The sun was blinding. She closed her eyes and it was still too bright. She stumbled up the steps and felt grass beneath her bare feet. She opened her right eye a crack, enough to orient herself. The house was far off, straight ahead. The horrid graves were at her feet, to the right. She shuddered at the fresh grave, waiting for her.
Where was the woman?
The garden was quiet. Empty. The crazy woman must be in the house. She spun around. The garden was hedged in on all sides. But a hedge would have gaps, even if she had to push herself through.
She ran for the closest hedge. She got two steps, clearing the Anderson shelter, not noticing the woman standing there, watching her.
The rolling-pin hit her at full force, across the temple. The sound echoed back off the distant trees. The last thing she heard was crows taking flight, cawing angrily.
96
It was two miles back to the island. Cook walked quickly.
Cook had sat in that car, with ARP written on the side. He’d gone into the house by Regent’s Park, side by side with Reynolds. But Reynolds hadn’t been looking for Ruby.
Had he taken the gas mask in, planted it upstairs? He could have gone back to the car and fetched it, while Cook was in the basement.
Did Dottie know? He didn’t think she did. She’d risked life and limb to get the address from the red-headed man. A lot for her to volunteer for if she’d known it was all for show.
Cook was angry with himself. He’d known Reynolds was dangerous from the first time he’d set eyes on him. In Cook’s experience, first impressions were seldom wrong. He’d let Reynolds help him with the bomb, and that had thrown him off the scent. Gracie hadn’t been fooled. She knew the man. She’d thrown him out and clearly had no time for him, keeping a bare veneer of civility for Frankie’s sake.
Several roads were blocked off due to bomb damage, and the two miles turned into three. Even at Cook’s pace, it took him an hour.
‘Where is he?’ Cook demanded as he burst into the pub at the far end of the high street – the World’s End. Reynolds’s usual table was empty, even though the rest of the pub was full.
‘He’s not here,’ the barman said.
‘Where is he?’ Cook repeated.
The barman looked impassively at Cook.
The door opened behind Cook and the man from the pawnbroker’s shop stepped in, his tommygun at his waist. He kept his distance so Cook couldn’t repeat his disarming trick.
‘Don’t be a bloody idiot,’ Cook said. ‘You pull that trigger now and you’ll kill fifty people. Is that what you want?’
The pawnbroker stepped back, suspecting a trick. But there was no trick. Cook simply strode towards him and grabbed the gun, pulled it out of his hands.
Cook removed the magazine, set the selector to fire, held the trigger, and pulled the receiver away from the body. With the guts of the mechanism exposed, he stripped out the firing pin and put it in his pocket. Then he threw the remains of the gun at the pawnbroker.
‘If I see you with this again, I’ll use it like a club and beat you with it,’ Cook said.
*
Half a mile back along the high street, past buildings still smouldering from the previous night’s bombing, rats already claiming territory in the piles of filth. Gracie’s pub was boarded up, but open for business.
‘It’s Reynolds,’ Cook said, before Gracie had a chance to ask. She didn’t seem surprised. She opened a drawer behind the bar and took out a flick knife.
‘He’s not the only one knows how to use one of these,’ Gracie said.
‘He’s not at his local. I haven’t tried Tilbury yet,’ Cook said.
‘He’s got a warehouse,’ Gracie said. ‘He thinks it’s a secret.’
97
Halfway back along the high street, towering warehouses on both sides. A metal gantry four storeys up, like a footbridge crossing a canyon.
‘He’s on the river side,’ Gracie said. ‘We can get in this way.’ She opened a metal gate on the left side of the street, the inland side. Cook followed her up a concrete staircase that smelt of piss and something rotting. At the top, it opened out onto the metal gantry – thin metal grate for a floor, iron railings on each side.
