Echobeat (28 page)

Yes, yes, Duggan thought, shaking his head with impatience. Now’s not the time for a political debate about Nazism. Linqvist and the other man were standing up, looking at him. He had to make a decision. Call the guards. Face the music. Or? What?

‘The guards called to my parents in Cork,’ Gerda said in a flat voice. ‘Wanting to know where my sister and I are.’

‘Ah, Jesus,’ Duggan breathed into her hair as he hugged her close. So that was it. That bastard Anderson.

Linqvist gave a polite cough which sounded so incongruous that it almost made Duggan laugh. ‘What do you want to do here?’ he inquired.

‘You find anything?’ Duggan asked back, playing for time as he let go of Gerda.

‘Nothing much.’ Linqvist held out a wallet and took a slip of
paper from it. ‘Using his own name by the looks of it. Receipt for another week in a guesthouse on Baggot Street. Place called the Inishfallen. He was planning to stay around for another while.’

Duggan hardly listened to what he was saying. He took a deep breath, committing himself, and said, ‘You will take her to America?’

Linqvist nodded.

‘Immediately?’

Linqvist nodded again.

Gerda grabbed his hand. ‘
Komm mit mir,
’ she said and turned to Linqvist and added in English, ‘He can come too?’

The other man gave a short laugh. ‘That could be arranged,’ Linqvist shrugged without any enthusiasm. ‘We need more soldiers.’

‘I thought you were neutral,’ Duggan said.

‘Sure,’ Linqvist flashed a mirthless grin. ‘We’re all neutral against somebody. Listen,’ he added, waving a hand behind him at Glenn’s body. ‘We can clean this up. If you want.’

‘How?’

‘You don’t need to know that. It’ll be like it never happened.’

‘You’ll get rid of the body?’

‘It’ll be like he just disappeared. Suits us. It’ll stop any of his friends in England still on the loose from trying this route to the Nazis again. Suits you. Won’t have to face the military police, lot of questions. All that.’

And get Gerda safely away, Duggan thought. There was no other good alternative for her. Even if I say I shot him, that he’d turned hostile, that I thought he was reaching for a weapon. She’ll be dragged into it even if she’s disappeared. Especially if she’d disappeared, he realised. Then the question would be, who was she working for? And Christ knows where it would all end up. With me out of G2 at the very least. They didn’t want trigger-happy people there. Or people who could be so easily fooled.

‘And come with me,’ Gerda was saying.

‘I can’t,’ he turned to her and paused, giving it a moment’s thought. ‘No. I can’t desert. Not at a time like this.’

‘Please,’ she said.

He shook his head, thinking of how hurt his father would be if he were to become a deserter, flee the country he had fought to create. In its hour of need. His father had taken part in the War of Independence and had no illusions about this war or neutrality but he would take desertion as a personal hurt as well as seeing it as an abdication of duty. His mother would be unhappy, too, but probably relived that he was further removed from harm’s way. ‘I can’t. Really, I can’t. Not now. Maybe later.’

‘You’re a good man,’ she searched his eyes. ‘I’ll write.’

‘Who are you now?’

‘Grace Matthews,’ she gave him a wan smile. ‘But you know who I really am.’

He gave her a quick kiss and stepped away and headed for the door.

‘By the way,’ Linqvist stopped him. ‘Did he have anything interesting to say before the conversation was, ah, terminated?’

Duggan tried to think back for any useful information. ‘His uncle’s a member of the Right Club. Probably on the list you have.’

‘Any more documents?’

Duggan shook his head. ‘Just a lot of talk about your President Rosenfeld and so on.’

‘Okay,’ Linqvist nodded, understanding. ‘Thanks.’

Duggan walked out without a backward glance, his body drained, his brain numb.

Gifford emerged from the bushes of the neighbouring house, his revolver hanging in his right hand, and fell into step beside Duggan
as he reached the footpath. ‘What the fuck was all that about?’ he demanded, glancing back over his shoulder to check if anyone was following. ‘Who are those guys?’

‘Americans.’ Duggan opened the car doors and started the engine and drove off without a pause.

Gifford turned to look back but there was no sign of anyone. ‘They drove up a few minutes after you,’ he said. ‘Then the victim arrived and went in. And one of those guys went into the house after the shot.’

Duggan drove without knowing where he was going.

‘I went round to the garden after the shot and saw everything,’ Gifford went on. ‘Were you trying to tell me something from the window?’

‘What?’ Duggan said, distracted. ‘I couldn’t see you. Didn’t know you were there.’

‘Hmm,’ Gifford took one more look behind and settled into his seat. They went by one side of the small triangular park in the centre of Sandymount. ‘Wasn’t very satisfactory,’ he mused, returning to his normal demeanour. ‘Like being in a cinema where the sound has broken down. Had to figure out what was going on from everyone’s expressions. You want me to tell you what I thought was going on?’

