by Joe Joyce
relatively empty. It occurred to him that now might not be the best moment to call on anyone: siesta time. But he was running out of time.
The house was inland and uphill, in its own grounds and behind a high wall. Ferro was obviously very senior in the foreign ministry, or came from a rich family, or both. Duggan opened a metal side gate, crossed the tiled patio to the double hall door and rang the bell. It was opened by a middle-aged man in a butler’s uniform, who looked him up and down.
‘I’m from Ireland,’ Duggan said in English, hoping he’d understand. ‘I’d like to see Senhora Ferro please.’
The man said one word, which Duggan assumed meant ‘wait’, and closed the door. He stood still, looking back at the profusion of flowers lining the inside of the perimeter wall, catching their scents on the slight breeze. It was silent here, no sound rising from the river below or from the neighbourhood, whether because most activity had paused for siesta or because of the secluded location.
He was beginning to wonder if the one Portuguese word had been a curt dismissal when the door reopened and the butler indicated that he could come in. He showed Duggan into a small, functional room just inside the door, furnished only with two leather couches facing each other across a marble-topped coffee table. Left alone again, Duggan looked out the window at a short stretch of well-tended lawn at the side of the house.
Maud Browne was in her fifties, tall and thin, with a sharp-featured face and tightly curled hair beginning to go grey. She was wearing a salmon-coloured blouse, a single-strand necklace of grey pearls and a white linen skirt. She stepped into the room and gave him an enquiring look.
He went into his routine, telling her he was doing a report on Aiken’s visit to Lisbon for the government.
‘You wish to talk to my husband?’ she asked, confused.
‘No,’ he said, adapting his approach to what he sensed was going to be a more difficult interview. ‘I’m talking to people who met Mr Aiken when he was here. Like at the lunch at the Dominican church. I’ve been speaking to Father Alphonsus and am compiling a report on how the visit went down.’
‘I don’t see what I can tell you.’ Her accent was posh Dublin, neither Irish nor English, and she held him in an unblinking stare. ‘Mr Kearney was here from the Madrid legation and the minister had a man with him from the High Commission in London. I’m sure they’ve reported adequately on events.’
‘Yes, they have.’ Duggan held her stare. ‘But I’m more concerned with how the people he met found his explanation of Ireland’s neutrality. Whether he explained the policy well, the reasons for it, and the impression it created. The government is very concerned about having its policy understood properly.’
She folded her arms and thought about that for a moment. ‘If by properly you mean clearly, I would say Mr Aiken certainly did that. He made it absolutely clear that Ireland will not get involved under any circumstances, unless attacked by a belligerent. Not even if the partition question was resolved and the country was united.’
Duggan nodded. Aiken hadn’t pulled any punches, but nobody would have expected him to.
‘I thought his assertion that Ireland’s involvement could mean the complete destruction of the Irish race was somewhat overwrought,’ she added.
‘He said that?’ Duggan injected a note of surprise into his voice as a prompt.
‘Yes. It was unnecessarily melodramatic. I don’t see the Irish race being wiped out by this or any other war. Do you?’
‘It has been suggested by several senior government members,’ he said, dodging the question.
She shook her head dismissively. ‘It’s a silly statement. They should find some better reasons if they don’t want to stand with the other democracies.’
‘The vast majority of people support neutrality.’
‘Indeed,’ she conceded. ‘That is a better reason. But Mr Aiken made it clear that his government will not help Britain in any circumstance. In fact, to listen to him, you’d think that Britain was the aggressor, and deliberately trying to starve Ireland through its blockade. No mention of the German blockade and the fact that their submarines are sinking so much shipping. Which is bringing supplies to Ireland as well as England.’
Duggan nodded, as if he agreed. She clearly hadn’t been impressed with Aiken and his defence of neutrality, but did that mean she was the source of Roosevelt’s accusations? ‘Was he critical of Germany too?’
‘Not that you’d notice,’ she retorted. ‘He seemed to equate neutrality with a lack of interest the outcome. As though a Nazi victory would make no difference to Ireland, or perhaps even be to its benefit.’
‘He said that?’
‘In effect,’ she said. ‘Which is a very short-sighted way of looking at things. Portugal is neutral too, but there’s no doubt about whom Dr Salazar would like to see emerge victorious.’
‘I gather he and Mr Aiken had a good meeting.’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ she said, closing off this avenue of enquiry. ‘I don’t think I can tell you anything further.’
‘Thank you for talking to me.’
She led him to the hall door and said goodbye.
Four
Duggan found a free table at the back of the Metropole Hotel’s terrace on Praça do Rossio and sank into the wicker seat. He was ten minutes early for the meeting. The terrace was beginning to fill up in the cool of the afternoon. At the table next to him there was an elderly couple with their two adult daughters, all dressed in dark clothes, ignoring their surroundings, and lost in their own thoughts. Refugees, he decided, from a colder place.
He scanned the rest of the tables again. There was no sign of Strasser. Under a table at the front, a small boy was brushing the shoes of a businessman who was reading a newspaper and ignoring him. When he finished, the boy moved to the next table, where the man shooed him away with a wave of his hand. The boy ignored him and set about brushing the man’s shoes.
Strasser passed by on the sunlit pavement. He didn’t look at the terrace and Duggan watched him continue down the path until he disappeared. The waiter brought Duggan coffee, and a moment later his eye caught a tall, straight-backed man with a suitcase threading his way through the tables. He was wearing a generous-sized lightweight suit and a panama hat. He approached Duggan’s table, sat down on the free chair with a sigh of relief and placed the suitcase on the ground between them.
