Chapter 36
‘Nobody’s coming in,’ the guard said. He held a shotgun at his waist, levelled at the crowd. He was scared, and he was right to be.
‘You move yourself out the way right now Jim Brown,’ a woman shouted. ‘There’s a bloody war on, didn’t nobody tell you?’
Jim Brown, with the unenviable task of holding off what looked like it could turn into a mob, took a step backwards. Cook didn’t like the way his finger curled around the trigger.
He was guarding a stairwell. A small brick building behind a formidable iron fence.
Beneath the stairwell, according to Gracie, was one of the safest spaces on the island – a cavernous wine cellar, built to hold thousands and thousands of barrels of the finest wine.
Some of the richest people in the country maintained stocks there.
Hence the security. Strictly no admittance, the signs said.
Jim Brown was there to enforce that rule and he looked like he meant business.
‘How many shells have you got loaded?’ Cook asked.
Jim Brown looked at him, and Cook saw panic in his eyes.
‘I’ll make it easy for you,’ Cook said. ‘The answers range from a minimum of none to a maximum of two. Let’s say it’s two, all right?’
The young man nodded.
‘So what’s your plan? You fire both shells, kill a few people. What do you think’s going to happen after that?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s going to happen after that—’ someone shouted from the crowd.
Cook held up his hand.
‘Nothing’s going to happen because Jim isn’t going to fire his gun,’ Cook said. ‘Jim’s a good lad. He’s got to do his duty, but he can’t go around shooting half the island. So he’s got a problem, and we’ve all got a problem.’
‘If I let you in, you have to promise not to nick anything, and you have to keep it a secret,’ Jim said.
There was a general muttering. Jim raised the gun into the air, away from the crowd. As soon as the gun was out of the equation, the crowd surged, past Jim, through an iron gate, down a spiral staircase cut into the stone wharf.
‘I’m telling the boss this was your idea,’ Jim said to Gracie.
‘Tell him what you want,’ Gracie replied. ‘At least we’ll be alive to tell the tale.’
Cook stepped aside as the crowd flowed in. He wasn’t ready to shelter yet. He was thinking about the building they’d left. A death trap. If he didn’t do something about it, others would find it and take shelter.
Gracie waited with him, watching back along the route they’d just taken.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t seen Frankie,’ she said.