Duggan let the car coast to a halt near a pub, rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment and then began to tell Gifford the whole story.

‘Jesus,’ Gifford said when he had finished. ‘That’s even more twisted than my version. I thought you’d shot him and she was trying to console you.’

Duggan saw the bullet hit Glenn again and throw him back against the wall and the blood seeping out and his dying eyes. He took out a cigarette and lit it, noticing the slight tremor in his hand as if it was someone else’s.

‘Gimme one of those,’ Gifford said.

‘He didn’t deserve to die like that,’ Duggan said aloud to himself.

‘He was playing a dangerous game.’

You didn’t see it, Duggan told himself. The suddenness, the violence, the simplicity, the finality. He shuddered. Someone has just walked over my grave, he thought.

A man emerged from a nearby pub and stopped to light a cigarette with the exaggerated care of a drunk. He got it going with the third match, looked around, saw them, and wandered over with a rolling gait as if he was on board ship in a leisurely swell. He tapped on the driver’s window and Duggan rolled it down.

‘D’you know your engine’s running?’ the drunk said. ‘You’re wasting the petrol.’

‘Fuck off,’ Duggan sighed at him.

‘No, I mean, there’s rationing,’ the drunk continued, determined to finish his thought. ‘Don’t you know there’s an emergency?’

‘You hear what I said?’ Duggan pulled back his coat and jacket and the man’s eyes fixed on the butt of the Webley. He seemed to be hypnotised for a moment by the ring on its base and then backed away muttering, ‘Sorry, sir’, and giving Duggan a half-salute with his cigarette fingers.

‘Jesus,’ Duggan sighed, watching him go. ‘Now I’m trying to frighten drunks. Maybe he’ll call the guards.’

‘Naw,’ Gifford said. ‘He probably thinks we’re the IRA. He won’t tell anyone.’

‘What do you think they’ll do? With the body?’

‘Another one for the Wicklow Mountains.’ Gifford blew out smoke without inhaling it. ‘He’ll have a fair bit of company up there. From the old days.’

Don’t tell me things I’ll have to report, Duggan remembered McClure saying to him. But he certainly didn’t mean shootings. A
dead body. Murder. He did mean his relationship with Gerda. Which was what this was all about. Or was it? ‘Should I have called it in?’ he asked, as much of himself as of Gifford.

‘In my vast experience,’ Gifford rolled down his window and tossed out the half-smoked cigarette, ‘what people don’t know doesn’t bother them.’

Or it causes big problems, Duggan thought. If only I’d told her what I knew about Glenn. If she’d told me about the Americans. If that fucker Anderson had minded his own business. If I hadn’t deliberately provoked Glenn. If, if, if.

‘What we need to do now,’ Gifford continued, ‘is get our story straight. You met this Glenn character. He told you whatever he told you. He left. I followed him all the way to Baggot Street, using my exceptional surveillance techniques, never spotted once. But he got a bit careful at the last minute and I had to hang back further. He appeared to go into the Inishfallen guesthouse and I went home to my well-earned rest and slept the unbroken sleep of the just. And he’ll never be seen again. Presumed to have gone back to wherever it was he came from. Right?’

Duggan nodded and threw out his butt.

‘And what you need to do now,’ Gifford pointed a finger at him, ‘is to forget all about this German woman and find a nice cuddly culchie girl before you accidentally involve the whole country in some war or other.’

‘Austrian,’ Duggan corrected him. ‘She’s Austrian.’

Gifford shrugged. ‘Same difference.’

He parked outside the Red House and stepped out of the car and realised that he had another cigarette in his hand that he had no memory of lighting. He leaned on the roof of the car for a moment
and breathed in a last drag, which tasted stronger and more satisfying in the sharpness of the night air. The point of no return, he thought. Though really I’ve already passed that. But now I’ve got to commit the lies to paper.

He ground out the butt with his toecap and went in. He was aware immediately of the extra buzz in the building. Something has happened, he thought. More German bombs. But I heard nothing. Mustn’t have been in the city.

Captain Anderson emerged from a doorway and almost bumped into him. ‘Good work,’ Anderson muttered and kept going. Fucker, he thought, assuming he was being sarcastic. But he can’t know what has happened.

His office was empty but Sullivan’s end of their table was strewn with papers so he was around somewhere. He took off his overcoat and sat in his chair and lit another cigarette without either wanting it or thinking about it. He pulled over the heavy Royal typewriter and went through the motions of putting two carbon papers between sheets of flimsy paper like a man under water. He twisted them around the platen, released the lock on it to straighten them and then locked them in place.

Someone came in behind him and he felt a light clap on his shoulder. ‘Well done,’ Commandant McClure said.

