Page 39 of No Man's Land

“But you’re rude enough not to accept an offer of help with good grace,” said his wife.

Josef smiled and swallowed a mouthful of tea. No sugar, but who had sugar these days? At least there was milk and the comfort of the hot mug in his hands, the warm fire, and the cosy familiar parlour. Together, they conspired to overwhelm him with a sudden wave of exhaustion. When had he last slept properly? Two nights ago? Yet this weight of exhaustion was more than just the aches of his tired, bruised body and his gritty, sleepless eyes.

Was it possible for a mind to be bruised?

He’d never imagined that the horrors he’d seen in the salient could follow him home to London, that they could be lurking beneath the very streets he walked. Yet Sykes had been in the mortuary this morning, as if fresh off the battlefield, and last night, he’d been attacked by something he couldn’t explain.

Suddenly, it felt too much to bear. Would the whole world be infected by this bloody war? Would it grind on and on until nowhere and no one was safe from the horror?

Alarmingly, he felt his eyes prick with hot tears, his throat closing in despair.

“Josef?” Mr Cohen sounded concerned.

Blinking, he took a sip of tea and forced it past the lump in his throat. No room for despair, no room for panic; he hadto fight. And he wouldn’t stop fighting until he’d exposed all the government’s dark secrets. Because, in the end, truth was the only way to end the suffering of millions.

“Think I need an early night,” he said, offering Mr Cohen the best smile he could find. “I’ve been burning the candle at both ends a bit, I’m afraid.”

“You haven’t stopped since you got back from France,” Mr Cohen scolded. “You’ve given yourself no time to recover.”

“There are some things that can’t wait.”

Mr Cohen’s huff said all that was necessary about that.

Josef pushed to his feet, setting down his empty mug and trying not to wince at the ache in his back. “And talking of things that can’t wait, I’m going to start closing up. No—” Mr Cohen was attempting to rise. “—You stay there. I can do it myself, but I’ll bring up the takings so you can do the books.”

A compromise, enough to let Mr Cohen subside. “All right, this once. If you insist.”

His easy surrender suggested that his hands were troubling him today and that he was in no position to be lugging around heavy ironmongery.

After Josef brought the takings up to the parlour, it took him about an hour to haul the goods on display outside back into the shop, and then another half hour to tidy everything away to the Cohens’ exacting standards. By then, the weariness that had overtaken him in the parlour had become a heavy blanket of exhaustion. Even though it was barely six o’clock, all he could think about as he finally locked the shop door was his bed and the oblivion of sleep.

Tomorrow, he’d make prints from the photographs he’d taken in the mortuary and take them, and the photograph of Sykes, to May. She’d have no choice but to believe him then, especially with Alex standing next to the body. No chance she’d think him shellshocked into madness when she saw—

Sepulchral blue eyes.

He saw them through the glass door, staring at him from within the fog.

Josef’s heart crashed into his ribs, fear dispelling his weariness as he jerked away from the door. “Fuck,” he hissed. “Fuck.”

It wants the photograph. Itneedsit. And you’re in danger while you have it.

Alex’s voice sounded as loud in his memory as if the man had been standing directly behind him. God, Josef wished he was there, longed for it, but tonight he was alone.

No, not alone.

The Cohens were upstairs, sipping their tea in the cosy parlour. And Josef had brought…somethingto their door. Something dangerous. That much he knew to be true.

He also knew that he couldn’t let them come to harm. Whatever this was, it was Josef’s business, and he would deal with it.

Pulling one of the iron pokers from the display, he edged closer to the door and peered out. The eyes were gone, but it was still out there. He couldfeelit, a lurking lingering presence in the fog.

Would it try to get into the shop?

He thought suddenly of the back door, rarely locked, and sprinted, poker in hand out the back of the shop, past the stairs and down the short hallway. The door was closed, and he rammed the bolt across with hands that shook.

“Josef?” Mrs Cohen appeared at the top of the stairs. “Whatever’s going on?”

Back to the door, poker in hand, Josef was aware of the sight he must present. He thought quickly. “Ah, a couple of troublemakers outside.”

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