Word of Peter Topsy’s arrest spread through the veins of St. Helier, passing from lip to ear as spring cartwheeled in, waking the island of flowers from its winter slumber. But no one was talking about the blanket of daffodils softly spreading across the island. Every person that came into the library wanted to ask her about Peter. Was it true? Had he been spying and passing information on to the British? Had he been arrested for espionage? By the time she’d delivered her fifth book on her morning delivery round, according to the rumors, Peter had already been executed by firing squad.
But the facts were grim. Peter had been arrested and charged with espionage and spying, and was in the town’s prison awaiting trial. To the Germans, he was a political prisoner, which meant he would be shown no mercy. Only Grace knew that he was a 14-year-old boy with a fascination for drawings and a brain that meant he didn’t see the world as others did. She shuddered to think of him alone in his jail cell. It had been seven weeks and four days since his arrest and together, she and Dr. McKinstry had appealed to the bailiff to intervene.
As she pulled off the main road and cycled down a bumpy country track, books juddering inside her bicycle’s wicker basket, a horrible feeling unfurled inside her. The Wolf had arrested him on the strength of those intricate pencil drawings of the fortified beach at Havre des Pas, so lifelike they could almost have passed for photographs. And therein lay the problem. The authorities were claiming he’d drawn them for intelligence purposes and had been planning to get them to the Allies. But something else also nagged at Grace—hadn’t the Wolf also done it to get at her? Wasn’t he waiting for her to make a mistake, setting traps? He was itching to get her library closed down. Grace felt the pressure build inside her head until she felt she couldn’t breathe. She dismounted, pressed her hand to her chest and tapped lightly. Breathe, Grace.
She glanced behind her. A field of wheat swayed gently in the crisp golden sun. The smell of lavender and wild garlic filled the air. In the distance she heard the rattle of farm machinery. Breathing deeply, she turned and continued on foot up the dusty track until she came to a smaller path that cut through a wood.
“Red,” she called softly into the pine-scented air. “Are you there?” She turned a bend and there he was. His broad back was resting against a tree trunk, his eyes were closed, his face lifted to the sun. Her heart dissolved.
Since he’d shinned out of her library window she and Dr. McKinstry had successfully managed to persuade Red to stay away from town, on the proviso she met him once a week somewhere well away from prying German eyes.
“Is that my favorite girl?” he asked, without opening his eyes.
“How did you know?”
His eyes opened and his whole face lit up at the sight of her. “I can tell your footsteps. They’re much daintier than some blockhead Boche.”
She trailed her fingers up the nape of his neck. He smiled, drowsy as a cat in the sun. “Don’t stop,” he begged.
“I can’t stay long. I’ve—”
Grace squealed as he grabbed her hand and pulled her down onto the sun-baked earth, covering her neck with kisses and pine needles.
“I’m sorry, Angel Grace,” he moaned. “Only you drive me crazy. The days between our meet-ups drag by.”
She kissed him back, slower now. “I know,” she whispered. “You’re bored. I’ve brought you another book if that helps.”
She propped herself up on one elbow and pulled out a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
“Thank you.” He sighed. “Hemingway sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting around, hiding in haylofts.”
Grace could feel his frustration fizzing over.
“W-what are you saying?” she asked, not wanting to know the answer.
“I don’t know, Grace, only that I can’t keep hiding for much longer. If our boys don’t come soon, I’m gonna have to make a break for it. The fella I’m staying with is a straight-up guy, reckons he can get me a rowing boat.”
Talk of perilous ocean escapes felt so incongruous in the still of the glade. A shoal of butterflies danced over the gorse bushes like windblown confetti. Not a puff of cloud interrupted the blue.
