by Hugh Fraser
When I get to Shepherd’s Bush Green I stop at the Shell station, fill up the tank, buy an A-Z street map and look up the photographer’s address in Wimbledon.
24
I finally find Clarence Road after searching the maze of suburban streets with the map in one hand and the other hand on the steering wheel. I park outside number twenty-three, next to a red Messerschmitt bubble car, which looks a bit out of place among the Hillman Minxes and the Ford Anglias. I walk up the path to the front door of a semidetached house with fresh white pebble-dash and a neat privet hedge round a square of lawn. I ring the bell and after a couple of minutes the door’s opened by a short man of about fifty, with a bald head, glasses and a neat moustache. He’s wearing a yellow short-sleeved pullover and a bow tie. He looks me up and down.
‘You’ve come about the camera?’
‘That’s right,’ I say.
He holds his hand out and says, ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Dom.’
‘Angela,’ I say, and shake his hand.
He stands back to let me in and points to a door on the right.
‘Do you mind waiting in there, while I finish a session in the studio?’
‘That’s ok,’ I say, and walk past him into a living room with a beige leather three-piece suite, a glass coffee table and a TV set in the corner.
‘Won’t be long,’ he says as he closes the door.
My eye is caught by a figure in a photograph above the mantlepiece. As I get close to it I see that it’s Dom, wearing a pointy green hat with a bell on the top, grinning from ear to ear and waving, surrounded by a large crowd of garden gnomes. Below the picture, the mantlepiece is crowded with miniature gnomes, fishing, pushing wheelbarrows, sleeping, laughing and generally having a good time. A few of them at the back of the crowd are naked and looking a bit dodgy.
There’s a big one in a policeman’s uniform in the corner behind the TV, having a good laugh, and in the opposite corner a washerwoman type with a big bosom and her sleeves rolled up, is standing next to a mangle.
As I’m looking round for any more jolly little folk, there’s a bump and a squeal from above, and then the sound of high-pitched voices. The noise gets louder and louder and there are more bumps, and then the patter of feet on the stairs. When the front door slams shut, I go to the window and see three dwarves striding along the path. Two are male and one is female. The lady has a bit of sash cord tied to her ankle and she’s buttoning up her blouse as she walks. One of the men is hopping along with one leg in a pair of trousers and struggling to get the other leg in. When they get to the Messcherschmitt, one of the men opens the top and jumps over the side, into the driving seat, and starts the engine. The woman climbs into the back, unties the sash cord and throws it into the gutter. The other man finally gets his trousers on, hops in beside her, and lets the top down. The engine gives a great whine, the driver lets the clutch in, and the bubble car shoots off up the street.
I sit on the sofa, and while I’m telling myself that I shouldn’t be surprised by anything that any friend of Lizzie’s is up to, Dom puts his head round the door.
‘Shall we look at cameras?’
I follow him along the hall, through the kitchen, and down some steps into a basement room.
Dom switches on the light and opens a cabinet on the wall that has three shelves full of different cameras.
‘Lizzie said you wanted to photograph covertly in low light.’
‘That’s right,’ I say.
He takes a small camera off the shelf that’s got a tube coming out of the side with a small metal box on the end.
‘This is known as a button camera. This one was actually captured from a KGB spy. The idea is that the camera is worn inside a coat, from which a button has been removed, leaving a small hole in the fabric.’ He points to a round disc on the front of the camera. ‘The button, here, which protrudes slightly from the front of the coat, hides a lens which screws onto this subminiature camera. This flexible tube runs into a pocket. You simply place your hand in your coat pocket and squeeze the lever at the end of the tube. Strings then pull open the doors on the centre of the button, and a snapshot is taken at the same time. It is important to wear a loose coat so that no bulge is visible.’
He passes the camera to me and I can feel how light it is.
‘If you don’t need to hide the camera of course there is the Minox B subminiature which is very good in low light with a shutter speed as slow as half a second.’ He picks up a small silver metal camera about four inches long. ‘With an ultra-sensitive film you’ll get a far better image with this, although you do have to hold it up to the eye.’
