The Darkest Hour: A Novel

by Tony Schumacher

  He tested the first step with his foot and stepped near the outer edge of the stairs, moving quickly to the top.

  On the landing he paused again, looking at the doors. Each had a small hasp and staple to secure them from the outside, a cheaper alternative to a proper lock in a converted house. He could hear voices behind one of the doors, what might once have been the back bedroom. At least they wouldn’t have seen Kate. He stepped to the door and considered taking out the Webley, but decided against it. If Chivers was stupid enough to try anything, Rossett knew he could handle the old man, whatever happened, and if Chivers wasn’t behind the door he didn’t want to give someone a heart attack.

  Well, not yet, anyway.

  He put his hand on the doorknob and listened again, hearing only soft voices. Rossett checked down the stairs and then took a deep breath. One, two, three . . .

  He flung open the door and stepped into the room. Years of being a policeman had taught him that dominating a room by speed and confidence often served you better than having five coppers backing you up. If you could make the occupants think you should be there and that they shouldn’t, the battle was often half won.

  The room was a fair-sized converted bedroom. A small four-seater wooden dining table sat against one wall. On a brown leather sofa sat Chivers with a woman Rossett took to be his wife.

  Both looked at him in shock, and Rossett realized the voices he’d been able to hear were coming from a wireless that was chatting to itself on a bureau in the alcove next to a tiny fireplace that would have struggled to heat a rabbit hutch.

  As Rossett stepped into the room, half closing the door behind him, he didn’t take his eyes off Chivers, who stared back, fingers gripping the arm of the settee and feet twitching, unsure whether to stand or not.

  His wife, rising from her seat, didn’t hesitate.

  “ ’Oo the bleedin’ ’ell are you? You can’t—”

  Rossett struck her with the back of his left hand across her face without taking his eyes off Chivers, who, in turn, didn’t react to his wife’s spinning to the floor at his feet. She cried out and tried to rise again, then sank back down, blood already dripping from her nose.

  “Stay down,” said Rossett, eyes still on Chivers.

  “Stay down, Gloria,” Chivers whispered, leaning forward a fraction and resting his hand on his wife’s back gently.

  “Ooh, George!” she wailed. “What ’ave you done now? What ’ave you done?”

  Rossett’s hand stung and he risked a glance at the woman before lifting a finger and putting it to his lips.

  Chivers stared at Rossett, licked his lips, and shifted in his seat.

  “Try to be quiet now, old girl, shush now,” Chivers said to his wife, then turned back to Rossett. “Sorry I ’ad to leave you with the Germans. I stuck around as long as I—”

  “Shut up,” Rossett replied, his voice flat. “Get your coat.”

  “George?” Gloria spoke from the floor, her voice thick with the bloody nose.

  “Shush, girl, it’ll be all right.”

  “Don’t go, George.”

  “Get up.”

  “I can’t help you, Mr. Rossett. I would if I could, I swear I would, but I can’t, see? I’m cut off. Nobody will touch me now. They think I’m in with Jerry, they think—”

  “I know what you are. I know you sold me out, me and the boy, to Koehler. I know all about it, George, all about your file. Now get up before I kill you where you sit.”

  “My George isn’t no collaborator! My George fights the Germans!” shrieked Gloria.

  “Time is running out, George. This is your last chance.” Rossett reached around and pulled the Webley from his belt. He leveled it at Chivers and cocked it. The noise of the gun filled the room and seemed to suck the air out in its wake. “You’ve got one chance to get through this alive: take it.”

  Chivers held up his hands like a bad actor. Rossett saw that they were shaking, and he briefly considered just shooting Chivers and walking out of the house, leaving him to bleed out on the settee. Being in the same room with him made Rossett feel dirty, rotten, by association. He raised the gun to arm’s length and looked straight down the sight into the old man’s eyes.

  “Flanagan! Pat Flanagan will help you!” Gloria shouted.

  “Who is that?”

  “He’s a boatman! Tell him, George! Tell him about Flanagan!”