It was the most beautiful day. The kind that only a few years ago would have had the bucket-and-spade brigade flooding to the island’s wide sandy beaches on the south coast. She thought of halcyon days with her brother and Bea by the bathing pool at Havre des Pas. Bea larking about in a kiss-me-quick hat. White sails patching a pale-blue sky. Dripping lemon ices and squeals of laughter, the sun kissing her library-white skin brown. There was such an innocent, dreamlike quality to those long-ago summers that at times she wondered if they had ever existed at all. And that, she realized, was the worst of it. The occupation hadn’t just stolen their freedom, it was leaching her memories.
“Do you really think they’re coming?” she asked, shielding her eyes as she scanned the horizon in the direction of England.
“I have no doubt of it,” Red said. “The war will be over soon. The crazed ideology has already failed. The dream of the great fatherland is dead. We just need the Allies to push it over the finish post.”
Grace desperately hoped he was right. Change was in the air. All German leave had been stopped and the authorities were twitchy. Hardly a day passed without Allied planes flying over the island, followed by heavy bombing on the French coast. Her father’s hidden crystal set had crackled out the welcome news that the RAF had led successful raids on targets all over northwestern France. Not that they needed telling. Doors and windows had rattled all over the island.
“I don’t want my war story to end like this,” he continued. “Hiding in the shadows like a scared kitten until I’m rescued.”
There was nothing she could say, but the thought of him leaving, after she had finally admitted her feelings toward him, was annihilating. Her mind cruelly took her to the evening she had kissed her big brother good night, oblivious of what he’d been planning. She hadn’t had the chance to talk him out of the escape attempt.
“Please, I beg of you, don’t do it,” she cried, emotion clogging her throat. “Just hold out a little longer. You must promise me.”
“Oh, Grace,” he sighed, sitting up and squinting against the sun. “Please don’t make me promise that. I can promise to be smart about it. I can promise to love you always, but hiding from the enemy for the duration of the war?” He shook his head. “That’s not me.”
Grace nodded, defeated. Of course. She knew the kind of man Red was. Surprising herself, she pulled him toward her by his collar. “Very well. If you go, I’ll miss you terribly. I-I do love you, you see,” she finally admitted in a tumble of words.
She pressed her lips to his, enjoying the solid sensation of Red’s broad chest, the sweet oblivion of his embrace. Everything faded away. A soft breeze fingered her hair as his tongue gently probed hers. She got the feeling that nothing would ever feel as good as this ever again. When she was with him, the eviscerating hunger, the tiredness, the uncertainty that draped her like a scratchy blanket seemed to dissolve. Kissing, it seemed, could be almost as time-consuming as choosing your next read.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that,” he whispered, his hands traveling down to the small of her back. “Thank you for giving me hope.”
Grace pulled back from the urgency of his kisses. Not because she was being chaste—although to be honest, she was clueless in that department—but because she had work to do.
“Let me go,” she laughed, playfully batting his hands away.
“I’m sorry,” he groaned. “But you drive me crazy, Grace. I can’t wait to be with you, properly.”
“I… I can’t consider that, Red, not yet.”
His smile faded. “I didn’t mean to pressure you. I mean, obviously I want to—you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met—but what I meant is I can’t wait to be in a world where I can walk down the street hand in hand with you. Be free to tell the world that you’re my girl.”
“Please God that day will come soon.”
“So what are you throwing me over for?” he asked.
“I’m a busy bee. I’ve got to finish my book rounds, then it’s book club and after that I have to my write my annual library report. I have to document the last year.” A sense of hope unfolded inside her, pushing back the darkness. “This is history in the making. Our library issues have soared. Over 100,000 issues last year and 1944 will top that. That’s double the issues in peacetime.”
“Impressive.”
“It is, but these dry numbers and lists don’t reflect the esteem and love islanders feel for our library. I have to find a way to express that.”
“Well, if anyone can, you can.”
Grace gathered her satchel and pushed her bike along the sandy, sun-baked path which led back to the road. Every particle of her longed to stay. The shushing of the leaves and the silken air were begging her to stay a while longer, but the library was calling louder.
As she reached the main path that led back to the road she glanced back and blew Red a kiss.
