Mama laughed, brighter this time. “Have a bit of faith in yourself, Lilian. You use your gift to edify your friends, not tear anything down. That is surely a godly purpose. Did you not see the look on Mr. Marin’s face when he saw himself smiling in front of the Moscow skyline?”

She had. And it had made the hour of work so very worthwhile. The photograph itself may not have been genuine, but it told a true story nonetheless. A story of his love for the home that he might never see again.

But it was a different question entirely when, after handing over the supplies to Jamie and bidding her mother farewell, she turned toward Whitehall.

She went in the back, as always, but she wished she hadn’t when she heard Zivon’s and Clarke’s voices coming down the stairs. Had she gone in the front, she could simply say she was meeting Daddy for lunch—but no visitors ever came in this way. She had little choice but to dash down the stairs and pray they didn’t spot her.

She gave them ample time to clear out before finding her father. They shared a quick lunch, though twenty minutes later she was back in her workroom. A basket of film was awaiting processing, a note from the admiral asking if he could have the pictures developed by tomorrow morning.

As she got to work, her mood lightened a bit. This was the largest part of her work, and it was strictly routine. Developing photographs. Filing the original film, along with a copy of each. Pinning to the back wall any pictures of familiar faces, next to the other pictures they already had of them. It was something she’d begun doing of her own volition at the start of the war and which Hall had called invaluable on more than one occasion. There was nothing debatable about most of what she did. It was just work.

Maybe she shouldn’t, but she let the darkroom soothe all the questions away. All that mattered at the moment were the negatives, the solutions, the baths, the drying racks, the wall and pins.

The simple elements of her world.

9

THURSDAY, 18 APRIL 1918

The warm breeze blowing through Hyde Park should have made Zivon thrill with this arrival of spring, far earlier than he was used to. Instead, it made him keenly aware of the ticking of time. Of the fact that he’d heard nothing from Evgeni. That the ambassadors had had no better luck in finding him. That every day that marched onward took him further and further from the evidence he needed to collect.