Duggan swung around and looked at him in surprise.

‘We got Goertz,’ McClure smiled. ‘Your man came through.’

‘My man?’ Duggan struggled to remember Benny Reilly. All that seemed an age ago, another lifetime.

‘He called a couple of hours ago,’ McClure nodded at the special phone line on the desk. ‘Just after you went out, apparently. But Sullivan was here. And Benny told him where Goertz would be after eight o’clock.’

‘Where?’

‘Blackheath Park in Clontarf. Not far from Reilly’s own house in fact.’

Duggan shook his head, trying to rid his brain of the mush which seemed to have overwhelmed it. This was great news, after all the months they’d spent trying to track down Goertz. But he couldn’t feel any sense of achievement.

‘They found him in a passageway between the house and the garage,’ McClure was saying. ‘He’d tried to hide there when the guards knocked on the door. He didn’t put up any resistance and confirmed his identity immediately. The guards have him in the Bridewell. Sullivan’s down there too.’

‘That’s great,’ Duggan made an effort to sound enthusiastic.

‘The colonel said to congratulate you. Job well done.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Duggan said formally.

‘By the way, how did your meeting go?’

‘I was just about to type up the report,’ Duggan turned back to his typewriter to avoid McClure’s eye. ‘Nothing very much. He’s related to one of the members of the Right Club but doesn’t seem to have any contacts here.’

‘Okay,’ McClure didn’t sound very interested. He clapped him on the back again and repeated, ‘Well done,’ and left.

Duggan propped his elbows on either side of the typewriter and rubbed his temples hard and stared into the machine’s half-bowl of metal levers topped with back-to-front letters. All he could see was Gerda’s dreamy smile as she laid her head on his shoulder after they had made love, all he could feel was her skin against his.

‘I nearly fell of the chair when the phone rang,’ Sullivan laughed, still in high good mood the next morning as he divided the copies of his report into three. ‘First I thought it was that joker Gifford acting the bollocks as usual.’

‘What did he say?’ Duggan made an effort to smile through his exhaustion.

‘He said, “Is that Robert?” And I said, “Robert isn’t here, can I take a message?” And he said, “The man you want is at Blackheath Park right now but he’ll be gone by tomorrow, early.” That was it. The boss decided we shouldn’t wait around, sent the guards in right away.’

Duggan lit another cigarette though he didn’t want one: his mouth already felt like an ashtray. He rubbed his left eye as the smoke caught it.

‘If he’d run out the back and gone over the garden wall he’d probably have got away,’ Sullivan said. ‘The guards didn’t really believe he was there, just went to the front door. It was only when one of them flashed a light down between the house and the garage that they saw him standing there. He didn’t try to run or deny who he was or anything. Said he was a German officer. The best friend Ireland ever had.’

Duggan grunted. Sullivan initialled each of the copies, stood up with the reports in his hand and dropped one copy in front of
Duggan as he headed for the door. ‘It’s all there,’ he said. ‘Read all about it since you’re the hero of the hour.’

‘I wasn’t even there.’

‘Don’t I know,’ Sullivan gave him a happy grin. ‘My name’s on it now.’

Duggan scanned the report, another of Goertz’s comments catching his eye. He said he was acting in the role of German military attaché since the Irish wouldn’t let the Germans have one although they allowed the British one. He remembered his uncle Timmy telling him that: so Timmy really had met Goertz, he thought. Not that he had doubted it, but with Timmy it was always good to have independent confirmation.

He sat back and watched his cigarette burn in the ashtray, propped up by its growing cylinder of ash, waiting for it to collapse. He stirred himself when it did and the butt dissolved into ash. He reached for the phone and asked the switch for a number.

A man’s voice answered, ‘Adelaide Agency.’

‘Could I speak to Miss Maher, please?’

‘She’s not here today.’

‘When will she be back?’

‘I don’t know,’ the man’s tone turned sharp. ‘Are you a friend of hers?’

‘Thank you,’ Duggan said as he hung up.

What was the point of that? he asked himself. None. No point to it at all. What was the point of anything? He sat back again and put his hands in his trouser pockets and closed his eyes. His mind was empty and he wasn’t sure whether he had dozed off or not when he heard Sullivan say, ‘Boss wants to see you.’

Duggan detoured into the toilet on his way to splash some water on his face. McClure was hanging up his phone as he entered.

‘Our friend in External Affairs,’ he nodded at the receiver. ‘Mr Ó
Murchú. Full of the joys of life today. Positively ebullient by his standards. Got a stick to beat Hempel with at last. He’s looking forward to giving Herr Hempel a severe talking-to about Goertz. And get his own back for all the lectures he’s had to listen to from the Germans in the last year.’

Duggan gave a wan smile as he took the chair McClure indicated with a wave.

