Chris had first met her while he was tentatively starting out on his freelance career after five years of relatively secure employment for MetroLife, one of the seedier, freebie-tabloids in the capital. After delivering promptly on a couple of assignments, she had begun requesting him by name through the agency Chris had signed up with. After she had returned to New York, he still found she was specifically requesting him and putting a decent amount of work his way, despite having any number of good photographers on her doorstep to choose from.

Somehow she had managed to erase from her mind the fact that he was one of those wet-fart Limeys. It had probably helped that he’d moved away from the east end of London, used a New York-based agency and worked on watering down his estuary accent a little.

Or maybe she just wasn’t as anti-Brit as she made out.

Elaine smiled warmly at him.

Or maybe she just wants to mother me.

Chris hadn’t failed to notice he tended to bring that instinct out in the older women he worked with.

‘It’s good to see you again, Chris. Shall we take a look-see? ’

She leaned over the conference table and studied the spread of pictures. There were images of a whaling station abandoned in the 1920s. Fantastic images, some in black and white, some in colour but desaturated and monochromatic. Images of beached whaling ships, their plate metal hulls rusted, exposing ribcages of corroded steel. Images of the station itself, interiors such as the dormitory huts and the canteen, complete with tin plates and cutlery laid out on a communal table ready for a meal that was never to take place.

Nature, it seemed, had wasted little time in commandeering the station, and eighty years of undisturbed invasion had produced stunning compositions of lichen-covered toilet seats and beds and whale-rendering equipment playing host to communities of terns and puffins.