CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Rachel’s sleep had been restless. The heat had been stifling. She needed to get out of the townhouse. Out into the streets to make sense of her thoughts.
The evening came quickly.
She left 38 Great Pulteney Street and followed Polidori’s course from Covent Garden at twilight. The squalor of the 1800s had been bulldozed or, more likely, detonated during the Blitz. Somehow, she made it to within a block of Seven Dials—possibly even along the same passageway he’d run that day. She followed each of the seven streets fanning out from the crossroads, each lined with theaters, restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. No sign of squalor anywhere.
Seven Dials was cordoned off from road traffic, the cobbles covered in rubber matting. A music stage blocked Monmouth Street, multico
