Ratlines

by Stuart Neville

  The wine turned sour like vinegar in Lainé’s mouth, but he finished it anyway, dropped the empty bottle on the carpet. The puppy woke, stirred by the noise, and came up to nestle in the V between Lainé’s body and arm.

  He thought of Catherine Beauchamp. Had anyone gone to a telephone box, placed a call to the police, told them she waited on the floor of her cottage? Had anyone come to investigate the distressed whinnying of her horse, alone, hungry and afraid in its stable?

  Ryan had lied about what she’d said, putting the blame on Foss, and Lainé knew why: to take his trust, to thieve it by deception, to let him think Ryan was on his side. Lainé was smarter than that, and he believed Ryan knew it, but he would play the Irishman’s game. He had no other choice.

  No, that was untrue. Had never been true. Back when he had taken up arms alongside the occupying Nazis, he had a choice, just as he did now, and he chose to follow Ryan’s path.

  If he had dared to wonder why, his conscience would have told him it was because he had grown to hate Skorzeny. His greed for money and power and influence. His vanity, his desire to be admired and feared. At one time, Lainé had seen the Nazis’ ideals as being in line with his own: the assertion of nationhood. But ideals wither in the glare of money and power, until greed is all that survives.

  And why shouldn’t he, Célestin Lainé, share in that greed?

  So when those men came to him, pressed that thick, greasy paper into his hand in return for his tongue, he offered it gladly. They had promised more, a fortune he’d never thought he could possess, and he had believed them.

  But when he had told them all he knew, the money ceased to fill his palm, and he knew they had used him, just like the Nazis had. Made him a traitor to himself with no reward but the guilt that lay rotting in his breast.

  Yes, they had made Célestin Lainé a traitor, and a traitor he would be.

  He lay silent and still as the hours to daylight passed, only leaving his room to bring the puppy outside for its toilet. Later still, as the morning lengthened, he heard the noise of the big Mercedes engine coughing into life and roaring as Skorzeny sped away.

  Lainé went downstairs, quiet and secret, and took his bicycle from under the tarpaulin at the back of the house. He rode the few miles to the tiny village of Cut Bush. There a telephone box stood outside a small public house. Breathless, he propped the bicycle against the wall and went inside for a whiskey while he recovered from the effort. When his chest and his heart stopped their heaving and battering, he finished the drink and went to the bar to ask for change.

  A light drizzle made dark spots on the road outside. Lainé stepped inside the telephone box. He asked the operator for Buswells Hotel, Dublin, inserted coins, pushed the button when instructed, and waited. The hotel’s receptionist asked him to hold, and he listened to clicks and a hiss.

  “Yes?”

  “Ryan. It is me. Célestin.”

  A pause, then, “Tell me about Captain John Carter.”

  Lainé talked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  WITHIN THIRTY MINUTES of Ryan leaving a copy of the Irish Times on the dashboard of the Vauxhall, the telephone in his hotel room jangled.

  “The University Church, southern end of St. Stephen’s Green,” Weiss said. “I’ll wait inside.”

  Ten minutes later, Ryan approached the church’s ornate facade, red brick and short stone columns, a belfry above, seemingly suspended in mid air. It stood sandwiched between taller buildings, creating the illusion of a chapel in miniature, but stepping through its double doors revealed the truth. A small porch opened into the atrium beyond. A tall vaulted ceiling, high white walls decorated by granite plaques dedicated to scholars and philanthropists. The chill on the air crept beneath Ryan’s clothing. A short flight of stone steps lead down to the floor where Goren Weiss waited, smartly dressed as before.

  “What’s the news, Albert?” His voice echoed between the walls.

  Ryan looked to the gap between the double doors leading to the church itself, the glowing light from within. He saw no one inside.

  “Six men died last night,” he said.

  Weiss emptied his lungs, a despairing exhalation. “Go on.”

  Ryan told him about the body in the outbuilding, about the killing of Foss, about the dead guards in the trees. He did not mention Lainé’s tattling or Skorzeny’s shoving and baiting.

