Polly kept the dispersing crowd between her and the chorister and crossed the courtyard, then walked quickly over to the churchyard and in through the door to the Crypt. She hurried down the steps, through the gate, and down the length of the Crypt, running at full tilt past the sandbags and Wellington’s tomb and the fire-watch’s cots, her footsteps echoing hollowly on the stone floor.

At the foot of the stairway she paused, panting, to risk a look back, but there was no sign of the chorister. She ran up the steps he’d brought her down and out onto the cathedral floor.

The nave was as bright as day, the gold of the dome and the arches shining richly in the orange light from the windows, the transepts and the pillars and the chairs in the center of the nave lit more brightly than they were in the daytime.

Good. It will make the door to the roofs easier to find, she thought.

She heard someone running up the north aisle. The chorister, she thought, ducking into the south aisle and behind a pillar. He’d seen her come in and intended to intercept her before she could get to the roofs. He’d head straight for the door that led up to them, and all she had to do was see where he went.

And keep from being caught, which would be difficult with so much light in here. She waited, pressed against the pillar, listening intently. His footsteps echoed, paused, echoed again.

Oh, no, he was checking in every bay and behind each pillar. She couldn’t stay here. There was nowhere to hide. She leaned against the pillar, took off her shoes, stuck them in her coat pockets, and waited for the pause that meant he was checking in one of the bays.

When it came, she ran silently down the south aisle to the chapel where she’d hidden before. She lifted the latch up slowly, trying not to make any noise, opened the gate, and slipped silently through. She debated leaving the gate open, decided that would be a dead giveaway, and pulled it shut. It clanked, but not loudly, and the chorister’s footsteps didn’t slow at the sound.

He was at the far end of the nave. Go to the door, she willed him, but he was crossing the nave to this side and coming quickly this way, pausing, coming again.

Polly retreated farther into the chapel, looking for a hiding place. Not the prayer stalls—there was too much light to hide in their shadow.

Under the altar cloth? she thought, and ran stocking-footed up the chapel’s aisle to the back row of stalls, and into the narrow, shadowed space between them and the wall behind them.

She crouched down out of sight, thinking, This is ridiculous. I’ve been here over two hours, and I’m no nearer the roofs than I was when I started. And this was a dreadful hiding place. She couldn’t hear his footsteps from here. All she could hear was the planes, which were coming over again.