Echoland (35 page)

He and Duggan propped Bradley up and Gifford sat in beside him, breathing through his mouth.

‘We’ll drop you home,’ Duggan said to Timmy.

‘What?’ Timmy sounded startled. ‘You can’t bring him round there.’

‘Won’t Nuala want to see him?’ Duggan said, unable to resist it.

‘Like that?’ Timmy nodded over his shoulder at Bradley. He hadn’t looked at him since they had found him.

‘She’d never talk to you again if she saw him like this, would she?’

Timmy gave him a vicious look.

‘We’ve got to take him to hospital,’ Duggan said.

‘Better get your story straight first,’ Timmy said. ‘You don’t know who he is. You found him wandering along the street.’

‘We’ll leave you home first,’ Duggan repeated. ‘If we can keep the car for a couple of hours?’

‘As long as it’s in the driveway when I come out in the morning,’ Timmy sighed. ‘And doesn’t smell of piss.’

Timmy told him to stop when they were a couple of houses away from his own. He walked around the front of the car to the footpath. ‘That’s it then,’ he said through Duggan’s open window. ‘Case closed.’

‘You’ll tell Nuala?’

Timmy gave a slight nod and then shook his head with regret. ‘You could’ve had a great career in politics.’ He walked away.

‘What’d that mean?’ Gifford asked as they drove away.

‘Goodbye,’ Duggan said.

They drove up to the steps of Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital and Duggan got out and went in and asked for Nurse Maloney. The same porter was there, a full ashtray on his desk. ‘This is a hospital, you know,’ he said.

‘We have a sick man outside.’

The porter was about to say something when Gifford walked in, putting his revolver back in its holster. The porter picked up his phone.

‘And we need a wheelchair or something,’ Duggan added. ‘He can’t walk.’

The porter spoke into the phone and then told him he’d find a wheelchair down the corridor opposite. Gifford went to look and came back with one. They left it inside the door and went to get Bradley.

It took a while to get him out of the car and up the steps. As they came in the door Stella was coming across the hall. ‘Oh, God, Jim,’ she said, as she saw him. She rushed forward and put her arms around him while Duggan and Gifford held him up. His head fell forward onto her shoulder.

Stella stepped back and looked him over quickly. ‘What
happened
? He hasn’t been shot or anything, has he?’

‘I don’t think so. He’s just been …’ Duggan searched for the word and came up with, ‘… treated badly.’

Stella manoeuvred the wheelchair behind them and they eased Bradley back into it. She hunkered down in front of him and put her hands on his. ‘Jim? Can you hear me?’

He raised his head slightly and looked at her and nodded and tears coursed down his cheeks. She touched his cheek and said. ‘It’s okay, you’re safe now.’ She glanced at Duggan, seeking confirmation.

‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘It’s all over.’

‘We’ll get you cleaned up,’ Stella said to Bradley and straightened up. ‘Do you want to wait?’ she asked Duggan and Gifford.

Both shook their heads as one. ‘When you get a chance would you call Nuala and let her know he’s here?’ Duggan asked her. ‘She might be at home. In her parents’ house.’

Stella touched his arm. ‘She’s lucky to have you for a cousin.’

‘Remind me,’ Gifford said when they came out the hospital door, ‘to shoot first if I ever see your relations again. And not to bother asking questions afterwards.’

Duggan stopped on the steps to light a cigarette. The last
lingering
light of day had been replaced by an inky blue, darkening from the east. There was a faint rumble in the distance, barely on the edge of audibility, that could have been a train or trucks or aircraft or rolling thunder. Or in his imagination.

‘Do you want a lift somewhere?’

‘Typical,’ Gifford laughed. ‘We have this big fast car and nowhere to go. And no one to impress.’

‘He’s waiting for you,’ Sullivan nodded his head at the corridor when Duggan walked into the office in the morning. ‘In a bad mood.’

‘Why?’ Duggan asked, taken aback.

‘That fellow they picked up off the train at Kingsbridge yesterday,’ Sullivan glanced at the door to make sure no one was there. ‘An Indian who claimed to be an Irishman. Landed in Kerry and thought he had come ashore in Dublin bay.’

Duggan made a questioning gesture.

‘Couldn’t have fooled a seven-year-old,’ Sullivan added. ‘He thinks the Abwehr is deliberately insulting our intelligence. Sending people like that.’

Duggan took a deep breath and went to face the music.

‘Well,’ McClure tipped back his chair, the inevitable cigarette in his hand. ‘You have something to tell me.’

‘It’s a bit awkward. It’s about my uncle.’

‘Deputy Monaghan?’ McClure waved him to a chair.

Duggan sat down and told him about following Kitty Kelly and seeing Timmy meet her and Timmy’s explanation about captured weapons.

‘So,’ McClure leaned forward with a nod of satisfaction. ‘He’s the one.’

‘What?’ Duggan said, confused.

‘We’ve had indications that the Germans were negotiating through some back channels with the government. Or thought they were. You saw the reference in Harbusch’s last letter.’

‘I thought it referred to some faction of the IRA.’

‘Could’ve been that too. But there were indications that some politicians were involved as well. There was a short list of suspects. But,’ he gave Duggan a crooked smile, ‘we can’t be following our
masters
or intercepting their phone calls.’

