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Access to the darkroom, a former stable, was via an airlock set-up

Two black blankets pegged on clotheslines When Kate came out with the wet contact sheets, Bellaver&039;s pet hypnotist was shining lights into Tho eyes

Marcus Monserrat was a venerable, bowed gent with leg-braces and crutches, deeply suntanned or part-Asian, sporting a neatly trimmed white beard A brain specialist, he&039;d returned from a sojourn in Tibet with a supposed mastery of ancient mesmeric techniques

She re to Tibet and acquiring the power to cloudDiploh Conway, inspired a lost generation of fatheads to freeze their extreri-La, Shambhala or K&039;un-L&039;un Kent Allard, a flier she&039;d known during the First World War, was one of the feho came back With Tibet occupied by Red China, would-be mystics favoured the Maharishis of India She understood serious dark postulants hadabout Ayers Rock soliciting Aboriginal sha, as if there were a crying need for cleverer ways ofpeople

For Monserrat, supernatural powers hadn&039;t meant material wealth He didn&039;t seem to have set out to be an ascetic Once a prosperous Harley Street neurologist, he now had cards up in newsagents&039; in Marylebone High Street His clientele ran to cash custo their nails Kate didn&039;t kno Monserrat came to be on B Division&039;s books He must have helped on previous cases This wasn&039;t the first ti schtu would be a useful trick If it wasn&039;t arrant quackery Which, in Kate&039;s opinion, it was

Nolan sat li-chair, hands in his lap Monserrat had at least got hiinary snaps The subject ake, but unresponsive

Hypnotisressed frohts mounted on one of Nolan&039;s own tripods flashed in arcane sequence With &039;A Whiter Shade of Pale&039; leaking in fro room, the studio was like a duff discotheque Kate wished they&039;d change the record After hours of Procul Harem, she&039;d have taken Any Old Iron&039; or &039;I Was in Kaiser Bill&039;s Bat-Staffel&039; Or, for preference, &039;The Sound of Silence&039;

Bellaver stood to one side, with Griffin and WPC Rogers - who&039;d brought Monserrat to Pottery Lane - and a slim, white-haired, elderly woman Monserrat&039;s as a vae she looked - probably to match her husband Kate had come across that before and was not one to criticise whatever people did to ht-eyed and a little creepy She stared hungrily, fangs out, at the young man under her husband&039;s &039;fluence Kate didn&039;t need a package holiday in India to knohat she was thinking It was a good job Enoch Poasn&039;t here: the expression on Mrs Monserrat&039;s face was exactly what va no response from Nolan

Bellaver, bored, came over to look at the pictures

Any joy?&039; he asked

&039;Fifteen rolls of it,&039; Kate said &039;Lin Tang isprints of every exposure, but here are the contact sheets The Fevre Dreao to the News of the Screws It&039;s what you&039;d expect Rich, beautiful, fa a knees-up&039;

&039;So you don&039;t get invited to Syrie Van Epp&039;s parties?&039;

&039;Please - if I ever fall in with that mob, stake me They&039;re the worst sort of useless&039;

&039;Any pictures of Carol?&039;

&039;Lots At the party, and afterwards&039;

&039;How afterwards?&039;

&039;In a cab, I think And in Maryon Park&039;

Bellaver was reminded of another avenue of inquiry &039;Griffin, have we rousted out last night&039;s taxi drivers?&039;

&039;Yes, Super No luck yet, but if Carol Thatcher went from the boat to the park in the small hours the cabbie should be traceable&039;

&039;If it&039;s easy, it should have been done by now, lad&039;

&039;Yes, Super,&039; said Griffin, looking at his pointy shoes

&039;She ot to the park just before dawn,&039; said Kate &039;There are twilight photos Sun-up is - what? - four, four-thirty, this time of year?&039;

Kate laid out the contact sheets on an artist&039;s table An overhead light brought out the sheen of the photographic paper Coluave Bellaver a ?&039; the policeman asked

&039;Che Squad&039;

The spell in the darkrooht-headed Lack of blood, exposure to sunlight and general irritability orking on her too She wasn&039;t seeing soical order, trying to find a story in theainst instincts and read down coluht be a mistake The sheets read deceptively like a Japanese-Italian photo-comic, but Nolan didn&039;t always catch relevanta record of the last hours of Carol Thatcher&039;s life More false leads than true clues

&039;Let&039;s play Spot the Ball,&039; said Bellaver, peering through the glass &039;Professor, can you haul Golden Boy over here?&039;

Monserrat coo to the table The hypnotist hadthe studio than his subject His wife had to help Annoyed, he tried to shrug off her firrip

Blankly, Nolan stood at the table

&039;Does this ring any bells?&039; the Super asked

&039;He only hearssoftly &039;Look at the pictures, Tho his head and ran his fingers over the wet sheets, as if they were secret rapher s fro about Nolan&039;s pictures was that vampires showed up in them Edwina can&039;t have sprinkled silver talcu experiments with chemical processes and newa way of taking good likenesses of vampires Kodak had marketed a film for the undead in the 1950s, Kate remembered Results were iffy Nolan wasn&039;t fully there yet, and maybe it couldn&039;t be done, but vaative ih and some sketchy or featureless - but they were captured on fil-shots of varaphs in evidence So pictures would not show up in the scandal sheets If Nolan&039;s work continued, contingent upon hie Was Carol&039;s death incidental? Could the real purpose of the cri the art of vanise any of these spooks?&039; Bellaver asked her

&039;Surprisingly, yes,&039; Kate adreen shorts and t-shirt, snogging that actor fro What&039;s his name, Alan Bates? The pretty boy is Paul Durward, an elder who sings a bit I don&039;t know the ware who&039;s all over hih I can&039;t narey man His hair was more bouffant than when she&039;d last seen hilo suit and frilly-fronted, floppy-cuffed orange shirt But his face was congealed death Nolan&039;s process showed up patches of rot on his cheeks and forehead which ht not be visible to the naked eye

&039;Caleb Croft,&039; said Bellaver

Kate shuddered at the name If ever a vampire were amonk-hoods Their faces were indistinct, hollows in the cowls One wore a black-and-white St Bartolph&039;s scarf This year, everyone was seeking a guru The thought of Croft getting his teeth or - worse - That scarf caught her attention Having noticed it once, she saw it over and over Not always on the same person

&039;These pictures,&039; Monserrat said to Nolan &039;They are not last night, they are now Tell us what&039;s happening&039;

&039;I&039;m on a boat,&039; said Nolan &039;It&039;s a trip A far-out trip&039;

&039;Is there a girl?&039; asked the hypnotist

Even deep under the fluence, Nolan sraphed any woman who crossed his viewfinder He even took a few exposures of Lin Tang, who had - soed her outfit two or three tinised fabulous birds froravure Julie Christie, Catherine Cornelius, Sandie Shaw, Moira Kent, Anita Pallenberg, Fontaine Khaled, Julie Ege, Ayesha Brough One shot caught actress- conspiratorially, regarding the ca and predatory Penelope Churchward, who ht Penny was in New York just now, keeping secrets