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.

If it wasn’t a joke, he was forced to conclude that it was something more sinister. A warning, perhaps. Or a threat.

You are being watched, it seemed to say. We have our eye on you!

‘We’, yes. For he was sure that a grouping rather than an individual was behind this.

As he had peered down at the object on the floor of his club reading room, he had had the sense that he was being watched right then, that the eye (which was not really an eye) was capable of seeing him. And through the eye, they somehow knew everything there was to know about him. They were watching him there and then. They had been watching him the night before. They had been watching him for weeks, months even. They had witnessed all cavortings and couplings. And now, in sending him this fake eye, they were merely signalling their readiness to make use of everything they had seen. This was the first move in a blackmailing operation, he felt sure.

A chill passed through him. What if they wanted more than money from him? What if they wanted control, or access? What if they were not just some grubby opportunists out for their own profit? What if they were agents of a foreign power?

He imagined the darkness enclosing the loathsome object as it lay dormant in the drawer of his desk. In his mind, it had become the thing that it was meant to represent. It had become an eye. No, it was more than an eye. It was a sentient thing. It could see, but it could also think. It was self-aware. It had intent. It was malign. And it hated the darkness into which he had plunged it. It would bide its time, feasting hungrily on the thin slivers of light that leaked through the cracks in the box. Storing up its hatred. Plotting its revenge.

He knew that the darkness to which he had now consigned it could not contain it forever.

NINE

A wan light seeped thinly through the packed clouds above Whitehall. But straightaway it seemed to retract, as if cowed by the grandiose buildings of government.

Quinn held his head self-consciously high as he strode across Horse Guards Parade. Once or twice he had to blink away the memory of Miss Dillard’s reproachful expression. Her eyes, dewy with disappointment, had become the eyes of his conscience.

Blink!

He had to get on with the job. Duty demanded it. And right now the job consisted solely in striding purposefully across the empty parade ground. That was all that was asked of him for the moment, and on balance he felt himself equal to the task.

The thing was if he did not get on with the job, if he did not continue striding – in other words, if he gave in to the mute reproach of those eyes … No, it did not bear thinking about. That way, madness lay.

Blink!

He allowed the rhythmic crunch of gravel beneath his shoes to signal his determination. It was time to bring some purpose to the investigation. He would have it out with this Admiralty fellow, no matter that he was a lord of the realm. They needed specific information about a real danger; names and photographs of suspect individuals, addresses to be monitored. Details of a concrete plot against which they could pit themselves.

Otherwise his men were just aimlessly prowling.

Ahead of him, the Admiralty Extension was a concrete enough presence. Its very existence was testimony to the dangers the country faced. It had been built with one purpose only, to prepare for war. And even while it was being built, it had grown in scale from its original conception, spawning additional corridors and offices as its sense of imminent threat increased. At the same time, it had something of the air of a fairytale palace. The baroque frontage, in red brick and white stone, created a fussy pink effect that put Quinn in mind of sleeping princesses, rather than grey, frock-coated men on a constant war-footing.

He was shown into a high-ceilinged room that for all its daunting scale still managed to seem gloomy. The walls were covered in dark oak panelling worked into elaborate mouldings. The heavy brown field was relieved in places by monumental oil paintings of sea battles in the age of sail. The colours were muted and sombre. The action, static and timeless. Sea foam frozen in a wall of spray. Sharp tongues of rigid fire, sculptures of smoke cast around silent cannons. Immense charts and maps mounted on boards and stuck with coloured pins were propped up around the room, in a surprisingly haphazard way, giving an air of improvisation and confusion. The blinds were drawn over the windows, presumably to keep out prying eyes.

The room was shared by a number of officials, seated in silence at massive desks. From the solemnity of their expressions, they gave the impression of conducting the most momentous and onerous of tasks. There could be no doubt, they were engaged in nothing less than steering the Empire. One or two looked up as Quinn came in. All those who did, frowned.

Quinn was led to a desk in the far corner of the room, partitioned by a Japanese lacquered screen. The civil servant who escorted him rapped on the screen to attract the attention of the thin, rather anxious-looking man with receding hair and greying temples behind the desk. The man looked up and regarded Quinn through half-moon spectacles, which he pushed up his nose as he lifted his head. His expression was mild, not without kindness.