I unfolded it, my heart pattering with excitement. This could be the key to proving that Mutti is innocent. I was expecting to find some sort of diagram, like the ones mentioned in the magistrates’ court, but instead I found an incomprehensible list of numbers. This is what Joe had written:

MB – TB:

0617 040540

0638 110540

0557 180540

0625 250540

Was it a code of some kind? It was so unlike the documents at the tribunal . . . Perhaps Spooky Joe wasn’t the spy after all. As much as I wanted this easy answer, it just didn’t fit. If Joe was on the side of the Nazis, why had he made that comment about ‘Jerry’ in the bakery? No – Spooky Joe was a patriot. Perhaps he was keeping an eye out for suspicious behaviour, just like the government’s posters told us to. Perhaps this note was the clue to who the real spy was . . . I couldn’t make head nor tail of the numbers, but the letters at the top must mean something . . . What could MB stand for? The first thing I thought of was the person who was currently swanning about in the King Edward with my stupid sister – Michael Baron – but I knew that was nonsense. It’s just your anger talking, Pet, I said to myself firmly. Anyway – you’re not really angry with him, you’re angry with Magda. And then I stopped and looked at the letters again. MB. Magda’s middle name was Bernadette. Could Spooky Joe have been making notes about my sister?

I sat quite still for a moment. The salt-heavy breeze tugged at the paper between my fingers and a series of waves rose up and rolled in, one after another on to the beach. My mind churned like mud in the shallows. What if it was Mags? What if Mags had been up to something these last few months? I thought about her odd moods and behaviour, her early morning disappearances, the fact that she had obviously not been working on the motor boat, as she had claimed. She had been lying to us. And then I thought about that anonymous figure in the mist – could that have been my sister? Perhaps Mutti had thought Mags was up to something too. That was why she followed her that morning. That was why she was so desperate for us both to be evacuated . . .

I stood up, stuffing the piece of paper hurriedly into my own coat pocket as I realized that the boat sliding up on to the beach was the King Edward.

They were back.

Chapter 19

19

On the way home, Mags turned out her coat pockets looking for Spooky Joe’s note. ‘It must be here somewhere,’ she muttered.