Excerpt from An Unlikely Spy by Rebecca Starford, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I'm not sure. Maybe." Evelyn swallowed. "Something happened tonight. I'm not sure what to make of it. I know it's been a while, but could we meet? I'm in Bloomsbury."

"I know where you are, darling." She could hear the shape of Vincent's smile. "All right. Tomorrow morning. Zafer's, Lavender Hill. Ten o'clock." And he hung up.

Back inside her flat, Evelyn returned to the window. The night outside was blotchy like spilled ink. Among the shadows she could just make out the cat belonging to the lady at number twenty scavenging through a dustbin and, farther along the street, in the direction of Mabel's Tavern, Old Jim the street sweeper bent over his broom and shovel.

She glanced back at her bed, at the slim pillow resting against the headboard, and felt her chest ache. How long was she prepared to live like this, to be always furtive and afraid? What if Stephen didn't call her in the morning? What if her reticence that evening—a reticence they both recognized but had never brought out into the clear air—spelled the beginning of the end between them? In some ways, it would make things easier. To always wonder. To never test the strength of her feelings. Because she had told herself that if it ever came to this she would run. Pack a bag and catch the first train to meet the ferry. She still had contacts in Belgium; Christine might help her. She still knew how to become another person.

But it was too late. She couldn't leave—she didn't know how to anymore. Flight was part of the past, the old days. It sounded almost quaint how people spoke about the war now, as if they were only cracking open an old biscuit tin and not the lid of an ancient sarcophagus. Yet that was how it felt to Evelyn as she sat in the gloom, head pressed against the cool glass: as though she had been woken from a curse.

Excerpted from An Unlikely Spy by Rebecca Starford. Copyright © 2021 by Rebecca Starford. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.