The Dark Palace--Murder and mystery in London, 1914 (6 page)

Inti nodded unhesitatingly. Diaz laid the test strips on the winding bench next to the pin-frame and consulted a notebook. This was his shooting record. In it he had written down the length of the shots to be processed and the lighting conditions for each one. In fact, today it had been a simple shoot. One sequence. A stationary object for a detail that Waechter wanted to insert at the last minute into the film they had believed was finished. The lighting had been constant throughout. That meant the film could be processed in one piece, instead of having to be divided up into separate scenes, each needing its own tests and separate times in the development bath.

Inti had been there at the shoot, working as Diaz's assistant, turning the camera crank whenever Diaz needed his hands free to pull the focus or move the camera on its tripod. But there had been little that was technically demanding today. They had simply shot the prop from a number of different angles and distances so that Waechter would have a choice when he came to editing.

The light in the darkroom was switched back to safety. Diaz lifted out the complete reel of film and folded over the end, securing it with one of the pins from his lapel. He fastened this loop of film over one of the central pins on the pin-frame. He nodded for Inti to begin winding.

And now Inti was the spider, spinning a web of celluloid. When he had spun out the entire length of film, Diaz plucked the other pin from his lapel and created a second loop at this end to fasten the film securely on to the frame.

Diaz immersed the frame in the bath of developer. Inti began the stopwatch.

As he watched the second hand in its frantic dash to nowhere, he pictured the images forming in the bath of chemicals.

A single unblinking eye placed on a table top, endlessly repeated.

T
hick clouds squatted over the city, shutting out the infinite and stifling hope. The sun was nowhere to be seen. They had to settle for a dim, filtered pallor and call it daylight.

It seemed that spring had ventured out but quickly lost heart and thrown in the towel. An existential chill filled the vacancy. Quinn donned the herringbone Ulster once again and hunkered down in it as if he never intended to come out. Even when it wasn't raining, you felt that it soon would be. The day was something hostile on the other side of a fragile pane.

Now that the usurper Coddington had been banished, Quinn felt a need to reassert his right to the trademark garment. He wore it not so much to stay warm and dry, rather to confirm his identity, and even to proclaim his triumph.
I am the man who wears the herringbone Ulster
, he seemed to be saying.

Inchball took to the assigned task – of monitoring suspicious German nationals – with a peculiar ugly relish that seemed to match the weather. As soon as Quinn had briefed his sergeants, Inchball announced that there was a German barber's off the Strand that he had had his suspicions about for some time. Quinn attempted to divert his sergeant from what seemed to be an irrational fixation with this particular barber by instructing him to draw up a list of all German businesses, associations and institutions in London. He had some idea that the exercise might enable Inchball to put his suspicions in context, and lead him to an understanding of their arbitrariness. Sifting through various volumes of Kelly's London Directory and Post Office directories certainly served to reinforce Inchball's xenophobia. But the focus of it was still directed almost exclusively against the hapless barber.

‘All these bleedin' Germans 'ave to get their 'air cut somewhere, don' they? Stands to reason. I'll bet you anythin' they all go to this feller off the Strand. Dortmunder. That's 'is name. Fritz Dortmunder. I mean. Summink like that. I ask you. If that ain't the name of a German, I don't know what is.'

‘I don't doubt Herr Dortmunder is German, Inchball,' said Quinn. ‘The question is, is he a spy?'

‘He's more than that! He's a bleedin' spy master. See, all the other spies come to 'im to get their 'air cut, don' they! I'm certain of it. It's the perfect cover. People comin' and goin' all the time without drawin' suspicion. Chattin' away in that lingo of theirs. Who knows what they're talkin' about? Coastal defences in Kent? The Royal Navy's new submarine design? Inland lines of communication? Could be anythin'. We don't know. That's the point. Why don' you let me go there, guv? I'll find out what he's up to.'

‘And how do you propose to do that, Inchball?'

‘I shall masquerade … as a gentleman in need of a haircut.'

‘And then?'

‘Well … and then we shall see.'

‘I don't quite understand, Inchball.'