  “Fuck,” Weiss said. “Audacious, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Or stupid.”

  “Maybe. What confuses me, and I imagine Colonel Skorzeny more so, is why they didn’t come for him while they were at it. They’ve proved they can get to him if they want to. They’ve got the noose around his neck, so why not kick the chair from under him?”

  The doors leading to the porch and the street beyond opened, and an elderly man entered the atrium. He went to one of the fonts that were mounted on each wall. He dipped his fingers in the holy water and made the sign of the cross before descending the steps. He nodded at Ryan and Weiss as he passed on his way to the church.

  When the doors closed behind the old man, Weiss asked, “How come you didn’t do that? The water and the cross thing.”

  “I’m not Catholic,” Ryan said.

  “I see. Then I guess neither of us belongs here, do we?”

  Ryan wondered for a moment if Weiss meant the church or something other. “This isn’t a good place to meet,” he said. “It’s too close to Merrion Street.”

  “The government buildings? What, you think Mr. Haughey’s going to swing by to say a prayer for Skorzeny? Does he strike you as a man who likes to get his knees dirty?”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  For the first time, if only for an instant, Weiss’s smile reached his eyes. “So, why didn’t Carter and his men kill Skorzeny last night?”

  “Because they want him scared,” Ryan said.

  “And is he?”

  “Not on the surface, but underneath, yes, I think he is.”

  “Scared enough to go running to Franco?”

  “No, he won’t run. He’s got too much pride.”

  “Good. But that doesn’t answer the question. They’ve got him nervous, but that’s not their goal. What is it they really want? Figure that out and we might be closer to tracking the sons of bitches down.”

  “I have a lead,” Ryan said. “A solid one.”

  Weiss tilted his head, looked hard at him. “What?”

  “You’ll know if it works out.”

  “I’ll know it now.” Weiss leaned in, his face darkening. “Don’t hold anything back from me, Albert. That would make me very unhappy.”

  “I want to follow it up, but I can’t have you breathing down my neck. Call off any tails you’ve got on me. When I need to talk, my car will be at the hotel along with the newspaper on the dashboard. I’ll be in touch if I’ve got something.”

  Weiss chewed his lip. “Damn it, Albert, you’re putting me in a difficult position.”

  “If you want my cooperation, then you’ll leave me alone. That’s your only choice.”

  Weiss curled his hands into fists, turned in a circle, his gaze far away. Eventually, he said, “All right.” He extended a finger towards Ryan. “But listen to me, Albert. If you cross me …”

  He let the threat hang in the cool air between them.

  Ryan walked away, saying, “I’ll be in touch.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  RYAN TOURED THE streets around Fitzroy Avenue, travelled north and south along Jones’s Road, skirted Croke Park stadium, passed under the railway line and back again. Few cars lined the pavements in front of the small red-brick terraced houses.

  Lainé’s description had been far from precise, but close enough. The first time the Breton had talked to them, he had taken a train to Amiens Street Station where Carter and another man had met him. They had bundled him into the back of a van with no windows and driven for only a few minutes. When the van halted, they slipped a pillowcase over his head and led
him out. They put him against a wall as they locked their vehicle, and a train passed overhead, shaking the ground beneath his feet. He heard the clack and rumble of the wheels, felt the force of it through the brickwork at his shoulder.

  One man grabbed his elbow and led him through a gate and into a house. Once inside, they removed the pillowcase from his head and questioned him for two hours before putting it back on and leading him out to the van.

  On the third visit, Lainé had seen the rickety stands of the stadium through a small gap between the van doors and heard the roar of the throng as a match played out. When the questioning was done, they made him wait for almost an hour. Let the crowds disperse, the other man had said.

  Afterwards, Lainé had checked a street map, piecing together what he knew, and had established that the house they took him to stood on the most easterly block of Fitzroy Avenue, backing on to the railway line. He couldn’t be sure which house, but he judged it to be closer to the stadium end.