‘Got them by the short-and-curlies now,’ McClure continued. ‘Goertz is telling all and sundry that he’s a representative of the German High Command. And that’s he’s been in contact with the IRA. Which is not a very friendly position for a supposedly friendly country which supposedly respects our neutrality and wishes it to continue. Won’t look good for the Germans if Goertz is put on public trial.’

‘He will be?’ Duggan asked in surprise.

‘I doubt it actually,’ McClure said. ‘But Ó Murchú is going to dangle that possibility over Hempel’s head. If they don’t back off certain things. Like asserting their right to increase their legation numbers with military types and spies. You know the way these diplomats carry on. There’ll be no explicit linkage but …’

‘What about the bombings? Has Goertz said anything about them?’

‘Says he knows nothing. But that’s why we should allow a proper military attaché in the German legation. To avoid misunderstandings.’

‘So he knows about their demand for more diplomats.’

‘Would seem so,’ McClure nodded. ‘His capture has come just at the right moment. Foynes is open again this morning. The Minister’s flying out to Lisbon today. On his way to America.’

With Gerda? Duggan wondered. It was possible that she was on the same plane as Aiken. The British and Americans controlled the Pan American flights from Foynes: when they went, who was allowed
onto them, everything. There was a British security agent posted there to oversee it all with the full knowledge of the Irish government.

‘When will Mr Aiken get to America?’ he asked, really wondering when Gerda might get there. And when he would hear from her. If he ever did.

‘Sometime next week,’ McClure said. ‘He’s staying in Lisbon a couple of days. Don’t know why. Maybe waiting for an available flight. Maybe a holiday.’ He paused. ‘You look like you need one too. A holiday.’

‘Didn’t sleep much last night.’

‘Half the city was on tenterhooks last night,’ McClure nodded, assuming that was the reason. ‘Waiting for another German bomb or two. Have you had a day off since Christmas?’

‘Not really,’ Duggan scratched his head, not sure he wanted time off.

‘Take a few days off. Go down the country and get some fresh air.’

‘Thanks but I’d like to talk to Goertz.’

‘He can wait,’ McClure waved away his reservation. ‘He’s not going anywhere and he’s keen to talk. Already offering to decipher some of his coded messages we found last year in that house he was hiding in. Says they were just notes for himself.’

‘But they were the same cipher as the one that sailor took to Lisbon,’ Duggan said.

‘Exactly,’ McClure smiled. ‘But he doesn’t know we’ve got a copy of that message.’

More independent confirmation, Duggan thought, getting back into work mode. We can see what he was saying secretly to his bosses and what he says to us. ‘Shouldn’t we strike while the iron’s hot? Keep him talking while he’s willing?’

‘Yes,’ McClure agreed. ‘But one of the other lads can do it. We don’t need to speak German to him. His English is very good.’

‘I’d like to do it,’ Duggan said. Anything to take my mind off of other things. ‘Since I’ve been involved for so long.’

‘Fair enough. You start it anyway. Then take a few days off next week.’

‘Thanks.’ Duggan stood up. ‘That’d be good. Maybe the end of next week.’ I could get a lift down home with Timmy, he thought. Let my irritation with him occupy my thoughts

‘By the way,’ McClure flicked through the top few documents on a pile of papers. ‘Got a message from MI5 this morning, requesting that we keep an eye out for one Roderick Glenn, nephew of one of the leading lights in the Right Club.’ McClure gave him a conspiratorial smile. ‘They think he may be the person sending postcards with secret messages to Mrs Smith in Chelsea.’

Duggan tensed. They couldn’t know already, could they? He had no doubt the Americans would tell them. If the guy with Max wasn’t British. But this was probably a coincidence. The word had hardly gotten back to London so quickly that they’d send a message like this so soon. ‘I thought they’d be more interested in Goertz,’ he said.

‘We haven’t told them about him. The colonel has decided not to. To let them read about it in the papers if and when the news of his arrest is released publicly.’

‘Why?’ Duggan asked, surprised.

McClure shrugged. ‘I presume he thinks they need to be reminded every now and then that we’re an independent country.’

Duggan took a deep breath. ‘There’s one other thing about the Glenn case,’ he said. ‘Gerda Meier. She doesn’t want to be involved anymore. Finds it upsetting, listening to the German internees talking about how well the war is going for them.’

McClure stared at him, as if waiting for him to explain more. Duggan waited, knowing this mannerism of his by now, confident that he knew nothing of what lay behind the request.

‘I can understand that,’ McClure nodded at last. ‘Give her our thanks. We’ll see if we can find someone else to keep an eye on them.’

‘Is it worth it?’ Duggan had no desire to deal with someone taking her place.

‘Of course,’ McClure gave him a look of surprise. ‘Look at what it produced. A letter from Churchill to Roosevelt. Who’d have predicted that?’