THE GIRL FROM THE ISLAND
Lorna Cook

Copyright

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2021

Copyright © Lorna Cook 2021

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Lorna Cook asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008379063

Ebook Edition © 2021 ISBN: 9780008379070

Version: 2021-02-05

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all Channel Islanders who endured the Nazi Occupation, to Jews who were transported, to those Islanders who bravely resisted and to those who were arrested, transported and who never returned.

And for Sarah.

Best friend, godmother extraordinaire and chief purveyor of twists.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Epilogue

Author Note

A Note About Research

Acknowledgements

Further Reading

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Lorna Cook

About the Publisher

Prologue

Guernsey, Channel Islands

1945

There is a fine line between love and hate. She had tried not to cross that line, invisible as it was, but since the Germans came, she knew she had. She stood in the harbour of St Peter Port, and looked up at the town, the shops and hotels along the waterfront, the small houses nestled together in the distance. Only a few months after the liberation of her island, she breathed in the cool air of the place she’d always called home. It looked so different now but so much was the same, since the Nazis came. Since the Nazis left.

She passed along the harbour. The swastikas were gone, along with the occupying force that had placed them there. The street signs – crude wooden structures, made to inform the Germans where things were in their own language – had been taken down. At first glance, it was almost as if the war had never happened on this small stretch of the British Isles, almost as if the Germans had never been here. Except of course they had. And what they had left behind were the enormous concrete fortifications – grey scars on the landscape – that stark reminder that the Channel Islands had been part of Hitler’s Atlantic wall, part of his island madness. But what the Nazis had left behind could never compare to what they had taken.

Passengers were disembarking from a ferryboat, tourists mostly, tentatively setting foot back in the Channel Islands; back for its famous sand, its enviable sun. She was pleased the Channel Islands once again might be seen as a glorious holiday destination, the memory of what had passed in the war bleached away with the sunshine. But that wasn’t what she saw. She wondered how long it would be before she could see it that way again – how long before she would forget.

There were some things she would never forget, such as the power of a letter. Such an innocent thing, a piece of paper, but it held so much power.

Others had written similar letters; she knew that. She’d heard whispers that during the Occupation the island’s post office workers had steamed open envelopes addressed to the Germans, knowing full well that what was inside would condemn someone: a note that there was a radio hidden under floorboards here, a gun stashed in an attic there.

The power a letter held, the damage it could do. No, she knew she would never forget that.

Chapter 1

Guernsey, Spring 2016

The short flight hadn’t been long enough to drink the miniature bottle of warm wine bought when the drinks service had eventually reached her at the back of the plane. Lucy had only drunk half of it by the time the captain told crew to prepare the cabin for landing, so she screwed the lid back on the bottle and put it inside her bag. She’d see her older sister Clara in a matter of minutes; she might need to save the remaining half for that ordeal.

It was only an hour in the air from London, but Guernsey felt a whole lifetime away. Perhaps that’s what being far from home did to you after years away – gave you a false sense of time and distance. It had been too long; she knew that. But there’d always been a valid reason why she couldn’t return, and on the occasions she had it had only ever been for a night, and then she’d always had to go back to the mainland the next day. Lucy thought back. Perhaps it had been three years, maybe four, since she’d been to Guernsey. Her niece’s christening – that was the last time she’d been back. And before that it was Clara’s wedding a few years prior. Although she’d seen them all when they’d come across visiting her on the mainland.

Only official events that came with expectant invitations attached had the power to draw Lucy back to Guernsey. But now, the reason to return was merely logistical: a funeral to arrange for an elderly relative Lucy barely remembered and an uninhabited house to sell. No matter how hard she thought back to family events over years gone by, memories would barely surface of her elderly first cousin once removed: Dido. Of course, Dido hadn’t been elderly when Lucy had been young, but she had always seemed it.

Once the upcoming funeral was over, Lucy, for once, wouldn’t be leaving in less than twenty-four hours. Clara had instructed Lucy to stay and hear the will read, help Clara sort out Dido’s affairs and get the house ready to go on the market on behalf of their father, Dido’s nearest relation, who would inherit the bulk of the estate. Then, and only then, according to Clara, was Lucy permitted to get off the island and return to the mainland.

Lucy’s mum and dad had hotfooted it to warmer climes last year, after retirement. They’d bought a house in Barbados, and kissed goodbye to the Channel Island where they’d lived their whole lives, which did rather leave Lucy and Clara to fend for themselves in this matter. When Lucy had joked to Clara that in their early thirties they weren’t adult enough to plan a funeral, Clara had replied, ‘Speak for yourself,’ and that had been an end to it.

The plane banked and Lucy glimpsed the island’s imposing, concrete fortifications on the coast before the runway came into view. To the uninitiated, the winding borders of grey concrete wall installed by Hitler’s war machine all those years ago must offer a surreal first glimpse of the Guernsey coastline. To Lucy, while it hadn’t always felt like home, especially recently, it had always been home.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ Lucy asked as Clara stepped forward to embrace her in the arrivals terminal. The sisters looked relatively alike. Brunette, brown eyes.

‘No, not long,’ her older sister replied, glancing down at Lucy’s holdall. ‘Is that all you’ve brought? One bag?’

‘Yes. I’m not staying long, I don’t think. And you’ve got a washing machine so I can just …’ Lucy stopped as she watched Clara’s look of horror.

‘Are you staying with me?’ Clara asked.

Lucy paused, unsure if her sister was joking. ‘Am I not staying with you then?’

‘Well, you didn’t ask if you could,’ Clara said as they left the terminal and walked into the bright sunshine towards the car park. ‘So I assumed you weren’t. I assumed you’d made other arrangements. A hotel or … something.’

How had it become like this between them? Not too long ago Clara would have thrown open her doors for Lucy but now …

‘I’m a freelancer, not a millionaire,’ Lucy started and then: ‘But it’s fine honestly, I’ll book into a hotel.’

‘No, I’m not saying that,’ Clara was quick to cut in. ‘Stay for a couple of days first to spend some time with your niece and then after that it might be easier if you find somewhere.’

Lucy smiled to herself and held her tongue, silently congratulating Clara on having won a game Lucy hadn’t even known they were playing.

‘Molly misses you,’ Clara continued in a softer tone. ‘She’s excited to cook you dinner. She’s just learnt to make fajitas at school and we’ve had them three nights on the trot. Tonight will be the fourth.’

