Ratlines

by Stuart Neville

  “I have no choice. Not now. It’s gone too far.”

  “Albert, stop talking in riddles.”

  He ran his thumb across her fingernails, felt the smooth polish, the sharp edges.

  “Yesterday, I watched a woman commit suicide.”

  Celia’s fingers left his. Her hands retreated to her lap. She sat back.

  “Where?”

  “The other side of Swords,” Ryan said. “In her home. She did it out of fear.”

  “Fear of who? You?”

  “I tell myself no, not of me, but the people I’m working for. But then I remember, if I work for them, I am one of them.”

  Celia shook her head. Her eyes stayed on him, but her gaze elsewhere. “No. That’s not true. We do things for people. It doesn’t mean we like it. It doesn’t make us the same as them.”

  Ryan watched as she returned to herself. “Even if you know it’s wrong?”

  Celia turned away, looked towards the kitchen. “I wonder where the food is.”

  “We only just ordered. What’s the matter?”

  She turned back to him. “Nothing. Albert, I shan’t be able to come to the dinner party tonight.”

  Ryan felt something fall away inside him. “Why not?”

  “Mrs. Highland needs help around the house. I promised I’d do it for her.”

  “When did you promise her?”

  “Last week. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

  “All right. Maybe we can do something else tomorrow evening.”

  “Maybe,” she said with a flicker of a smile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  SKORZENY WAS EATING alone in the dining room when he heard the telephone ring, followed by Esteban’s soft knock at the door.

  “Enter,” Skorzeny said.

  “Is Miss Hume,” Esteban said. He pronounced it joom.

  Skorzeny wiped his lips with a napkin, then followed the boy out to the hallway where the telephone waited. He lifted the receiver. He heard the distorted noise of a street.

  “Miss Hume?”

  “Sir, I need to speak with you.”

  Her voice resonated in the telephone box.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “I no longer wish to carry out the assignment you gave me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I met with Albert Ryan for lunch today. He told me someone has died because of what he’s doing for you. I don’t want to be a part of that.”

  Skorzeny lowered himself into the chair that stood beside the telephone table. “Who died?”

  “A woman. Near Swords, he said. She committed suicide.”

  Skorzeny thought of Catherine Beauchamp, her fine and delicate features, the hard intelligence of her eyes.

  “What else did Lieutenant Ryan tell you?”

  “Nothing. Only that he’s unhappy doing whatever work it is he’s doing for you. He feels it’s wrong.”

  “Lieutenant Ryan is confused. He is protecting people in his work. Saving lives. Perhaps you could remind him of that.”

  “No. I won’t see him again.”

  “But you must. There’s the dinner tonight.”

  “I told him I wasn’t able to come.”

  Skorzeny kept his voice even. “That was foolish.”

  “I only took this assignment as a favour for Mr. Waugh. I’ve let men take me to dinner before, drinks and such, to find out things about them. But they were diplomats or businessmen; all they talked about were negotiations and deals. Never anything like this. I won’t be a part of it.”

  “My dear, you are a part of it whether you wish to be or not. You will carry out the orders you were given.”

  “No. You’ll have to find some—”

  “Young lady, you misunderstand. You will accompany Lieutenant Ryan to my home this evening. You will continue to see him and report his conversations to me. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Sir, you are not my employer. You have no right to—”

  “What right do you think I need? What authority?”

  “You can’t—”

  “Yes, I can. Now listen to me very carefully. You will do as I have instructed or the consequences will be most serious.”

  She paused. “In what way?”

  “In any way you can imagine.”

  Silence for a time, then, “Sir, are you threatening me?”

  “Yes.”

  A click, and she was gone.

  Skorzeny stood, replaced the handset, and became aware of a presence above him. He turned, saw Lainé sitting on the stairs, watching. The pup in his lap, on its back, wriggling as he scratched its belly.

  “There is trouble?” Lainé asked.

  Skorzeny walked to the foot of the stairs. “No trouble. But there is news you should know. The girl I placed with Ryan. He told her he’d seen a woman commit suicide. A woman near Swords.”

