by Joe Joyce
‘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?’
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction set against a background of real events although some liberties have been taken with the timeline of those events, like the sequence of German bombings of Ireland during the first three days of 1941. All the documents and newspaper reports quoted are genuine but the main characters are all fictional and their knowledge of these are not necessarily representative of what anyone in Ireland knew at the time.
Once again, I’m indebted to a number of people for their advice about military matters and comments on the first draft, notably Maurice Byrne. I have also relied on the series of documents about Irish foreign policy during the Second World War published by the Royal Irish Academy to get a flavour of the political and diplomatic issues of the time.
Special thanks to my editor Dan Bolger for his support and insightful comments and to all at Liberties Press.
Copyright
First published in 2014 by
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ebook ISBN: 978–1–909718–60–9
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