A/N: I will be moving this story to the cross-over section now we have a Bletchley Park category, so if you wish to keep reading without needing to click that little twisted arrow up on the right, you might want to 'follow'.

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7 October 1946

Foyle dropped his son off at the RAF club on Piccadilly, and, after a short battle with the London traffic, now so much worse than before the war by the damage from the Blitz which was only slowly beginning to be repaired, arrived at New Scotland Yard.

He had no official status to rely on, nor did the cloak of Mi5's shadowy authority extend to cover him any more. Hilda Pierce would hardly be inclined to do him any favours, even if he were inclined to ask. A life-long career on the force, however, had left Foyle with other resources to draw on, and it was to one of these he was now bound.

Ray Salisbury's office was still where it had been the last time Foyle had had reason to call on the Met, although his hairline had moved somewhat further north. As always, Salisbury was glad for any opportunity to take a break from the endless paperwork being a Deputy Assistant Commissioner involved. Foyle accepted the offer of a cup of tea and indulged the other man's fondness for talk of the days when they had been young Detective Sergeants together.

"So what can I do for you, Christopher?" Salisbury asked at last. "Thinking of coming back? Want me to put in a good work with the Commissioner?"

"Good god, no," Foyle said quickly, and Salisbury laughed. "No, I'm quite happy as things stand. Finally have time to finish my book." He paused. "Why I'm here, actually, few details I'm trying to tie down."

"Oh, yes?" Salisbury wrinkled his nose. "Hastings Station turned uncooperative?"

"Not at all," Foyle hastened to assure him. "No, it's … I'm thinking of adding an epilogue about the end of the war. Challenges of the peace, and so on."

Salisbury nodded. "They're certainly challenging, uh ... challenges."

"Ye-es," Foyle agreed. "Bu-ut … possibly different challenges in Hastings to London? I'm sure there'll be a lot written about the Met in the future. I'd like to be able to put Hastings and the south coast in … context. As it were." He studied the inside of his empty teacup. "Wondering if you could give me a look at your reports. Get a feel for what's going on up here."

Salisbury frowned. "We're not exactly overwhelmed with manpower these days, Christopher."

"Oh, I know," Foyle said quickly. I counted on it. "Wouldn't expect anyone to do the legwork. But a few hours in the file room …"

It was against all sorts of regulations, but then, Ray Salisbury had always had a healthy disregard for rules. Within fifteen minutes Foyle was in the dusty file room in the basement of New Scotland Yard, picking his way between towering shelves of yellowing folders.

The filing system was, in Foyle's opinion, a disgrace. Sergeant Brooke would have the heads of any constable this careless with case files. Not to mention that any storage system which put files in the same room as the furnace left everything covered with a fine layer of coal dust. Nonetheless, after several hours of searching, he managed to locate eighteen files on armed robberies committed outside Bow Street's area of responsibility in the previous six months. Four he dismissed almost immediately, committed by too many or too few suspects. Three more warranted further study, but after reading the files, he concluded the modus operandi had too many differences.

Eleven matched.

He took out his notebook and copied dates and locations, adding in the five cases Jack Devereaux had brought to him. March 18, March 27, April 9, April 18, April 27 … The gaps were not an exact match, but that could be explained by the exigencies of circumstances - the gang timed their crimes to maximize their haul and a few days one way or the other could easily be explained by that. He could make no sense of the geographical distribution, except to note that by spreading their crimes around, they'd avoided concentrated attention.

Except from Jack.

The cases Jack had brought to him didn't make a pattern, not without the others. Has he seen these files and not wanted to tell me? Foyle considered, then discarded, the idea. Jack had wanted his help - he had no reason to hold back information that bolstered his case.

Something had convinced him he had a connected series of crimes on what was extremely tenuous evidence.

What had Jack said? The problem is that the problem is tied up with the anything else.

Foyle chewed the inside of his cheek. He had only the most tenuous idea of James Devereaux's life over the past fourteen months - Sir Charles's trial and conviction, the young man's somewhat unorthodox decision to apply for employment to the Metropolitan Police, leaving his step-mother Jane to run the family estate and holdings …

Jack was altogether too certain these crimes were connected.

Hard to see how …

Unless he knew.

Foyle made meticulous notes of everything he could imagine to be relevant, and returned the files to their shelves, resisting the urge to do a little re-ordering. The state of this file room certainly explains why no-one else has come up with this connection.

