Read Chapter 31: The Name in the News

The newsagent on Wardour Street smelled of damp paper and stale tobacco. Mara had stopped for a pack of Silk Cut and a pint of milk, her mind still half-caught in the amber glow of last night’s show—Robbie’s voice, the weight of his confession, the way his hand had lingered on the small of her back as Dex’s call had cut through it all like a blade.

She didn’t see it at first. The tabloids were racked low, next to the chewing gum. It was the headline that snagged her: *The Girl Behind the Lens*. Below it, a full-page spread of her photograph—the Unknowns mid-set, sweat flying from Leo’s drumsticks, Mick’s hair a halo of backlit smoke. Her work. But the credit line beneath it read: *Photo: Marianne Ellis*.

Marianne.

She bought the paper without thinking. Flipped to the feature. Three more of her shots inside, including the one of Sid at the mixing desk that she’d sold to *NME* last month. Every single one credited to Marianne Ellis. The article was fluff—"the woman capturing rock’s new revolution"—but the byline was a lie she hadn’t signed.

The phone was ringing when she got back to the flat. She let it ring while she stared at the paper spread across her kitchen table, her own name—her real name—nowhere on the page.

“Mara.” It was Carla, a freelancer she’d shared a darkroom with in 1973, before the assignments dried up and Carla moved to colour work for the glossies. “You seen the *Mirror*?”

“Just bought it.”

“Marianne Ellis,” Carla said, drawing the name out like she was tasting it. “Cute. Did you pick that or did they?”

“I didn’t pick anything.”

A pause. Mara heard Carla light a cigarette. “You know what they’re doing, right? They’re building you a brand. Something they can own.”

“Who’s they?”

“Whoever put that spread together. Check the masthead, love. It’s a syndication credit. Someone sold your work under a new name.”

Mara hung up without saying goodbye. She stubbed her cigarette out halfway through it, grabbed her coat, and walked the twelve minutes to the label’s Soho offices with the tabloid rolled tight in her fist.

The receptionist didn’t stop her. She was becoming a familiar face now, the girl with the cameras who followed the Unknowns. She took the stairs two at a time, past the framed gold records and the posters of bands she’d shot and never credited, and pushed into Dex’s office without knocking.

He was on the phone. He held up one finger—*wait*—and she slammed the paper down on his desk hard enough to knock his coffee cup over.

“Marianne?”

“Dex.” He set the phone down slowly. “That’s not my name.”

“It’s a professional name.” He said it like he’d been waiting for her to ask. Like he’d rehearsed it. “Mara Ellis sounds—I don’t know, sharp. Dogged. But Marianne? That’s memorable. That’s a byline you can sell. It’s more feminine, sure, but that’s the point. We’re leaning into the angle.”

“The angle.”

“Girl photographer. Beautiful woman in a man’s world. Editors eat it up. They’ll run your work in *Vogue* with a name like Marianne.” He was already reaching for the phone again, dismissing her. “Frankly, it’s better for everyone this way.”

“Everyone except me.”

Dex stopped. His face shifted—loss of patience, not empathy. “You want the credit? You got the credit. It’s just under a name that’ll sell more prints. That’s not a theft, Mara. That’s marketing.”

“Whose marketing?”

“The label’s. Mine. Whitfield signed off on it this morning.” He picked up the paper, glanced at the spread, tossed it back down. “The audit’s still breathing down our necks, but you know what? This is good press. It keeps the Unknowns in the news while we manage the other problem. Maybe you should be thanking me.”

Mara felt the rage rise up through her chest, hot and useless. She’d fought for a byline—her byline—all through the years of uncredited work, of men’s names above her photographs, of editors assuming the assistant had taken the shot. She had clawed her way to a place where her name meant something in the darkrooms and the rights departments, and now Dexter fucking Hale had erased it in a morning and replaced it with something softer, prettier, easier to swallow.

“I’m not thanking you.”

“You’re on every stand in London,” Dex said. “Your work is getting seen. That’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted my name on it.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Here’s the reality, sweetheart. Whitfield still hasn’t decided what to do about you and that binder. Your little boyfriend made a mess with that on-stage stunt—everyone at the label saw him staring at you like you were the only person in the room. That’s a liability. But this?” He tapped the paper. “This makes you an asset. A marketable one. You keep being Marianne, and I keep telling Whitfield you’re more valuable on the inside than off it. You fight me on a name, and I stop having that conversation.”

Mara stood very still. Outside, a bus groaned past, its engine shaking the window glass. She could feel the weight of everything she hadn’t told him—the undeveloped film rolled in her bathroom drawer, the master binder hidden beneath the loose floorboard in her closet, the conversation with Robbie still burning in her chest.

She could use this. If Dex thought she was being tamed, he’d stop looking. If the world knew her as Marianne Ellis, then Mara Ellis—the real one—had room to move.

“Fine,” she said.

Dex blinked. “Fine?”

“Use the name. For now.” She picked up the paper and smoothed it flat. “But I want the prints from last night’s show before anyone else sees them. I’m developing them myself.”

He gave her a long look, then shrugged, satisfied. “That’s the spirit.”

She left his office and walked past the glass-walled conference room where Whitfield sat with two men in dark suits, their heads bent over papers she couldn’t read. Whitfield looked up as she passed. His eyes tracked her—cold, appraising, a man who kept files on everyone and forgot nothing.

Mara held his gaze until the corridor turned.

When she got back to the flat, she locked the door, dropped the paper on the kitchen counter, and walked to the loose floorboard beneath the bed. She lifted it carefully, retrieved the metal film canister from Danny’s roll, and held it up to the window light.

Marianne Ellis could take the bylines. Marianne Ellis could be the label’s pretty little asset.

But Mara Ellis would decide which photographs ever saw the light.

She laughed—a short, sharp sound that surprised her. She was furious, but she was also, for the first time in weeks, moving on her own terms. Dex thought he’d bought her quiet. Whitfield thought he’d filed her away. But she had the negatives, she had the binder, and now she had a name that wasn’t hers—which meant no one would know to look for the woman who took the shots.

The phone rang. It was Carla again.

“So?” Carla said. “You gonna sue?”

“No.” Mara turned the canister over in her hands. “I’m going to be the best goddamn photographer London’s ever seen.”

“As who?”

Mara looked at the headline. *The Girl Behind the Lens.*

“Whoever I need to be.”