Page 41 of No Man's Land

“No, I’m sorry. I can’t stay. I have to… I left something back in my room. I need to get it. If I can, I’ll come back later.”

She nodded, looking more relieved than anything else. No doubt he was one less thing she wanted to worry about today. “Listen,” she said as he was turning to leave, “be careful, all right? I heard there were zeppelins and Gothas over Kent last night. No casualties, but even so…”

Death from the sky, death from beneath the earth. Was there no part of the world men wouldn’t pollute with their weapons of war? “You too,” Josef told her. Then added, “If there is a raid, and you shelter in the underground, stay with the crowd. Don’t stray into the tunnels.”

May regarded him for a long, bleak moment before she nodded.

With that they parted, and Josef plunged back into the fog.

He wasn’t afraid now. Only embarrassed that he’d let Alex’s story distract him from what was actually going on. Embarrassed and enraged.

When he got back to the Cohens’ shop, breathless after running all the way from the tube, he was relieved to find no signs of disturbance. Mr Cohen looked up from behind the counter, eyebrows rising when Josef burst through the door.

“Good heavens,” he said, “what on earth’s the matter?”

It took Josef a moment to catch his breath before he said, “Has a man been here? A toff. Or maybe a man in uniform? An officer.”

“Josef?” Mrs Cohen came in from the back of the shop. “You’re back quickly. What’s happened?”

Mr Cohen said, “He’s asking if we’ve had an officer in the shop.”

Instantly, Mrs Cohen beamed. “Do you mean your friend, Subadar Dutta?”

Josef stared blankly. “Who?” Then understanding crashed in with a jolt. “An Indian officer? Quite tall and very posh-sounding?”

“That’s right,” Mrs Cohen said. “Very proper, he was. Well, they are, aren’t they?”

“How long ago?” Josef hurried across the shop, ducking under the counter. “Did he go upstairs?”

“Upstairs?” Mrs Cohen looked at her husband in bemusement. “Of course not. He came in for a door handle and asked if you was here. When I said you wasn’t, he bought his handle,

one of the expensive brass ones, and left. He was very polite, and quite talkative…”

“Of course he was.” Racing past them, Josef hurried down the passage and took the narrow stairs two at a time. Shoving open the door to his room, he half expected—hoped?—to catch Alex with his sticky fingers in the desk drawer.

No such luck. All was silent and undisturbed in Josef’s room, no sign of the frenzied search he’d seen at theClarion. Relief washed over him, and then drained away like cold bath water when he saw the empty space where the negatives had been hanging.

Fuck.

Of course, there’d been no need to search; like an idiot, he’d left what Alex wanted right there in plain sight. It would have been the work of a moment for him to slip in the back door and up the stairs while his friend kept the Cohens talking in the shop.

Furious with himself, Josef went to his desk. Someone had evidently riffled through the photographs in the drawer, but nothing else was missing. In fact, something had been left behind.

Alex’s card sat in the middle of his desk, gold letters gleaming, and on it he’d scribbled four words.

You are in danger.

The fury Josef had felt earlier rushed back, hotter than ever. How dare the man break into his room, into the Cohens’ home, and issue threats? Who the hell did he think he was? There might be a war on, but Britain still had laws. An Englishman’s home was still his castle. Even if his castle was one room above an ironmonger’s. Alex had no bloody right to march in here, steal what he wanted, and leave behind intimidating notes for law-abiding citizens. How dare he—how dare thegovernment—think they could get away with this?

“Well, they won’t,” he told the empty room. “I’ll see to that.”

Snatching up Alex’s card, he shoved it into his pocket and headed for the door.

***

The Winconian Society was to be found on Wilton Crescent in Belgravia, which was not a part of town where men like Joe Shepel usually had business.

Too bad.

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