  Lainé’s fingers ceased their scratching. “Catherine?”

  “I believe so.”

  Lainé got to his feet, the pup held close to his chest, turned to go.

  Skorzeny said, “Ryan must have suspected her as the informant.”

  “No.” Lainé shook his head. “Not Catherine.”

  “Foss still denies it. It’s possible I was mistaken.”

  Lainé looked back over his shoulder. “No. It is Foss. He will talk. I will make him talk.”

  The Breton climbed from Skorzeny’s view.

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  RYAN SLEPT HARD, stretches of black punctuated by ragged and bloody dreams. The telephone kicked him awake, consciousness flooding in, nausea in its wake. He rolled across the bed, lifted the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “A call from a Miss Hume. Shall I put her through?”

  Ryan sat up, rubbed his face, fresh stubble scratching his palm. “Yes.”

  “Albert?” she said.

  “Celia. What’s wrong?”

  “I was thinking,” she said, a waver in her voice. “I’d very much like to go with you to that dinner this evening.”

  In his heart, Ryan rejoiced.

  CELIA HELD THE map on her knees, navigating for him. She offered little conversation other than the directions. As they passed through Naas, Ryan asked if everything was all right.

  She turned to him, her smile prim and polite, and said, “Yes, everything’s fine.”

  He did not believe her.

  “It’s not too late to turn around,” he said. “I can bring you back to Dublin.”

  Celia turned her eyes back to the map. “No. I want to go. Really.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I am.”

  Time and silence lay thick upon them until she spoke again.

  “Up here, I think.” She pointed to the curve ahead, and the stone wall, the map held in her other hand. A gateway came into view. “There.”

  Ryan slowed and steered the Vauxhall towards the gateway. Two broad-shouldered men blocked his way. Ryan braked and halted.

  One of the men approached the driver’s window. Ryan wound it down.

  “Your names,” the man said, his accent thick.

  Ryan told him. The man nodded to his colleague, who stepped back. Ryan put the car in gear and moved off, through to a long driveway lined by trees. Among them, he saw another man. Watching from his dark cover, he made no attempt to conceal his weapon.

  From the corner of his eye, Ryan saw Celia turn her head, looking at the man as they passed. She touched the fingertips of her left hand to her lips, clenched the right into a fist in her lap.

  Ryan realised with a hard certainty that he should not have brought her here. He tried to push the feeling away, dismiss it as a fretful notion, but it lingered in his stomach.

  The house rose up ahead, the pitched roofs of its wings, its arched windows, the gardens all around. Other cars lined up beside Skorzeny’s white Mercedes. Two Rovers, a Jaguar, a Bentley. Ryan pulled the Vauxhall alongside them, the other vehicles dwarfing his.

  He got out, opened Celia�
��s door, guided her towards the house. A young olive-skinned boy waited for them in the open doorway. He took Celia’s coat and showed them to the drawing room.

  The four couples who stood there, drinks in hand, turned to watch them enter. Ryan recognised one of the men as a prominent solicitor, another as a senior civil servant, something in the Department of Finance, and yet another as the owner of a department store. And there, watching, Charles J. Haughey with the girl who’d been his companion at the restaurant, the girl who was not his wife. In fact, none of the men here looked well matched in age to their partners. The women eyed Celia with dagger glares.

  Celia seemed to shrink from their gaze, her shoulders hunched. She gripped Ryan’s forearm tight as she smiled back at them.

  “There’s the man,” Haughey said.

  Ryan nodded. “Good evening, Minister.”

  The politician crossed the room to him, studied Ryan from head to foot, the hawk eyes picking over his clothing.

  Haughey cleared his throat and winked, said, “Nice tie.”

  THEY WERE SEATED around the dining table when Skorzeny appeared. All stood, Ryan and Celia following their lead. The Austrian circled the room, shaking hands, accepting chaste kisses on his scarred cheek. Haughey gripped Skorzeny’s hand the hardest, shook it with the most vigour, slapped the big man’s shoulder.

