The British Lion

by Tony Schumacher

  She left the office, fastening the top button on her coat, her boots thumping as she walked across the deserted, freezing cold warehouse. On the far side, she pulled back a heavy wooden sliding door that led to the back of the warehouse and the steps down to the basement.

  The temperature dropped even lower as she descended. Her breath mingled with the smoke in the air as she turned the final corner, deep in the bowels of the building, and walked toward the room in which Anja was being held.

  Bare stone walls crowded in as the corridor seemed to narrow to where two men sat, watching Ma Price approach. One stood, producing a key and unlocking the door.

  “Get some soup for the girl, and put the light on,” Price said as she stood in the doorway looking down at Anja. The light flicked on and she entered, pushing the door closed behind her.

  ANJA BLINKED, HOLDING a hand over her eyes, looking up from the floor where she was sitting in the corner.

  “Your old man, what does he do for a living?” Ma Price asked, halfway across the room, with hands on hips.

  “Pardon?” Anja replied, confused by Ma Price’s thick Cockney accent.

  “Your dad, what’s his job?”

  “Where is Jack?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “You answer the question. Where is Jack?”

  Ma Price sighed. “He’s gone.”

  “Where?”

  “Home.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  They stared at each other.

  “I want to speak to him.” Anja lowered her hand and lifted her chin.

  “You can’t. He’s gone, forget him.”

  “I won’t. I want to speak to him.”

  “You can speak to him when this is over. I’ll let him know you want to, but only if you behave.”

  Anja sat up straight, leaning her back against the wall as Ma Price settled her weight onto one leg.

  “What does your father do?” Price tried again.

  “Did you kill Jack?”

  “No.”

  “I heard him screaming.”

  “He had to be taught a lesson.”

  “Is he hurt badly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Ma Price stared at Anja, weighing her up. She chewed her lip and shifted her weight again, this time only an inch.

  “He helped you.”

  Anja blinked.

  “You didn’t have to do that. He hadn’t done anything wrong.”

  “He helped you.”

  “He didn’t deserve to be hurt.”

  Ma Price put her hands in her pockets and dipped her head, looking at the floor a moment, and then back up to Anja.

  “No, he probably didn’t. But he has been, and that’s all that matters.”

  Anja shook her head. “You ­people kill and hurt others so easily, all of you . . . I hear my father talking about bombs, shootings: Why?”

  “Because we want our country back.”

  “What Jack did won’t change who is in charge.”

  “He helped a German.”

  “I’m just a girl.”

  Ma Price’s eyes wandered a moment while she processed Anja’s reply, then she looked at Anja again and nodded.

  “You’re right.”

  “All this . . . all of it is for nothing.”

  “We didn’t start it, we just want the country back.”

  “You don’t care about the country or the ­people. You just want power.” There was no challenge in Anja’s voice, just a certain sadness.

  She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin.

  Ma Price wandered to the side of the room and leaned against the wall. Hands still in her pockets, she stared into the distance a moment and then rolled, so that her back was against the wall and she was looking at the floor in the center of the room.

  “It is about power. You’re right. All of it, the whole thing . . . it’s all about power. When I was your age, I wanted power. I wasn’t pretty like you, I didn’t have schooling or none of that stuff. I had nothing, bugger all. I barely had clean knickers to see me through the month.” Ma Price chuckled to herself and Anja looked up at her. “I wanted power for myself, over myself.” She looked at Anja. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  Ma Price nodded and went back to looking at the floor.

  “I don’t give a toss about the country. I don’t give a toss about Americans or scientists or even you. Honestly, I don’t give a toss about any of it. I just want to keep hold of the power I worked so hard for, the power I gave meself.” Ma Price looked at Anja. “That young lad?”

  “Jack?”

  “What he did, helping you?”

  “Yes?”

  “I couldn’t let it happen. Once I know what he’s done, once I know others know I know, then that affects my power. Not the country’s, not America’s, not Germany’s . . . mine. And that is what is most important.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I hope you never have to.”

  Ma Price pushed herself off the wall and then resumed her position in the center of the room.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, I really don’t. All I want is enough to get away from this, away from London, away from the person I’ve made myself into, so I can start again.”

  Anja nodded, so Ma Price continued.

  “Do you know something? I’ve never seen the sea.”

  Anja smiled.

  Ma Price smiled, too.

  “I’ve seen the river, every bleedin’ day I see the river. But I’ve never seen the sea. I’ve never seen if it really is blue like they say, instead of the dirty brown of the Thames.”

  Anja stopped smiling.

  “It is,” she said softly. “It’s beautiful.”

  Ma Price smiled at her warmly, then the smile faded into sadness.

  “That is what my power is going to get me—­that second chance to start again, by the sea, on my own, away from here, happy.” Her voice barely carried, so light was the whisper.

  Anja nodded. “I understand.”

