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about Crete and a Mr. John Pemberton.” A spark of flame. “You knew him.”
    “Did I?”
    Grant did well to keep his face impassive, but Muir had conducted enough interrogations to see past the façade.
    “Crete—the day the Nazis arrived. We’d sent you to look for the King near Knossos. Instead you bumped into Pemberton. You were the last man to see him alive.”
    “And the first to see him dead. So?”
    “According to your report, he handed over his notebook before he died.”
    “And?”
    Muir leaned across the table. The glowing tip of his cigarette hovered a few inches from Grant’s face, and smoke drifted into his eyes. “I want to know what you did with it.”
    “I gave it to his widow.”
    “Pemberton didn’t leave a widow, you prick. She predeceased him.”
    “Maybe it was his sister.” Grant’s eyes were tearing from the smoke, but he never blinked. He held Muir’s gaze for a long moment—then blew the cloud of smoke straight into Muir’s face, so suddenly that Muir shrank back. “What do you think I did with it? I didn’t have time to visit the library. I binned the book and tried to find some Nazis to kill. If you read my report, you’ll know I managed that pretty well too.”
    Muir leaned back in his chair. “I don’t believe you.”
    “I don’t suppose you spent much time on the front line.”
    “I don’t believe that a man spent his dying breath giving you this book and the first thing you did was throw it away. Weren’t you curious why it was so important to him?”
    “He could have given me his lucky matchbox and a locket with his lover’s hair and I’d have done the same.” Grant shook his head. “I flipped through the book, but it was all gibberish and mumbo-jumbo. I had a lot of ground to cover and I couldn’t afford to be weighed down. So I lost it.”
    Muir stared at him a moment longer, then abruptly stood. “That’s a pity. If you’d had it, or knew where it was, I might have been able to help you out of here. Might even have been some money in it. After all, I don’t suppose the Yidswill be paying you now.” He looked down expectantly. “Well?”
    “Go to hell,” said Grant.
     
    The car nosed into the copse of trees and rolled to a halt. Its headlights threw a pool of yellow light round the clearing, illuminating a battered Humber truck with its canvas sides rolled down. A group of young men in mismatched combat uniforms lounged against it, smoking and checking their guns. They made a terrifying sight—but if the occupants of the car were worried they didn’t show it. No one got out. In the back of the car a handle squeaked as the passenger wound down the rear window.
    One of the men walked over and stooped to look inside. The night was warm, but nevertheless he wore an overcoat and a black beret jammed down over his close-shaved gray hair. He carried a machine pistol.
    “Are you ready?” The tip of a cigarette glowed in the back seat, but the face behind it was invisible in the shadows. “You found what you needed?”
    The man in the beret nodded. “It was in the truck—as you promised. We are ready.”
    “Then don’t cock it up. And make sure he gets out alive.”
     
    They took Grant back to his cell, a vaulted cellar from the crusader castle crammed with three wooden bunks. In the utter darkness he had to feel his way to his bed. He flopped on to the mattress, not even bothering to take off his shoes.
    A match flared, illuminating a young face with floppy dark hair and olive skin on the bunk beside him. He lit the two cigarettes pursed between his lips, passed one to Grant and blew out the match before it burned his fingers.
    Grant took the gift gratefully. “Thanks, Ephraim.”
    “Did they beat you?” The boy couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen, but his voice was matter-of-fact.
And why not?
Grant thought. Ephraim had been in the prison far longer than he had, almost three months now, sentenced for throwing rocks at a British