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Chief Wilmot waves a hand as if wiping a blackboard clean. “You couldn’t have known. Who could’ve guessed any of this for tiny Great Rollright? Besides, my mandate was never to do more than listen and watch. And from what I could discern, they did nothing illegal.”

“But her radios?”

“It’s not illegal to own them, Miss Brown. Rare, yes. Illegal, no. And we could never trace the signal. It was only on for short periods of time, intermittently, and usually late at night.”

I think back to a few times Ursula would yawn during our baking lessons and comment on how poorly she’d slept. Another puzzle piece clicking into place.

“You tried to trace it? That’s why—”

Charlie cuts in. “Like we thought, that’s why she needed the Kidlington house.”

I reach for his arm. “It had an even bigger radio and papers were everywhere. She said Felisov—that’s the name she told me—had gotten sloppy. But she used it too. She must have.”

Charlie drops into the chair next to me, catching upon my thread of thought as he often does. “For longer messages as radio traffic can’t be traced in that area. So short bursts from here weren’t too risky, but to convey real information, that would take time. She’d go there and after—”

“Fuchs was arrested. There was planning to do. But just now she said that lately she wasn’t—”

Chief Wilmot’s chair squeals, and I’m reminded we aren’t alone.

“You spoke with her? When?” The chief drums his fingers atop his desk.

I gesture towards the door as if we can all see my flat blocks away and hear the conversation that took place minutes ago. “Just now. She came to see me before getting into the cab. She—”

Chief Wilmot raises a hand. “Better still, don’t tell me. Those are details I don’t need, and no one will be pleased you’ve talked about them. Not before whomever they send talks to you first.”

I press my lips tight. I can’t help myself—I have to talk. At least about some things. “She said they’d come to talk to me. She also said they’d force me to move and change my name.”

Although not phrased as questions, they are questions. And although I’m staring at Charlie, I don’t expect him to have the answers.

Chief Wilmot seems to understand, as he’s the one who answers me. “They will come to question you. And they might make you move. They might make you change your name. I’m not really sure how these things work.”

“Where would I go?” My head drops and I hear my voice come out small and quiet. “This is my home.”

“In the end you’ll go wherever they tell you to.”

My focus snaps up at such a bald answer, expecting to find eyes hard and cynical. But I’m met with a soft, almost tender frown.

Chief Wilmot scrubs his hand across the day’s stubble on his face. “They’ll be worried for your safety, Miss Brown. You got closer to her than anyone ever has. Closer than we could, by law, and far closer than the Security Service has, even with their extra wiggle room.”

I slump into the chair as best I can, but the wood hits my spine wrong and sends me upright again with a jolt of pain. Her? “You knew it was Mrs. Beurton? She said everyone thought it was her husband.”

“Over the years one agent convinced me it wasn’t him. The Miss Bagot you mentioned.” Chief Wilmot leans forward. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

In a few words he gives me instructions to go home—not the pub so as not to risk talking to anyone—and to wait. I am also not to go to work tomorrow morning but to leave a note in the store’s back room for Mr. Hastings, stating that I need another day of rest. I am to stay in my bedsit until “someone” comes to talk to me. And though I ask, I get the sense he has no idea who that might be.

Eventually I stand to go. Charlie steps close beside me.

I catch Chief Wilmot suppress a smile before he says, “PC Charles, will you please walk Miss Brown home?”

“Yes, sir.”

I walk out of the station, almost numb, with Charlie following behind me. The silence feels so heavy and oppressive it almost breaks me. But thankfully, once we’re outside, Charlie grabs my hand and pulls me close. He whispers, “Sergeant Boyle will be listening. Walk a bit.”

I nod and step away, and we walk several feet before he speaks again. “Thank God you’re alright.”

“Charlie?” I can’t say any more. Tears threaten. I can’t breathe. I can’t think.

He squeezes my hand tight. “Don’t leap so far, Gemma. We don’t know what they’ll say or do. One step at a time, okay?”