  “You have to understand, child, in this room, right here, me and you. I’ll tell you, I don’t want to harm you, and I mean it, I really don’t, same as I didn’t want to harm Jack, and all the ’undreds of others over the years. But out there”—­Price flicked her head to the door without looking at it—­“I’ll do what I have to do to keep that power, and to keep that dream alive as long as I can. If you help me, if you do what I need you to do, I’ll make sure you get to your old fella and you live happy ever after . . . but only if you do what I ask. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  Ma Price nodded, smiled, then was stern.

  “What does your old dad do?”

  “He is an officer in the SS.”

  “What rank?”

  “Major.”

  “What is his job in London?”

  “He works in the office of Jewish affairs.”

  Ma Price processed the information.

  “How long has he been in London?”

  “Why?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “Years. I don’t know, maybe three?”

  “And he’s just worked with the Jews?”

  Anja shrugged. “Yes, I think, with his friend Mr. Rossett. They are clearing the Jews so Londoners don’t have to live with them.” Anja’s statement was simple, years of indoctrination having taken its toll on her sense of morality.

  “Rossett?” Ma Price tilted her head.

  “Yes.”

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Anja watched
as Ma Price scratched her head, then took a ­couple of paces back and forth across the room, before finally stopping again by the door.

  “Does your old man have money?” Ma Price looked at Anja.

  “I don’t know . . . a little. We have a house in Berlin, and—­”

  Ma Price waved her hand and turned away, pacing again until she stopped by the door, facing it.

  “If he can’t buy you back, I’m going to need the scientist.”

  “My father loves me.”

  “Shush.”

  Anja fell silent as Ma Price held up a fat finger.

  “I’m going to need you to get the scientist off him.”

  “My father won’t harm Germany.”

  Ma Price turned to her and smiled sadly.

  “He’s lost his wife; he isn’t going to lose his daughter.”

  Anja dropped her chin to her knees and frowned at the mention of her mother. She felt her mother’s dying fingers again and touched her cheek. She fought with the memory, consciously trying to push it back into the box, in the depths of her mind where she had been keeping it.

  “He’ll have to give me the scientist to get you back,” Ma Price said to the floor before pulling the door open and nodding to the man standing outside.

  “Bring her and don’t hurt her. I swear, if you so much as harm a hair on that girl’s head I’ll kill you, understand?”

  He nodded.

  “And if you lose her, I’ll kill you even more.”

  The man looked at Anja, then at Ma Price, and shrugged.

  Ma Price nodded and left the room. The man gestured for Anja to stand up, then took her firmly by the arm. They followed Ma Price up to the office.

  Once they were in Price’s office, Anja was seated in the corner and given a bowl of soup. She ate quickly, in quick mouth-­singeing gulps, conscious it might be taken from her at any moment, watching the others watching her, over the top of the bowl.

  “We need more men. Get on the blower and get me six of the lads down here sharpish. Then break out the Thompsons and whatever else you might need. I want everyone armed, understand?”

  “Who we expecting, Rommel?”

  “Rossett.”

  “Rossett?” The heavy looked at his companion and then back at Price. “Jesus.”

  “Yes, so spread the word and warn ­people, all right?”

  “Yes, Ma.” He left the office.

  The second guard took the empty bowl from Anja.

  “Wait outside the door; don’t move unless I tell you.” Ma Price spoke without looking at him and he left, closing the door behind him.

  Ma Price flicked through an address book she had taken out of her desk as Anja watched from her chair. Through a window Anja saw the first guard pulling open the floor-­to-­ceiling wooden sliding door on the far side of the warehouse. She caught a glimpse of the street outside before he closed it again behind him.

  Anja knew that if more men were coming to the warehouse her chances of escape would diminish on their arrival. If she was going to escape, she was going to have to do it soon.

  Ma Price was still thumbing through the book, pausing occasionally, apparently lost in thought. The shadow of the man at the door was rippled by the frosted glass on which was painted OFF CE.

  Anja wondered what had happened to the i, and then looked at Ma Price again.

  She noticed a fountain pen on the desk.

  An inky, old, sharp pen.

  The kind of pen you could use to stab.

  Anja looked at the door once more, and then back at the pen.

  Six feet away, too far to reach without moving from her chair, but close, maybe close enough to give her a chance.

  Ma Price picked up the receiver of the phone, placed it on the table, and then started to dial with the same hand as she held the address book up to read the number, squinting her eyes and pursing her lips.

  The book was blocking Anja.

  Anja took her chance.

  Out of her seat like a cat, fast, silent, crossing the ground like a shot, she reached for the pen.

  Ma Price grabbed her wrist, so tightly that as she twisted her arm Anja thought her skin might rip. The big woman barely moved in her seat as she pinioned Anja so that her right shoulder hit the desk and her head landed next to the pen.

  Anja looked at the pen, her face contorted with the pain in her arm and back.

  She tried to reach with her other hand, but stopped and screamed as Price twisted again, then flicked the pen out of reach with the book she was holding in her other hand. The door opened behind Anja, but Price shook her head at whoever was coming in. She put down the book and picked up the phone receiver, holding it to her ear with one hand while holding Anja with the other.

  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

  ROSSETT 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 d
og 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.