The Darkest Hour: A Novel

by Tony Schumacher

  After a few seconds, he was high enough to look over the yard. By now evening had crossed that blurred line into night, and the sky was nearly completely dark. In the little light that was left, he saw Flynn, some fifty feet away, about three aisles over, crouching on top of another pile of timber like a dangerous gargoyle.

  The big man was looking down into the center of the yard, his head twitching this way and that. Rossett lowered himself from the stack quietly and looked back toward the office. He couldn’t see Chivers or Jacob, but he gave them a thumbs-up anyway before creeping along the aisle to allow himself a closer shot at Flynn.

  Near the end of the lane, he guessed he was about thirty feet away, close enough to take the big man down with the Webley, and still behind him so as to guarantee surprise. Rossett reached up to the top of an eight-foot pile of relatively new wood and slowly pulled himself up to look over.

  Flynn was staring back. The look of surprise on his face was almost as expressive as the one Rossett could feel on his own.

  Rossett dropped down immediately, just as Flynn let rip with a short burst from the machine gun he was holding and the timber above Rossett’s head rained splinters. Rossett ran along the line of timber back toward the office as the yard fell silent. Chivers appeared at the office door.

  “Give me a gun. I can help,” Chivers whispered.

  Rossett ignored him and dodged down the side of the office to the yard wall. He looked up at the top, which was ten feet above him and crested with some rusted and dangling barbed wire. Rossett took out the Browning and stuffed it into his waistband. He threw the wallet to Chivers with the van keys, removed his coat and hung it over his shoulder, then started to climb up onto the office roof via the window ledge.

  Before he reached the roof he looked back to check that he was below the height of the timber, then threw the coat up onto the black tar that covered the flat roof. He waited a moment, took a deep breath, and followed the coat. Lying flat, he spun quickly to face out onto the yard, the Webley scanning it carefully. At ten feet, the roof height was almost the same as most of the lines of timber he could see before him, and he squinted through the dusk for sight of Flynn.

  “Stay down low, below the window.”

  “Where the bleedin’ ’ell are you goin’?” Rossett heard Chivers hiss from inside the shed.

  “I’m going to skirt the yard around the outside to come back in behind him,” Rossett hissed back. He threw the coat over the barbed wire and dropped over the wall into the street outside.

  Once down from the wall, Rossett ripped the coat down and ran along the street, turning a right angle at the end of the wall and skirting the yard until he reached the gate they had passed through in the Mercedes.

  He flicked the coat around the gatepost, like a matador goading a reluctant bull, and when no shots rang out he sneaked a peek and then pulled his head back quickly. He waited a moment and then looked again, crouching this time, in case Flynn had seen him and drawn a bead.

  There was no sign of Flynn, so Rossett checked the padlock on the gate and now regretted having tossed the keys to Chivers. He regretted it even more when he heard the machine gun firing on the other side of the yard.

  Near the office.

  Rossett fired the Webley at the padlock, blowing it apart, then kicked the gates open.

  He started to run toward the office, drawing the Browning as he went, a gun in each hand.

  He heard more shots, and despite the heavy pistols he felt helpless, a failure, a long way from Jacob, unable to help him, failing again.

  He was shouting when he rounded the corner of the final timber aisle nearest to the office, trying to draw Flynn to him and away from the office. Running with both guns cocked at arm’s length, he saw out of the corner of his eye an empty machine gun magazine on the ground.

  In the door of the office, someone was slumped and clutching his chest, but it wasn’t until he was close that he recognized Flynn.

  The big man was bleeding out, staring at the hole in his chest as blood seeped through his fingers, a steady flow of life that pumped slightly more each time he moved the hand, trying to find a way to cover it completely. Confused, Flynn looked up at Rossett, then showed him his bloody hand before putting it back on his chest.

  Rossett looked for the machine gun and, seeing it lying on the ground, kicked it away. He pointed the Webley at Flynn’s head and looked into the office through the shattered window.

