‘I go where I see the money going next. There’s no future in manufacturing during peacetime. Once we have rebuilt the cities, people will have more time on their hands. They’ll have money to spend.’
‘They’re turning the theatres into boxing rings, Mr Renalda.’
‘Only while the war lasts.’ He knocked back the rest of his whisky. ‘Afterwards they will pay fortunes to see spectacle. There will be many more young people. We are killing off the older generation. Shows like this are just the start. What humanity wants most is crude sensation.’
‘Really? I thought what humanity wanted most was dignity.’
‘He was a shrewd man,’ May told his biographer decades later. ‘But someone else beat him to his big idea. Two years after Orpheus, a play called Oklahoma! opened, spawning over thirty thousand different productions. It is one of the highest-earning entertainments of all time. Then popular television programmes arrived. Renalda hailed from a shipbuilding family, but he missed the boat. It’s not enough to have vision, you need foresight. I often wonder what happened to him and his dream of entertaining the masses. He was in it for money, not pleasure. That was why success eluded him.’
‘Let’s get back to the murders,’ said the biographer.
‘Tell me something.’ May turned to the tycoon, watching as Renalda’s broad hands absently massaged the steel pins in his knees. ‘Where did we go wrong?’
The magnate sipped his whisky. Drinking dulled the pain of his strapped-up legs. ‘By looking for someone foreign,’ he said at last. ‘I suppose it’s only natural during a time of war. You don’t see it, do you? The English cruelty. That is what your crimes stink of. The culprit is English. You are a cold race. You don’t beat your animals, you’re subtler, less human. This killer does not think of others, he cares only about himself. You could not find him because you, too, are English.’
‘It seems to me that you care only about your company, and the City’s faith in it.’
‘Faith is a fragile thing these days. A good businessman takes nothing personally. It is unfortunate that lives have been lost. This whole war is unfortunate.’
‘Thank you for the advice,’ said May, buttoning his coat. ‘I’ll see you this evening at the theatre, and I will bring the violence to an end. The unit may have been shut down, but it will not stop operating until justice has been served.’
He only wished he was as confident as he sounded.
He left Renalda’s office and walked into the dimly lit corridor, where his eye was caught by the ornate gilt-framed wall mirror that stood there. The glass was cracked, and something had been scrawled across it with a blood-red stick of greasepaint. The letters were six inches high: GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE.
I’ll get out, thought May grimly, but I’m taking you with me.
‘I have a terrible feeling about tonight. He should be here,’ said May fretfully. ‘It doesn’t seem right without him.’
‘I understand how you feel, John, but you have to give him some breathing space.’ Forthright hooked back the dusty brown drapery and studied the edge of the stage. ‘They’re running late again. The curtain should have gone up five minutes ago.’
‘We’re starting it late because the trains are disrupted again,’ said Harry, listening for the backstage sounds that told him things were running to schedule. ‘There’s hardly any service from the east. A church steeple fell on the line outside Fenchurch Street. They reckon Winchester’s going to cop it next, after Southampton. Trouble is, it’s all getting back to Hitler.’
‘What is?’ asked Forthright.
‘The air-raid damage reports. Franco gets them in code from the Spanish ambassador in Whitehall. That’s what Lord Haw Haw reckons.’
‘Things have come to a pretty pass if you’re believing him,’ said Forthright indignantly.
‘There’s a lot of coughing and sneezing in the audience this evening. My mum says it’s because everyone stands around outside at night watching the planes circling. Right, there goes the signal.’ Harry darted off through the narrow corridor leading to the left wing just as applause broke out across the auditorium. The conductor was taking his place at the podium.
‘Where’s Biddle?’ May checked the area behind him. ‘I thought I told him to keep in the backstage area. I have a suspicion he’s rather enjoying his new role.’ May had spread his constables around the theatre, but with tickets changing hands for high prices on the black market, they had been refused seat allocations and were forced to stand conspicuously at the rear of the stalls.