Diagonal pillars of sunshine had crept through the canopy of leaves, casting his face in a gentle peach hue.
“Bye, Grace La Mottée.” He waved and returned her kiss. “I knew I loved you from the moment I first set eyes on you.”
“Stop it!” She laughed. “Someone will hear.”
“I don’t care. I’m crazy about you. Tell me you’re my girl.”
She smiled, a soft spring breeze feathering her blonde hair. “Yes, Red, I’m your girl.”
From the corner of her eye she saw a motor car slide away from the small country road at the end of the track, but her head was a kaleidoscope of books, her heart too full of love, to pay it much heed. High above Red a lone bird of prey hovered.
Back on the road into town, the shadow of a motor car swallowed her and pulled to a halt in front of her.
The Wolf emerged from the back seat. “A word if I may, Miss La Mottée.”
Grace pulled to a wobbly stop and nearly crashed into him.
He gripped her bike handles.
“Oops-a-daisy. You see, I am picking up your British sayings, no? What a beautiful day. The sun has got its hat on for our Führer.”
She nodded, desperate to get away, but he had her bike handles firmly clamped.
“It was our great leader’s birthday two days ago, and this weekend the celebrations continue.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” she lied. They could hardly escape Hitler’s 55th birthday. Victory in the West shown on repeat at The Forum cinema. Forty troops brandishing torches had led a flame-lit procession around the island, with two military bands performing in the parade. To say nothing of the nauseating propaganda displayed in the window of the German bookshop around the corner from the library.
“You should come for some cake this afternoon at the town hall.”
She knew what Bea would say to the outrageous suggestion they celebrate Hitler’s birthday. Not as long as I’ve got a hole in my arse.
But she didn’t have her friend’s bravado or sass, instead she replied: “No, thanks. I’m leading the book club.”
“Aah yes, the popular book club.” His eyes sparkled with malice. “Our censor tells me it is a lifeline for many on this island.”
She said nothing. Entering into conversation with the Wolf was like poking a rat trap.
“Wouldn’t it be a shame if it were to close?”
“And why would that happen?” she retorted.
“If it were to emerge that you are loaning verboten books.”
“But I’m not,” she said, in a voice like cracked ice.
His smile slipped. “Prove it. Empty your bag.”
She handed him her satchel and closed her eyes, knowing what he would find if he was thorough.
“As I suspected,” he crowed, his voice triumphant. “You have concealed one book inside another. Loaning books that are forbidden is a breach of German rule.”
But as he pulled out the book from its dust jacket, he looked confused.
“The book is The Serpent in the Garden and yet the jacket says Knitting Patterns for Beginners. What is this?”
She smiled, despite her thumping heart. “My patron’s husband isn’t keen on her reading romances, in case she gets ideas, so I conceal it inside another book jacket. Last I heard, loaning romance novels isn’t breaking your rules.”
She took the book from him and tucked it back in its jacket. “Costume romances of the past offer escape from the disagreeable present. Now, if that’s all, I’ll be on my way.”
Books can you make curious, impudent even. That was the only thing Grace later reflected, which could account for what she said next. She went to push off from the curb, but suddenly stopped. “Do you like reading, Sergeant Wölfle?”
He looked at her suspiciously, as if it were she now trying to catch him out.
“I don’t have time.”
She nodded. “Of course you don’t.” You are far too busy locking up schoolboys.
The man’s soul was sterile. What redemption could there possibly be for a man who was already dead? No wonder he hated her library so much. It represented freedom, enlightenment and tolerance.
“I ought to be getting back to the library.”
“Good day, Miss La Mottée. Pass my regards to your friend Miss Gold.” A malevolent look slid over his face. “I wish her well… in her condition.”
Grace pedaled off fast, her thoughts in freefall. What an odd thing to say. This encounter had ended well, but it could so easily not have. Had he stopped her this time last week, he would have discovered The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, wrapped up in a copy of Alpine Flora and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway concealed in a copy of Bovine Health.
