“You said ‘despite what people say.’ What did you mean?”

“Please, sir, I just wanted—”

“Have you seen the paperwork on his desk?” Neumann flicked a thumb toward Rossett. “You’d be better off with a box of matches than a filing system.”

Harding forced a smile and took a step back from the table. “I’d better be leaving.”

“What did you mean?”

“I really must be getting on.” Harding nodded at Neumann and headed for the door almost at a run.

Rossett watched him go as Neumann pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Rossett.

“Friend of yours?” he said as he inspected what was left on Rossett’s plate.

“No.”

“Colleague?”

“No.”

Neumann looked up from the plate.

“You’re not hungry?”

“No.”

Neumann smiled.

“So have you given it some thought?”

“What?”

“About working with me.”

Rossett stared at Neumann, then at the door through which Harding had run.

“How much paperwork is there?”

“I don’t know . . . I have a secretary, so not much, I suppose.”

Rossett paused before answering. “I’ll work with you.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Good, because we’ve just got our first job together.”

“Already?”

“Already.”

“I’ll need to give some notice, tidy stuff up admin-wise before—”

“You don’t. You’re coming with me.”

Rossett tilted his head.

“I made a call yesterday. It mustn’t have trickled down to your friend yet.” Neumann waved in the direction of the exit.

“But I hadn’t decided what I was going to do.”

“No, but I knew which way you would go.”

“You knew?”

“I’m a good judge of people.”

They stared at each other over the table for a moment until Rossett finally spoke again.

“So anything I have outstanding?”

“My department will make it go away.”

“I’ve a prisoner in the cells, from yesterday.”

“Poof.” Neumann looked up at the ceiling as he blew out his cheeks, and then smiled at Rossett. “He just went away.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Rossett considered his options. It didn’t take long.

“So what’s the job?”

Neumann smiled.

“We’ve got a dead consul in Liverpool.”

“Liverpool?”

“Up north, you know it?”

“Yes, I know it, I just didn’t expect to be dealing with jobs up there.”

“We go where the work is. Besides, the change will do you good.”

Rossett found it hard to argue with that, so instead he asked for more detail.

“Dead diplomat?”

“Consul. American. Report says he was shot by a captain from the SS.”

“What for?”

“That’s what we are going to investigate.”

“What else do we know?”

“From what little we have, some British police heard shooting, went to investigate, and arrested the German carrying a rifle.”

“They arrested a German with a rifle?” Rossett couldn’t hide his incredulity.

“Apparently the officer concerned was on his own, and out of uniform.”

“So?”

“There was an old sergeant there who insisted on making the arrest.”

“Is he mad?”

Neumann shrugged.

“Maybe he is just one of the old school who thinks being a policeman means enforcing the law.”

Rossett felt his face flush.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Either way, they heard shooting, searched the area, found a German with a gun and a consul with a hole in his head. The SS officer wouldn’t speak to them, and with it being a U.S. citizen, they had no choice but to notify us. All the German had to say was that he thought the consul went for a gun after being challenged. He would have been back in the barracks before the body was cold.”

“Indeed.” Rossett lifted the piece of cold toast, thought about taking a bite, then tapped it a few times on the edge of the plate, then dropped it back down to cover the food it had been hiding once again.

“So what do we do?”

“We go solve our first case.”

 

Their footsteps echoed in the stairwell as they descended toward the car park at the back of Scotland Yard.

“The local police up there want him out of the cells as soon as possible; they have enough trouble on their hands as it is.” Neumann was speaking over his shoulder as he led the way.

“With what?”

Neumann slowed slightly, so they were walking side by side.

“Haven’t you heard?” he lowered his voice.

“What?”

“About the north, the way things are?”

“I don’t read the papers.”

“It isn’t in the papers.” Neumann stopped, rested a hand on Rossett’s elbow, and eased him into a corner on the stairwell landing. “My job—our job—requires a lot of traveling up and down the country. We hear things and see things that aren’t in the papers. Do you understand?”

“Like what?”

“Not all of Great Britain is as safe and well run as the southeast and London. The rest of the country isn’t much of a priority to the government outside of maintaining the coal fields, the docks, and a few bits of industry here and there.”

“So?”

“It’s in a bad state, John.” Neumann leaned in close. “People are hungry, money is scarce. Most of the young men have either been moved to work on the continent or have volunteered to fight out east. Times are hard, so the families that don’t have work mostly live on what their young men send back from abroad.”

“Is there unrest?”

“There were food riots last year in a few places. It got pretty bad here and there, so much so that the government had to ease rationing to calm things down.”

“Doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not just rioting. Some pockets of the resistance cause problems. Bombs, assassinations, occasional kidnapping, and all that. From what I’ve heard, though, support can be thin on the ground for them, what with the reprisals.”

“Reprisals?”

Neumann paused and listened to some footsteps on the stairs a few flights above them. Once he was sure they weren’t coming closer, he drew close and continued.

“Local commanders can be pretty brutal when they want to impose order. Local government is also having problems with running things—electricity and gas, distribution of food, pretty much everything. Some cities have imposed curfews, but most don’t really have a functioning police force to make sure people obey them.