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For a moment, Lil let herself imagine the other life that she and Joe could have had. Travelling together with the circus – sleeping in train carriages, staying in foreign cities, staying up late after performances playing cards with her friends Hanna and Ravi. Lil could have worked as a dancer or learned acrobatics. Gosh, she’d even have helped Cecil with sewing the costumes, if she had to! It would have been such fun. And all this – London, Fleet Street, The Daily Picture, the Secret Service Bureau – would have been quite forgotten, as though it had never existed at all.
A rush of anger surged through her. Even thinking of the Bureau made Lil feel furious. This was all their fault! If she and Sophie had never started working for them, none of this would have happened. She’d been so stupidly proud and excited to be a secret agent, swanning off on important Bureau missions: tracking down spies and secret messages, travelling across Europe, going undercover. She’d felt like the heroine of a spy yarn. And all the time Joe had stayed behind in London, quietly working and helping behind the scenes. But because of what they had been doing – what she had been doing – he had fallen into some unknown danger. And now he was gone and the Bureau didn’t even seem to care.
Of course the Chief had said he was terribly sorry about what had happened. He’d said all the right kinds of things – but he hadn’t actually done a single thing to help. The only thing the Bureau were interested in was finding out who the double agent was, in order to protect themselves and their all-important secrets.
She couldn’t understand how Sophie could bear to carry on working for them. Not to mention going back to Taylor & Rose as though everything was normal! And Billy and the others were just as bad. Lil couldn’t stand to be at the office, seeing them going about their daily business: Sophie meeting a client to talk about a new case, Mei answering the telephone, Tilly tinkering in the little back room she used for her experiments and inventions.
Lil had been avoiding them all. She’d been avoiding her brother too, which would normally have been easy. Jack kept odd hours, getting up late and staying up until after midnight working in his studio, or going out to the Café Royal with his art-school friends. But lately he’d taken to spending his evenings in their little sitting room, as though he wanted to keep her company. She couldn’t stand him being gentle and kind to her – she’d have preferred it if he was bossy and irritating like he usually was. She knew he didn’t understand – if he had, he wouldn’t have rushed off to Venice with Sophie, as though heading out on some marvellous adventure.
Lil sighed, her breath puffing out like a cloud in the cold air. Of course she knew that Sophie was trying to do the right thing. In her pocket, her fingers closed on the note that Sophie had sent and gripped it hard. She was glad to have it there, even though she hadn’t sent a reply. She hadn’t known what to say. Lil never would have imagined that she wouldn’t know what to say to Sophie of all people.
In all her life, Lil had never felt so alone.
She came to a halt outside the café and blew on her cold fingers, wondering if she ought to go inside. She felt frozen to the core and knew it was too chilly to hang about in the street for much longer, but the very thought of another dispiriting hour or two of watching from the window was unbearable.
Lil sighed. Surely there must be something else she could do? Something she hadn’t yet thought of? For a moment she imagined brazenly striding into the office of the newspaper to ask questions – but what on earth was she supposed to say? ‘Excuse me, is there a woman here who’s involved with a secret society called the Fraternitas Draconum?’ ‘Could you tell me who on the staff is receiving secret government information from an undercover source?’
Could she disguise herself and bluff her way inside to investigate from within, she wondered? Get a job as a telephonist or typewriter girl, dress as a cleaning lady, pose as someone’s niece or long-lost grand-daughter? Yet somehow Lil couldn’t summon her usual enthusiasm for dressing-up and playing a part. This mattered too much. She couldn’t afford just to leap in wildly.
Lil’s shoulders slumped and she turned to go inside the café. But just as she did so, she caught sight of a familiar figure moving along the street and stopped, frowning. For a moment she struggled to place him, and then she remembered. It was Charlie Walters, the photographer. She’d met him first at Sinclair’s and then again a few months ago, on the boat to Hamburg. He’d been headed to St Petersburg to photograph the Circus of Marvels and unbeknown to him she’d been on her way there too. Now, she remembered that he worked for The Daily Picture, and judging by the big portfolio he carried he was dropping off some photographs. Seeing him gave her a sudden idea.
Lil had always acted quickly. Now, she almost darted forwards to call out Walters’ name, but then she checked herself. Take it slow, said Joe in her head. No need to rush. Apart from anything else, Walters would probably not recognise her. She knew she did not look much like the Lilian Rose he knew: the traveller, the chorus girl, the up- and-coming theatre star.
Instead, she walked briskly away from the café and the offices of The Daily Picture. She was going to play a part after all, she decided. She would dress herself up like the Lil she’d been before: put on a stylish hat and a smile and go and tackle Walters.
She felt a surge of exhilaration at the thought of taking action at last and forgot all about the cold as she marched towards home. At last, she had the beginnings of a plan.
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