The idea had come to her when she’d hidden Alice in Wonderland inside the cover of another book and thus far it had worked beautifully. Somehow, she’d managed to convince herself that it was less risky than when Bea had opened letters at the post office.
Every week Grace swore to herself she would stop delivering verboten books. But then she’d witness something that made her continue. Fake news in their newspapers. A small boy with his nose pressed against the window of the German bookshop. As a librarian she liked to think she planted seeds she might never see grow, but planting them still mattered. After all, that same boy she’d caught staring at a window display full of Nazi propaganda was also now learning German in school. His fresh young mind was being slowly conditioned to hate.
Islanders needed access to uncensored books. It mattered. Reading was their last form of freedom.
But… this encounter had proven that she could no longer afford to take those kind of risks. What good was she as a librarian if she was behind bars?
After she had delivered The Serpent in the Garden, Grace rode along Roseville Street back into town and mentally scanned the inhabitants.
At number 12 was Clarissa Fleetwood-Bird, a spinster who used to run the Chess Club before the Germans shut it down, who had a formidable appetite for bloodthirsty crime novels. Over the road at number 9, was Teddy Bernard, a sailor in his time, who would have loved to have lived in Paris—as a woman. Next door to Teddy lived Mrs. Barclay-Miller, committed Christian, who loved nothing more than a bodice-ripper after Bible Club.
People were a little like book covers. What you saw on the outside rarely coincided with the true contents. Grace wondered whether anyone could tell that the island’s perennially single librarian was finally a woman in love?
The unpleasant encounter with the Wolf meant by the time she got back to the library Grace was 15 minutes late for the book club. A small cheer erupted from the Reading Room as she hastened up the stairs.
All the familiar faces were settled, doughy with exhaustion, but with the light of hope she often saw in people’s eyes as they gathered under the domed library roof.
There was her mum, in her usual place between the matriarchal pillars that were Queenie Gold and Mrs. Moisan. Next to them, busy unraveling her knitting, was Mrs. Noble chatting to Louisa Gould. Dr. McKinstry was talking shop with Albert Bedane the physiotherapist, while Molly the florist gossiped loudly with Winnie, Doris and Gladys from the post-office counter.
Bea sat on the other side of the Reading Room with her tribe of “old fogeys” as they called themselves from the sorting room. They were clearly winding her up about something as they were all giggling like naughty schoolboys.
A bored-looking German censor sat in the corner, looking like he’d rather be anywhere than policing a book club in the library.
She looked about. Was it her imagination or were more people wearing as much red, white and blue as they thought they could get away with? Pieced together they could almost make up a complete Union Jack. The penny dropped. Tomorrow was St. George’s Day.
Grace felt a sudden rush of affection for this disparate group of fiercely patriotic islanders who made up the hotchpotch book club.
Despite his advancing years and wooden leg, Arthur the postman rose quickly and pulled back Grace’s chair for her to sit.
“Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.”
“I didn’t know you were a poet, Arthur,” she smiled.
“Alas not my words, my dear. William Wordsworth.”
“A poetic postie,” she grinned. “Which is timely as this week I thought it would be nice to read some poetry, if that’s agreeable to all.”
“I should say,” winked Lou Gould. “I’ve the perfect thing.” Lou fortunately was unaccompanied by her “houseguest,” but she had pulled the lining of her coat through her button hole like an impudent tongue poking out at the Germans. Grace cast a nervous glance at the censor but he appeared to have fallen asleep, his head slumped forward, a small bubble of spit glistening at the corner of his mouth.
“May I go first? I’d like to read out a little ditty I wrote,” said Bea’s neighbor Eileen. It wasn’t on the pre-authorized list she had already cleared with the commandant, but the censor was asleep. What harm could a poem do?
“Yes please, Eileen.”
She cleared her throat.
“We are all quite well, though getting thinner,
Not much for tea, still less for dinner,
Though not exactly on our uppers,
We’ve said adieu to cold ham suppers.
