Koehler stabbed the fork into the cake, leaned back in the chair, and looked at the ceiling. “Shouldn’t we start the search, sir?” Brandt broke the silence.
“Where should we tell them to start, Lieutenant?”
“I . . . er . . . I don’t know, sir.”
“No, you wouldn’t, because they could be anywhere by now.” Koehler felt his blood rise for the first time in a long time and he slowly lowered his gaze from the ceiling to the young officer who stood in front of him.
“I did my best, sir.”
“I hope your mother can knit, Brandt, because your best has probably consigned us to the Eastern Front just in time for Christmas.”
Brandt broke from his stiff-necked attention for the first time. He shuffled his feet and looked at the floor like a schoolboy who had broken a teacher’s window. Koehler looked at the young man and shook his head.
“Get the men outside to form up some roadblocks around the city for now, keep them there for a few hours, and then stand them down. At least then we can tell Berlin we tried to recapture the prisoners.”
“Good to see you have things so thoroughly under control, Major.”
Koehler looked up to see Schmitt staring at him through the still-locked iron gate that led into the station.
“Would you let the Gestapo in please, Werner?” Koehler said, his voice as flat as his morale.
“I don’t mind waiting. It’s quite refreshing seeing you behind bars.” Schmitt smiled at his joke and Koehler saw that there were another two Gestapo chuckling behind him.
Werner crossed to the gate and after a couple of tries found the correct key and opened it.
Schmitt entered and looked around the custody area.
“Where are the bodies?” Schmitt addressed Brandt, who, for a moment, looked like he was about to cry. Instead, he turned to Koehler and gestured with a nod.
“He said to move them.”
Koehler raised an eyebrow and made a mental note about his junior before saying one word.
“He?”
Brandt blushed and rephrased his statement.
“Major Koehler said the bodies should be moved.”
Schmitt smiled again and stepped up onto the dais. He looked at the blood on the floor, then at Koehler.
“Oh dear, some people might think you are trying to hide the evidence, Major. How am I supposed to investigate the escape if the evidence has been cleaned up?”
Schmitt dragged the toe of his shoe through the blood as if he were painting with his foot, and Koehler sighed loudly.
“It isn’t your job to investigate the escape; it’s mine. This is an SS matter, not a Gestapo one.”
“I thought you could do with some help. As soon as I heard what had happened I rushed over to see what I could do.”
Schmitt smiled at Koehler with crooked teeth, and, for the briefest of moments, Koehler thought about making them even more crooked. Instead, he asked, “How did you hear about the escape?”
“News travels fast, Herr Koehler, a bit like your prisoners. Have you found them yet?”
“We are still establishing how they escaped.”
“Ah. That’s a no, then?” Schmitt smiled as he spoke, happy at his own little joke, and Koehler looked past him at the two Gestapo who were standing behind him. They were enjoying the moment and looked like snakes trying to smile.
Koehler pulled the fork from the cake again and tapped it on the counter, knocking a few crumbs onto the polished wood.
“Brandt, do we know how the prisoners got out?” He decided to ignore Schmitt and establish some facts. As he spoke he stared at the fork and the crumbs.
“Erm . . . to be honest, sir, not yet. Maybe they overpowered the jailer and escaped that way?”
Koehler looked at the blood on the floor and immediately regretted having moved the bodies; he involuntarily glanced at Schmitt, hoping he hadn’t noticed that regret on his face, before turning back to Brandt.
“How many escaped?”
“Eight prisoners, sir, the ones who were due to go to Paris. Apparently, they had been brought here from outlying stations so that they were together for the transit on Sunday.” Brandt pointed to several files on the desk, proud that he had done something right at last in getting the prisoner information together.
“Who knew they were being moved here?” Koehler suddenly sat up in the chair and stopped tapping the fork.
“I don’t know. They were resistance, so that would be a Gestapo matter, I suppose?” Brandt sounded apologetic as he spoke, nervous at upsetting his new friend, Schmitt. Schmitt, in turn, looked at the young officer and then at his own men, who still stood silently by the gate, smiles gone and waxy faces reestablished, showing nothing and giving nothing away, the classic look of the secret policeman.
“Who organized the transfer of the prisoners here?” Schmitt preempted Koehler’s question by asking his men first. They replied with shrugs and uneasily took their hands out of their pockets.
“Do you have a leak in your office, Herr Schmitt? Maybe I should call Berlin to organize an investigation?”
“There is no leak in my office. Besides, I’ve only just arrived in London.” Schmitt snapped his head around toward Koehler as he spoke, already covering himself from blame as best he could.
“Well, it is a coincidence that as eight resistance are brought to Charing Cross for the first time, they somehow manage to escape one of the securest buildings in London, don’t you think?” Koehler added a quizzical lilt to his voice and looked again at the cake fork before turning to Schmitt, the balance of power shifting his way again.
“Nobody from my department would have spoken; it is impossible any leak came from the Gestapo. It could have been anyone—the transport department, the custody department, a civilian cleaner, even the building security!” Schmitt pointed at Brandt, who quickly shook his head and looked at Werner, who remained impassive.
