Wright whooped, ran for his clothes and started dressing in a hurry, laughing his head off.

‘You show that to anyone and I’ll fucking skin you!’

‘I show that to anyone,’ I said, ‘and we could both end up in the Glasshouse.’

We didn’t speak for a while after that. We were both so busy – that was the ‘official’ reason. I had mountains of filing to do, he was either doing his pilot training or his boxing training, and that left very little time for me. ‘Had a row, have you?’ hissed Kelsey into my ear one day in the dinner queue. He seems to notice everything.

Then a week later Wright burst into my office again. ‘Come on then, Cecil Beaton, where are these bloody pictures?’

‘I need to book the darkroom. It’s been busy.’ This wasn’t true.

‘Well just bloody get on with it. Come on, Michael, I want to see them. I’ve got loads of orders already.’

‘What for?’

‘Prints, man! Ten by eights! A shilling a shot, nice little earner we’ve got here. Three dozen I’ve sold.’

‘Who to? Who wants pictures of you in your pants?’

‘You’d be surprised. The AOC has ordered ten.’

‘Well, that covers the costs of the paper and the chemicals, then.’

‘And gives us enough for a good weekend on the piss in Blackpool.’

I booked the darkroom, and left a note for Wright with the date and the time. He was waiting for me. He’d even coerced one of his little fans to mount a guard on the door. ‘Don’t want some dozy fucker barging in and spoiling everything.’ I fitted the blackout round the door and turned on the red light.

‘Snug as two bugs in a rug,’ said Wright, lighting a fag in the sleazy glow. ‘All we need now is a band playing, moon in June and all that crap.’

I’d learned the basics of photographic processing at college, but I was out of practice. I rolled the film out of its canister, on to the spool of the developing tank, praying that I wouldn’t fuck it up, that I wouldn’t fog or altogether obliterate the negatives. Wright smoked, keeping up a stream of banter, mostly about his chances in the ring, and his chances with various birds. He seemed to have birds all over the place – around the camp, in the village, and swarming over Blackpool, not to mention back home in London.

Time was up, and I unloaded the tank, pulling the wet film off the reel. It was clear, as clear as could be. Too clear. The dazzling triangle of Wright’s posing briefs stood out as an aggressive black arrow – the kind that convicts wear. I hardly dared look at the final shot. But it was there.

‘Think of it, Mikey, my photo all over the camp. I’m sending it out to the other bloke’s camp as well. Get the wind up him, when he sees what he’s up against, eh? I reckon that one with my guard up, looking at the camera, that’s the best, isn’t it? I checked it out in the mirror. I like it. My forehead’s all furrowed up like Tony Curtis.’