Beaumont’s lacquered front door gave way to Reynolds’s boot on the first attempt. The fury of a father whose daughter had been taken from him. No need for messing around with disguises or lock-picks. This time they had righteousness on their side.
Cook followed Reynolds into the house.
‘Ruby?’ Reynolds bellowed.
But the house was silent. A stillness in the air. None of the smells that come from habitation.
Reynolds ran up the stairs, full of hope. Gracie felt it too, he could see. Putting together the answer, hurrying through the streets. The satisfaction of kicking in the door. All of it led to an expectation, like turning the page and starting the final chapter.
‘It’s my fault,’ Gracie said.
‘No,’ Cook said. ‘Evil men do evil things. It’s in their blood. You couldn’t have stopped this any more than you could stop the tide.’
Cook saw the console table – a lamp and a telephone. A carbon copy of the house on Regent’s Place.
‘The shelter,’ Cook said.
99
Halfway down the garden was a potting shed – walls of thin wooden slats. The door was unlocked – nothing of value inside, a tower of terracotta pots, stacked inside each other, a garden fork, a spade, a rake. Cook grabbed the spade, feeling its heft. Not the perfect tool for the job, but it would do. Sheffield steel, designed and manufactured for punishing work, day in, day out.
The Anderson shelter was undisturbed, still locked. The neat gravel path leading down three steps.
The padlock would be stronger than the spade. It was looped through a metal hoop on the door, overlaying a piece of flat metal screwed into a wooden doorframe – the weakest part of the security arrangement. Cook wedged the edge of the spade between the metal plate and the door frame. The spade was four feet long. A lot of leverage.
He tested the spade’s strength. He wasn’t worried about the steel. It was the handle that would give – ash wood, dried and cracked. Beaumont was evidently not a man who took care of his tools.
The handle creaked, but held. Cook gave it more, and the metal plate popped off the door frame. Cook pulled the door open.
The shelter had been locked for days. Possibly weeks. He was prepared for what he might find. Or so he thought.
A cloud of flies filled the air, disturbed by the opening door. Cook put his hand over his mouth against the stench, but he had to turn back.
Gracie pushed past him.
She turned away and rushed from the shelter, vomiting into the grass.
*
Inside the shelter, a large mass moved in the darkness. As his eyes adjusted, Cook saw more clearly. Maggots. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Underneath them, a corpse.
It was a shape and size any farmer would know instantly. An adult pig. Against the rules to keep one for your own use. Difficult to get rid of, if you wanted to suddenly leave. Not like you could load it up in the car.
‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Cook asked.
‘Couple of nights ago,’ Gracie said. ‘Doing his rounds.’
‘So if he hasn’t been staying here,’ Cook asked, ‘where’s he been hiding?’
100
Margaret walked cautiously up the sagging stairs, the sound of an experimental jazz quartet coming from a room at the top.
She enquired at the bar. Said she had a message for the proprietor. Well, not so much a message as an offer. Something that might allow him continued and unfettered access to the various financial opportunities a long-term situation at the Empire might represent.
She drank over-priced champagne as she waited for the message to work its way to the right man. At one point a staff door opened and several young women looked out, curious to see the well-dressed and well-spoken woman who’d arrived unannounced with such a strange message.
Mr Jones found her pouring a second glass. He sat next to her and they both watched the band.
