Chapter 72
‘She’s not here,’ Cook said.
‘Maybe he did her in, dumped the body,’ Reynolds said.
‘She wrote that postcard,’ Cook said.
‘Could have got her to write it, then done her in,’ Reynolds said, looking at the gas mask.
‘We can wait for him. If he’s at the hotel now, he’ll come back at some point. Then we can have a word. Just us, and him.’
Far off in the house, the phone rang. A loud, jarring sound. Loud enough to be heard clearly in the bedroom, the sound echoing up from the console table in the front hall.
Cook and Reynolds stood in the bedroom, listening.
It rang, again and again. Cook counted. Ten .
. . Eleven . . . Twelve . . . yet still it rang.
Cook didn’t use the phone often. He didn’t have a good sense for how long someone would let it ring.
Ten felt right. He walked to the top of the stairs.
It would stop, he thought, solving his dilemma.
But it didn’t stop.
Cook jogged down the stairs, third floor to second floor. The phone kept ringing.
A warning, perhaps, either to them or to him. Only one person who would call here for them. Only one person who knew they were here.
He ran, second to first floor, grabbed the receiver.
‘Hello?’ he said.
Cook waited for the person at the other end to speak, but no voice came. Then the pips came and then the line cut off, and the dial tone returned.
‘We’re missing something,’ Cook said, looking at the console table. Next to the phone was a torch – black rubber, weatherproof. Put there for emergencies. For power cuts, or times when you’d need to go into the dark.
Underneath the table, a shopping bag filled with blankets. A rudimentary emergency kit, ready for use at short notice.
The kind of bag you’d grab on your way out to the shelter.