‘These are serious allegations and we’ll have to question all of you.’
I heard a gasp from our mother. ‘With a baby in the house! You cannot be serious.’
‘What are these allegations?’ I asked.
Vern cleared his throat. ‘We have evidence.’ Then he gestured to my notebook.
‘That’s mine!’ I said.
Au yous, Emile, I wasn’t ever going to let Hubert take a bullet for me. I was the real culprit, the one they wanted, and I needed them to know it. The senior officer, a cold fish if ever there was one, keeps staring and staring at me.
‘Whatever you’ve heard is lies,’ I tells the senior officer. ‘My father’s no spy.’ And then I glanced to Vern. ‘You must know it,’ I says to him. ‘I’m the one you want. What I said, I said only once, just as a joke. I said that my father was a spy, but I lied. I made it up!’
The chief Kraut blinked in disbelief. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’
Pop gave me the smallest shake of his head. I took no heed.
‘Because people were saying he was a collabo, because of what you made him do! I lied to people so I wouldn’t, so he wouldn’t.’
I was going to say ‘so I wouldn’t feel ashamed’ but I’m glad I shut myself up.
The big German officer stared at me for a minute. His cold eyes twinkled and I thought he believed me, but then he smiled widely and nodded.
‘A good performance if only your father had not already confessed. If you wish to confess also, be my guest.’
I called him filthy low-life Hun and plenty more things I won’t repeat, and as a result I felt the full force of a rifle butt. It split my lip and I fell to the ground, but I wasn’t down for long. I jumped up and lunged at Vern. Got a nice bit of blood on his shoulder.
‘This does you no good!’ he says. ‘Stay calm.’
‘It’s stupid talk!’ I shouted back. ‘It’s all lies! Are you so blinkered you cannot see that?’
What a sight that must’ve been: my fifteen-year-old self squaring up to them Nazis! The thug behind me smacked me down.
‘Enough,’ says Pop, spreading his thin hands wide. ‘It’s only me you want. My son talks big but he’s a child. You know what I’ve done and I’d do it again. Heil Churchill, I say, and Hitler go to Hell.’
I looked up into Pop’s eyes and it was like they’d come alive again, but all too soon the spark was gone. We were bundled into the back of a black Citroën and I tried to whisper to him.
‘Keep quiet,’ he replied, staring straight ahead as we drove into the darkness. ‘They’re taking us to Paradis.’
That’s right, Emile, that’s where they took us: the big house with a view out to sea. It was called Paradis, which almost seems funny and I suppose it was the place plenty of folk met their Maker. You’ve heard the stories from others, eh? I can still remember the smell of it and how the floorboards creaked. There was men flogged from the banisters, left to starve, beaten to pulp. Who knows where all the bodies went.
They might’ve torn the old house down, but you cannot escape them ghosts. New bricks and mortar won’t make a difference. Whoever lives there now won’t last – they never do – since they’ll never get no peace.
19TH DECEMBER 1985, 12 p.m.
[On the patio, almost dancing]
Freak out! I’ve just been on the cliffs with Michael again. I saw him head out earlier this morning and pretended it was a big coincidence. I think he was pleased, though. This could become our new routine! I could be his personal assistant, physical therapist and stalker rolled into one.
Malheureusement he’s still going on about how there’s nothing to keep him on the island. I think he’s upset because Donnie’s gone AWOL. The White House is all locked up and there’s a big firm that now looks after the garden. We were walking through Bluebell Woods when Michael told me. From the path we could just glimpse the side of the house through the trees. It was sitting there, all gleaming and empty.
‘Bloody typical,’ Michael mumbled. ‘They buy a house, spend a fortune doing it up and then bugger off to Monaco. Half the houses on Fort George are empty. Tax status,