The moment I entered Sutherland’s Stores, the whole shop went quiet. I could feel people’s gazes on me as I joined the queue for the counter; a prickle of apprehension traced down my spine. ‘Good morning,’ I said to David Couper’s mother, Hilda, who was standing in front of me.
Hilda, who until now I had counted as one of my many friends in Fiskersay, glanced at me and looked away again without returning my greeting.
I gripped my basket a little more tightly, my palms slippery with sweat as I gazed down at the floor. As the queue shuffled forwards, the silence in the shop was so heavy it could have been cut with a knife. When my turn came, Bertha Sutherland thumped mine and the Sinclairs’ purchases down onto the counter with her mouth set in a grim line. Knowing full well she was only giving me these things because of Elizabeth and Donald, I handed over coupons and my money and left the shop as fast as I could, my throat tight and my eyes pricking with tears.
It was three days since the Zetland Princess had been bombed, taking everyone on board down with her, and two days since Fiskersay’s police, the commanding officers from the station and Charles Mackay, in his role as Home Guard Captain, had begun an island-wide interrogation, interviewing people and searching houses. At first, no one had been sure what was going on, thinking the attack on the ship had been a random one, but before long word got round: there was a spy on the island who was passing shipping information on to the Germans, and the strike on the Zetland Princess had been a deliberate act of sabotage to kill two RAF men on board who were coming to work at the station.
I had begun to fear the worst when, yesterday, Eirik came home from school in tears, saying the other children were no longer speaking to him. Then, this morning, Doctor Gaudie had dropped by and told me, kindly but firmly, that he was very sorry, but until this business had been cleared up, my duties as the island’s nurse were being suspended. As he said this, horror poured through my veins like icy water. My only source of income – of independence – was being taken away. How would I save money for mine and Eirik’s future, whatever that might be?
‘They suspect me because I’m a foreigner,’ I’d said despairingly to Elizabeth after he left. ‘And because I’m from a country that is occupied by the Germans. They think they have sent me here.’
‘No, no,’ Elizabeth had said, looking distressed. ‘I am sure that’s not what people think.’ She and Donald were not treating me any differently yet, but as I made my way back to the croft from the store, I wondered how long it would be before they turned against me too, or decided that, if I wasn’t able to contribute towards mine and Eirik’s upkeep, they’d be better off without us. And what about Bill? Did he think I was the spy? I hadn’t seen him since the evening of the attack, and I was starting to think he was avoiding me – or that he had been ordered to stay away.
Can things get any worse? I thought as I trudged along the road, head down. It was a beautiful day, the sky a soft blue and striped with high cloud, the new grass on the hillsides a vivid green, but I barely noticed any of it. Anders, silent for so long, spoke up in his familiar, jeering tones. You know why this has happened, don’t you, Hedda? It is because you thought you could be happy. It is because you dared to hope.
Up ahead, the Sinclairs’ cottage, with its whitewashed stone walls bright in the sun, came into view. But even the croft didn’t feel like a safe haven any more. It was as if a pool of quicksand had opened up at my feet, threatening to drag me in. What will happen to me? I thought. Will they make us leave the island? Will they split me and Eirik up? Will they send me to an internment camp?
I had almost reached the front door when I heard an engine approaching. A military truck – one of the vehicles from the radar station – was driving along the road towards the croft from the other direction. It stopped outside just as I reached the front door; the doors opened and Flight Lieutenant Jackson, Charles Mackay and Hugh Leask, Fiskersay’s police constable, got out.
‘Mrs Dahlström,’ Flight Lieutenant Jackson said, his voice cold, his demeanour formal. He looked nothing like the man who, only months earlier, had smiled, shaken my hand and welcomed me to Fiskersay. ‘We need to come in and search the cottage, I’m afraid.’
I stared at them in silence. I’d known this would happen, yet now the time was here I was hardly able to believe it.
‘If you please, Mrs Dahlström,’ Flight Lieutenant Jackson said. Hugh Leask, his expression stony, didn’t even look at me, but Charles, who was wearing his Home Guard uniform and cap, briefly met my gaze. Was I imagining it, or did he look slightly troubled? Since that awkward moment in the kitchen at his mother’s house, I had deliberately stayed away from him, only seeing him when I went to collect Eirik from school where we’d make a few minutes of polite conversation. I still wondered if I’d imagined the whole thing. Before I could say anything to him, though, he’d looked away too.
Donald was out on the croft somewhere, but Elizabeth was in the kitchen and turned round, alarmed, as I came in with the three men. After Flight Lieutenant Jackson had explained to her why they were here, she sat down at the kitchen table, wringing her hands. I paced around the room, unable to settle. As the men went into Donald and Elizabeth’s bedroom to begin their search, neither of us spoke.
The door to the other room had not quite closed – the wooden frame was swollen with damp from the long winter – and from behind it I heard Hugh Leask say, ‘Remind me what we’re looking for again, Sir.’
‘Anything that looks like radio equipment,’ Flight Lieutenant Jackson answered him. ‘A lad in the village – an amateur radio enthusiast – came forward just this morning to say he’s picked up several transmissions being made late at night that are coming from somewhere on the island.’
‘And he waited until now to say something?’ Hugh sounded amazed.