  The old man was breathing hard.

  “Flanagan,” he repeated, in a muffled voice.

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s a boatman.”

  “How can he help us?”

  “He sails out of St. Katharine. He’s IRA, sort of.” Gloria did the speaking again, still on the floor but becoming more assured, causing Rossett to wonder who actually ran the show that was Mr. and Mrs. Chivers.

  “Sort of?”

  “He’ll do anything for money, run anything and anybody. He’ll get you to Cork for the right price.” She looked up at him, defiance given foundation by her knowledge and his need.

  “ ’E’d punch the pope if you gave ’im a fiver.” Chivers found his voice. “If you found them diamonds and we wave them at ’im, ’e’ll get you out, Mr. Rossett, you and the boy, as far as you want. If I tell ’im, that is; ’e trusts me.”

  “Diamonds?” Her bleeding nose forgotten, Gloria looked from her husband to Rossett and back again.

  “Take me to him,” said Rossett.

  “Diamonds? You never said nothing about no diamonds, George.” Gloria groaned, trying to stand.

  “ ’E might not be in town. ’E’s a sailor, ’e comes and goes,” Chivers said, watching his wife, but not helping her.

  “You said they was just escaped.” Gloria was suddenly more of a threat to her husband than Rossett.

  “What if ’e’s not in town, Mr. Rossett? What then?” Chivers asked.

  “You’d better hope he is, because he’s your only hope, George.”

  Chapter 56

  ROSSETT MADE CHIVERS walk down the stairs in front of him, the gun in his waistband but eyes still on his back. Gloria leaned over the banister of the landing when they reached the bottom of the stairs. “Don’t you hurt ’im! You make sure ’e gets back here all right, else you’ll have me to answer to!”

  Rossett carried on down the stairs, the words bouncing off him.

  Chivers opened the front door and looked left and right.

  “Which way?”

  “The Volkswagen, parked in front. Get in.”

  Chivers stepped down onto the pavement and then half turned to Rossett.

  “You’re goin’ to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why should I ’elp you?”

  “To stay alive a little longer, George, buy yourself some time, and maybe redeem yourself.”

  Chivers looked up at Rossett, who remained on the doorstep behind him.

  “I’m sorry for tellin’ Koehler.”

  Rossett motioned in the direction of the car.

  “I ain’t no different from you. I take the German pay packet same as you do. We’re just the same, you know that?” Chivers continued. “I’m just tryin’ to survive same as you, doin’ what I ’ave to do. Lookin’ after those that love me, same as you.”

  “Get in the car, George, now,” Rossett said.

  “I just want you to remember, we’re the same. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have ’ad to sell out the kid. ’E’d still be in ’is bleedin’ ’ouse with ’is family if it wasn’t for you.”

  Rossett stared into the gray sky that was shaded light and dark with heavy rain clouds, then at Chivers.

  “Get in the fucking car, or die here, right now. Your choice.”

  Chivers walked toward the car wearily, Rossett following him, almost as weary.

 
Chivers opened the passenger door and pulled the front seat forward, noticing Kate as he did so.

  “Mr. Chivers!” Jacob cried and held out his hands to the old man, who smiled weakly.

  “ ’Ello, boy! ’Ow you doin’?”

  “We found the diamonds!” Jacob burst out, as he shuffled across to make room for Chivers to squeeze into the backseat.

  Rossett dropped the front seat down on Chivers’s legs, sat down in front, and closed the door.

  “So you got ’em then?” Chivers asked. Rossett ignored him.

  Kate started the car and pulled away from the curb, heading for the end of the road.

  “Where are they? Can I see them?” Chivers tried again.

  “Where is Flanagan?” Rossett asked.

  “Let me see them, can I have a look-see?”

  Rossett reached up and adjusted the mirror so that his eyes met Chivers’s without having to turn his head.

  “Flanagan,” Rossett repeated, a statement of fact that demanded an answer.

