“A camera? Was there film in there?” Redfyre hunted eagerly through the file.

“Carrying the smirking image of the man about to attack him? No such luck! No film in there at all. It had been removed. Something else that stuck in the Coroner’s throat . . . It was almost comical, hearing him trying to account for that.”

“Last supper? Did you—”

“Possibly an exception to the pattern. Nothing remarkable. Lunch had been eaten on the day of death. Brown Windsor soup, turkey and a mince pie. That selection was available at Aunty’s, the Dorothy and half a dozen city pubs.”

Redfyre pulled the photographs of the general and Icarus towards him and studied them side by side. “There’s something about the presentation . . . a similarity, a quality . . . not of the photographer, he’s one of our lads, but the subject . . .”

Pointing first to the general: “Surely easier to drown him and just abandon the body, don’t you think?” he asked. “Instead, someone lays him out, lounging on the cushions like a sunbather. I’m just surprised that the perpetrator didn’t fit him out with a pair of fashionable sun goggles as worn at Antibes! This was well into daylight? Yes? Elderly gent, sun reflecting off his bald pate, reclining in evening dress for a solitary unpiloted cruise down the river? There must have been someone out there with a pocket Kodak tempted to snap him. Did you enquire? Oh, I say!”

Redfyre had suddenly become still as a pointing hound.

“Christ! I think you’re onto something there!”

The two men looked at each other in dismay and puzzlement, each chasing an insubstantial and teasing thought.

“What the hell’s going on?” MacFarlane wanted to know and then offered his own suggestion. “Some bugger is getting together a little collection? Holiday snaps? Souvenirs? The next offering in the Frith’s series of Beautiful Britain? Is there in some drawer in town a private photo album that would make interesting viewing?”

“Nothing so whimsical, sir. No. I think we’re dealing with a hardheaded killer who knows his business. And who possibly goes to the trouble of photographically recording his . . . accomplishments. A modern perversion? The deviance de nos jours? I don’t think so. He could have been getting away with it for years. Cameras have been portable objects since before the war. They were carried into the trenches in kitbags. You can easily pop a Kodak into your pocket. We’ve got a series of murders—as I think you’ve realised—and it’s on our patch. In our laps. And I don’t think there’d be much help coming from the London Met, even if we asked very nicely. Do you have the resources to handle half a dozen, possibly more, cases, sir?”