Through the market square, past the painted wooden church, all the while keeping the cloaked figure in her sight. Miss Smith ran so quickly that it was hard to keep up, and Marina thought she had lost her for a moment, but saw her dart down a narrow side street. Marina caught a blur of white lace at a window as she ran to catch up with the woman.
Miss Smith stood in a doorway, talking earnestly to someone.
Not caring that she was about to interrupt their conversation, Marina raised her hand. ‘Miss Smith!’
20
Asharp pain on her shoulder. She was spun round. ‘Father!’
‘Come with me.’ His lips barely moved, his voice was low and quiet. ‘Don’t speak. Keep walking.’
Her father had glanced over Marina’s shoulder, his eyes scanning the street as if he were expecting to see someone. As they walked away, the grip on her shoulder tightened.
She was in dreadful trouble, she could tell. But her father did not say a word, marching her back to the quay and the waiting boat. Brown and Perkins stood on deck, watching anxiously. The moment that they saw the Commander, they must have told the Chief Engineer, as Marina heard the anchor being raised and the engines starting.
A gendarme was watching them as they walked smartly towards their boat. ‘Hei!’ he called out. ‘Stopp!’
Marina felt her father’s hand loosen slightly on her shoulder. He turned to the gendarme, a pleasant, charming smile on his face. ‘God morgen.’
Marina was surprised: she had no idea that her father could speak another language. She looked up at him. He even looked different without his more usual serious expression. She was about to ask what he’d said, but a squeeze on her shoulder silenced her.
‘Hvor skal dere?’ The gendarme asked, unsmiling.
‘Jeg er på vei til båten min.’
‘Tar du med ei jente? På båten?’
Marina’s father shrugged. ‘Jeg tar sjansen.’ But whatever these words meant, they did not completely satisfy the gendarme.
‘Identitetspapirer?’
‘På båten. Jeg kan hente dem.’
The gendarme did not immediately let them go but continued to look them up and down suspiciously. Her father cleared his throat and looked towards the quay. The man grudgingly came to some conclusion in his mind and waved them on.
As they turned to go, Marina asked, ‘What did he say?’
Her father didn’t reply. Was he still angry with her?
‘What did he want? Why did he stop us? We weren’t doing anything wrong.’
‘Stans! Engelskmenn!’
‘Keep walking. Look straight ahead.’ Her father’s pace remained steady. Marina felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle. Was her father in trouble? What could he have done? She heard the shrill note of a whistle pierce the air. And again. The answering sound of boots, running.
They were on the gangplank; her father pushed her up first, pulled the rope off the jetty and threw it up on deck with calm assurance. Behind him, there was confusion on the quay. The young gendarme was gesticulating and pointing at the Sea Witch, but no one knew what to do. The Sea Witch drew away from the little jetty. The gendarme ran towards the boat, as if he could do something to stop them. He drew out a pistol and aimed it at Brown, who stood, unmoving, on the deck, defiant. Those moments of hesitation and confusion were enough to allow the Sea Witch to move out of the harbour and make for the open sea.
It was over two hours before her father called for her. Two miserable, wretched hours in the hold, explaining over and over to Paddy and the other dogs why she had got off the boat, even though she had been ordered to stay on board.
‘It was a damn fool thing to do, Marina,’ he said. ‘You had strict orders not to get off the boat and yet, at the moment I am about to leave, you are nowhere to be found. And there you are: strolling through the streets of Svengejar! What on earth possessed you to disobey me?’
As ever, it was hard to reply to him, hard to explain what had gone through her mind in those few seconds when she saw Miss Smith. ‘I . . . I thought I saw someone I knew,’ she mumbled, looking down at her fingers and knotting them together.
‘What?’
‘I thought I saw someone I knew, and I just ran after them . . . I didn’t think . . . I’m so sorry . . . I was impulsive.’
‘Someone you knew? In the most northerly port in Finnmark? What nonsense is this?’
Marina bit her lip. She had promised Miss Smith that she wouldn’t tell her father about their meeting, but surely a promise to stranger was less important than answering his questions? She felt awkward. ‘It’s just that I was looking at the town and I was thinking that it might have been the place where Mama came from . . . And then I saw a woman running along the quay. I thought it might be her.’
Her father’s face softened. ‘But you know that your mother found it difficult to walk, Marina. Even in the boots I had made for her . . . How could you