  “The Prospect of Whitby pub, near the Wapping docks. ’E’ll be there, or someone who knows ’im will be.”

  Rossett glanced at Kate, who nodded silently, affirming that she knew the route. Jacob sensed all wasn’t well and looked at each of the adults in the car before reaching his little hand toward Chivers and tapping his leg. Chivers looked down at the hand and then at the boy, who smiled. Chivers took the boy’s hand in his own before returning to his thoughts.

  They’d driven some fifteen minutes before Chivers spoke again.

  “You keep some interestin’ company, Mr. Rossett.”

  Rossett looked at Chivers in the mirror, but didn’t answer.

  “Drivin’ round London with Sir James Sterling’s favorite niece wouldn’t be so bad, assumin’ ’e hadn’t been interrogatin’ you in a cell a few nights ago, of course.”

  Rossett looked at Chivers, then at Kate, then back at Chivers.

  “What?”

  “Oh, ’adn’t you told ’im, love? Didn’t you know ’oo she was? You should watch ’er, she’s a rum sort if there ever was. She pumps Koehler for information all the while ’e’s pumping ’er.”

  “Shut up,” said Kate.

  “And all the while she’s passin’ information one way, there’s plenty going the other way, as well, so as I ’eard. You play all those blokes a pretty game, don’t you, my darlin’?”

  “It’s bad enough having you in the car with the windows closed. I’d rather not put up with listening to you as well,” Kate said, adding to Rossett, “Pay no attention.”

  “It doesn’t matter, just drive.” Rossett stared at Chivers as he spoke, and the old man smiled back before looking out the window again, still smiling.

  THE PROSPECT OF Whitby pub sat among warehouses on a narrow road along the bank of the Thames. It was still early, and as they drove past the first time, it appeared to Rossett that the pub was closed. He instructed Kate to stop and turn the car around before they headed back, slower this time.

  “It’ll be open, I’m telling you. They never really shut,” Chivers said from the back.

  “Pull over,” Rossett instructed.

  Kate pulled into the curb, keeping the engine running as she looked at Rossett.

  “Maybe there is another way? Someone else who can help us?”

  “Flanagan is your best chance,” Chivers said from the backseat. “He knows everyone and everything that moves on this river, plus, you can trust him.”

  “Like we can trust you?” Kate said, turning in her seat.

  “You’re one to talk,” Chivers replied, sticking out his chin to her.

  Rossett said nothing. He opened his door and stepped out of the car onto the pavement. Resting his elbows on the roof, he looked up and down the street. A few old-fashioned carters led their flea-bitten, half-knackered horses along the cobbles, and the odd pedestrian crossed here and there. It was a normal dockland street.

  Rossett tapped his hand on the roof of the car nervously and lit a cigarette while watching the pub, some one hundred feet away, for signs of life. After a couple of minutes he saw two dockers cross the road and approach the front door. One of the dockers cupped his hands to the glass and looked in before banging on the frame with the palm of his hand. After a moment the door opened and the dockers slipped inside. The door immediately closed behind them.

  “See,” Chivers said, “I told you, you can get a drink twenty-four hours a day in there.”

  Rossett bent down to look into the car and said to Kate, “Lock the doors. If anything looks strange, or if I don’t come out, just go. Don’t wait, don’t come looking, just go, do you understand?”

  Kate nodded. She was about to say something, but didn’t. She just started the engine and looked at Rossett.

  Rossett pulled the seat forward and helped Chivers out, pulling him through the door and positioning him on the curb next to him, close enough to grab if the old man attempted to run.

  Rossett looked back at Kate. “Will you be all right?”

  Kate nodded.

  “Stay with Kate, Jacob. I’ll not be long.”

  “Do you promise?”

  “I promise.”

  The boy smiled and looked out the window at Chivers, who gave a little wave and a watery smile.

  “Be careful,” Kate said softly.

  “I will. We’re nearly there, it’ll be fine. If anything happens, if you have to leave, I’ll call you at the flat tonight. I’ve got the number.”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  “I want you to have these. Look after them.” Rossett passed Kate the urn with the diamonds. “If I don’t call, you’ll need them.”

