Echoland (18 page)

He crossed the street and headed off at speed in the same
direction
as the woman was walking. What was he going to tell McClure about the bandage on his face? Keep up the lie he had told Sinéad? Tell him the truth? He couldn’t do that without getting into the whole Timmy/Nuala story. And, if he told him now, why hadn’t he told him earlier? And he’d have to admit that he’d been spending time trying to find Nuala when he should’ve been working on the Harbusch file.

No, he thought, he couldn’t do that. He’d do a Timmy on him instead. Tell him about the British offering a united Ireland. McClure probably knew all about it already but he could tell him anyway. And McClure would know it had to have come from Timmy. Might get Timmy into trouble if the word went back to the powers that be that he was leaking secrets. He stopped himself from smiling just in time, before it hurt. Serve the fucker right.

He crossed Lower Merrion Street and stopped on the corner of Clare Street and used the opportunity of checking the passing traffic of cars and bicycles to see where the woman was. She was only halfway down Merrion Square. He waited for a bus to pass and crossed to the other side of Clare Street and stopped at the barrows of second-hand books outside Greene’s.

He pretended to read the titles on book spines while still thinking about his revenge on Timmy. He could also tell McClure about Timmy’s pro-German sympathies. But it probably wouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone. Timmy’s views were transparent and he
wasn’t
the only politician who wanted a German victory. Were they right? He didn’t know. The Germans would probably unite Ireland, they wouldn’t bother with partition. But would it be an independent country?

He picked up a hardback copy of
The Small Dark Man
by Maurice Walsh and flicked through the first few pages, not reading anything, his back to the direction the woman was coming, waiting for her to pass by. He slotted the book back in and picked up another Walsh,
The Road to Nowhere
, flicked through it, wondering where she was. She should have been here by now. He replaced the book and moved around the cart until he was facing Merrion Square. The woman was crossing the road from the square into Lower Merrion Street.

He waited until she had crossed and disappeared down the short street and then skipped across Clare Street in front of a number 8 tram and went up to the corner. She was passing Merrion Hall with its ‘The End is Nigh’ poster and crossing into Westland Row.

He stopped on the corner to light a cigarette as she went by the Royal Irish Academy of Music and then followed her down Westland Row, managing to saunter at her pace. Ahead of them a train
stuttered
out of the railway station onto the bridge, its plume of smoke bursting straight upwards as it cleared the building. He touched the bandage on his face, thinking the thoughts he hadn’t wanted to think since the gunmen had shoved their revolvers in his sides. He hated himself for the fear and helplessness he had felt. His first bit of real action and he’d almost collapsed under it, been unable to think straight, react properly. What would he be like in a real war? When
the Germans came? If he nearly gave in to a couple of IRA gunmen. At least he wouldn’t be taken by surprise, he comforted himself. But the thought was little comfort.

The woman turned into St Andrew’s church, just before the
station
, and climbed the steps slowly, one at a time, leading with her left foot. He stopped at the entrance railings and took a few drags on the cigarette, wondering should he wait here and talk to her when she came out. What would he say? And what if she didn’t believe him, wouldn’t talk to him? Or should he follow her inside and see what she was doing? And what could she be doing in a church other than praying?

He breathed into his hand and could smell the whiskey and smoke off his breath. Fuck, he thought, Gifford was right. He tossed his
cigarette
on the ground, stepped on it, and followed her inside.

It was not gloomy as he had expected. The sun shone through the clear windows up high and bounced down from the vaulted ceiling, filling the interior with light. There were three people scattered around, all elderly, and the woman was standing by the altar rails, lighting a candle. She took a handbag from her basket and a purse from the handbag and put a coin into the metal box beside the
candles
. It dropped with a sharp note in the silence. Then she knelt down at the altar rail and bowed her head onto her steepled hands.

Duggan backed out of the church and crossed the street to a newsagent’s. A middle-aged woman behind the counter was talking to a customer of the same age about someone and they wrapped up their conversation as soon as he entered.

‘Please God, it’ll all work out for the best,’ the shopkeeper said.

