Page 58 of No Man's Land

Dutta walked a pace ahead of Alex, and Josef followed behind, sticking close. “Do you know how to get in?”

“I have some ideas.” Alex eyed the iron gates. “Can you climb?”

“Over the gate? I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We’ll be seen—” Josef’s foot missed the kerb in the dark, and he stumbled over it.

Alex caught his arm, steadying him. “You donothave to come with us,” he said quietly, pulling Josef to a halt. In the night, his face was all shadow save the gleam of his eyes. “Dutta and I are quite capable of—”

Dutta snapped something at Alex. Josef didn’t understand the language, but he didn’t need to because Dutta’s meaning was clear:Stop fucking around.

Alex snapped something back at him, and they glared at each other.

Into the silence, Josef said, “I’m coming. Fuck’s sake, why wouldn’t I? This is the biggest story of my life.”

“One you can never tell without risking the asylum.”

Regrettably, that was probably true. Josef grinned. “Doesn’t mean it’s not a great story. Maybe I’ll write a novel?”

Alex smiled at that, and Dutta sighed. “Hell, Beaumont, can't I simply shoot him?”

Gradually, Alex’s smile faded, but his hand remained locked around Josef’s arm, fingers warm through the sleeve of his coat, and the longer Alex gazed at him with those penetrating eyes, full of secrets, the faster Josef’s heart raced.

At length, Alex looked away, dropping his hand from Josef’s arm. He cleared his throat. “You’re right,” he said briskly. “There is a risk we’ll be seen, so we’ll have to climb quickly. Are you ready?”

Josef eyed the shadowy gates rising into the darkness. Above them, carved into the great stone arch, were the wordsCemetery Station.

Swallowing, Josef said, “Let’s do it.”

The ornate gates were easy to scale, though the iron was icy beneath Josef’s fingers, and to his ear it sounded like they made a hell of a racket as their boots struck iron and the gate squealed under their weight. He expected a police whistle at any moment, but none came, and they scrambled quickly over the top and down the other side. Josef jumped the last foot or two and landed with a soft huff of breath, Alex a moment behind him. Dutta was already disappearing into the darkness beneath the archway.

They turned to look at each other, and smiled, Alex’s teeth a flash of ivory in the dark.

“Come on,” he whispered, and they followed Dutta into the shadows.

Josef stuck close to the wall as the driveway led them into a tunnel that ran through the centre of the whole building. On the other side, the drive made a sharp left turn beneath a glass canopy built onto the back of the station. Glazed white brickwork gleamed ghostly on its wall, and the silhouettes of palm and bay trees lined the route.

“Fancy,” Josef murmured. He could imagine it in daylight, modern and elegant. Fitting, people would say, for the passage of the dead. Dignified and respectful.

And then he thought of the dressing station where he’d first met Alex, of the dead and dying left to rot. Of the corpses sinking into the mud of no man’s land. Where was their dignity? Where was their respect?

“Over here.” A row of doors lined the wall, and Alex was trying the handle of the first. It was locked.

Josef came to join him. “Is that the mortuary?”

“Maybe.” From his pocket, Alex produced something that jingled like a set of keys. Lock picks, Josef realised with surprise. Not that he should be surprised, but the idea of Lord Alexander Beaumont knowing how to jimmy a lock amused him.

There were a lot of doors, though, and it wasn’t quick work. They’d be here all night if Alex had to try them all.

From his pocket, Josef retrieved his hand torch. Maybe it was a risk, but he reckoned it was worth taking if it could save them time. Switching it on, he flashed it over the door.

Dutta hissed. “Idiot, turn that off!”

Josef ignored him. “Storeroom One,” he read on the small brass plate fixed to the wall next to the door.

Quickly, he moved onto the next door. “Storeroom Two.”

And so on, until, about halfway along the building, he read, “Mortuary—third class.” He stared. “Third class?”

“Giles was an officer,” Dutta said, as though Josef was stupid. “He’ll be in the first-class mortuary.”

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