‘And you didn’t do anything that might have given the game away?’

  ‘Like what?’

  I shrugged and tried not to imagine – but not imagining is one of those things where the more you try, the more you fail. ‘And he paid you afterwards?’

  ‘No, he’d already paid.’

  ‘Paid you?’

  ‘No, paid the girl he was expecting – or her pander at least, since he obviously hadn’t met her.’

  ‘And what happened to her?’

  ‘Al caught her on her way to the hotel. Recognized her by the carnation and the book. Paid her off, and then paid me to stand in for her – and to make sure he got some good snaps.’

  ‘You must have known him quite well – to call him Al.’

  ‘In my line of business, people like to stick with Christian names. They’re less traceable … Carol.’

  ‘Carol!’ Rachael’s use of my name coincided almost exactly with my mother calling it out across the garden.

  ‘Yes, mum?’

  ‘Do you want coffee?’

  I turned back to Rachael. ‘Coffee?’

  She nodded. She linked her arm around mine and we went back inside.

  *

  It was approaching mid-afternoon when we got back to Brighton. Rachael’s presence had made the whole occasion rather more pleasant than many a lunch with my mother, in that it cut off one regular topic of conversation: the question of when I was going to find myself a nice girl. And for me Rachael was pleasant company in herself, whatever her effect on mum might be.

  That had still left one line of attack open to mum: when was I going to get myself a proper job? It was, apparently, an even more pressing matter now that I had a young lady to look after - didn’t Rachael agree? To my annoyance, Rachael did agree, and took evident pleasure in doing so. We could only leave once I had promised mum that I would get in touch with my great-uncle Graham, who knew everybody in Whitehall and would easily find me gainful employment – if not on his home turf in the War Office then in any one of a dozen other departments. It was the second proposal of a career in the civil service I’d received that week. I probably would call Uncle Graham, but only because he told good stories and paid for dinner. I pictured the scene, and pictured Rachael there too, charming him. But I knew that was unlikely to happen. Today had been a one-off; a departure from the reality to which I had to return.

  I walked with her back to Furze Croft. The return journey was uphill, and it was warmer now, too, but Rachael didn’t seem to display the physical effects of either. At the flats she unlocked the front door and held it open for me. I hadn’t been planning on going up to her apartment – I had things to do – but the gesture was so natural that I’d stepped inside before I’d even had the chance to think about it. Upstairs her flat was just as it had been the previous day, and we took the same seats as before, though she now sat rather than reclined on the chaise longue. I put the parcel that I’d picked up at mum’s on the floor beside me.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Rachael asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Suddenly she lunged forward and grabbed it. ‘Let me guess.’

  She started to squeeze it, like a child with a Christmas present. She grinned. ‘It’s money, isn’t it? Ten-bob notes, I reckon. There must be twenty-five quid in there.’

  She’d judged the thickness precisely, but got the denomination wrong. I held out my hand but she ignored me. She knelt on the floor in front of me, clutching it to her chest. ‘You got all this money and you made us take the bus?’

  ‘It’s not my money,’ I said. ‘It’s just passing through my hands.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Still she kept hold of it.

  ‘It’s for O’Connor … for Al. Or for his widow, at least.’ Some of it was, anyway.

  ‘Oh,’ she said meekly. She handed it back.

  ‘I ought to get over there now,’ I said. I looked at my watch: it was past 3 o’clock.

  ‘You sure you don’t want to spend a little of that money?’ she asked, fixing me directly in the eye. Her voice dropped to a murmur. ‘On something just for you?’

  I understood exactly what she meant. I had fifty pounds in my hand that I could easily call my own, and a beautiful woman kneeling in front of me, offering herself. And of course it wouldn’t come to anything like fifty pounds – though in truth I had no idea what her price might be. A crown – the same as charged for a drawing on the pier? More than that, surely, but how was I supposed to go about asking her?