‘It won’t be for want of the novenas,’ the customer said, gathering up a collection of small packages without any hurry. ‘What do I owe you, Mrs Carey?’

‘Two and ninepence,’ the shopkeeper said.

Duggan read the headline on the
Evening Herald
as the woman opened her purse and rooted around for coins. ‘France Seeks Surrender Terms’, the headline read. ‘Italy Invades French Riviera’, another said. Duggan tried to read the opening paragraphs sideways as he waited. There’s nothing to stop the Germans now, he thought. It was England’s turn next. And Ireland’s. Either could be first.

‘Yes?’ the shopkeeper said to him.

‘Do you have any peppermints?’

The shopkeeper pointed to one of the jars of boiled sweets on the shelf behind her, casting a glance to the other woman. He could feel the wave of disapproval coming from both of them, as real as the smell of drink wafting about him.

‘I’ll take five of them, please,’ he said. ‘And ten Afton and the paper.’

The shopkeeper dug out five of the sweets from the jar and put them into a twist of brown paper. She plonked the cigarettes beside them on top of the newspaper and said, ‘One and threepence.’

He paid her and was leaving the shop as he saw the woman come out of the church, facing him across the street. He stopped and
lowered
his head, unwrapped a hard mint and popped it into his mouth. He couldn’t talk to her now she was out on the footpath again. He’d have to keep on following her.

To his surprise, she turned right, towards the station and he
waited
a moment and then set off in the same direction on the opposite footpath. She passed the station entrance and stopped at the post box just beyond it. She reached into the basket on her arm, took out a
letter
and dropped it into the box. She turned back the way she had come.

Duggan kept going in the opposite direction for a moment, his mind racing. Why’d she come all the way down here to post a letter? She could have posted it in Merrion Square; she’d passed a pillar box
on the way down here. Because she was going to the church? He stopped at the corner of Pearse Street and crossed Westland Row and went back up the street. The woman was halfway up it now, past Poole’s garage, still walking slowly, limping slightly.

He stopped at the pillar box and looked at the collection times, his excitement mounting. The next collection was due in just over an hour. Should he wait, accost the postman or whoever collected the mail and see if there was a letter to that address in Copenhagen, to Harbusch’s dead letter box? Could that old woman be working with him? Another German spy? He looked up the street after her, an anonymous old woman tottering along, almost invisible, being
overtaken
by everyone else on the footpath. The idea of her as a spy was ludicrous. Maybe she was just doing Hans a favour. He seemed to have a way with women. Maybe old women too.

He set off after her, to see where she went, keeping further back this time, aware of the bandage on his face like a flashing
identification
. She must have seen him when she came out of the church and he came out of the shop opposite. And it’d be very easy to recognise him again with the bandage.

The woman went back the way she had come, never looking back. Maybe it’s all totally innocent, he told himself. Maybe she wanted to go to the church before she posted the letter. A special letter of some kind. Light a candle, say a prayer before posting it. That’d explain why she didn’t post it closer to home. If we can see the letters we’ll know.

He didn’t follow her up the eastern side of Merrion Square where her flat was, hanging back at the corner beside Holles Street hospital in case Harbusch was looking out the window to check her return. She went into the building without a backward glance.

Duggan made his way through the lanes behind Merrion Square, to avoid passing in front of Harbusch’s building, back to Sinéad’s office and asked to use the phone. She directed him into the empty boardroom and he called McClure and told him briefly what had happened.

‘Call me back in half an hour.’ McClure hung up.

Sinéad was walking out of the reception area when he emerged from the boardroom. ‘I was just going to make the tea. Do you want to wait and bring some up to Petey?’

He followed her into the kitchen and watched while she plugged in the electric kettle and prepared the tray. ‘You’re looking a bit better,’ she glanced at him. ‘Got a little colour back in your cheeks.’

He offered her a mint and she shook her head. ‘I don’t want people to think I’ve been drinking on duty too,’ she said.

‘Do I still stink of whiskey?’

