Page 23 of The Shadow Code (Heroes of War #3)

T he city was still bleeding smoke the next morning when Ellie arrived at St James’s Street.

She’d passed collapsed terraced houses in Pimlico, their fronts sheared off like dolls’ houses, revealing scorched bedrooms and dangling staircases.

A pram stood untouched on the pavement, coated in ash, and someone had scrawled We carry on in chalk on a garden wall.

‘Your first debrief,’ he said. ‘Enjoy it.’

She rubbed at the bruise forming along her ribs, a souvenir from last night’s scuffle, then opened the file. Her own handwritten notes stared back: Kingfisher . Radar . Munitions . It was all there, buried in whispers and half-burned maps. She glanced up at Jack, who was watching her closely.

‘You’re lucky you weren’t killed,’ he said quietly.

‘I’m lucky you were right behind me.’ A corner of his mouth twitched and he almost smiled. ‘What’s next?’ she asked.

His gaze darkened. ‘We find out what Kingfisher’s planning.’

He didn’t elaborate, simply nodded towards the file, and walked away. Ellie stared at the folder for a long moment. Somewhere in the mess, Kingfisher was moving pieces into place. And she’d been handed the board.

Hours later, hunched over the cluttered desk, something – tucked between radar schematics and sabotage routes – caught her eye. Just four handwritten words. Bridge. Room. Watch. Clock. She underlined the words slowly, pencil in hand.

Two pairings. Spatial? Temporal? Perhaps it wasn’t a code, but an instruction.

Room. Watch the bridge clock .

Was that Big Ben? Westminster Bridge? Or was it utter nonsense to throw them off the scent?

She flipped to the access logs, names scrolling past until one sparked recognition: Chalmers .

A senior analyst, invisible, present at an underground facility during Templeton’s last briefing.

Chalmers. She knew that name. The arrogant man at Templeton’s crime scene.

Jack had stepped in and told him to back off.

It was too convenient to be a coincidence. She reached for the rest of the files, rifling faster now, adrenaline kicking in. Were there other instances? Had Chalmers been present at other leaks? Other moments where something critical slipped through?

The pieces were forming a picture she didn’t like.

The man who’d wanted her gone from the crime scene was the one with access to classified briefings.

Ellie swallowed hard, the air around her suddenly suffocating.

She had uncovered plenty of secrets in her time, but this was different.

And if the enemy knew she was onto them, she wouldn’t just be uncovering a mole. She would be their next target.

She sat back as Catherine’s face flitted through her mind. Come to think of it, her flatmate had never said exactly where she worked. Just ‘Whitehall’. She was always so vague.

‘You look like you’re about to set the whole place on fire,’ Jack said from the doorway, sleeves rolled up, exhaustion etched around his eyes. ‘Rough day?’

She tapped the file. ‘I found this hidden in the papers we took from the warehouse.’ She slid the scrap across to him.

Bridge. Room. Watch. Clock.

Jack frowned, picking it up. ‘Could be nothing. Could be a warning.’

‘Chalmers was at Templeton’s briefing. He’s always watching and listening.’

Jack crossed his arms. ‘You’re wrong. The man’s dull as chalk.’

‘Maybe that’s why he’s been overlooked.’

‘Talbot was also present,’ Jack said casually.

Talbot, an intelligence officer. Ellie saw him most days; tall, pipe-thin, perpetually rumpled, always clutching his battered folder like it held the weight of the war.

He struck her as nervous, distracted and prone to sudden flashes of temper.

But Jack seemed determined to follow the thread.

He brushed aside her quiet suggestions about Chalmers and redirected the focus again and again.

Ellie couldn’t help noticing how he wasn’t just sceptical of her instincts. He was avoiding them.

The rest of the day blurred. Ellie noticed Chalmers lingering by the analysts’ desks, a quiet fixture in the background. She couldn’t help watching him, looking for the twitch, the tell that would tip his hand, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was listening.

Still, Jack had already made up his mind, so surveillance began that night. Talbot left the office in a hurry, collar turned up, fedora pulled low over his brow. He glanced over his shoulder more than once, as if the dark itself was hunting him.

Ellie and Jack kept their distance, shadowing him through the war-dimmed streets off Pall Mall. They passed the Duke of York’s statue, its bronze figure looming above the sandbagged steps, ghostly in the thin glow of vehicle headlamps.

