‘But do you really think it’s possible that watching this film could prompt someone to carry out these attacks?’
‘As yet we don’t know what the attacker’s motivation is. And so, we have to proceed with a general, widespread caution.’
‘But if the attacker is the person who sent me this, and the attacks are related to this – then he formed the intention to carry out the attacks before he saw the film, unless …’
‘Yes, Lord Dunwich.’ Quinn completed the thought that Dunwich had balked from saying: ‘Unless he is connected with the production of the film in some way. The most likely suspect at the moment is Konrad Waechter himself.’
‘But why would Waechter initiate a series of attacks that might lead to the banning of his film?’
‘Like all those of an artistic temperament, Waechter labours under the burden of an immense arrogance. This blinded him to the possibility that his acts might have a consequence that he could not control. At the same time, he is driven by an obsession that is rooted in his disordered psychology.’
‘An obsession?’
‘He is clearly obsessed by eyes. In particular, by the idea of removing them. It is possible that his actions have no logical wellspring. No motivation that you or I would understand. That he is mad, in other words. I intend to study his previous films to understand his psychology more fully.’
‘Are you qualified to undertake such an operation?’
Now it was Quinn’s turn to pause before replying: ‘There are resources outside the department that I can draw upon. In the meantime, I will have my men keep a close eye on him.’
‘Very well. If there is nothing more to discuss …’
Quinn felt Lord Dunwich’s fingers probe his eye. ‘I say! Have a care!’
‘I do beg your pardon, Quinn. I’m trying to find the blasted door.’
It was up to Quinn to grope the pitch-black infinity behind him until he teased an opening out of it.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Mika Novak waited out the day in a cheap hotel near King’s Cross station. He knew that they would be looking for him. Night was the best time to move. He had had the foresight to bring with him his case of theatrical make-up. The day had been spent experimenting with different facial hair styles and colours. He decided also to bulk out his body shape by strapping the shrunken musty pillow from the bed around his torso.
The disguise would serve a dual purpose. It would enable him to evade capture by the police. It would also mean that he could slip out of the hotel without the inconvenience of having to settle his bill.
There’s nothing wrong with killing two birds with one stone, thought Novak.
So Dolores was dead. Or Gladys, to give her her real name. No doubt he ought to be more upset about it than he was. If anyone had been able to look into his heart, they might have been surprised to see how little feeling there was for her there. Poor little bitch, was about the extent of the regret he could summon up on her behalf.
He smiled as he thought of the sight that would greet this imaginary spy into his heart: blackness. Utter blackness. The image of a rotten, wizened lump of gristle came to mind. Of something charred and empty.
No doubt it was all very wrong and all that. But he couldn’t make himself feel what he didn’t feel. And all he had to go on were his feelings.
Like fear. The healthy fear that prompts self-preservation. That was why he had run from the room on Dean Street. A sensible enough move, taking everything into account.
Of course, the police would try to pin it on him. They always blamed the husband. That was a laugh, though. Him and Gladys had never got married. There’d never been any talk of it. Nothing could have been further from either of their minds.
Theirs had been entirely a business relationship. Though of course that hadn’t stopped him sampling the merchandise from time to time. Just to make sure it was up to scratch. Quality control, you might call it.
And now, due to unforeseen circumstances, their business dealings had come to an abrupt end. Regrettable perhaps. But Novak had little use for regrets. Regrets were dangerous. You made a mistake, the thing was to move on.
No point crying over spilt milk. Wasn’t that what they said?
And besides, what had happened to Gladys, that wasn’t for him to regret, was it?
The police wouldn’t see it that way, though. They’d try to pin it on him, for sure.
Still, they’d have to catch him first.
Novak pulled back the greasy curtain. The air was thick with smoke the colour of French mustard. He could taste the nearby station through the dirty panes, and the gasworks and the factories along Regent’s Canal, the airborne scum of industry lining his teeth. The factory chimneys pierced and sanctified the murk like giant fingers pointing heavenward. From his third-storey room, Novak had a view over the rooftops of the closely packed houses in the surrounding streets. Or rather of their chimney pots, lying like ruined battlements over a smoking ground.
The settling dusk freighted the smoke with a ponderous gloom. Soon the darkness would be deep enough to encompass him.
He had the money that Dunwich had given him. It was enough to get him across London and out of the country. Once he was on the continent, he’d make his way to Serbia. Look up some distant cousins and put all this behind him.
He could see the future as if it had already happened. The past … the past was nothing but a smear on the grimy, cracked window.
Keep moving, that was the thing. Always, ever, forwards.
He was glad to leave the hotel behind, though the darkness outside was choking. Invisible particles clogged his throat. For a man of his habits and lifestyle, Novak was in many ways a fastidious individual. Paradoxical as it might seem, it was even possible that this was the driving impulse of his character. The need to leave it all behind, the detritus and the waste. The dirty, peeling walls, the flea-ridden bed, the palimpsest stains of previous occupancy. The filthy air. The dead and discarded business partner.
He kept moving through the shrouded streets. But didn’t hurry. It was important to keep his step steady and consistent. No shrinking from the beam of a passing vehicle. No cowering from doorway to doorway. And if there was a street lamp ahead, his step wouldn’t waver or deviate.
You see, it wasn’t just a question of donning false whiskers, dying his hair and stuffing a pillow up his shirt front. He had to become the character. And for that he needed a new walk. He had experimented with a stoop, and then a limp, but rejected them both as too obvious. They would only draw attention, when what he wanted was a walk that would render him invisible.
Novak looked upon it as an acting challenge, although his objective was exactly opposite to an actor’s. An actor wanted to be noticed, to steal the scene if possible. The audience couldn’t love you if it didn’t see you.
And so it took some self-control to tone down his walk, to draw it organically from the character he was seeking to create. To imagine a man, and then imagine how he would move.
Of course, Novak congratulated himself on understanding all this. There were few actors he knew who would be able to pull this off. They were all such show-offs.
His first real test came at the end of Albion Street. A policeman, held in a cone of yellow light from a street lamp, bobbing on the balls of his feet (Was that why the limeys called them bobbies? he wondered), flexing his wrists against interlocked fingers. Looking for trouble, up and down the street, with one eye larger than the other. They always had one eye larger than the other.
The thing was not to panic. Hold steady. Trust the whiskers. Trust the padding. But most of all, trust the walk.
He passed the bobbing bobby without provoking anything more than a courteous nod of greeting. To which he responded with a more deliberate bow, in keeping with the character that his walk imposed on him. He was careful, at any account, to look the policeman squarely in the eye. The golden rule.