What was there to say to that?
“Robert, are you all right?”
Sure. I’m great. Except that I’m a fucking eunuch. Scratch the adjective.
“Robert?”
He could not bear to punish her with his problem. “I’m fine. Just do me a favor, will you, baby?”
“Anything I can.”
“Don’t—don’t let him take you on your honeymoon to any of the places we went to.”
He hung up and went out and got drunk again.
That had been a year earlier. That was the past. He had been forced to face the reality that Susan now belonged to someone else. He had to live in the present. He had work to do. It was time to have a chat with Leslie Mothershed, the photographer who had the photographs and names of the witnesses Robert had been assigned to track down on what was going to be his last assignment.
Chapter Eighteen
Leslie Mothershed was in a state beyond euphoria. The moment he had returned to London, clutching his precious film, he had hurried into the small pantry he had converted into a darkroom and checked to make sure he had everything on hand: film-processing tank, thermometer, spring-type clothespins, four large beakers, a timer, and developer, stop-bath solutions, and fixer. He turned out the light and switched on a small red overhead lamp. His hands were trembling as he opened the cartridges and removed the film. He took deep breaths to control himself. Nothing must go wrong this time, he thought. Nothing. This is for you, Mother.
Carefully, he rolled the film into reels. He placed the reels in the tank and filled it with developer, the first of the liquids he would use. It would require a constant temperature of 68°F and periodic agitation. After eleven minutes, he emptied the contents and poured the fixer over the reels.
He was getting nervous again, terrified of making a mistake. He poured off the fixer for the first wash and then let the film sit in a tankful of water for ten minutes. This was followed by two minutes of constant agitation in a hypocleansing agent and twelve more minutes in water. Thirty seconds in photo-flo solution ensured there would be no streaks or flaws in the negatives. Finally, very, very carefully, he removed the film, hung it up with clothespins, and used a squeegee to remove the last drips from the film. He waited impatiently for the negatives to dry.
It was time to have a look. Holding his breath, heart pounding, Mothershed picked up the first strip of negatives and held it up to the light. Perfect. Absolutely perfect!
Each one was a gem, a picture that any photographer in the world would be proud to have taken. Every detail of the strange spacecraft was outlined, including the bodies of the two alien forms lying inside.
Two things he had not noticed before caught Mothershed’s eye, and he took a closer look. Where the spaceship had cracked open he could see three narrow couches inside the ship—and yet there were only two aliens. The other thing that was strange was that one of the aliens’ hands had been severed. It was nowhere to be seen in the photograph. Maybe the creature had only one hand, Mothershed thought. My God, these pictures are masterpieces! Mother was right. I’m a genius. He looked around the tiny room and thought, The next time I develop my film, it will be in a big, beautiful darkroom in my mansion in Eaton Square.
He stood there fingering his treasures like a miser fingering his gold. There wasn’t a magazine or newspaper in the world that wouldn’t kill to get these pictures. All these years the bastards had rejected his photographs with their insulting little notes. “Thank you for submitting the photos that we are herewith returning. They do not fit our present needs.” And: “Thank you for your submission. They are too similar to pictures we have already printed.” Or simply: “We are returning the photographs you sent us.”
For years he had gone begging to the creeps for jobs, and now they were going to crawl to him, and he was going to make them pay through the nose.