Chapter 51
The farmer had been looking into things.
Acting like some kind of detective. He said he’d be going back to his farm, but he didn’t seem like the kind of man who liked giving up.
He had a quiet confidence. Brought back memories of an old sergeant major, used to stand at the top of the trench, pushing the men into no-man’s-land, then running alongside them as if the bullets wouldn’t ever hit him.
He filled the car from the ARP supply tank.
He’d have to adjust the books, average out the usage, but that would be easy.
He’d come to the realisation at an early age that he was smarter than most people.
He thought quicker, and he saw things they didn’t see.
Another thing he’d realised, most people play by the rules, and don’t think outside those lines.
You could get a girl into your car, for instance, and they’d see you being a gent.
Giving a girl a lift. Maybe picking up your daughter. Maybe you were sent to collect her.
East India Dock Road was covered with ash, like it had snowed. Glass crunched under the tyres, and he kept his fingers crossed he wouldn’t get a puncture. Be just his luck.
The great East India Dock on his right was a floating graveyard – burnt hulls listing against each other. The stink of it was incredible. Burnt rubber and burnt meat. Ships from all ends of the empire, all that way just to end up twisted metal.
The seafront at Southend was blustery. A cold wind whipped off the North Sea, bringing the smell of salt and seaweed with it. Even a bit of snow in the air, he fancied, carried all the way from Norway.
The beach was covered with barbed wire, but a few patches of sand were accessible. A few brave souls had set up windbreaks, temporary walls of bright striped fabric, held up by sticks hammered into the ground like oversized cricket stumps.
The seafront offered dozens of shops to choose from.
All the same – little stands of postcards, fishing nets, buckets and spades.
The season was coming to an end and the shopkeepers watched him eagerly each time he slowed.
He picked the only shop with other customers in it – a well-dressed couple with two children. A day’s holiday by the sea.
He bought a couple of postcards. One of the pier, one of the front – looked like it had been taken from an aeroplane.
They sold him a couple of stamps to go with the postcards and he bought a pencil as well.
Thinking ahead. No point in having a postcard and a stamp if you find you’ve got nothing to write with when the time comes.
He was fully aware that one day the game would be up. He’d make a mistake, get seen by the wrong person, take the wrong girl. But he didn’t feel like it was coming any time soon.
He should sell up, make the move to the country a full-time thing.
He liked the thought of that. Those farming girls, all fresh rosy cheeks and plump round bodies, always enough food in the house.
The problem with these East End girls – skin and bone most of them.
Halfway to starving to death. Not much to catch a man’s eye, to get his blood stirring.
Ruby was different. She always had been. Always been able to catch his eye, get him thinking about things he shouldn’t be thinking. Still, what was a man supposed to do.
She had it coming, when you thought about it like that.