He pulls the ends of the camera, extending it by a couple of inches.
‘I should be able to do that,’ I say.
‘Oh well, in that case, this is the chap for you.’
He hands it to me. ‘And I can develop and print for you of course.’
The rather eager look on his face, as he says this, makes me think about what kind of complications could occur if someone else sees the pictures. ‘Is there an instant camera that I could use?’
‘Well, yes there is,’ he says, looking slightly disappointed as he reaches to the top shelf. ‘This is the Polaroid Highlander. It will do the job, with or without the flash, but you won’t get the same definition and as you can see, it is considerably larger.’
‘Do I get the pictures right away?’ I ask.
He opens the camera and slides the lens forward then he turns it round, points to a button on the back of the camera and says, ‘You simply take the picture, wait sixty seconds, lift this flap on the back and there’s your photograph.’
‘That’s the one for me,’ I say.
‘Very well. It will cost you one hundred pounds and no one will know you got it from me.’
‘Ok,’ I say.
‘Would you like me to show you how to use it?’
‘I would.’
He closes the camera, opens the flap on the back, takes a small packet off a shelf behind him and shows me how to load the film. He opens the camera again, slides the lens forward, pulls an eyepiece out of the side, and then a square metal frame in front of it.
‘This is the viewfinder.’ He points to a button under the lens. ‘And this is the shutter button.’ He hands me the camera. I press the button and hear it click.
‘I need it to be silent.’
‘Ah, well, you’ll want a blimp.’
‘A what?’
‘A sound blimp.’
He goes to the corner of the room, picks up a small leather briefcase and stands it on the table. He flicks a catch by the handle and the back of the case drops down and opens like a book. I can see wads of foam rubber inside. He pulls a square piece of leather out from the front of the case, leaving a hole about two inches wide in the centre and a smaller hole to the side of it. He takes the camera from me and wedges it into the foam. He takes a step back, lifts the briefcase up and I can see the lens through the hole in the middle, and his eye looking at me through the other one. He holds it still for a moment.
‘Hear anything?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘This will cancel sixty per cent of shutter noise and the Polaroid’s pretty quiet anyway.’
He shows me how to slide the leather piece that covers the holes in the front back in place and snaps the briefcase shut. He hands it to me.
‘And it’s a discreet way to carry the camera.’
I try a few shots, and after a couple of attempts I’ve learnt how to use the thing and managed to convince him that I’m not up for any nude test shots of me, or him, or both of us, so that he can show me the time delay feature. I give him a ton for the camera, add a score for the briefcase, and follow him upstairs. When we get to the kitchen he tries his luck again and asks me if I’d like to come back another time to pose for what he calls some ‘tasteful boudoir shots,’ but I’m saved by the doorbell.
‘That’ll be my next session,’ he says, as he goes
to the front door and opens it to a middle-aged couple. They are both very fat and the lady is holding a Pekinese dog in her arms. Dom greets them and they walk into the hall. The man turns and looks me up and down.
‘Is this the taxidermist?’
I squeeze past the woman with the dog, and walk up the path to the car.
• • •
Lizzie told me that Ringwood Hall is near a village called Kintbury in Berkshire. I stop at a garage on the A4, buy a road map, a torch, and a Cornish pasty. I sit in the car munching the pasty and look for Kintbury on the map. When I find it, I put the edge of the pasty against the scale at the bottom of the map and measure the distance to be about sixty miles. My watch tells me it’s nearly midnight so I reckon I’ll get there sometime after one o’clock. I put the map on the seat next to me, pull out onto the road and wind the Standard up until it’s bowling along comfortably at about sixty-five miles an hour. I turn on the radio but I can’t find Luxembourg or any decent music, only some bloke going on about politics on one station, and a woman talking about how to knit woolly gloves on another. I’m tuning in to some orchestra music with a violin and thinking of how Georgie would like it when a black car pulls alongside and I see a gun barrel pointing at me.