  Ryan said nothing as Skorzeny took his hand, did not wince as the Austrian squeezed it tight. Skorzeny leaned in to Celia, offered his cheek to her. She closed her eyes, obliged him, left a faint red circle on the scar. Ryan saw something move across her face, fear or disgust, he could not be sure.

  Skorzeny went to the head of the table. He rested his hands on the chair back.

  “Welcome, my friends,” he said. “My home is yours. I offer you my hospitality as your noble nation has offered me its hospitality. Please sit. Eat. Enjoy.”

  The guests took their seats, laughter and good cheer between them all.

  Ryan turned his attention to Celia, saw a tear escape her eye. She caught it, wiped it on her cheek, and then he wasn’t sure if he’d seen it at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CÉLESTIN LAINÉ SAT on the edge of the bed, a tray on his lap, eating pheasant and roast vegetables with a red wine reduction. Esteban had also delivered a bottle of red wine, a 1960 Pontet-Canet, along with a note from Skorzeny requesting that Lainé remain in his room for the duration of the evening.

  The puppy circled his feet, sometimes resting its front paws on his shins as it sniffed at the tray. Lainé tore off occasional scraps of meat, dipped them in the reduction, held them out for the puppy. Already it had learned to sit in anticipation of a treat.

  Lainé tried not to think of Catherine Beauchamp, or what fear drove her to suicide. He tried not to think of the last time he’d seen her, when they’d met in a small hotel in Skerries, overlooking the harbour.

  Weariness had drawn on her features, sharpening them, deepening the hollows. They had drunk the piss they served for coffee in Ireland and talked about home and how they could never return.

  Fishing boats lay stranded on the sand flats beyond the harbour wall. Wind threw spray and rain against the windowpanes, and cold draughts snaked beneath the tables and chairs, chilling Lainé’s ankles despite the peat fire that glowed red and orange in the corner.

  Their passion had died years ago, back when she softened in her heart, turned her back on the actions they had undertaken together. She might hate him now. He thought it likely, but still they met to speak to each other in the language of their land, to listen to the melody and rhythm of it. It was the only time either of them heard Breton spoken beyond the walls of their own minds.

  “Do you sleep at night?” Catherine asked.

  Lainé shrugged. “Depends where I am. Give me a comfortable bed, and I’ll sleep sound as a baby.”

  “I don’t.” She took two cigarettes from the packet of Gitanes on the table, offered him one. He accepted. “If I can keep my eyes closed for a couple of hours, I consider myself lucky.”

  “You did nothing wrong. There’s no reason for you to lose sleep over someone else’s sins.”

  She smiled. “You see, that’s where we differ. You think what they did, the Nazis, had nothing to do with you. But it did. Once you took arms at their side, you became one of them. So did I.”

  “No. We had a common enemy. The French oppressor. It didn’t make me a Jew killer.”

  “You would have killed anyone they asked you to. Jews, Frenchmen, women, children.”

  Now Lainé smiled. “If you despise me so much, why don’t you leave?”

  “Who else could I speak my own language with?”

  Lainé believed he loved her then, and he still believed it now. He watched drops of water splash on the tray and plate for long seconds before he realised they were his own tears. He sniffed and wiped them away.

  His appetite gone, he set the tray aside and took a swallow of wine from the bottle. He lifted the puppy, set it in his lap, turned it on its back, scratched its pink belly.

  From downstairs he heard the laughter of the guests. Bourgeoisie, Catherine would have called them. And she’d have been right. Politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, men of wealth and influence. All while Lainé was banished to this small room like a deformed child the parents kept secret from their neighbours.

  And Ryan was among them. Ryan, who had watched Catherine Beauchamp die the day before, now ate pheasant and drank good wine with Skorzeny and the rest.

