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The instant she saw them, she knew how good they were. The contrast was sharp, the balance excellent. But when she looked more closely, the real impact struck her. They were laid out in the order in which they were taken. Of the forty-eight exposures altogether, there were ten that he had picked out. She stared, almost mesmerized by the violence of the images. They were at once terrifying and absurd. She knew with sudden insight why some people are terrified of clowns. There was a clownlike look to these people, but it had tipped over from reason to insanity. They were still laughing, but the malice was there, let loose. There was no control to anything. In the silent pictures, she could hear the screaming and feel the heat in her mind.
She looked for the last one, the one she almost dreaded to see. And yet she wanted to. It would all be an anticlimax if she had not caught that dreadful face as it looked into the abyss.
It was there. Perfectly focused. In the subject’s eyes was horror, looking at an endless fall.
She turned away; she could not help it. Her voice came out sounding almost normal. How could it? “Thank you. You have made a superb job of them.”
“Who are you?” the man asked. He was standing between her and the door.
“A photographer,” she replied. “My name doesn’t matter.”
“You’d better take the ones you want. And the negatives. I’ll burn the rest. Pay me what you owe me and go.”
She began to gather them up.
There was a noise out toward the front.
“The back way!” the man commanded. “Get out of here!” He did not want to burn the pictures. He put them in acid.
She pulled out all the money she could afford to give him, slipped the pictures and the negatives into the envelope, and sealed it. Clutching it in her hand, she went out the back door, just beyond the darkroom, and into the yard, and then up the steps to an alleyway.
She cared what was going to happen to the man, but she could not save him. In fact, her presence would only make it worse for him, especially if they found the pictures. She must get them out of Berlin, and back to London. Lucas would see them and know what to do with them. Please God, she would be there to tell him! But if not, he would know.
She went down the alley steps and into the street. Better stay away from the front of the shop. She walked as quickly as she could without running. There were little knots of people standing here and there, heads bent in conversation. Some of them stared toward the photographer’s shop.
But she must get into the main street, where there would be a post box. She had to get rid of the pictures as soon as possible, not only to save herself, but above all to save the pho
tographs.
She glanced once more toward the camera shop. There was a policeman at the door. Had they worked out that she was a photographer? They knew her name. Perhaps they knew her occupation as well? Not very difficult. She must get away from here. She could only hope the shopkeeper would be all right. She had not asked his name, nor given him hers. She felt as if she was abandoning him as she hurried away, but her presence was damning.
A block farther on, she saw a post box and slipped the envelope through the slit. With relief but also a sense of loss she heard it fall inside. She didn’t have it anymore—it couldn’t incriminate her, but neither could she control it.
She walked away. There was nothing left to do now but try to get into the British Embassy and find someone who would give her a passport she could use to get out of Germany.
She was on the right street, she was almost there, just two blocks more to go, when a policeman put his hand on her arm, bringing her to a sudden stop.
“Just a minute, fräulein. There’s been a complaint about you. A woman says that you stole from her. Let me see what you have in your bag.” He wrenched it from her roughly and opened it, saw the camera bag inside, and her few clothes and toiletries. He looked up at her challengingly. “Come with me!”
CHAPTER
24
“Cherry tree. Now,” Howard had said briefly on the telephone. He had not waited for a reply.
Lucas had heard the tension so tight in Howard’s voice that his hand shook as he tried to fasten the lead on Toby’s collar. Toby caught his mood and pulled anxiously. Josephine came to the kitchen door. She did not ask what the matter was.
“Just taking Toby for a walk,” Lucas told her.
“Did he say anything?” she asked, obviously aware he was going to meet Howard.
“Only to be there. I’ll be back as soon as I can…”
He stood up, smiled bleakly, and turned away before he could read the fear in her eyes—or perhaps it was before she could read it in his?
He took the car. It was marginally faster than walking. He parked it at the entrance and walked quickly through the gate and down the path between the swathes of bluebells.
Howard was already there. Toby saw him first, pulled the lead out of Lucas’s hand, went racing along the outlines of the path and then through the flowers.