‘He didn’t realise what they were at first, and he didn’t tell us right away because he was worried we’d think he was involved, the damned fool! He’s in the clear, though – we’ve checked him and his radio set out thoroughly and there’s nothing fishy going on.’
‘We’d better check up the chimney and for any loose floorboards, then,’ Hugh said. ‘If there’s anything here it’ll be well hidden, I expect.’
Charles didn’t say anything. I listened as they tore the room apart, shoving furniture across the floor and emptying drawers and cupboards.
‘I am so sorry,’ I said to Elizabeth.
She shook her head. ‘It cannot be helped. They must do their job. The sooner they find that wicked traitor, the better. Those poor men on board the ship!’
Was I imagining it, or was there doubt in her eyes as she looked at me?
The men finished searching the bedroom and came out again. Anything that looks like radio equipment… I heard Flight Lieutenant Jackson’s voice echo inside my head as they went into the parlour where Eirik and I slept and began searching there. Something was niggling at me, but I couldn’t work out what it was. What with the attack on the ship and being suspended as Fiskersay’s nurse, I was so weary that I was struggling to piece any coherent thoughts together beyond, what will happen to Eirik if I’m sent away?
Too exhausted to keep pacing, I sat down beside Elizabeth at the table. She placed a hand over mine. ‘Ach, don’t look so worried,’ she said softly. ‘They will catch whoever it is, you’ll see.’
‘It is not me, Elizabeth,’ I said, a little desperately. ‘I am not a spy.’
‘Hush. I know. You’re a good woman – anyone wi’ an ounce of sense can see dat.’ Her earnest expression made tears spring into my eyes, and I had to look down, biting the insides of my cheeks, to keep them at bay. I did not want to cry while the men were here.
At last, they finished their search.
‘What’s that?’ Hugh Leask said, spying the packet containing the photographs Eirik had taken, which was propped up on the mantelpiece.
‘Photographs. My son took them, and Sergeant Gauthier asked one of the men at the station to develop them for him – you are welcome to look at them.’
‘Yes please,’ Flight Lieutenant Jackson said.
I fetched them for him and watched as he looked through, passing them one by one to Hugh and Charles who studied them carefully too. Suddenly, I saw Charles’s face convulse as if something had pained him. Then his expression smoothed out again; it all happened so fast I was left wondering if I had imagined it. Neither Elizabeth, Flight Lieutenant Jackson or Hugh seemed to have noticed anything.
‘I will have to take the ones that show the radar towers in the background for further investigation,’ Flight Lieutenant Jackson said at last, pushing several of the photographs into his jacket pocket before handing me the packet again. ‘You may keep the rest. Is there any more film in the camera?’
I shook my head.
‘Show me, please.’
I did, and they left, taking the camera with them as well. Elizabeth and I tidied up the cottage in silence, finishing just as Donald returned.
‘Don’t say anything to him, he will only be upset,’ Elizabeth said as we listened to him knocking the mud from his boots on the iron scraper outside.
I nodded. ‘I think I will go and lie down,’ I said. ‘I have a headache.’
It was not a lie; my head was pounding. I went into the parlour where I pulled the curtains, kicked off my shoes and lay down on my bed. I closed my eyes, but could not relax. My mind was racing. I sat up again and picked up the packet of photographs, shaking them out onto the counterpane. What had Charles seen there that caused him to make that strange expression? The only photograph that had anyone in it was the one of me and Bill, laughing together. The others were of seagulls, rocks, water and sky. Puzzled, I slid the pictures back into their envelope. Then I lay back down.
Something was still niggling at me. In my head, I heard the men talking as they searched the bedroom again.
Remind me what we’re looking for again, Sir.
Anything that looks like radio equipment.
Radio equipment.
Transmissions.
My heart started pounding. I sat up again. The radio set I had found hidden in Charles’s pantry the other day – the set that looked just like the spy set Mette had shown me at the telegraph station in Kirkenes – how could I have forgotten about it?
But Charles Mackay can’t be a spy, I told myself. He is the island’s head teacher! The Captain of the Home Guard! And he is – well, he is Charles! It isn’t possible!
So what was he doing with that radio set? I remembered now how, at the time, I’d wondered if it was something for a Home Guard exercise. If that was the case, why would he conceal it like that? Why had it not been out with all the other pieces of radios he collected? It hadn’t made sense at the time, and it didn’t make sense now.
I should tell someone about it. But who? Flight Lieutenant Jackson? Hugh Leask?
No, not them. And not Elizabeth or Donald or Doctor Gaudie. They wouldn’t believe me, I was certain of that – they’d known Charles since he was a boy. I could hardly believe it myself.
Bill, then. He would listen to me, wouldn’t he?
I decided I’d go up to the camp later once Eirik was back from school, and if Bill was not around, or not allowed to come and talk to me, I would leave a message. I was probably wrong; Charles probably had a perfectly good explanation for having that radio set. God, I hoped I was wrong. But if I said nothing and there was another attack like the one on the Zetland Princess, or the one that killed that poor man who had washed up in the bay…
No; whatever the consequences, and whether Bill believed me or not, I couldn’t let that happen. I lay back down, closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against my eyelids, trying in vain to clear my whirling mind and ease my thumping head, and quell the panic that threatened to overwhelm me as I wondered how I was going to do this.