‘I miss her too,’ Lucy said as Clara drove the car barely five minutes through the country lanes and down into the little winding valley in the Forest parish. And then: ‘Dido’s house?’ she asked as they passed crumbling plinths that should have held a wrought-iron gate. It was no longer on its hinges but placed upright inside the boundary. A sign that told visitors the name of the house – Deux Tourelles – was also no longer on the plinth but propped up against the front of it.

‘How long has it been since you were here at the house?’ Clara asked as she pulled up in the long gravel driveway, littered with weeds.

‘Not for years.’

The house was part French country house, part Georgian manor. At either end were tall turrets from which the house got its name. The double-fronted bay window frames were peeling paint horribly and layers of thick green ivy had blanketed over the grey brick frontage on one side. It looked rather pretty. In autumn it would turn a russet colour and for a reason she couldn’t pinpoint that comforted Lucy.

‘God, I hate ivy, don’t you?’ Clara asked. ‘It’s just the worst kind of weed. I don’t know what possesses people to grow it.’

Lucy smothered a laugh. ‘Why are we here?’

‘The undertaker needs a nice outfit in which to dress Dido.’

Lucy turned cold. ‘What was she wearing when she died? Can’t she just wear that?’

‘She died in her sleep. She was wearing a nightie.’

‘And it’s not all right to bury someone in their nightie?’

Clara adopted a horrified expression. ‘No, it bloody isn’t,’ she replied, battling with the key until the lock gave way and the door yielded to the pressure, swinging open slowly. ‘Someone needs to grease these hinges,’ Clara said absent-mindedly.

A strong smell of damp and dust penetrated Lucy’s senses and it took her a minute or two to adjust to the smell of the old property. Inside the blinds and shutters were closed, but early evening sunshine fell through the doorway onto a circular wooden table in the middle of the hall. An oversized, empty vase cast droplets of sunlight like a prism, offering a bewitching effect. Clara switched on the overhead light and the prism was gone. The empty vase was the only ornament in the entrance hall but a stack of mail had been placed on the central table. Nosily, Lucy picked it up but there was nothing of interest as she rifled through, just circulars, bills and parish newsletters.

Glancing into the two front rooms that led off either side of the hall, Lucy saw they looked equally sparse. Where was all the stuff? Why no plethora of ornaments out on sideboards? Why no bundles of family photographs on top of the mini grand piano that sat at the far end of the sitting room? Why was she here to help clear out all the knick-knacks if there weren’t that many to clear?

It really had been years since Lucy had been inside Deux Tourelles. She didn’t remember the interior layout at all, barely remembered the exterior although she was sure it hadn’t looked quite so ramshackle whenever it was she’d last been here.

Clara called down from the stairs she’d begun climbing. ‘Are you coming up or standing there all day?’

Lucy followed her sister to the first floor. ‘How do you know where you’re going?’

Clara flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs and the first-floor corridor lit up in a yellow haze from an old-fashioned light bulb in a rather tatty shade. There were at least six doors, all closed, and Clara turned right and went to one of two rooms facing the front of the house and opened the door.

‘I popped in to fetch things for Dido when she went into hospital but it was a bit late for all that. She’d passed away by the time I made it there.’

Lucy stepped inside the dark room while Clara busied herself switching on a table lamp and starting to look through the large mahogany wardrobe for a suitable dress. Lucy opened the thick damask curtains by the window and let the evening sunshine stream into the room, sending dust motes flying and whirling around her. She looked down the front drive towards the broken gate and then out towards the winding lanes and small field that abutted Dido’s house. She could see the edge of a cottage hidden behind trees and its own track of driveway that she’d not seen from the road. She wondered who lived there, if they’d known Dido, or if it was just a little holiday cottage these days.

‘You don’t miss it at all, do you?’ Clara said, interrupting Lucy’s thoughts. It sounded kindly meant but the words had sharp edges. Like most things Clara said in Lucy’s direction, the sharp edges were meant to dig in deep, probe hard.

Lucy turned, smiled guiltily. ‘Guernsey? I’m not sure that I do. Not really. I don’t really think about it. Is that the wrong thing to say?’

‘Not if it’s the truth.’

Lucy wasn’t sure how to reply so simply chose not to.

It was met with silence in return from Clara. A quiet battle; both standing their ground by avoiding discussion entirely. It was so easy to avoid Clara when Lucy was back on the mainland. But here, not so much.

Lucy changed the subject. ‘So Dad gets this old place, given he was the nearest relation. Did she have any others?’

‘Any other what?’

‘Relations? She had no children, no siblings?’

‘Not sure,’ Clara said distractedly. ‘Not any that are living, I don’t think. There was mention of a sister, I vaguely remember, a while back.’

‘A sister?’ Lucy looked at the back of Clara’s head as she rifled in the wardrobe, pulling hangers noisily along the metal rail, and waited for more. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Mmm. She mentioned it when we were at someone’s funeral a few years back. She was surprised she’d been asked to attend. She said she’d thought everyone she’d ever known had already died.’

‘Macabre.’ Lucy shuddered as she sat on the bed, made up tidily with a rose bedspread. ‘Such a shame, being so alone.’

Lucy looked at Clara and felt grateful she had her, even if they had become more distant as the years rolled on. ‘What happened to the sister?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was she older or younger?’ Lucy asked, glancing out towards the little cottage, watching the smoke plume from the chimney.

‘I don’t know,’ Clara said exasperatedly.

Lucy switched her attention from the cottage to the room and looked properly around. The only items in frames were floral watercolours. ‘Where are all the family photographs? Her parents, sister and the like?’

‘How should I know? Are you going to help?’ Clara snapped.

Lucy stared at her sister’s back and then walked over to the wardrobe. ‘Maybe they grew apart. It’s easy to drift apart when people lead such busy lives.’

‘You certainly do,’ Clara teased. ‘I see your social media feed. How many parties can one girl go to each week? I’m exhausted just looking at it.’

Lucy opened her eyes wide in surprise. Clara never clicked ‘like’ on any of Lucy’s posts. Not one. But she’d admitted she’d seen them. Lucy would work that one out later. ‘When you live alone you need to get out and about,’ Lucy justified. ‘Dinner with friends or a microwave meal for one … I know which I prefer.’

Clara looked at her as she moved away from the wardrobe, a navy two-piece suit in her hands in which to bury the elderly woman they’d not really known. ‘If you say so. How can you afford it?’ Clara probed.

‘I earn OK money and I’ve only got myself to worry about.’

‘You must be up to your eyes in student debt, though?’

Lucy sighed, pulled her brown hair up into a ponytail. They’d been over this before and she couldn’t do it again. ‘Righto, what else do we need to get? Do we need a pair of shoes for the … thing?’

