There was still one thread I could follow, however. What Ian Fellowman had told me had also enabled me to work out the role of someone else: Crispin, the man who was to secretly receive Lorelei’s disguised negative.

‘Crispin could get me papers if I needed them, couldn’t he?’ I said to the man in the seedy Soho print store while the presses rumbled in the background.

‘Get the fuck out of my shop,’ he replied in a low growl.

I checked the street. Stephanie the hairdresser was watching, ready in case something happened. The first time I had come here she had told me that producing ‘snide papers’ was one of the shady side lines the print shop operated; and, five months earlier, Lorelei had supplied Crispin with a photograph – the sort of drab, head-and-shoulders picture that you used for passports or visas – hidden in a book. When Fellowman revealed that Lorelei had later asked him for a marriage exit visa – presumably after Crispin had failed to come up with the goods – it was clear what she had wanted here.

‘I’m going nowhere,’ I said. He scoffed at me. ‘No? All right.’ I reached into my purse and pulled out a bundle of notes – some of my winnings from the previous night. His eyes widened at the amount of money I was holding in front of him and he wiped his mouth, as if thinking something over. ‘How much for an exit visa? Will he do it for a hundred? I’ve got more if needs be.’

He was struggling with the decision. His hands seemed to itch for the notes, edging towards mine and flitting back. That told me all I needed to know.

‘Jane!’ It was Stephanie. I looked outside to see three men walking rapidly up the street towards us. ‘Police!’ she shouted.

I froze. I couldn’t afford to have them asking questions and reporting on my movements.

‘Christ, get in the back!’ barked the man. He didn’t want the police speaking to me any more than I did. He lifted the counter and I pressed through into a murky room. It had a paper-strewn desk along one wall, with big windows above; a white-painted stage in one corner was surrounded by photographic lights, and a camera on a tripod pointed at a stool in the centre. In the opposite corner, paint was peeling off what appeared to be an exit to the street.

I heard the shop door open, the bell above it clanking wildly. ‘All right, Toby?’ a gruff voice asked. I pressed myself to the wall beside the doorway. ‘How’s business?’

‘Not been good this month.’

‘I wasn’t actually asking. I don’t care. Come on.’ The cash register opened. I bent my neck around to catch a glimpse. All I could see was the shopkeeper’s back.