XII.

The chief of the police was a stout middle-aged man with greasy hair and little eyes which carefully evaluated Stuart. The photographer stood in his office next to Regina. Compared to her unshakable standing, he seemed childishly fragile. The chief wasn't pleased with their unannounced visit and Stuart awaited for him to start barking curses at them.

"Regina", he sounded like he was holding back the explosion going on inside of him, "as I told you before, I knew your father well. We used to work together." Finding out this wasn't the first time Regina came to the police asking for employment intensified Stuart's discomfort. He was a colloquial victim in their wrangle. "But Roland is gone and there's nobody else like him. He was a master of his trade and a fine policeman before that, but that doesn't matter now that he's dead!"

"Mister Maxwell", she said almost coquettishly, "Stuart is an experienced photographer, too, and whatever else you may think of me, you can't deny that my father taught me everything he knew. Besides, I presume you hadn't found someone else to do his job since his passing? In fact, there were some rumours", she leaned over his table, "that the most recent photographer got fired after he puked all over the evidence..."

Mister Maxwell grumbled and waved with his hand to make her turn away. Stuart figured Regina had enough experience with this man to know how to provoke him. Maxwell looked at Stuart again, making him incredibly uncomfortable. "You say he's experienced?"

"Oh, yes", Regina said and gave Stuart a discreet look. Stay on my side. He nodded. Now he was an associate in deceiving the police officer. Maxwell was ignorant of the real nature of Stuart's expertise. Regina told him he'd already taken photos on the terrain and worked with modern cameras.

"You strong enough to withstand gore?", he threw question at Stuart.

"Um... Yes..." He hoped he was.

"Well", Maxwell sighed out, "I might give you a chance..."

"Sir!" A policeman in complete uniform entered the office. "There's an emergency call!" He looked questioningly towards chief's guests.

"It's okay, Bob", Maxwell said, "Regina might look cute, but she's seen too much for a lady already. And this guy's apparently tougher than he looks. They'll work for me. Maybe."

"A little girl was found dead just an hour ago in the poorer quarters."

"Damn", Maxwell swung his hands to help him get his big body up from the chair. "Hate going there. Bands quarrel, people die of dysentery and gossip that it was a murder committed by a witch, prostitutes end up with wrong customers... And nobody cares!"

"He said it was a little girl", Regina rebuked him.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Little or not, not the first nor the last one. Happens all the time. Sad but true. You two going?"

Stuart wasn't glad to accept, but his opinion had no weight. Regina eagerly nodded. "We took our equipment with us just in case. My father's camera." She smiled. "So you know it's verified."

They squeezed into one cab. Regina carried bag with her Goerz camera and appertained stand. Maxwell silently complained when she placed it next to him. He alone was taking the whole seat and was unwilling to share it with anybody or anything.

While they were driving through the city, Stuart's eyes began to close regardless of his attempts to keep them open. He hadn't slept well last night. After everything that happened, it was only natural he'd be lost in reflections of the days past and predictions of those coming. However, he did fall asleep eventually. He wished he hadn't.

He dreamt his childhood home again. He was outside in the fields and though nothing suggested it, he knew it was Oliver's tenth birthday. He remembered it as if it was yesterday, even though he hadn't though of that memory for ages. Their parents' favourite little boy was celebrating the first decade of his life! It seemed like an extremely important anniversary to the whole family, so they were preparing a big celebration with many guests, plenty food and numerous gifts for the boy. This occupied them so much they forgot that they had another son, so Stuart got lost in the fields. Oliver noticed his brother was missing at the party when they were handing out the cake, but when he told this to his parents who were engaged in too important conversations to be concerned by their less loved son's disappearance, they convinced him that Stuart must be somewhere around, "He's always roaming somewhere", his mother said and turned back to her aunt. Oliver wasn't reassured, so he informed the Cook about Stuart's disappearance. The Cook, who loved Stuart dearly, spent hours looking for him through the village until she found him among wheat. Luckily, it was May and not cold enough for a child to get sick, but Stuart had been alone for hours, lost and confused. He curled up in her arms and she carried him home. Oliver was relieved to see him and quickly escaped the crowd of guests. They were disappointed by the loss of the adored celebrant. Bothers hid in a closet in their room.

"Did you get any goodies?", Stuart asked to break the awkward silence. Young and innocent as he was, he didn't understand how carelessly everyone behaved towards him. Oliver, on the other hand, felt that their parents's behaviour wasn't just at all.

"I saved you some cake", Oliver said and took his little brother into his arms. "The Cook had to hide it, otherwise someone would've eaten it already."

"Gee, thanks!" Stuart was delighted by this surprise.

