Echobeat (22 page)

‘Get up,’ she prodded him in the side with her toe and bent down to pull the blanket off him and tried to tug the rug from under him.

He rolled off it and put on his clothes quickly, holding his breath
against the cold. He looked out the window and he had a sudden sensation that they had slept for years and the city had become a ghost town. There was nobody on the street, no traffic, no sound at all. Snow filled the hood of the Father Mathew statue and was draped on its shoulders and along its outstretched, soothing arm. The tram lines shone in the weak light amid the black ruts cut in the dirty snow. It was like the black-and-white postcard that Glenn had given Gerda.

‘We’ve posted that card,’ he turned back from the window.

‘You got another woman to write it?’ Gerda handed him his overcoat.

‘Yes. One that won’t upset the King’s English with
umlauts
and
eszetts
and other funny symbols.’

She threw the folded rug at him and he caught it with a laugh.

‘What’s the point of that?’ Sullivan aimed a finger at the sign saying ‘
DO NOT TOUCH
’ on the new phone on the desk.

Duggan looked up from the paper where he was reading a report on a murder trial in Tipperary. He had his chair tipped back, his feet on the table, and a cigarette in his ashtray sent up a column of smoke that split in two as it ascended. ‘It’s a direct line, bypassing the switch. For incoming calls only. One incoming call.’

Sullivan stared at the phone as if he expected it to ring. ‘A special phone for just one call?’

‘A call to tell us where Goertz is.’

‘Jaysus,’ Sullivan snorted. ‘You think someone’s going to call and tell you where he is? Just like that? After all this time?’

‘Yes,’ Duggan leaned forward for his cigarette, took a slow drag, and replaced it in the ashtray. He felt relaxed, on top of everything. Just a matter of being patient: Benny Reilly would call; Glenn would come back to Gerda with more information. And Gerda … Gifford was totally wrong about being addled by love, he thought.

‘You praying for a miracle?’ Sullivan was saying. ‘Doing a novena like my mammy?’

‘A man will call and ask for Robert. And tell us where Goertz is.’

Sullivan shook his head with a laugh and sat down at his end of
the table. ‘After all these months running around in circles, getting nowhere, you think someone’s going to call you and tell you where he is? Just like that?’

Duggan gave him a serene smile and picked up his paper again.

‘Does he even exist?’

‘Who?’

‘Goertz?’

‘You’ve seen him yourself.’

‘I saw a man you said was a German spy called Goertz,’ Sullivan waved a correcting finger at him. ‘Months ago. Last summer. And you haven’t seen him since.’

‘Other people have.’

‘You mean other people have seen a man you say is a German spy called Goertz,’ Sullivan smirked. ‘Don’t automatically believe anything anyone tells you, the commandant always says. Actually,’ he paused, ‘I think you and he have just made up this Goertz character. So you can spend all your time pretending to do some work around here.’

Duggan turned a page and scanned the foreign headlines. The RAF had bombed Italian bases in Libya; Churchill said Britain’s future depended on the US; and Democratic Party leaders in Washington were discussing a bill to lend and lease war material to countries fighting the Nazis.

‘So who’s going to call?’ Sullivan persisted.

‘A man’s going to call, asking for Robert. If I’m not here you’re to offer to take a message. And he’ll tell you where to find Goertz.’

‘And who’s this fella that’s going to call?’

Duggan tipped the side of his nose twice with his finger.

‘How’ll I know he’s the right one? Not some hoaxer?’

‘He’s the only one who has the number.’

‘And you really think he’s going to tell you where Goertz is?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Ah, hope,’ Sullivan said, like a man who’d given up on that commodity years ago.

The phone rang and they both stared at the new receiver but it was their ordinary extension. Duggan picked it up and gave his name and the switch told him it was his cousin and plugged Gifford into the line.

‘We need to talk,’ Gifford said without preliminaries.

‘There are developments?’

‘There’s a café near O’Connell bridge. Berni’s. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

Gifford hung up and Duggan stared at the receiver for a moment, taken aback at Gifford’s tone, before putting it down. It didn’t sound good. What could Benny have done?

‘Lover’s tiff?’ Sullivan smirked.

‘That reminds me,’ Duggan folded his paper and stubbed out the already dead butt in the ashtray. ‘Have you popped the question to Carmel?’

Sullivan tapped his finger against his nose.

Duggan laughed as he put on his overcoat

‘Why am I stuck with all this shit?’ Sullivan groaned at the file of overnight reports from the lookout stations around the coast.

‘Because you’re so good at it.’

‘There’s nothing happening. No air activity for the last week. Just more bodies and stuff washed up in Donegal.’