‘We shall see what we shall see, guv. I know how to keep my eyes open, don't you worry.'

‘For what in particular will you be on the look-out?'

‘What would you say, guv, if a man who was
not
in need of a haircut – nor indeed a shave! – went into a barber's, sat down in a barber's chair, and consented to have a sheet thrown over him and a pair of scissors taken to his neck? This a man, mind, who is in need of neither haircut
nor
shave. What would you say to that, guv?'

Quinn kept his counsel as to what he would say to that.

‘You would say it was suspicious, guv. And you'd be right. You could even go so far as to say it was mighty suspicious.'

‘How do you know that is what you will see?'

‘I already seen it! Yes! With my own bleedin' eyes! And shall I tell you where I saw it? At Fritz bleedin' Dortmunder's. That's where.'

Quinn was not entirely sure that he believed Inchball's tale but in the end he approved the initiative. It would at least keep his sergeant busy for a while. And besides, it was true that Inchball needed a haircut.

Macadam's enthusiasm for kinematography showed no signs of abating. By the middle of Tuesday, Quinn had had enough. He snatched up the copy of the
Kinematograph Enthusiast's Weekly
from which Macadam was fond of reading aloud. The chosen extracts usually propounded the benefits of this or that camera. On the back page, there was an advertisement for the Moy and Bastie Kineto, the latest model to catch the sergeant's eye. ‘Very well, Macadam. Put in a procurement application for one of those and we'll see where it gets you. It will have to go up to the top, you know. I can't approve such expenditure myself.'

‘But you will sign the form?'

A flicker of his eyelids was all the assent Quinn was prepared to give. It was enough for Macadam, whose face lit up with such simple gratitude that Quinn almost felt guilty. He did not expect the application to be successful, and had no intention of going out of his way to support it. And yet, to see a grown man buoyed up with the innocent pleasure of a thirteen-year-old boy promised a toy yacht provoked a kind of nostalgic sympathy.

An unexpected shadow passed over Macadam's face, his head dipped in sudden reticence. ‘With respect, sir, for all the undoubted virtues of the Kineto camera, and it
is
a very good camera; you certainly cannot be faulted in your discernment for choosing it … However, for all its virtues, I am not entirely certain that it is the model I would recommend for the department, sir. I have no wish to impugn your judgement …'

Quinn cut him off. ‘Macadam.'

Sergeant Macadam's eyes widened in hopeless, innocent uncertainty.

‘I don't care about the damned camera.' Quinn dropped the journal back on Macadam's desk.

‘No, sir. I see, sir.'

‘What I mean to say is I shall leave it up to you.'

‘In that case, sir …' Macadam leafed rapidly through the pages of the
Kinematograph Enthusiast's Weekly
as if he feared it would be snatched from his hands again. ‘May I draw your attention to Messrs Butcher and Sons Empire Camera Number Two? It boasts many of the advantages of the Kineto camera which you selected …'

‘I
didn't
select it, Macadam.'

‘The Empire Two can hold its own against the Kineto – that is what I'm saying, sir. And yet, it retails at a significantly – a
significantly
– lower price. What is more, from everything that I have read, this saving is achieved not through any sacrifice of quality, whether in the standard of engineering, manufacture, or the durability of parts. On none of those heads does the Empire Two give ground to the Kineto. Indeed, there are those who would argue that in one or two respects – I don't wish to overstate the case, sir – in one or two respects only, it has the upper hand.'

‘Very well, the Empire Two it is, Macadam.'

‘Although … you may be wondering why I am not recommending the Empire Number
One
Camera, also manufactured by Messrs Butcher and Sons.'

‘I would expect that, Macadam. If they produce the Empire Number Two, I should expect them also to produce the Empire Number One.'

Macadam was momentarily thrown by Quinn's observation. ‘Qu-quite right, sir.'

‘Just complete the procurement form with the details of the camera you recommend and your reasons. I shall sign it and it will go up to Sir Edward.'