It didn't explain how Jack had.

Everything Foyle knew about the young man told him that, whatever his link to these crimes, it was co-incidental.

But he could easily imagine circumstances in which a co-incidental link could be enough to destroy a young constable's career.

Foyle detoured to the personnel section on his way out of the file room and located an address for Constable Jack Devereaux. Soho. Fifteen minutes brisk walk from Bow Street. Unless it had changed drastically during the war years, it wasn't the type of neighborhood most young constables would choose - unless they had ambitions in the direction of detective work, when an acquaintance with the less savory elements of their patch could prove very valuable indeed.

Leaving Scotland Yard, Foyle drove across town and spent the afternoon visiting Samantha Wainwright. Although her employment had not been terminated when he himself had returned to Hastings in the wake of the Strasser matter, she had handed in her notice shortly afterward, telling him she had jumped before being pushed, and had not yet found another job. Foyle found it hard to believe she was content as a housewife in Peckham, occupying her active mind with making the meat last a week and choosing the best brand of laundry powder, but her air of happiness and contentment was undeniable.

They talked of mutual friends in Hastings and old times for a while, and then Sam set down her teacup and fixed him with a shrewd gaze. "And are you going to tell me why you've come up to London? Not Mi5 again?"

Foyle studied the inside of his own cup. "Isn't visiting old friends sufficient reason?"

"Your cuffs are dirty," Sam said, and Foyle glanced down to see that she was right: the dusty files had left their mark on his sleeves. "Which means you've been up to something this morning before you came here. So what was it?"

He smiled. "You're becoming quite the detective, Sam. But nothing exciting, I'm afraid, reading some files."

She frowned. "Police or security?"

"Police," Foyle said. "I'm … looking over some cases for a colleague. As a favor."

"Can I help?" she asked promptly.

"We-ell, not just at the moment," Foyle said. "It's just looking at records for now."

"But you will tell me if I can help?" Sam persisted.

"Of course," he assured her.

"Good," Sam said firmly. "So?"

"So-o …?"

"So, tell me all about it, then," Sam said. "So I'll be up to speed when you do need my help."

Editing the details somewhat to spare her sensibilities, Foyle gave her an outline of the cases, and - without mentioning Jack Devereaux by name - the young constable's conviction that they were connected.

"That is jolly odd," Sam said when he had finished. "Are you sure?"

Foyle raised an eyebrow. "Sure about …?"

"That they used a GPO van as the getaway car on that third job."

"The witnesses were confident, yes," Foyle said.

"Well, that's jolly odd." Sam poured more tea for them both. "Those are Morris Z-types and it's certainly not what I'd choose for a speedy getaway. Steers like a cow, corners like a drunk and can be outpaced by a maiden aunt on foot."

Foyle frowned. "They had another reason to choose it, then?"

"Maybe one of them is a postman," Sam suggested.

"It's a place to start, certainly," Foyle agreed.

She beamed. "There you are, sir. I'm useful already!"

"Always useful, Sam," Foyle assured her. "Mmm, I might have some driving around to do tomorrow. Fancy coping with the traffic for me?"

"Absolutely!"

With the agreement he'd pick her up tomorrow first thing, Foyle took his leave before Adam got home. The young MP had never been anything but welcoming to him, but Foyle had picked up from one or two remarks by Sam that Adam held him, Foyle, responsible for Sam's occasional tendencies to step outside the lines that defined the role of 'wife of Member of Parliament'.

Funny how little he knows her, Foyle thought as he navigated the early evening traffic back toward central London, to think she needs any encouragement to bolt off on some daft scheme.

He was smiling as he parked the car near the hotel he'd booked. Checking in was a more tedious process these days, but in the end it was only fifteen minutes later that he was back on the pavement, luggage safely in his room, strolling toward Soho.

It was soon apparent that Soho had not changed during the war, save for the addition of bomb damage. Foyle had politely refused at least a dozen offers of temporary companionship by the time he reached the street he'd seen on Jack's personnel file. The address was a narrow block of flats crammed between what appeared to be a nightclub and another just like it. Foyle found a vantage point and counted windows: the one which he judged to be Jack's was lit.

He chewed his lip and considered his next move. He could cross the street, go in, and set out what he'd learned and what he'd deduced about the crimes and Jack's knowledge of them.