  Still in the corner, Jacob in his arms, was Chivers, surrounded by broken glass, some falling from his shoulders like snow. He looked up at Rossett and then held up Dracula’s Browning.

  “You forgot, there was one in the pipe. The big daft bastard just ran into it,” Chivers said softly, stroking the back of Jacob’s head as he did so. Rossett glanced back at Flynn, who was now leaking frothy blood out of his lips.

  “Is he dead?” Chivers asked.

  “No, but he soon will be. We need to get out of here.”

  Chivers stood up and, with a grunt, lifted Jacob to his shoulder, holding the boy’s face close so he wouldn’t see Flynn. He stepped over the dying man and out into the yard without looking down.

  Rossett crouched down and searched through Flynn’s pockets for money. Flynn watched him as he did so and then silently shook his head, pleading with his eyes.

  “I can’t help you,” said Rossett as he produced a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches from out of the peacoat. “It’s time to die.”

  Chapter 47

  WE CAN’T KEEP moving like this; we stand out a mile.” As Chivers drove, Rossett was looking through the personal papers in Dracula’s wallet.

  “So what do we do?” Chivers leaned forward and wiped the inside of the van’s dirty windshield with the back of his hand to clear a smudged rectangle free of condensation before crunching another gear. “We need to be off the road soon. When traffic starts to die down Jerry’ll be more likely to stop us.”

  “I need clothes, and I have some money at my lodgings.”

  “They’ll be watchin’ your place.”

  “Maybe we can go to yours?” Rossett looked up from the wallet at Chivers. “You and Jacob can wait there while I check my place out.”

  “Sterling knows where I live. It’ll be crawlin’ with people looking for me. The royalists and us, we sort of operate an uneasy partnership.”

  “Very uneasy, from what I’ve seen so far.”

  “We normally stay out of their way if they stay out of ours.”

  “Unless they’re kidnapping you?”

  “They want our guns. They’re gettin’ desperate.”

  “Your family, will they be okay?”

  Chivers shook his head.

  “I lied. I don’t have anyone, I just didn’t want you knowing where I lived.”

  Rossett nodded silently. Modern Britain, where nobody trusted anybody else.

  “I understand,” he finally said, resuming his search of the wallet. After a moment, he tossed it out the window of the moving van, then wound the window squeakily up. Next to him on the bench seat, Jacob shifted and pushed in closer for warmth. Rossett obliged him by lifting his arm and allowing the boy to settle under his wing, like a duckling seeking comfort.

  They drove in silence for a while, aimlessly drifting across the city like the Thames as Rossett pondered his options. He was aware they had been on the run for nearly twenty-four hours, yet they’d barely traveled six miles from where they’d been held by Sterling and his men.

  He knew London was a good place to hide, but it was also like a spiderweb: if they kept moving someone was going to pick up their vibration and come looking for them. The clock was ticking on their options, and Rossett still didn’t have any sort of plan. He’d been banking on the communists to help them, but that door had been slammed shut as soon as he’d pulled the trigger and shot Dracula.
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  Rossett watched Chivers for a moment, the old man’s face lit by the oncoming traffic that was winding its way through the evening darkness.

  “Why did he want you dead?”

  “What?” Chivers turned to look at Rossett and then back to the road.

  “Dracula, why did he want you dead?”

  “Who?”

  “The man at the yard.”

  “Oh, him,” Chivers replied glumly.

  The van stopped at a light and Chivers’s face glowed red in its reflection.

  “Why did he want you dead?” Rossett pressed again.

  “I don’t know.” Chivers looked across again, this time holding Rossett’s gaze. “Maybe ’e thought I talked to Sterling?”

  The old man’s face turned yellow, then green, but the van didn’t move. Behind them someone beeped a horn, and Chivers moved into gear and set off again.

  “He must have known you never talked. If you had, the royalists would have come and taken the guns.”

