In Rossett’s office there was a hook, but no Hitler, and even the king hung crooked in his frame.

“Have you heard from Koehler?” Neumann looked like he was talking to the picture.

“Not since he went back to Germany.” Rossett looked at the Rolex wristwatch his last boss, Ernst Koehler, had given him the day before he had taken his daughter Anja back to Germany.

Rossett had saved the girl from the resistance, but he hadn’t been good enough to save her mother. That was another scar, another black mark on his record, another blemish on his soul.

Koehler didn’t see it that way, but Rossett did, and that was all that mattered. He’d failed. Rossett knew what it was like to mourn a wife and child. He’d done his best to save Koehler from suffering the same pain, but ended up saving him only half of it.

After rescuing Koehler’s daughter, Rossett had woken up battered, bruised, shot, and stabbed in a military hospital. He’d crossed the line to lawlessness and back trying to save the child—but then, so had Neumann, and that was why he was asking.

Ernst Koehler had nearly taken all of them down. They’d all committed acts that would ensure a firing squad if they ever came to light. But they had saved the girl, and even better than that, they’d gotten away with it.

Getting away with it was one thing, walking away heroes was another. So when Rossett had finally opened his eyes in the hospital, he’d been surprised to find that he wasn’t chained to the bed.

He was even more surprised to find out he was a hero all over again.

Not to himself.

But to the Nazis and the Mosley government.

The British Lion had roared, and the papers had loved it. Rossett knew better than to deny the stories. He’d shaken the hands, stared straight ahead, and accepted the bar on his Iron Cross in silence.

On the back of the Rolex was engraved: “To the British Lion, the best of the best, from Anja and Ernst.”

Rossett knew it was a lie. Sometimes he thought he could feel the words scratching at his skin, reminding him of what he wasn’t, when he was drunk and lying on the floor of his room, staring at the fallen bottle, with the spilled tears on the carpet next to it.

When he was sober, he told himself that the girl was alive and that was all that mattered.

But he didn’t believe it.

Neumann interrupted his thoughts.

“So you don’t know how Koehler is doing, then?”

“No,” replied Rossett.

“Probably for the best.”

“I’d imagine so,” Rossett concurred.

“Is he coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you go and work for him again?” Neumann suddenly seemed embarrassed by his own question. “You know . . . if he came back, would you go back to rounding up the Jews?”

“No.”

“You might not have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

Neumann shifted on the chair again, then nodded.

“Yes, I suppose, if you feel that strongly, you would have a choice.”

“I’m a policeman now, back to doing what I do best.”

Neumann lifted an eyebrow.

“My understanding was that you are office based?”

“I am.”

“I wouldn’t imagine that suits someone like you.”

“I get by.”

Rossett’s eyes flicked around the desktop for his cigarettes. He spied them peeking out, half crushed under another fresh pile of files that had been dumped that morning.

“I’m told you’re nothing but a paper pusher.” Neumann went to cross one leg over the other, but decided against it when the chair creaked under him.

Rossett reached for the cigarettes.

“I’m a policeman,” he finally said after he lit up and took his first drag.

“You’re a celebrity. I read the kids’ newspaper they wrote after you saved Koehler’s daughter.”

“None of that is to do with me, it’s all down to the propaganda ministry.”

“I heard they are making a film?”

Rossett shrugged.

“Will you be in it?”

Rossett didn’t dignify the question with an answer.

“Which actor do you want to play you? I heard they were trying to get John Mills back from Hollywood, but I think somebody like Roger Livesey or maybe Jack Hawkins? Assuming they would come over here to—”

“What do you want? I’m busy,” Rossett lied.

“No, you’re not. I checked.” Neumann finally risked leaning back and crossing his legs.

“I’ve work to do.”

“You don’t. You’ve paperwork to do.”

“It says Detective Inspector on the door, so that means I have detecting to do.”

“It doesn’t say anything on the door.”

“It will when they paint it on.” Rossett cursed himself for glancing up at the plain glass pane in the door, then back at Neumann.

“How long have you been down here?”

“Two months.”

“Two months and they haven’t painted your name on the door?”

Rossett went to reply, but decided it wasn’t worth trying to be smart. He took a drag on the cigarette instead.

Neumann tried another angle. “When was the last time you solved a crime?”

“This morning.”

“You call cutting a man’s throat solving a crime? I’m told that the . . .” Neumann paused, looking for the right word. “. . . the incident this morning was off the books. That you were acting alone, and that there is to be an investigation into what took place.”

“You get told a lot about me.”

“There’s a lot to be told. Such as, senior management are concerned that they can’t control you, but they are scared to get rid of you, and that is why they buried you in here.”

Rossett moved some files, then slid the ashtray a little closer. Neumann waited to see if he would bite, and when he realized he wasn’t going to, tried again.

“What you don’t realize is that there are people in Scotland Yard who might want to use what you did this morning as an excuse to get rid of you.”

“Rid of me?”

“You embarrass them.”

Rossett took another pull on the cigarette and stared at Neumann. The smoke stung his eyes a little. He blinked as he thought about the work he had done for the Germans. The rounding up of the Jews, the clank of the cattle trucks taking them away. The smell of the oil and grease on the rusty locomotive at the head of the train. He could even feel the rough stones of the goods yard digging through the soles of his shoes.

It didn’t take much for the memory to come back, the work that shamed him, the killing of the innocents. He knew that whatever embarrassment the Metropolitan Police felt, his was far greater.

He tapped the cigarette against the side of the ashtray and used his thumb to wipe his eye.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Rossett lied.

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong today.”

“Hmm.” Neumann didn’t sound convinced.

Neumann looked up at the picture of the king again. He couldn’t take it anymore.