The Body on the Train Quotes

“At school she learned a poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade. One line came back to her: ‘Someone had blundered’. There was never a time when someone high up didn’t blunder. It was always them at the top of the heap who blundered and them near the bottom of the heap who paid the price.”
― Frances Brody, The Body on the Train: Book 11 in the Kate Shackleton mysteries

“An earlier version of me might have heard gates clang behind me. When young and marching for the vote, I was with the suffragists. We took part in peaceful demonstrations but not everyone avoided arrest. I knew the experience of imprisonment through the stories of suffragette friends, the brutality and attempts to strip away the self. I had no wish to be a martyr; played my part, but was secretly relieved not to be incarcerated.
I took a deep breath and gave myself a shake. I walked towards the man at the gate, permit in hand. One more deep breath and I became someone else, a person who will not be cowed by men in uniform, no matter what their rank or station. Nursing experience always stands me in good stead. And I have excellent models among my old suffrage friends, and my family. Women from my mother's and aunt's rank in life quite naturally carry an air of authority and entitlement. There is a way of shifting the shoulders and straightening the back.”
― Frances Brody, The Body on the Train