  Ryan parked north of the railway line beneath the trees on Holy Cross Avenue. Spring growth had scattered thick bright greens throughout the boughs even as the winter’s dead leaves still gathered in the gutters.

  He walked south, through the crossing with Clonliffe Road, and on towards the railway bridge. He lingered in the shadow beneath the line, watching Fitzroy Avenue. No pedestrians, the only sound the chirping of birds and barking of dogs.

  An entry on the other side of the bridge opened onto the alleyway that ran along the back of the block Lainé believed he’d been taken to. Ryan passed it, glanced in as he did so, saw a Bedford van, and kept walking towards the corner shop at the junction of Fitzroy Avenue.

  He turned left and kept a casual pace, glancing at the parlour windows, all of them shaded by net curtains, the glints of mirrors and glows of hearths from within.

  Except for one.

  Ryan barely slowed his step when he saw the blanket that had been hung on the other side of the net curtain. He walked to the end of the street, counted houses as he went, turned left again, and found the opposite end of the alleyway he had passed a few minutes before.

  He paused there and found the back of the house, just visible from the street. Newspapers covered the insides of the windows. A small walled and gated yard separated by the alley from the bricked-up arches of the railway. A secret place, Ryan thought, a place of hiding.

  He moved closer to the wall, out of sight of the windows, and thought. The rumble and hiss of a train approached along the elevated line above, the deep churning of its diesel engine swelling. The smell of oil lingered as it passed. Ryan edged along the yard walls and gates, deeper into the alley, closer to the van. As he reached it, he looked up towards the railway track. At the other end of the block, beyond the arch of the bridge, was a green verge at the edge of the line, higher than the roofs of the houses, overgrown with bushes and weeds.

  Ryan turned his attention back to the van. Burgundy in colour, rusted and battered, probably bought from someone’s yard, not through an auto dealer. He worked his way along its length, keeping out of view of the house it stood behind. Trampled cigarette butts littered the ground around the passenger door. The cabin contained only a folded newspaper and a thermos flask. Through the glass, Ryan could see the newspaper was weeks out of date. A ruse, camouflage to make the van appear as if it belonged to workmen.

  He made his way to the far end of the alley and slipped into the shadow under the bridge. The grey stone wall extended out perhaps six feet further than the line itself. Ivy clung to the stones, reared up in bushes at the top of the wall, formed a platform sheltered by thick foliage.

  Ryan crossed under the bridge and came to the grassy embankment on the other side, bordered by the wall that followed its downward slope to the street beyond. He took a brief look in every direction then reached up, grabbed the wall’s upper edge, and hauled himself onto the grass.

  He scaled the embankment and reached the tracks. Another train approached, heading for Amiens Street Station. Ryan crossed the tracks onto the patch of green on the other side. He crouched down in the ivy and scrambled to the edge of the wall. Lying down, he had a clear view along the alleyway below, and the Bedford van. He couldn’t see the front of the house, but the junction of Fitzroy Avenue and Jones’s Road, and the stadium, were visible beyond. No one could pass either end of the block without him seeing. Besides, if they kept their van in the alleyway rather than in a street with ample parking, that meant they came and went by the back of the house. Out of view of their neighbours as they went about their work.

  A rush of displaced air swept over Ryan as the train roared and clattered past. When its rumble had receded, he crossed over the tracks, descended the embankment, and made his way back to the car.

  RYAN ASKED MRS. Highland if he could speak with Celia. He pictured her grinding her teeth at the other end of the line before agreeing to his request.

  “Hello?”

  “Celia, it’s me. Albert.”

  “Hello,” she said. He hoped he heard a smile in her voice.

  “I didn’t get to say goodbye to you this morning.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to wake you. You looked so tired when you came in. Shall we meet tonight? We could talk.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Oh,” she said, her voice falling.

  “I mean, I have to go away for a day or two. For work.”

  “I see. Will you call me when you come back? I hope so.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Good. And, Albert?”

  “Yes?”

  “Whatever you’re going away for, whatever work you’re doing, be careful.”

