Jelka, who was three years older than Katerina, had overheard this conversation and had not been impressed. "You're not an angel," she had whispered in bed that night. "You're a goblin. Only goblins leave their babies in bushes." Petar, who was a year older than Jelka and had still been sharing their bedroom at that time, had laughed. "Goblin!" he'd taunted in a whisper. "Katerina is a goblin!"
     "Excuse me." Katerina looked up wonderingly from the cards she had been idly laying out on the bench beside her. She was so used to being ignored that for a moment she was actually left speechless by the unaccustomed address. She saw a young man wearing a suit and carrying a dark blue umbrella with gold tips to the spokes that glittered above the folded canopy like the points of a crown. The umbrella-man was bending slightly towards her, his face full of polite but earnest enquiry. "Excuse me," he said again when she did not speak. "I was wondering if you could help me" His appearance and curiously formal manner was so stereotypically English that Katerina almost laughed. "I don't think it will rain," she said and blushed at the randomness of her own response. "The umbrella," she added, by way of explanation. The young man smiled revealing perfectly spaced, neat white teeth. 'Braces," thought Katerina automatically.
     "Oh, I think it will," said the young man in confident defiance of the perfect, sunny morning. Katerina smiled back. "It will be a bright rain, then," she said.
     "Indeed," agreed the young man. "I was wondering," he repeated, "if you happened to know which platform I need to get to Covent Garden?"
     "Piccadilly westbound," said Katerina without hesitation and pointed out the direction he should take.
     "Thank you so much," said the young man. "I hope the cards hold a good fortune for you," he added, with a nod towards the crescent of images she had been musing over. "And you," returned Katerina. She watched him as he walked away from her. He was slim but fit looking, well built, about average height and wore his fair hair rather long for a man, and curly. He was expensively dressed and carried a briefcase with him. She imagined that he did something glamorous though his business clothes suggested that he wasn't in the arts: finance perhaps? or Architecture…? She wondered what his name was, 'Richard,' murmured the cards at once. Katerina laughed. "What do you know!" she said.