Echobeat

by Joe Joyce

  She stared at him as if he was indeed mad. ‘This man? Roddy Glenn?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded his head with emphasis, repeating his usual refrain. ‘We don’t know what his game is. Who he’s working for. But he’s playing for really high stakes. That’s if he knows what he’s doing. We don’t even know that, if he really does know what he’s doing.’

  He held her startled gaze until she blinked and lowered her head onto his shoulder. ‘So,’ he continued in a calmer voice, ‘we’ve got to take it slowly. Not rush him. Or frighten him off. Until we can find out what he’s up to and who’s behind all this. He can’t have come across this information by himself. Somebody must have given it to him. And he’s not harmless. He can’t be, with that kind of information.’

  She thought about that for a while and then raised her head. ‘What will I tell him when he phones? About a meeting?’

  ‘Tell him you haven’t seen the German officer yet. Until we decide what to do.’

  Commandant McClure peered at the front and back of the postcard with a magnifying glass. He shrugged when he was finished and replaced the magnifying glass in the drawer of his desk. ‘Nothing obvious,’ he said. ‘We’ll see if there’s something written on it. Invisible ink.’

  Duggan gave a laugh. ‘Invisible ink?’

  ‘Have to check all possibilities.’ McClure looked at the handwritten note on the copybook page. ‘Maybe ask the British about this address.’

  ‘What if it’s one of theirs?’

  ‘Then they’ll say that this Mrs Agnes Smith is an upright citizen, above suspicion.’ McClure gave a hint of a grin. ‘And we’ll know it’s one of their accommodation addresses.’

  ‘But why would they be leaking their own secrets to the Germans?’

  ‘Captain Anderson seems convinced that it’s a devious ploy. To try and get them to declare war on the US. Push the Germans’ patience with the Americans over the top.’

  ‘Could that be true?’

  ‘Certainly it’s what the British want more than anything else, to involve the Americans in the war. That’d change the odds. Maybe even turn the tide. Like it did last time.’ McClure stifled a yawn and stood up and stretched himself. ‘Still,’ he said. ‘I’m inclined to think Glenn’s documents are real. They smack of the truth, from everything we know.’

  ‘The best lies are the closest to the truth,’ Duggan said, repeating what McClure had said to him when they’d first discussed these documents.

  McClure nodded in recognition. ‘But sometimes it’s best to take things at face value, not build up huge conspiracies. Occam’s razor.’

  ‘How can you tell one from the other? I mean I can’t see why Glenn wants Gerda to write this card for him.’

  ‘The obvious explanation is that he’s trying to recruit her,’ McClure said. ‘Ask her to do one or two simple things. Things that seem pretty harmless. Suck her in and then involve her more and more in his operation. That’s the only way it makes sense.’

  ‘But what’s his operation?’ Duggan protested. ‘And why her? As far as he’s concerned she’s just a part-time waitress. No interest in politics. Or in the war. Unless he knows more about her. But he can’t.’

  ‘I don’t see how he can.’ McClure began leafing through a stack of papers on his desk. ‘It doesn’t seem to make any sense.’

  Duggan was about to tell him of Gerda’s suggestion that she hurry things up by telling Glenn she was German. But McClure had found what he was looking for and held out a Photostat to Duggan. ‘Recognise this?’

  It was a copy of a page with a column of nine letters, all handwritten in capitals, without any breaks or punctuation. ‘A coded message,’ Duggan stated the obvious.

  ‘The interesting thing,’ McClure nodded, ‘is that Dr Hayes thinks it’s the same code the guards found last year among Goertz’s things when they missed him in the raid on Stephen Held’s house.’ Dr Richard Hayes was the head of the National Library and G2’s unofficial cryptographer.

  ‘What does it say?’ Duggan scanned down the letters.

  ‘He’s still trying to break the code but he recognises the patterns. He’s ninety-percent certain it’s the code used by Goertz. Which means there’s either someone else operating here with the same codebook or, more likely, that this message was coded by Goertz.’ McClure reached for a cigarette and tossed one to Duggan.

