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.
TEN
The 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.