Read Chapter 19: The Leica's Return

The Marquee Club was a coffin of noise and sweat. The Unknowns were halfway through their set, Dex a blur of blond fury at the front, but Mara wasn't watching the stage. She was watching the bar.

The man was leaning against it, nursing a pint he didn't seem to be drinking, his eyes not on the band but on the crowd. Scanning. That was what caught her. Everyone else was pressed forward, mouths open, lost in the wall of sound. He was separate. Still. A predator at a watering hole.

And he was wearing her camera bag.

It was slung across his chest, the leather strap worn dark, the brass buckle catching the amber light. Her camera bag. The one with the dented corner from when she'd dropped it in a stairwell two years ago. The one that had held her Leica M4, her twenty-four exposures of The Unknowns' first real gig, her spare lenses, her notebook with six months of phone numbers and contacts.

Her feet moved before her brain caught up. She pushed through the crush of leather jackets and beehives, muttering apologies that were swallowed by the roar of Robbie's bass. The man didn't see her coming. He was too busy studying the room, a hawk looking for smaller birds.

She reached him just as he turned, and she grabbed the strap of the bag.

"Oi," she said, her voice sharp and clear even over the din. "That's mine."

The man blinked. He was older than she'd pictured, mid-thirties maybe, with a face that had seen the wrong end of too many deals. His eyes flicked down to her hand on the strap, then back up to her face. "I think you've got the wrong—"

"I don't." She tugged. He didn't let go. "You stole this from me at the Dublin Castle. Three months ago. You took my Leica, you took my film, and you left me with nothing but a busted strap and a lot of rage."

Something shifted in his expression. Recognition, maybe. Or wariness. He glanced toward the door. Toward the stage. Then back at her.

"Look, love, I was just holding it for a friend."

"Then your friend's a thief, and so are you." She pulled harder, and this time he let go, the strap sliding through his fingers. The weight of the bag hit her hip, familiar and wrong all at once. She unclipped the buckle with trembling hands.

Inside, the bag was empty. No film canisters. No notebook. No lenses. Just a single shape wrapped in a greasy cloth at the bottom.

She lifted it out. Unwrapped it. And felt the floor drop out from under her.

The Leica M4 was a wreck. The top plate was dented, a deep gouge running across the viewfinder like a scar. The lens was cracked, a spiderweb of glass radiating from the centre. The shutter button was bent at an angle that made her stomach turn.

"Oh," she said. It came out small, childlike. "Oh, no."

The flash of the light meter was shattered. The film advance lever was loose, wiggling when she touched it. This wasn't a camera anymore. It was a corpse.

"You're a real piece of work," she said, her voice thick. "This camera paid my rent for a year. It was my grandmother's."

The man shrugged, already backing away. "You got it back, didn't you? Should've been more careful."

She lunged, but he was quick, melting into the crowd before she could grab his collar. She stood there, gripping the ruined Leica, the noise of the club suddenly distant and muffled. The shutter lag. The perfect weight in her hands. The way it had felt like an extension of her eye. Gone. All of it, gone.

"Mara."

She didn't turn. Couldn't. If she turned, she'd have to look at him, and if she looked at him, she'd have to be okay, and she wasn't okay. She was the opposite of okay.

"Mara, what happened?" Robbie's voice was close now, warm with concern. She felt his hand on her shoulder, and that broke something loose. She turned, and he saw the camera in her hands, and his face went still.

"I found the bastard who took it," she said. "He gave it back."

Robbie looked at the Leica. Looked at her face. Then he took the camera from her hands, gently, as if it were a wounded bird.

"Can it be fixed?" he asked.

"I don't know." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, furious at herself for crying over a thing when she'd cried so little over real loss. "Some of the internals are probably fine. But the lens, the shutter—" She shook her head. "It might cost more than it's worth."

Robbie turned the camera over in his hands. His fingers traced the dent, the cracked glass. He didn't say anything for a long moment.

Then he said, "It's still your eye."

She blinked. "What?"

"The camera." He held it out to her. "It's a tool. A good one. But it's not what makes you see. You could give me this camera—" he held it up, "—and I'd take the same blurry photos of the ceiling that I always do. You could pick up a cheap Kodak from Woolworth's tomorrow, and you'd still capture something nobody else could see. Because that's not the Leica. That's you."

She stared at him. The bass still thrummed through the floor, The Unknowns launching into a new song behind them, but the sound felt very far away.

"You really believe that?" she asked.

"Yeah." He said it simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I've watched you work, Mara. It's not the camera. It's how you wait. How you watch. How you know the right moment before anyone else does." He placed the damaged Leica back in her hands, folding her fingers around it. "The eye stays. The gear can be replaced."

She looked down at the ruined camera. The dented plate. The cracked glass. For a moment, she thought she might cry again, but instead, something else rose in her. Something lighter. Something that felt dangerous and warm.

"You're supposed to be the silent one," she said, a smile tugging at her mouth despite everything.

"Only when there's nothing worth saying." His eyes met hers, a rare openness in them. "That was worth saying."

The band hit the final chord, a crash of feedback that made her wince. Dex was already moving toward them, his face twisted with the particular annoyance he reserved for moments when attention wasn't on him.

"There you are, Ellis. I've been looking for you." He stopped when he saw the camera, and his expression shifted to something uglier. "What the hell happened to your gate?"

"Someone stole it," she said flatly. "Then gave it back."

Dex laughed, a short, cruel sound. "Looks like they did you a favour. That thing's a paperweight now. You're going to have to use the house gear like everyone else."

"The house gear is a piece of—"

"Don't care." Dex was already turning away. "We're in London for three days, then back out. I need photos of the next gig by Friday. Use what you have to."

He was gone before she could argue. Robbie watched him go, a muscle in his jaw working.

"He knows," Robbie said quietly. "About the magazine."

"He doesn't know anything. He's just an arsehole by instinct." She looked down at the Leica in her hands. "I'll figure something out."

"We'll figure something out." Robbie's hand brushed hers, a brief, deliberate touch that sent a current up her arm. "Come on. Let's get out of this noise."

They slipped out through the side door into the damp London night. The air was cool and smelled of rain and diesel. Mara tucked the Leica into its bag and held it to her chest like a child.

"I want to develop Lenny's film tonight," she said.

Robbie stopped. Looked at her. "It's after midnight."

"I know. But I need something that works. Something that proves I'm still—" She gestured with the bag. "That."

He studied her for a long moment. Then he nodded. "I know a place. Photographer I met on a job last year. He owes me a favour."

She followed him down the street, the ruined camera a dead weight against her hip. The eye stays. She wanted to believe him. But as they walked toward the dark heart of the city, toward whatever secrets Lenny had left in his undeveloped rolls, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was about to find out whether her eye was truly her own.