‘The funeral director just said an outfit,’ Clara replied with a tinge of horror in her voice. ‘I hadn’t thought about shoes.’

Lucy opened the wardrobe doors and got on hands and knees to look at the assortment of different-coloured shoeboxes piled on top of each other. ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed as she began lifting the lids to peek inside.

‘What?’ Clara asked, the outfit folded in her arms.

‘These aren’t all shoeboxes, or rather, they are shoeboxes but they don’t all contain shoes. Some have got other things in them.’ Lucy lifted lids at random.

‘Such as?’ Clara asked with an uninterested tone.

‘Letters, newspaper clippings, photos.’ Lucy rifled. ‘I thought it was a bit odd there were no photos at all in the house. They’re all in here.’

‘Photos?’ Clara sounded interested now. ‘Why would they be hidden in a box?’

Lucy shrugged and held a little stash of photographs out for her sister who put the outfit down, dipped to her knees and sat beside her, flicking through the square, sepia images. They were mostly scenery from before the war, Lucy realised, the garden at Deux Tourelles in better days, the local beaches – the concrete fortifications yet to have been built when these were taken. She pulled out a sepia image of four young people laughing on a beach. Two teenage girls, wet hair falling about their shoulders and two young men, all of them in old-fashioned bathing suits and looking as if they were jostling each other good-naturedly for space in front of the lens. Lucy couldn’t help but smile back at them.

She turned the photograph over and read the caption on the back. ‘Persephone, Jack, Stefan and Dido. Summer 1930.’

‘Persephone? What a mouthful of a name,’ Clara said.

‘It’s Greek,’ Lucy replied, turning the photograph back over and looking at the foursome on the beach. ‘Persephone was queen of the underworld in ancient mythology.’

Clara looked at Lucy, amused. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Pub quiz. It came up once. I didn’t know the answer though. I’m mostly in charge of literature and celebrity gossip.’

Her sister laughed. It was a lovely sound, and Lucy knew right then that deep down she missed Clara. She would tell her. Later.

‘Now I think about it, Dido is from ancient mythology as well,’ Lucy said thoughtfully. She ran her finger over the faded ink on the back of the photo. History lessons at school in Guernsey had taught her that roughly a decade after this picture was taken the Germans invaded the Channel Islands and Hitler’s obsession with Guernsey and the surrounding archipelago, nestled in between England and France, had begun in earnest. But she knew, or rather she remembered, very little about the islands’ history before that time. She traced the name Persephone with her finger. ‘What a beautiful name. Do you think she’s the sister? She has to be the sister. Bit coincidental to have two girls with ancient Greek first names unless two sets of parents were being particularly pretentious,’ Lucy mused.

‘You should hear some of the ridiculous names of the kids that Molly’s at school with. I can’t spell half of them,’ Clara said.

‘She looks older than Dido,’ Lucy said, examining the teenage girls in their bathing costumes, wet hair around their faces.

‘She looks taller, which is not always the same thing,’ Clara reasoned, looking at Lucy who was two inches taller than Clara and always had been since they were sixteen. Clara looked at her watch. ‘Molly and John will probably be hopping up and down wondering where we are.’

Lucy opened the lid of another box. This one was older, sturdier, browning with age. Inside was a stash of papers, wafer thin, carbon copies as if ripped hastily from a receipt pad. Each page was filled tightly with indiscernible lines, swoops and squiggles. Lucy groaned, recognising it at once as shorthand, something she had half-heartedly toyed with learning almost a decade ago on her graduate trainee course when she’d temporarily been a journalist on a local newspaper. But she’d bunked off from most of the classes, realising she could type faster than she could compile shorthand.

Clara peered down at the papers. ‘What on earth? Was someone blind drunk when they wrote this?’

‘It’s shorthand.’ Lucy laughed. ‘Strokes and loops represent words. Phonetically I mean. At first glance I can’t work out any words on this page and …’ Lucy looked at the next one. ‘Maybe only one on this one. I’m so rusty.’ She didn’t dare tell Clara she’d skipped most of the classes.

‘What’s the one word you can make out?’ Clara asked as she stood.

Lucy studied the pen marks. ‘I think I’m guessing more than anything.’

‘Go on …’ Clara said.

Lucy folded the papers up gently and replaced them in the box. ‘I’m not sure but … I think, possibly, it says “resistance”.’

Chapter 2

Summer 1940

Persephone jolted as the bedroom door was pushed opened so abruptly that it crashed into the wardrobe behind it. Her younger sister Dido ran into the room, blonde hair falling from the pins in which she usually kept it elegantly rolled, blue eyes flashing with a mix of fear and excitement.

‘They’re here, Persey,’ Dido said. ‘The Germans. They’re actually bloody here.’

Persephone closed her eyes, tipping her head down, letting her brown hair fall around her face. ‘We knew it would happen. I just didn’t think it would be so soon.’

After the trucks laden with tomatoes had been bombed in the harbour at St Peter Port, as they waited for export to England, the Islanders had all known it was only a matter of time before the Germans walked in. When the British army had demilitarised and left the island only days before, it was as if the door had been held wide open for the Nazis.

‘Do you think it’s too late to leave?’ Dido asked, glancing down at their mother. She had been in bed with influenza for the best part of the week and Persey was more than a little worried.

‘Yes. It’s too late. How would we ever get off the island now? How would we get Mother off? She’s too sick to be moved. It’s why we never went days ago. I thought she would recover sooner. I thought we’d have time,’ Persephone muttered.

‘There must be a way,’ Dido remonstrated with panic in her voice. ‘There’s always a way. If only Mother—’

‘It’s not her fault, Di. You could have gone without us. There’ve been boats leaving for England for days. You could have got on any one of them.’

‘I didn’t want to leave you, then.’

‘But now?’ Persey asked.

‘Now it’s different,’ Dido explained. ‘Now they’re actually here. Planes have been landing. Troops have been seen. I could go and see if there’s a boat or … It’s the best time to go, now, before the Germans get their feet under the table, before they know what’s what.’ Dido sat on the end of the bed, causing a dip in the mattress and making their mother murmur in her sleep. ‘What do you think, Persey? Shall I go and see?’

Persey reached out for her sister’s hand and spoke softly. ‘It’s too late now. I wished you’d gone when I told you to.’

‘So do I.’ When Dido spoke next she whispered. ‘Do you think it’ll be awful? Do you think there’ll be …?’

‘What?’ Persey asked distractedly as she dipped a cloth in water and bathed her mother’s head. Her temperature raged and the fever had yet to break. Persey knew she needed to summon the doctor. She wondered if the telephone lines would be cut now the Germans were here. Not so soon, surely. If so, she would have to bicycle the few lanes to the doctor’s house instead of telephone.

