Echoland (11 page)

Sullivan wrote down the names. Duggan had barely caught a glimpse of O’Duffy, a round face, balding, as the car turned in. Their position gave them only a moment to spot occupants but it didn’t seem to cause the sergeant any difficulty. Duggan doubted if he’d recognise General O’Duffy again. He hadn’t seen Walsh, the driver, at all.

‘Some of the neighbours,’ the sergeant continued his running commentary as two middle-aged couples came down the road from behind them and crossed into Gortleitragh. ‘Him I don’t recognise,’ he added about a tall middle-aged man who appeared behind the neighbours and followed them in.

‘Hah,’ he said as another car drew up outside the gates and a gaunt-looking man got out of the passenger seat. ‘Sean MacBride.
Not so long since we were chasing him around the streets. Big lawyer now. Wonder if he’ll be representing his sister, his half-sister, when she’s up in court next week for helping Herr Brandy.’ He paused. ‘You’ve heard about Mr Brandy, I take it?’

Sullivan nodded and Duggan said, ‘Yes. But not about this.’

‘He left a suit behind him in Held’s house. It was traced back to Switzers. Bought there by MacBride’s sister, Mrs Stuart, who has some questions to answer. About why she was buying a man’s suit in Switzers when her husband’s in Berlin. Why it ended up in Held’s house. And why someone disappeared out her back door when our lads called to her house in Laragh.’ The pipe appeared to have gone out and he put another match to the bowl and puffed out a cloud of smoke. ‘The bed was still warm.’

Mrs Stuart. Switzers. Hans. Duggan wondered was there a
connection
. Mrs Stuart could have been in the shop when Hans was there. He had no idea what she looked like. Should I mention it to McClure? he wondered. But he probably knew about the Switzers suit and all that already. Could ask him anyway.

‘Timmy Monaghan,’ the sergeant was saying, and Duggan looked up to see his uncle driving in the gate as two other cars slowed behind him and their indicators popped out to signal right turns as well. ‘Fianna Fáil TD. Followed by his colleague, Dan Breen. The hard man himself, still dying to have another crack at the British. And,’ he paused for effect as the third car turned in, ‘one of your own.’

Duggan glanced at Sullivan who looked up from his notebook at the back of the car disappearing through the gateway and said, ‘Who?’

‘Your assistant chief of staff,’ the sergeant said. ‘Major General Hugo MacNeill.’

Sullivan turned around to give Duggan an interrogative look. Duggan shrugged. Maybe MacNeill is the liaison with the Germans,
he thought. The equivalent of the British colonel in headquarters.

‘Ours not to reason why,’ the sergeant smiled at their surprise. ‘When you’ve been at this business as long as me you’ll learn not to be surprised by anything. One day you’re arresting people. Next day you’re protecting the same people. The day after, who knows? They’re shooting you, or you’re saluting them.’

The number of arrivals dwindled to an occasional latecomer and they settled down to silence. The sergeant puffed at his pipe, Duggan stretched himself out along the back seat, his head resting beside the open window. The evening was cool in the shade of the trees and the hum of conversation rose occasionally from the grounds of the house along with the strings of some classical music from an open window. After a period of silence there was a scattering of applause. Shortly afterwards a few people began to leave.

The man they had seen enter earlier whom the sergeant didn’t know emerged along with a woman, middle-aged like himself. They had not seen her go in. ‘Interesting,’ the sergeant said, clicking his
fingers
with impatience. ‘That’s … Her name escapes me at the moment. One of the republican women. Not one of the really frightening ones. But a true believer all the same.’ He shook his head with irritation. ‘It’ll come to me in a minute. Might be no harm to see where they’re going.’

‘I’ll go,’ Duggan offered. He got out of the car, glad to get some exercise, and walked down Sloperton hill after the couple. They were going around the bend and he sped up and then slowed again as he followed them across the road at Longford Place and turned down the short hill towards the sea. They stopped at Dunleary Road and Duggan caught a glimpse of the man’s side face as he turned to the right to check the traffic before crossing. A boxer’s face, Duggan thought. They crossed the road and walked alongside the railway line towards the town. Duggan kept to the other side of the road,
following the high wall of the gasworks. A couple of boats, their sails bulging to the right, headed into the old harbour from the main
harbour
with the help of the westerly breeze. Beyond, in the distance, lay the smudge of Howth Head. A train went by towards the city, its smoke blown back inland, stinking the sea air with its acrid taste of coal.