  And, with that thought, the moment was broken. Perhaps my entire perception of her was broken too – or reconstructed to something resembling the truth. Much as I wanted her it could never be like that, never as a customer – not with any girl. I could pay for their dinner; I could pay for their clothes; as an artist I could even pay them to strip naked and model for me. But somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to pay for the act itself.

  ‘Like I said, I need to go and see his widow.’ I stood up, and so did she. She looked a little disappointed. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘It’s not … you.’

  ‘I should think not!’ she laughed, her mood suddenly changing. It was a façade. She walked over to the door and I followed.

  ‘Anything else at all you remember about this Ernie chap?’ I asked. ‘Nothing distinctive?’

  She thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Nothing really … apart from the accent.’

  ‘But nothing you could say about that, except that he was German?’ It was absurd to hope that she’d be able to distinguish the intonation of a Bavarian from a Prussian.

  ‘German? No, he wasn’t German.’

  ‘But you said the accent.’

  ‘He had an accent all right, but not German. He was a Geordie.’

  CHAPTER 12

  It wasn’t a long distance down from Furze Hill to Eaton Villas, and I walked quickly, trying to drive from my mind the activities that I might have been enjoying instead, but for my own pig-headedness. I pulled the bell and then looked sideways to the bay window, expecting her face to appear, but it didn’t. I heard footsteps in the hall, and then the door opened. It was the man I’d seen at the funeral, whom I’d taken to be Mrs O’Connor’s father. He peered at me, recognizing my face but unable to place it.

  ‘How do you do?’ I said. ‘My name’s Woolf. We saw each other at the funeral yesterday.’

  He smiled and nodded, offering his hand. ‘Baxter,’ he said. ‘Gerald Baxter. Vera’s father. I expect you’ve come to see her.’

  He led me back through the hallway. The ginger cat sat halfway up the stairs, watching us as we passed. We went into the living room and Baxter indicated I should sit down on the sofa. ‘I’ll go and find her,’ he said.

  He left the door leading on to the hall open, but I heard another open and shut beyond. There were voices: his slow and soft against hers, which was raised and coming in short bursts. The nature of their conversation was quite evident, even though I couldn’t make out a single recognizable word. Then there was silence, followed by the same opening and closing of a door, and Baxter returned.

  ‘I’m afraid Vera’s not really feeling up to seeing visitors. You’ll understand, I’m sure, with the funeral only yesterday.’

  ‘That’s quite all right,’ I said, standing. This didn’t have to be done in person. It might be better if it wasn’t. I reached into my pocket.

  ‘She mentioned that you used to work with Alan,’ Baxter continued. ‘A while ago.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And that your flat was where he was killed.’ There was no hint of having drawn any conclusion to accompany those words. He simply conveyed the facts.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘That can’t have been very pleasant for you.’

  I was about to point out that it was less pleasant for O’Connor, but it would have sounded like a joke. ‘It was a shock,’ I said simply. We stood for a few more moments, facing each other uncomfortably.

  ‘Was there anything you’d like me to tell Vera?’ he asked.

  I pulled the money out of my pocket: twenty one-pound notes, held in a roll by an elastic band. I’d split up the fifty pounds as I walked down from Rachael’s: ten for me, twenty here, twenty at my next port of call.

  ‘Just give her this,’ I said. He took the money, but gave it no examination. ‘We were working together on something … when he died,’ I explained. ‘That’s his share.’

  ‘I’ll see she gets it.’

  I wondered if there was some etiquette for the situation. Even to offer the money was to suggest it was some recompense for O’Connor’s death. But it had been his money, and now it should go to the woman he loved – to the women. Baxter showed me to the door.

