But still, the beauty of the clothing on Haughey’s back gave Ryan a longing in his soul.
He slipped his jacket on, left the room, and made his way back down to reception with the intention of having lunch. He crossed the high-ceilinged lounge. The maitre d’ greeted him at the glass doors to the restaurant. Ryan paused and surveyed the room and the diners, the expanse of white linen tablecloths, glittering silverware. His gaze travelled across finely cut lapels, French cuffs, silk ties.
The maitre d’ said, “For one, sir?”
Ryan watched the women draped on the men, the jewels and pale skin.
The maitre d’ leaned closer. “Sir?”
Ryan coughed. “Actually, I’m not hungry. Thank you.”
He left the restaurant, exited the building, headed north towards the river, and Capel Street beyond.
“CANALI,” LAWRENCE MCCLELLAND said, smoothing the jacket over Ryan’s torso. “From Triuggio in Lombardy, not far from Milan. Much sought after, not many in Dublin. Very, very nice.”
Ryan studied his form in the full length mirror. Even if the trousers were too short, and the jacket too roomy for his midsection, the suit still looked magnificent.
He was the tailor’s sole customer, standing among racks of expensive cloth and tables laden with shirts and ties. The dark wooden panels seemed to rob the room of light and sound, a solemn quiet hanging over everything. A chapel of silk, herringbone and leather.
“Have you been to Italy?” McClelland asked.
“Yes,” Ryan said. “Sicily.”
“Sicily? Oh, I hear it’s quite lovely there,” the tailor said as he hunkered down to tug at the trouser hems. “I’m more familiar with Milan and Rome myself.”
Ryan had spent four days on the south eastern Sicilian coast in late ’45, a stopover on his way to Egypt. He had been billeted with three other men in an apartment in Siricusa, but he spent most of his time wandering the narrow streets of Ortigia, the tiny island connected to the mainland by a few short bridges.
He had rolled his sleeves up as he walked, opened his shirt wide, the sun beating on him like a blacksmith’s hammer. In the evenings, the place smelled of sea salt and warm olive oil. He ate in the trattorias and osterias that clustered in the alleys. Ryan had never before seen, let alone tasted, pasta. He ate platefuls of it, mopping up the sauce with fresh bread. He seldom saw a menu; the choice of food was that of the house, rather than the diner, but he didn’t mind. His lifelong diet had been either Irish or army food, the height of culinary sophistication a mixed grill in a swanky hotel, or perhaps a piece of fish on a Friday.
He took four days of pleasure in Sicily before crossing the short stretch of Mediterranean to Egypt and all its torments.
The tailor stood upright and set about Ryan with a measuring tape.
“Hmm.” McClelland placed his forefinger against his lips. “I might struggle a little to make this work for a man of your stature. A man as deep as you are through the chest will often have a more generous waistband, whereas you’re quite a slender fellow.”
He tucked the jacket into Ryan’s flanks, pinned the fabric in place. Standing back, he eyed Ryan from head to foot, the travel of his gaze slow and languid. “Athletic,” McLelland said. “And long legged. But I think I can let the trouser down enough to suffice. With the right shoe, of course. When do you need the suit for?”
“Tomorrow night,” Ryan said. “The minister said to put it on his account.”
McClelland’s face greyed around a thin smile. “Yes, the minister does like to take full advantage of our credit service.”
CHAPTER SIX
AS EVENING LIGHT faded to darkness, Albert Ryan spent an hour at Helmut Krauss’s small home on Oliver Plunkett Avenue, close to Dublin’s docks. It stood at the middle of a terraced row of identical houses, Victorian or Edwardian, he couldn’t be sure. They faced newly-built tenement blocks, ugly structures that cast a sullen shadow over the street. A small patch of garden had been laid over with concrete slabs. A brass plaque by the doorbell carried the words HEINRICH KOHL: IMPORT, EXPORT, ESCROW SERVICES. A Garda officer waited on the doorstep to let Ryan in.