An old soldier who had heard officers looking to lay blame many times before knew better than to give them a moving target.
“I had no idea of the importance of the prisoners. None of us did! I would have ensured we had more men on guard duty had someone informed me! Nobody in this building would have known except the custody staff, and half of them are dead!” Brandt’s voice sounded a tiny bit desperate, as if he were calling for his career to come back like a lost dog.
“How many men were on guard duty, Lieutenant?” Schmitt gave the impression that he had found his victim, and the more evidence he could raise, the more secure his own position became.
“Sir! There was a party for the anniversary of the Putsch; I gave many of the men leave to attend. Had I been informed of the importance of . . .” Brandt trailed off as Koehler raised his hand to silence him.
“This isn’t finding the prisoners. We need to get patrols to their last known addresses and round up anyone who knows them.” He spoke to Werner. “We need someone to go through these files and get all the necessary information and then pull together some snatch squads. Notify the Met Police, as well . . .”
Suddenly it was Koehler’s turn to trail off as he spoke. The sentence dangled in midair as he slowly turned his head, mouth open, midword. He suddenly stood up from his seat and gestured to the two Gestapo men to get out of the way of the custody board where the prisoners’ names were chalked.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, then stepped down to make his way along the corridor to the gate that led to the yard, followed by the others, who trooped after him casting confused glances at each other. The jailer’s body had gone, but the blood and gore remained. Koehler looked at the mess on the floor, then stepped closer to the gate and studied it. He pushed it closed and looked again, then turned to look down the corridor to where the small procession had followed him.
Schmitt broke the silence.
“Wha
t is it?”
“They didn’t break out. Someone broke in.”
“But nobody knew the resistance were here, sir!” Brandt said, holding out his hands to Koehler, desperate to be believed.
“Whoever broke in wasn’t coming for the resistance. He was coming for someone else.”
“Who? There was nobody else here who would warrant this sort of operation.” Schmitt spoke to Koehler but looked at Brandt, who shrugged a reply and in turn looked at Werner.
Who managed to ignore them all.
“It was the Jew,” Koehler said softly as he leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and then slowly sank to his haunches.
Schmitt watched Koehler in amazement and then, openmouthed, turned to Brandt.
“What Jew?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“The fucking Jew Rossett brought today; he’s gone, as well, isn’t he?” Koehler spoke from down by the floor.
Brandt looked at Werner, who nodded silently back before staring straight ahead again.
“The boy?” Schmitt spoke to Koehler, who remained crouched, back to the wall, forearms on his knees and head leaned forward, looking exhausted, like a recovering long-distance runner.
“Yes, the boy.”
“Are you saying Rossett did this?” Schmitt looked from Koehler to Brandt.
“Yes,” Koehler replied.
“But why? I don’t understand. Surely this was the resistance?”
“The resistance didn’t know who was being held here. It was Rossett. Trust me, I’m correct,” said Koehler, lifting his head back and resting it against the cold wall of the jail. He looked up at Schmitt by turning his eyes only.
“But how did Rossett know they were here?” Schmitt looked from Koehler to Brandt, who looked like he was about to cry again, so overpowering was his confusion.
“He didn’t. Don’t you see, man? Rossett wasn’t interested in the resistance; he was after the boy. With the resistance, he just got lucky. Rossett would have released them as a diversion. Jesus Christ . . .” Koehler’s voice trailed off and he hung his head again before taking a deep breath and rising to his feet, sliding his back up the wall. “Don’t you see? He would have come here after everyone else was gone. He had a pass to get into the yard past the sentry.”
“What pass? How do you know?” Schmitt looked again at Brandt for answers, but the young officer just gulped and shook his head.
“I gave him a requisition for fuel. He must have shown it to the sentry to get into the yard, and, once inside the perimeter, he would have tried to talk his way in here. Judging from the skin and blood on the gate, I’m not so sure he managed it. I think he slammed the guard’s head into the gate and then used the keys to get in. He will have made his way around to the desk and overpowered the duty sergeant.”
“That easily?” Brandt leaned forward to inspect the gate as he spoke, noticing for the first time the blood and scraps of skin stuck to the black iron.
“Fat old men eating cake and a green soldier on a soft posting in England? How hard could it have been?”
Schmitt looked at the gate, then back at Koehler.
“You gave him the means to get in? This is your fault.”
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Unless we get this matter resolved quickly, we are all, each and every one of us, as the English are so fond of saying, in the shit.”
Chapter 24
ROSSETT STOOD IN the darkness and willed his eyes to adjust to the black that surrounded him.
They didn’t.
He breathed.
The black seemed to just get blacker. It felt like he was standing in space. He had no depth, no sliver of light to focus on, just cold, dark, inky black, and it was starting to cause him to panic.
He breathed again, quicker this time, snatched breath that didn’t quite fill his lungs.