The woman seemed to be talking most of the time, the man
nodding
occasionally. They went on, like an old married couple out for an evening stroll, up the gradual incline to the Coal Quay Bridge and onto Crofton Road. Duggan kept his distance, confident that they weren’t aware of his presence. The main harbour opened out to their left, above the railway lines and beyond the coastguard station and the cranes at the Irish Lights depot. A line of dinghies was making its way in towards the Royal Irish Yacht Club after their evening’s racing. Duggan was just passing the Anglesey Hotel when a car came to a sudden stop, heading in the same direction. ‘Well, well,’ Timmy said across the road at him. ‘Out for a breath of sea air?’

‘Hello,’ Duggan said, stopping and eyeing the couple on the other side of the road ahead of him. They weren’t paying any attention to Timmy or him.

‘Hop in here,’ Timmy said, leaning across to open the passenger door.

Duggan hesitated. The road was empty and quiet and he didn’t want to have a conversation across it. He went and sat in the car. ‘Just pull in for a minute,’ he said. ‘Ah, I’m working.’

‘Working,’ Timmy hooted at him. ‘What’re you doing?’

Up ahead, the man and the woman had stopped for a moment at the edge of the road to check the traffic and then crossed in front of them. Timmy saw Duggan watch them.

‘You’re not following your man, are you?’ Timmy laughed. ‘Robinson?’

‘Who is he?’ Duggan asked as the couple crossed and went up Charlemont Avenue.

‘Fellow called Robinson. A commercial traveller.’

‘You know him?’

‘Just met him a while ago.’ The penny dropped with Timmy. ‘Jaysus, were you spying on Hempel’s house?’

Duggan said nothing, thinking he should get out and follow the couple up the avenue. He couldn’t see them anymore.

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Timmy said.

‘Who’s the woman?’

‘Jaysus,’ Timmy said and let the clutch out and drove on.

‘Stop,’ Duggan pleaded as they went by the bottom of Charlemont Avenue. There was nobody on it, no sign of the man and woman. Fuck, he thought. ‘I’ve got to get out,’ he said.

‘You didn’t join the army for this,’ Timmy said. ‘I didn’t risk my life for this either. To have you fellows fucking up the greatest
opportunity
this country might ever have.’

Duggan was in no mood to listen to one of Timmy’s lectures but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He could jump from the car but there was no point in being dramatic. He had lost the couple
anyway
. He sat back and lit a cigarette. Timmy drove on past the railway station and the Carlisle Pier where the mail boat was waiting, a thin wisp of smoke rising from a funnel. He pulled in to the side of the road and parked just beyond the East Pier. The evening was full of strollers here.

‘I was going to go for a breath of air myself,’ he said. ‘D’you want a walk.’

‘I’m working,’ Duggan said.

‘Spying on decent people. Who have nothing against this country. While the real enemy is scheming away. Up to his usual tricks.’

‘Who is Robinson?’ Duggan asked, more out of anger than an
expectation of getting information. It was no wonder Nuala took the mail boat. If he was her, he’d have taken it too. If she had taken it.

‘I don’t know,’ Timmy said. ‘A commercial traveller. Somebody introduced me. We just said hello and that was it.’

‘Where’s he live?’

‘Jaysus, I don’t know. I didn’t know I was going to get the fucking third degree over him either,’ Timmy said. ‘What’s so interesting about him?’

‘Nobody knows who he is.’

‘Really,’ Timmy’s interest was piqued by the fact that he might have some information no one else had. ‘I’d say he’s spent time in the States. Touch of a Yankee accent there.’

‘And the woman?’

‘The one with him just now? Oh, that’s just Miss Coffey. A decent old skin.’

‘What was he doing at the party?’

‘How would I know? Probably the same as the rest of us. There because we were invited.’

‘Were you talking to General O’Duffy?’ Duggan asked
vindictively
. He had heard Timmy’s rants before about O’Duffy and his Blueshirts and what he’d do to him if he came across him on a lonely road on a dark night.

‘That fucker,’ Timmy said. ‘I’ve marked Herr Hempel’s cards about him. Put him right about him. Fucking opportunist. Told him not to take my word for it either. To talk to General Franco about having O’Duffy on your side. You know what happened when O’Duffy’s brigade arrived outside Madrid to help out Franco?’

‘I know,’ Duggan said quickly. Timmy had been chortling about it for years. How O’Duffy’s men marched up behind some of Franco’s Moors who thought they were being attacked from the rear and turned on them with devastating effect. ‘You told me before.’

