She was right. From between the gorse thorns, I could just make out the door of the cottage opening, and then a figure appeared. A squarish figure in a long, dark coat. The clifftop breeze whipped at his white hair and he turned up his collar. I had seen this man before.

‘Do you remember, Mags? On the day the German bomber crashed – he was standing there on the ridge watching the whole thing. Staring at us.’

‘Yes,’ Mags breathed. ‘Yes! That was him. That was Spooky Joe . . .’

‘He’s the old man who was so horrid to Mutti in the bakery. He called her Jerry.’

My sister’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s he doing?’

Spooky Joe was doing something very peculiar. He edged his way around the side of the cottage nearest us and lowered himself down so that he was lying on his front in the grass. Then he wriggled inland and uphill. From the top of that rise he could see all the way down to the Dover Road – the view was almost as good as from the lighthouse. He rolled on to his side and pulled some things from his coat pocket. He put a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Then he appeared to write or draw something on a piece of paper.

Mags looked at me triumphantly. ‘I knew it, Pet!’ she whispered. ‘I knew he was the spy!’

‘But he’s facing inland,’ I hissed. ‘What on earth is he looking at?’

‘I don’t know. Stonegate church? The telephone box? I need to see what he’s writing down . . .’

We kept watching. Spooky Joe squinted through the binoculars again and continued to scribble for a minute, then he crawled back down the hill, pushed himself up and went into the cottage, leaving the paper weighed down by the binoculars.

‘I’m going to go and have a look,’ said Mags.

‘Are you mad?’ I whispered. ‘He’s probably just gone in to get something. He’ll come back at any moment! Mags!’

But she was already running across the grass.

My eyes flicked back and forth between the door of the cottage and my insane sister. My heart was drumming fast and my breathing was changing. Oh, God, not now . . . I could feel the dreaded pins-and-needles feeling starting in my fingertips.

Mags was nearly at the top of the rise, trying to keep low but moving as quickly as possible. Just as she reached the piece of paper on the grass, there was a tapping noise behind her and she spun around. A loud grating sound followed, and a bang – a window being flung open – and then a voice: ‘HEY!’