‘The boss is very clever, he will help. And Nig will help you also, he arranges the lights and things. Everyone will help. And it is only in the night, when the Studio is closed up … so you can do your daily job and then this one and have some pleasant time …’ Her voice was rough and low, as if she was speaking through a tube of sandpaper, her eyes half closed. ‘And forty pounds cash.’

‘You are all bloody mad,’ said Marcus.

‘Tell you what,’ said Gus Bender suddenly. ‘Why don’t you pop up here this evening, have a shot at a couple of poses? If it’s no go, then no go: you’ll get twenty quid from me, and the hire of the horse and things and you can do what you like about Joseph Goebbels here, that’s up to you. But I don’t see what you stand to lose. It’s all good clean fun, and you would make a useful bit of money. What about it?’

Before Marcus could reply the pale girl pressed his arm. ‘If I come back with you now to your place, where you work, then I can tell you all about it, many things. That would be wise? I have nothing to do. I have nowhere to go … I have plenty of time …’

‘Where’s the receipt then? For the horse?’ said Gus Bender briskly. ‘I’ll sign it and you can leave the things; if you come back this evening. Otherwise you’ll have to take them back now. No use to me without the body, is it? Hardly my fault if the silly bugger gets copped at the docks, is it? And I’m not paying good money for a ruddy stuffed horse I can’t use and only clutters up the place.’ He ran his hand through his grey hair with irritation. ‘Now: look here, all this mucking about, all you have to do is straddle the blasted thing, drape yourself over a couple of paper rocks in a pair of wings, and lean against a tree stump looking holy with a few plastic arrows stuck here and there. That’s all. Nothing to it. Forty quid.’

‘That’s only three poses, boss,’ said Nig, a matchstick stuck between his teeth.

‘Well, the Greek Slave is a column instead of the tree, and no arrows, it doesn’t make any difference to him. A little bit of oil for the highlights and a posing-pouch. Nothing to it. You game?’

‘You’re weird, the lot of you.’

‘You got it on you then? The receipt, delivery receipt?’

Marcus looked down at the pale, earnest face, and the wide, anxious green eyes, the stubby little hands, the nicotined fingers, the airplane slide in the short shaggy hair. He suddenly laughed at her, nodded. She laughed back, her eyes dancing.

‘Fantastic!’ she said, and clapped her hands.