can work out the details as we go along.’
*
Police Sergeant Stacey wasn’t due on duty until six a.m., but he suffered from insomnia and, rather than tossing about in bed until his wife yelled at him, he’d decided on an early start. After putting on his uniform, Stacey made corned beef sandwiches and a flask of Bovril for his lunch. He then climbed on his bike and headed for a police station in a larger village seven miles over the hills.
Stacey should have retired, but the government wanted young men in the armed services rather than patrolling rural Lancashire, so he’d gone back to work for the duration of the war. Mostly he didn’t mind, though pedalling up a steep hill at four-thirty on a snowy morning did make his bed seem more enticing than usual.
Freewheeling down the other side was much more Stacey’s thing. The speed and recklessness of going fast in slippery conditions gave him a childlike thrill. During thirty-six years as a police officer, he’d freewheeled every hill on his beat a thousand times, but nothing had prepared him for the ghostly presence he sped towards that February morning.
White waves shimmered in the moonlight, blocking the entire width of the lane. Stacey braked as hard as he dared, but the tarmac was slippery and he veered into the scrub along the roadside. He ended up in a shallow ditch, with torn trousers and the bike stuck in a hedge with the front wheel spinning freely.
Stacey kicked the bike aside and felt a dull ache in his hip as he rolled on to his bum and sat up. He recognised the distinctive shape of a parachute and drew a relieved breath upon realising that he hadn’t been driven off road by a ghost.
The policeman saw three possibilities: a British airman who might need help, a German airman who might be dangerous, or most alarmingly of all, a German spy.
Stacey kept a hand on his truncheon as he limped towards the billowing parachute, but his weapon would be inadequate if his opponent had a gun. The chute would cause another accident if left in the road, so Stacey grabbed the ropes and began pulling in the billowing silk. When it was balled up at the roadside, he knelt on the fabric and studied the harness by the light of his torch.
The backpack into which the chute was originally packed contained an identity tag. It bore an identity number, followed by the name and date of each time it had been repacked. Hester Marsh, Heather Baker, May Sandalwood and CP Doyle seemed like reassuringly British names.
‘Hello?’ Stacey shouted. ‘Is anyone about? I’m here to help you.’
When he didn’t get a reply, the elderly policeman tried to imagine what he would have done if he’d landed here. The country on either side of the road was rugged, and Stacey had just ridden down the hill without seeing anyone.
Stacey decided to get back to his bike and ride downhill where he hoped to catch up with the parachute’s owner, but as he turned around he was smacked viciously across the side of the head by a plank of wood. He wrapped his hands around his face as he dropped on to his knees, but the adversary swung again. This time the wood hit so hard that the half-rotten plank broke in two.
A boy crouched down and opened Stacey’s eyelid to make sure that he was properly unconscious.
‘You’ll have a headache when you wake up, fatty,’ Luc said cheerfully, as he grabbed Stacey’s wrists and dragged him to the side of the road.
Luc had already cut several lengths of rope from his parachute cords. He rolled the officer on to his back and used two of them to knot Stacey’s wrists and ankles. Once the knots were tight, Luc searched the officer, taking a wallet containing four pounds, plus some coins and ration stamps, then he pocketed Stacey’s handcuffs and grabbed the truncheon hooked to his belt.
‘Thanks for the bike, too,’ Luc said, before spitting contemptuously in the unconscious officer’s face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
An hour after landing, Joel, Marc, Rosie and PT had made it four miles. They’d stuck to the snowy fields for a mile and a half, then decided that they were far enough from their drop zone to walk on open roads.
The first village they reached had a parade of tiny shops with a post office on the corner. The milkman had already been through and the boys each swiped pint bottles