Chapter 80
Cook nodded to the bouncer and tossed him another half a crown. The bouncer stepped out of the way and let Cook through, up the sagging stairs, towards the music.
Cook had a plan, in as much as going back to the last person who’d seemed willing to give information was a plan.
In Cook’s experience, when someone grudgingly gave up information, they often held something back, parcelling it out just enough at a time to keep the questioner at bay.
It was certainly a technique that had worked for Cook, when he’d found himself in the uncomfortable position of being under suspicion.
It gave him a certain sympathy for the woman who’d told him about Ruby and the red-headed conman.
Cook sat, and drank, and tried to let the music wash over him, although music was a stretch for what Cook was hearing.
Noises, certainly. Cook guessed they kept the better acts for the peak hours.
Bad news for him. Not so easy to think when you were being confronted by the full range of squawks a trumpet could be forced to produce.
Margaret had put it simply. Either there was a girl out there who needed his help, or there wasn’t.
Fifty-fifty. If there wasn’t, he was wasting his time.
But Cook’s time had no particular value.
If he was hit by a bomb, there’d be a few people who’d mourn his death, but life would go on for all concerned.
Bill Taylor, his farm manager, would keep things ticking over, providing an income for Mum and Uncle Nob, at least for the duration of the war – as long as the government provided a guaranteed market for every bushel of grain his farm could produce.
Frankie would go back to his own people, and Mum would take care of Elizabeth.
The staff door opened a crack, then closed. It had been open for just long enough for Cook to recognise the girl, the one who’d given him the information.
Time to make something happen.
‘Mr Cook,’ a gravelly voice from behind him.
Cook turned. The man was standing. Not the optimal situation. So Cook stood. It was Mr Jones – tailored suit and immaculate tie.
‘You’re becoming a nuisance,’ Mr Jones said. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’
Cook wasn’t worried about Mr Jones. He was an elderly man, his days of being a physical threat long behind him.
Mr Jones stepped aside, and another man stepped out of the shadows. The giant from the hotel.
Cook looked up at the giant. It was a novel experience. Cook was a tall man, not often he found himself looking up. He didn’t like it.
This was the point where an adversary would provide a clue as to his intentions.
A man who knew what he was about, who knew how to use violence and the effect it produced on others, would proceed straight to action.
A head-butt, perhaps, or a blow to the stomach, doubling over the adversary to be followed up with a knee to the face.
A less serious man, one who played to the theatre of the role but didn’t follow through, would talk.
Threatening words would be exchanged, like two dogs barking at each other, both safe in the knowledge their owners wouldn’t let them fight.
The last time they’d met, the giant had seemed open to talking, which Cook saw as promising.
Nevertheless, while hoping for the best, he prepared for the worst. He set his legs, one slightly forward, thigh muscle tensed, so he could spring back if it was a head-butt.
He kept his eyes on the giant’s arms, waiting for a swing – a fist, or a knife.
The blow came from the giant’s right hand, a fast movement, a jab to Cook’s solar plexus.
Cook tensed his stomach muscles. Ten years of swinging bales of hay and sacks of grain, if he’d tried to design a better regimen for this exact moment, he’d have struggled to improve on his life on the farm.
But even so, the blow was as powerful as Cook had ever felt.
Like a horse had kicked him. If he hadn’t been tensing his stomach muscles, it would have crippled him temporarily, doubled him over.
Perhaps even left him with fatal injuries.
Internal bleeding. The kind they said finished off Houdini.
As it was, Cook reeled, stepping backwards, but didn’t go down.
The giant looked down, ready for Cook to double over, ready to put his knee into Cook’s face. So Cook reached up, grabbed the back of the giant’s head and forced it down, bringing his own knee up into the man’s face.
The giant staggered back, his nose disintegrated, hardly any cartilage there to start with.
Blood sheeted down his shirt front. The immaculate suit ruined.
Cook stepped forward with a quick rabbit-punch to the man’s throat, turning slightly with the punch, giving it the weight of his whole body.
The giant gasped, fell back against the far wall of the corridor, clutching his throat.
‘Bloody hell,’ the girl said, stepping out from behind the staff door. ‘You’ve done him in.’
Cook turned back to her.
‘Tell me something else about Ruby,’ he said.
‘Whoever she was working for,’ she said, ‘I think she was trying to get out of it, but they wouldn’t let her. I heard her on the phone once.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. Honest.’
Cook believed her. There were plenty of reasons for her to lie to him, but he believed her nonetheless. A weakness, perhaps.
‘You should stay for a dance,’ she said, winking at him.
‘Another time,’ Cook said, turning back to check on his assailant, who’d gone quiet.
But there was nobody there.
From the corner of his eye, Cook saw the weapon. A crowbar, perhaps. Large, black, incoming.
*
Cook could see the musicians playing, but the angle was wrong.
They were far away, and yet looming over him.
The music sounded like it was coming at him from underwater.
A blessing, at least. He was looking up at the dancer.
She was shouting. She was angry. But he couldn’t hear her.
Then someone must have turned the lights off because everything went dark.