The occupying army is spread pretty thin up there as well, so they mostly rely on HDT.”

Rossett frowned.

The Home Defense Troops were mostly made up of ex-criminals or old fascists from before the war. Many had simply signed up for the extra rations and the chance to beat people up and throw their weight around. They were the dregs of society given a uniform and a big stick to go with it. They were disliked by most Germans and despised by most British.

“You could have told me this before I took the job.” Rossett started to descend the stairwell again.

“It shouldn’t affect us,” Neumann said, following. “We go in, do what we have to do, and if we need to, bring the prisoner back with us. In and out, simple as that.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

When they entered the small courtyard car park the overnight fog had lifted. In its place was a soft sheen of drizzle. The sun was behind clouds, unable to make a dent in the late-autumn gloom.

Several cars were parked around the edge of the courtyard, all of them black, except for a dark blue SS Jaguar 2.5 saloon.

Neumann headed for the Jaguar.

“We’re going in this?” Rossett stopped short of the long hood.

“We can’t go in a Mercedes or an Opal, we’d stand out a mile. And there is no way I’m using your Austin, it’s ridiculous.”

Rossett pointed at the hood, which actually looked longer than his Austin’s.

“You don’t think this stands out?”

“It won’t be a problem in Liverpool, we’ll park it somewhere secure and use a local car if we have to. Do you need to pick anything up from home?” Neumann tossed Rossett the keys.

“We go now?”

“You have other plans?”

“No, but—”

“So we go now.”

“How long for?”

“A night at the most. Like I said: in and out.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Neumann smiled.

Rossett shook his head and climbed into the Jaguar. The red leather interior smelled new. The seats were deep and comfortable, and the caramel walnut dash was polished to within an inch of its life.

“It belonged to an army general of cavalry. He donated it, just before he went home last year.” Neumann got into the passenger seat.

“Donated?” Rossett looked down at his feet, then fired up the engine. It grumbled and settled down to a purr, like a cat that had been woken up and then discovered it was lying in the sun.

“The general had been embarrassed in a brothel in Oxford. As a result of that embarrassment, a significant amount of German stores had been diverted to the black market.”

“Speak English.” Rossett was fiddling with the controls.

“He was being blackmailed and gave away eight tons of army field rations to keep things quiet.”

“All that just for sleeping with a prostitute?” Rossett looked at Neumann. “Pretty much every German over here does it.”

“Not with male prostitutes.”

“Oh.”

“Indeed.” Neumann reached around to the backseat and pulled a brown leather briefcase onto his lap. He opened the case and Rossett saw a Luger 9mm pistol on top of some papers. Neumann picked up the pistol, checked the safety, and passed it butt first to Rossett. “You’ll need a weapon.”

Rossett took the Luger. “Then why didn’t you get me one?”

“What?”

Rossett released the pistol’s thin magazine from the grip. He checked the breech and started to thumb the rounds out of the magazine into the palm of his hand.

“What are you carrying?” he looked at Neumann.

“A Walther.”

“PPK?” Rossett dropped the rounds into his lap and started to disassemble the Luger.

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

Neumann started to sort through the paperwork in the case while Rossett worked his way through the pistol. After half a minute Rossett dropped the parts of the pistol and the loose rounds onto the paperwork in the case.

“It’s rubbish.”

“It’s a good pistol,” Neumann protested.

“It’s unreliable and difficult to work with.”

“I would have thought you were made for each other.”

“I’ll take my Webley.”

“An old revolver?”

“It’s big and simple.”

“Like I said, made for each other.”

Chapter 4

Liverpool

Sturmbannführer Theo Dannecker had a hangover.

He’d first started drinking to help himself sleep about four years ago, and at first, it had helped. Lately, though, it seemed to throw him into a dark tunnel from which he emerged the next morning blinking like a tramp stumbling out of a thicket after being mugged.

He squeezed his temples with both hands, then wiped his hands down his face, aware that his driver was watching him out of the corner of his eye.

Dannecker wasn’t a happy man, and it wasn’t just the hangover that was making him sad. He was tired. Tired of everything. Tired of being in command, tired of being in the SS, tired of his men, tired of the resistance, the fighting, the uniform, the length of time since he’d been home, the chance that he might make a mistake and end up on the end of a length of piano wire, but most of all, he was tired of the sheer pointlessness of what he did for a living.

He’d served in the Waffen SS for eleven years. First as an enlisted man and then as an officer. He’d been promoted in the field after excelling on the battlefield, then on the streets of occupied Europe.

His last posting had been the frozen tundra out east. In the wilds where what was left of the Soviet military machine had retreated after the fall of Moscow and the escape from the Urals.

Dannecker had traveled for days on the troop train, listening to the wheels on the tracks for hour after hour of head-nodding boredom.

The rattle-clatter had reminded him of when a needle was stuck at the end of a record. Repeating the same rough note, over and over again, for what seemed like an eternity.