by R. N. Morris
‘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.
EIGHT
Lord 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.
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.
‘Inspector Quinn to see you, sir,’ said the civil servant. He bowed and retreated into the room.
‘Ah, yes, please do sit down, Inspector.’ Lord Dunwich’s voice was deep and richly toned. His expression relaxed somewhat as he spoke, as if he too found the sound he emitted reassuring. He closed the folder he had been studying, revealing the official stamp of CLASSIFIED on the front of it. He smiled encouragingly at Quinn. There was something undeniably sympathetic about the man. He was not entirely successful at suppressing the weighty matters that troubled him, and yet he clearly took pains to put others at their ease. ‘I understand from Sir Edward that your department is now engaged in counter-espionage work? And that you require some further guidance as to how to conduct your operations?’
‘This is all rather new to us, your lordship.’
‘Please … you may simply call me “sir”. I don’t stand on my dignity here.’
Quinn nodded in gratitude. ‘I do not have a large department, sir. I am naturally concerned about squandering what little resources I have at my disposal. Sir Edward seemed to suggest that it was simply a matter of looking out for suspicious foreigners. But I am at a loss to know what we are to do should we find any.’
&n
bsp; ‘Have you not read Spies of the Kaiser, Inspector?’ Quinn could not be sure, but he thought that Lord Dunwich’s expression was wry, not to say mischievous.
‘That is a work of fiction, is it not, sir?’
‘Is it? Is it really, Inspector? Or is it a polemic?’ Lord Dunwich paused for a moment to give the question due consideration. ‘I think there was a time when that book, and others of its ilk, were dismissed as nonsense. But I have to tell you that they are taken increasingly seriously within the Admiralty.’
‘And so …?’
Lord Dunwich was fingering the classified folder on his desk, as if impatient to get back to it. He looked up at Quinn in some confusion.
‘Would it be permissible to ask for more specific instructions, sir?’
‘Instructions? It’s not a question of instructions, I’m afraid. One either has a talent for this kind of work, or one does not. One has to keep one’s eyes and ears open. If I were you, I would start small. Focus on one specific target.’
‘But how do we identify this target?’
‘We’re looking for German spies, Inspector.’
‘I know that, sir.’
‘What do you think a German spy looks like?’
‘I have no idea, sir.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir.’
‘Put aside your preconceptions – your prejudices. You think you’re looking for men in alpine hats with funny little moustaches and thick accents? No. The consummate German spy will not even appear to be a German. He will be the least likely spy you can imagine.’
‘Someone like you, perhaps, sir?’
Lord Dunwich’s eyes expanded in astonishment. His expression then dissolved into hilarity. ‘I say, Inspector, that’s rather droll! Priceless!’