Page 59 of The Shadow Code (Heroes of War #3)

L ilian sat at her desk, staring at the Bakelite telephone.

Eleanor had sounded tired. More than tired.

Worn to the bone. There’d been a slight catch in her voice, too small for most to notice, but she heard it.

She always did. She drew in a deep breath and let it out through her nose.

Poor girl. She’d been through the mill lately; her father kidnapped, a mad race to find him, and the death of that agent.

Stratton had mentioned there having been something between them.

Lilian hadn’t asked, but she’d seen the grief in Eleanor’s eyes.

Quiet, controlled. Like a woman bleeding beneath her coat.

And now this: her flatmate in custody. Friend seemed too simple a word now, given what Catherine had done. But still, it was a betrayal that must have cut deep. Lilian drained the last of her Earl Grey, stood, straightened her tunic jacket and headed downstairs.

The interview room smelled of floor polish and old cigarettes. A faint flicker overhead cast pallid light across the worn tiles. It was always too cold in here – by design of course. One wooden table. Two chairs. A wall heater that clicked dutifully but gave off no warmth.

Catherine – Sally, officially – sat opposite, hands folded like a schoolgirl called in to account for some broken window. Her coat and belt had been taken, and without them she looked small. The kind of small that could vanish if you weren’t paying close attention.

Lilian opened her notebook and sat. ‘Full name, please.’

‘Sally Thompson.’

The answers came without fuss. Date of birth. Previous address: a bedsit above a tobacconist. Rent left in envelopes, paid in cash. ‘By whom?’

A pause. ‘I don’t know his real name. He said to call him Daniel.’

Of course he did. There was always a Daniel. A Peter. A John. Names without roots. ‘And when did you first meet this Daniel?’

Catherine’s voice softened. ‘A year ago. I was working in Clerkenwell. A bookshop. He came in asking for poetry by Rilke. We started talking.’

Lilian didn’t comment. Of course it had started with poetry.

‘He offered you money?’

‘Yes.’

‘Training? Clothes? A way out?’ Hmm, that was often the case.

Catherine nodded, chin tilting slightly as if defying shame. ‘He said I didn’t belong where I was. That I was better than that. He made me feel like … someone.’

There it was. The quiet heart of it. Lilian wrote nothing for a moment. ‘He told you what to wear? What to say? How to speak?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And eventually, where to work.’

Another nod.

‘And when he gave you the device …?’

Catherine’s fingers fidgeted briefly, then stilled. ‘He said it was time,’ she whispered. ‘That it wouldn’t hurt anyone. That it was symbolic. A statement.’

Lilian closed the notebook gently. Outside the door, a typewriter clacked.

Someone coughed down the hall. The world went on.

She looked at the girl facing her, nineteen years old, raised by a father shattered by the trenches, her mother long gone.

No school beyond fourteen, no prospects.

Just a face someone had picked from the crowd.

Someone lonely enough to follow any voice that said, You matter.

She’d seen it before. Too many times. Girls who wanted to belong – to a man, a movement, a lie that looked like hope.

Catherine looked up suddenly, in a voice that was quiet but urgent, she said, ‘Is Ellie all right? I didn’t mean for her to be near it. I swear I didn’t want her to get hurt.’

Lilian regarded her for a long moment. Remorse. Not innocence. But it was genuine. ‘She’s safe,’ Lilian said evenly. ‘Shaken, but safe.’ She paused, then added, ‘Regret doesn’t undo the choices, Miss Thompson. It simply means you still feel them.’

Catherine lowered her gaze, placing her hands back in her lap.

Lilian stood, smoothing her skirt. ‘That’s all for today, Miss Thompson. You’ll be held until further notice.’

The girl didn’t reply. Just folded in on herself, as quietly as paper.

As Lilian stepped into the corridor, she didn’t look back. But she thought, She could’ve been any one of them. Any one of us, at the wrong time. With the wrong man. And that’s what makes it so damn dangerous.

She walked slowly down the corridor, the soles of her shoes soft against the scuffed linoleum. Scotland Yard always smelled the same, of old tobacco, ink, nerves and floor wax. You could scrub the floors a dozen times and still not lift the history from them.

At the end of the hallway, she spotted Ellie waiting by the lift. Her coat was still buttoned, her hair pulled back too tightly, as if control might keep her upright. Pale but composed. Grief sometimes wore the mask of calm.

Lilian paused before speaking. ‘She didn’t ask for a solicitor,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘Didn’t deny anything either.’

Ellie didn’t move. Just stared out at the grey sky beyond the glass.

‘Did she mention me?’

‘She did,’ Lilian said. ‘She said she was glad you hadn’t been hurt.’

Ellie exhaled a thread of air. Lilian studied her in the silence.

Such a clever girl. Brave, too. But far too hard on herself.

‘She’s no martyr,’ Lilian added after a beat.

‘But she’s not a monster, either. Just a lonely girl who was told she mattered.

And believed it.’ She hesitated, then softened her voice.

‘Sometimes, that’s all it takes. One voice, in the right moment. Or the wrong one.’

Ellie said nothing. But her shoulders dropped by a fraction.

Lilian didn’t press on. She knew when silence served better than speech.

And she thought – not for the first time – that wars weren’t always fought on battlefields.

Some were waged quietly, in rooms like these, over loyalty, loneliness and the lies people told themselves to keep going.