But he only knows half the story.” Ma Price pointed at the ceiling. “We’ve got the important bit upstairs. The girl doesn’t know what is going on; all she knows is she was snatched. She is the riddle, but upstairs we’ve got the answer. Him upstairs knows what her old dad had to do to get her back, upstairs knows what was so important, and upstairs knows what was going to happen next. Upstairs is the key to all this, we just need to figure it out. Once we get to the bottom, we’ll know how much that information is worth, and I’ll wager what upstairs knows is worth a hell of a lot.”

“So what do we do?”

Ma Price lowered her hand and pushed past the driver.

“We go and ask him.”

ERIC WAS STILL lying on the floor facing the wall when they entered; Mustache was sitting on the same chair he had taken hours earlier. He rose and gave the seat to Ma Price, then joined his colleague by the door.

“Prof?” Ma Price nodded to the old man who crossed the room and knelt down next to Eric and rested his hand on his shoulder.

“You need to roll over and speak to us now,” he whispered.

Eric turned his head and looked up. His cheeks were wet with tears and he sniffed loudly before slowly rolling over and looking at Ma Price, who smiled at him.

“He started crying ten minutes ago,” said Mustache.

“I hope you ain’t hit him?” Ma Price replied and Mustache shook his head.

“He just started crying.”

“You all right, my lovely?” Ma Price said to Eric.

Eric nodded and wiped his nose again, pushing himself up onto his elbow as he did so.

“Why are you crying?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“Oh, dear.” Ma Price tilted her head and looked at the others in the room. She turned back to Eric and smiled sadly. “What you told us about the girl was true. We checked.”

Eric nodded.

­“People we know have the girl now. Seems like she scared you and your chum off, didn’t she?”

Eric’s elbow was hurting on the floorboards, so he moved again, pushing himself up so that his knees were tucked under his chin and wrapped by his arms. He looked at the two men leaning against the wall, who both stared back at him impassively.

“Now then, you need to tell us what you wanted her old dad to do,” Ma Price continued.

“He is going to get someone from Cambridge, a scientist, and give her to us.”

“What kind of scientist?”

Eric looked at Ma Price and swallowed hard.

“I don’t know.”

“Where in Cambridge?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t told. I just know that Koehler, the girl’s father, is going to get someone and then get further instructions on where to take them. When we got word that he had, we were to take his daughter and go to that address ourselves.”

“What’s the address?”

Eric looked at Ma Price and then the men by the wall. He knew he had to hold something back. He knew once he gave away what they wanted, he ceased to have a reason to exist. He had heard the horror stories whispered around the embassy, tales of careless or unlucky German soldiers captured by the resistance, then left hanging by piano wire from lampposts.

He’d heard about the guts ripped from stomachs, about the burning tires jammed around necks.

He wasn’t a German, but he also wasn’t English. These ­people were animals, and he didn’t want savaging. These ­people knew about the American government’s growing fraternity with the Nazis. Eric was aware that this had caused anger with the British both at home and abroad. Eric had seen KENNEDY IS A KRAUT LOVER daubed in white paint on one of the embassy cars, not long after the ambassador had given a long interview to the Daily Mail about his admiration for Nazism.

The Americans were becoming enemies, which meant Eric Cook wasn’t among friends.

He buried the information they wanted down deep inside, away from them and their questions, behind the last vestige of bravado he could muster, behind his watery eyes.

He stuck out his chin.

“You release me, take me to somewhere where I am safe, and I’ll tell you.”

Ma Price raised an eyebrow, gave him a motherly smile, rose from the chair, and crossed the room. She rested her hand on the Prof’s shoulder and lowered herself down until her face was inches from Eric’s, so close he could smell a faint whiff of carbolic soap.

“You aren’t getting released, my lover. I’m sorry, but you’re not leaving here alive. I wish I could tell you different, but I haven’t got time, so I’m not going to lie to you. Now, the only choice you’ve got left is the choice to make this easy or hard. So save yourself some bother and tell me the address before I have to ask you again.”

Ma Price moved back a few inches and smiled at Eric.

Eric started to cry.

 

CHAPTER 21

THE SNOW WAS coming down hard and fast by the time Rossett made it to the café. The morning had passed at a snail’s pace since he and Koehler had parted. He’d taken a taxi back to his lodgings, paying the driver to wait while he had skirted the property on foot, checking for any sign that his house was under surveillance.