If he was likely to make a clean breast of it, Foyle thought, he would have done so already.

He needed to know, in order to know how to protect the young man.

A husky voice interrupted his thoughts. "Fancy a French lesson, handsome?"

Foyle turned, automatically lifting his hat politely. "No, thank you."

The woman who'd spoken was taller than he was. Foyle noted the size of her hands and feet, the cheap fur stole wrapped around her throat and concealing the Adam's apple, the thickness of the makeup over cheeks and chin. She shrugged. "I have a sister who's all sister, if you'd prefer." When Foyle shook his head, she went on: "Then do you mind shuffling along, darling? There's a lad over there eying me, and he'd not likely to come over while you're stood here on my patch."

"You work here regularly?" Foyle asked.

She squared her shoulders. "Yes I do, and if you've a girl you're planning on moving in, think on. I'm not for shifting."

"I've no intention of trying," Foyle assured her. "Just wondering if you might have seen a young man, lives in the block opposite." He described Jack without giving a name.

"You the fuzz, then?" At his raised eyebrow, she elaborated: "Police force, darling. You a copper?"

She was poised to run. "No, not at all," Foyle said quickly. "Entirely a private inquiry."

"Aha, a gumshoe. Investigating our young Constable Toff." She took a cigarette out of her purse and lit it, then blew the smoke deliberately in his face. "Can't help you, darling."

"But you know him?" Foyle asked.

"Not as well as I'd like to," she drawled, "pretty boy that he is. But yes. Everyone around here knows Constable Toff. And let me save you some time - you won't find anyone else who can help you any more than I can."

"Any more than you will, perhaps," Foyle suggested.

She gave him a level stare. "We understand each other."

"So he's well liked?" Foyle asked. "Or …?" Or on the take, was the other option, although given the Devereaux family wealth that seemed extraordinarily unlikely.

"He's not bent," she said sharply, dropping her half-smoked cigarette and grinding it out with her toe. "He's decent. Get a kitten out of a tree for a crying kid, if there were any kittens or kids around here. Or trees. Never nicked anyone didn't have it coming." She studied her painted nails, and then seemed to come to a decision. "I got robbed and rolled a while back." She shrugged. "Wasn't the first time, won't be the last. You can imagine, darling, I wasn't exactly wild about the idea of making a complaint to the police, but the hospital did it while I was still out cold. I come round, there's Constable Toff by the bedside, and I'm expecting - well, being what I am isn't exactly viewed with approval by the law. But instead of arresting me, he takes my statement, and then asks if I have a room-mate or a friend who can bring some clothes more suitable for day wear to the hospital for me. So." She leaned toward him, lowering her voice menacingly. "If you're here with some idea of making life difficult for him, you can think on."

"That's not my intention at all," Foyle said.

She studied him, eyes narrowed. "We'll see. Right now, you're making life difficult for me. Push off up the road a ways and let a girl earn a living, will you?"

"Of course," Foyle said. He raised his hat again, and moved along the street.

As he did so, he saw Jack leave the front door of his apartment block, out of uniform.

Unobtrusively, Foyle followed, as Jack sauntered down the street, pausing to greet a few of the denizens by name and engage one in what looked like an earnest conversation.

His memory of the day's reading provided him with the address of Jack's destination while they were still a block short of it. Foyle paused on the pavement as Jack pushed open a door with the superscript Minim.

Minim, the third target of the gang Jack was so determined to catch.

Foyle settled his hat more firmly on his head, and followed Jack inside.

.

.

.

A/N:

The effect of basement storage on police files is based on my own experience as a researcher: coal dust is less damaging to records than mold but far more persistent on the clothes.

Soho in the period was the centre of both the emerging trend of jazz music (although the famous Club Eleven did not open until 1948) and the age-old trend of sex work. Prior to the introduction of the Street Offences Act in 1959, sex workers packed the streets and alleys of Soho or operated from 'walk-ups', rooms which advertised their purpose with postcards pinned to the door advertising 'French Lessons' or 'Large Chest for sale' or other similar enticements.

"The fuzz" as a slang for police originates in the US in the 1920s. 'Gumshoe' for detective originated in the 19th century.

"Minim" is the British name for a half-note - the name of the bar is a reference to New York's famous jazz club, "The Half Note"