Itried to sleep, but all night long there were noises drifting up to the Castle from the bay below: voices and engines – blurred sounds amidst the shushing of the waves and the rain. Then, at last, silence. Pinstripe had said the military would be dealing with everything now. He had said not to worry. But I needed to know what those sounds meant.
Had any of the landing craft made it to the shore? Had our men got there in time?
It wasn’t until the next morning that we found out what had happened. Mags ran down to the village at first light to ask Edie what she had heard, but she knew nothing about any of it, and nor did anyone else. She said she knew Kipper’s fishing fleet had gone out as usual. In the end, Mags went to the police station and found Pinstripe.
It turned out that the planned landing was not the glorious invasion that Mrs Baron and Michael had anticipated: there were only three landing boats, and they had all turned back as soon as I had changed the signal from the lighthouse. The U-boat had melted away into the dark water.
‘It’s as if it never even happened,’ I said to Pinstripe.
Mags had brought him back to the lighthouse with her. We sat together in the lantern room, and she brought us up a tray of tea and two buttered slices of fruitcake before disappearing back to the kitchen. I was glad she didn’t stay. There were things I wanted to ask the detective that would have upset or embarrassed my sister, and perhaps she felt the same.
Pinstripe told me that he had had suspicions about Mrs Baron and her son for some time – he’d been sure they were linked to the acts of sabotage. It turned out that Mrs Baron’s husband had been a member of the British Union of Fascists. He had even taken his family to one of Hitler’s rallies in Germany. Mrs Baron moved away from London after his death, somehow managing to conceal her own political beliefs from the authorities. For the last year or so, she and Michael had been working to help prepare for the invasion. She had been taking orders from a friend of her husband in Berlin – sending him packages of information and coded messages via a secret collection point – the telephone box on the Dover Road.
‘The piece of paper you left at the police station gave us an important breakthrough,’ Pinstripe said. ‘The one you left with the constable on the night you reported Michael Baron.’ He settled himself into the wicker chair with his cup of tea and smiled at me. ‘An excellent bit of detective work there.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ I said. ‘It was Grandpa Joe.’
‘Ah.’ Pinstripe took the scrap of paper from his pocket. ‘Well, it was vital evidence. We knew when and where the packages were arriving in London, so as soon as we received this list, we knew Mrs Baron had been at the drop-off point on exactly those days.’
I looked at the scrap of paper, amazed that it had turned out to be useful after all. ‘I didn’t think the policeman was going to give it to you,’ I said, remembering the sneer on Oily’s face as he suggested that I was just a spiteful little girl.
‘He didn’t at first,’ Pinstripe admitted. ‘But when I arrived at the police station later that evening, he told me that the scruffy child from the lighthouse had been in with some tall tale about the magistrate’s son, and that she had had the cheek to bother him with this bit of scribbled nonsense.’
I blushed at the bit about being scruffy.
‘I knew what it meant as soon as I saw it,’ he went on. ‘Mrs Baron went very quiet after Michael went missing, though. The deliveries to London seemed to stop altogether, so there was no chance of catching her red-handed. And you won’t believe the trouble I had trying to get a warrant to search a magistrate’s house. It was only after your sister came to the police station yesterday and Michael was arrested that we were finally granted permission to search the property.
‘We found some papers belonging to her late husband; a Nazi flag, which they were intending on flying from their window in the event of an invasion; a radio, and a set of instructions for signalling to the U-boat. That note had yesterday’s date on it. When I saw that the lighthouse was indeed part of her plan, I came up to the Castle straight away. And the rest you know, Petra.’
‘Yes.’ The rest I knew.
I watched a young seagull launching into the air, gliding all the way down from the top of the lighthouse, over the raw edge of the cliff.
It had been hard to get used to that new gap on the clifftop where the bomb had fallen. It reminded me of the jagged tear across the middle of our family tree – Pa and Mutti ripped away from us, just the daughters left behind, so close to the edge . . .