‘You stink of mints and whiskey now. Which means that you’re not too drunk because if you were really drunk you wouldn’t care about stinking of whiskey.’ She gave him a wan smile.

‘See?’ he said. ‘I was never drunk at all.’

‘Just drunk enough to know you shouldn’t be drinking.’

‘Just concerned with appearances,’ he agreed.

‘Falling off your bike.’ She shook her head in disbelief as the kettle boiled and she poured the water into the teapot.

‘What? You don’t believe me?’

‘Do you fall off it a lot?’

‘No. It was the cross tracks at O’Connell Bridge. I wasn’t paying attention.’

‘Daydreaming.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Sweet dreams?’ She flashed him a quizzical smile and gave the tea a vigorous stir with a soup spoon.

‘Yeah. I was down the country at the weekend. It was lovely weather.’

‘Thought you were cycling down the boreen, two hands in your pockets.’ She poured out two cups of tea, added milk and sugars. ‘Whistling with the birds.’

‘Something like that,’ he laughed.

‘You don’t like the city?’

‘I don’t know yet. What about you?’

‘Give me the city every time. Couldn’t wait to get out of the country. It’s boring.’

She opened a press and took out a packet of Kimberley biscuits and put four on a plate.

‘Kimberleys?’ he said with surprise.

‘We’re celebrating.’ She handed him the tray and pushed him
gently
backwards out of the kitchen.

‘What are we celebrating?’

‘That there wasn’t a tram coming when you fell over the tracks.’

He climbed the stairs slowly, wondering if he should tell Gifford about the woman. He should really, after all Gifford had done for
him. But he didn’t want the guards to get control of the case, if this was a breakthrough.

Gifford’s eyes widened when he saw the biscuits. ‘First a bandage. Then fancy biscuits. What next?’

Duggan put the tray on the floor and they lifted a cup each,
ignoring
the saucers.

‘I think you are trying to usurp my position,’ Gifford looked at him over the rim of his cup. ‘I may have to hit myself in the face to keep up with you. Maybe shoot myself in the foot to get one up.’

Duggan tore the cellophane off his new packet of Aftons and got out a cigarette and flicked his lighter to it.

‘I might have found the pigeon,’ he said, exhaling a stream of smoke.

Gifford gave him a quizzical look and Duggan told him what had happened.

‘Fuck me,’ Gifford nodded a couple of times, thinking it through. ‘Neat.’ He shook his head in admiration at either Duggan’s luck or the German’s ingenuity or both.

‘Maybe,’ Duggan said. ‘If I’m right. What do we know about her?’

Gifford shrugged. ‘Fuck all, far as I know. She worked in London for an insurance company. Spinster. Retired.’ He searched his memory. ‘Kelly. Her name is Kitty Kelly. That’s about as anonymous as you could be and have a name. Native of Cork. In her sixties.’

‘She was checked out.’ Duggan made it a question.

‘Whatever that meant,’ Gifford said, biting half a biscuit, his thoughts elsewhere. ‘Shorthand typist,’ he added a moment later, through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘With Royal Liver.’

He washed away the biscuit with some tea. ‘Fuck me,’ he said again. ‘Why would a Cork woman retire to Dublin after working for forty-odd years in London?’

‘We shouldn’t jump to conclusions till we know for sure,’ Duggan
tapped some ash onto the saucer. ‘Does she go out much?’

Gifford nodded. ‘She goes out most mornings after eight. On and off during the day.’

‘She can’t be a German spy,’ Duggan said, then thought of the middle-aged woman in Dun Laoghaire who had been hiding Brandy or Goertz. Still. ‘It seems ridiculous.’

Gifford stepped over to the window and stared at Harbusch’s building. ‘Maybe they’re all spies. Maybe that’s the Irish headquarters of the Abwehr. Right under our noses. Round the corner from the British. Jesus.’

Captain McClure held up a white envelope by its corner and waved it like a trophy as Duggan came into the office in the Red House. ‘Right on top of the pile,’ he said. ‘Good work.’

‘Luck, really,’ Duggan said.