  ‘This was found on a sailor on one of the ships that goes back and forth to Lisbon. We’d had a tip-off that he was hanging around with some Germans while they were in Lisbon. So we asked our Special Branch friends to have a chat with him this evening while he was on his way to his ship. And they found this on him, in his pocket. Looked like he had just received it. Hadn’t had time to put it away, hide it in his things.’

  Duggan flicked his lighter for both of them. He was aware that the Dublin-to-Lisbon sea route was one of the few still open to Irish ships, although they were required by the British to call into an English port on the way for a permit to get through their naval blockade of the Continent. And that neutral Lisbon was also a hotbed of spies, infested by everyone’s intelligence services watching each other, trying to steal secrets and plant lies.

  ‘He huffed and puffed,’ McClure exhaled. ‘Got it from a man in a pub who asked him to do a favour, take a message to a woman friend in Lisbon. Never saw him before. Usual stuff. Didn’t impress the Branch, of course. They threatened to charge him with treason and he caved in pretty smartly. He’s now on his way to Lisbon, working for us. Or, at least, for the Branch.’

  ‘With the message?’ Duggan asked in surprise.

  McClure nodded. ‘We had to make a quick decision. His ship sails about now. But the balance of advantage lay with letting him deliver his message and bring us back the reply. Be a great help to Dr Hayes to have both sides of a correspondence.’

  ‘He might jump ship,’ Duggan said. ‘Stay in Portugal. Or even go over to the Germans.’

  ‘That’s a possibility,’ McClure conceded. ‘But I doubt it. He’s got a wife and children here. There’s no sign he wants to do a runner on them. But that’ll all take time. Up to six weeks to get to Lisbon and back between one thing and another. If they don’t get caught up in any trouble. If he comes back. What’s of more immediate interest is who gave him the message.’

  Duggan’s pulse quickened. He could tell from McClure’s demeanour that he was enjoying this narrative and hadn’t yet reached the punchline.

  ‘You ever heard of an unsavoury type called Benny Reilly?’ Duggan shook his head and McClure went on. ‘An opportunist and unscrupulous character who’s on the fringes of everything – the IRA, politics, crime, business. You name it, he’s on the fringes of it with only one thing in mind, making a few easy pounds. The guards keep an eye on him now and then but have never been able to pin anything much on him. He tried to blackmail the Hospital Sweepstakes a while back. Threatened to give the FBI a list of their American agents unless they paid him off.’

  ‘How did he know who they were?’

  ‘He worked for the Sweeps himself for a bit.’ McClure gave him a knowing look. ‘Anyway, the Sweeps dealt with him in their own way, didn’t want the guards involved. He’s shifted his interest to the black market since the war started. Involved in smuggling both ways across the border but was warned off by the local border gangs who don’t like anyone interfering in their business. Apparently, he’d been trying for some time to get our new sailor friend to bring him cigarettes and tea from Lisbon. Offering him a fifty-fifty partnership, big profits.’

  ‘And he’s the one who gave him the coded message?’

  ‘Yep,’ McClure nodded with satisfaction. ‘It ties in with the information from your,’ he paused for a moment, stopping himself from saying uncle, ‘informant that Goertz is running out of helpers and having to rely on less trustworthy types. Reilly is just the type of character who’d love to get involved with him. Especially if he thought Goertz had lots of reichsmarks.’

  Does
Timmy know Reilly? Duggan wondered. Almost certainly yes. He was just the type of character Timmy would know. Or, to be fair to Timmy, Timmy was just the type of person that someone like Reilly would go out of his way to know. And was Reilly actually the person Timmy had in mind when he told him that Goertz was having to rely on untrustworthy people? That should be easy to check.

  McClure took another sheet of paper from his desk. ‘Reilly’s home address in Clontarf and the address of a yard where he keeps a horse and cart on the edge of Raheny.’ He sighed. ‘We’re trying to get the guards to keep an eye on both but they say they’re too stretched. They said they can only spare one man, your friend Detective Gifford.’