‘Rapings?’ Dido said, her blue eyes wide. ‘Killings.’

‘Dido! How can you ask such a thing?’

‘It happens everywhere,’ Dido said with offence. ‘They’re the invading force, remember. They aren’t going to be our friends. Don’t they always just kill the men and rape the women? They’re going to want to show they’re in charge.’

‘By killing us?’ Persephone asked. ‘Hardly a way to run an Occupation, is it? Killing off the inhabitants. I think they’ll want us toeing the line, alive.’

‘More’s the pity,’ Dido replied and then glanced at their mother. ‘She’s getting worse, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ Persey said rising. ‘I need to telephone the doctor. I don’t think I should wait any longer.’

Dido grimaced. ‘As long as he’s not been rounded up and shot already.’

The doctor’s wife advised Persey that her husband had just that moment left to visit a patient at La Villiaze and gave the address. If she was quick, she could cycle out and catch him there before he moved to his next appointment. Persey took little time pulling her bicycle from the garage and pedalling fast along the lanes. It hadn’t occurred to her she would be going past the small airport until she approached it.

She paused long enough to stand at the periphery of the airfield and stare. She wasn’t even aware she was doing it she was so captivated by the scene before her. A Guernsey policeman in his British uniform – who Persephone knew only in passing – was standing, looking grave, next to a group of men whose trousers were tucked into thick black boots and whose vibrant red arm bands contrasted with the light of the white swastikas they bore. Four or five Luftwaffe planes were parked, their tails bearing the distinctive Iron Crosses, and one flew over her to land, its engines roaring loudly in her ears. Its wheels bounced for a moment as it hit the grass runway before it turned and parked. It was a scene from a nightmare, surely.

Thank God Jack wasn’t here to see all this. The housekeeper’s son had lived in with the family and his mother at Persey’s house since they were old enough to learn to walk, after his father had died as a result of injuries in the Great War. Jack was roughly the same age as Persey and had been the brother she and Dido had never had. Persey was grateful that he’d quit his job in the bank and left Guernsey weeks ago. He’d joined up in England ready to fight the Germans even though, as a Channel Islander, he wasn’t required to do so.

The policeman caught sight of Persey and nodded his head by way of a solemn greeting. The German men he had been standing with turned to look at her with interest. In fear of being noticed, she looked away, mounted her bicycle and pedalled until she had left the airport far behind her. When she was down the lane, Persey jumped from her bicycle and threw it down onto the ground. Its wheels spun wildly from the abrupt action as she bent down at the side of the lane and was violently sick into the hedge.

Persey caught Doctor Durand as he emerged from his patient’s cottage stepping towards his motorcar and he looked more than a little surprised to see her.

‘Persephone, are you quite all right?’ he asked. Doctor Durand was her father’s friend of old. The two had known each other since school, and while her father had gone into accountancy, his friend had chosen to heal. With her father gone, the doctor had always kept a considerate eye on the remaining inhabitants of Deux Tourelles.

‘The Germans are here,’ Persey relayed to him.

The doctor stepped away from his vehicle and closed the door. He took in Persephone’s face, which she knew must look pale. ‘Yes, I saw. Over at the airport. Hard to believe, really.’ There was momentary silence before he continued. ‘You didn’t cycle out here to tell me that, did you?’

‘No. It’s mother. She’s getting worse. Will you come and see? After you’ve seen your next patient of course.’

‘I’ll come now. I can’t get your bicycle in the motorcar though. All right if I leave you in my wake and see you there?’

Persey nodded.

‘It means you’ll have to ride past the airport again. Didn’t get any trouble from any of the Germans, did you? Not sure whether it’s a good idea you being on your own. We don’t know what they’re like.’

Persey also had no idea if it was a sensible idea being alone. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll pedal fast. Just in case.’

She watched the doctor drive away in the direction of Deux Tourelles and stood watching aircraft stream in one by one overhead, descending towards the airport. Everything had changed. In just a few short days, their island wasn’t their own anymore. They had been bombed and now they were going to be … what, exactly? She didn’t know. The reports from other nations that the Germans had already steamrollered their way into had not been good, had not been complimentary about Nazi behaviour. What kind of fate were they all to suffer? And for how long?

When Persey arrived home she felt a sense of relief at seeing the doctor’s car parked in the sweep of the drive. Everything would be all right now. The Germans might be on the island in droves, her mother might be sick, but for the next half an hour or so Doctor Durand would know what to do; would administer medicine of some kind and Persey and Dido’s mother would recover. And then tomorrow would be another day. Or would it be the beginning of hell? The beginning of Nazi Occupation? She paused in the garage where she propped her bicycle in its usual space against the wall near father’s old Wolseley Series II motorcar. Other than Jack giving it a run around the island every now and again to keep the engine ticking over, it had been parked there ever since father’s death two years earlier.

That day, her father had returned home from the golf club in time for supper, muttering something about needing to pop into his study for just five minutes before they dined. It was only when the housekeeper Mrs Grant had finally sent Persey to fetch her father before the gravy congealed that she discovered he’d passed away, slumped at his desk, chequebook on the table, pen in hand. A stroke, Doctor Durand had said. No warning; he’d been in peak health until then, which was of very little comfort to anyone.

Persey reached out and touched the bonnet of the car before she left the garage, as if it would bring her closer to her father. But of course it never did.

From inside the entrance hall Persephone could hear the faint sound of someone weeping. She stood still and moved inside without closing the door and realised that it was two people weeping, not one. She was rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to ascend the staircase; instead she stared up towards the wooden banisters of the upper landing.

Doctor Durand appeared at the top of the stairs and looked down towards Persephone. ‘My dear,’ he started. ‘I am incredibly sorry …’

Persey’s shoulders slumped. She knew what he wanted to say and she wouldn’t let him. ‘No.’ She shook her head, holding his gaze, daring him to say it. ‘No.’

The combined sounds of Dido and Mrs Grant crying drifted towards them in the silence on the staircase.

‘She’s not dead,’ Persey started. ‘My mother is not dead.’

‘I am afraid so. I’m so terribly sorry.’ He looked as if he wanted to say something else but closed his mouth, clearly thinking better of it.

In the shock that hit Persey she thought she knew what he’d been about to say: Why didn’t you telephone earlier? It was a question she now asked herself. She hadn’t been quick enough. Hadn’t seen the signs in time, had let the fever rage for too long. And now … if she stayed standing here and didn’t move, it wouldn’t be real. If she didn’t go into her mother’s room and see her, in bed, no longer breathing … it wouldn’t be real, wouldn’t have actually happened.