‘Remember,’ Duggan pointed at the new phone. ‘Robert.’

He got to the café five minutes early but Gifford was already there, sitting at the far side of a table, facing the door and window. He was ordering as Duggan sat down opposite him and asked for a tea. ‘One poached egg and tea for two,’ the uniformed waitress confirmed.

‘Very late for breakfast,’ Duggan said. ‘I hope you’re not skiving off now that you’re working for the army.’

‘You fellows don’t know how well off you are. Don’t have to worry about meals, clothes, shelter. Nothing.’

‘You should join up.’

Gifford grunted. He didn’t seem to be in his usual form this morning. The waitress came back with cutlery and cups and saucers. When she had gone again, Gifford glanced around the café. It was empty apart from them, waiting for mid-morning shoppers in need of a break. He steepled his elbows on the table, rested his chin on his hands, and leaned forward.

‘Are in you in trouble again?’ he dropped his voice.

‘Me?’ Duggan sat back in surprise. ‘No.’

‘On another solo run?’

Duggan shook his head. ‘Why?’

‘Gertie Maher,’ Gifford said in a soft voice.

Duggan froze. He hadn’t told Gifford her name.

‘Your new girlfriend?’

Duggan nodded, a feeling of dread hollowing out his stomach.

‘What do you know about her?’

‘Enough,’ Duggan shot back in anger. ‘What the fuck …’

The elderly waitress came back with a tray and put a double pot of tea on the table along with Gifford’s poached egg on toast and two more half-slices of toast in a triangular silver-plated holder. ‘Anything else now?’ she asked.

‘No, thanks,’ Gifford smiled at her. He held up a calming palm to silence Duggan as she went away. ‘She’s under surveillance. And your name has come up as a result.’

Christ, Duggan thought, his mind racing. Were they watching us last night? Have they been watching us all along? Have they been talking to Gerda’s landlady? Was that why her demeanour had
changed? Why she was so unfriendly last night? And what had they been saying about Gerda?

‘I don’t know what the fuck’s going on,’ Gifford said. ‘I just overheard one of the lads talking about it, complaining about how he had to follow this woman.’

‘When?’

‘When what?’

‘When was he following her?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘And?’

‘And,’ Gifford shrugged, ‘he was just complaining to one of the other lads. That this was another G2 waste of fucking time operation because this woman was hanging out with another guy from G2. And what were those fuckers playing at? Were they spying on each other now?’

A G2 operation. Spying on me. ‘Jesus Christ!’ Duggan snapped his lighter to a cigarette.

Gifford poured two cups of tea and gave him a wary look as if he was afraid that Duggan would do something rash. ‘I couldn’t butt into the conversation in my usual manner,’ he went on in an apologetic tone. ‘I’m not sure if these lads know that I know you but too many people do. So I couldn’t ask any questions.’

Duggan nodded, his mind elsewhere. Anderson, he thought. This was an Anderson operation. Pursuing his theory that Gerda was a British spy or a patsy for one. For Montague or Glenn. Or both of them. He took a furious drag on the cigarette, turning its hot tip into a flaming coal.

‘The other lad said there’s something fishy about the Maher woman,’ Gifford continued. ‘There’s no trace of her in Cork. Where she’s supposed to come from.’

No, Duggan felt like shouting. Dear God, no. Don’t let the fucking
Special Branch go near her. After where she’s come from. It’d terrify her. Like Vienna again. He took another drag to try and calm himself. ‘I know where she comes from,’ he said, trying to keep his voice as even as he could. ‘What else?’

‘That’s it,’ Gifford said. ‘That’s as much as I heard. I couldn’t—’

‘I know,’ Duggan cut him off. ‘Listen, thanks for telling me. You better eat your breakfast.’

Gifford took up his fork and stabbed the yoke of the poached egg and a stream of yellow sank into the toast. Duggan’s gaze focused on the egg but his mind was elsewhere, wondering how long they’d been watching Gerda, how often they’d seen them together, what their reports said. And, he closed his eyes at the thought, what else they’d found out about her. Nothing, he told himself. There was nothing to find out that he didn’t already know.

‘Do you know who in G2 they’re reporting to?’

Gifford shook his head, his mouth full of food.

‘I think I know who it is anyway,’ Duggan said. Would Anderson have ordered the surveillance himself? Possibly, he thought. Otherwise, it would have had to be his commandant, Egan. And would they have had the colonel’s approval? His heart sank again. Did McClure know about it? Were they all just using him?

Gifford wiped his plate with a triangle of toast, poured himself another cup of tea and sat back. Duggan hadn’t touched his. He lit another cigarette off the butt of his previous one.

