Chapter 101
‘What’s going on?’ Gracie asked as she stepped through the door, into the pub.
Cook and Reynolds followed close behind, wrapped up in their failure.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Reynolds asked, as he saw what Gracie had seen – Frankie sat at the corner table, by the front window, half a cheese sandwich on a plate and a mug of tea in front of him. Annie at his side.
‘He’s got a postcard from Ruby,’ Dottie said, from behind the bar.
Cook realised Frankie didn’t know. He’d left the boy in the dark, thinking his sister was still dead.
Gracie took Frankie’s face in her hands.
‘You’re a good lad,’ she said, kissing him on the forehead. ‘Let’s see it.’
Frankie showed her the postcard, and Gracie pulled her own one from her pocket.
‘Let’s hope she’s all right,’ Gracie said.
Dottie pulled two pints and passed them across the bar to Cook and Reynolds.
‘Now what?’ Reynolds asked.
Cook sipped his pint.
‘Wait for Beaumont to make an appearance,’ he said.
‘What if he doesn’t?’ Reynolds said. ‘What if he knows we’re on to him?’
Frankie ran past them, and Cook heard his footsteps on the wooden stairs. He’d never thought about where the family lived, presumably in rooms above the bar. He could hear Frankie clattering around up there, then the footsteps on the stairs again, coming back down.
‘Look,’ Frankie said. He had another postcard in his hand. A plain one, a simple rectangle of card, space on the front for the stamp and the address, and on the back for the message.
Frankie put this new card on the bar, next to the one he’d got from Ruby.
‘Whose is that chicken-scratch?’ Reynolds asked.
‘That’s mine,’ Frankie said. ‘When I was young.’
‘Last year,’ added Gracie.
‘I sent it home when we went on the holiday. Look!’
Frankie pointed to the picture he’d drawn. Two birds, simple v shapes, above a child’s drawing of a tree – a fat trunk and bushy canopy of leaves.
‘And look!’ he showed them Ruby’s cards, the one to him and the one to Gracie. Both of them had the same picture, but smaller. A little doodle. A whimsical afterthought.
Cook read Frankie’s note, written a year ago when he’d been taken away from his home and shown the countryside.
Come and get me.
He winced. The boy had had the same feeling when he’d been evacuated. And Cook had done precious little to help him settle in, too focused on his own troubles to see how scared the lad had been.
‘Where did they take you?’ Cook asked.
‘Dunno,’ Frankie said. ‘Hours away, in the middle of nowhere.’
Annie smiled.
‘The church does it every year,’ she said. ‘They take a different group of children, give them a taste of the country. I went with Ruby that time, about ten years ago it must have been.’
‘Beaumont’s been scarpering to the country,’ Cook said.
‘So would you lot if you knew what was good for you.’ A voice from the doorway.
Beaumont let the door close behind him.
‘This place is finished,’ he said. ‘You can stay here if you want, but I’m leaving for good.’
‘Not his place,’ Annie said. ‘The church place. Father Ryan’s people own it. Up Essex way.’
‘I didn’t like it,’ Frankie said.
‘That’s the problem,’ Annie said. ‘All these young girls go off to the countryside for their health, come back with secrets.’ She winked at Frankie, who seemed nonplussed by the odd statement.
‘This place,’ Reynolds asked Annie. ‘You know where it is?
‘Course,’ she said. ‘Went up there with the nippers every summer.’