The Darkest Hour (33 page)

“I don’t care about the diamonds,” Rossett replied.

“What were you doing in the cemetery then, cutting the grass?”

“Getting them for Jacob. He’ll need them.”

“Won’t you?”

Rossett shook his head.

“What are you going to do?” Kate probed, softly.

“I need to get the boy out.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know.”

“You could go with him.”

“After what I’ve done?” Rossett shook his head again. “I don’t think so. They’d have me at the end of a rope in no time.”

“Not necessarily. You could say you were forced to work by the Germans. If you escaped, they could use you for propaganda.”

“The way the Germans did?” Rossett glanced at her and then back to the fire.

“You’d be alive. You’d be free to start again, and maybe you could look after Jacob, help him rebuild his life.”

“After I took it away?”

“You didn’t take it, this occupation took it.”

“I wish I could believe you, and I wish I believed the free government would believe it.”

Kate swirled her teacup slightly and stared into it.

“You could tell the free government about Chivers. That would buy you some brownie points.”

“Rat out one double agent? I doubt that would help much.”

“He’s close to the leadership of the communists. He’s been under suspicion for a while now, by both sides of the resistance. He’s important to them.”

Rossett thought back to Dracula at the wood yard pulling out the Browning in the office. The communists had obviously come to the same conclusion as the royalists.

“The fish-and-chip shop, that must have been when he telephoned,” Rossett said.

“Chivers has been working for us, the Germans, for over a year now. He was picked up in a raid at the docks, and Koehler turned him. He’d always been a go-between for the two resistance groups, a sort of fixer. He was perfect for Koehler and easily swayed with the chance of making some money.”

Rossett put the cup down and rubbed his hand across his forehead.

“I should have left him in the warehouse.”

“For selling you out?”

“For being a traitor.”

“We’re all traitors. It’s just that you and I are more honest about it.”

Rossett leaned forward in the chair and rubbed his temples with his fingertips.

“Who was in the picture, the one that started this?” Kate asked gently.

“A boy.”

“Your son?”

“No.”

“Who?”

“A young man who went to fight the Germans and who never came back, someone else’s son and another wasted life.”

“And that made you go and get Jacob?”

“That and a pint of whiskey, yes.”

“You were drunk?”

Rossett nodded behind his massaging hands.

“Would you like a drink now?”

Rossett shook his head. “I need to sleep.”

“You can use the spare room.”

“I’ll stay here with Jacob.”

“I’ll get you a blanket.”

Rossett nodded, his head pivoting on his fingertips. Kate stood up and watched him for a moment before leaving the room. Once she had gone, Rossett looked at Jacob, then at the fire, before slowly sinking to his side and lying down on the couch. He kicked off his shoes and let them fall to the floor. His feet felt cold and he crossed them over each other and drew his knees up to his chest. A sudden urge to cry pushed behind his eyes and he squeezed them closed tightly, sliding his hands in between his knees and clamping them tightly together.

“Are you all right?”

Rossett opened his eyes and looked at her as she held the blanket like a beautiful undertaker ready to cast a shroud.

He nodded, unable to speak.

“Are you sure? Maybe I should get you a drink?”

He shook his head.

She laid the blanket across him, letting it cover him from the feet up until only his head and shoulders were visible, a mirror image of Jacob on the opposite couch.

“Will you be all right?”

Rossett nodded.

“I’ll be just across the hall, if you want me.”

“Thank you for your help.” He finally found words.

“You don’t need to thank me.”

“I need to save him,” Rossett said softly.

“You will.”

“I lost one little boy, I won’t lose another.”

“Your son?”

Rossett nodded again, aware he hadn’t spoke of his son for years until these last few days. It was as if Jacob had breathed new life into long-buried memories. Kate knelt down and rested a hand on Rossett’s shoulder, squeezing it through the blanket. He looked at her, saw how beautiful she was, and felt the weight in his chest again. Kate tilted her head and smiled the softest of smiles. Rossett closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at her and fight his emotions at the same time.