"I'll always think of you", Oliver promised, "even if everybody else forgets."

But Stuart didn't get to this part in his dream. He was running through wheat field when he stumbled upon a person. He was confused because he remembered being completely alone in the wheat until Cook found him. The person was a little, thin girl with messy, dirty blond hair.

"Who are you?", Stuart asked. "You shouldn't be here."

He saw his reflection in her pupils. He was tidy, dressed in celebratory blue suit. Then he looked at her blotchy plane dress, bare feet full of tiny wounds. "Neither should you", she spoke with a high voice. Something alien in it made Stuart shiver. "Go home, Stuart. Go home."

"And where's your home?", little Stuart asked her.

Bloody tears filled her big eyes. "I lost my home. Forever."

The cab stopped in a narrow street with compacted, time-worn houses on each side. They were greeted by a distant barking of dogs and eerily clear cry of one baby. A quarter of the poor in all its sad and fade magnificence. Stuart saw numerous women and children with charcoal dirty faces leaning against the small windows of their apartments. Following the direction of their stares, Stuart caught a sight of two policemen walking towards them. Chief distanced himself from the photographers to hear policemen's statement out of the reach of their hearing. Regina mumbled while fighting with big bags. Stuart tried to give her a hand, but the place left him in such a dumbfounded state he was hardly able to be of any help. After leaving his wealthy childhood home, he spent some time in Oliver's new house which had everything a proper bourgeois home ought to have. From there he settled in his present residence which was far from either of the two places he lived in before, but the level of misery surrounding him now was completely new to him. Lack of other food beside bread and shortage of kerosene seemed piddling compared to problems these hefty women had to face, bringing up numerous children, working for money and for husbands who were forced to spend all days at some horrible factory, colliery or worse.

"C'mon", Maxwell called them, "since you're already here, it won't hurt to test you right away."

They climbed up the stairs in a narrow hallway. Curious glances of underweight, dirty children followed them from each stair. A girl holding a hand-made doll tight in her arms attracted Stuart's attention. She might stay in this quarter forever, married to the closest neighbour, one who was the first to take away the greatest treasure she guarded. She'll survive by rubbing pots, washing clothes, sewing at the spinning mule, crouching over it day after day until some illness kills her. Another version he thought of was even worse. She might start making money by selling her dearest treasure, end up being a single mother nobody sympathizes with. She might commit a suicide or be killed by a violent stranger. Or none of it, for she might die in an accident the next morning, her unpromising life string cut before it has been sewn into a greater creation...

"I'd better get to work", Regina said proudly when the policemen showed them where the body was. The uniformed men suspiciously observed her movements, not sure what to think of a woman engaged in such an appalling job.

The apartment consisted of two equally small rooms. Spread sheets blocked the entrance. This was the room in which family slept. Connected to it by an opening without a door was a cramped room which served as a kitchen, dining room and a bathroom. It stank like stale meat.

Regina positioned camera while Stuart stayed in an incomplete sleeping room subjected to accusatory assessment of Mister Maxwell and his subordinates. Sound of photos being taken was heard from the other room. Regina called him to join her.

"They won't accept you unless you prove your professionalism", she whispered as she pushed the camera into his hands.

Regina forced him to turn towards the bathtub in which the dead girl was found. He raised the camera to his eyes and looked through the lens at the afflicted child.

The camera fell from his hands. Alarmed by the noise, the policemen checked them through the opening. Regina quickly took a commanding stand in front of Stuart and ordered officials to let them work in piece. They withdrew mumbling how the world is decaying when women are allowed to tell men what to do.

Regina hissed at her partner. "What the hell are you playing at?"

Stuart's hands were shaking. He was staring at the poor chalk-white face of the little girl, her greasy blond hair, plain brown dress. It was the person from his dream. But what frightened him the most wasn't her identity, but the way she looked when he was prepared to photograph her. He saw her standing with scarlet tears sliding down her cheeks. Alive.

Regina set the camera in his hands and pointed with her finger at the deceased child. "Don't tell me you've never seen a dead kid before? Stuart, please, we need this job! She isn't even bloody or something of that sort. She's been poisoned."

"Who did it?"

Regina sighed out. "Parents are the top suspects, but nobody has seen them for days. Lender lady found her. Now take those photos!"

Stuart swallowed his trepidation and brought camera back to his face, knowing that Maxwell was grading his work. He took a photo of a corpse lying motionless in the bath.

"You can develop them in the station", Maxwell said later. "And I guess you'll have to stay overnight..."

"We can afford a lodging", Regina interrupted him. Stuart nodded in agreement, but his thoughts were far away from the current events. He was flowing between long forgotten past and unpredictable future. How will she appear in the photos?