The wall of backs parted. Several bewildered, bewhiskered faces turned at once to confront their admonisher. Initial aggression turned to chastened deference when they saw Quinn.

Macadam confirmed their suspicions. ‘That’s right. Special Crimes. It’s our case now. You men better make way.’

There was a moment while the locals filed out. In fact, there had only been three men in there, but the room was small, and the men were big.

The air was dead and stifling, filled with the odours of the night before. Alcohol and cigarette smoke were the strongest, but there were also more obscure and somehow more potent smells. Quinn was able to identify blood, the metallic tang of a body leeching out its life fluids. In the tenebrous gloom, it seemed as though her face had been painted black. But the darkness was especially thick around the left eye, or rather where the left eye had been. He realized it was blood that caked her face, not make-up. There was blood on her throat too, and a glistening disruption of flesh on one side.

Of course, he knew straight away. ‘This is not her. It’s not the girl who was attacked in Cecil Court.’

‘Are you sure, sir?’

‘You saw her, did you not, Macadam?’

‘That I did, sir. But it was dark.’

‘For one thing, it was the other eye. But this girl – this is someone else. This girl is an actress, of sorts. She was in the film, last night. And she was at the premiere. And I believe at the party afterwards.’ Quinn turned back towards the three policemen who were waiting out on the landing. ‘Do you have a name for her?’

One of the men stepped forward with a barely perceptible dip of the head, a gesture in the direction of a bow. His face was sunken-cheeked, its grey pallor tinged by bristles like iron filings. At the sides, the bristles burgeoned into mutton-chop whiskers. ‘The room was rented by a couple by the name of Novak. A neighbour has identified her as the wife. Dolores Novak.’

‘And her husband? Do you know where he is?’

‘Done a bunk, we reckon.’

Quinn nodded. This was consistent with the impression he had formed of the fellow from watching him the night before. ‘Have you circulated a description to the ports? The chances are he will try to get abroad.’

‘We thought of that, guv. He’s a foreigner, see.’

‘And has the medical examiner seen her yet?’

‘He has, guv.’

‘Did he have anything of interest to say?’

‘Cause of death as you’d expect, guv. Loss of blood caused by her wounds.’

‘Wounds?’

‘She had her throat cut as well as her eye taken out. He seemed to think it was a botched job. The entry point of the blade ought to have missed her carotid artery, according to the doctor. But somehow it found it.’

‘So there was a lot of blood?’ Quinn’s question might have seemed redundant, fuelled by simple ghoulishness.

‘You could say that, guv. It was that, coupled with the excessive shock to the heart what did for her. Whoever did this, left her to die.’

‘And her husband, if he was here, did nothing to help her either, it seems. Even if he is not the man who took her eye out.’

‘Neighbours attest to some rum comings and goings in the night, guv. Seems there may have been some other individuals here. No one saw anyone, of course. A question of raised voices.’

‘An altercation?’

‘There may have been. A level of intoxication was attested to. Some kind of party. If you take my meaning.’

Quinn at last identified one of the other lingering smells. ‘Did the medical examiner offer any opinion about whether there had been recent sexual activity?’

‘He did. And there had. Someone had shot their bolt inside her. It may or may not have been her husband. Them other individuals were thought to be men.’

Quinn gave voice to his thoughts: ‘Was she an actress or a prostitute?’ He scanned the room, as if he would find the answer nailed to the wall. ‘Or a little of both, perhaps?’ He remembered the interest the couple had seemed to be taking in Lord Dunwich. ‘Macadam, you stay here and look the crime scene over. You might also see if you can get anything else out of the neighbours.’

‘What am I looking for in particular, sir?’

‘Any evidence of her visitors would be helpful. If someone left in a hurry, there is a chance they might have left something behind.’

Macadam’s ruthless eye was already taking in the room. From his bearing, it was clear that he would consider it a matter of pride to come up with something.

Before he left, Quinn allowed himself one last glance at that centre of darkness in her face. In the dim obscurity of the curtained room it was hard to know what he could see and what he was imagining. The impossible depths of blackness that he had seen in the other cavity came back to him. In truth, they had never been far away. Last night, he had told himself that he never wanted to see that blackness again. Now he realized that was another of his self-deceptions. There was nothing he wanted more than to stare into it. It was with some effort of will that he tore himself away.

THIRTY-SIX

As he turned from the open expanse of Charing Cross Road into the sun-starved alleyway of Cecil Court, Quinn felt a physical chill descend. The events of the previous night came back to him, as if the ghosts of all those involved were now in place. The huddle of men around the screaming girl. Her body racked with uncontrollable shudders. The man who stepped from the carriage and took over with the assumed authority of a doctor. The arrival of the party from Leicester Square. The nasty yapping dog with the eye between its teeth.

The scene replayed itself in his mind. It took on the quality of a kinematograph projection, flickering, grainy, juddering and monochrome. In fact, it was like several films projected simultaneously, and repeatedly. At first, the layered multiplicity of images confused him. It was hard to see through the ever-shifting fog of movement.

But then his perceiving mind got used to the patterns of repetition in the presentation that his subconscious mind was trying to force on him. One detail cut through. The iris of the eye he had held in his hand.

This was the only part of the mental diorama to have colour.

But his mind must have been playing tricks on him. It presented the eye to him as blue. And yet he remembered – not as a visual memory, but as a factual memory – the moment when he had first consciously registered the colour of her eyes.

He had been talking to Lord Dunwich. He had opened the handkerchief in which the eye was wrapped and looked down to see a brown eye looking back at him.

This was why, as Macadam would no doubt remind him, it was so important to gather firm evidence, and subject it to meticulous scientific scrutiny. Memory was unreliable. His own mind could not even agree with itself as to the colour of her eyes. Fortunately, he had retrieved the enucleated eye and sent it for analysis by a pathologist. All that he lacked was the girl from whom it had been taken.

He was admitted by Magnus Porrick, who was apparently on his way out, and highly distraught. He stared wildly into Quinn’s face as they crossed paths on the threshold.

Something about that look persuaded Quinn that he ought to detain Porrick. ‘One moment, sir. I would like to talk to you. There has been a serious development in the case. Please, if you will step back inside.’

‘But I have to find him!’

‘Who?’ For a moment Quinn thought Porrick was referring to the missing Novak.

‘Scudder.’

Quinn was not sure what Porrick had said: a name, an oath, a command, or possibly he had not said anything at all. He had merely emitted a meaningless involuntary sound, like a sneeze. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘My dog, Scudder. He’s gone missing.’

‘That was the animal who found the girl’s eye?’