  “I will.”

  RYAN RETURNED AT dusk and parked once more on Holy Cross Avenue. He slung his leather backpack across his shoulders and made his way down to the embankment. He wore a khaki canvas jacket and trousers and a black woollen cap on his head. The backpack contained bread and cheese along with a bottle of water and a thermos of strong coffee, a small set of field glasses, a notepad and a pencil. He had also taken the Walther P38 from its hiding place in the bottom of the wardrobe in his hotel room. It sat snug in its holster against his ribs.

  A two minute walk took him to the wall and the embankment rising above it. One more glance around for curious pedestrians and twitching curtains, and he hauled himself up onto the grass. He ran at a low crouch up the slope, across the train tracks, and dropped into the ivy nest he’d found that afternoon.

  Ryan lay down on his belly. A feeling crept up and surprised him: the familiarity of lying hidden in the green. He remembered his time dug into hedgerows in the Irish countryside, watching the comings and goings of men who couldn’t accept their war was over. Or the foliage of the Korean mountainsides, scoping out positions, noting down numbers of men and weapons.

  Ryan had stayed in Korea long after the armistice of July 1953, escorting shipments of the enemy’s dead, bodies exchanged with the North Koreans as part of Operation Glory. He arrived back in Ireland in time to spend Christmas 1954 with his parents before reporting to St. Patrick’s Barracks in Ballymena on the first day of 1955. He spent four years there training recruits from all over the British Isles, many of them destined for posts in Germany where the army’s role had turned from occupation to defence.

  When Ryan received his discharge book in 1959, he spent a month in Belfast, sitting in a cramped bedsit near the city centre, scouring the jobs sections of the local newspapers. It took those thirty days to realise he held no qualifications of any use to the outside world, had no experience, had nothing to offer any employer.

  He was ready to go back to the barracks in Ballymena, admit he couldn’t hack civilian life, when he received a letter from an old friend in the Royal Ulster Rifles. Major Colm Hughes, like Ryan, had travelled north across the border from County Monaghan to join the British Army. They had promised to stay in touch when Ryan left the service, but he had doubted they ever would. The lette
r suggested they meet in the Rotterdam Bar in Sailortown, close to Belfast’s docks.

  Hughes sat at the bar, nursing a pint of Bass when Ryan entered. They shook hands, the warmth between them muted by the unfamiliarity of their civilian dress. Ryan realised he had never seen Hughes in anything but a uniform.

  They took a table in a dark corner, exchanged a few stories about old comrades, some still alive, some not.

  “So what have you been up to?” Hughes asked.

  “Nothing,” Ryan said. “That’s the problem. Outside of the army, I’m no use to anyone.”

  “Are you thinking of re-enlisting?”

  “I don’t know. What else is there for me?”

  “How about settling down?” Hughes asked. “Get married. Have some kids. Get fat and grow vegetables in your garden.”

  Ryan couldn’t help but smile at the image. “Can you see me up to my ankles in fertiliser?”

  Hughes laughed. “I’ve seen you in worse.”

  They sat quiet for a time, listening to the coarse jokes of the dock and shipyard workers who drifted in as their shifts ended. Hard, wiry men, tattoos of girls’ names on their forearms, swollen knuckles and mighty thirsts.

  “There is one way I could point you,” Hughes said.

  Ryan leaned forward. “What’s that?”

  “I was contacted a while back, when I was home visiting my mother in Monaghan. A fella in a suit came up to me in the pub near our old house, started talking all casual, acting like he knew me. He starts asking what I thought I might do when I left the army. I never talk about the job much back home. You know what it’s like, some aren’t too keen on Irish lads fighting for the Brits. So I didn’t say much back to him.

  “Anyway, after talking around it for half an hour, he says he works for the government. Says they’re looking for Irish boys who’ve come out of the British Army, boys who’ve seen action. The lads in the Irish Army do plenty of square bashing and exercises, but most of them’s never slept in a trench or shot at anything but a paper target. He says they need boys like us for his department.”