  I headed west, crossing Sackville Road and on into the neat grid plan of streets that made up Poets’ Corner. I wasn’t sure how many poets lived there, but the streets themselves were each named after some historic master of English verse. Sylvia Clay lived – or had once lived – in the street that took its name from William Cowper. It had been pure chance that I’d been walking along here four years previously, and seen O’Connor kissing a woman at the door of a basement flat, then trotting briskly up the steps to the street. It was at that point he’d caught sight of me. He didn’t know how much I’d seen, but he tried to bluff his way through. He introduced us. I was his business partner, which at the time was entirely the truth. The woman, still at the door, was a potential client. The two of us walked on together and he invented some details of the case she wanted us to investigate – something about a dispute over which side of a family had rightful ownership of some inherited jewellery – but I knew he was lying and I didn’t bother to listen. About a week later I asked him whether we were taking on the case, just to tease him, but he said the situation had been resolved amicably, and I didn’t press it. I’d had no idea how serious their relationship was, or how long-lasting, until I’d seen her at his funeral four years later.

  ‘I thought you might turn up,’ she said, as soon as she opened the door. She’d recognized me as easily as I her.

  ‘May I come in?’

  She said nothing, but turned away and walked back into the flat. I assumed I should follow. Her living room was at the front of the house. It faced north and of the little sunlight that managed to shine on this side of the street, even less made it down below the level of the pavement and through her window. But the place was immaculate, the furniture only a few years old, if that; stylishly modern. If she was a kept woman, she was well kept.

  ‘You’ve got a good memory,’ she said, sitting down in an armchair. She took a cigarette from a box on the table beside her and lit it, but didn’t offer me one.

  ‘You, too,’ I replied. I tried to fathom what it was that O’Connor had seen in her. She was younger than his wife but, once that was taken into account, probably not as good-looking. But, then, maybe I was being shallow. O’Connor might have loved her for other reasons. She certainly had good taste.

  ‘Was it you who telephoned?’ she asked.

  ‘When?’

  ‘On Sunday, to tell me he was dead.’

  ‘That’s not why I called but, yes, it was me. Me who called on Saturday, too, while he was here. He gave me the number.’

  She nodded. ‘I thought so. I didn’t know what had happened to him till then – Sunday, I mean. After that I bought the paper and it was all in there.’

  ‘I’m sorry I broke it to you like that.’

  ‘Better that you did. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the funeral.’

  ‘Can you tell me what happened … on Saturday?’

  ‘He came here around 4 o’clock. We … we spent a few hours together. Once you’d telephoned, he said he’d have to go out. I made him some tea first. Then he grabbed his bag and left.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Half past seven?’

  That fitted in with him meeting me at the station. I still didn’t know whether he’d gone straight from there to my rooms afterwards. ‘Did he come back later?’

  She held back a tear. ‘That was the last time I ever saw him.’

  ‘But you were expecting him? He wasn’t planning to go … home.’ It seemed a cruel word to use in the circumstances.

  ‘He said he’d come back here, to leave his things. I was hoping he’d stay the night.’

  ‘Did you go anywhere, after he’d left?’

  She gave a curt laugh. ‘You think I did it?’

  I didn’t think so for a moment, but that didn’t matter. O’Connor had taught me the process: the questions you had to go through were pretty much the same, whatever you thought. You might confirm something you already knew; you might learn something you didn’t.

  ‘Somebody did,’ I replied simply.

  ‘Why would I? I’ve lost everything.’

  ‘Everything?’ I held up my hand, indicating the room around us. ‘You still have this?’

  ‘For another month. Al paid the rent but I can’t afford it. She’ll get it all in his will.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘He told me. He said he didn’t want to upset her; said he’d make other arrangements for me, but there was no rush.’

  I reached into my pocket and drew out the remaining roll of pound notes. I leaned across and handed it to her. ‘I owed him this,’ I said. ‘I think he’d have wanted you to have it.’ In some way it seemed more insulting to give the money to O’Connor’s mistress, who needed it, than to his wife, who didn’t. If I’d known earlier, I would have given Sylvia the whole forty pounds. I could still have given her my own ten, but I didn’t. The twenty might help keep her going for a few more months, but it would only be delaying the inevitable.

  She took the rubber band off the roll and counted the notes. ‘He said he had some money coming in. I assumed he meant more than this.’

