Page 38 of No Man's Land

Alex’s expression cooled, turning decidedly haughty. “So be it,” he said. “I’d advise you to be careful, but I doubt you would listen.”

“I dare say we’ll run into each other again, Lord Beaumont.” Josef infused the title with trenchant irony. “If not, keep an eye out for my piece in theClarion. You spell it B-E-A-U-M-O-N-T, don’t you?”

Snatching up his card, Alex left without further comment.

Chapter Twelve

The first thing Josef did when he got back to his room was to develop the film he’d used that morning in the morgue. It was already growing dark outside, the early November dusk falling like a curtain, so he didn’t have to worry too much as he took the film from the camera and slid it into the wooden winding box. Once he’d wound it onto the drum, the light-proof apron automatically winding around to protect the film, he reopened the box and slipped the drum into the aluminium tank and poured over the developing fluid, and then the fixer.

Twenty minutes later, the film was washed and hanging up to dry.

While he was waiting, Josef went to his desk to find the photograph of Sykes he’d taken at the clearing station. It was still where he’d left it, in the drawer of his little desk, tucked inside the folded piece of paper with his first draft of the words for the pamphlet. He pulled them both out with a sense of relief. Not that he’d thought Alex would be able to reach the shop ahead of him and search his room, but he knew for sure he wasn’t above theft.

Pulling up his chair, he lit the lamp on his desk and held the photograph under the light. Impossible as it was to believe, there was no doubt that the face in the photograph was the same face he’d seen that morning in the morgue.

No explaining that, unless the man had a twin.

And there, too, was the eerie double exposure around his lifeless body that Alex had described. Except, looking closer, Josef saw that it wasn’t the shadow of Skyes’s face. Hard to say what it was, because it was very blurred. Sykes’s eyes, though, even in the monochrome image had that eerie glaze he’d seen gleaming blue outside the hotel in Pops. In the tube tunnel.

And in the sewer.

A chill ran through him at the memory of that night in the sewer, of the stench and ferocity of the man who had attacked him. If it was a man.

Altered, Alex had said, and it was about the only thing he’d said that Josef believed. The question of who had altered him, how, and for what purpose remained unanswered.

Or, rather, unproven. Because Josef had no doubt in his own mind that this was the work of the government’s war machine.

“Josef?” Mrs. Cohen stood in the doorway to his room, wiping her hands on her apron. She smiled wearily as he turned. “There’s a pot of tea in the parlour, love. And then would you mind helping Moss shut up? He won’t say anything, of course, but his rheumatism’s shocking in this weather.”

Josef slipped the photograph back between the folded paper and into his breast pocket. “Of course,” he said, rising and extinguishing the lamp.

Mrs Cohen was a well-built woman, strong and robust, her hair gathered in a neat old-fashioned bun at the nape of her neck. She had a maternal face, for all that she’d never beenblessed with children, and her kindly features gathered into a concerned frown as Josef crossed the room towards her.

“Oh, you do look pale,” she said, reaching up to touch his forehead. “Are you feeling poorly?”

“No,” he assured her, taking her hand and squeezing. “Tired, that’s all. I was…working late last night.”

“You work too much,” she scolded, shepherding him out of the room. “And here I am, asking you to do more.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m here to help,” he said, following her to the little parlour above the shop. “And you feed me for my troubles.”

She chuckled. Mrs Cohen loved to cook. “You need feeding up, Joe. There wasn’t much to you when you went to the front, and there’s even less now.”

That was true, although he didn’t like the reminder. Stupidly, it made him think of Alex’s broad frame and how his own wiry body must have appeared to him that night in Pops. Not that he’d complained, but of course he’d had another agenda, hadn’t he? He’d have fucked Josef whatever he looked like to distract him enough to steal his camera.

Mind you…

He was struck, suddenly, by a memory of the heat in Alex’s eyes that night. Desire that had looked and felt real. If Alex had been acting, he’d missed his calling on the stage. And a man that accomplished at deception would surely have been able to concoct a more plausible story than the cock-and-bull tale he’d told Josef this afternoon.

It was a conundrum.

He found Mr Cohen in the parlour and noticed the swelling around his knuckles and finger joints. They looked red and hot and painful. “There you are,” Mr Cohen said, sounding querulous as Josef came to sit on the footstool next to the fire. “I didn’t think we’d see you today.”

“Moss,” Mrs Cohen scolded mildly from where she was pouring tea from the pot.

Josef only smiled. Mr Cohen was a good man, but pain could make anyone irritable. “I’m sorry I’ve been out so much,” he said, accepting a warm mug of tea from Mrs Cohen. “But I’m here now, and I’ll shut up the shop as soon as I’ve finished my tea. You put your feet up, Mr C.”

Mr Cohen narrowed his eyes at the offer, and the nickname. “I’m not so feeble that I can’t shut my own shop.”

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