‘The mark of a successful general,’ McClure countered. ‘As Napoleon said.’

Duggan caught Sullivan in the background raising his eyes to heaven and giving him a sour look.

McClure dropped the envelope on the desk. ‘Read it and come into the colonel’s office for a debriefing when you’re finished.’

He left and Duggan sat down and looked at the envelope, addressed in the same writing as the others to the post office box in Copenhagen. Didn’t look like a woman’s writing, he thought. At least, not what he thought an old woman’s writing looked like.

‘General,’ Sullivan snorted from the other end of the table. ‘Hit yourself in the face with your own baton, did you?’

‘I didn’t see you salute when I came in,’ Duggan looked up. ‘Maybe we should send you on the saluting course.’

‘I’ve been assigned to you.’

‘Seriously?’

Sullivan nodded. ‘What d’you want me to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Duggan didn’t know whether Sullivan was joking or not. ‘Light a cigarette for me. Make sure there’s no loose flakes of tobacco in the end. I hate that.’

‘Fuck off, general,’ Sullivan smirked. ‘I always wanted to say that.’

Duggan laughed and turned his attention to the letter.

It had the same tone as all the previous ones; Harbusch was on the point of achieving a major new order for machine parts but needed more money for expenses. One paragraph caught his attention and he read it twice: ‘Our main competitor has increased their efforts to secure the contract and begun negotiations on what they say are more advantageous terms to the prospective client. I propose that we set out what we can offer in firm and unambiguous terms and put that before the client so that the client can compare our achievable offer with the unrealistic goals of our competitor and reach the correct conclusion.’

He folded the page and replaced it in the envelope and took it with him down the corridor. Sullivan gave him a two-fingered mock salute as he left. As he passed the office dealing with the British he saw some kind of conference in session, people standing around the table. A haze of cigarette smoke drifted from the room.

He knocked on the colonel’s door and heard McClure tell him to come in. He entered, surprised to see McClure alone, behind the colonel’s desk.

‘Just borrowed this office for a little peace and quiet,’ McClure said, waving a hand towards the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘There’s a bit of a flap on in the British section.’

‘They looked busy as I passed.’

‘The IRA claim to have kidnapped a British spy. Holding him against the release of some of their men in Belfast.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Don’t know. They haven’t said. And the British say they haven’t …’ McClure raised an eye in scepticism. ‘They say they have no spies here.’

Duggan gave a noncommittal laugh, a fleeting thought wondering if that was what his brief kidnapping had been about. No, that was about Timmy and Nuala. It was an opening to tell McClure about it but it passed.

‘Anyway,’ McClure said. ‘The letter. What do you think?’

Duggan took the sheet out of the envelope again. ‘The third
paragraph
is very interesting,’ he suggested. ‘Where he says that their rivals are trying to make a better offer. Does that mean he knows about the talks with the British?’

‘That would be worrying,’ McClure sighed. ‘What do you know about the talks with the British?’

‘Nothing much,’ Duggan said quickly. ‘Other than the fact that there are some contacts. Ongoing contacts.’

McClure stared at him, waiting for him to continue. Duggan felt himself redden and said, ‘My uncle says there are high level talks going on. Political talks. That MacDonald is here. Talking to the Taoiseach. About the North.’

‘And what does he think?’

‘Timmy? He thinks the Germans are winning the war and the British are not in a position to offer an end to partition.’

‘Logical,’ McClure said.

‘And that you couldn’t trust the British anyway.’

‘Home Rule. 1914,’ McClure nodded.

‘And he wants the Germans to win the war.’ Duggan stopped. He had got his revenge on Timmy but didn’t feel any better for it.

‘And what do you think?’

‘About Timmy?’ Duggan was still thinking his own thoughts.

‘About the war?’

‘It looks like the Germans are winning so far,’ he said cautiously. ‘I don’t see how we can stop them if they invade us.’

‘That’s what the real talks with the British are about,’ McClure nodded. ‘Forward planning to repel an invasion. That’s what the
people
you might’ve seen wandering around here are about. But don’t tell your uncle or anyone else about them.’

