“Why are you burying your luggage?”
“I ... I ...” She let out a wee sob.
No doubt about it. “You’re a spy.”
“Please, sir. Please believe me. It isn’t what it seems.” In the torchlight, luminous eyes entreated him.
Lachlan’s heart and his mouth went hard. “What’s in the suitcases? Kick them over here.”
“Please. I know what it looks like, but I’m actually a member of the Dutch resistance. To help my friends, I infiltrated the Dutch Nazi Party. But I was afraid the Nazis would get suspicious. I had to escape.”
Her story had shifted like the tides. “A refugee wouldnae hide. A refugee wouldnae bury her luggage. You’re a spy for Germany.”
That spy fell silent. Her head dipped low, and pale hair curled around pale cheeks. Then she drew a long, ratcheting breath. “That’s what I wanted them to think.”
Lachlan sucked in cold air. She admitted it. “Them? The Germans?”
“The German Abwehr,” she said in a quiet voice, lightly accented. “I tricked them into thinking I’d spy for them, but I never intended to do so. I’m on your side, the Allied side. Ijoined the Abwehr only so I could escape to Britain. My aunt lives here. I beg you. You must believe me.”
All the burning heat from the evening’s events roared in Lachlan’s head. “You think me a right dafty. You’re a spy for—”
“No. Only so I could escape.” A frenzied tone raised her voice. “See? That’s why I’m burying my wireless set and my pistol. I don’t want them. I’ll never use them. Here—take them.” She kicked two steel cases his way.
Lachlan stretched out one foot and dragged the smaller case toward him—most likely the pistol. “Burying your dinghy too, I see. Your sealskin.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s what selkies do, abandon their sealskin.”
“I—I don’t understand.” The selkie teetered, unaccustomed to living on land. “Please. I’ve had a long and trying day, and I’m exhausted. I’ll take the suitcase with my clothes and be on my way.”
“You’re daft! I’m taking you to the police.”
“The police? No.” Her voice shattered. “Please don’t turn me in. They’ll execute me. I promise, I only want to live with my aunt, take a war job, help the Allied cause. Have mercy.”
“Mercy? For lying? For treachery?” His gut twisted in revulsion. “On your knees. Hands high.”
More sobs rent the air, but the spy dropped to her knees.
Lachlan tucked the torch into the waistband of his kilt, ripped off his necktie, and stepped behind the woman. “Hands behind your back.”
She complied, weeping. “Please have mercy.”
“May the Lord have mercy on your soul. I have none.” After he set his sgian-dubh between his teeth, he knotted his necktie around one of her wrists, which wasn’t easy given how hard her arms shook.
Then he secured her other hand and tied the far end of the necktie to his own left wrist.
With the torch in his left hand and the sgian-dubh in his right, he gestured forward. “Up the path.”
She lurched to her feet. “Please, sir. I only want to be free.”
He gave the necktie a light tug. “I guarantee, Miss van der Zee, you will never be free again.”
7
Camp 020, Richmond, London
Monday, April 14, 1941
