seat and closed the door. The summons was a refrain of the last time Dodds had come unexpectedly for her. But the women’s unit was gone now, relegated to a footnote in the history of SOE. She could not fathom what the Director might want.
Dodds put the car into gear. As ever, he did not speak, but kept his eyes squarely on the road, turning smartly at the red phone booth on the corner. The car wound silently down the shuttered streets of North London, deserted except for the occasional lorry driver packing his load for the early morning deliveries. Though the blackout had ended months ago, the streetlights were still dimmed, like a habit not easily shaken. It was January 4 and a few Christmas decorations still hung in the windows. The holidays had been a dismal affair—as though no one remembered how to celebrate in peacetime. Hard to feel festive, Eleanor supposed, when basic staples like coffee and sugar were still in such scarce supply—and when so many were observing the holidays without the loved one who had never come home.
It wasn’t until they reached the corner of Baker Street that she saw it: Norgeby House had been destroyed in a fire. The slate roof was peeled back like an open can and the window frames stood hollow, spectacle rims charred with flame. Stone and wood smoldered on the ground, seeming to give off heat even through the closed window of the car.
“What on earth?” she said aloud, wondering when the fire had started, calculated whether the story would make the morning newspapers and decided it would not. Though Eleanor didn’t know exactly what was going on, she had a keen understanding that it had to do with why the Director had summoned her so unexpectedly.
Eleanor desperately wanted to get out and have a closer look, but Dodds did not stop the car. Instead, he drove her down Baker Street to Number 64, the main headquarters building for SOE. He ushered her through the door of the building, which, although only slightly larger than Norgeby House, felt infinitely more austere. Inside the foyer, a cluster of senior army officers brushed by. Though some of their faces were familiar to Eleanor, none of the men acknowledged her.
Dodds led her up three flights of stairs to the anteroom of an office and closed the door behind her without a word, leaving her alone. Eleanor did not hang her coat on the stand in the corner, but folded it over her arm. A furnace hissed menacingly and a cigarette not quite extinguished gave off an acrid smell from an unseen ashtray. Eleanor walked to the window, which overlooked the rear of the building. Over the lip of the rooftop, she could just make out the remains of the burned house, the war room where they had met daily. Tattered bits of their maps and photographs, once closely guarded secrets, now fluttered through the broken window like confetti.
Had it really been a year and a half since she had last been here with her hat in her hand, asking to go find her girls? So much had happened since then, D-Day, victory in Europe and, finally, the end of the war. The last time she had been here, the Director had dismissed her, turned her out callously from the place that had once been hers. Even now, it made her insides ache to remember, the pain as fresh as though it had happened yesterday.
The click of the door jolted Eleanor from her memories. Imogen, the receptionist, eyed her coolly, as though they had never met. “He’ll see you now.”
“Eleanor.” The Director did not stand as she entered. But there was a warmth in his eyes behind the businesslike exterior, acknowledging the bond they had once shared. The distance he had shown the day he’d dismissed her was gone, as if it had never existed. Eleanor relaxed slightly.
The Director gestured for her to sit. Closer now, she could see the toll that the war had taken on him—as it had on herself. His sleeves were rolled up, his collar unbuttoned, and the stubble on his cheeks and chin said that he’d been there since the previous day. He’d always been impeccably groomed, but now he looked unhinged.
He followed her gaze out the window toward the smoldering remains of Norgeby House. “Olympus, it seems, has fallen.” His voice was stiff with disbelief.
It wasn’t her problem, she told herself. She had been cast out months