. One of the children was watching him suspiciously, and Koehler smiled at the shoeless boy, who stared back, hands in his short pant pockets, shirt half out.

  Unimpressed.

  Koehler crossed the road and approached the kids, who, one by one, became aware of the tall blond man walking toward them.

  “Children, may I speak to you, please?”

  The children stopped playing and all stood, tightly clustered around the lamppost, different heights and ages but the same mucky faces and suspicious stares.

  Koehler suddenly realized how quiet the street had become. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and cupped it in his hand at his side, so as not to set a bad example.

  “Do any of you know the little Jewish boy who lived there?” Koehler pointed to the Jews’ house, gray and dead except for the fresh poster and padlock on the door.

  The children all shook their heads and Koehler noticed one looked close to tears. He smiled again and crouched down.

  “Are you sure? Nobody is in trouble if you did, I just need to know.”

  “We never played with no kid, mister. He never come out the house,” said the tallest of the children, a beanpole, buck-­toothed, bowlegged urchin.

  “But you saw him?”

  “We never played with him, honest!” a little girl shouted, then looked at the tall boy for confirmation, nodding her head to push home the point.

  “I know, but you saw him?”

  The tall boy nodded, and then others, on seeing him do so, joined in with exaggerated head bobbing.

  “He watches us out the window.” The tall boy pointed, and Koehler turned his head to look at the house.

  “Which one?”

  “That one, we’d see his face watching.”

  “Watching!” the little girl chorused, causing Koehler to smile at her.

  “But you never spoke to him?”

  “No, he was a dirty Jew. We don’t speak to no dirty Jews,” another little boy chimed in, growing in confid
ence with the tall man and his posh voice and funny accent.

  Koehler smiled at the group and then stood up, resuming his position as an adult over the tiny flock. He fished in his pocket for some change.

  “You did very good not to talk to the dirty Jews. Here, here is some money for being so good. Now run along.”

  Koehler passed the coins to the tall boy and flicked his head, a clear instruction not to hang around. The tall boy took the money and ran off, followed by the other kids. The little girl stopped after a few paces and turned to Koehler, then shouted at the top of her lungs in a high-­pitched shriek, “Dirty Jews, dirty Jews, we don’t like the dirty Jews!”

  ROSSETT PULLED THE thick black woolen coat on and shrugged his shoulders a few times in a futile attempt to get it to fit more comfortably over his shoulders. It was too tight and dug into his armpits. He tried stretching it by pulling the sleeves while staring at himself in a dusty mirror hanging by a rusted chain on the wall. He’d searched every room in the house before he’d found something that even came close to his size among the rags left by the inventory team up in the attic.

  He picked at the thread of the star of David that was sewn onto the left breast, dirty and yellow, like a slovenly sheriff’s badge, then rummaged in the pockets and found some mothballs and a seashell. He tossed the mothballs and studied the shell for a moment, wondering how it had got there, before dropping it on the floor.

  He took his belongings from his bloodied raincoat, putting them, one by one, in different pockets, keeping the knife and the Webley till last.

  He checked the knife in its scabbard before sliding it into the waistband of his trousers, then unlocked the Webley, checked the chamber, and put it into his left-­hand coat pocket. The last of the spare shells went into the right pocket. The handcuffs and key he slipped into his suit jacket before he tried stretching the coat again.

  It seemed to fit worse by the second, as though it were shrinking onto him, constricting him.

  He was staring at his raincoat, absentmindedly pulling at the star of David, deciding whether he should take his raincoat with him, when he heard a little girl shouting in the street.

  He tilted his head, trying to make out the words, and then went back to looking at the raincoat. A moment later something flickered in his subconscious and he became aware of the silence that had now descended.