The children’s unruly hilarity scattered. The alley fell suddenly quiet. Macadam could hear the German’s footsteps as he paced round the van. And then, without a further word, the footsteps went away.
THIRTEEN
Only one vertical wall extended to the full height of the department. Usually, in the middle of an investigation, it was covered in photographs of victims, maps, crime-scene diagrams, as well as lists of suspects’ names, together with photographs if available, and any other relevant notes. It was blank now, dully reflecting the wan sunlight from the window opposite, and reflecting also their lack of a case.
Since the fiasco in the van, it had naturally been difficult to continue the surveillance of the barbershop. Inchball had gone through his repertoire of disguises, before settling on the identity of a vagrant and taking up residence in a doorway opposite the shop. He had fallen into a turf war with the other tramp in the street, but had succeeded in seeing the fellow off thanks to his superior physical strength and sobriety. He had only had to tap the man once to knock him to the ground. A blow from which he did not immediately get up. For one sickening moment, Inchball thought he had killed the man. Not that he would regret his passing, simply that it would be another inconvenient distraction. What on earth would he do with the body? Fortunately, Inchball’s brusque encouragements – ‘Come on, ya bastard! On ya feet, ya louse!’ – coupled with a mild toeing, succeeded in rousing him.
As well as taking over the tramp’s patch, he also inherited the attentions of the pissing dog, who seemed to exist solely to add misery to the lives of the abject.
But the main problem with this disguise was that, while it enabled Inchball to linger unobtrusively in the alleyway, it was all too conspicuous elsewhere. It made it impossible for him to follow anyone who came out of the shop and down on to the Strand.
Quinn was especially keen to track down the man they called Hartmann, who appeared to be Dortmunder’s most frequent visitor, despite being – as Inchball continued to point out – ‘as bald as a bleedin’ coot’, and in no obvious need of a shave. Inchball was convinced that it had been Hartmann who had paid off the urchins.
Macadam had sunk into a slough of despond over his failure to record anything significant on the kinematographic camera, and the subsequent abandonment of that particular method of investigation.
Even the arrival of the projector – a Gaumont Chrono – did little to rouse him from his depression. He withdrew into the task of familiarizing himself with its operation and morosely informed Quinn that there was a discrepancy between the voltage of the power supply at the Yard and that required by the machine. The explanation went over Quinn’s head, but what he understood was that another piece of equipment had to be bought: a rheostat. This entailed the submission of a second formal request to the Procurement Department. There was no guarantee they would approve it. In fact, it was likely they would take the view that they had already spent enough on Special Crime’s new toy. Quinn felt sure they would refuse the application, even though the equipment they had already purchased was useless without this new piece of kit, and therefore the money they had spent so far, wasted. At any rate, there would be a delay.
The setback seemed to act as a spur to Macadam. He remembered that he had a pal who was something of a dab hand at all things electrical. The pal was able to lend them a suitable rheostat of his own, which he set up in the department so that Macadam could operate the projector, and spark the electrical arc lamp that provided the illumination.
And so Macadam was able to show them the test footage he had got back from the processors.
They did what they could to turn the department into a kind of picture palace, draping Quinn’s trademark herringbone Ulster over the window to block out the light. It was only a partial success.
However, as the film began to ratchet through the escapement, Quinn felt the same anticipatory excitement – the sense that he was about to witness wonders and magic – that he always experienced when he went to a moving picture show. But as the seeping blurs of grey, white and black began to swoop across the glowing patch of wall, his excitement turned to bemusement. It was hard to tell exactly what he was seeing. Part of the frame was cut off in a block of heavy shade. The rest appeared to be out of focus.
The show was over in a matter of minutes, seconds even. There was an equal interval of deep, contemplative silence. Inchball broke it with a slow, sarcastic hand-clap.
‘There are one or two adjustments to be made,’ admitted Macadam as he removed Quinn’s Ulster from the window. It was a relief to get the light back. ‘I think I know what I have to do. The camera was not in the best position within the van. The lens was partially obscured. And I need to adjust the focus. I evidently made a mistake in calculating the depth of field. It’s all to be expected. Next time … next time, we’ll get it right.’
Quinn felt sorry for his sergeant and so mooted the possibility of setting up the camera in one of the boarded-up houses opposite. However, it turned out that the buildings were far from derelict. The occupants guarded their thresholds with all the jealous pride of suburban householders, but with a more suspicious and leaner glower. There could be no question of prevailing upon their public spiritedness or patriotism. Money might have bought access to a viewpoint, but the venality that allowed that also made them unreliable conspirators. They were just as likely to betray them to the Germans in return for a few bob.
And so Quinn had shifted the focus of the operation away from the shop on to the mysterious Hartmann himself.
He and Macadam took up positions on the Strand, on either side of the arch that led to the alley. Neither of them had seen Hartmann, but Inchball had repeated his incredulous description of the man so often that they felt sure they would recognize him. Should they see a large, bald, mustachioed man enter the passageway, Macadam would follow him in at a discreet distance and seek confirmation from Inchball, who would be in position on the other side.
Macadam’s spirits had rallied decisively when Quinn had held out the prospect of setting up the camera at whatever location they followed Hartmann to.
For Quinn, maintaining his concentration and enthusiasm proved harder. He continued to be visited by the image of Miss Dillard’s reproachful eyes. For example, once when he was looking into a ladies’ outfitters, he noticed that every one of the plaster dummies seemed to possess eyes of the same pewter grey, eyes that were not just like Miss Dillard’s; they were Miss Dillard’s. And every pair of those eyes was turned on him. If it was a sign that his conscience was troubling him, he could not think why. Or at least, why now, more than any other time. He had not spoken to her since the incident on the landing, over a week ago now. In fact, he had avoided all contact with any of his fellow lodgers. And so he had committed no new blunders. Her eyes had nothing fresh to hold against him, unless it was the very fact of his isolation that was the source of her reproach.
The weather continued to be changeable. Brief bursts of sunlight were quickly forgotten in the pervading damp gloom. The constant flow of traffic around them worked in their favour, creating an ever-changing population on the street. No one else was there for long enough to remark on the two men who never seemed to go anywhere. (Quinn took the precaution of flashing his warrant card at the local bobby, in order to forestall any unwanted enquiries from that quarter.)
They took it in turns to break, either to grab a hurried pie or a chop in a cheap restaurant on the Strand, or to take a leak in the public convenience in Fleet Street. The rest of the time they pretended interest in shop windows into which they barely glanced, Macadam because he had one eye on the entrance to the alley, Quinn because … well, it was enough to say his mind was usually elsewhere.
Herr Hartmann did not return to the shop. Dortmunder appeared to live over his shop, alone. When he pulled down the shutters in the evening, a light came on upstairs. As far as they could observe, he went out only to buy provisions from nearby shops. Not only did Hartmann not show, but there were no visitors to the shop at all, at least during the hours that they watched it. Apart from Inchball, who on Thursday afternoon put aside his disguise to return for another shave, Dortmunder did not have a single customer for three days. The incident with the van had clearly spooked Hartmann. Whatever operation he was running from the shop, it appeared to have been shut down. Their surveillance was effectively stalled.