He felt her hand touch his face, that softness again, so soft in a hard world. He moved his head a fraction so that his cheek filled her palm and his lips brushed her fingertips. He felt the solid thump of his heart, one, two, three times, and then he breathed in through his nose and enjoyed her scent.

“I can stay here with you,” she offered.

“No,” he said quietly.

“Just to sleep . . .”

“No.”

“Why?”

“It isn’t safe for you.” Rossett opened his eyes, and he could tell that she understood.

“If you need me, I’ll be just across the hall.”

IT WAS MAYBE
three hours later when she heard Rossett cry out. She got out of bed and opened her door. Rossett shouted again, as if he was in pain, like an animal caught in a trap and longing for freedom.

Jacob opened the living room door, sleepy eyed. Holding his blanket over his shoulders like a shawl, he stood in the half-light looking at Kate, a drowsy ghost.

“He’s having a bad dream,” he whispered.

“I know, come here,” said Kate, holding out her hand and beckoning Jacob. The boy sleepily padded across the hallway, and she took him into her room and lifted him into her bed. Jacob moaned softly as she pulled the sheets over him. He rolled onto his side and with a soft smacking of his lips buried his face into the soft white pillow, an angel at rest.

Kate lay on top of the blankets awhile, listening to the silence that had crept back into the flat after Rossett’s shouts subsided. But she couldn’t rest.

Half an hour after Jacob had joined her, some nighttime rain tapped on her window and wind crept under the frame, causing her curtain to rock back and forth a fraction. Kate watched the curtain for a few moments and then slid off the bed.

She tiptoed along the corridor to the tiny kitchen to make tea. She worked quickly and silently, glancing up at the window as another flurry of rain rattled against it, urged on by the wind.

That was when she saw him.

Rossett stood silent, a ghost in the reflected glass of the kitchen window. Kate turned and looked at him face on, standing in the doorway.

He looked terrible. A man who found dreams harder than reality. His eyes were heavy and his shoulders hung low. His right hand was resting on the doorframe, and Kate saw his bruised knuckles and bloody palm for the first time.

“Can I have a cup?” Rossett whispered and nodded to the teapot.

Kate nodded, and before she could speak, Rossett turned away and walked silently back up the hallway to the living room.

She found him kneeling in front of the half-dead fire. He was prodding it with the poker, so she set down the cups of tea and sat on the couch where he’d been lying, pulling the blanket she had given him earlier over her nightdress and lying down to rest her head on the arm. Kate saw that he had opened the curtains on the nearest window. A streetlamp outside shone a dim light into the room.

Everything was black and white except for the dark red in the fireplace, and Kate was reminded of a dream she’d once had.

She shivered.

Rossett finally gave up with the fire and turned toward her. She smiled and gestured at his teacup, which sat on the carpet next to the couch.

“I’ve put some more coal on, but it’s damp. It’ll take a while to catch,” Rossett said.

“Everything is damp in here. I hate this place,” she said, her smile gone.

Rossett sat on the floor, propping his back against the couch, and sipped at the tea.

“Thank you.”

“There are biscuits if you—”

“No, I don’t mean the tea. I mean thank you for helping us.”

Kate nodded. They both turned to look at the window as the rain lashed against it, and Kate shivered again and drew her knees up under the blanket.

The fire popped as a solitary flame rose an inch or two and danced behind the damp coal. They sat silently for minutes, Rossett cradling his teacup in his lap and Kate watching his profile, silhouetted against the embers.

“You were crying out,” she finally said. Rossett only nodded in reply. “It woke Jacob. He’s in my bed.”

Rossett remained silent.

“What was the dream?”

Rossett shook his head.

“It might help you to talk.”

“It won’t.”

“You can’t put your whole life on hold, John. You’re not a machine. You have thoughts, feelings. You have love. It’s okay to think and talk and be human again, you can’t mourn forever.” Kate’s voice was barely a whisper.

“I have a dream, a bad dream.” Rossett paused. “I’m trying to stop someone bleeding to death.”

“Who is it?”

“My wife . . . and my boy.”

“Oh, John.”

