No such thing happened.
Miss Smith stood up. ‘I have known about your father’s treachery for a long time. I want you to think, Marina, what your father has told you and how much of that has been lies. He said he was sailing on the HMS Neptune to Cadiz. But instead he sailed in an old fishing boat to Pechorin Island. And why would he come here?’
‘To mend the sonar transmitter,’ Marina muttered. Perhaps if she said it enough times, it would be true and she could ignore the creeping sense that Miss Smith was telling her a painful truth.
Miss Smith shook her head. ‘But there is nothing wrong with the transmitter! In fact, I have improved it so that its signal can be directed wherever I want. Made the signal impervious to being jammed by the enemy. So why is your father here? I think it must be that your father does not want me to be successful. He wants to destroy my sonar transmitter and humiliate me.’
Marina sat on the bed and drew her knees up to her chest. She felt her body go very still. As long as she didn’t move or react to what Miss Smith had told her, it couldn’t be true.
Miss Smith sighed, as if she felt truly sorry for Marina. Then she stood up and went to the door. ‘I’ll get someone who will explain . . . My manservant . . .’
She spoke to someone outside. Her voice was clipped with anxiety. ‘The room was not locked, despite my instructions, and now the Commander has gone.’
‘I did lock the door,’ a man’s voice replied. ‘But there are not many locks that could hold the Commander. And a guard is easy pickings for him. Whenever he’s been locked up, he’s escaped.’
A man now stepped into the hut. ‘I’m so sorry that you’ve found out about your father this way,’ he said, looking awkwardly at the floor.
Marina had never seen a ghost before. She was so shocked that she could hardly breathe. The man in front of her had taken off his submariner goggles and combed his hair. He smiled at her kindly, as if they were old friends. On his left cheek, a scar.
‘Trenchard?’ she whispered. ‘Is it really you?’
‘It was all part of my operation to understand your father’s treachery,’ Miss Smith explained. ‘I knew there was an enemy spy working in the Admiralty, but I could not uncover the spy’s identity. After I met you on the train and you told me about your father’s trip to Cadiz, I knew something was wrong. Commander Barham was taking the Neptune to Cadiz, so what was your father doing in Portsmouth? And so I assigned Trenchard to get himself on your father’s boat at the last minute.
‘He picked a somewhat dramatic way to leave, but I rose to the challenge and rescued him from the sea.’ Her mouth flickered in a triumphant smile. ‘I thought that your father might do something crazy – desperate men often do dangerous things – and I couldn’t risk Trenchard’s safety. Unlike your father, that is something I would never do.’
‘I’m very grateful, Miss Smith,’ Trenchard mumbled. ‘I would have been fish food but for your skill as a submariner and your bravery in the sudden storm.’
‘I saw you . . .’ Marina whispered. ‘I saw the shape of the submarine under the water when I fell from the winch. But no one believed me.’
Miss Smith ignored Marina’s words and carried on talking in an urgent way about her father’s treachery. ‘I suspected your father for quite some time, but I had no proof. I really hoped that I was wrong.’
Trenchard nodded his agreement. ‘Your father has escaped detection so many times before, Marina. He really is a very difficult man to catch. We even had gendarmes posted in Svengejar, hoping that we could catch him there . . .’
‘It was you I saw Miss Smith talking to,’ Marina said.
Trenchard shrugged. ‘I had to keep in contact with Miss Smith. I had to tell her what I’d learned of your father’s mission while I was on the Sea Witch.’
‘But my father is a signals expert,’ Marina blurted out. ‘He came to Pechorin Island to mend some broken old equipment. He’s no spy. He’s no danger to anyone!’
‘Can you be so sure of that? Can you be so sure that he has not come to destroy the powerful equipment I keep here?’ Miss Smith asked.
‘He wouldn’t do such a thing.’
‘It is troubling and upsetting, of course.’ Trenchard sighed. ‘You don’t want to think badly of him – the Commander is your father. But ask yourself this. How well do you really know him? Can you trust a man who has lied to you so often in the past?’
‘You hardly know him,’ Miss Smith continued. ‘After all, he has spent most of your life at sea.’
‘My father wouldn’t lie to me.’ Tears sprang to Marina’s eyes. Her father! A spy!
As if she had heard Marina’s thoughts, Miss Smith said, quietly, ‘You know it distressed me, too, that a man once so admired should be working for the enemy. And to think that he had access to so many secrets at the Admiralty. In the lead-up to war. And meanwhile I thought that he was a decent man.’
Miss Smith and Trenchard fell silent, as if overwhelmed at what they had said. Marina tried in vain to marshal her chaotic thoughts.
‘I liked your father,’ Trenchard told her, smiling sadly. ‘Even now I find it hard to believe what he tried to do. I trusted him. Or, rather, he made me want to trust him. But I see now that he has been playing a part for many years.’
‘It is because of your father,’ Miss Smith said, ‘that the enemy is preparing for war. They know that if your father succeeds in his mission, certain victory will be theirs.’ But then her face brightened and she looked eagerly at Trenchard. ‘Could we be wrong? Do you think that there’s