  Kate slipped it into her handbag on the floor.

  “I’ll give them back to you when you come out,” she said.

  Rossett nodded, stepped back from the car, and closed the door. He looked at Chivers, who shrugged apologetically and then shoved his hands in his coat pockets.

  “If you fuck this up, George, I will shoot you in the face and then kill your wife. If you do as you are told, arrange for Jacob to get to Ireland and then on to Canada, the slate is clean between us. You’ll live and that will be that.”

  “I’m riskin’ a lot takin’ you in there, Mr. Rossett. If these fellas don’t like it, I could end up in some serious trouble. I think it’s only fair I get something for that trouble.”

  “You get your life, George. Now get walking.”

  Chivers shook his head and rocked on his heels a moment before finally setting off with Rossett toward the pub.

  Chapter 57

  AS THE DOCKERS had done, Chivers approached the doors and cupped his hands to the glass. He waited a moment, then stepped back and banged the palm of his hand on the door.

  “Could you try to not look so much like a policeman?” he said to Rossett.

  Rossett took an involuntary half step back when he heard a heavy bolt sliding, and the door opened two inches. A woman looked at him and then at Chivers, only half her face showing.

  “What do you want?” she said to Chivers.

  “A pint and a word with Pat.”

  The woman looked at Rossett, then back at Chivers.

  “Who’s he?”

  “A friend. We’ve got some business. Open the door.”

  Rossett thought about just shoving the door open and walking in but decided to let Chivers continue the negotiations.

  “Pat won’t be happy with you bringing coppers calling.” The woman stepped back from the door and it swung open just wide enough for Chivers and Rossett to step in.

  The pub was dark, very dark. The curtains were drawn on the windows that opened out onto the street.

  Rossett squinted into the gloom and saw that behind the door sat a heavyset middle-aged man who had forearms like h
ams and a neck that would have graced a prize bull. The man stared blankly at Rossett with the confidence of someone who had a simple purpose in life. Rossett hoped he never found out what that purpose was.

  The woman slid the bolt back into place and hurried past them toward the bar. She lifted the flap and took up her station behind the pumps. Chivers ambled over and Rossett noticed that the old man had regained some of his swagger. Whether it was for show or because the old man knew something that Rossett didn’t worried him slightly, but the weight of the Webley against his back reassured him.

  He joined Chivers at the bar and watched as the woman poured two pints of bitter, setting them down with heavy thumps.

  “I ain’t got no money,” Chivers said, lifting the pint to his lips and gulping a third of it in one voluminous swallow.

  Rossett tossed some coins on the bar, picked up his own pint, and turned to look around the pub. His eyes had adjusted partway, but dark corners still hid the identity of the shadows that sat in them. The pub smelled of stale beer, and the sawdust on the floor was dotted with cigarette butts.

  There was a time when Rossett would have strutted through this sort of pub roistering undesirables and those outside the law, and it struck him that he was now hiding in the shadows with the members of the underworld he’d once terrorized.

  Chivers nudged his elbow and flicked his head toward an empty table in a dark alcove.

  “Come and sit down. They don’t want folk at the bar when it’s closed.”

  Rossett followed him to the table and sat with his back to the wall so he could see the pub and anyone who might choose to approach them. Chivers took the seat next to him, and Rossett placed his nearly full glass down and took out his cigarettes. He took one out and offered the packet to Chivers, who took one and nodded thanks.

  “Does Flanagan even know we’re here?” Rossett said quietly.

  “Someone will have told ’im.”

  “What if he’s at sea?”

  “ ’E won’t be. That bastard ’asn’t set foot on a boat in years. ’E just organizes things, cargo, people. ’Ee’s a fixer.”

  “You said he was IRA?”

  “ ’E is, or ’e was. Most of them headed into southern Ireland after the occupation. It’s a different proposition fightin’ the Brits than it is fightin’ the Germans.”