‘But …’ Sobs prevented her speaking until she eventually uttered, ‘But … I was only gone from the house for half an hour. An hour, at most. I think. She can’t … in that time?’

Doctor Durand was spared answering as Dido appeared at the stairs.

‘Oh, Dido,’ Persey cried. Dido stumbled past Doctor Durand and down the stairs towards her sister, who was still rooted to the floor, and the two embraced.

‘It’s my fault. I should have …’ Persey started.

‘It’s not your fault, Persey, it’s not,’ Dido said into Persey’s hair between sobs. Persey felt her sister’s tear-streaked face dampen her own.

Dido pulled back from her sister and looked past her towards the front door. But it was only when Persey caught Doctor Durand looking in the same direction that she felt compelled to turn and follow their collective gaze.

Her eyes were blurred with tears and so Persey wasn’t able to make out the features of the man standing in the doorway, or those of the two other men behind him. But the uniform told her all she needed to know. That dark jacket, belted at the waist, eagle insignias embroidered onto the breast and the peaked cap that shielded the man’s eyes. His head was tipped down as if … ashamed? No, Persey thought. But if not that, then what?

He spoke perfect English in a German accent that should have surprised Persey but didn’t. He was German. Of course he was. And he was in the entrance hall of Deux Tourelles.

‘I appear to have called at a difficult time,’ he said.

‘Yes, you bloody have,’ Dido cried. ‘How dare—?’

Persey grabbed her sister’s hand, clutching it tightly, stopping Dido from saying anything she shouldn’t in the presence of the enemy. But she herself was unable to speak, unable to save the situation. She blinked in disbelief at the past few minutes, at the sudden loss of her mother and the surprising arrival of the Germans not only on the island but also at her front door, their jackbooted feet on the welcome mat of their home.

She nodded, only able to whisper an almost silent, ‘Yes. It is a dreadful time.’ She gulped back tears. ‘We have had a death.’

‘Then I apologise at my poor timing.’ He looked behind him at the two men who had accompanied him, his face now cast in the shadow from the peak of his cap. ‘I will return tomorrow.’

Persey’s eyes fogged with fresh tears. She wanted to say no and to shout, Don’t you dare come back. But she couldn’t speak anymore. She wiped her eyes and nodded as the three men turned and walked nonchalantly down the drive towards the car parked at the gate as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

‘What in God’s name do you think they wanted?’ Doctor Durand was the first to speak.

‘I don’t know,’ Persey whispered, confusion rattling around inside her mind.

‘We’ll find out tomorrow,’ Dido said quietly.

It was real. The Germans were here, the arrival of the enemy was upon them and Persey knew she would forever remember the day her mother died as the day the Germans arrived.

In bed later, Persey was unable to sleep, unable to cry anymore, unable to think. Visions of her mother holding her as a child, buckling her shoes for her on her first day at school, fixing her grazed knee when she’d fallen from the tree house at the end of the garden. That tree house was gone now. So was her mother.

She stared at the ceiling and then in an exhausted resignation moved to the window, lifting the tight-fitting blackout blind out of place and staring down the driveway towards the field in the distance and the single cottage that bordered their small, two-acre grounds. It had been abandoned only yesterday by the Jewish owners, who had sailed to England to escape the Nazis. If it hadn’t been for the moon casting a bright light down onto the pasture she’d not have been able to see anything but she’d have known what she was looking at; the view imprinted on her memory. She’d been born in this house. She’d never known anything else, never wanted anything else.

Her mind wandered aimlessly as she placed the thick blackout frame silently on the carpet of her room. The Germans were here now; why was the blind needed? But Mrs Grant had a copy of the Evening Press with the horrific announcements from the occupying force littering the pages. Things were to continue in much the same way, for now. Tonight the blackout wasn’t in place to prevent the Germans from bombing Guernsey – it was to prevent the British from bombing the island and driving the Germans into submission.

Unthinkable really, that the British would bomb Guernsey now. But then, prior to the last few weeks it had been unthinkable that the Germans would occupy Guernsey, yet it had happened. So why not the former?

‘The world has turned upside down,’ she whispered to herself. She looked towards the garage, its wide doors left open. She hadn’t closed the house properly for the night and she stared as the moonlight bounced a silver light off the bonnet of her father’s car, taunting her, telling her that she had let everyone down today by letting her mother die and now, her father’s car was visible to any German who wanted to take it; inconsequential as it was in the grand scheme of things.

Persey pulled her dressing gown from the hook behind her door and made her way along the landing. She stopped at her mother’s closed door and put her hand against it. The undertaker had been – promptly summoned by Doctor Durand – and her mother was no longer in the house but still Persey didn’t know why the door had been closed. She opened it wide and looked in. The pain was too great in her chest, looking at her mother’s things, items that she knew her mother would never touch again. Her hairbrush on the dressing table, her book – open and face down. Her mother had been too weak to read it for so long. How had Persey not registered that? Her mother’s face flashed in her mind and, guiltily, Persey closed the door again and with it closed her own eyes, hoping it would take the pain away. But it didn’t.

Doctor Durand had said there was nothing he could have done. The influenza had taken over and her mother’s lungs, weakened from when she’d caught tuberculosis as a child, had been the root cause of her demise. But still Persey blamed herself. Why hadn’t she telephoned earlier? Why? There might have been something Doctor Durand could have done.

She continued downstairs towards the garage. She would shut the doors and return to bed to try and force sleep to come. But as she closed the first door she heard a noise at the back of the garage where her father’s tools still hung. She stood still. It had sounded as if someone had backed into the wall and knocked one of the spades or rakes hanging from the tool hooks. The clatter of metal on brick died out as quickly as it had started, as if someone had grabbed at the implement to silence the noise.

As soon as the word ‘Hello?’ fell from her lips she knew it had been a mistake to speak. She turned to run away but wasn’t quick enough. Her foot had barely moved an inch before she saw someone lurch towards her, grab her by her dressing gown and pull her back inside the garage. Almost as quickly, the man’s other hand clamped around her mouth and the scream that came from her was silenced, heard by no one inside the house.

Chapter 3

The man kept his hand over her mouth as he stared into her eyes through the slit in his knitted balaclava. ‘Don’t say a word.’

Persey nodded in startled agreement and then slowly the man lifted his hand from her mouth. Immediately she reneged on her agreement not to speak and realising she was looking at the housekeeper’s son cried, ‘Jack! What on earth are you doing here?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Perse, shh.’