  “Maybe ’e couldn’t risk it? I don’t know. We never got a chance to ask ’im, did we? What with you bleedin’ shootin’ ’im an’ all,” Chivers replied.

  Rossett went back to looking out the misted-up windows. Unable to see clearly where he was going in more ways than one, he wiped at the moisture and streaked it, making it worse.

  “Head to the cemetery.”

  “At this time of night?” Chivers asked, wiping his side of the window again.

  “We need to get moving. It isn’t good that we don’t have a plan, and nighttime will be the best time to get in and out of a Jewish cemetery.”

  “Maybe. I suppose they don’t get many visitors there nowadays.”

  “Will you be able to find your mother’s grave?” Rossett looked down at Jacob, who sleepily nodded in reply. “Are you sure? It will be very dark.”

  “Grandfather made me learn the way. I know where she is.”

  “Do you know what’s there?” Chivers asked.

  “What you want,” Jacob replied matter-of factly before nestling again, his head resting against Rossett.

  Rossett squeezed his arm around the boy’s shoulders to reassure him.

  “So we go to Willesden?” Chivers asked, and Rossett nodded in reply.

  They had driven a few miles across the city in slowly thinning traffic before Chivers spoke again.

  “I’m famished. Can we eat something?”

  Snatched from his own thoughts by Chivers’s voice and by Jacob’s stirring under his arm, Rossett stretched his legs into the foot well of the van, taking a moment to think before he spoke.

  “Okay, it would be good to get something warm inside us. I don’t know when we’ll be able to eat again.”

  “I know a little fish-and-chip shop up ’ere, not far.”

  “All right.”

  Jacob moaned softly in his sleep. Rossett looked down at the boy and wondered what his dreams were like.

  He hoped the boy still slept in a warm, loving place and not the real world.

  The van started to slow down as they passed a parade of shops, all in darkness except one, the fish-and-chip shop, splashing bright white light out over the wet winter pavement outside.

  As they passed, Rossett leaned forward to get a better look. The shop was empty except for two people, a man and a woman, behind the counter. Both of them stared out of the window like shop dummies and neither appeared to be anything but ordinary.

  “Do you know these people?” he asked Chivers.

  “Not really, I’ve only been ’ere a couple of times over the years.”

  “They aren’t connected to you?”

  “No.” Chivers looked quizzically at Rossett as the van slowed to walking pace and then bumped up onto the curb to park, some fifty feet up the road from the fish-and-chip shop.

  “Are you sure?”

  Chivers yanked the hand brake and switched off the engine before twisting in his seat to look at Rossett.

  “I’m just bleedin’ ’ungry, all right?”

  Rossett looked at the old man, whose face was dark in the shadows of the night and the cab. Occasional cars passed along the road, but other than that the street was quiet.

  It was normal, a place for normal people to live their lives in peace.

  Rossett envied them.

  He slipped his arm out from around Jacob, and the boy sleepily rubbed at his eyes with his right fist. Rossett checked the back window of the van and then the wing mirror. He looked again at Chivers, then opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement, stretching as he did so. He used the stretch to turn his body and scan the street on both sides and into the distance.

  His ribs ached, his neck ached, his back ached.

  He felt old, and he felt cold, but he also felt hungry.

  “Well?” Chivers looked across the front seat toward Rossett.

  “Two fish and chips and whatever you want.” Rossett pulled some money out of his pocket and leaned into the van to Chivers. The old man reached across to take the money, which Rossett dropped into his palm. Before Chivers could pull away, Rossett gripped his hand, holding it so tight Chivers could move neither forward nor back.

  “Just buy the food and leave, okay?”

  Chivers tried not to cry out under the tight grip. Through thin lips he asked, “Do you want to go?”

  “Just buy the food and leave,” Rossett said, releasing the old man’s hand.

  Chivers shook his head, got out of the van, and slammed the door, causing Jacob to jump and finally open his eyes. Chivers cast a sullen look at Rossett over his shoulder before he started walking. After a few paces, he stopped and turned to face Rossett, who was still standing on the pavement watching him.

