‘Give that to me!’ I shouted, snatching for it and hoping someone would hear. He pushed me away again and held me off as he fumbled inside his pockets, drawing out a lighter with no cap. He flicked the wheel and a spark flew up but no flame. He tried again, this time shooting up a bright jet. I didn’t know what the purpose of those images had once been, but I knew they were important enough for him to tear them from me. He put the flame to the corner of the paper bag and I clutched for it again, but he dropped it into a metal tray that someone had discarded on the ground and I had to watch as the paper burned away, briefly leaving the print and the negative. I didn’t understand why he had given me the print, and then followed me to rip it away. The plastic of the negative melted and shrivelled into a black mass before the print caught too. For a second by the light of the flame I saw Lorelei’s face before it turned to ash.

He kicked the tray to shake apart the remains before picking up my handbag and pulling out my identity card. I felt too defeated to attempt to stop him. ‘ “Jane Cawson,” ’ he read from it. ‘Right. I know who you are now. So stay the fuck away from the shop. And if I was you I would forget that name you heard.’

So that was it. That was why he had given me the print – it was only when I had subsequently mentioned Crispin that he had felt danger. There was something threatening about that name, or the man who bore it.

I felt angry afterwards that I had let that happen but still had to find my way to the theatre for Noël Coward’s new play, Three Days Without Wine. Nick might know who Crispin was – one of Lorelei’s friends, possibly. I would have to be subtle about asking him, though.

I passed a squad of young male soldiers dressed up for one of the dances that the state organized with the healthier girls – as chosen by their Pioneers COs or college political officers – in the hope that they would marry and soon have children to add to the strength of the state. Sexual desire and energy were to be harnessed for the march of the Soviet ideal by breeding a little army, we understood. I received a couple of wolf-whistles from the oily-haired young men, but the walk did me good, and I felt better by the time I saw Wyndham’s Theatre’s grand Victorian façade of patchwork bricks and intricate moulding.