‘Jumpy, isn’t he?’ Jack murmured as they ducked behind a parked truck.

Ellie didn’t answer. She watched Talbot fumble with his cigarette in a pool of moonlight, the flame trembling in the wind.

His hands shook. He looked spooked, or perhaps guilty.

She couldn’t decide. They trailed him past the river, past the shell of a church with its spire snapped in half, past a pub with no lights and a CLOSED sign, long sun-bleached, in the window.

But their excitement began to fade. There were no secret meetings.

No envelopes passed from hand to hand. Just Talbot, wandering, pausing at corners, lingering by locked gates and doubling back on streets he’d already passed.

Ellie narrowed her eyes. Finally, he reached a modest red-brick terrace and let himself in.

A light flickered on briefly at the upper window, but he swiftly drew the curtains.

Jack exhaled. ‘If that was espionage, it’s taken a quieter turn.’

‘He wasn’t just wandering,’ she said.

Jack glanced over. ‘No?’

She shook her head. ‘Doubling back? If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was making sure he wasn’t being followed.’

‘You think he knew we were there?’

‘I don’t know. But if he didn’t, he’s been followed before.’

Jack shrugged then offered to drive her home, and for once, Ellie didn’t argue. They didn’t speak much on the way back, and her gut wouldn’t let go of the feeling they were being steered, and not by Talbot.

***

The next morning, Ellie had barely hung up her coat when she noticed that the access log she’d flagged the day before was gone.

She checked twice. The stack of papers was otherwise untouched, but that one page – the one listing every name present at the underground facility during Templeton’s last meeting – had vanished.

Her fingers hovered over the remaining documents.

Someone had been at her desk. Across the room, conversation carried on as normal.

Typewriters clicked. Phones rang. A secretary laughed. And yet …

She rose slowly and stepped to the doorway, her gaze drifting down the corridor. Just visible through the glass partition, Chalmers stood at the tea station, cup in hand, engaged in some casual chat. Nothing suspicious or obvious. He met her gaze briefly through the glass. Her spine straightened.

You’re not paranoid if you’re right.

***

She left work around six o’clock, walking home through the early-evening streets.

Piccadilly bustled with servicemen; a sea of khaki and RAF blue, even a few Americans who’d crossed the Atlantic to join the fight despite their own country’s reluctance.

Their laughter echoed off buildings as they spilled out of pubs, making the most of their leave.

Past the museum’s looming silhouette, the crowds began to thin as daylight faded. Her mind circled the missing page, the look in Chalmers’ eyes, and one quiet question that wouldn’t leave her alone: what if they already knew everything she was doing?

A prickle at the nape of her neck made Ellie glance sideways.

In the shadows across the street, a man stood in a tobacconist’s doorway, cigarette flaring briefly to illuminate sharp cheekbones before he flicked the match away.

She kept walking, heart racing. Around her, a few stragglers moved in loose clumps; nurses on bicycles, a man with a shopping basket, a courier on foot.

London never truly emptied, not even at this hour.

But near Russell Square, where fog thickened and dusk settled over the city, the streets had emptied.

The silence felt heavier here, pressing in like a held breath.

By the time she reached Tavistock Place, her pulse had surged.

She jogged up the stairs, her fingers fumbling in her bag for the keys.

Come on. They clinked, slipped, then caught.

She yanked them free and jammed the key into the lock, forcing the door open and slamming it shut behind her.

She leaned against it for a moment, breathing hard.

Someone had noticed she was getting too close.

Her heart leapt into her throat. Stop it , she told herself.

You’re letting your mind run away . But the cold certainty in her gut told a different story. And now, the game had changed.

‘There you are,’ Lizzie said, appearing with a steaming mug, drifts of cocoa curling in the air. She gave a faint frown. ‘You look like you’ve gone three rounds with the Luftwaffe.’

Catherine’s voice drifted from the living room, where she sat folding laundry into haphazard piles.

‘Stratton still dragging you into cloak-and-dagger business?’

‘Bit of both,’ Ellie replied, sinking into the armchair. The domestic warmth grounded her, but she caught Lizzie’s worried glance across the room.

They weren’t wrong to worry. Ellie just wasn’t ready to tell them why, or how close danger had just come.