Page 62 of The Shadow Code (Heroes of War #3)

T he knock was soft. Ellie opened the door to find Jack on the threshold, a coat slung over one arm and a paper bag in hand. He looked better than the last time she’d seen him, less drawn, but the dark shadows beneath his eyes still lingered.

‘I’ve brought breakfast,’ he said, holding out the bag. ‘Sort of.’

She stepped back to let him in, the faint trace of cedarwood cologne following him inside. Jack followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table while Ellie fetched plates and made a fresh pot of tea. Only once they were settled did she peek inside the bag.

‘Ooh. Croissants.’ She smiled, faint but genuine. ‘How on earth did you manage that?’

‘Let’s just say I know a man who knows a baker. The less you know, the better.’

She tore off a corner, savouring the flakes of sweetness. It was warm, buttery and real. After everything, that counted for something.

They sat in companionable quiet for a few minutes, steam curling from their cups. ‘I take it you’ve heard about Catherine,’ Ellie said softly.

Jack nodded. ‘Lilian called me after the arrest. I spoke with her this morning.’

Her gut twisted. ‘She was still in custody when I saw Lilian yesterday. I didn’t go in. I thought I might, but … I couldn’t.’

Jack gave a small nod, not pushing for further information. ‘She told me about the girl’s past. The lack of one, really.’

Ellie stared into her tea. ‘She said Catherine was lonely. Poor. That Granville gave her everything – a flat, a job, even her name.’

‘She was still young,’ Jack said. ‘And he gave her purpose. That’s a dangerous combination.’

Ellie’s hands clenched in her lap. ‘She really believed she mattered to him,’ she murmured. ‘That’s the part I can’t get past.’

He didn’t answer immediately. ‘Maybe she did. For a time. Until she didn’t.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘She knew everything about me: my routine, my habits, what I liked in my tea. How did I not see it?’

‘She was trained not to be seen,’ Jack said gently. ‘That’s how they get close. They’re friendly, seem harmless.’

Her throat tightened. ‘If he’d never found her, if he’d just walked past her in that bookshop, maybe she’d still be there now. Not a threat. Just someone making a life.’

Jack nodded. ‘That’s what makes it worse.’

They sat in silence, the ache between them quietly building.

‘She watched me. That’s what stays with me.

I told her things I didn’t tell anyone else.

’ They had been friends, or so she had thought.

But it had all been an elaborate act, some grand master plan and Ellie had been one piece of the puzzle.

All the cosy chats, advice, sympathy she had shown …

and all the while Catherine had been planning a murder with that sweet smile etched on her rosy lips.

Ellie swallowed hard, gritting her teeth.

He reached across and took her hand. ‘It’s over. You stopped it.’

She nodded slowly, but the words didn’t soothe her. Not this time. ‘Did she talk about him?’

‘Granville?’ Jack exhaled. ‘She said he called himself Daniel. She seemed half in love with him.’

Ellie closed her eyes. ‘She didn’t even know his real name.’

‘No. She kept repeating the name, so I showed her a photograph of Granville. That’s when it clicked.’

She stared down at her hands. The name. The voice.

A memory surfaced – that day in the corridor at MI5 when she’d glimpsed Granville.

She hadn’t seen his face clearly, but she’d heard him speaking, his voice smooth and scratchy, velvet over gravel.

Her breath caught. She’d heard it again outside their flat when that chap had walked Catherine home that night.

Just a few words spoken at the door, but the tone had struck her as familiar then.

Her pulse quickened as the pieces locked into place.

Granville had walked her home. She told Jack.

His expression darkened. ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered. ‘That bastard.’

Ellie swallowed. ‘Was she shocked?’

‘Yeah. She said, “That’s Daniel,” then went quiet.’

Ellie gazed at the stove. Just three nights ago, they’d all been together, laughing and talking nonsense and planning the week as if the world weren’t falling apart. Now Catherine – no, Sally – was in a cell. And Granville … his name curled cold around her spine.

Her gaze drifted to the corner of the table where her notepad lay open, pencil resting across the page.

The requisition form from weeks ago surfaced in her memory.

Had the signature been O Granville … or D , for Daniel?

At the time she’d hesitated, then dismissed it.

The ache in her ribs sharpened. You saw it and yet you missed everything.

She exhaled. ‘She’s going to hang, isn’t she? ’

Jack didn’t flinch. ‘She walked into the War Rooms with a bomb. That’s treason. Attempted assassination of the Prime Minister. It’s not up to us.’