She was quieter when she spoke this time. ‘We thought you were in England. We thought you’d joined up weeks ago.’

‘I was. I have.’ He spoke quietly and pulled her towards the back of the garage, as if the extra few feet of space between them and the house would make all the difference.

‘How are you here then?’ she asked with wide eyes.

‘I’ve been sent back,’ he said proudly. He looked at her expectantly, awaiting her reaction.

‘Are you that terrible at soldiering they’ve returned you already?’ She hadn’t meant to be funny but Jack laughed.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m only back because they needed to find someone local – someone who knows the lay of the land. And then, with any luck, I’ll be gone again, bursting with information to help win the war.’

Persey stared. ‘Are you a spy?’ she asked blankly. ‘Oh, Jack, they’ll kill you. You know that, don’t you? The Germans. There are so many of them. I’ve been past the airport and—’

‘And how many of them are there?’

Persey thought. ‘I don’t know. Lots. And I’m sure more will be landing imminently. And then of course troops will be coming in their droves by boat from France. You shouldn’t be here. It’s far too dangerous.’

He looked proud. ‘That’s exactly why I am here. Listen, do you think you could go past the airport again and take another look? Sit tight for a while, watch how many planes come and go over the course of the week?’

‘Are you asking me to spy for you?’

‘No, I’m asking you to spy for Britain.’

Persephone rubbed her hand over her tired eyes. It was too much. It was all just far too much.

He waited, a determined expression fixed on his face while she looked at him.

‘Jack, why are you in the garage? And …’ She looked him up and down. ‘And why are you wet?’

‘I’m wet because I had to wade in once they’d dropped me from the canoe. And I’m in the garage because, given the hour, I didn’t want to wake the house.’

For the first time in ages, Persephone laughed. ‘Oh my word. It’s not like you to be quite so polite. So you’re hiding in here, soaked to the skin because you didn’t want to wake us all up?’ She couldn’t help it, she laughed again.

‘I don’t wish to damage the good opinion you’ve formed of me but no, sorry. I don’t mind waking you all up one jot but I did rather want to stay put and keep an eye on the house for a few hours. See how many Germans came and went in the morning and see if it was safe to show my face at Deux Tourelles.’

‘Germans? Here?’ she asked. ‘Why would they be here?’ Although her mind moved back to earlier that day, when the young man in uniform had stood by her door. He’d never said what he’d wanted.

‘They’ll need somewhere to live while they’re here,’ Jack said simply. ‘Deux Tourelles is one of the closest houses to the airport. Stands to reason they’ll want to pop their heads in at some point. You might find yourself being turfed out.’

Persey’s stomach tightened.

‘Or even worse,’ Jack continued. ‘You might find yourself staying and then having one or two of them living with you.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Persey replied.

‘Well, listen,’ he said, ‘I’m here for a week. But I’ll need somewhere to stay so I’ll have my old room back, next to my mum’s if a German hasn’t moved himself in and if it’s not full of Dido’s clothes already?’

‘I know we’ve grown up together but you really can be very forward at times,’ Persey chastised.

‘You want me to know my place as the housekeeper’s son, is that it?’ He folded his arms.

‘No, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry,’ Persey said. ‘You know I don’t think anything like that. You’ve only been gone a few weeks so of course your room is still yours. As if your mother would let us do anything else. She’s going to be overjoyed to see you.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Jack said darkly. ‘So it’s safe.’ He angled his head towards the house. ‘In there?’

‘No Germans yet but what if one does come? We had one earlier in the day and he said he’d be back.’

‘We don’t tell them I’ve joined up. I’ve been here the whole time. Never left the island. As long as we all keep to that story for a week, and I stay hidden out here away from prying eyes then it’s too easy.’

‘Too easy …’ Persey repeated thoughtfully. ‘We should wake the house and tell them. Get you dry and into some fresh clothes.’

‘Dido and your mother won’t believe their eyes,’ Jack said.

Persey stopped and dipped her gaze to the floor. When he asked what was wrong, fresh tears threatened as she told him about her mother’s death.

‘Oh dear God. That’s the worst news imaginable. Oh, Persey, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe it. She was fine when I left,’ he said as if that would change facts. ‘Your mother was always very good to me. Very kind to Mother after Father died,’ Jack said quietly. ‘The best sort of woman. I can’t believe she’s gone.’

Persey let the tears fall freely and Jack pulled her towards him, holding her close.

‘You’re wet,’ Persey said through her tears.

‘I am rather, yes, sorry. Those tears don’t help.’

Persey pulled back, sniffed and wiped her eyes. ‘Let’s go inside.’

The shouting between Jack and his mother went on and on in the kitchen at the back of the house. Persey and Dido sat on the stairs, their heads in their hands. And then when it became clear Mrs Grant was gearing up for another yell, the girls moved into the sitting room and closed the door to drown out the Grants’ argument. Persey backed against the door, tipped her chin up and closed her eyes. She wanted to block out the horrific, awful day.

Could one be classed as an orphan at the age of twenty-five? Because surely that’s what she and Dido were. Orphans. She looked over at Dido, whose expression was fixed, as she hunted around for something to do or touch or divert herself with. Persey weighed up the options for her mother’s funeral, in the face of Nazi Occupation – something she could hardly contemplate but which she knew would have to be thought about. Thank goodness for Doctor Durand taking charge with the undertaker. Thank goodness for Mrs Grant helping so readily with everything.

Persey had loved her mother but it was her father who she’d shared a special relationship with as the years moved on. Dido had been happy to drift between the two of them equally, finding true comfort in both parents, easy to love and easy to be loved. Whereas Dido had always accused Persey of being too strait-laced and too tight-lipped. She wasn’t tight-lipped, or especially private. Persey just never had anything to tell.

Dido pulled the stopper off the decanter and poured a brandy. ‘God-awful day. The worst. Want one?’

Persephone shook her head as she moved towards the fireplace, even though it hadn’t been lit that day. It was June, but no matter the time of year, the room was always cold. Wrapping her dressing gown around her she wondered what her sister was thinking. ‘I can’t drink. Not at this hour. I’d like some tea but I daren’t go in the kitchen. I thought Mrs Grant would be pleased to see him.’

‘Did you?’ Dido replied. ‘Really? Jack’s risked his life to spy. Of course she’s angry. The first war killed her husband, after a fashion. And if he’s caught, this second one will take her son. It really is rather stupid of him to have come back.’