  “You’d better start trusting me.”

  Rossett didn’t reply. He just shoved his hands into the dirty black woolen coat, pulled it around him, and watched Chivers turn and take a few more steps before stopping again. The old man seemed to think a moment, looking off to the parade of shops. Then, having made a decision, he turned and walked back to face Rossett, close up, toe to toe.

  “I’m your only friend, chum. You’re stuck out ’ere with no one and nothing. Yeah, all right, you saved my life back at the yard, although we’ll never know if ’e was goin’ to shoot me or not, and you got me out of the warehouse with Sterling. I appreciate all that. But, and it’s a big but, you’d . . . better . . . start . . . trustin’ . . . me.” Chivers poked a finger in Rossett’s chest as he spoke to drive home the words. “Because you are up shit creek without a paddle, and you need as many friends as you can get. And, as far as I can see, you ain’t got none but me and that kid, so you’d better start trustin’ us. All right?”

  Chivers finished speaking and stuck his chin out at Rossett, defiant and proud. Rossett looked at the old man a moment, then away at the houses that flanked either side of the road.

  “Point taken. I trust you.”

  Chivers nodded, shrank back an inch, straightened his jacket, and flexed his scrawny neck.

  “Right, then.” His old smile returned. “Do you want salt and vinegar?”

  Rossett smiled as he reached for the door handle of the van and pulled it open.

  CHIVERS WALKED BRISKLY to the chip shop, casually glancing in the darkened windows of the other businesses as he did so. As he opened the door, a bell rang above his head, and the smell of fat, vinegar, and salt mixed with the heat of the burners washed over him and pinched the top of his nose.

  “Yes, my darling?” asked the woman behind the counter, red cheeked and greasy skinned, dragged from her stupor by the presence of a customer. Next to her the man in the white apron started to stir at the boiling fat with a steel spatula, in turn smiling at Chivers.

  “I need to use your phone. It’s urgent, a matter of state security.” Chivers
was already lifting the flap and was halfway around the counter as he spoke. “And do me three fish and chips, plenty o’ salt and vinegar.”

  KATE SLAMMED THE receiver down and ran into Koehler’s office, not bothering to knock as she flung open the door.

  “I’ve just had a call. Rossett is heading to a Jewish cemetery in Willesden!”

  Koehler swung his feet off his desk, where they had been as he drank the small glass of brandy he’d allowed himself as a buffer against the stress of the day.

  “Who says?”

  “Some old man called Chivers. He just said he was with Rossett and the Jewish boy, and they would be at the cemetery soon.”

  “Did he say why?” called Schmitt from behind the door, where he had been sitting in an old brown leather armchair, an untouched brandy balanced awkwardly on his knee.

  Kate put her hand to her mouth and looked at Koehler, embarrassed that she had spoken without first checking if it was okay. Koehler anxiously waved his hand.

  “Speak.”

  “He didn’t, sir; he just said where they were going and then hung up. I’m sorry.”

  Schmitt stood up.

  “We need men down there now! Break out the guard, ring the police!”

  Koehler nodded to Kate and waved her away as he picked up his phone receiver.

  “We can’t charge down there as if we are invading Poland, Schmitt. We need to be subtle. If Rossett realizes we are coming, he will disappear like a startled rabbit. Besides, we don’t know what he is there for.”

  “The diamonds, it must be the diamonds.”

  “Possibly.” Koehler dialed and put the phone to his ear. “Werner, is that you?”

  Down in the bowels of the building, the old soldier sat upright in his tiny NCO’s duty office, folding a newspaper and picking up a pen as he held the phone to his ear.

  “This is he.”

  “It is Koehler. How many men do you have on duty tonight?”

  “Thirty, sir. I thought it prudent after—”

  “Get twelve of your best in three cars—your best, mind, armed and at the front of the building now.”