  It didn’t sound like she was questioning my honesty. ‘I think this was supposed to be just the first of much more,’ I said.

  ‘And that’s why he was killed?’

  ‘Seems like it.’ There was no point in hiding it from her. I changed the subject. ‘Have the police been here?’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re the only person who knows about me.’

  I remembered what had happened at O’Connor’s office, just a few minutes’ walk from here. ‘No one been hanging around? No one tried to break in?’

  ‘You think they would?’

  ‘You said he left things here. There might be something that would incriminate the killer.’

  ‘There’s not much.’

  ‘May I look?’

  She thought about it for a few moments, then nodded. ‘Better you than someone else,’ she decided, rising to her feet. She took me to the rear of the flat, to a tiny room lit only by high, narrow windows that peeped into the garden of the house above. ‘This is where he kept all his stuff,’ she said. ‘Mind if I leave you to it?’

  She didn’t wait for an answer, and a moment later I was on my own. There wasn’t that much to go through: a desk and a chair, and on the opposite wall some wooden shelves, but they weren’t full. The desk itself was bare apart from a lamp, which I switched on. Then I turned and examined the shelves.

  My eyes were drawn straight away to the camera. I picked it up. It was a complex-looking thing. I’d had to use cameras in my work more than once, but I wasn’t fascinated by them like O’Connor was. He was always reading about them, always keen to buy the latest model – usually made in Germany. This one had the word ‘Exacta’ etched on its front, above the lens. Below that were ‘Jhagee’ and ‘Dresden’. I wound it on and could feel, from the lack of resistance, that there was no film inside. I pressed the shutter release. Nothing happened. I wound it on and pressed again. This time I heard something – almost imperceptible, but there was the faintest click as the shutter slid across. Even the sound of the wind-on was quieter than I’d have expected. Perhaps O’Connor had chosen this model specifically because of its silent mechanism, or perhaps he’d made some adjustments of his own. Either way, it was an essential feature for the use he had been putting it to. I opened it up but, as I already knew, it was empty.

  I put the camera back where I’d found it and heard the clank of it knocking into some other fragment of metal. I reached right to the back of the shelf and brought out what I found. It was a rectangular piece of brass, about the size and shape of a letterbox. It was pierced by narrow slats, stacked up in four columns. I’d seen something very like it just a couple of days before, though this was a little different. Towards one end, a neat circular hole at been cut out, breaking through the pattern of slats. I picked the camera up again and fitted the two of them together. The lens nestled snugly in the hole. It wouldn’t have been much effort for O’Connor to replace the Metropole’s ventilator cover with his own version, allowing him take his pictures while the camera remained unseen. Metzger wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss.

  I put them both back where I’d found them and glanced up at the spines of the books on the shelf above, but there was nothing of immediate interest. Mostly they were about photography; a couple about fishing. There was a fair bit of fiction there, too. Leaning against them all at one end of the shelf was a black leather-bound volume with nothing inscribed on the spine. I picked it off the shelf and looked at it, but there were no words on the cover either. A strip of elastic held it closed. I sat down at the desk, to see better in the lamplight, and opened it up.

  As I’d suspected, it was a notebook; the one O’Connor had with him when we’d spoken in the Albion. It was about half full of his writing. The first entry was dated 4 December 1937. I glanced at my watch, realising I didn’t have time to read the whole thing now. I flipped through to the most recent entries. The last one read simply ‘Tremaine. Eccleston Square, 28 May, 10pm.’ It was an appointment I’d kept in O’Connor’s place. On the previous page was scribbled my address. It fitted with what I’d already concluded: O’Connor had got me out the way so he could search my rooms. After that I could see the traces of a page having been ripped out, but that wasn’t too suspicious. I remembered the moment O’Connor had done it as he handed me Sylvia Clay’s telephone number. I decided I’d read the rest later. I slipped the notebook into my pocket and stood up again.