‘What would you do, though, if asked?’ Persey suggested. ‘If you were in England and you’d joined up even though, as an Islander, you didn’t have to? If you thought strongly enough about this war to actually do something about it, and then you were offered the chance to return home, do something about knocking the Nazis off your very own patch of soil … what would you do?’

Dido made a show of thinking, which made Persephone half smile. ‘I’d tell Churchill: Not on your nelly, Winnie.’

‘I don’t think you would.’

Dido poured a measure of brandy and held it out to Persey. ‘No arguments. Just drink it.’

Persey breathed in deeply and took the smallest sip of alcohol. Then the inevitable knock at the sitting room door came. Jack opened the door and looked as if the ordeal of landing back in occupied Guernsey was nothing to the verbal hammering his mother had just given him. He sat on the settee, looking pale.

‘You’re still in your wet things,’ Persey said, handing him her glass.

‘Mother thinks I shouldn’t have come.’

‘We could hear,’ Dido said, perching on the arm of the settee opposite.

Jack smiled. ‘It’s only a week. I’ll be picked up by the navy and then …’

‘And then you leave us to it?’ Persey questioned. ‘To the fates?’

Jack looked sheepish and sipped Persey’s brandy.

‘Well you’d better not get caught then,’ Dido said. ‘Because, if you do, you’ll bring us all down with you.’

Jack went to get some rest and they were to convene with him at breakfast. Dido asked to sleep in with Persey and the two pulled Persey’s blankets up underneath their chins, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.

‘This is a bit like when we were children,’ Dido pointed out. ‘When I used to have nightmares and climb in with you.’

Persey nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said absently.

‘I feel numb. Don’t you?’ Dido continued.

‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

‘Mother’s gone.’

‘Yes,’ Persey replied. Perhaps it was the shock of it all but Persey had run out of emotion, anaesthetised by the day’s events, and could say no more on the subject.

‘And now Jack,’ Dido lamented.

‘And now Jack,’ Persey repeated. She thought about what Jack had asked her to do, spying at the airport. Would it really be so very different to cycling past, as she often did, but to pay proper attention? Count the aircraft lined up near the landing strip? Take in how many men appeared to be onsite? Perhaps see if any guns had been set up already and whereabouts? Where was the harm in just looking? As long as she didn’t get caught. And why would they arrest her just for cycling past the perimeter fence? As fragments of early morning sunlight broke through the fine gap at the end of the blackout blind she’d replaced in the night, she eventually drifted off to sleep.

If she had expected to dream of anything she thought it would have been about her mother or of Jack being arrested by the Germans. But instead it was half a dream, half a memory that filtered in and out of Persey’s foggy mind. There had been four of them on the cliffs, much younger than they were now, perhaps she had been fifteen or sixteen years old. Jack had challenged them all to a race on the precarious path as they walked the cliffs towards Fermain Bay, drawing a start line in the gravel with the heel of his shoe.

‘We’ll go in teams,’ Jack had announced, looking at his watch as the four stood on the cliff path.

Persey peered over the edge while Jack spoke. Below them the waves crashed loudly against the cliffs, white horses galloping towards the rocks. Not a soul to be seen.

‘I’ll time us. Dido and I shall go first,’ Jack continued. ‘Too narrow for us all to go at once. Two minutes later, Stefan and Persey will follow on. We’ll see which team gets to the bay in the fastest time. Every second counts. Stefan, let’s check our wristwatches.’

Persey glanced at Stefan, blond, tall … taller than he had been last summer certainly. He moved toward Jack to ensure their watches were in synch. The atmosphere between the boys was jovial but there had always been that barely noticeable undercurrent of tension. Jack, the dominant surrogate older brother to the girls, was quick to laugh at Stefan if he mispronounced something. It was one of Jack’s less fine qualities, although if Stefan noticed, he failed to react.

She wasn’t quite sure she wanted to be alone with Stefan for two whole minutes while they waited their turn. What would they talk about? And then to have to run with him along the narrow path. At least she wouldn’t be expected to speak then. She gave Jack a look that suggested she was less than happy about this. But he didn’t see.

‘You ready, Di?’ Jack said as Stefan moved to stand beside Persephone. Stefan’s shirtsleeves were rolled up and his bare forearm – warm, tanned – touched hers and she moved away. He didn’t need to be that close, surely.

‘Ready,’ Dido announced, adjusting the laces of her shoes. At least they were flat, Persey thought, looking down mournfully at her own with their small block heel. Not at all suitable for running along a cliff path.

Jack spent an agonising time staring at his watch as Persey peered over the cliffs again.

‘Be careful, Dido,’ Persey said. ‘For God’s sake don’t fall.’

‘I won’t,’ Dido said in an annoyed tone. ‘Besides, Stefan will rescue me, won’t you, Stefan?’

‘No,’ he said without a hint of emotion. ‘I will be two minutes behind you. You will be dead.’

Persey covered her mouth with her hand as a laugh attempted to escape. Had he meant to be dry? Or was he simply being German? She glanced at Dido, who was frowning, looking put out; and then Persey stole a look at Stefan. The corners of his mouth were twitching. She looked away again, now even more unsure about him.

Persey woke up. She blinked as Dido switched on the bedside lamp.

Dido looked concerned and rubbed sleep from her eyes. ‘What did you say?’

Persey shook her head. ‘Nothing. I think I was dreaming.’

‘You were. But you said something and then you shot up and dragged all the blankets from me.’

Persey looked down. She was clutching the bedding and had pulled it all from Dido and had it in a heap on top of her. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled as Dido took her half back.

Persey sat still and looked into her lap. Could her suspicions be correct?

‘What were you dreaming about?’ Dido asked as she lay back down and put her head against the pillow.

Persey paused a moment before speaking. ‘Do you remember those summers when Mother’s friend Agnes had her nephew to stay?’

‘No,’ Dido said sleepily. ‘Is that what you were dreaming about?’

Persey nodded and then switched off the lamp and lay back down. ‘Yes.’ She rubbed her forefinger along her lower lip as she thought.

‘Don’t you remember him?’

‘The nephew?’ Dido said sleepily in the darkness. ‘Not really. Maybe.’

‘Of course you do,’ Persey said. ‘Think.’

‘Persey, it was years ago.’

‘Over ten years ago, yes. He used to spend the summers in Guernsey with Agnes and her husband and then he’d return to Germany to his studies at the end. You must remember him.’

Dido rolled over. Silence. And then, ‘Johann? Was that his name?’

Persey smiled. ‘Stefan.’

Dido shifted position, onto her back. ‘Didn’t Agnes move back to England?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why he stopped coming?’ Dido asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is it important?’ Dido questioned with a yawn.