In peacetime there are those who wish to slim,
Tried diet, massage, baths and gym,
Though tell the scout of every nation
The secret’s solved by occupation.
Little Jersey bombed and mined,
For us, warfare has proved unkind.
But after all the stress and strain,
A great height we will rise again.”
A ripple of appreciative murmurs ran round the room, not too loud so as not to wake the censor.
“Eileen, that’s smashing. Did you write that yourself?” asked Louisa Gould.
“Yes, my love. I like writing poems, keeps my mind occupied.”
“Might I read something?” asked Queenie.
“Grace, don’cha dare turn down the Guv’nor,” Nobby from the post office joked, holding his fists up in a joke fight stance.
“Watch it, you,” Queenie laughed, taking a swipe at his head, “you’re not too old for a clip round the ear.”
She pulled out a Red Cross letter from her handbag.
“Not a poem as such, but it’s poetry to my ears. It’s from my sister in East London, who says, and I quote: ‘Alf’s condition worsening. Family watching day and night, awaiting end. Happy release.’”
Knowing looks and grins were exchanged round the group. Everyone knew who Alf represented.
Queenie’s offering seemed to unlock something in the group and soon all were sharing some of their favorite poems, verses bubbling from lips like burst damns.
Louisa read a bewitching rendition of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, beguiling them all with her soft, lyrical voice as she took them through rabbits’ woods and black, moonless nights. Her voice swept through the library like a clean, crisp wind.
Molly rattled off a magnificent Emily Dickinson and Mrs. Noble closed her eyes as she read her favorite Shakespeare sonnet.
That warm and drowsy spring afternoon, they read as if their lives depended on it and Grace felt more at peace in that moment than she could ever remember. Reading was helping them all to make sense of the unimaginable, with the library now a community refuge.
It was veteran postman Arthur’s offering that finally dug up the pent-up grief that Grace knew so many of her group had buried. He recounted his poem with his eyes closed, as if transporting himself to Grace knew not where.
“If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home…”
Arthur rarely talked of his experiences in the Great War, which had earned him his medals and his false leg, but “The Soldier,” by Rupert Brooke, seemed as apt in 1944 as it was when it was first published in 1915. His gravelly voice hung in the dome-like space above their head as they soaked in the truth of the words.
Everyone sat alone with their losses. For too long people had plastered over their smashed dreams with stoic smiles. Finally, Queenie began to cry for the husband she had lost, comforted by Louisa Gould, whose son Edward would never return home from the Royal Navy, and Mrs. Moisan, whose daughter Dolly’s life had been cut down by disease before it had even begun.
Grace blinked back her tears and glanced over at Bea, but her expression was unreadable. Silently, Grace moved to her side and slid an arm around her old friend’s shoulder. She felt the tiny bones in Bea’s neck, as fragile as a bird, flinch at the touch.
She needed to write her annual library report, but she had a feeling that her friend needed her more.
“Bea, why don’t we go for a cup of tea once I’ve locked up the library?”
“Stop! Your time is up!” The censor had woken, his guttural command slicing through the still of the library. “Please evacuate the library.”
“I think he means vacate,” Bea laughed. “Go on then.” She hesitated. “I-I could use your advice.”
Grace had never seen her friend look as vulnerable as in that moment. The beauty and truth of poetry had opened them all up, sloughing away the varnish of their reserve.
“I knew something was wrong. Don’t worry. Whatever it is, we’ll work it out together. Like we’ve always done.”
Bea’s face crumpled in relief. “Thanks, Grace.”
A tap on her shoulder and Grace turned.
“A word in your shell-like, Grace,” Molly muttered. “I hear you’re trying to visit Peter in prison?”
“Trying and failing. They’re saying family only, but his own mother has no interest in visiting.”
“I might have a way. But you’ll have to come with me now.”
Grace glanced at Bea and then at her watch.
“Can it wait an hour?”
“Not if you want to see Peter. It has to be now.”
