‘Look,’ Cook said, ‘you seem like a nice girl. And I don’t want to get you into any trouble. I just thought, maybe if Ruby hadn’t been on that bus, but she’s still gone missing, maybe it was to do with her line of work. I thought you might know something about what had happened to her, so I could at least tell her family she was all right.’
Petal looked at Cook for a long time in silence. She was clearly trying to work out what to say.
‘If,’ she said, holding her finger up to stop him interrupting.
‘If,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, keeping a wary eye on the bar, ‘there was any such person, and that such person was working here in the same line of work as I do ...’
She thought more.
‘If everyone thought she was dead on a bus, maybe she decided to walk away. Start again. If there was any such hypothetical person ... whodidget the chance to walk away and start again ... She’d be advised to stay wherever she’s gone.’
‘I understand,’ Cook said.
‘I don’t think you do,’ Petal said. ‘Because it seems to me like you’re trying to find her. And if you find her, and bringher back, she might be in a lot more trouble than if she’d never been found. She might wish she reallyhadbeen on that bus. And it’d be your fault. So maybe we should go upstairs, you can get your three quid’s worth, and then you can fuck off back to whatever hole you’ve crawled out of.’
She sat back in her chair, face flushed, eyes nervously scanning the bar.
Cook opened his wallet again. Took out another pound note.
He slid it across the table.
‘I’m sorry I can’t help you more,’ he said. ‘But I think I can help Ruby. I’m going to take a room. If at any time this evening you think of anything else I might want to know, anything that might help me reassure Ruby’s mum that she’s all right, come and tell me.’
57
Cook took a room. He had to wait behind the butler for a large family of refugees that sat, disconsolately, in the corner of the lobby. Each of them clung onto their trunk as if they were in imminent danger of robbery.
When it was his turn, he asked for the cheapest room available, braving the grimaces of the desk clerk – an ancient, wrinkled gentleman in an impeccable uniform, his starched collar so tightly buttoned around his neck, Cook marvelled that he could breathe.
‘Just the one night, sir?’ the clerk asked, in an accusing tone.
‘Found myself in town unexpectedly,’ Cook said, feeling like a boy who’d been caught scrumping apples.
‘Will you need any help with your luggage, sir?’ the clerk pressed.
‘No luggage,’ Cook admitted.
‘I see,’ the clerk said. He consulted a ledger, moving slowly down the list of entries, as if he was trying to decide whether to grant Cook the beneficence of a stay under the hallowed roof.
‘Early meeting with General Blakeney tomorrow,’ Cook added. Over-egging it, perhaps.
The clerk looked shocked, and glanced at a large poster on a cork board.
Loose Lips Sink Ships
‘Quite right,’ Cook said.
He gave a false name, checking in as Archie Conway. Archie was a sergeant Cook had known in India. He’d died trying to defend a stronghold overlooking the Khyber Pass. Conway had joined up to escape the poverty he’d been born into. A familiar story. But Conway was different. Unlike most of the men, he’d been on a mission to change his circumstances. Rather than going out drinking with the rest of the lads, he’d sent every penny home. He had a sweetheart, used to talk about setting up house with her. Something modest. A few children. A vegetable garden. A job that would keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. A good lad. Archie would never have allowed himself the extravagance of a night at the Empire, so Cook would do it for him.
‘Ruby been in recently?’ Cook asked, as the desk clerk got his key.
‘Sir?’ The clerk had been looking away at the moment Cook had asked, so he’d had a second to set his face. Lucky for Cook, he was a terrible actor. The name clearly meant something to him.
‘Ruby Reynolds,’ Cook said. ‘She told me to look her up, next time I was in town. Said she’d be at the bar.’
The clerk shook his head, and turned the ledger for Cook to sign in. As he did so, another clerk leant over. The two of them conferred.
‘Ruby Reynolds?’ Cook’s clerk asked him.
