89

We let the current carry us. Miriam didn’t have much time, but we needed the cover of dark to get through Lewes. We waited out the afternoon under a willow, south of Isfield, and navigated the lock at Barcombe as dusk was falling. We slipped through Lewes in the dark, thankful for the blackout.

After Lewes, we were south of the Downs, the countryside flattening out as we approached the sea. The tide was going out, and it pulled us along, the English Channel -growing ever closer.

‘They’ll make Vaughn protector of Sussex,’ Miriam said, at one point. Later, she asked if she was in India.

We pulled to the bank of the river with the docks at -Newhaven in the distance. It was pitch-black, but I could hear the open sea ahead. My hands were raw from the oars. Even going with the flow of the river, it had been tough work.

‘How’s she doing?’ I asked. Whatever the answer, there was no way Miriam was going to be able to row out to sea. I’d have to go with her. Get her to the rendezvous point then bail out before I was seen.

Margaret didn’t reply.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘She’s gone,’ Margaret said.

I felt Miriam’s neck, sure Margaret was wrong. There’d be a faint pulse. Hard to detect, but there nonetheless. The slightest proof of life.

But Margaret was right. Miriam was gone.

All of Bunny’s scheming had come to nothing. Morning would come, and again the skies would fill with German planes. The WAAFs in the shed, in the shadows of the transmission towers, would do their job, until someone in Berlin got fed up with waiting for Miriam’s report, and sent a bomber to destroy the mysterious facility in the middle of the invasion zone. Better safe than sorry, they’d say to themselves, and they’d be right.

This wasn’t the first time I’d known defeat, far from it, but that didn’t make it any less bitter.

‘We’ll take her back,’ I said.

‘No,’ Margaret said. ‘There’s a different plan.’

She pulled a sheaf of papers from inside Miriam’s jacket, and stuffed them in her own pocket.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

But Margaret didn’t answer. She didn’t look at me. Didn’t want me to see what she was thinking. She took Miriam’s handbag, zipped it up, and put the strap over her head and shoulder.

‘I told you,’ she said, ‘there’s a lot you don’t know about me.’

‘Whatever it is,’ I said, ‘this isn’t the answer.’

‘Get out of the boat,’ she said. I didn’t like the tone of her voice. The lightness was gone. The Margaret I knew, pushed aside.

‘I can’t let you go,’ I said.

‘John,’ she said.

There was a click in the darkness. A perfectly recognisable sound. Unmistakable, no matter how I tried to misinterpret it. The hammer of a Webley revolver, pulled back. Stage one of a two-stage firing process, ready for the finger on the trigger.

‘You won’t shoot me,’ I said.

‘What was it Bunny told you?’ she asked.

‘Margaret. This is insane.’

‘Whatever it takes.’

‘I’ll row you out there,’ I said, thinking frantically. As long as we were together, I’d have a chance to turn this around, regardless of what this turned out to be. Was it part of -Bunny’s plan? Or had Margaret been playing me for a fool the whole time?

‘Margaret,’ I said.

‘Out of the boat,’ she said.

‘You can’t go out there.’

‘I’ll shoot you,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to, but I’ll do it if I have to.’

‘Is this Bunny?’ I asked. ‘Or them?’

I didn’t get an answer. I didn’t expect one. What was she going to do? Give me some kind of cock-and-bull story? Besides, she didn’t need to say the words. The gun in her hand was speaking volumes.

‘Swim to the far bank, and don’t look back.’

Last chance, I realised. I looked down at the black water and made to put my hands on the side of the boat. I’d pivot from my waist, spinning back towards her, knock the gun from her hand.

But she was one step ahead of me. I felt the gun press against the back of my neck. My freedom of manoeuvre -reduced. I froze.

‘If you’re on our side,’ I said, ‘and you get into trouble, send word. I’ll come for you. Do whatever it takes.’

‘Out of the boat,’ she said.

I slipped out, and the tidal waters took me, pulling me down, grabbing at my clothes. I kicked for the surface, and when I felt air on my face, the boat was already ten yards away.

I swam for the bank, my clothes dragging like an anchor. Another ten yards from the boat, a sliding noise behind me, a splash. Miriam, consigned to the deep. Then the creak of oars.

‘Say goodbye to the children,’ she said, her voice carrying across the water.

I stopped swimming. I should follow her. Catch up. Stop her.

‘Tell them I’m sorry,’ she said.

Then all I heard was the rhythmic splash and pull of the oars, and the roar of the distant waves.