“You go, Grace,” Bea urged. “Our chat can wait, especially if you’ve got a chance to see Peter.”
Grace kissed her softly on the cheek. “Thanks, Bea. But we will have that talk soon, I promise.”
On the way to St. Helier’s Public Prison on Newgate Street, Molly filled her in.
“My sister-in-law’s a ward sister. She’s treating Peter for a broken rib and influenza and she’s due to see him today at five p.m. She has said if we visit, she’ll let you have ten minutes on your own with Peter.”
They walked quickly, dodging an emaciated pony barely pulling a trap as they headed to the island’s only prison. The old prison and hospital were adjoining. Grace allowed her gaze to travel up the tall granite wall to the jagged glass protruding from the top. Fear clamped her heart.
In the hospital, they followed a maze of carbolic-scrubbed corridors into the casualty department, until they came to a door.
Molly knocked softly.
“Enter,” called a strong Scottish voice.
Sister Morgan turned out to be a powerfully built Scottish matron, with pink cheeks and an air of invincibility.
“This is my friend,” Molly ventured and Grace found a set of shrewd eyes drinking her in.
“I’m trusting you because you’re the Chief Librarian and I hear good things about you,” she said in a powerful Glaswegian accent. “But if I hear you’ve blabbed about this meeting, then it will never happen again. Do I make myself clear?”
Grace couldn’t find any words in the presence of such a formidable matriarch so simply nodded her compliance.
“Good, because I’m putting my neck on the line here.”
She pulled out her fob watch and a moment later there was a knock on the door.
“Stay back,” she whispered, pulling open the door. Grace and Molly pressed themselves back into the shadows of the room.
“You’re no coming in here with your dirty gun,” Sister Morgan barked into the corridor. “Sit yerself oot here. He’ll no be running away.”
Grace and Molly exchanged smiles. Even the steeliest German soldier wouldn’t dare answer this woman back.
A second later Peter walked into the room. He had his back to Grace. Sister Morgan reached into her sterilizer and a hot bowl of stew appeared as if from nowhere.
“Now then, sonny boy. You’re to eat this all up while I nip out to fetch some more dressings.” She raised a finger to her lips. “You’ve a friend come to see you. Ten minutes,” she whispered as the door clicked. And then she and Molly were gone.
Peter turned and Grace’s hand flew to her mouth. He was a mess. One eye was swollen shut where clearly a German fist had rammed into it.
“Oh, Peter, what have they done to you?” she wept. As she hugged him fiercely he began to cough uncontrollably, spasms shooting through his skinny frame.
“Sssh, my love, ssh. It’s going to be all right.”
When the coughing fit passed, she guided him to the bed, and picking up the bowl of stew, tried to coax him to take a mouthful.
“Please eat, Peter.” He ate slowly and finally he seemed to come to his senses, fixing Grace with a watery gaze.
“I don’t know why they have done this to you, but I promise you, I am doing everything I can to get you out.”
“I didn’t do the things they say I did,” he whispered at last. “They hurt me, Grace.”
He pulled up his prison tunic and Grace inhaled. His skinny torso was a patchwork quilt of bruises.
“I didn’t do it and the more I say I didn’t do it, the more they hurt me.”
“Everyone knows you’re not a spy. I’ll get you out of here.”
“Do you promise?”
Grace hesitated.
“I can’t promise that, Peter, no. But I won’t rest until I’ve done everything in my power to get you home.”
“The library is my home,” he said quietly, and Grace’s heart shattered.
“Talking of libraries. I have books.” She pointed to her satchel. “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
“I was reading Advanced Mathematics and Calculus of Observations, before they arrested me. Could you bring me that?”
“Perhaps best not, sweetie, under the circumstance.” Peter’s intellect was beyond anything she could comprehend, but his common sense was somewhat lacking.
“Stick with Conan Doyle. Maybe the lovely ward sister will hold on to it for you, perhaps let you read it when you come here.”