‘Do you think they will ever let Mutti come home?’ I said.
‘At some point. Provided the authorities believe she is no threat to security. It seems that her cousin in the Gestapo was killed by resistance fighters in France last month.’
I took in a little sharp breath. ‘You knew about him?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘And I know that your mother’s communication with him was entirely innocent. It seemed that she was still fond of the little boy she remembered from childhood; she had no idea about the sort of man he had become. It would really be something if her annual Christmas card message of Frohe Weihnachten! turned out to be some kind of complex code.’ The lines of his face folded into a smile. ‘Your mother was convinced that Magda was in trouble – did you know that? She had asked her where she was going so early in the mornings and Magda had lied to her – said she was working on the motor boat at the harbour.’
‘She didn’t want us to know about Michael.’
‘No.’
It was all making sense now. ‘Mutti suspected Mags had got involved with something bad, didn’t she? That was why she wanted us both to be evacuated.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that was why she confessed to being a spy. She had no idea it was Pa who’d actually sent the documents – she assumed it must be Mags. She was trying to protect her.’
‘That’s right.’
I thought back to Mutti’s letter – Remember that I have told the policeman everything he needs to know. I am ready now to tell them that it was me, to write it down and sign it. I’m so sorry, my darlings. This is the best way. I love you all so much. This had been her coded message to Mags. Her way of telling her daughter that she was taking the blame, and warning her to keep quiet.
‘Mutti was right in a way, though, wasn’t she?’ I said. ‘Mags was helping the Barons to prepare for the enemy landing – although she didn’t really know it.’
‘It’s her naivety that has saved your sister from prosecution,’ he said. ‘Sadly, your father made a conscious decision – he gave in to Mrs Baron’s blackmail in an attempt to protect your mother.’
‘I haven’t told the others,’ I said then. ‘I haven’t told anyone what Pa did.’
Pinstripe looked at me strangely. ‘How did you know about it, Petra? How did you know that he was responsible for sending the documents?’
I nodded towards the speaking tube. ‘I found out about Pa in the same way that you heard Mrs Baron’s confession – through the speaking tube,’ I said. ‘The day before Dunkirk. I heard Pa tell you the truth.’
Pinstripe smiled a little. ‘Well, there’s no reason for anyone to know now,’ he said slowly. ‘They’ll find out soon enough what Mrs Baron did. They’ll know that your sister was manipulated by Michael Baron, and that your mother is completely innocent. Let them remember your father as the man who saved the lives of many, many people – with his lighthouse and his lifeboat.’ He looked straight at me and crinkled his craggy brow. ‘But that’s a very heavy secret to carry around all by yourself, Petra.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’m strong enough to carry it.’
We sat quietly for a while, watching the steady roll of the whale-grey waves. The U-boat had gone, but its cold, threatening presence somehow remained – lurking there in the murky water, just like the Wyrm. But, for now, there will be no more sacrifices, I thought. For now, those monstrous, writhing shadows will have to stay hungry.
I often think about the song I sang when I was sitting up on the cliffs, waiting for Pa and Mags to return from Dunkirk. In the smoky light of that dawn, a spell was woven that would bind me to the magic of the clifftops and the stones for ever. The doctor says that the feeling in my legs could come back any day, or it may never come back at all. I try not to think about it. Instead, I think about how proud I am.
I know that I am part of a story that is thousands of years old. In years to come, people will whisper the tale to their children – a tale about love and loyalty: the legend of the Last Daughter of Stone.
It is about a girl who was small and unnoticeable and frightened. A girl whose mother was locked away and whose father was lost at sea. A child who battled with monsters, braving the raging skies and the darkness of the night to protect her castle: Defender of the White Cliffs. Dragon Slayer. Daughter of Stone.
Now, when I write the name Petra Zimmermann Smith, it no longer feels several sizes too big for me. I find it is a name that fits me perfectly.