‘Diaz, our cameraman. And a young compatriot of his, who I believe is his nephew. Inti, the young man is called. Diaz has raised him as his own son.’ Hartmann’s face was suddenly drained of colour.
‘What is the matter, sir?’
‘Diaz and Inti are Chileans.’
‘What of it?’
‘Most of the world’s nitrate is mined in an area of northern Chile called Tarapacá. That is where we … where the London Nitrate Company sources its nitrate.’
‘Where will we find them? Are they staying in the Savoy?’
‘No, we only put the stars and the director up at the Savoy. We found a place for Diaz and his nephew in Islington. We have it on a short let for them.’
‘Do you have the address?’
‘I can certainly find it for you.’
Hartmann looked through a box of index cards. Quinn felt that his fate depended on what card was pulled out.
He hoped to God that his burgeoning fears were misplaced. And that the theory that had given rise to them was mistaken. In short, that Eloise was still alive, and he still had the chance to tell her how sorry he was for what he had said.
FIFTY-TWO
‘Are you all right?’ Eloise asked in English. She sensed the boy’s unease. It was cold in the darkened auditorium of the Islington Porrick’s Palace, and Inti seemed to be shivering. She thought she could hear his teeth chattering. ‘Do you want me to get your uncle?’
He shook his head energetically. An emphatic no.
They had climbed in through a broken window at the back. Diaz had even brought a towel to lay over the window frame so that Eloise would not cut herself on any fragments of glass. ‘Is okay,’ Diaz had reassured her. ‘Mister Porrick no mind. Max say Mister Porrick no mind.’
‘Who is Max?’
‘He work for Mister Porrick. Mister Porrick no mind.’
‘But what are we doing here, Diaz? I don’t understand.’
‘I show you my film. You said you wanted to see my film.’
‘But there is no electricity here. You cannot show it.’
‘I do not need electricity. There is limelight. And I can turn the projector by hand.’
And so Diaz had slipped away, leaving Inti to lead her into the auditorium.
A musty, abandoned smell surrounded them. Tinged with faintly uric wafts.
In the darkness, she sensed the boy’s eyes on her, all the time. She had seen the suffering in his eyes, and could not get it out of her mind. Depths of unimagined suffering. At first she thought it was sorrow for Paul Berenger. But now she knew that it went deeper than that.
‘Where is Diaz?’
It was better when Diaz was there. In Diaz’s eyes there was sorrow, but something else too. A kindliness. A gentleness. The glimmer of human sympathy.
Last night they had come to her rescue, Diaz and Inti, a pair of diminutive guardian angels.
‘Don’t worry. We will look after you,’ Diaz had said, his small, stubby hand clasping her forearm. His eyes poured out their understanding. They were eyes that had seen terrible things, tragedy and horror, but which had grown more human and compassionate as a result.
At the same time she had felt his nephew’s eyes on her, watchful, cold, damaged. She could not bear to think what those eyes, so young and yet so empty, had seen.
‘Why does your nephew live with you?’ she had asked Diaz. ‘What happened to his family?’
‘You do not want to know. Not tonight. There has been too much sadness tonight.’
But as soon as he said that, she knew that she would have no peace until he told her. She would take that pain on too. She had not been able to help Paul. But perhaps there was something she could do for Diaz and his nephew.
And so Diaz had told her Inti’s story, and now she understood the terrible emptiness in the boy’s eyes.
‘I am sorry,’ said Diaz, looking solicitously into her face. ‘I should not have told you.’
‘How can the world allow such horror?’
‘The world does not know,’ said Diaz. ‘One day I tell the world. I make film. I was there. The soldiers not see me. I film it all. One day, the world will see my film. The world will know the truth.’
She thought of Paul. Of his sad, lonely death. Paul had always seemed to have a connection with Diaz. Perhaps he had sensed the Chilean’s suffering, and experienced a feeling of kinship. ‘Has Berenger seen your film?’
Diaz nodded. ‘It is not finish. But some parts of it I show him. He very sad. I hope not my film make him …’
‘When did he see it?’
‘Today. I show him today.’
And she had gasped to hear that. Had the film played a part in pushing Paul over the edge? ‘I wish to see it,’ she had said. She had to know.
She had not wanted to spend the night in the Savoy. No, not there, not in the room next to Paul’s. So Diaz had taken her back to their digs in Islington, giving up his bed for her, while he topped and tailed with his nephew.
She lay in the strange bed, staring up through the strange darkness, lost, alone, adrift. She tried to imagine the scenes that Diaz had described to her, the film she had not yet seen, projected on the ceiling. But they were scenes beyond imagining. And they chased away any more comforting images. She tried to conjure an image of her mother. Her failure only served to remind her how far from home she was. How far from home she always would be.
And what was strangest, perhaps, was that it did not occur to her to be afraid.
FIFTY-THREE
Macadam took the intersection of Pentonville Road and Islington High Street at a reckless lick. The narrow Model T banked and tipped. For a moment, Quinn was convinced that two of the car’s wheels left the road. He instinctively leaned his body against the tilt, as did the be-goggled Macadam in the front. The car righted itself with a bouncing thump. For no good reason, Macadam sounded the horn, as if another driver were to blame for the car’s temporary imbalance.
Quinn looked out and saw the looming bulk of the Angel Hotel sweep by, blotting out the sun in its course. A great brown edifice of substance and mass, it was impossible to conceive of anything less seraphic. And yet it floated past, as if borne away from him on invisible wings of celestial energy.
Soon they were bumping along Upper Street. The conch-like entrance to the abandoned Porrick’s Palace drew his attention. He watched its concavity rotate and vanish as they left it behind.
The address that Hartmann had given him was a rundown property in Almeida Street. Macadam stood in his driving goggles as they waited for the door to be opened, watching Quinn with an inscrutable gaze.
‘What is it, Macadam?’
‘I am concerned, sir.’
‘You needn’t be. Not on my account. If that’s what you mean.’
‘I seem to remember that one of the knives in my pal’s collection was of Chilean origin. A rather vicious-looking hooked blade it had, somewhat like a crow’s beak. If memory serves me right, the weapon is called a corvo.’
‘I see.’
‘Funny how these things come back to you.’
‘I don’t know what I would do without you, Macadam.’
‘I do hope you will be careful, sir. In all respects.’
The door was finally answered by a mildly inebriated middle-aged woman who somehow reminded Quinn of Miss Dillard. He looked into her eyes in the hope of seeing something miraculous there. But they were a murky green colour and stared him down without compassion or intelligence.
Quinn informed her who they were and why they were there. The woman answered that she had seen ‘the funny little foreigners’ go out.
‘Was there a woman with them?’ Quinn asked urgently. ‘You would have noticed her. She is the most extraordinarily beautiful woman you will ever have seen.’
Yes, now that she came to think about it, there had been someone with them, quite possibly a female. Though she couldn’t say for certain that it had been the most extraordinarily beautiful woman she had ever seen.