Because it’s more difficult faking having been to a concert, Polly thought. And besides, I’m not certain how long this will take.

“No,” she said. “I know one of the vergers at St. Paul’s—Mr. Humphreys—and he’ll know if any strangers have been in.”

“I could go with you. The concert isn’t till one.”

I should have said I was going to Westminster Abbey or something, Polly thought. “But I don’t know when the retrieval team will be there. I forgot to give a time,” she said. “I’ll meet you after the concert and we’ll go to Lyons Corner House for tea, and then I’ll take you on a guided tour of St. Paul’s.” And make certain she was gone before Eileen woke up.

Sunday morning she took the tube to Hampstead Heath and climbed the hill. It was raining, a fine mist, which was good—there wouldn’t be that many people about—but she wished she’d brought her umbrella. She hadn’t been able to find it in the dark this morning, and she’d been afraid to switch on the light for fear of waking Eileen and having her insist on coming with her.

She hurried across the heath and into the trees, hoping she’d recognize the spot. The last time she’d been here, it had been May. Now the trees were russet and brown and heavy with rain.

No, there was the weeping beech, its golden-leaved branches sweeping the ground. The rain was coming down harder. Good, she thought, pushing the curtain of leaves aside. If anyone catches me, I can say I was taking shelter from the rain.

She stepped quickly under it, let the concealing leaves fall together behind her, and looked around at the dim, tentlike space. The ground was covered with curling yellow leaves and twigs. A lemonade bottle and a torn paper ice cream horn lay half buried in the leaves, but both were weather-faded.

The retrieval team hasn’t been here, Polly thought, looking at the undisturbed leaves.

But the drop might only have been set up for them to return through. She sat down against the beech’s mottled white trunk, checked her watch for the time, and settled in to see if the drop would open.

It was cold. She pulled her knees up under her skirt and hugged her arms to her chest. The rain wasn’t coming through the leaves, but the leaf- and bark-covered ground was icily damp, its wetness soaking through her coat and skirt.

And as she sat there, all the things she was worried about began to soak through her, too—her deadline, and Mike, and whether the incident which had destroyed St. George’s and the shops hiding her drop was a discrepancy. She’d assumed the church hadn’t been on Mr. Dunworthy’s forbidden list because she’d intended to stay in the tube shelters, but it hadn’t been in the implant Colin had made for her either.

Which meant he could have been near her drop when the parachute mine exploded.

No, he couldn’t, she thought, fighting down sudden nausea. He didn’t put it in the implant because he thought I’d be safely in a tube shelter when it went off.