When they’d come into Cowden, halfway through the journey, Frankie had hurried along the corridor, past the conductor who’d been leaning out of the window, waiting to blow his whistle.
With any luck he’d be safe for the rest of the journey. But he’d have to keep his eyes peeled, just in case.
Frankie took the postcard out of his blazer pocket, and looked at it again. He had a feeling about it. He wanted to show the postcard to his mum. At the very least, he wanted her to see it to know Ruby was all right.
He had a feeling Ruby was trying to send him a message.
If he was right, she was telling him to come and get her.
Of course, he didn’t know where she was, but maybe his mum would know. And if Cook was there, he’d work it out. Cook was good at things like that. He didn’t give up. Cook kept on going and going, until the job was done.
88
The Timeshad stopped reporting the bombings. Didn’t want to give too much away to the Germans. A strange thing, Margaret thought, to be in a city under attack, reading the news, unable to learn what was happening outside your own door. Instead, she had to put up with a lengthy and gushing article about a new musician at the Café Royal, of all things.
The hotel lobby was busy. Across from Margaret, on another settee, a woman was writing in a spiral-bound notebook. The woman was dressed as if she was ready for a safari.
From where she sat, Margaret didn’t have a view of the revolving front door. Judging by the reaction of the man behind the front desk, she had to wonder if Hitler himself had walked in. Who on earth could inspire such a reaction?
It was Cook. Of course it was Cook, sopping wet, dripping on the pristine marble floor, bleeding from a nasty wound on his head. Even from across the lobby, Margaret could smell him. Sewage, definitely. Oil, perhaps. Something else, a memory from the farm. Was it fertiliser?
‘Darling, what on earth happened?’ It was the safari-clad woman, putting down her notebook and rising to meet Cook. For the briefest second he looked past her, and met Margaret’s gaze. She gave him the briefest flicker of a cold smile, then returned to her paper.Gone with the Windwas playing at the Odeon, in technicolour no less. She’d never seen a film incolour – heard it was quite the thing. She checked the showtimes carefully. Nothing worse than arriving halfway through a performance.
When Cook and the American had departed, Margaret judged it was safe to look up from her newspaper. A voice piped up from a nearby armchair – an ancient dowager who Margaret had assumed was either asleep, or dead.
‘Old flame, dear?’
Margaret hadn’t realised she’d been quite so obvious.
‘It’s complicated,’ she said.
‘The best ones usually are, dear,’ the dowager replied.
Margaret folded the paper neatly and rose to go.
‘Worth fighting for, I’d imagine,’ the dowager said, a glint in her eye.
‘Yes,’ Margaret said. ‘Worth fighting for.’
*
Cook lay in the bath, coming to the end of the bar of soap. He’d washed, drained the bath, refilled it, and repeated the cycle three times. The boat crew had told him what happened to people who went in the Thames, especially if they swallowed the water. From the sound of it, he was on borrowed time.
A door closed, and Eleanor joined him. She sat on the toilet, the seat down, and patted his forehead with the flannel. It was still coming away bloody, but the worst of the filth was gone.
‘I’ll pay you back for the clothes,’ he said, ‘once my wallet dries out.’
She’d phoned down to the front desk, put in an order from a tailor on Jermyn Street. His old clothes were already on their way to the incinerator.
‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘It’s all very exciting. I’ve never met a victim of an honest-to-God mob hit before.’
‘Just some people who didn’t like the questions I was asking,’ Cook said.
‘Seems like you struck a nerve.’
‘What do you do when you get to a dead end?’ he asked. ‘When you’re reporting a story.’
She thought about it. One professional to another.