  Duggan looked at him in surprise. Were McClure and the guards up to something? Why were they throwing him and Gifford together?

  ‘You get on well with him,’ McClure made it a statement, reading his mind. ‘And you did a good job together on Harbusch.’

  Duggan nodded, wondering, not for the first time, if McClure knew more about the other things they had gotten up to as well.

  ‘Have a word with him, flesh out the details about Reilly,’ McClure continued. ‘In case there’s anything that slipped their minds in the official report.’

  Duggan checked the sky as he waited at the door to Gifford’s flat. As far as he could make out it was still grey with clouds; at least there was no sign of stars or the moon. So they were still safe from the bombers.

  The city was quiet around him, the flipping of the letterbox flap still resounding in his ears. He was about to leave when Gifford opened his hall door and glowered at him. ‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ he said in a sour tone.

  ‘It’s not even eleven o’clock,’ Duggan protested.

  ‘Fucking culchies,’ Gifford held the door open for him.

  ‘I can go away.’ Duggan waited, unsure whether Gifford was really unhappy at his presence. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Gifford nodded him in. ‘Been a long day,’ he said. ‘Run off my dainty little feet.’

  They went into the living room where a radio was playing some céilí music. ‘I hear you were down the docks this evening,’ Duggan said.

  ‘Good news travels fast,’ Gifford grunted and left the room. He returned a moment later with two bottles of stout and a corkscrew and handed them to Duggan. ‘You open them. I don’t have the energy to pull anything, never mind a cork.’

  Duggan dropped his voice. ‘Sinead still here?’

  ‘Another late-night merchant,’ Gifford shook his head. ‘She had me up till two o’clock the other night, waiting for her train to come in. The train she was supposed to be on coming back from culchie land. Where she was supposed to be. We had to hang around Amiens Street till it came in, nearly four hours late. And she could then pretend to get off it and go back to her digs. In case anyone wondered how she got back so early when the train was so late.’

  Duggan handed him the open bottle and set about opening his own.

  ‘What has you so perky?’ Gifford demanded.

  ‘We’re closing in on Goertz.’

  ‘The sarge is right,’ Gifford raised his bottle in a toast. ‘You fuckers don’t seem to realise there’s a war on. Demanding this, that and the other. Wanting round the clock surveillance on every Tom, Dick and Benny.’

  ‘That’s because there is a war on.’

  ‘Not that war. Who cares about the Brits and the Jerries beating shit out of each other?’ Gifford dismissed it with a wave of his bottle. ‘There’s a war on right here and now. That’s what the sarge is concerned about. There are feckers shooting at us day in, day out.’

  ‘So that’s why he’s assigned you to us,’ Duggan smiled. ‘To keep you safe, out of the firing line.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Gifford sank into a battered armchair, little tufts of horsehair emerging from the side of the cushion as his weight squashed it. ‘I’m like a son to him. He’s only worried about my welfare.’

  Duggan eased himself onto the edge of the matching chair, taking care that it could take his weight before committing himself.

  ‘Actually,’ Gifford said. ‘It’s a test.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Loyalty. I have to give him a daily report of everything you’re up to.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Every single thing.’

  Duggan took a swig from the bottle, not sure whether Gifford meant that literally or not. The Branch hardly cared about him personally, probably wanted to know what G2 knew. Unless. A sudden thought occurred to him. Unless Timmy was up to something again and they thought that he knew about it or was even involved.

  Stop building conspiracies, he told himself. ‘Tell me about Benny Reilly,’ he said.

  ‘A wily lad. Lives by his wits.’ A touch of admiration entered Gifford’s voice. ‘Though he’d never have come to your attention without my help.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘We stopped the sailor man on his way to the boat on the North Wall. As per orders from your betters. The sarge frisked him and we looked in his sailor’s bag but found nothing. Don’t know what the sarge thought we were looking for. That he’d be smuggling bottles of Guinness to Portugal or something. He was all ready to let him go when I said, “Not so fast there now, my good man.” And I looked in his pockets and found the letter. I knew immediately that a string of meaningless letters was just the sort of thing that’d send you fellows into paroxysms of delight. You love all that Boy Scout stuff.’