She felt a soft hand on her back.
“Don’t worry, Miss La Mottée. I’ll see that the bairn is safe. The two blockheads outside have gone for a cigarette, so go quickly now. Come back the same time next week.”
Peter stared after her and Grace wanted to wail at the injustice of a regime that locked up and battered schoolboys.
Outside, Grace leaned against the high prison wall and wished in that moment she smoked. She closed her eyes, tried to blot out images of Peter in his cell, the fists and boots raining down on him in the hopes of making him “confess.”
Bastards.
She felt a hand on her arm and started.
“Grace.”
“Red.”
“I went to the library and Miss Piquet told me you were here visiting Peter.”
He stared down at her, his open face so handsome and she saw herself reflected in his gaze.
“I just had to come and see my girl, even if it’s only for five minutes. I can’t wait another week.”
He laughed. “My girl. Reckon I’ll never get tired of saying that.”
At first she thought the noise was a pony and trap but when the clattering grew louder she realized it was footsteps. The pounding of jackboots. The smell of linseed and German cologne stained the air. A gloved hand gripped Red’s arm like a vice.
“Phillip Harris. Or should I call you First Lieutenant Daniel Patrick O’Sullivan?”
The Wolf’s voice was high, almost trembly in its triumph.
“You are now our prisoner of war.”
The look on Red’s face demolished her. Shock turned to a flash of fear, then white-hot anger. She could see him weighing up whether to run, but the Wolf had them surrounded on all sides.
“I advise you not to try anything stupid,” he remarked casually.
Grace held on to the granite prison wall in a state of disbelief. In the compressed silence, noises became amplified. The Wolf’s excited shallow breath. A shop sign creaking in the wind. The sound of clogged feet hastening past them on the street.
“Mummy, isn’t that the librarian—” a girl on the other side of the road began.
“Keep moving, don’t look,” urged her mother.
“It is good that I am able to make this arrest so publicly,” the Wolf declared, the sunlight flashing off his gold tooth. “Nothing pleases the public more than to know the authorities are working hard to keep them safe from dangerous fugitives. Handcuff him!” he ordered his aides.
“This is ridiculous,” Grace cried. “He isn’t—” she began, but Red cut over her as two men from the Secret Field Police snapped handcuffs on him.
“I don’t know this woman,” he insisted. “I approached her for food but she said she couldn’t help me.”
“Don’t worry, lieutenant. When we find out which islanders have been hiding and feeding you, believe me, the penalties will be severe.”
The Wolf’s face twisted into a smile of almost girlish glee. “I’ve been hunting you for a very long time now. My sincerest hope is that you will be deported to a German prisoner-of-war camp. I shall be making a recommendation, along with my arrest report, that you represent a significant escape threat.” He pushed his face closer to Red’s. “I should so love for you to experience the camps of the Great Fatherland.”
“Your fatherland is finished and you know it,” Red said. “It won’t exist by the time the RAF and my buddies are done.”
The Wolf curled his lip in contempt. “Take him away.”
Red was swallowed into the back of a German military vehicle, the doors slammed shut.
“Wait. Please, wait,” Grace pleaded, hammering on the back of the van.
“Don’t make a scene, my dear,” the Wolf muttered, lifting his hat chivalrously as two ladies hurried past on the other side of the street. “The only mistake was to befriend our enemy.”
He turned back to Grace, his eyes as keen as a rodent.
“You see, I was right. I knew eventually he would come out of his hiding place. All we had to do was follow you.”
He reached out and trailed his finger along her jawline. She flinched and jerked her head away. “And you still expect me to believe you are a small-town provincial librarian? It is only a matter of time before I uncover the whole truth about you, Miss La Mottée.”
His black Citroën pulled up at the curb and he lowered himself into the back seat. Grace knew his ego would not permit him to leave without a parting shot.
“By rights I should have you in for questioning.” He smiled, supremely confident in his power. “But isn’t it more fun to give you enough rope to hang yourself?”