Whatever was the truth, Quinn felt a bridling of resentment. It would not be the first time he had been sent into the field without being afforded the courtesy of full disclosure.

He experienced a momentary flash of Miss Dillard’s eyes. He had to admit, he did not always tell his men everything that he knew, and sometimes his reasons for withholding information were obscure even to himself.

‘Inchball, you are the one who is most familiar with what’s going on at the German’s.’

‘Yes, guv. I’ve been keepin’ me beady eye on the place ever since I visited it last week.’

‘I trust you were not observed? Dortmunder knows you now.’

‘I’ve been very careful, guv. I’ve taken steps to … err … blend in, you might say. Even my own mother wun’ recognize me.’

Quinn’s involuntary grimace betrayed his unwillingness to know any more about the details of Inchball’s disguise. ‘What is the layout of the street? Would it be possible to set up Macadam with his camera so that he could record the comings and goings?’

‘We could get a vehicle in there from Maiden Lane, guv. If we had a van, we could put Macadam in the back, drill a hole through the side and Fritz is your uncle.’

‘What about that, Macadam? Would you be able to film successfully through a hole in the side of a van?’

‘It should be possible, sir. As soon as we get the film, I could run a test.’

‘You mean they haven’t sent you no film? Bleedin’ typical.’

‘I’m sure the film will turn up in due course, as will the other items I requested, such as the tripod. Oh, and the projector, of course. We will need that to see what we have filmed. In the meantime …’ Macadam opened up the side of the camera, revealing a series of spools and cogs and other mechanisms. There was a set of printed instructions stuck to the inside of the hinged cover. ‘I daresay I can be usefully employed in familiarizing myself with every aspect of the machine’s operation.’

Inchball snorted derisively. ‘While you’re playing with your new toy, I shall get on with some real policing.’

‘What do you have in mind, Inchball?’

‘With your permission, guv, I intend to go back to the barber’s. I have been allowing my whiskers to grow for the last few days expressly for that purpose.’ Inchball drew the fingertips of both hands down across either side of his face.

‘And what do you hope to achieve?’

‘Well, what if I was to let it be known that I’m a copper? What do you think Herr Dortmunder would say to that?’

‘Go on.’

‘So, I’m a copper, righ’. I can get in an’ out of certain highly secure premises, the sort where state secrets are kept. I have keys that can open doors. I even know the combination to some government safes.’

‘What kind of a copper are you?’ challenged Macadam, warming to the subterfuge.

‘I’m the sort what guards the Admiralty, or some of the high-ups in it, say.’

‘Interesting,’ said Quinn.

‘And what if I also let it be known that I am not a happy copper? That I am, in fact, a thoroughly disgruntled copper, ’arbourin’ a grievance against them very high-ups I is supposed to be lookin’ arfter? What if all that – and what if I was also to let slip certain warm words of admiration for the Bismarckian state? What if I were to let slip that there were days when I wished England could be more like Germany? What do you think our friend Fritz Dortmunder would say to all that, guv?’

‘It’s a dangerous game, Inchball. If these men are all that we suspect them to be, then you could be placing yourself in extreme danger.’

Inchball shrugged.

‘By all means go back there for another shave. It will be a good thing if you establish a rapport with this fellow by becoming a regular customer. But don’t, for now, mention anything about being a policeman. Let’s keep that up our sleeve. If we proceed too quickly, he may smell a rat.’

‘May I say I admire the Bismarckian state, guv?’

‘For now, confine yourself to complimenting him on his barbering skills.’

‘Ah, subtle. Very subtle.’

‘It may be enough to hook him at this stage.’

Quinn cast his gaze towards the window. It signalled either his release of Inchball, or his own desire to escape the confines of that room and soar into the pale bleak glimmering sky beyond.

TWELVE

Furled in the darkness, that was how it felt. Macadam was furled, like the film inside his precious camera. Both man and film poised, ready to spring into action.

But the operation was more difficult than he had envisaged. He could not look directly through the camera lens, and using the viewfinder was out of the question because of their concealed location. To get round this, back at the garage, he had drilled two holes in the side of the van. One for the camera to film from. Another, alongside the first, for them to look through. But essentially, he had to rely on guesswork when it came to positioning the camera. He was more or less filming blind.

Naturally, he kept his apprehensions to himself. He was reluctant to give Inchball any ammunition for his constant barrage of mockery. Neither did he want to worry the guv’nor unduly. He would make this thing work. He would justify the guv’nor’s faith in him.

He gripped the crank handle lightly, testing the sprung tension in its resistance. He murmured soothingly to the machine, as if it were an animal that he was about to unleash. At other times, in the potent darkness in the back of the van, he imagined that the camera was an extension of his own being. He almost believed it.

And yes, there was something peculiar about this darkness. It was a darkness born out of bloodshed. A darkness with a vile and sordid history. The vehicle had been impounded because of its involvement in a previous case. It was the means by which that queer-killer had distributed the exsanguinated corpses of renters around London.

He put his eye to the peephole, so that his vision could escape for a moment from these grim associations. But the prospect that greeted him was scarcely more cheery. Bereft, that was the word that came to mind. Bereft of light, and hope. Among the dark, soot-blackened buildings, most with boarded-up windows, the German barbershop was a curious anomaly. It was not surprising that it had caught Inchball’s eye. Admittedly it was at the end of the alley nearest the Strand, just in from the arched passageway that communicated with that thoroughfare. The passageway itself was reasonably well-maintained; it appeared to have received its last coat of whitewash within living memory. The shop could be seen as part of that world, looking out on to the Strand, turning a blind eye to the dilapidation and despair that lay two paces along.

Macadam’s faith in human progress was momentarily shaken. The existence of these houses at the beginning of the twentieth century outraged him. How could people live like this? His outrage settled into an easy disgust.

For reasons of his own, he was more troubled by the effect the alley seemed to have on light. It sucked it up. It was not an excessively bright day to begin with. But what light there was drained away into the porous fabric of that starved and stricken turning. There was a very real possibility that the operation would end in failure.

To make matters worse, he had only been given a single two-hundred-foot-long roll of film to play with, some of which he had already used in the tests he had conducted the previous day. He had not yet been able to see any of the results of the tests, in the first place because the film had not come back from the processor’s, and secondly because there was still no projector to view it on. He couldn’t be sure that he was pointing the camera in exactly the right direction. He was far from certain that there was enough light to effect a successful exposure. There was the very real possibility that he would run all the film he had through the camera without capturing a single decent image.