The British Lion (15 page)

“She has a very interesting story. She says two Americans kidnapped her and her mother to blackmail her father.”

“Americans?”

“That’s what she says.”

“Any names?”

“Not yet.”

“We need a proper interrogation.”

“She’s a child, sir.”

“I’ll send a car; keep her warm for me.”

“She’s only a child, sir. Will you—”

The phone in his hand went dead and the mechanic lowered the receiver slowly onto its cradle. He paused, looking out of the window at the passing scene; he felt insulated in the phone box and allowed himself a moment before exiting.

Back into the real world.

CHAPTER 19

T
HE INTERVIEW ROOM
was cold. They’d taken Koehler’s coat, his suit jacket, his tie, his shoes, his watch, and his belt. He was sitting on a wooden chair that was slightly too small for him, at a table in the center of the bare white room, deep in the darkest bowels of Scotland Yard.

He stared at the empty seat opposite, rocking forward an inch or two as he considered swapping it for the one he was sitting on. He knew they would put him, as the suspect, in a smaller chair; it was a clumsy old trick he’d used himself a million times. They’d want to dominate the suspect, crowd him, make him feel small as they battered him with questions and God knows what else.

He looked at the white walls. It didn’t look like fresh paint, which was a good sign. It meant that no blood had been splashed around recently.

He wondered when being beaten up in a cell had become a concern for him.

Koehler stood up, walked to the door, and reached for the handle; he was surprised at his embarrassment as he turned it slowly. It was locked. He frowned and paced back to the table, taking the interrogator’s seat.

Fuck them.

It was another ten minutes before he heard the door unlocking behind him. He turned, looking over his shoulder to see who was coming in. A young British policeman looked into the room, holding a bunch of keys on a chain; he stared at Koehler, who stared back.

A second passed, and the bobby stepped back and nodded his head to someone just out of sight. Koehler turned back, sick of the games.

He heard footsteps, then a slim folder of papers dropped onto the table in front of him.

Koehler looked up.

“You’re in my seat,” said Neumann.

“It didn’t have your name on it.”

“Could you move, please?”

“There is a seat there in front of you.” Koehler gestured with his head.

“Could you move?”

Koehler pursed his lips and looked at the seat opposite, studying it, then looked back up at Neumann.

“No.”

Neumann frowned, sighed, then shuffled around the table and sat down. He reached across, dragged the paper folder over, and opened it. As he scanned the first page, he absentmindedly reached up to the back of his head with his left hand and gingerly touched it.

“How’s the head?” Koehler asked.

“What?”

“How’s the head? You took a nasty knock earlier at my apartment. How is it?”

Neumann stared at Koehler flatly before finally speaking.

“Two stitches.”

Koehler whistled through his teeth.

“Could have been worse.”

Neumann leaned back in his chair, studying Koehler, and then shut the folder in front of him, leaving his left hand on the tabletop, the other on his thigh.

“What the hell is going on here?” Neumann asked.

“You tell me,” Koehler replied.

“I don’t think you’re the sort who would kill your wife and child.”

“I’m not.”

“But they vanished off the face of the earth.” Neumann looked at his watch. “Nearly twenty-four hours ago.”

“It’s a mystery.”

“Last year, it was a mystery when your secretary disappeared as well.”

“That’s women for you.”

“And then there is the robbery where we found your wife’s identity card.”

“You think she did it?”

“I’ll not dignify that with an answer.”

“Your job to do the questions.”

Neumann drummed the fingers of his left hand on the desk and tacked in the wind, trying again to make some headway.

“Then there is your friend the policeman.”

“I thought you were the policeman?”

“The policeman who hit me over the head.”

“I’d never seen him before.”

“Rossett.”

“It wasn’t Rossett.”

“Don’t strain my patience, Major Koehler.”

“Why not? You’re straining mine.”

“You’re in a lot of trouble.”

“I’ve been in worse.”

“But this time Lotte and Anja are involved.”

They stared at each other; Koehler made to speak and changed his mind. Neumann stroked his mustache with his right hand, then rested his hand back on his leg before continuing, his tone softer this time.