  Duggan laughed, thinking how he could complete Gifford’s day by telling him about the postcard which might have a message in invisible ink. But he resisted the urge.

  ‘See? You admit it,’ Gifford grimaced at him. ‘You’ll get another badge for your uniform now.’

  Duggan leaned back until he was almost horizontal on the chair. The national anthem came from the radio, followed by a hum and then static as the transmitter was shut down. ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘You fuck off back to your monastery or wherever you rest your head,’ Gifford yawned. ‘And let me get some sleep.’

  Fifteen

  ‘Another hard night?’ Duggan gave Sullivan a sympathetic look.

  ‘Jaysus,’ Sullivan scratched the right side of his head. ‘She had me up till four. Decided it was time we had a serious talk. Wants to get engaged.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ Duggan offered.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ Sullivan snorted.

  ‘You don’t want to get married?’

  ‘What would I want to get married for?’

  ‘Is that what you said to her?’

  ‘No,’ Sullivan twitched and twisted his shoulder muscles as if he’d been on a twelve-hour route march with a heavy pack. ‘Had to go through the whole rigmarole. Take it seriously. She says you can’t let things drift these days. You never know what’s going to happen. We could all be dead and gone in the morning.’

  ‘You told her about the bomb in Carlow.’

  Sullivan nodded. ‘Should’ve kept my big mouth shut. You know what I think?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She sees herself as a grieving widow. Wants to get married as quick as possible in case I’m killed.’

  Duggan laughed.

  ‘Seriously. A young widow, waiting for the compo.’

  Duggan laughed. ‘Did you tell her she could be waiting a long time? I can’t see the Germans or the British paying compo for shooting us.’

  ‘No, of course not. She didn’t …’ Sullivan paused as he looked over Duggan’s shoulder. Duggan was about to look around when a balled-up old newspaper bounced on the table in front of him with a smell of vinegar.

  ‘I hear this is yours,’ Captain Anderson said as he came around beside him. ‘Left it in the Prefect last night.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Duggan picked up the balled paper and tossed it towards a bin in the corner. It bounced off the edge and fell on the floor.

  ‘Has Gertie come up with the goods yet?’ Anderson gave him a crooked smile as he per
ched himself against the table.

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Duggan kept his face straight while cursing inwardly. So Anderson knew who Gerda was, or at least knew that Gertie Maher was his source in Mrs Lynch’s café. That wasn’t surprising, as her initials were in earlier reports, but he’d have preferred to keep everything about her secret.

  ‘I haven’t seen any more paperwork,’ Anderson said.

  ‘Nothing definite to report yet.’ Good, Duggan thought: McClure hadn’t passed on the report of Gerda’s meeting with Glenn.

  ‘Have you checked out this Montague fellow she works for?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Not exactly sound on the national question, is he?’

  Duggan shrugged to suggest that wasn’t very significant though he was already wondering otherwise. So Montague was probably a unionist, or ex-unionist, and probably pro-British. But that didn’t make him what he knew Anderson was hinting at, a British agent. Still, it was something that should be checked out. Anyway, Montague had had nothing to do with putting Gerda in contact with them.

  ‘By the way,’ Anderson pushed himself upright and gave him a humourless smile, ‘you’d want to be more careful about using that car. If anyone looks at the log book they might think you’re using it as your own personal passion wagon.’

  ‘What was that about?’ Sullivan demanded when Anderson left, his interest piqued.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Duggan lied, cursing inwardly.

  Duggan made a point of seeking McClure’s permission to take the car again before collecting Gifford and driving northwards. It was another grey day, clouds like dirty rags sitting on the city, the snow turning filthier on the ground. Their progress was slow, their speed set by drays and bicycles. The number of cars on the roads had dropped dramatically with the new petrol ration and most garages remained closed. A middle-aged man sitting on a sidecar with a briefcase under his arm turned to give them a dirty look as Duggan waited to overtake it.