I slam on the brakes and put my head down as a bullet shatters the windscreen. I feel a blast of cold air and pebbles of glass pummel my head and shoulders. The car skids sideways and I look up and see the rear end of the black car in front of me. The shooter is leaning out of the nearside window and taking aim. I take my foot off the brake, shove it into third, floor the accelerator, pull out to try and get past him on the outside but he swings out and blocks me. I brake again, get in behind him and take out the Smith and Wesson. I pull up close to him, swing the car left and take a shot at the head behind the gun poking out of the passenger window. I miss him but he disappears and the black car accelerates. I pull back and shoot for the tyres. When the car lurches to the left and slows, I know I’ve got one. The car lurches right, the shooter leans out again and it’s the ginger haired bloke I last saw in Catford. He fires one at me, and a bullet rips into the roof of the car. I give him a couple back, pull out, overtake and watch them in the mirror as they limp to the side of the road and stop. Nick’s boys are not giving up.
I slow down until the blast of cold air coming through the hole where the windscreen used to be is bearable, and drive for a couple of miles until I see a sign for a place called Pedworth. I turn off and stop the car at a bend in the road. I get out, take off my beret, shake the granules of glass off it and brush myself down. I lean against the car, take a few deep breaths and look up at the new silver moon as it comes out from behind a cloud. There’s no way back now. If I run from this mob, I’ll be running forever until they kill me.
I start the car and drive on slowly until I see the few streetlights of a small village ahead. I pull off the road onto a cart track, bump along it for a bit and turn the car in behind a small barn so that it’s hidden from the road. I get out and walk back to the road and into the village. I pass a pub called the Lord Nelson and walk on down the main street, past the village shop, until I see a Ford Anglia parked up beside the village church which is a good distance from any houses. I pick up a sharp stone, walk past the car, smash the driver’s window and slip round behind the church. When I don’t hear anything, I go back to the car, open the door, and use my knife to get at the ignition wiring. The Anglia starts up first time and I check the fuel gauge and see that the tank’s half full. I drive back to the cart track where I left the Standard, pick up the briefcase and the road map and try to work out how to get to Kintbury and Ringwood Hall.
25
I make good time along the A4 and only get lost once on the country roads before I find myself approaching Ringwood. It’s almost two o’clock when I get to the back lane that runs behind the estate. I get to the wooden gates, pull the Anglia onto the track opposite that leads into the woods and drive along to where I hid my car last time. I take the briefcase off the back seat, lock the door of the Anglia, and make my way back to the road.
I decide not to open the gates, in case there might be someone about, and walk alongside the stone wall until I find a place where there are gaps between the stones that I can use as footholds.
After a couple of tries, I make it to the top of the wall, slide down the other side and land on a bed of leaves. I stay still for a moment and listen to the faint sounds of night creatures among the trees, then I make my way slowly through the woods to the back of the house. I can see the outline of the battlements in the moonlight, like so many fists raised against the sky. Everything seems quiet when I get there so I go to the back door of the old brick building, pick the mortice lock, and walk between the rows of beautiful old touring cars. I reach the trapdoor at the far end that covers the stairs to the basement, where the old sinner got up to his tricks before. I put my pick in the keyhole but find it’s not locked.
I raise the trap a couple of inches, put my ear close to the gap and listen. After a few minutes I’ve heard nothing so I slowly raise the trap, edge down the stairs, and lower it again. I wait at the bottom of the stairs in the darkness and check for any sounds. I take the torch out of my pocket, cover the end with my hand, turn it on and bleed out just enough light to see where I’m going. I move along the corridor, past the door to the room where I hid under the bed.
