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‘The film is back, isn’t it? It’s been over a week.’
    â€˜Oh, it’s back. Yes…’
    â€˜But?’ Jed prompted.
    Behind him the bell hanging over the door jangled as another customer came into the shop. The chemist frowned, and Jed glanced back. A man in a dark suit and blue tie was examining a display of shaving brushes.
    The man spoke without looking at them. ‘No hurry. I’m just looking.’
    The chemist turned back to Jed. ‘I’ll be right back.’ He disappeared into the back room. He returned a few moments later with an envelope stamped with the Kodak logo. He handed it to Jed. ‘There’s no charge.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜A fault, they said. With the film.’
    Jed pulled open the flap of the envelope and tipped out the glossy photographic prints inside. They were all completely black, except for the narrow white border.
    â€˜It happens, apparently.’ The chemist smiled apologetically.
    â€˜So I see,’ Jed muttered. He stuffed the prints back into the envelope. On the way out, he brushed against the man now approaching the counter and muttered an apology.
    The man in the suit smiled thinly, looking at Jed through watery, pale blue eyes. ‘No problem.’
    No problem, Jed thought as he stood outside, breathing in the cold March air. There certainly was a problem. But was it really with the film, or was something more sinister going on? You’re just getting paranoid, he told himself. Pictures taken in the middle of the night without a flash. Of course they were dark. Maybe he’d make out some detail if he examined them closely.
    He slid the envelope into his coat pocket and set off back towards the office.
    Inside the shop, the chemist handed another envelope to the man in the suit. It was identical to the envelope he had given Jed. Except that the photos and negatives inside were not blank. The man in the suit glanced through them, checking everything was in order.
    â€˜You looked at these?’
    The chemist shook his head quickly. ‘No, no, of course not.’
    â€˜Good.’
    The man in the suit handed over several dollar bills. Enough to make the chemist raise his eyebrows.
    â€˜Keep the change,’ the man in the suit told him. Whoever had already seen the pictures when they were developed would be persuaded to forget about them in a similar way. It was a shame, the man thought, that they hadn’t known about them sooner – they could have intercepted the film on the way to the lab.
    He pushed the prints back into the envelope. As he closed it, he glanced at the name written in block capitals on the flap: ‘JED HAINES’.

 
    CHAPTER 4
    It was the speed at which things happened, or rather didn’t, that frustrated Sarah the most. The war itself went in fits and starts – nothing for what seemed like an age, then a flurry of action and activity and news. It was the same in the battle against the Vril.
    After the information from Crowley and Jane, there was a few days of excitement as they tried to interpret what they had discovered. But soon the interest dwindled and the theorising and investigation became a chore. Not that Sarah could do much investigating. She didn’t have an aptitude for code-breaking or seeing patterns like Wiles. She didn’t have the patience for research of Elizabeth Archer or the interest in the occult of Miss Manners. Guy seemed used to the lulls between the action, and Leo Davenport never seemed at a loss for things to do.
    Sarah felt she was rapidly being reduced to Brinkman’s driver. That wasn’t what she’d signed up for, and she wasted no opportunity to tell him so as she ferried him from meeting to conference and back to the Station Z offices.
    So when he called her into his office, she suspected it was to give her yet another pep talk and explain the importance of what they were doing.
    â€˜I know you’re frustrated that