“Major, I don’t know what the hell is happening here. Honestly, I am at a loss. One thing I do know”—he tapped his hand on the folder—“is that this will not stay my problem for long unless you help me. It is still early. In an hour or two people will be arriving at offices—bosses, our bosses, yours and mine. They will hear that I had to issue an order for your arrest, they will want to know why, and they won’t want this problem to remain . . . unresolved. You understand that?”

“I do.”

“Then you will also understand that these things can have a habit of spiraling out of control, like forest fires that start from just a tiny spark. Issues like this can sweep all before them.”

“I am aware of that.”

“Then why won’t you speak to me? Maybe we can put out this fire before it burns all of us too badly.”

Koehler didn’t reply.

Neumann breathed out loudly and then shuffled his chair closer. He linked his hands on the tabletop and lowered his head for a moment. Koehler saw the stitches through his thinning hair.

Neumann looked up and Koehler smiled.

“I’m a policeman—” said Neumann.

“I was aware,” Koehler interrupted.

“Let me continue.”

“Of course. Forgive me.”

“I’m a policeman.” He waited a second for Koehler to interrupt again, then continued. “I’ve been in London for a year now. They brought me over from Berlin to deal with what my superiors call ‘domestic matters.’ By that they mean issues they want kept in the family—our family, the German family. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. When something happens involving our family, the Met Police ring me, and I drag March along and we see if we can sweep things up. I’m a problem solver. I make problems go away. Normally this takes a couple of hours. I’ll be honest with you: it isn’t very stimulating work. I normally deal with drunken soldiers and civil servants, and the occasional visiting businessman who has slapped around a whore. Sometimes I pass the matter back to the British, sometimes the army, the navy, or even, on occasion, the air force. Sometimes I deal with the matter myself. I have the tacit approval to hold people for a few days in the cells here, as a punishment.” Neumann pointed at the floor, indicating where the cells were beneath them.

“Judge and jury.”

“Indeed, it’s a little unorthodox, but I’ve never had anyone complain. You see, they prefer me dealing with matters because I’m a little less . . . direct than others. But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Would I?”

“I’d assume so; you do work closely with the Gestapo, don’t you?”

Koehler didn’t reply.

“What I am trying to say, Major, is that there is a window here, and it’s closing very quickly. You might think you are sitting opposite a dumb flatfoot from Berlin, and”—Neumann shrugged—“you might be right. But I’m the best chance you have to resolve this issue and come out of it in one piece.”

“What about the person who gave you those stitches?”

“Accidents happen. You were under a great deal of pressure in a stressful situation. You were concerned for the well-being of your family. I can understand that. I’ve been a policeman for a long time. I’ve bumped my head before; this won’t be the last time it happens.”

“I need to get out of here.”

“You need to talk to me.”

“I need to get out. You have to promise you will let me out.”

Neumann looked at the table and then back at Koehler. “I will not make promises I can’t keep.”

Koehler wiped his hand across his eyes, then rubbed with his finger and thumb so hard that when he looked at Neumann again he had to blink two or three times to be able to see him.

“Do you want my wife and child to live?” Koehler said quietly.

Neumann lifted his chin. “Of course.”

“Then you have to let me go.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“No, really, it is.” Koehler stared at Neumann, the certainty of his statement causing the policeman to open and close his mouth without speaking.

There was a knock at the door, and it opened before either Koehler or Neumann had a chance to react. March leaned halfway into the interview room, looking at Koehler and then at Neumann.

“Sir, I need to have a word,” he said to Neumann.

“Not now.”

“It’s urgent.”

“Later.”

“They’ve found a body.”

Koehler and Neumann looked at him and said in unison, “Where?”

March tilted his head toward Koehler and then looked at his boss, who gestured that he should continue.

“On the riverbank. Someone looking for scrap metal found it . . . her . . . an hour ago.” March swallowed and looked at Koehler. “It matches the description of your wife.”

Koehler felt the earth drop through him.

“Identification?” said Neumann.

“Nothing on her.”

“Do we know how she died?”

“Nothing confirmed yet, but . . . the suggestion is she has been shot or stabbed.” March looked at Koehler and despite himself said, “I’m sorry.”

Koehler raised his hands to his face and rested his elbows on the table, leaning into his palms, pushing his face hard, hiding behind the pain.

