Page 56 of No Man's Land

“Don’t worry,” Alex said, tugging Josef against him, “we have time. I’ve no intention of exposing you to any danger.”

“Ghouls aside?”

Alex’s eyebrows rose. “Youwere the one poking about in that business. I tried to warn you off.”

That was true, Josef supposed. “I’m not very biddable,” he confessed.

“I know. It’s one of the things I like most about you.”

Josef’s turn to smile, and although he tried to make it arch, he had a feeling it was embarrassingly eager. “You like me, do you?”

He was expecting a wry response, but Alex only said, “I do, rather.”

It was silly that those three words sent Josef’s heart knocking about in his chest, but there was no denying that they did. Or that Josef was, apparently, in extreme danger of being smitten by this toff.

Bollocks.

When he didn’t respond, one corner of Alex’s mouth lifted into an odd little smile. “You should get dressed,” he said, letting Josef go. “Dutta will be here soon, and you might be interested in what he has to say.”

“Which is what?” Josef said, pulling on his underpants and buttoning them hurriedly.

“That, I don’t know. But he wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t trouble.”

“What—?” Josef began, but he was cut off by an urgent rapping on the front door.

Alex grimaced. “No more questions. Get dressed and come through. Then we’ll find out what this is about.”

He didn’t much like being ordered about, by Alex or anyone else, but hewascurious. Obviously. So, he dressed quickly and hurried out of the bedroom, trying to appear nonchalant as he sauntered into the parlour. Trying not to look like a man sneaking out of another man’s bed.

He needn’t have worried what he looked like, though, because neither man was paying him the least bit of attention.

Dutta, in a red turban, sat on the green velvet settee, his back to Josef, facing the fireplace where Alex stood leaning against the mantel in his—thankfully, fully fastened—shirtsleeves. He looked utterly unruffled, a cigarette dangling from one languorous hand.

“...died of wounds,” Dutta was saying in his cultured accent. “He was taken to the mortuary at Cemetery Station to betransported by train for burial at Brookwood tomorrow. If they get out of London...”

“Yes, very bad,” Alex agreed. Then, noticing Josef, he smiled. “Ah, there you are.”

Dutta turned his head, eyes narrowing sharply, and Josef tried to match Alex’s sangfroid. “Mr Dutta,” he said, with a slight nod.

“Mr Shepel. What a surprise to find you here so late at night.”

“I could say the same to you.”

With a warning look at Alex, Dutta said, “Is this wise?”

“Wise or not,” Alex said, dropping into one of the armchairs next to the fire, “Shepel knows almost as much as we do about the ghoul situation. Although he probably wishes he didn’t.”

“I don’t wish anything so bloody stupid.” Josef crossed the room to take the empty chair on the other side of the fireplace. “Only an idiot would wish for ignorance.”

Dutta gave a chilly smile. “Are you sure about that? Ignorance is bliss, so they say.”

“They also say knowledge is power. And they’re right.”

Alex sighed. “If you’ve both quite finished, shall we return to the matter in hand? Dal, are we positive thisMajor Giles has been infected?”

“I haven’t seen the body myself, but Withers, our man on the ambulance train, said Giles was feverish and raving so badly they had to tie him into his bunk. He was dead before they reached Waterloo, apparently.”

Alex looked grim.

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