  Lainé decided that before the evening was done, he would have a private discussion with Lieutenant Albert Ryan.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  A DESSERT OF Rote Grütze with custard finished the meal, a gelatinous stew of berries, tangy and bitter on the tongue. Skorzeny held the guests enraptured with stories of daring and danger. He told them of Operation Greif, how he commanded Panzerbrigade 150 as its men donned American uniforms, moved behind enemy lines, and spread misinformation, including a fabricated plan to kidnap Eisenhower and his staff. The punch line of the General’s unhappiness at being forced to remain indoors for the duration of Christmas 1944 caused a ripple of approving laughter to roll through the room.

  Neither Lieutenant Ryan nor his companion joined in the laughter. The young woman raised a polite smile, but no more, and Ryan could not allow even that much.

  Skorzeny fixed Ryan with a stare. “Come, Lieutenant, don’t you enjoy stories of my exploits? Perhaps you have your own tales to tell.”

  Haughey chimed in. “Come on, big fella. What did you get up to?”

  Ryan looked from the minister to Skorzeny. “I don’t like to talk about my time in service.”

  Haughey smiled his lizard smile. “In service to the Brits.”

  The men chuckled. Ryan said nothing. The young woman Celia blushed, redness creeping down to the fair skin of her chest, glowing above the line of her dress.

  “Minister,” Skorzeny said, “We don’t always fight for the nation of our birth. That isn’t always where one’s heart lies. After all, I am an Austrian, as was the Führer. Yet I took part in the Anschluss. I gave my country to the Germans, because at heart, I am German.”

  “Is that you, Ryan?” Haughey asked. “Are you a Brit at heart?”

  Ryan dropped his spoon into his bowl with a loud clank that made Celia flinch. “No, Minister. I’m no less an Irishman than you.”

  “What about you, Minister?”

  Haughey turned to face Skorzeny’s question, his smile faltering.

  “If we had invaded Ireland, would you have resisted? Or would you have welcomed us like the IRA promised to? Would Britain’s enemy have been your friend?”

  Haughey waved a finger. “I would’ve fought on one side, and one side only: Ireland’s side.”

  “And yet the story persists about you leading a march on Trinity College on VE day, carrying swastikas and burning the Union Jack on the college gates.”

  Haughey’s face reddened. “Now look here, that lie
has gone on long enough. I never saw a swastika that day. Some yahoos might have been flying them, but my hand never touched one, I’ll tell you that for nothing. Those Prod bastards in Trinity were flying a Union Jack on the roof. The nerve of them, bloody drunken Orangemen. Then they had the gall to set light to a Tricolour. So I burned a Union Jack on the gates, I did that all right, just to show them you can’t disrespect our flag, not while Charlie Haughey’s around.”

  “Prod bastards?” Skorzeny asked. “You mean Protestants?”

  Haughey nodded, his cheeks florid with anger. “That’s right, Protestants. Orange bastards, the lot of them.”

  “Like Lieutenant Ryan here?”

  Haughey paled, glanced at Ryan, then cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose I can’t tar everyone with the same brush. Wouldn’t be fair. No offence, Ryan.”

  “None taken, Minister,” Ryan said, his eyes hard.

  As Esteban and Frau Tiernan began clearing plates from the table, Skorzeny watched Haughey lift a glass, drink from it, his anger choked by the wine. He considered taunting the politician some more, but thought better of it.

  THE GUESTS MADE their way to the drawing room for coffee and brandy. In the hall, Ryan approached Skorzeny.

  “I hoped I might have a word with Célestin Lainé tonight.”

  “Not at the moment,” Skorzeny said.

  “He’s still here, isn’t he? I haven’t had a chance to speak with him alone yet.”

  “Yes, he’s here, but you may not speak with him. I’ve asked him to stay in his room while my guests are here. Perhaps later.”

  Skorzeny guided Ryan towards the drawing room, where cigar smoke and coffee aroma mingled in the air. The guests played the roles that were expected of them, the men telling lewd jokes, the women gossiping and comparing dresses.

  Skorzeny didn’t know how long had passed before he realised Ryan and his companion were missing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CELIA HAD LEFT first, not a word as she edged towards the open patio doors and slipped out. Ryan followed and found her standing in the shadows beneath the eaves of the house, shivering.