‘We shall need a projector too, sir. That goes without saying. As well as film stock and, uhm, there will need to be budgetary provision for processing. I am not sure the photographic lab here at the Yard will be up to it, sir. I could undertake to set up a darkroom myself, of course. It would require further expenditure initially, but …'

‘You are a policeman, Macadam. Not a lab technician. We shall have the films processed elsewhere.'

‘I agree, sir.' Macadam gave an eager nod of obedience. ‘How long do you think it will take, sir, before we have the camera?'

‘I make no promises, Macadam. It is up to you to make the application as compelling as possible.'

‘Sir Edward is a great believer in innovation. I am confident he will see the benefits to the department. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if he extended the use of kinematography across the whole of the Met.'

‘We shall have to see.'

‘At any rate, the sooner we have the camera the better. There is no time like the present, after all. It would be invaluable in the present investigation of the German barber. I could, for instance, set up a concealed camera outside the barbershop and film everyone who comes and goes.'

‘Let us get the camera first,' said Quinn. ‘And then we will decide what to do with it.'

To Quinn's relief, further discussion was cut off by the arrival of the post boy with the latest bundle of internal mail. There was a note from Sir Edward:

Quinn,

Have arranged for you to talk to a chap at the Admiralty for background and guidance. Present yourself to Lord Dunwich, at the Admiralty Extension, 1500 hours today.

Quinn consulted his pocket watch. He had ten minutes to spare.

L
ord Dunwich peered over the screen that separated his desk from the civil servants in his department. He couldn't shake off the feeling that he was being watched. Even here, inside the Admiralty.

He knew that it was absurd, to think like this. But receiving that preposterous object at the club had shaken him.

He sat down at his desk again, opened the drawer where the object was confined, still in its box. He stared at the box for several minutes, as if gazing at it could help him understand it. Then he closed the drawer. He took the further precaution of locking it and pocketing the key.

Thankfully, that day in the club, he had not called for help or drawn any attention to the object itself. There had been that initial involuntary cry, which had brought one or two disapproving glances from over the tops of newspapers. But he had kept his wits about him enough to clear his throat loudly and mutter something about a kipper bone.

The august members had gone back to their papers. And, rearranging his armchair so that he was shielded from further view, he had lowered himself down on to his hands and knees and confronted the object.

He had stared at it for a long time, wondering whether it really could be what it appeared to be.

And it had stared back at him.

He had been reluctant to touch it. The very idea repulsed him. But he knew he had to get rid of it somehow. And so he took a fountain pen from the writing table and prodded the object with that. It did not respond in the way he might have expected an enucleated eye to respond. It was hard, for one thing. The pen made a tapping sound against it and caused the thing to roll.

Is this what happens to eyes when they are removed from their sockets?
he wondered.
They toughen up?

Also, it was too perfect. Too perfectly spherical, and the surface utterly unblemished. Surely a real eye would have lost its shape a little? Become wrinkled, pitted or deflated. And he might have expected the lustre to have faded from it. And where were the tendrils of nerves trailing from the back of it, the loose attachments of gristle and fibre, the specks of gore? The flaws in the surface?

It was immaculate. Gleaming. Polished.

Then he thought back to the way it had bounced and rolled across the floor.

No, it wasn't what he had first thought it to be. It was not an eye, certainly not a human eye. Not even a pig's eye, or an ox's eye.

It was a billiard ball. A white billiard ball, with a blue iris painted on to it.

After the first half-laugh of incredulity and relief, he had to admit he had felt a little disappointed. Cheated, almost. And then, slightly ashamed. He had been taken in. He was the butt of a ridiculous prank. The visceral horror he had felt had been duped out of him, a wasted emotion.

If it was a practical joke, what was the point of it? What
was
the joke? He simply didn't get it. And he couldn't for the life of him think of anyone who might have perpetrated it. His set didn't really go in for this sort of thing. The odd bit of mild ribbing at his expense, perhaps, but nothing as elaborate, or grotesque, as this. It was a question of taste, as well as style. Admittedly in his youth, at Oxford, he had taken part in the usual high jinks and horseplay. But the truth was these days everyone he knew (that is to say, everyone he was prepared to acknowledge knowing) was just too lazy to go to all this trouble.