‘No. Only I thought …’

But Dido cut Persey off. ‘She’ll be interned in England now, won’t she?’

‘Who?’ Persey asked as she tried to picture Stefan’s face from a decade ago – wondering what he would look like now.

‘Agnes. And her husband. She’s English but he’s German. They’ll be interned, won’t they? Or will it be just him? Enemy aliens and all that.’

‘I suppose so, yes. How horrid,’ Persey said.

‘If they’re German, they’re the enemy,’ Dido declared.

Persey thought about that for a long time, unsure how she felt, unsure how to respond. She wanted to ask Dido if she really thought that old friends could simply be the enemy because the government told you they were, but Dido was already breathing heavily, asleep next to her.

They had known to expect the return of the Germans to the house but none of them had realised it would happen so soon in the day. They had sat down to breakfast in the dining room, Jack waxing lyrical about the locations he needed to visit over the next week, the reconnaissance he was expected to carry out and the kind of help he might need if the girls were willing, when an efficient three-rap knock sounded at the front door.

They looked at Jack for instruction and Mrs Grant issued a startled noise.

‘Don’t panic,’ Jack said confidently. ‘Everyone knows the story … I’ve been here the whole time.’

Persey nodded, though her heart clattered in her chest.

The knocking sounded again but it was Dido who moved. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, someone should answer or it’ll start to look suspicious from the off.’ She was already out of the dining room door.

Persey sat still, her plate of food uneaten. Jack carried on eating as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but as Persey looked closer she could see his hand shaking as he lifted his fork. She reached to still him and he put his fork down and swallowed.

There were only two men this time, led into the dining room by Dido. The men glanced around at the sage green walls and the antique furniture dotted around the room. Persey looked where they looked, an excuse not to look at the men properly, not to make eye contact.

‘Excuse me for intruding,’ the first said in perfect English. ‘You are eating. I keep invading when you are busy.’

‘Invading …’ Dido muttered with an arched brow.

Persey looked up slowly at the man and he looked back at her. She held her breath. She had known. Even though she had not been able to see his face fully under his hat; even though she’d had tears in her eyes, crying about her mother. She had known yesterday it was him. It was his voice.

The man looked lost for words, but eventually found his voice. ‘I apologise, but we need to look at the bedrooms.’

Mrs Grant spluttered, ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘This property is situated close to the airport and is of a substantial size. We have men we need to accommodate on the island.’

‘Here?’ Persey spoke sharply.

He looked at her. Those blue eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘We don’t have any spare,’ Dido said, folding her arms.

With Jack returning to claim his room, that left only one room vacant … their mother’s. They wouldn’t be expected to house a German in Mother’s room surely? Not when she’d been gone such a short amount of time. There needed to be some level of respect.

‘May we take a look, please?’ he asked.

Dido relented. ‘We only have one. It was our mother’s. Her things are … You might not want it.’

The German didn’t speak.

Persey asked, ‘Do we have a choice?’

‘I am afraid not.’

Dido sighed and looked to Persey for help but she knew there was nothing they could do. Persey nodded.

‘Thank you.’ The man looked at Persey again and then turned to follow Dido as she moved towards the stairs.

‘Should one of us go with her?’ Jack asked. ‘We’ve just left her alone with two enemy soldiers.’

‘Not you,’ Mrs Grant whispered to Jack. ‘You keep your head down.’

Persey pushed her chair back from the table but Mrs Grant had already made her intention to follow Dido clear and had left the room.

‘All right?’ Jack asked Persey.

She swallowed. ‘Yes, yes I think so,’ she said although she wasn’t fine really. Intense nerves made her voice shake. ‘I should have gone with Dido. Only I can’t seem to move.’

‘It’s actually more frightening than I anticipated,’ Jack said. ‘Isn’t it. Seeing them here. In that awful uniform and those boots. They look just like the photographs in the newspapers.’

Persey nodded but her stomach felt hollow through nerves and lack of food. Jack reached down and took her hand from her lap and held it, giving her a look of solidarity.

The men’s boots thudded dully on the stair runner and then they clunked noisily on the tiled hallway. Persey could take it no longer and although her legs felt wobbly she forced herself to follow them.

‘So …?’ she prompted as they made their way towards the front door.

The second man spoke. ‘You have one bedroom suitable for an officer.’

Her heart sank. She knew as much. But so soon?

‘You will need to start removing personal items—’

But the first man gave his colleague a sharp look to silence him. Why wasn’t he saying who he was? It poured doubt into her mind. Was she wrong?

He spoke softly. ‘My condolences to you and your sister on the passing of your mother.’

‘You don’t care,’ Dido said under her breath from behind Persey.

‘Thank you,’ Persey replied a little louder than she’d meant.

She looked at him and he looked at her before he gave a small smile and turned to leave. They closed the door behind them.

Dido and Mrs Grant entered the dining room first and resumed their seats although no one touched their food now.

‘They expect us to be grateful that they’re here? That we’re turfing Mother’s things out of her room? One day after her passing?’

Persey hovered behind her chair, clutching it, unsure if she wanted to sit or stand, unsure of anything.

‘And how presumptuous of him, just assuming we’re sisters. I didn’t tell him,’ Dido said angrily.

It was this that forced Persey into movement. She had to know now. She had to be sure. She let go of the chair back and turned, walking down the corridor and throwing open the front door. The men were already at the gate. Persey had expected to see a car but the men had arrived on foot.

‘Excuse me,’ Persey called. They stopped and turned back to her.

The first man looked at her and then turned to his colleague and told him something in German that Persey could neither catch nor understand if she had heard. The second man walked further on and waited at a distance.

Persey continued, gravel crunching underfoot until she stopped a few feet away. She glanced back to the house, sensing rather than seeing Dido staring after her from the dining room windows.

Turning back to him, words escaped her. It could be him, it really could. She could see familiarity but she wondered if she was forcing herself to see it. The last time she’d seen Stefan had been that day at the cliffs in August 1930. It had been almost ten years ago. They’d been so young and now they were twenty-five. If it was him. He had left at the end of the summer, returned to Germany. And then … nothing. Stefan’s annual visits had come to an abrupt end that summer. He had never come back to Guernsey despite his promises he would. Persey had often wondered why he never returned, why he never wrote to them. She had thought about it over and over and now … It was him. It had to be him.

She stood straight and searched his eyes. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’

Now she’d asked it, she felt mad and expected a rebuttal.

But the man smiled and there it was, that smile and the slight narrowing of the eyes that had always come with it.

‘Hello, Persephone.’

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