Inside the house, the parlour had been converted to a small office with an antique desk surrounded by filing cabinets. A telephone sat on the desk alongside a typewriter, a ledger and a selection of pens. The room contained only two chairs: one for Krauss, and one for a guest. It appeared the German did not employ a secretary.
Ryan opened the ledger at a random page and scanned the entries. Business names, ports of departure, dates, sums of money mostly in pounds. He ran his fingertip down the name column, turning from page to page, looking for anything of significance. The amounts of money were modest, the highest figures in the low thousands, and most coming to only a few hundred. The ports covered northern Europe, anywhere within easy sailing distance of Dublin or Dundalk.
He closed the book and turned his attention to the filing cabinets. All were unlocked and contained invoices, purchase orders, statements of account, and the occasional letter. Nothing to suggest Krauss has been involved in anything illegal while running his business here.
Ryan left the parlour-turned-office and went to the kitchen at the rear of the house. The cramped room smelled of grease and tobacco. A dresser stood to one side, well stocked with alcohol. Krauss apparently had a taste for vodka. More boxes of bottles stood piled on the floor, emblazoned with Russian text, obviously some perk of his import business.
A tin bath stood propped in the corner, a privy in the backyard. Ryan opened the cupboards, found nothing but stale bread, tinned food and cleaning materials. He made his way upstairs.
Two small bedrooms, one disused, the other filled with neatly arranged personal bric-a-brac. Rolled socks and underwear lay on the unmade bed, the items Krauss had chosen not to take on his trip to Salthill.
An open letter lay on a bedside table. Ryan reached for the lamp beside it, flicked it on so that he could make out the text in the thickening darkness. He sat on the edge of the bed and examined the single sheet of paper. German, handwritten in a neat script. Ryan understood little, but he recognised the name of Johan Hambro, and that of the churchyard near Galway he had been buried at a few days ago.
Given the mild disarray of the room, Ryan guessed that Krauss had left in a hurry, not taking time to tidy away the rejected clothes or make his bed. Krauss seemed to have been a man of order and discipline. Ryan imagined the German would be embarrassed to know a stranger now observed the mess in his home, however minor.
A chest of drawers stood facing the foot of the bed. Ryan opened the first drawer and searched through the folded shirts with their frayed cuffs and replacement buttons. The second held more socks and underwear, and the third revealed more of the same. But underneath them, a bed of photographs, postcards and letters.
Ryan lifted them out, one-by-one. The letters were mostly in German, and after a few, he gave up trying to distinguish recognisable names from the tangles of words. Instead, he focused on the photographs.
Many were family portraits, stern mothers and fathers, round-faced children, the occasional horse or dog. A few showed rows of uniformed men, tall men, strong men, peaked caps on their heads, lightning bolts on their collars. Some were formal portraits, the men standing upright or sitting with their hands clamped to their knees, staring hard at the camera. Others showed them eating and drinking, collars loosened, laughter almost audible from the heavy paper.
When Ryan thought of his time on the Continent, back when he was a boy pretending to be a man, these were the scenes he wished he could isolate in his memory. Officers lined up at long tables, mugs of beer, voices raised so high it made his eardrums hurt. But when he tried to focus on such sounds and images, others crept in, the burned and bloodied things, the howls and screams.
Yet he could not leave that life behind.
The only place that felt like a home was a barracks. The town or country didn’t matter, whether he slept in his room at
Gormanston Camp, or some tin hut in a foreign field. Ryan might have understood this to be unhealthy had he ever given it thought.
In truth, he wasn’t sure if he missed having what most men would consider a home. A wife and children. Walls to contain them all. He had grown accustomed to eating in mess halls, sleeping on thin mattresses, living by the orders of his superiors. Only occasionally did he awake in the night, terrified by the advancing years and what his future life would be when the surrogate family he had chosen had no more use for him.
Ryan leafed through the photographs until he found one, a formal portrait of a young man, his cap worn with pride, his buttons shining in the studio’s lights. He recognised the handsome face of Helmut Krauss, twenty years before he lay dissected on a mortuary table. Such confidence, the surety held in the eyes, the subtle smile on the lips.