‘No, no. Of course not,’ Duggan said quickly.

‘He’s probably right about the political talks. There’s nothing to be gained by declaring for the Allies at the moment. Only trouble. Anyway,’ he leaned forward and propped his elbows on the desk, ‘our immediate concern is Harbusch and what he might know. If he knows about the political talks, that’s one thing. If he knows about the strategic military planning, that’s another matter.’

McClure picked a pencil from a desk tidy and watched it as he twisted it between his hands and went on. ‘The Germans know the British will intervene if they invade. And they know we can’t fight two invaders at the one time since we can barely fight one. They may gamble that we’d want their help to fight the old enemy in that
situation
. So, it would be important for them to know that our plans are already well laid if they invade. We won’t be fighting the British. We’ve already picked our side in that event.’

He gave Duggan a questioning look.

‘What if the British invade first?’ Duggan asked.

‘They won’t,’ McClure shook his head. ‘Would make no sense. They don’t want to be fighting on another front. When there’s no real reason to.’

‘They invaded Norway,’ Duggan offered.

‘That was different. Times were different. They need to focus all
their energies on their home defence now. So,’ he continued, ending the discussion and pointing his pencil at the letter in Duggan’s hand, ‘what do we do about that?’

Duggan had already come to a conclusion about that. ‘Send it,’ he said. ‘And see what happens next, now that we have a clearer picture of their communication system. We can follow this woman and see if she’s picking up the post for Harbusch as well as sending it. And get to see what they’re saying to him.’

‘Do it,’ McClure said.

‘Ah,’ Duggan hesitated. ‘We might need some more people to keep an eye on the woman. I think that Harbusch knows about Petey and me.’

‘Petey?’

‘Gifford. The Special Branch man.’

‘You’re getting on well with him?’

Duggan nodded, knowing what was coming.

‘Don’t tell him anything more than you need to,’ McClure wagged the pencil at him. ‘And nothing about what goes on here. The Branch is riddled with IRA informants.’

‘No, no.’

‘Why do you think Harbusch knows about you?’

Duggan told him of their suspicion that Harbusch was just trying to embarrass them with his regular visits to the lingerie department in Switzers.

‘And does he succeed?’

Duggan went red again. ‘With me, anyway. Less so with Garda Gifford. And,’ he added, ‘I think the woman saw me today. I wasn’t being very careful because I was planning to talk to her and this’ – he pointed to the bandage on his cheek – ‘would make it easy for her to spot me again.’

‘I’ve told Lieutenant Sullivan to assist you. So you can use him
and we’ll see if we can get a few others too. Meanwhile, you collate everything you can find about this woman. Get the British to check out her background in London too. Talk to the liaison officer. Tell him it’s high priority.’

‘Okay.’ Duggan turned to go.

‘By the way,’ McClure stopped him. ‘What happened your face?’

‘I fell off the bike,’ Duggan didn’t have to try too hard to look stupid.

‘So what does the colonel say, general?’ Sullivan greeted him back in their office.

‘It was only the captain,’ Duggan sat down and picked up the
telephone
and waited for the switchboard to answer. ‘He says you’re working for me. With me.’

The switch answered and he asked for the number of Sinéad’s office. She answered immediately.

‘It’s Duggan,’ he said. ‘There’s another man coming down there. Will you tell him where to go?’

‘Oh,’ she sounded disappointed or maybe, he thought, that was wishful thinking. ‘Are you on sick leave now?’

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back as well.’

‘Will I have to bandage him too?’

‘No,’ he said, looking at Sullivan. ‘He’s a Dublin jackeen, used to cycling over tram lines.’

He hung up and told Sullivan where he was to go and what he was to do. ‘And don’t be seen with Peter Gifford. We think Harbusch is on to us.’

‘You too?’

Duggan nodded. ‘And this Kitty Kelly has seen me. Just make sure she doesn’t see you.’

Sullivan closed the file in front of him, put it on top of a pile to one side and got up. ‘By the way, what really happened your face?’ he stopped at the door.