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permitted to leave the keys with anyone who’s not a member of the London Archives staff. Since the collection is only visiting here, there isn’t anyone I can delegate.”
    Annie said not to worry and added her thanks, then gathered up the pass with the orange edge. The one clipped to the other woman’s blouse was rimmed in purple. Color-coded bureaucracy.
    Jennifer was making neat piles of the papers on her desk. “Did you want to see anything else today?”
    “No thanks. I’ve decided to take an afternoon off. Maybe do some sightseeing.”
    “Sounds like fun. Where are you headed?”
    “The National Portrait Gallery.” Annie was almost out the door, her head filled with portraits of monks, quite possibly one who looked like her ghost among them. “Have a great vacation. See you when you get back.”
    ***
    It occurred to Annie, while she made her way to Trafalgar Square, that her initial hope was probably misplaced. Unless a monk came from a wealthy family and his picture was painted before he entered a monastery, the Portrait Gallery would have no record of him. The collection did not chronicle the important events of the day, only the important people—and only those wealthy enough to have sat for a formal painting. Still, she had to start somewhere.
    As it turned out, the Gallery had an entire section devoted to the Tudors, including three rooms given over to Henry VIII and his times. Fully eighty-seven portraits of the king, seventeen of Anne Boleyn, and twenty-four of Thomas Cromwell were on display, among a great many others. But of the monks of the London Charterhouse, there was not so much as a sketch.
    She’d taken the tube to get to the Gallery, but when she came up empty, she decided it would be more fun to go home by bus. A man feeding pigeons at the foot of Nelson’s Column told her she wanted the number ninety-one. “Just over there, love. Goes straight up Southampton Row to Euston Station.”
    She was on the top deck, lost in the scenery, when her cell phone rang.
    “Hi, glad I got you. It’s Geoff Harris. I hope you remember me. Jenny Franklin introduced us the other day at the museum. I threatened mayhem, and she gave me your number.”
    ***
    He wanted to ask her something, he said. Might be important, though he wasn’t sure. Would she meet him for a drink? “I don’t drink,” she countered. “Coffee?”
    “Of course.” Then, after she said where she was—on a bus heading north on Kingsway—“Get off at the Holborn tube station and turn left. You’ll see a short little street called Sicilian Avenue. Chloe’s. You can’t miss it.”
    She did not. And Chloe’s wasn’t simply easy to find, it was delightful, a candy box. The walls were covered in flocked red velvet, and there were gilt sconces, fresh flowers on the half-dozen tiny marble tables, and a showcase full of delicious-looking chocolates and sinfully rich pastries. She ordered a citron pressé —fresh lemon juice in sparkling water—with very little sugar and sat where she could see the door. Five minutes maybe. Then he arrived.
    When she met him at the museum, Geoff Harris had had on a suit and tie. Today he was dressed casually in cords and an open-necked shirt with a sweater tied over his shoulders. Nonetheless, he looked exactly as he did when she first saw him: tall, dark, incredibly good-looking, and unquestionably related to the monk she’d seen at Bristol House.
    “I really appreciate your meeting me on such short notice,” he said. “Good of you.”
    “You made it sound mysterious. I’m a pushover for mysteries. Particularly when they’re important.”
    “Maybe only important to me.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “I hope I haven’t lured you here on false pretenses.”
    The waitress appeared. Annie’s glass was still half full. Geoff ordered an espresso. It came in moments, dense and black and frothy with foam. He added some sugar and took a sip. “Annie, forgive me if this seems incredibly