Simon suddenly whooped. “This is it.” He had the viewing glass over the final sheet that Lucy had developed from the roll in the camera itself; only thirty-two of the forty frames were exposed. “He’s photographed some kind of texts—and it looks like there are”—he counted quickly—“eighteen of them again. Just as before. Impossible to read the details from the contact sheet, but it looks like it’s all handwritten. In different styles of writing too.”

Alex and Lucy lunged forward to the table to see, and Alex realized this was what they were looking for—what Guy Temple and his associates wanted so desperately. Whatever it was Will had found, he had photographed every sheet with a twenty-five-millimeter lens. “This must have come from the rose garden,” Alex said firmly. “I suspect the originals went in the packet to Roland. He obviously wanted to safeguard them there.”

“So”—Simon took control—“we need to enlarge these, and see if we can trace the originals as well. Clearly he thought them either sensitive, or dangerous.” Simon was no less alarmed and aware than Alex and Lucy; and Grace and Henry each bore an expression of bafflement.

It was the latter, however, who quickly resumed his scrutiny of another group of shots that had caught his attention, and said at length: “Alex, when you’ve finished with the glass, could I have it for a moment?”

His son, sensitive to his father’s changed voice, passed him the optic glass, and Henry trained it on one of the frames. “This might be Lucca Cathedral—very distinctive square it’s in—beautiful. Your mother and I were there a few years ago. But it’s this car parked here. It’s exactly like another I’ve seen—quite distinctive in this country, but I would say even in Italy it would be a classic.” He looked at Alex matter-of-factly. “And what I particularly notice is that it seems to be the same vehicle here—outside Chartres.” He pointed to those on the sheet that had caught Lucy’s eye as well. “Now that’s odd, wouldn’t you say?”

Lucy looked at him unblinking. “Have you seen this car, Henry?” She didn’t want to reveal more; but Henry had indeed picked out the dark blue car that she could still smell when she closed her eyes—the leather, and the fragrance of limes from the man beside her, a whiff of cigarettes clinging around the man at the wheel. She shivered involuntarily.