A ripping inside, and her face crumpled. “He did help.”
Louisa released a long sigh. “That explains why Collie took the assignment. Typical heartbroken man flinging himself into danger.”
“What? You think—”
“I do.” Louisa gave her a cool, hard look.
Aleida hugged her purse to her stomach and gazed down the dark tunnel, searching for their train. “You think I’m insensitive, unreasonable—”
“Insensitive? If anything, you’re too sensitive.”
Aleida glared at Louisa. Sebastiaan always accused her of being insensitive to his needs, then in the next breath would say she was too sensitive. How could she be both?
Louisa’s eyes softened. “I think you’re sensitive because you’re wounded. Cruel men do that to us. They mess with our minds, then blame us for the mess. That doesn’t go away overnight. Poor Collie got caught in the middle.”
He’d looked devastated. Anguished. Not furious like Sebastiaan looked when she crossed him. Now Hugh was wounded too.
She’d done that. Had she made a horrible mistake?
Louisa nudged her with an elbow. “I’m still your friend. You can’t get rid of me that easily. We’ll just meet for lunch until you and Collie kiss and make up.”
Aleida offered a feeble smile, but they wouldn’t make up. She might have made a mistake, she might be wounded, but he’d poured acid in her wounds.
The train pulled into the station, and Aleida and Louisa found seats on board. Before long, they arrived at the Willesden Junction Station. A few streets over, they found the address, a two-story row house of golden brick with white trim.
Aleida rang the bell. In a moment, a woman in her twenties opened the door, a woman who shared Nilima Sharma’s eyes—her sister, perhaps. A pungent scent of incense poured out the door. And a heaviness, a gloom.
A house in mourning? That would explain Nilima’s absence. Aleida gave the woman a slight smile. “My name is Mrs. Martens, and I work with Miss Nilima Sharma. We were concerned by her absence this—”
The woman’s face puckered.
From deeper inside the house, another woman wailed. “Nilima! My beautiful Nilima.”
Oh no. What had happened to Nilima? Aleida exchanged a worried glance with Louisa.
The woman at the door composed herself. “Please come through. My name is Indira. I’m Nilima’s sister. This is my mother, Manjula.”
The weeping woman sat on a sofa. She wore her silver-streaked black hair in a long braid, and she looked up at Aleida with dismay.
Dread churned in Aleida’s stomach, but she gave the woman a respectful nod. “Good day, Mrs. Sharma. I’m Mrs. Martens, and this is my friend Miss Jones.”
“Please have a seat.” Indira motioned to two empty chairs. “I’m afraid Nilima was killed during the air raid on Saturday night.”
Killed? Her mind reeling, Aleida sat and gripped her purse. “Oh no. I’m so sorry.”
“I offer my condolences,” Louisa said.
Fire burned in Mrs. Sharma’s dark eyes. “German bombs didn’t kill her. An Englishman did.”
“Pardon?” Aleida said. “What happened?”
Indira sat and took both her mother’s hands in her own. “It looks like an air raid death. She was found—found buried in a collapsed trench in Green Park.”
“But she was strangled.” Mrs. Sharma’s voice shook. “With the strap from her helmet. I saw her body. I saw the marks on her neck.”
“She was on duty that night,” Aleida whispered. Then sheshook her head. “I volunteer at the same post, though I wasn’t there on Saturday. But why was she in Green Park? It’s adjacent to our sector, but she would have been patrolling the streets.”
“That’s what we told the police.” Indira squeezed her mother’s hands. “She wouldn’t have been in Green Park, wouldn’t have been in a shelter. No one else was in the trench, so she wasn’t escorting people there.”