You never thought you could lose, Ryan thought. At one time, Helmut Krauss and his kind were certain they would possess the earth and every soul who dwelled upon it. Now Krauss burned in whatever hell had been set aside for him. Ryan searched his soul for pity and found none.
He returned the photographs and letters to the drawer before dropping to his knees and peering underneath the bed. A box lay within arm’s reach. A trail through the dust showed that the Guards had already dragged it out and examined its contents. Ryan grabbed the box’s edge and pulled, hoisted it up onto the bed, folded back the lid.
The Guards had been instructed to leave everything as they found it. Including the Luger P08 and Walther P38 pistols that lay on top of the red cloth, along with the paper bag of loose nine millimetre Parabellum rounds and a single leather holster. Ryan lifted the weapons from the box, examining each of them in turn. They appeared well maintained, smelled of fresh oil. He set them side by side on the bed, placed the holster and the bag of rounds next to them, and lifted the red cloth.
It unfolded to a large rectangle, a white circle at its centre, black lines intersecting. Ryan bundled the swastika into a ball and dropped it to the floor.
A manila folder lay at the bottom of the box. Ryan lifted the folder, opened it, revealing loose typewritten letters, written in English. He read the first.
To whom it may concern,
This letter is to confirm that the bearer, Helmut Krauss, has been known to me for many years. I can attest to his honesty, integrity and general good character. Should any further reference by required, please write to me at the above address.
Yours Sincerely,
Bishop Jean-Luc Prideux
It listed an address in Brittany. Ryan flipped through the remaining dozen, more letters of reference, all praising Helmut Krauss. The last few were replies from the Department of Justice. Ryan picked out phrases from the text.
This department has no objection …
A man of good standing …
On condition that Mr. Krauss does not …
Ryan returned the folder to the box, covered it with the swastika. He looked down at the two pistols, black and glowering on the bedspread. The Luger was much loved by collectors; Ryan had known many soldiers who had taken them home from the front, trophies of their battles on the Continent. But the Walther was also a handsome weapon, similar in performance to the Luger, but a more modern design by thirty or more years.
He tried each of them in the holster, found the Walther to be a better fit. That decided it. Ryan stripped the case from a pillow, stuffed the Walther, holster and rounds inside, and knotted the opening. He dropped the Luger into the box, which he slid back beneath the bed.
As he left the house, Ryan thanked the Garda officer who had let him in.
“I’m just taking a few items for examination,” he said, showing the weighted pillowcase.
The officer did not object.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“HELLO, WHO IS this?” a man answered with a thick eastern European accent.
“My name is Albert Ryan. I’d like to speak with the Rabbi of your congregation.”
Ryan sat on the edge of his bed in Buswells, the telephone to his ear. The skin on his throat stung from shaving. Morning sun warmed his back.
“Well, you are. I am Rabbi Joseph Hempel. How may I help you?”
IT TOOK LESS than fifteen minutes to drive south from the city centre to the synagogue on Rathfarnham Road. The building stood back from the street, separated by a high wall and hedge, with well tended gardens. It was a grey block of a structure, flat-roofed, with five windows in the shape of the Star of David above a row of square glass panes. Its sturdy bulk, and the walls around it, gave the synagogue the appearance of a compound under siege.
Ryan pulled into the driveway through the open gates. Rabbi Hempel stood waiting in the doorway. He was a middle-aged man with square-framed spectacles, casually dressed with a knitted vest over an open-collar shirt and a suede kippah on his crown. His beard almost reached the bottom of the V formed by his top button. He extended his hand as Ryan got out of the car and approached.
“Mr. Ryan?” he asked.
Ryan shook his hand. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.”
“Not at all. Come to my office.”
Stained glass windows refracted the morning light inside the synagogue, bathing the rows of seats in a warm peace. The rabbi led Ryan to a room to the rear of the building. It was a modestly appointed office, books lined upon shelves, a sparse desk.