At the very end I find an alcove and another set of steps curving downwards. I creep down a couple of steps and I can see a faint glow of light which gets brighter as I move slowly down. As I get to the fifth step there’s the sound of a door opening down below. I switch off the torch, nip back up the stairs, open the first door I come to and get behind it. I hear footsteps on the stairs and a light goes on in the corridor. I ease the door open just enough to see the back of Symmonds the butler, in his tailcoat and pinstripes, walking towards the stairs and holding a bunch of keys. I wait until the light goes off and I hear the trap open and close. I open the door, turn on the torch and go down the curving stairs to another passageway that’s a bit narrower than the one above.
There are two doors leading off it, one halfway along on the left and another at the far end. I listen at the first door and try the handle. I make short work of the lock, slowly open the door and the light of the torch falls on a wooden coffin. I feel round the door frame and find a light switch. I turn it on and see that the coffin is of a highly polished dark wood with a picture of a woman with a halo on the top of it. It’s resting on red and purple silk drapes that curve up the walls behind it.
There’s a figure in a black hooded robe kneeling in front of it, holding a child in its arms.
I’m starting to feel sick and a bit faint as I try not to imagine what might be inside the coffin but I remind myself why I’m here and move forward to take a closer look at the kneeling figure.
I’m relieved to see that the child in its arms is made of plaster and the figure is also made of some solid material and has never breathed. The picture on the coffin lid is of a young girl in a black robe with a long sad face and delicate hands held in prayer. The smell that emanates from the coffin as I ease the lid up is anything but delicate, and the young girl lying inside has been dead for some time. I stand back, open up the briefcase and take the camera out. I push the camera lens forward and pull the eyepiece out of the side and the metal frame in front of it. I look through the viewfinder and take a shot of the coffin and the girl. I wait for a minute like he told me then I open the flap on the back and there’s the photo. I take it out, close the flap, step back and take another one of the whole scene with the kneeling figure.
I close the lid of the coffin, switch off the light, go into the corridor and sit on the steps. I open the flap and take out the second picture which has come out well too, even though these ones are no use without the old creeper doing his nasties. I go along to the passageway and put my ear to the door at the far end. When I hear nothing, I do the lock, open the door, shine the
torch round and find a light switch.
There’s a naked girl at the far end of the room. She’s standing on a round shell, like one you’d see on the seashore, only much bigger. She’s got a great long mane of thick brown hair and she’s holding the end of it to cover herself below the waist with one hand, and she’s got the other hand across her breasts. The girl’s face is familiar. I’m sure I know her from somewhere. I walk towards her and recognise Julie, the young tom I sent off to Bournemouth. I go behind her and see that her skin has been sewn onto a wooden frame at the back of her, which is suspended on a line from the ceiling. Her skin has some kind of glaze on it which makes it look as if it’s alive, but it’s cold and clammy to the touch and when I try to move one of her arms it springs back to where it was when I let go of it. I look at those dark eyes that were so full of tears when I put her on the train, and I can see some fine metal clips on her eyelids that are keeping them open. I want to cut her down, pull that wig off her, wrap her in furs and take her off and bury her somewhere well away from these revolting monsters who could do this to a young girl.
As I turn away I notice a slide projector, sitting next to a record player on a table beside the door. I walk over to it, press a switch on the side, and suddenly Julie’s come alive, in a ghostly kind of way, and she’s floating on a lake, under a big sky, with a woman next to her giving her a flowing robe to cover herself. There’s a winged angel, with a girl on his back, flying towards her on the other side.
I switch off the projector, look around for somewhere to hide myself and see a row of wooden packing cases in the corner. I kill the light, turn on the torch, go behind, the packing cases and stack them up so that I’m hidden, with a small window for the camera. I put the briefcase in position, open it and take out the leather flap that covers the holes in the front. I look through the viewfinder and adjust the camera until I’ve got a good shot of the room. I sit on the floor and pull my knees up under my chin. At least it’s warm in this basement. I’m hoping I’m going to get some action tonight, but if I have to wait I will. At least Nick’s lads won’t be able to get at me here. I’m hoping Symmonds being in earlier means that he was preparing the scene for His Lordship.