Pinstripe said quietly, ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t say, Mr Smith. But in the eyes of the law, you have committed treason. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Pa said. ‘I understand.’

The pulse in my jaw throbbed against my fingers. A drop of blood fell from my thumb and splashed on to the concrete floor of the lantern room.

Pinstripe had known it was my Pa. When he said that good people do bad things, he hadn’t been talking about Mutti at all . . .

‘There’s just one thing I need to ask,’ Pa said. ‘I realize this is probably not something you are allowed to do, Inspector, but I need to ask you not to arrest me today. Could you give me, please, until tomorrow night?’

I heard Pinstripe’s chair shifting on the floor. He tried to interrupt, but Pa kept talking.

‘I’m not going to do anything else, sir – you have my word. I sent one package and that is all I ever intended to send. There are no more secrets I can share. There is no more damage I can do. But I can do something else – something good.’

‘What are you proposing?’

‘Let me take the lifeboat over to Dunkirk to help rescue our boys,’ Pa said. ‘They’ve been appealing on the wireless – anyone able to handle a boat. Well, that’s me. I can do something good. Please, Inspector. I’m not asking you as a policeman, I’m asking you as a man. My daughter Magda is so desperate to go, but I can’t let her – and I know that if I don’t go, she will. She’s full of fire, but she’s so young. Let me go. Let my last act in this war be one that saves lives. Please . . .’

There was a terrible strain in Pa’s voice now, a wheezing and cracking, and I realized that he was crying again. There were tears running down my cheeks and both my hands were shaking, but I still kept the speaking tube clamped tightly to my ear, even though my right arm was now numb and bloodless. I tried not to sniff. I couldn’t let them hear me.

‘And what happens when you get back?’ Pinstripe said after a moment.

‘When I get back, I’ll walk straight into the police station and turn myself in.’

Everything was quiet for a moment. I tried to imagine what was happening. Perhaps the two of them were shaking hands. There was the sound of chairs moving on the kitchen floor, and then I heard the door open and close, and there was silence again.

I replaced the brass whistle in the end of the speaking tube, and hung it from its bracket on the wall. The blood surged back into my deadened arm like molten lead.

Chapter 25

25