“Please, sit down,” Rabbi Hempel said. Once they were seated, and Ryan had declined any refreshments, the rabbi asked, “Are you a policeman?”
“Not quite,” Ryan said. “I work for the Directorate of Intelligence.”
“But you want to talk to me about a crime?”
“Three crimes. Three murders, to be exact.”
The rabbi’s lips pursed with concern. “Oh, dear. I can promise you I know nothing of such crimes.”
Ryan smiled to reassure him. “I know. But if I explain the nature of the murders, you might understand why I’ve come to you.”
Rabbi Hempel sat back in his chair. “I’m listening.”
Ryan told him about Renders and Hambro, and Helmut Krauss, and the blood on the floor of the guest house in Salthill. He told the rabbi about the note addressed to Skorzeny.
Rabbi Hempel sat in silence for a few seconds, gazing at Ryan across the desk, before he said, “I am not sure what alarms me more: that these people are permitted to come and live in peace in Ireland, or that your first assumption is that only a Jew could do such a thing.”
“It is not my assumption,” Ryan said.
The rabbi leaned forward. “And yet here you are.”
“It’s a line of inquiry I was instructed to pursue by my superiors.”
“Orders.”
“Yes. Orders.”
Rabbi Hempel smiled. “So many men have simply followed orders. The men who shot my parents and my elder sister at the edge of a ditch they had just forced them to dig, they were following orders. Does that absolve them?”
“No,” Ryan said. “But nevertheless, you must see why I have been asked to follow this line.”
“I do indeed see the reason. It’s likely a different reason than you believe it to be, but please, go ahead.”
“Thank you. Are you aware of any groups within your community, perhaps younger men, who have strong feelings about the war?”
Ryan realised the stupidity of the question too late, felt heat spread on his face.
“I promise you, Mr. Ryan, all in my community have strong feelings about the war.”
“Of course,” Ryan said. “I apologise.”
The rabbi nodded his acceptance. “That aside, there are no organised groups that I’m aware of. There are less than two thousand Jewish people left on the whole island of Ireland now, possibly only fifteen hundred. I can barely gather enough for a congregation. Believe me, there are no groups of disaffected young men, hungry for blood.”
“To your knowledge,” Ryan said.
Rabbi Hempel shrugged. “Who would have t
he motive? We have suffered comparatively little persecution here. The ugly episode in Limerick at the start of the century, some call it a pogrom, but those who were driven out were in turn welcomed in Cork. The bureaucrats at the Department of Justice did their best to block Jewish refugees entering Ireland before and after the war, but the Department of External Affairs put pressure on de Valera to intervene. Ireland has not always been welcoming, but seldom has it been overtly hostile. These are not the conditions that put hate in young men’s hearts.”
Ryan almost laughed, but choked it back. “There’s no shortage of hatred in this country.”
“The Irish have long memories,” Rabbi Hempel said. “I have lived in Ireland for more than ten years, and this was my first understanding of its people. Were it not so, perhaps Britain might have had another ally against the Germans. Instead, Ireland sat on its hands and watched as Europe burned.”
Ryan thought about letting it go, almost did, but said, “Ireland had barely found its feet as a state. It had been through the First World War, the War of Independence and the Civil War, all in less than a decade. It couldn’t afford to go to war again. It didn’t have the strength. Even so, a hundred thousand of us fought.”
The rabbi raised his thick eyebrows. “You?”
“Yes.”
“And did your neighbours appreciate your fighting for the British?”
“No, not all of them.”
Rabbi Hempel nodded. “Like I said. Long memories.”
AS RYAN EASED out of the synagogue’s driveway, heading back towards town, he saw the black car parked further down the road. And its two occupants, both men, neither of them watching him.
In his rear view mirror, he saw the car pull out from the curb. It kept a distance of thirty yards or so. He glanced as he drove, trying to make out the men’s features. All he saw were shapes, shoulders and heads, the impressions of shirts and ties. One of them smoked a cigarette.
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