The cold, wet wall he could feel with his hands appeared to be covered in moss, and somewhere in the darkness he could hear water dripping. He’d walked forward fifteen paces before hitting a wall, and then twenty in the other direction before he hit another. He hadn’t found the source of the drip, drip, drip of water on stone, as the sound had neither faded nor grown louder as he’d moved. It had just seemed to follow him, drip, drip, dripping its way into his imagination.
He’d been in a place like this before, as deep, as dark, as damp, and as dangerous as this place, and that place had sucked the air from his lungs as well, just as its memory was doing now.
He tilted his head back and sucked in more air.
His heart pounded and he leaned his head forward again, resting it lightly on the cold stone.
He wiped his fingertips against the wall and then sniffed them. They smelled of damp and dirt, like the moss he could feel growing from the broken brick, looking for light just like him.
Drip, drip, drip.
Rossett was starting to panic.
He turned his head, tilted it, and felt another flicker of fear, like the first few sparks catching at kindling.
He ran through what had happened since he’d left Charing Cross, then winced at the memory of being outwitted by Leigh. He should have just taken Jacob and run when he had the chance. Instead he’d thought he was releasing a few petty criminals or maybe low-level resistance, but the way Leigh carried himself, the way he’d behaved with the others and with Rossett, made him realize he’d released a nightmare onto the streets, which in turn had locked him up in the cellar of a dock in Wapping.
Rossett breathed deeply again and listened to his heart banging in time with the drip, drip, drip.
Relax, breathe, don’t panic.
He’d had better days, and he was getting the feeling that this one was only going to get worse.
He lifted his head; the cold stone had calmed him. He felt his way slowly around the wall with his hands until they were resting on timber instead of stone. Gingerly, he probed the door for weakness, but felt only solid iron hinges and timber and no handle.
He felt a chill ripple through him like a stone cast into a pond, and he pulled his coat tight by jabbing his hands in his pockets and folding them across his front. He could have murdered for a cigarette.
They’d taken everything from him except the clothes he stood in: his warrant card, his wallet, everything, including the sovereigns.
Rossett wanted to sit down but resisted the urge. It was going to be a long night, and shivering on a damp floor wouldn’t help matters. He decided to try to keep moving and stuck out one hand as he counted off some paces forward again, into the darkness.
“Try to keep still, you’re going to trip right over me.” The voice came from down below near to the floor, and Rossett froze midstep. Eyes wide in the darkness, he turned his head this way and that trying to locate the source of the voice.
“Who’s that?” Rossett replied, hoping his voice didn’t give away the shock he felt at hearing someone else in the room.
“Just one of the rats,” the voice said, chuckling, and Rossett took a step backward and held his hands up in front of himself in a futile gesture of defense.
“Who is it?” This time Rossett heard the panic, felt it tumble from his lips, and he hated himself for the weakness.
“All right, chum, calm down, ’ang on while I get this lit . . .” Rossett heard a rattle and then saw what seemed like a supernova of light five feet in front of him and near to the floor.
The match flared, then settled as it found a lantern, and a weak amber glow filled the room. An old man lay on the floor next to the light, on some wooden planks covered with dirty straw under a few empty coal sacks.
The scene, lit by the lantern, gave off a desperate air of someone locked away for a long time with just drips and rats for company.
The old man seemed to touch the match to his lips before he puffed it out with
the slightest of wheezy breaths, then pushed his hand across his face, pushing dirty lank gray hair from his eyes and up back onto his head.
Rossett noted how dirty the man was. He must have been in the room for a long time. For the briefest of moments, Rossett wondered if he was going to end up looking like the specimen on the floor and he looked to the door for confirmation.
In the light of the lamp, the door looked more solid than it had seemed in the darkness, and, on looking around the rest of the room, he saw his suspicions confirmed, that there was only one way in, and getting out appeared to be a tall order.
The man on the floor hadn’t spoken while Rossett carried out his survey, and when Rossett looked back to him he merely smiled and shook his head.
“You ain’t gettin’ out, mate, not unless they let you, and I wouldn’t be buildin’ your ’opes up either. I’ve been here for a couple of weeks now, maybe longer.”
Rossett didn’t reply. He crossed the room, picked up the lantern, then walked the perimeter studying the wall. He’d guessed the size correctly; the light from the lamp barely made it from one side to the other. The old man had set up his bed about two-thirds of the way across from the far wall, Rossett guessed to get away from the damp that was leaching through the old stonework and pooling in places near the foot of the wall. He crossed to one of the pools and put his fingers in it, then tasted the cold gritty water.
“We’re in a cellar, chum, below the water, I reckon. It dries out sometimes, always bloody cold though. They bring in a stove when it gets really bad, but even that ain’t much good. There’s underground streams and rivers round ’ere ain’t been seen for centuries. We could be next to one of them. Sometimes I can just hear it rushin’, I think.” The old man seemed to realize something. He looked up at Rossett and smiled. “But that could be me mind going. You never know, do you?”
“Who are you?” Rossett finally spoke, his voice soft now, panic gone and a cool calculation restored by the lamp.
“George Chivers, and you are?” The old man stayed on the floor but proffered a hand to shake, which Rossett ignored.
The Darkest Hour: A Novel Page 16
