She undressed, put on her nightgown, then turned off the lamp and lay in bed.

It was her turn to stare up at the ceiling, but eventually the exhaustion overcame her. Her eyes closed, and she slept like a dead woman.

Sparks woke up early and sober, surprisingly undisturbed by any nightmares. She went through her limited wardrobe, selecting a dark brown jacket and skirt that were better suited to cooler weather. She didn’t want to wear black. Someone might think she was a widow, and that would lead to conversations she’d rather not fake. Brown was a good colour for church. Men didn’t flirt with women wearing brown, in her experience. At least, not in church. Not as much, anyway.

The cathedral was on Moscow Road in Bayswater, about two miles from her flat in Marylebone. It was a pleasant morning—she decided to walk.

There was no point in getting there early. The orthros, the early morning service, would be going through ten. Her friends who first invited her to join them for services when she was younger told her that nobody worth knowing came for the orthros, only old women dressed in black. Ten o’clock marked the transition from the early morning service to the Divine Liturgy, when the truly observant were joined by the merely devout, while the main body of the congregation would wander in on time for Communion, then socialising and gossip.

The walk took her half an hour. She paused when she reached her destination to admire the building. The cathedral was neither old nor immense by London standards—a nineteenth-century brick structure that occupied less than a third of the block on the eastern corner—but it was well designed and had largely missed being damaged during the war. The light brown brick walls were broken up by broad horizontal stripes of red, and the broad stone front steps brought one to a set of homey, human-sized doors on either side. The arches over the doors were made of alternating blocks of red and white, giving the whole facade a festive, almost candylike appearance. In all, it presented a welcoming face to those who wished to gain access to the Lord, unlike the judgmental and intimidating gray stones of the other Christian alternatives in town.

There was a young couple with a pram and a small boy in tow at the base of the steps. The boy, who could not have been more than two and a half, was acting well within the expected parameters of behavior for one of his years, which is to say, he was digging in his heels and refusing to go inside. The father was attempting to placate his son, with limited success, while the mother was trying to pull the pram up the steps on her own. Sparks hurried forwards.

“May I?” she offered, gesturing to the pram.

“Oh, please, thanks,” said the woman, sounding harried.

The two of them carried the pram up the steps, Sparks taking the opportunity to coo at the baby within, who looked back at her suspiciously. When they reached the top, Sparks held the door open. The father by this time had given up negotiations and slung the boy over his shoulder, which did nothing to quiet him.