Ellie stared at her hands. ‘She’s just a girl. Nineteen. Did she have any family?’

‘Mother’s gone. Father’s in a hospital. Shell shock in the last war.’

Ellie nodded, mostly to herself. ‘So she had nothing.’

Jack did not reply. He didn’t need to.

Catherine had never existed, except in the quiet corners of Ellie’s memory, where they’d danced barefoot in the kitchen to Glenn Miller, shared tea from a Thermos in the shelter, laughed over burned toast, borrowed books and endured Lizzie’s abominable baking.

Never existed, except in the moments that had felt real.

The ache cradling Ellie’s ribs climbed into her throat.

Those small kindnesses, the shared laughter – how much of it had been genuine?

They ate in silence for a while. The tea did little to soothe.

‘She didn’t take it well,’ Jack added. ‘When I told her he was dead.’

Ellie nodded slowly.

‘She cried. Not loudly, more like a child who’d been abandoned.

’ He hesitated, then said, ‘She knows what she’s facing.

’ Then he reached into his coat pocket. ‘Before I forget,’ he said, setting an envelope on the table.

Cream, bearing the MI5 seal. Her name, crisp and sharp, on the front.

He watched her as she turned it over. ‘They asked me to deliver it personally.’

She nodded.

‘They want you, Ellie. Properly this time. Because you see what others miss, and you get results.’

She stared at the envelope, the weight of it heavier than it should’ve been. It wasn’t just a letter. It was a gift, an escape from a life mired in endless paperwork, a mediocre pension and fussy sergeants barking about bicycle theft.As tempting as it was, she propped it against the teapot for now.

Jack stood, his chair squealing on the quarry tiled floor. ‘It’s your choice. No pressure. It’s up to you now.’

She walked him to the door, her thoughts still churning. Before he stepped out, he turned.

‘Just so you know,’ he said softly, ‘anyone would be lucky to have you.’

She held his gaze. ‘Thanks, Jack.’

He smiled warmly and pressed a kiss to her lips, soft as snow, then got into his car and drove away.

She locked the door behind him and returned to the kitchen where the envelope waited.

But her gaze settled on the tea cosy in bright red, white and blue, stretched over the pot to fit snugly, like a miniature Union Jack.

Ellie remembered how they’d all laughed when they first saw it.

Lizzie had called it ‘positively Churchillian’ but Sally had just lifted her chin and said, rather proudly, ’I had those colours left over.

Scraps, and they do say make do and mend .

’ At the time, it had felt charming and cheerful.

Patriotic in the way bunting and ration posters had become part of the backdrop.

Now, it pinched. The irony of it, a spy’s tea cosy, stitched in the colours of the country she’d betrayed.

Ellie didn’t touch it. Just stared for a long moment, until the kettle whistled and brought her back to herself.

The thought of Catherine hanging filled Ellie with numbness.

She sat at the table, elbows on the wood, head in her hands.

Had they ever been friends? Or had it all been a lie?

She had just been another assignment. And yet there had been moments.

Little ones. The lipstick correction. The way she said Ellie’s name.

The gentleness. None of it excused what she did.

But it still hurt. A tear slipped down her cheek, then another.

She wiped them away impatiently, angry at herself for grieving someone who had never existed, who had fooled them all.

Yet still the tears flowed, despite the betrayal.

Ellie stood and walked to the window, envelope in hand.

Her thoughts circled Sinclair, Granville, Kingfisher.

So much lost. So much exposed. She wasn’t the same girl who’d walked into Scotland Yard months ago chasing approval, waiting to be seen.

She was someone else. Not just her father’s daughter.

Not just a dogsbody at the Yard. She was the woman who had walked through fire and come out forged.

The letter inside was formal but kind. A permanent post and significant work, no doubt.

A role that mattered. She laid it down then stared at her reflection in the mirror above the mantel, noting her weary eyes, still red from tears she refused to shed, and the steadiness that hadn’t been there before.

She reached for a pen, hesitated for a moment, then signed. Striding into the hall, she slipped on her coat, grabbed her gas mask and the envelope, and stepped outside.

The streets of London still glistened from the night’s rain.

Traffic droned. Smoke curled from distant chimneys.

Keep buggering on, Churchill had said. Ellie smiled faintly as the wind bit at her cheeks, sharp and fresh.

She welcomed it as she walked towards St James’s Street, her stride even and steady as she whispered under her breath, ‘This time, I choose the shadows.’

Then she walked on – into the noise, into the fight, into whatever came next.