Lilian Beckworth, a car crash victim.
The Hallam Crescent flat, gutted by fire.
The underpass near Nunhead Station where the Cobb kid was found.
The sixth photo, not a work one, is of Rebecca Riding. The police believed it had been taken less than thirty minutes before her death.
Croft told his lawyer and the police that the photos they found at his house were not taken by him. His camera had been stolen, he said, and then later returned, placed on his front doorstep, wrapped carefully in a Tesco bag. Whoever left it there had not rung the bell. When Croft later developed the film, he found pictures he remembered taking at various sites around Lewisham and Manor Park. He also found the photos of Rebecca Riding.
“The photos are good though, aren’t they, Dennis?” the cop kept saying. “They’re no amateur job. You’re a professional. You remember taking these, surely?”
Croft said he didn’t, and kept saying it. In the end, he could hardly remember, one way or the other.
It was true that they were very fine photographs. He’d spent some time working on them in his darkroom. The excellence of the results surprised even him.
Croft turns away from the photographs and goes back downstairs. In the stuffy living room, they are all waiting, and for a moment, as he returns to his place near the doorway, Croft gets the feeling that he has been lured there on false pretences. He brushes the thought away, sits down on the uncomfortable wooden chair. The hour passes, and at the end of it, Croft cannot remember a single thing that has been said. People are standing, going out into the hallway, pulling on coats. As Croft moves to join them, he feels a hand on his arm. It is Richard Symes.
“Some of us have clubbed together to buy you this,” he says. “Your work means a great deal to us here. We’re hoping this will help you find your feet again.”
He hands Croft a package, a small but heavy something in a red-and-white bag. Croft knows without having to be told that it contains a camera. The gift is so unexpected that he cannot speak. Symes is smiling but it looks like a snarl, and finally it comes to Croft that he has been drugged, that this is what has been wrong all along, it would account for everything.
Drugs in the Bud.
Bennies in the beer.
It’s the only thing that makes sense. Fourboys was right.
Outside, he feels better. The air is cold, bright as a knife. The sensations of nausea and unreality begin to recede. Croft walks smartly away, away from the house, along Sydenham Park Road and all the way to the junction with Dartmouth Road. He stands there, watching the traffic, wondering how much of the past hour was actually real.
The camera is a Canon, a top-of-the-range digital. It is not a hobby camera. Whoever chose it knew exactly what they were getting.
He has given up asking himself why this has been done for him. Having the camera in his hands is like coming alive again. He remembers the dream he had before he was in prison, his idea of giving up the police stuff and going freelance.
He has been taking photographs of the boy, Alexander. They are in the old Leegate shopping precinct just over the road. The boy is in a t-shirt and clean jeans, it is all perfectly harmless. When Croft returns the boy to the pub afterwards, Sandra is behind the bar. There is a complicated bruise on her upper arm, three blotches in a line, like careless fingerprints.
Croft has a bank account now, with his dole money in. He has filled in a couple of application forms for jobs. One is for a cleaning job with Lewisham Council, the other is for a shelf-stacking job at Sainsbury’s. He can afford to buy a drink at the bar.
“Why is the pub called The Old Tiger’s Head?” he asks Sandra McNiece.
“It’s from when it was a coaching inn,” says Sandra. “Tiger used to be a slang word, for footman. Because of the bright costumes they wore.”
“Is that right?” Croft says. Croft briefly imagines a life in which he asks Sandra McNiece to run away with him. They will travel to Scotland, to Ireland, wherever she wants. He will take photos and the boy will go to school. He does not dare to take the daydream any further, but it is sweet, all the same, it is overwhelming.
“That’s boring,” Alex says. “I think it’s because they once found a tiger’s head inside the wardrobe. A mad king killed him and brought him to London, all the way from India.”
Sandra laughs and ruffles his hair. “What funny ideas boys have,” she says. “What are you doing in here, anyway? You should be upstairs.”
Croft buys a small folding table from the junk shop at the end of Lee Road that sells used furniture. He places objects on the table — an empty milk carton, two apples, a Robinson’s jam jar filled with old pennies he found at the back of the wardrobe — and photographs them, sometimes singly, sometimes in different combinations. He places the table in front of the wardrobe, so the objects are shown reflected in the oval mirror. Croft experiments with taking shots that omit the objects themselves and show only their reflections. At first glance, they look like any of the other photos Croft has taken of the objects on the table. They’re not, though; they’re pictures of nothing. Croft finds this idea compelling. He remembers how when Douglas Fourboys was stoned he became terrified of mirrors and refused to go near them. “There are demons on the other side, you know,” he said. “They’re looking for a way through.”
“A way through what?”
“Into our world. Mirrors are weak spots in the fabric of reality. Borges knew it, so did Lovecraft. You have to be careful.”
“You don’t really believe this stuff, do you?” Croft knew he shouldn’t encourage Fourboys, but he couldn’t help it; his stories were so entertaining.
“I believe some of it,” Fourboys said. “You would too, if you knew what I know. There are people who are trying to help the demons to break through. They believe in the rule of chaos, of enlightenment through pain, you know, like the stuff in Hellraiser and in that French film, Martyrs. They call themselves Satan’s Tigers.” Fourboys took a coin out of his pocket and began swivelling it back and forth between his fingers. “If you knew how many of those sickos were on the loose, it would freak you out.”
The next time the boy comes to visit him in his room, Croft shows him how to set up a shot, then lets him take some photographs of the Robinson’s jam jar. Afterwards, Croft takes some photos of Alex’s reflection. He has him sit on the edge of the bed in front of the mirror.
“Try and make yourself small,” Croft says. “Pretend you’re sitting inside a cupboard, or in a very cramped space.”
The boy lifts both his feet up on to the duvet and then hugs his knees. In the mirror shots, he looks pale, paler than he does in real life. It’s as if the mirror has drained away some of his colour.
“What’s in there?” Alex says. He’s staring at the chimney alcove, at the built-in cupboard that Croft has been unable to open.
“I don’t know,” Croft says. “It’s locked.”
“Perhaps it’s treasure,” says the boy.
“If you can find out where the key is, we can have a look.”
“I know what it’ll be.” Alex grins, and Croft sees he has a tooth missing. “It’ll be the tiger’s head.” He throws himself backwards on the bed and makes a growling noise. “I bet that’s where they’ve hidden it.”