‘Problem?’

Duggan inhaled the fresh nicotine and waved the cigarette in a noncommittal gesture. ‘It’s another operation,’ he said.

‘Nothing to do with Goertz?’

‘No.’ Although, Duggan thought, everything’s tied up together.

‘So you are just carrying out your orders.’

Duggan nodded.

‘But,’ Gifford flashed him a pale imitation of his usual grin, ‘you weren’t ordered to seduce her.’

‘Is that what their reports say?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It wasn’t like that, anyway.’

‘You want to tell Father Petey? Confess all?’

Duggan gave a short laugh. ‘You promising absolution?’

‘That’s my role in life. Wipe out all your sins.’

‘Listen, thanks for tipping me off.’

‘You can handle it?’

‘I think so.’ Duggan put out his half-finished cigarette and took a six-penny piece from his pocket and left it on the table. ‘For the tea.’

Gifford flicked it back at him with his index finger. ‘You forgot to drink it.’

The day seemed to have become duller as he cycled back to headquarters, knowing what he had to do. He covered the distance at speed, spurred on through the mixture of slush and horse manure by anger, not wanting to think of what Anderson might have been reading about him. And what his innuendoes and smirks about using the car might have been based on.

Commandant McClure was reversing a car as Duggan swung his leg off the bike and came to a sudden stop outside the Red House. McClure raised a hand to signal him over, got out of the driver’s seat and went around to the passenger side as Duggan approached.

‘We’ve been summoned,’ he sat as they both sat in. ‘To meet the Minister.’

‘The Minister for Defence?’

‘No,’ McClure replied. ‘Mr Aiken.’

Duggan gave a whistle of surprise. Aiken, the Minister for
Defence Co-ordination, was generally seen as the second most important man in the government: a former IRA leader, hard man, and one of Timmy’s heroes. And about to go the US on an arms buying mission.

‘In Leinster House,’ McClure added. ‘He’s at a cabinet meeting in Government Buildings and wants to see us in his office there.’

‘About what?’ Duggan let up the clutch and moved off. The windscreen began to steam up from the heat of his body and he rubbed at it.

‘The Glenn document. He wants a personal briefing before he leaves for Washington.’

Duggan paused at the bottom of Infirmary Road and turned left towards the city centre.

‘No further word from him? Glenn?’ McClure rolled his window down a little to let in some raw air in preparation for lighting a cigarette.

‘No, sir,’ Duggan said with unusual formality.

McClure gave him a sharp glance. ‘Something up?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Duggan took a deep breath. ‘I’ve just learned that the Special Branch has Gerda under surveillance. At the request of G2.’

‘Fuck’s sake,’ McClure said. ‘Who requested that?’

‘I don’t know.’ Duggan told him what Gifford had said.

‘Jesus Christ,’ McClure shook his head when he had finished and took out his cigarettes. He passed one to Duggan and lit it for him and one for himself.

Duggan relaxed slightly. At least McClure wasn’t involved. ‘She can’t be involved, can she?’

‘You mean as an agent for the British?’

‘Yes.’

McClure looked at the Four Courts, still closed up for its Christmas break, as they went by, thinking. ‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘I don’t see how.’

‘Or the man she works for?’ Duggan sought further reassurance.

‘Don’t know anything about him. But she didn’t come to us through him.’

‘I think Captain Anderson suspects her,’ Duggan said cautiously, not wanting to make any direct accusations.

‘Hmm,’ McClure muttered, lost in his own thoughts.

‘He’s mentioned the possibility to me once or twice,’ Duggan went on. ‘And he keeps dropping hints about her.’

‘Hmm,’ McClure repeated, indicating he had heard him.

Duggan took the hint that McClure was thinking something through and remained silent as they came up to O’Connell Bridge and joined a line of carts waiting for the policeman on point duty to let them cross. A stream of pedestrians passed in front of them, muffled against the damp cold and trying to pick their steps carefully through the mix of muck and melting snow. The thaw had already turned the gutters into liquid.

‘It’s not impossible,’ McClure sighed, ‘that her boss is an agent. That they waited for us to find her and ask her for help. And that she came to our attention independently and reports everything to him as well as to us.’

Duggan’s heart sank, his mind disputing everything McClure was saying. The line of traffic began to move and he followed it across the bridge.

‘Which would mean what about Glenn?’ McClure shook his head, thinking aloud.

‘I don’t think her boss knows who she really is,’ Duggan said.

‘You’re probably right,’ McClure conceded, rolling down his window further to toss his cigarette out. ‘In any event, the main point is that we shouldn’t be cutting across each other. The British section shouldn’t be interfering in our operation.’