“I can’t find the wounds. No matter how hard I look, I can’t find where the blood is coming from. They’re screaming and crying and I can’t help them. I keep tearing at their clothes, and the blood keeps coming. I’m soaked in blood. We’re soaked in blood.” Rossett put the tea down.

“I keep looking, slipping and splashing through blood, until I realize . . .”

“What?”

“That they are dead. The blood is my blood.”

A silent tear burst from Rossett’s left eye. He squeezed his lips together and looked at Kate, then slowly shook his head and turned back to the fire.

Fighting.

“I can’t stop it, the blood. I drown in it. And when I wake up . . .” Rossett paused. “I’m still drowning in it.”

Kate reached out and rested her hand on the back of Rossett’s neck. He flinched at the first stroke of her fingertips, then closed his eyes and allowed his head to fall forward.

“You poor thing,” Kate whispered, fingertips still on Rossett’s neck. His head rolled and he found himself turning to face her.

They stared at each for what seemed like an eternity, listening to the rain and the pop and crackle of the fire behind them. Kate’s hand gently stroked his face, and Rossett turned his head and kissed her palm. She rolled forward on the couch, firelight dancing in her eyes, her lips an inch from his, so close he could feel her breath on his face.

“You don’t have to be alone.” Kate barely made a sound. “Not anymore.”

Rossett kissed her and Kate slid off the couch until she was next to him on the floor. They lay together in the fire’s orange glow and made love.

Afterward, as they lay naked under the blanket, the fire settled down to a shifting glow and the rain eased. Rossett stroked Kate’s face with one finger as he stared into her eyes.

“What happens next?” Kate whispered.

“To who?”

“To us, all of us. Jacob, me . . . and you?”

“Nothing’s changed. I have to get the boy to safety.”

Kate lay silently, watching Rossett’s eyes in the darkness, unable to see what they were saying.

“And me?” she asked.

“Do you want safety?”

“I want you.”

“I’m not safe.”

“You can be, with me.”

“Do you want safety?” he said again.

“I do.”

“Then you’ll be safe, I promise.”

They slept as the fire died. The rain came and went and, as somewhere across the city Big Ben struck three, Kate slipped out from under the blanket, stared at the sleeping, twitching Rossett, and left the room to return to her bed.

KATE’S EYELIDS FLUTTERED,
opened, then closed again. Sleep was slow to lift. She blinked a dream away and tried to move her arm but found it pinned to the bed. She licked her lips, blinked again, and focused on Jacob, who was lying like a dark bruise in her white sheets, his face turned away so all she could see was his jet-black hair resting in the crook of her arm, still dreaming.

Safe.

She rolled onto her back and looked down the bed. Rossett was sitting by the window on a spindle-legged wooden chair, arms folded, sad eyed, watching her.

He smiled.

“Morning,” said Kate, her voice croaking.

“I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“What time is it?” Kate stretched her legs under the sheets.

“Seven thirty,” Rossett replied without looking at his watch.

He settled back on the chair, turning his head to look out the window at the breaking of the morning.

“What are you going to do?” Kate asked.

“I need to find Chivers.”

“Revenge?”

“Escape.”

“You trust him?” she asked. Rossett replied by shaking his head, then looked at her.

“No.”

“So why go and see him?”

“He knows people, people who can help Jacob.”

“What if he won’t help you?”

“He will.”

“How will you find him?”

“You will.” Rossett looked back out of the window.

“I will? How?”

“Your boss will know where he is.”

“Koehler?”

Rossett nodded, still looking out the window.

“What if I won’t help you?” Kate asked.

“You will. You already have and you will again.”

Kate shook her head. Rossett’s face softened, and his eyes flicked from her to Jacob.

“Do you think this will ever be over?” Kate asked him, closing her eyes.

“When the boy is safe, it’ll be finished then.”

“I meant the games, the lies, the occupation. Do you think life will ever be simple again?”

Rossett shrugged, and they were silent for so long he wondered if she’d gone back to sleep. Eventually, she said, “You were shouting again last night, after I left you.”

“Shouting?”

“In your dream, you were crying out.”

“I’m sorry.