Chapter 49
Cook followed the man and the lad, both of them carrying bundles of bedding. He kept back as far as he could. The lad seemed sharp.
The lad’s father had done a good job of acting distraught about his son, but he knew he wasn’t left behind.
Haw-Haw’s radio programme had been on, running through a list of names – British soldiers who’d apparently turned up in prisoner of war camps.
Impossible to know if it was true or not, but if you were missing someone and you were desperate for news, you’d listen, and you’d listen very carefully.
But the father hadn’t been listening, which meant one thing. The father knew the lad wasn’t sitting in a POW camp, or working as slave labour in a German factory.
The boyfriend wouldn’t have come home if he’d gone AWOL. Too much risk someone would be sniffing about. So he’d likely be lying low, somewhere in the city. Somewhere his dad and brother could meet him, bring him supplies.
The man and the boy walked up to the high road and waited at the bus stop. A problem for Cook. He couldn’t very well join them. There were only a couple of others waiting. It would be impossible for Cook to run up to the bus even at the last minute without alerting them.
The answer presented itself as two buses came along at once.
Both number nine, both headed for Mortlake.
Cook hung back, around the corner, watching as the man and the lad got on the first bus.
He watched them up the stairs, and stayed hidden until the bus pulled away.
Then he hurried to the stop as the second bus pulled in.
It didn’t stop entirely – no need as the first bus had picked up all the passengers, but Cook raised his hand as he jogged to the stop.
The bus slowed enough for Cook to jump on.
‘Where to?’ the conductor asked.
Another problem. The fare depended on the length of the journey, but Cook didn’t know where he’d be getting off, even if he was able to keep an eye on the bus in front.
‘How far to the end?’ Cook asked.
‘Seven pence,’ the conductor said, pulling out a ticket overlaid with a seven. He used a device to punch a hole on the start point and the end – Mortlake – and gave it to Cook.
The roads were quiet heading into town, and the two buses travelled in convoy, close enough that Cook worried he’d be seen if either the man or the lad decided to look out of the back of their bus.
He kept to the lower floor, towards the back, where it would be hardest for them to see him.
At each stop, he kept tabs on who was getting off, and was fairly sure he’d have seen them.
The number nine would go to Piccadilly Circus, then along Piccadilly, past the Lyons, then on to points west – Knightsbridge, Kensington and so on.
The return version of the route the bombed bus was taking.
If the man and the lad were going to Oxford Street, they’d get off at Piccadilly Circus, then either walk up Regent Street, or switch to another bus.
If it was Cook, he’d have walked. The stopping and starting of the buses was annoying, and he got the feeling he’d get further if he was on foot, travelling at his own pace.
Everything was going smoothly until the bus drivers made it more tricky.
Coming along Fleet Street, the bus in front pulled over.
Cook’s bus didn’t slow. No one on board had pulled the cord to alert the driver that they wished to alight, and after the first bus scooped up the people waiting, there was no other reason to stop.
Cook’s bus sailed past the first one, and he turned his head away from the window, in case the man or the lad were looking out.
Now he was in front, in plain sight if the man or the lad were looking out the front of their bus. If he wanted to get off, he’d make the situation worse – walking to the platform on the back of the bus, standing there in full view. He got up and moved further to the front, into the shadows.
Piccadilly Circus was up next, according to the map posted above the windows. The man and the lad would be getting off, heading up Regent Street. Their bus was directly behind his.
He stayed on his own bus until the next stop, halfway along Piccadilly. When the following bus went by he tried to see inside. If the man and boy were still on it, he couldn’t see them. Most likely they’d got off at the last stop, to walk up Regent Street.
Cook realised he was across the road from where Irene’s bus had caught it.
Easy enough to identify, going by the blown-out windows in all the surrounding buildings, boarded up now.
The road had been repaired with a fresh topcoat of asphalt – the crater gone.
Cook’s shoes crunched on the pavement, an odd sound, like he was walking on sandpaper.
The paving slabs glittered with glass dust.
Further down the road, Cook saw the sign for the Lyons tea room. What had Ruby been doing, if she hadn’t been working there? If he could answer that, he’d be a lot closer to working out where she’d gone.