The White Lady

In 1947 rural Kent, England, Rose and Jim Mackie live with their three-year-old daughter Susie in a tied cottage, a home provided with Jim's farm job in the village of Shacklehurst. The young family fled London to escape Jim's powerful criminal family, originally the Marchettis, an Italian immigrant clan that built a criminal empire from London's docks. Jim's father, John Mackie, disowned him for leaving. Their neighbor is Elinor White, a reclusive woman who lives alone in a grace-and-favor house provided by the crown for unspecified wartime service. Locals know little about Elinor except that she is a crack shot, an expert gardener, and strangely adept at blending into her surroundings.

After Susie breaks through Elinor's reserve with a cheerful greeting, Elinor begins warming to the family. Her routine is disrupted one Sunday when she notices a black Ford outside the Mackies' cottage and finds Rose clutching a crying Susie, a bruise on her cheek, while raised voices echo from inside. Rose claims it is a family disagreement, but Elinor recognizes the signs of violence. When Jim's two older brothers emerge, Elinor retrieves a Welrod, a suppressed pistol from her wartime covert work, follows the Ford to Camberwell in south London, and confirms the men's address. She drives to a secret mews flat in South Kensington and telephones Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Warren of the Flying Squad at Scotland Yard. Their conversation reveals a prior wartime connection.

The narrative shifts to August 1914 in Belgium, where ten-year-old Elinor De Witt, her 13-year-old sister Cecily, and their English mother Charlotte flee as Germany invades. Their father Thomas, a diamond merchant, has left for the Belgian army and is presumed dead. Charlotte makes the girls wear petticoats with diamonds sewn into the seams as emergency currency. The family reaches the port at Ostend only to find there are no more boats; they must return home under occupation. Years of hunger and brutality follow. A woman calling herself Isabelle recruits Charlotte and the girls into La Dame Blanche (the White Lady), a Belgian resistance network named for a legend that a woman in white would herald the fall of Germany's ruling Hohenzollern dynasty. The name also connects to the family's own surnames: De Witt and White both mean "white."

The De Witts begin by observing German train movements. Isabelle escalates their involvement to sabotage. In 1916, the sisters place metal plates on railway tracks to derail a German arms train. Germans execute civilians in retaliation. Isabelle teaches Elinor to shoot and Cecily to fight with a knife and a sharpened pencil. In 1917, during a second sabotage mission, two German soldiers confront the sisters. When one begins to assault Cecily, 13-year-old Elinor draws her revolver and kills both men. Isabelle destroys all evidence and arranges the family's escape from Belgium. A Dutch couple guides them across the border, and a British agent arranges their repatriation to London.

In 1947 London, Elinor meets Warren at the Albert Memorial. He explains the Mackie family's criminal structure and Jim's value as an expert driver. Warren introduces Detective Sergeants Bob Mills and Charlie Kettle. Elinor suggests the Mackies may be planning a coordinated operation involving multiple simultaneous crimes. Warren is skeptical but orders an investigation.

Elinor cultivates a friendship with Jim's aunt, Elsie Finch, through weekly hair appointments and tea at Fortnum & Mason. Elsie, dismissed by her brothers as harmless, runs a sophisticated shoplifting and pickpocketing ring. Over their conversations, Elsie reveals deep resentment and declares she will have "the last laugh." Meanwhile, Elinor notices Warren being collected in a chauffeured government car. Through Warren's secretary Val and a visit to Standing Abbey, the school Warren attended, Elinor identifies his contact as Sir Peregrine Gordon-Williams. A priest reveals that Gordon-Williams was a manipulative bully who shielded scholarship boy Warren in exchange for accumulated favors, warning that Gordon-Williams "would win at all costs."

The novel intercuts these 1947 events with Elinor's earlier life. After losing her mother, sister, and grandmother to a German bomb in 1941, Elinor is consumed by grief. Commander Clare Fields of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the wartime British organization tasked with sabotage and resistance in occupied Europe, recruits her. Fields is the woman Elinor once knew as Isabelle. Elinor undergoes intensive training, and she and Warren, codenamed Luc, become lovers. Fields warns Elinor to end the relationship and to distrust Warren, citing his ties to an influential old school friend.

Deployed to occupied Belgium as "Marianna," a traveling cosmetics saleswoman, Elinor runs resistance operations and bonds with a family in a coastal village, especially five-year-old Anique. In August 1944, Elinor and Warren lead resistance volunteers to support an expected Allied landing. Warren has secretly been passing intelligence to Gordon-Williams, codenamed "Falcon," through the radio operator Blaz, serving a rival intelligence service. At the last moment, the village becomes a decoy while the real landing occurs elsewhere. The Germans attack. Anique, recognizing Elinor, runs into the square. Warren orders Elinor to shoot the child to prevent exposure. Elinor refuses. Warren grabs her gun, pushes her down so that her head strikes an iron hub on a cart, and shoots Anique himself. Severely concussed, Elinor is evacuated believing she killed the child. On the hospital ship, overwhelmed with guilt, she attempts to end her life. She is later subjected to electroshock therapy, ostensibly for treatment but effectively suppressing her memories and silencing her.

In 1947, Jim's brothers return with escalating violence. Rose and Susie flee to Elinor's house. Elinor enters the Mackie cottage armed, disarms both brothers, and forces them to leave. She drives the family to the Sussex home of Sophie Hunt, her closest friend since school. Jim reveals the full scope of his family's plans: They need not only his driving skills but his explosives expertise, learned during army bomb disposal training, for what they intend as the biggest bank robbery in history.

John Mackie himself then visits Elinor with his sons and Michael Kemp, the man she knew as Blaz. Kemp reveals the truth: Elinor did not kill Anique. Warren shot the child, then allowed Elinor to believe she was responsible. John Mackie holds Kemp's supposed tape recording of the full story as leverage over Warren and Gordon-Williams, allowing the Mackie family to operate with minimal police interference. Mackie tells Elinor that Jim is free and the planned bank job abandoned because Elinor drew too much attention.

Elinor confronts Warren at Scotland Yard, placing the Welrod on his desk. She tells him she knows everything and calls him "a liar, a coward, a Judas and a murderer." As Elinor leaves, Val reveals a massive coordinated robbery is underway: five banks, five post offices, and five major shops, all committed by women. Elinor recognizes this as Elsie's operation, her "last laugh" against her brothers. No one was hurt.

Elinor visits Clare Fields one last time. Fields counsels her to let go of the war and embrace ordinary life, insisting she rid herself of all weapons. Elinor collects Jim, Rose, and Susie and brings them home. Susie runs to Elinor shouting "Linnee," and the child's affection begins to release the guilt Elinor has carried for years. The following morning, Elinor loads her firearms into a sack, walks to the lake in Denbury Forest, and throws them into the water. The weight of war lifts from her shoulders. She walks away, keeping only a sharpened pencil in her pocket, the weapon Cecily once learned to wield and a last link to the sister she lost.