The German was wearing a brown woolen suit, almost a tweed, and it looked decent quality, expensive, same as his shoes.

Rossett took a pull on his cigarette, then looked at his suit cuff. It was worn, almost frayed, the black faded down to the color of an old chalkboard. He rubbed it between his finger and thumb, then looked up at Neumann, who stared back, waiting out the inquisition.

“I don’t know,” Rossett finally said quietly, then rubbed his eyes with a finger and thumb.

“They want you killed, and these aren’t the sort of people who take no for an answer.”

Whatever they wanted, Rossett wanted a beer.

He sighed. He suddenly felt tired of talking, tired of fighting.

When he spoke his voice was flat. It sounded like it was coming from the middle of his chest, and Neumann had to lean forward a fraction to pick up all the words.

“I just want it to be simple. I want to see black and white, good and bad, be a copper again. I’m sick of it, I just want to be normal.”

“Like before the war?” Neumann’s voice was softer, too.

Rossett felt a pressure behind his eyes. He took a breath to ease it, then spoke again.

“Yes.”

“The world has changed, John. There’s no going back.”

“I know that.” Rossett felt the tremor in his hands starting up, so he clenched his fists and dropped them into his lap.

“The best you’re going to get, all you’re going to get, is what I’m offering.”

Rossett didn’t speak, so Neumann filled the void.

“I can give you back your pride. With me you’ll be arresting bad people who have broken the law, pure and simple.”

“Germans.”

“Germans who commit crime. It’s better than what you’re doing now. We can be partners; you can be my liaison with the British people who don’t want to talk to me. You can cross those bridges, while I protect you from your English bosses and the people who want to stab you in the back.” Neumann paused, considering his next words carefully before he finally took a chance on saying them. “I can’t offer you your past, John, but I can give you a future that’s better than your present.”

Rossett looked at the packet of cigarettes and the piles of files that were starting to look like prison walls. He sighed, wiped his hand down his face, then looked up at Neumann.

“It wouldn’t be difficult to offer me something better than my present.”

“So what do you say?”

Rossett picked up his pen and opened one of the files unconvincingly. “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

Neumann shook his head. “You need to think about it?”

“I’m one of life’s thinkers.” Rossett pretended to start reading a crime report.

“That, John, I find hard to believe.”

Chapter 3

Rossett didn’t stay in the little office with its yellow walls, damp drainpipe, and piles of files for long after Neumann left. He was being pushed along by life again, instead of pushing himself, and it made him feel restless and lost, like he was locked in a cell.

He stayed in the pub for longer than he stayed in the office.

A lot longer.

He drank alone, same as usual, nothing but beer and bad Scotch to keep him and his memories company.

He didn’t get the tube back to his lodging house. By the time he left the pub it was dark and he was drunk.

Again.

His step was as aimless as the half-tide Thames he walked alongside. He stopped for a while to watch the river as it sat waiting for the tide to turn, hiding under the fog, hoping not to be noticed.

A barge bell was ringing on the swell, lonely, lost in the gray, calling out like it was hoping something else would call back.

Nothing did, so Rossett started moving again to break the spell. He walked, hands in his coat pockets, hat down low, listening to the foghorns down by the docks. They moaned in the night and sounded a million miles away. He stopped. Another match warmed his face as he struck up again, the cigarette smoke lost in the fog as he flicked the match into the murk of the dark water below.

He didn’t want to go home.

He ended up sitting at the counter of a half-empty all-night café. Feeling the ache of the alcohol fading, breathing fumes over the waitress, who did her best to stay at arm’s length when she leaned in to top up the countless cups of tea he was working his way through. He sat, almost finished a cheese sandwich, and read the faces of the lost and lonely sitting all around him.

Big Ben rang out across the night sky, and told Rossett it was two thirty in the morning.

Another day down.

Another one on the horizon to get through.

The streets were empty except for the sound of distant traffic. He turned into the road where he was renting his latest room and stopped for a moment to stroke a tortoiseshell cat that was sitting on a wall.

The cat dug its head into the palm of his hand. It danced on tiptoes and twisted its body as it closed its eyes and pushed harder. Its fur was smooth and damp with dew. Rossett started walking again, checking over his shoulder to see if the cat was going to follow him.

It didn’t.

It sat on the wall, golden eyes watching him walk away.