Chapter 74
Thin shards of moonlight illuminated the man. He wore a black trenchcoat, and the brim of his hat kept his face in shadow. Not that it mattered, of course. The gun in his hand was all the information Cook needed.
‘You’re trespassing,’ the man said. ‘Give me one reason why I shouldn’t shoot you both.’
Reynolds stepped forward, and Cook heard the snick of his knife. Cook put his hand on Reynolds’s arm, holding him back. Hard enough to control a situation with an armed assailant. Harder when you’ve got someone else to deal with, even if he’s on your side.
‘ARP,’ Cook said. ‘Your shelter’s not up to standard.’
‘You’re with that girl at the hotel,’ the man said. Cook felt Reynolds move, and he tightened his grip on his arm. Not yet, he wanted to communicate.
Cook scanned the house in the distance. Was the man alone, or had he brought help? He’d seen a movement in the shadows.
‘I’m going to call the police,’ the man said.
‘Please do,’ Cook said. ‘You can explain who you are when they arrive.’
The man was silent.
‘You’ve got no more right to be here than we do,’ Cook said. ‘You’re a fraud. Ruby knew it. That’s why you got rid of her. You’re squatting here, playing the part of the country gent in town for a few days. Trying your luck with the heiresses at the Empire.’
Cook took a step towards the gun. If he could get close enough, he could spring into action.
But the man stepped back.
‘You’re not ARP,’ he said.
‘What have you done with her?’ Reynolds asked.
‘Who?’
‘Ruby,’ Cook said. ‘She saw through your cover story, so you brought her back here.’
‘You’ve got her gas mask,’ Reynolds said.
‘Her gas mask?’ the man asked, like he was putting two and two together. ‘Her?’
Cook inched forwards. He could see the man was thinking, his attention drifting. He’d be thinking about the hotel bar. The young woman he’d been chatting up.
Cook readied himself for the lunge forwards. Grab the arm with the gun. Twist it away.
‘Open the shelter,’ Reynolds demanded.
The man raised the gun to Cook’s head.
‘I suppose you’re going to make me?’ he said.
‘I promise you one thing,’ Reynolds said. ‘If you’ve harmed a hair on her head, you and me are going to have words. No police needed. Just the two of us, until one of us has stopped breathing.’
The man swung the gun towards Reynolds.
Cook took his chance. He hurled himself forwards, rugby-tackling the man, shoulders around the thighs, wrapping him tight, using his weight to push him over.
The man got Cook with a lucky blow to the head, hard enough to jar Cook’s teeth. He felt blood in his mouth.
Cook kept his focus on the gun. He could feel it, in the man’s hand. Fingers to be pried away. A fight to the death, no quarter given. Neither man fighting by the Queensberry rules. Cook took a knee to his stomach. In return he jabbed his elbow – got something soft – the neck, he thought.
Cook felt a weight on top of him. He still had the man pinned down, still struggling to get the gun.
The weight shifted, the same goal – getting the gun.
Another pair of hands wrapped around his, which were wrapped around the man’s fingers.
All trying for the same goal – to get control of the pistol.
The gunshot was deafening – inches from Cook’s ear. Cook rolled away, feeling blood.
Cook stopped rolling, waiting for the pain. But it didn’t come. It wasn’t him.
Reynolds stepped back, the gun in his hand. He ran to the shelter, fired again, this time at the lock.
He pulled the door open and stared into the darkness.
*
Cook knelt by the dying man. He rolled him onto his side to inspect the wound.
The bullet had gone into his chest, a small hole.
His back was another story. Half gone. The bullet had done its job, destroying everything in its path, ripping, churning, blowing through with a building pressure-wave.
Cook lay the man on his back. No sense in pretending there was going to be any recovery.
Reynolds joined him.
‘Where is she?’ Reynolds asked.
Cook was distracted by a sound from the house. He saw Dottie standing at the back door.
The man’s breathing was ragged. A miracle he was still alive.
‘Why should I tell you?’ the man asked, clinging on to anger as if it would see him through.
Cook put his hand on the wound in the chest. Pushed into the inflamed flesh. The man gasped in pain.
‘Tell us, and I’ll stop,’ Cook said.
‘Blown up,’ the man said, hurriedly. ‘On the bus.’
‘You brought her here,’ Cook said. ‘We found her gas mask.’
The man shook his head, gasping for air, his lungs filling with blood.
‘Dead,’ he said. ‘Saw her leave the hotel. Then the explosion.’
‘You’re lying,’ Reynolds said.
‘Found the mask on the street. Should have left it. Sentimental.’
‘Ruby was in your way,’ Cook said. ‘You had to get rid of her.’
‘No,’ the man gasped. ‘We were . . . both working a scam. Got in . . . each other’s way. Not her fault.’
*
Margaret hurried out of the empty house. Nobody had seen her, they’d all had their hands full with the dying man. The crescent was quiet – lots of empty houses judging by the ‘TO LET’ signs.
When she’d followed the young woman from the hotel, she’d imagined she’d get answers.
But now all she had were questions. Of all the people she’d expected to bump into in London, Cook was at the bottom of the list. They’d spent a night in town at the beginning of their courtship.
A hotel in Leicester Square, a dinner in Soho, a fight to the death with two hoodlums in the park.
But Cook was no lover of the city. What was he doing here?
And how was he involved with the confidence trickster?
At least she knew the girl was in safe hands.