Lucy had been standing meditatively a few feet away; and now Alex noticed her expression. He wondered if she might have one of her sudden changes of mood, feel ill, or go quiet. Whatever was going on in her heart, she definitely felt a propinquity with Will, reacted to things connected with him—even though he was inclined to believe it was just psychological. But she seemed calm and in charge tonight, simply held out her hand for the key. He smiled with dry amusement and passed it to her.

She put her hand on the seat and bent over it, looking upward from under the seat back. She groped underneath, then slid back a small sprung cover under the casing behind the seat with her right hand. With her left, she inserted the key into the neat space that had been revealed. Alex squatted to watch, and the back half of the seat housing slid back just a few inches, exposing a small, carefully designed compartment, obviously custom-made to Will’s order. She was now able to slide the cover—which blended into the bodywork—right away, and she reached inside.

Four silent faces watched as she took out four small leather bags, then something rolled in a fine black velvet cloth lashed with a leather bootlace. A shadow passed over Simon’s face as Alex reached out for the last object, which Lucy gave him.

Grace looked at her friend, uncertain whether to be more mystified by the find, or the unusual manner of its discovery. Certainly Henry’s “Good heavens!” indicated that he too was at least surprised.

“Will’s Leica,” Alex said, with a tone of magic in his voice. “I wondered where it was. He kept it like this all the time, unless it was casually stuffed into his pocket when he was working. Almost impossible to buy them now. They change hands for a small fortune. This is the camera, and the bags must hold spare lenses—at least two of them.” Alex now sounded more like himself, but Amel would have detected something different in his voice—and both Lucy and Henry could too.

Simon tested the weight of a leather bag. “I remember. I think your grandfather gave it to him—is that right? Your father, Henry. Will told me it was passed to him on his eighteenth birthday.”

Henry looked steady, but his face twitched. He explained: “My father exchanged it for a truckload of food outside Frankfurt, very end of ’forty-four or early ’forty-five. I think he took it just to make the man feel easier about it—honestly never understood its value. The family was trying to cook a frozen horse apparently—children looked traumatized and hungry.”