Timmy laughed at the memory of the fiasco that O’Duffy’s Spanish adventure had been. ‘Since you’re looking for information,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you some information. Straight from the horse’s mouth.’ He paused. Duggan tossed his cigarette butt out of the
window
. ‘There are no German spies in Ireland.’

‘Herr Hempel told you that?’

Timmy put his finger to his lips. ‘My lips are sealed. But I can guarantee you that there are no Germans here to spy on Ireland.’ Timmy nodded his head at Duggan. ‘That’s gospel. And you can tell your lads that. As a fact. But not where it came from.’

‘Not from you?’

‘Leave me out of it. Not from you-know-who.’

Duggan doubted that McClure would be impressed if he turned up with information like that from a confidential source that he wouldn’t name. ‘So Brandy is not a spy?’

Timmy nodded. ‘Now you’re getting the picture.’

‘You told me he was a British agent. A plant.’

‘That’s what we thought at first. It was all a bit too convenient. The timing. Creating a scare. Rounding up the lads.’

‘So he is a German?’

Timmy nodded again.

‘But not a spy?’

Timmy shook his head.

‘So what is he?’

Timmy looked around him for dramatic effect and dropped his voice. ‘An intelligence officer.’

Duggan stared at him.

‘You’re not a spy, are you?’ Timmy said and answered his own question. ‘No. You’re an intelligence officer. And what’s the job of an intelligence officer?’ Timmy didn’t wait for an answer. ‘To get
information
about the enemy. His forces. Strengths. Weaknesses. All that.
Right?’ It was another rhetorical question. ‘And who’s his enemy? Not us. The British, of course. They’re at war with them, for fuck’s sake. They declared war on them. And it’s no crime for an intelligence officer to be in Ireland to get information about a foreign army.’

Timmy shifted in his seat, offered Duggan a cigarette from his case, and lit one for himself. There was still a steady stream of people strolling by. Scotsman’s Bay was calm, the sea darkening as the day was coming to a slow end. A couple of sailing boats were beating their way slowly across the bay from the Forty Foot, making slow headway against the ebb tide.

‘Why is he here?’ Duggan asked at last. ‘We’re neutral.’

‘Because his enemy is here. Still occupying part of our country.’

‘So he’s gone to the North, has he?’

‘I don’t know where he is. But he’s not spying on us.’

‘Why did he have maps of our harbours?’ Duggan demanded and regretted it when he saw the flicker of surprise cross Timmy’s face. Curb your irritation, he told himself. Don’t give him any
information
.

‘I don’t know about that,’ Timmy said. ‘Are you sure they were his?’

Duggan took out the copy of the ad he had put in the
Evening Herald
, with Timmy’s change rolled up inside. ‘Your change,’ he said.

‘No, no,’ Timmy protested. ‘You keep it.’

‘It was only a shilling.’

‘You got it into tomorrow’s paper?’

Duggan nodded.

‘Have a few pints on me,’ Timmy pushed back the money Duggan was still proffering. ‘For your trouble.’

Duggan put the money back in his pocket and opened the door and put one foot out.

‘Hold on,’ Timmy said. ‘I’ll give you a lift back.’

‘It’s all right,’ Duggan stepped out. ‘I’ll walk.’

‘I knew it,’ Timmy smiled up at him. ‘You’re the man to find out things. You’ll find her all right.’

Duggan stepped out and banged the door harder than he needed to.

Sullivan parked the car outside the Red House and they went inside. ‘What’s new?’ he asked another captain who was hurrying down a corridor.

‘The usual,’ the captain said. ‘Someone thinks they saw
parachutists
land in Tipperary. Strange lights off the coast in Mayo.’

‘Nothing confirmed?’ Sullivan asked.

‘Nothing confirmed.’

‘Jaysus,’ Sullivan said, ‘the whole country’ll be a nervous wreck if this goes on much longer. Waiting’s always the worst.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Duggan suggested. ‘Invasion will be a whole lot worse.’

‘At least you’ll know where you stand then,’ Sullivan said as he
lifted
a heavy typewriter onto his end of the table in their office.

Or where you’re lying, Duggan thought. In a ditch. Dead.

A handwritten note on top of the Harbusch file caught his
attention
. ‘Call your cousin Peter when you get back,’ it said and gave a phone number. He didn’t have a cousin called Peter and was about to ask Sullivan if the message was for him when he turned it over and saw his own name on it. He thought about it for a moment, watching Sullivan put carbon papers between three sheets of typing paper, straighten them out, and feed them into the platen of the typewriter. He picked up the phone and asked the switchboard for the number.