‘Con, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to go near Dot. I thought . . . I thought she was you.’ His story doesn’t make sense, but he carries on, his face earnest. ‘She tried to kiss me and she told me she was you. And it’s you I love. You have to believe me.’
Con doesn’t move. ‘Don’t touch my sister.’ Her voice shakes.
‘You stay away from them,’ Cesare says. And he’s aware of a threatening growl in his voice that makes it sound like someone else’s. He’s aware that it wouldn’t take much for him to kill this man. The thought feels calming and clear, like a drink of cool water when you’re parched with thirst.
MacLeod stands, looks at Cesare. ‘What will you do if I don’t?’ MacLeod touches his head. His hand comes away bloody. ‘Tell you what,’ he says, ‘if anything else happens to me, you should remember I’ve got friends in Kirkwall. And soon they’ll be able to walk across to this island. They’re not worried about stupid stories of a curse any more. And they can bring others with them to redecorate your chapel, to take down some of your flashy Catholic decoration. They might talk to your Eyetie friends, too – Gino, is it, and Marco? And that priest, Ossani? No one will object if prisoners get hurt in another riot.’
Cesare feels sick. ‘You cannot –’
‘I can do what I like.’ MacLeod steps in close to him, until their faces are almost touching. ‘I belong here. I’ve got a uniform that says so. I’m part of this land. What are you? Some piece of dirt from a place that probably doesn’t exist any more. And these girls, they’re not yours. You’ve no right to touch them, do you hear?’
Cesare imagines grabbing the baton from Con and bringing it down on this man’s face again and again.
He imagines the Punishment Hut, the firing squad. It would almost be worth it, to keep Dorotea safe.
‘Please,’ he hears Dorotea whisper. ‘Please don’t touch him.’ And he doesn’t know if she’s talking to him or to MacLeod, but a heartbeat passes, and then another, and then another. Finally, MacLeod steps backwards, snatches the baton from Con and begins stumbling down the hill.
As soon as he is out of sight, Dorotea turns to Cesare. ‘You have to leave.’
His stomach lurches. ‘I can’t.’
The bruises on her neck are darkening. He can almost make out the shape of MacLeod’s fingers. ‘You have to leave,’ she repeats, ‘or he will kill you.’
Con nods. ‘She’s right.’
He swallows. ‘How?’ he asks.
‘We have a boat,’ Dorotea says. ‘You can row out, before the barriers are finished. There’s still room between them for a small boat. It’s ten miles to Scotland. Or if you don’t go to Scotland, if you go to one of the other islands, south of Kirkwall . . .’ She draws a shuddering breath. ‘Anything is better than staying.’
‘I can’t leave you.’ His chest swells and his throat aches with everything he can’t say, everything he can’t put into words. That to leave her here would feel like leaving part of his soul. That to leave her in danger, with MacLeod, is unthinkable.
‘Come with me,’ he says.
‘I can’t.’ Dorotea’s eyes are full of tears as she takes Con’s hand.
But Con steps away from her. ‘You should,’ she says.
‘What?’ Dorotea steps back, confused.
Cesare doesn’t understand either. Why would Con tell her to go? It makes no sense.
‘You have to go,’ Con says, her voice steady.
And Cesare can see the effort this costs her, can see the way she balls her still-shaking hands into fists behind her back, so that Dorotea won’t see.
He can see how she is taking her terror and turning it into something better. He remembers crawling, dehydrated, across the desert in Egypt, dragging the injured Gino with him, knowing the strain might kill him in that heat, knowing a bullet might hit him at any moment. Knowing that none of it mattered, as long as Gino was safe.
‘You should go with him,’ Con says.
Late August, Early September 1942Dorothy
The days grow darker but no one sleeps. Cesare explains the cuts and bruises on his face to the other prisoners by saying he fell one night on the way to the chapel.
‘Do they believe you?’ I ask. His lips are cut and one of his eyes is half shut, blackened by Angus’s fists.
‘Gino does not,’ he says. ‘But I cannot be truthful about this.’
He doesn’t need to tell me why. I imagine the prisoners turning on the guards in revenge. I imagine the retribution that would follow.
I run my fingers over his scabbed lips, thinking of everything we have to hide.
Each evening I stay in the chapel with Cesare for as long as I can. Often, we don’t speak at all, but he rests his hand on my cheek or my leg. I can feel him looking at the marks on my neck; they are fading, but the feel of fingers there never leaves me. Sometimes, as if sensing the bleakness of my thoughts, he wraps his arms around me. Each gesture is one of comfort, with no hint of demand in it. We haven’t been back to the cave.
When my eyelids are starting to droop, Cesare walks me to the bothy, where he kisses my cheek gently, then goes back to the camp. Angus must have gone to Kirkwall hospital to have his injuries tended, because he is not in the infirmary. I dread to think what he must be planning in Kirkwall, with his friends who hate the prisoners and resent the chapel.
I lie awake in the darkness of the bothy, my mind humming. When I close my eyes, I see Angus’s face pressed close to mine; I feel the crush of his lips, the heat of his breath. If ever I do sink into an uneasy doze, I startle awake with the sensation of his hands around my throat. Con strokes my hair when I gasp upright, or rubs
