There was a fallen birch tree on my left. Blown down in a storm, pulling up a large root ball. A hole where the roots should have been. I shuffled over to the edge of the hole and tipped the body in.
It lay there at the bottom of the hole, a man-shaped silhouette against white sand.
I kicked in soil from the crumbling edge. There was a thin layer of soil and grass. Underneath that, sand and rock.
I kicked soil, sand and rock into the hole, working my way along the edge until the body was gone. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.
I checked my watch. Twenty to two.
Not enough time.
*
I’d left the window ajar but I needn’t have worried. Margaret was leaning out, ready to help me in. She looked at me quizzically and I shook my head.
‘What happened?’ Margaret whispered.
‘One of the Blackshirts was waiting for me,’ I said. ‘Are you all right to be in here?’
‘Vaughn made his move,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do it. I told him I was going to make up with you, and if that meant
I couldn’t be part of his game then so be it.’
There was a creak from the corridor outside the room. Someone was up and about. Margaret froze.
‘Get into bed,’ she said.
We got under the covers and listened for more movement. Footsteps, walking away.
‘Now what?’ Margaret asked.
Fifteen minutes left.
‘Wake me up at two,’ I said.
78
The grandfather clock in the hall downstairs chimed two.
A mournful sound, in the quiet old house. A few seconds later, a smaller clock, higher-pitched, further away, gave the same report.
There was a knock on the door. Vaughn must have been waiting for the clock. Probably been walking around the house in his camouflage warpaint, rucksack on, counting down the seconds.
‘One minute,’ I said loudly. Let him know who was in charge.
Vaughn left, clomping through the house, rousing the others.
I stroked Margaret’s face.
‘They’ll use you as a hostage until it’s all done and dusted,’ I said to Margaret.
‘I’ll let them think that’s what they’re doing,’ she said.
‘If it all goes wrong ...’
‘I haven’t seen you worried before,’ she said.
‘I’m not worried. I’m about to lead a badly trained team of Nazi sympathisers to infiltrate the country’s most secret military installation. I’ll either get killed in the process, or we’ll succeed, and I’ll have helped the Germans with their invasion. What’s there to be worried about?’
