‘Ithink perhaps you ought to give us a full explanation, Miss Smith.’
My sister looked at Pinstripe. ‘Yes.’ But she didn’t address what followed to the detective, she looked at me instead. ‘I joined the search for Michael after the bomb, just as I said I would, right after the ambulance took you away, Pet. I was the first person to find him. He was up on the clifftop in the middle of the gorse bushes – he must have been thrown backwards by the blast. His leg was broken. Michael begged me not to call for help. He said if I called the police, he would be arrested for sabotage. He told me that it was you who had cut the telephone line, Pet.’
‘Me?’
My sister was embarrassed then. Worse than embarrassed – ashamed. ‘Yes. And that he’d tried to stop you.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘No. Maybe for a while.’
Pinstripe looked at her unblinkingly. So did Mrs Baron. And so did I.
‘Yes. I believed him.’ She couldn’t look at Michael. ‘It was easier to believe that my innocent little sister had been manipulated by someone – got herself tangled up in something stupid – than to believe that—’
I finished the sentence for her. ‘Than to believe that your boyfriend was a Nazi.’
Her eyes filled up with tears. ‘Yes.’
‘So you hid him.’ And I knew where. I had seen the mud and the chalk on the policeman’s uniform. ‘In Dragon Bay Cave.’
Mags looked at me almost gratefully. ‘Yes. Mrs Baron and I moved him there together. She agreed it was best for Michael not to come here – just in case the police believed Petra’s “spiteful nonsense”.’
I shot the Baron a look, and then turned back to Mags. ‘And you’ve been taking him food from the lighthouse,’ I continued, the riddle of my poor dwindled sister making sense at last. ‘You’ve been sharing your rations with him. That’s why you’ve got so thin, Mags.’
A tear ran down the side of my sister’s face. ‘I wanted so much to believe that he was innocent. He was very ill – I went to see him every day to look after him. But then, as he got stronger, he started telling me things – things that he thought about the world, about the war. He had persuaded me to take him out in the boat several times before the bomb. He had asked me about the sandbank, and the lighthouse, about the tides. I thought he was just showing an interest in boats because he liked me, but—’
Mrs Baron interrupted her then. ‘But he was just using you for information. You were useful,’ she sneered. ‘Michael and I planned exactly how to get what we needed from you. You were so easy to manipulate. Just like your pathetic father.’
If my legs had worked, I’d have flown across the room and clawed her nasty red eyes out.
‘As the weeks went by, it got harder and harder for me to believe that Michael had told me the truth,’ Mags went on. She wiped both eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Today I asked Petra if what she had said about Michael was true and she said—’
‘I said I couldn’t remember.’
Mags smiled through her tears then. ‘Yes. But I’m your big sister, Pet. I can always tell when you’re lying, remember? I knew you were trying to protect me from the truth. I went straight to Michael in the cave and confronted him. He told me everything, and he begged me to help him tonight – just one last thing, he said. I needed to help him get down to Dragon Bay, and then come back and light the lamp at exactly eleven o’clock.’
‘But this time you refused.’
‘I went straight to the police station and told them everything. I told them where to find Michael, and that he and his mother were planning something to do with the lighthouse and Dragon Bay. And then, when I got home, she was here.’ She pointed at Mrs Baron. ‘She told me what she wanted me to do and I refused. Then there was a struggle – I remember the little bottle in her hand and—’
‘I should have finished you off,’ Mrs Baron screeched. ‘You nasty little—’
Then Michael spoke. He had been silent all this time, listening to Mags tell her story. ‘I do love you, Magda,’ he said. ‘I didn’t to begin with – you were just part of the plan. But I do love you now, I swear.’ His mother’s face grimaced, sickened. Michael shuffled towards my sister and opened his green eyes wide. I remembered the way they used to sparkle, but it wasn’t like this – crazed, feverish. ‘Starting the fires, cutting the telephone lines, telling you a few white lies along the way, even the fact that I had to threaten your sister that night – they were all necessary: just the means to an end. Sometimes you have to be ruthless.’
Mags suddenly locked her eyes upon him, and I saw that they were as cold as pebbles. ‘You threatened my sister?’ she whispered.
‘Yes – and I’m sorry I had to do that, but anyone can see that sacrifices have to be made if people like you and me are to have the future we deserve. Anyone can see that welcoming the invasion is the quickest route to peace. The only right side in this war is the winning side.’ He was even closer to her now. ‘And I want you to be on that side with me, Mags. It’s not too late. Our police – these idiots – they’ll have no power at all when Hitler’s army arrive – and they’re on their way right now! I will look after you, I promise.’ He reached out a filthy, handcuffed paw and took my sister’s hand. He was looking steadily at her as he lifted her fingers towards his lips and kissed them.
I studied her face. I waited.
I knew what was coming, because I knew my sister, and I knew that look. ‘I don’t really need looking after, thank you, Michael, and even if I did, I don’t think you’d be in a position to do so,’ she said, pulling her hand away very gently, and then wiping it on her coat in disgust. ‘After all, it’s the death penalty for traitors.’