‘Frankie?’ Cook shouted. He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one.
Then he saw it. A hand. A child’s hand. Ivory pale, covered with a fine layer of dust.
39
Cook saw the chain of events perfectly well. Money had been paid for a job to be done. Some of that money had been spent. Some hadn’t. A natural occurrence, like water flowing from high ground to low, some of it making it to the sea, some of it soaking away en route. In Cook’s experience, government money soaked away easiest. Less oversight. No business manager keeping an eye on the bottom line. Just a civil servant whose duties were discharged once the cheque had been written and paperwork collected.
Cook let the anger flow through his body. Better that than the alternative. The voice that Cook knew would have to be reckoned with at some point.
This is why they sent him away to the country.
The bombers had been inevitable. Everyone had agreed. The knockout blow against London. The biggest city in the world. The fattest target. Impossible to defend.
The bomber will always get through.
Half a million children sent to the countryside. With all the mistakes and terrors that had come with it, still a good idea. The right thing to do.
You were trusted with his care. And all you had to do was keep him in Uckfield, keep him safe on the farm.
That voice would be reckoned with. For the rest of his life, most likely. But right now, in the moment, Cook had another conversation running through his head. A conversationwith the man who’d murdered an innocent young lad, through greed or stupidity. Cook didn’t care about the details. His anger was righteous. It demanded satisfaction. Justice, even.
When he reached the drawbridge at the eastern end of the island, an old man in a black coat and a black flat cap emerged from the hut at the side of the bridge.
‘Get that down,’ Cook said.
‘Not sure it’ll work,’ the man said.
‘Get it working,’ Cook said, the tone of his voice not inviting further discussion. The bridge keeper looked at him as if he was thinking of arguing, but thought better of it.
The bridge lowered with a grinding sound that suggested it was performing its last trick, something in the mechanism destroying itself as gravity brought the roadway back down to its resting position.
The ARP girl in the church basement had given up Beaumont’s address without complaint. A quiet road, once-grand houses in various states of genteel decay. Beaumont’s house was at the end, set back from the road, a private location.
A low brick wall along the pavement had small dark holes in the top layer of bricks, every six inches, from where the iron railings had been removed for the war effort. Cook drank with a man in his local who worked in a scrapyard. Told him all the metal that had been donated was useless.
Behind the wall, a thick hedge, and behind the hedge, Cook could make out the rooftops of a substantial house.
The railings may have gone, but an imposing wrought-iron gate remained. A stone footpath led from the gate to the front door. Lawns led around both sides.
Cook pulled a black metal handle that hung by the front door, and a bell rang inside the house. He waited. He’d walked from the destroyed shelter in righteous anger. But now hefound himself standing on a doorstep, cap in hand, like a travelling salesman.
No one came to the door. No sound of footsteps on the stairs, no scrape of chair on floor. Cook stepped back and looked up at the house. Nothing. He stepped forward and pulled the handle again, let the bell ring, then repeated the action. Insistent. He stepped back and looked up at the window.
The ARP girl had said Beaumont had been fleeing the city at night. Epping Forest, she’d said. A coward’s way out.
Cook gave the doorbell another tug. The bell jangled deep in the house.
It was a fool’s errand, but he wasn’t ready to admit it. He walked to the side of the house.
The back garden was long. A hundred yards at least. A hundred and fifty perhaps. A line of poplar trees at the far end. Lawn mown with perfect diagonal stripes, flanked by carefully sculpted flower-beds. Halfway down, a fenced vegetable patch. Then, beyond the sprouts and cabbage, right at the back, an arch of corrugated metal.
The grass was covered with a fine powder, looked like snow. Cook left footprints in his wake. Nobody had walked this way since the dust had settled.
He threaded his way through the vegetable patch – neatly laid beds edged with stones. There was a tool shed to the right with a standpipe next to it. Easier than trekking up to the house every time you wanted to water your seedlings. A nice set-up. If you were going to live in the city, this would be how to do it, assuming you had the money.
The shelter was half buried. From ground level it stuck up about three feet. Grass had been laid up to the sides, leaving a small section of exposed metal. Steps down, cut into thesoil and laid with flagstones. Two flowerpots, one either side of the door. A decent effort to cheer the place up.
Cook hammered on the door. Imagined Beaumont cowering inside, waiting for the invasion.
