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‘Wasn’t back till, oooh . . . half past eleven, twelve, something like that. Took my girl out, didn’t I? She thinks I ought to see the doctor about this.’ He cradled his injured finger in the other hand. ‘I was working in a place where they’ve had horses and she’s worried about tetanus.’
    Stratton took the photograph downstairs, where he found Father Shaw still there, sitting with a baleful-looking Mrs Linder. He was obviously attempting to comfort her, although Stratton thought that by the looks of him it should have been the other way round. Neither of them recognised the woman, and nor, when he went up to Mrs Hendry’s garret, did she. PC Canning, having given the photograph a careful once-over and a low whistle, told him that he hadn’t come across any photographs in Lloyd’s room at all, nor any reference to a name with the initials L.R.
    ‘What about a briefcase?’ said Stratton. ‘Or anything that looks like a manuscript?’
    ‘Nothing like that, sir. I’ve looked everywhere – the only place left is under the bed.’
    ‘Fair enough.’ Stratton got down on his knees and lifted up the edge of the candlewick bedspread, where he found a pair of dirty sheets, rolled up, and a large wooden box with a padlock.
    ‘Could be the answer to the mystery, sir,’ said Canning, as he hauled it out onto the rug.
    ‘If the manuscript actually exists,’ said Stratton. ‘Father Shaw and Wintle both knew about it, but they seemed to think it was make-believe.’
    ‘Well,’ said Canning, ‘if it’s anywhere, it’s here. And look what I found . . .’ He leant over and lifted up one corner of the pillow to show a key. ‘Nothing else here with a lock on, so . . .’
    Stratton watched, expectant now in spite of himself, as Canning turned the key, removed the padlock, and threw back the lid with a flourish.
    The box was empty.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Stratton gazed up at the iron-girdered roof of Harringay Arena, and then at the floodlit platform decorated with baskets and urns of flowers, where an enormous choir of women in white blouses and men in dark suits stood waiting under the square black eyes of a battery of film cameras. The place was filling up quickly – audiences of up to twelve thousand, Stratton had heard. Watching the fervent expressions of the people near him, most of whom were twenty or less, he had, despite the preponderance of damp mackintoshes and the crescendo of phlegmy coughing, a sudden, disturbing memory of the newsreels he’d seen of Nazi rallies, the youthful, eager supporters with their upturned faces, waiting to receive the Führer’s message.
    He had to admit that the choir’s singing, when it got under way, was magnificent. ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah’, conducted in a flamboyant style that made Stratton think of a Cup Final. Then Billy Graham himself appeared, slim and handsome, with golden hair that waved back from his brow, made almost a halo by the bright lights. Stratton’s first impression was that he was very small, but then, he told himself, in contrast with the stylised portrait of the face – radiating clean-cut health and strong-jawed sincerity, and a hundred times bigger than life– that had eyeballed him from every street corner for the last month, he would be small, wouldn’t he? Actually, when measured against the other men on the platform, he seemed pretty tall, with an air of smart athleticism – a sportsman in his Olympic suit. When he began to speak, Stratton noticed that he had a microphone attached to his tie, its flex trailing from his jacket, and he suddenly wondered how Jesus had managed to address the five thousand without amplification. Odd that whoever wrote the Bible hadn’t thought to mention that that in itself was a miracle – feeding the buggers, Stratton thought, was nothing in comparison. After all, you could get loaves and fishes from anywhere . . . For God’s sake, he told himself, pay attention. You’re here, so you might as