Duggan tried to stop his face betraying his whirling thoughts. So Timmy had had him moved to G2 to try and have a source inside intelligence. Or had G2 brought him in to spy on Timmy? And did they know all about Bradley and all that?

‘When you accosted him,’ McClure was continuing, ‘did he claim to have government backing?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Interesting.’ McClure seemed surprised.

‘Could he have?’ Duggan asked, knowing that Timmy didn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t have given in so easily to Duggan’s pressure to release Bradley.

‘The wiles of politicians,’ McClure shrugged. ‘Who can be up to them?’

‘He seemed to think he’d been set up.’

‘By who?’

‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. Possibly by someone he met in Herr Hempel’s house at the reception a few weeks ago. I got the impression someone there suggested he meet Kitty Kelly.’

‘He wouldn’t say who?’

Duggan shook his head. ‘He muttered something about
provocateurs
.’

McClure grunted. ‘What about Kitty Kelly?’

‘He thinks that’s her real name.’ Duggan paused. ‘I had a thought about her. A mad thought. That she and Eliza Harbusch are the same person.’

McClure pondered that for a moment. ‘You’ve never seen them at the same time?’

Duggan shook his head, relieved that McClure hadn’t laughed. And that they’d left the subject of Timmy.

‘What’d be the logic of that?’ McClure asked.

‘That we’re keeping an eye on Harbusch and Eliza who are highly visible but don’t seem to do anything much. While she is the real spy and can move around freely in this other persona. An old woman.’

‘And meets Goertz. And your uncle.’ Duggan winced at the
juxtaposition
. ‘And God knows who else. But we’re keeping an eye on her now.’

‘Ah, only some of the time. The Special Branch seems to have dropped its surveillance on her. Or some of it.’

‘Really?’ McClure was surprised. ‘We’ll have to see about that. We better put more effort into finding her true identity. Fingerprints, photographs, whatever else we need. Perhaps send someone to visit her when Frau Harbusch is out. To prove or disprove your theory.’ He thought for a moment. ‘A woman collecting for the African missions.’

Duggan smiled at the idea, happy that McClure was taking his theory seriously and that he had some clear instructions to follow.

‘And anything else you can come up with to find out who she is,’ McClure said with an air of finality. ‘I’ll get surveillance back on her full time. With any luck she’ll lead us to Goertz again.’

Duggan stood up and his curiosity got the better of him. ‘Any more word on that British spy the IRA kidnapped?’ he asked.

McClure looked up at him and paused. Duggan instantly
regretted
his stupidity. ‘No,’ McClure said evenly. ‘There was no follow up to the first threat. No publicity. Nobody missing. Nothing. They’ve
decided it was a hoax. Just disinformation. Trying to create confusion and discord.’

‘Right,’ Duggan said and left in haste. Outside the door, he
wondered
again if McClure knew all about Bradley but, if he did, he was prepared to let it go. He felt the weight of all the pressure Timmy had put on him over the past few weeks dissipate at last.

‘What are you so happy about?’ Sullivan demanded as he returned to their office.

‘I’ve got a job to do,’ Duggan smiled.

This is a work of fiction set against real events in May and June 1940, but it should not be taken as a strictly accurate timeline of those events. Real people mentioned include Hermann Goertz, who also used the names Brandy and Robinson, the most important German spy to be active in Ireland during the Second World War. Irish
military
intelligence did not find out his true identity as quickly as is
suggested
here but other details about him are broadly accurate.

Other real people mentioned include Stephen Held, Iseult Stuart (MacBride), leading politicians like Eamon de Valera and Frank Aiken, German diplomats like Eduard Hempel and Henning Thomsen, soldiers like Major General Hugo O’Neill, and other
regular
visitors to the German legation events. Any details about real
people
and real events are broadly accurate. However, the party at the German residence to celebrate the fall of France is fiction.

All the main characters in the book and the plotlines are fictitious. People who know a lot about this period may notice some
resemblance
between the fictitious Hans Harbusch and the real German spy Werner Unland, who never appeared to do anything much, but the plot involving Harbusch and his ‘wife’ is entirely fictitious, as is the character of Eliza.

The number of books about Ireland and its neutrality during the
Second World War is growing constantly. Works by Mark Hull, Clair Wills, Eunan O’Halpin, David O’Donoghue, Brian Girvin, John P. Duggan, Joe Carroll, Robert Fisk, and Tony Gray were of great use in giving me a feel for the period, as were the documents on Irish foreign policy published by the Royal Irish Academy and, of course,
contemporary
newspapers.

I am particularly indebted to Maurice Byrne and
Lieutenant-Colonel
(retd) Kevin Byrne for their comments on the first draft of this book, and to Commandant Victor Laing, the former head of the Military Archives, for helping me to fill in some period detail. It remains, however, a work of fiction.

My thanks to fellow writer Declan Burke, whose blog
Crime Always Pays
is the welcoming and generous home of all Irish crime and thriller writing, for guiding me towards Liberties Press and to Seán O’Keeffe and my editor there, Dan Bolger, for his helpful and astute comments.

Fiction

The Trigger Man

Off the Record

Non-Fiction

The Guinnesses: The Untold Story of
Ireland’s Most Successful Family

Blind Justice
(with Peter Murtagh)

The Boss: Charles J Haughey in Government
(with Peter Murtagh)

Plays

The Tower

www.joejoyce.ie