“Where is the . . . deceased now?” he heard Neumann say.

“Still at the scene, sir. They are waiting for the doctor and Met detectives to finish up.”

“Get the major’s belongings and bring them. We’re going down there.”

THERE IS A
stubborn silence at the scene of a death. As Koehler, Neumann, and March ducked their heads under the hole in the fence, Koehler noticed that silence, settling like the snow, all around them.

Nobody had spoken in the car. Neumann had sat in the back with Koehler, and when they’d arrived Koehler had realized that the handle on his door didn’t work. He’d sat and watched March walk around the car, waiting as the big policeman had opened the door, and then stepped out.

“Should I cuff him?”

“No,” Neumann had replied, and Koehler had looked across and nodded thanks.

The snow made the ground look even, but the frozen mud it concealed was anything but. All three picked their steps carefully as they made their way down to the mucky brown riverbank ahead of them. The sun was up but hidden behind the clouds when they first caught sight of the group of men at the water’s edge.

Koehler slowed, putting off the moment, clinging on to hope as long as was possible. The group around the body turned to face them, as a fresh scattering of snow blew in off the river.

The tide was coming in; the Thames looked to be flowing left to right, a brown carpet, lapping at the toes of the one naked foot that emerged from under a canvas sheet on the shore. Koehler realized that they’d been expected. Nobody challenged them, and everybody was staring at him.

He looked at the sheet, trying to avoid the foot, glacier white against the dirty sand and the Thames.

Lotte’s foot.

A plainclothes English detective crouched down next to the canvas, taking hold of the corner with finger and thumb, looking up at Koehler, waiting for the nod.

It came.

The sheet folded back eighteen inches, and Lotte stared into the sky, lips parted, tips of teeth showing, hair wet, yellow strands across her cheeks, lifeless.

As Koehler looked at his love, a snowflake brushed her face and then settled on her lips, unnaturally staying in place, not melting. She was cold.

Koehler crouched, reached with a fingertip, and touched the flake. It melted, and the water trickled across her lip. He gently wiped it away, then ran his finger across her cheek, moving her hair.

For the first time since they had met, her eyes didn’t smile at his touch.

He lifted his head. A few of the policemen were looking out across the Thames, letting him have his moment. He blinked a flake of snow from his eyelashes and looked down again to Lotte, just as the policeman covered her face once more with the sheet.

“Major?”

“It’s my wife.”

The English detective nodded to one of the uniformed bobbies. “Victim identified by husband.”

The policeman looked at his watch and wrote something in his notebook.

Victim, thought Koehler.

Koehler stood up, nodded to Neumann, then walked a few paces away from the group along the riverbank. He stared to the south bank of the Thames, with its cranes and its steaming ships getting ready to run, move on to the next place. A seagull swooped low across the water, fifty feet away, its wingtips tapping on the Thames, leaving two tiny wakes.

The old river didn’t notice; it kept moving, in and out, time and tide; nothing else mattered, changing of the seasons, here long after all of them.

“I’m sorry,” Koehler said softly.

Neumann came up behind him and stood to his left.

A horn sounded as the snow increased, casting a shroud across the far bank and making it harder to see.

“They’ve had men and dogs up and down the bank in both directions.”

“Anja?” Koehler didn’t look at Neumann as he spoke.

“No sign of her.”

“The river?”

“They’ve boats looking, but the man who found your wife said there were a lot of tracks in the snow when he arrived, all covered now, I’m afraid, but he thought it was a few people. Maybe . . . maybe she was here?”

Koehler nodded, then lowered his head, looking at the water lapping at his feet.

“This doesn’t look like resistance,” said Neumann. “They prefer more of a . . . statement.”

“It isn’t resistance.”

“Who is it, then? Help me.”

Koehler lifted his head to look toward the south bank; he licked his lips and gave a slight shake of the head.

“Do you have family, Neumann?” Koehler finally spoke as a gust of wind caused him to rock slightly.

“I do.”

“What would you do for them?” Koehler turned to face Neumann as he asked the question.

Over Koehler’s shoulder, Neumann saw March watching from where he was standing next to the body, maybe thirty feet away.

“I’d do anything for them.”