The Dark Palace--Murder and mystery in London, 1914 (7 page)

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.

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.'

‘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!'

‘One of my men wishes to investigate a German barber's shop off the Strand. He believes that he has witnessed suspicious activity there.'

Lord Dunwich shook his head discouragingly. ‘No, no. A classic mistake. That's far too obvious. You must do better than that, I'm afraid.'

Quinn wondered at the speed with which Lord Dunwich dismissed Inchball's initiative.

‘You need to develop your instincts beyond the superficial.'

It was interesting advice. Quinn's instincts were suddenly telling him that he could not entirely trust this man. In fact, he was now more strongly inclined to back Inchball's investigation than he had before.

At any rate, he sensed that he would learn nothing more from continuing the interview. He nodded and rose from his seat. But before he could leave, Lord Dunwich cleared his throat. His voice when he spoke was hesitant and broken. ‘Inspector, what do you know about … green ink?'

‘Green ink?'

‘What does it say about a man if he uses green ink? It is not a colour of ink you see often, is it?'

Quinn frowned. He had seen something written in green ink himself recently. The coincidence struck him as sinister. ‘Blue, blue-black and black are more common. But one does occasionally come across it. It may suggest an Irish connection.'

‘Interesting. Thank you, Inspector. Please keep me informed of how your investigation proceeds. You may write to me here.'

‘Of course.'

‘I will have to get someone to show you out, I'm afraid.' Lord Dunwich picked up a small brass bell which gave an effete tinkle. He then half-rose and offered Quinn his hand, although without looking him in the eye, Quinn noticed. It seemed that whatever was troubling his lordship deterred him from meeting the challenge of another man's gaze.

T
he darkness was hot and damp and scented. He feared it at the same time as he surrendered to it. How stupid he had been, to walk into the enemy's lair, to place himself utterly at the enemy's mercy.

He suspected the towels were infiltrated with some kind of narcotic drug. His face felt as though it was melting. The feeling of warmth and physical dissolution began to spread out. He had to keep his wits about him.

How could he have been so careless? Allowing this man, this patent German, to stand over him with a cut-throat razor in his hand. How had it come to this?

Inchball knew this end of the Strand well, from his days in the Vice Squad. Holywell Street was now demolished; the dealers in rare prints, specialist booksellers and suppliers of French goods were long gone. For years it had been the centre of the city's pornography trade. In some of the upstairs ‘Show Rooms' an even more dubious trade had been conducted. Inchball had a nostalgic sense of the street, just out of sight, always around the next corner, like a street you might look for in a dream but never find. He sensed too the ghosts of all the generations of men who had congregated there, crowding round the window displays and street wares, blocking the traffic and chesting each other out of the way in their tense eagerness to get to the front.

Happy days
, he might have said. You only had to reach out to feel a collar. The punters were so distracted by their appetites that they never saw you coming.

A few echoing footsteps away from the ghost of Holywell Street, the alley in which Dortmunder's barber shop was located had survived the swing of the wrecking ball. Inchball half-suspected that this was because the demolition team had not been able to find it, not because it didn't deserve to be torn down. It was as dirty, dark, crooked and claustrophobic a passageway as any you might find in a medieval town. Once you passed through the whitewashed arch that separated it from the Strand, you entered into a squalid underworld begrimed with black soot, the pavement littered with dank scraps, and broken by great standing puddles into which it was unwise to venture, for fear that they might be bottomless sinkholes. Children dressed in little more than rags clustered in the rotten doorways. Too exhausted to beg, they eyed every intruder with sullen, lifeless suspicion.

It was the shop's location that had first attracted Inchball's attention. Some of the clientele he had noticed frequenting the shop could safely be classified as ‘toffs'. Foreigners, admittedly, but toffs all the same. Why on earth should such men choose this shabby little barber shop in a god-forsaken blind alley? Unless they had some nefarious purpose in going there.

Whatever the guv'nor might say about his plan, there was method to his madness.

The shop front protruded in a bulbous bay, with an old-fashioned leaded window. The sign above it advertised: FRITZ Dortmunder, BARBER.

Another sign, over the door, read: HAIR CUTTING, SHAVING, SHAMPOOING, SINGEING.

The shop was tiny. If you entered it hoping for relief from the narrowness of the alley, you would be disappointed. However, it was certainly spruce inside. The floor was freshly swept. Every surface was spotless. Gleaming implements were arranged in impeccable order. Mirrors glinted. The metallic components of the adjustable chairs shone as if they had just been polished. The air was scented with talc, hair oil and incense, no doubt burning to disguise the inescapable smell of damp and sewer gas.

There were two chairs in the shop. Yet in all the years he had been casually keeping an eye on this place, he had only ever seen one barber working in there, the man he presumed to be Dortmunder. The surplus chair added to the cramped atmosphere. The shop seemed full even before a single customer entered.

Dortmunder was seated in one of the chairs reading a newspaper when Inchball entered. It was an English newspaper, the
Clarion
. Inchball couldn't decide whether this was more or less suspicious than if he had found him reading a German newspaper.