‘Bin ich zu spät?’ he asked, taking off his hat and fanning himself with it, as if he had just completed a long, hot journey, although he gave no sign of being overheated.
‘Sorry?’ Duggan said, pretending not to understand German. He glanced around as if confused by the man’s arrival. There was no sign of Strasser.
‘I’m late?’ the German repeated in English.
‘No.’ Duggan glanced at his watch. It was a minute past five o’clock. ‘I don’t think so. My watch is a little fast.’
‘You’re Sean?’
Duggan nodded.
‘How do you like Lisbon?’
‘It’s hot.’
‘Your first time?’ The man gave a light laugh and looked around for a waiter.
‘Yes,’ Duggan said.
A waiter came and the man ordered a bottle of Sagres Branca and placed his hat on the table. He had a round, tanned face, sandy hair that was beginning to recede a little, and startling blue eyes that seemed to view the world with a sense of amusement. Duggan put his age in the mid-forties or more.
‘We are very disappointed,’ the German said, turning his gaze on Duggan.
‘What?’
‘You people talk a lot and do nothing.’
Duggan didn’t have to feign surprise.
‘You promise lots of things. Intelligence. Sabotage.’ The man held him in his stare. ‘But we receive no meaningful intelligence and have heard of no sabotage.’
‘Did you not get our reports on Belfast?’ Duggan countered. ‘On the bombing of the shipyards?’
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p; ‘I have seen nothing.’
‘A report was prepared for you about the effects of the damage, and suggesting other targets.’ Duggan had seen the IRA’s report, found in a Special Branch raid on a house. It had included a map of the damaged areas and a request that the Luftwaffe keep its bombs away from the marked Catholic areas of Belfast. ‘You didn’t get it?’
The man avoided the question again. ‘What did it say?’
‘I don’t remember all the details. The first raid was most successful in hitting the docks. The Easter Tuesday raid was a disaster for your cause, killing too many people and missing some big targets, like the British aircraft carrier that was there for repairs.’
‘What aircraft carrier?’
‘Ark Royal,’ Duggan said, aware that he had told him something to snag his interest.
‘Why didn’t you tell us beforehand?’
‘You didn’t get the message?’
The waiter arrived with a bottle of Sagres and a slender glass. Duggan opened his cigarette case and offered the man one while they waited for the waiter to half-fill the glass with the blonde beer. The man shook his head. Duggan lit his cigarette, thinking that the IRA had no means of communication with the Germans. Which was what G2 suspected, and his mission was partly intended to confirm. That was why the man kept dodging the question. Unless he was trying to trap Duggan into revealing his ignorance.
‘We need a secure way of sending messages,’ Duggan said when the waiter had left.
The German sampled the beer, put the glass down, and turned his amused eyes on Duggan again. ‘I thought you couldn’t read the code.’
‘Herr Strasser told me what was in it,’ Duggan said, holding his stare. ‘But it doesn’t surprise me that Dr Goertz has come to that conclusion.’
‘What about the sabotage you promised?’
Duggan sighed. ‘That’s more difficult at the moment. You know that most of our best men have been interned?’
The German gave a slight nod.
‘More every day. About four hundred of them now. We’re under attack non-stop from the Free State Special Branch, so it’s very difficult to mount operations at the moment.’
‘You must move forward,’ the man said, with an impatient shake of his head. ‘Don’t allow your enemies to decide your actions.’
‘Easier said than done, when they’ve got all the power on their side.’
‘Why are you fighting them anyway? Why don’t you join forces with them? You both want to free Ireland from the British Empire, don’t you?’
‘Because they don’t really. They’ve sold out. Accepted partition.’
The man shrugged, losing interest in the nuances of Irish politics, and topped up his glass with the remainder of the beer. ‘How is Dr Goertz? You’ve seen him?’
Duggan shook his head. ‘That’s not possible. But we can get messages to him. And from him.’
‘He’s being treated well?’
‘I think so. There are people in the puppet government who know he’s not an enemy of Ireland.’
‘How long does it take to get a message to him?’
‘A few days. Sometimes a week. It depends.’
‘There’s a message there for him.’ He glanced down at the suitcase. ‘With the radio and all the information you need to make contact. Und die anderen Dinge, die Sie gefragt.’
‘What?’ Duggan gave him a puzzled look.
‘The other things you asked for.’ The German gave him a half-smile.
‘Thanks,’ Duggan said, wondering why he kept throwing in German phrases. A test or a trap? But there was no way he could know that Duggan spoke German.
‘It’s important we get a reply from Dr Goertz as soon as possible,’ he said, finishing his beer.
‘It will take longer to get a reply back from him,’ Duggan said. ‘Maybe up to two weeks from the time we get the message to him.’
‘How long will it take you to get back to Ireland?’
‘A week or more. From tomorrow.’
‘We will expect Dr Goertz’s reply in three weeks.’ The German stood up and put on his hat.
‘Who will I tell my superiors I met?’ Duggan asked.
‘A courier.’ The man smiled down at him. ‘Who made you pay for his beer.’
Jenkins had been right. The security men at the docks paid no attention to the brown suitcase in his hand as he showed his passport and told them the name of his ship.
Jenkins was on deck and tossed something to him as he stepped on board. ‘Remember what that is?’ he said as Duggan caught the orange with his free hand.
‘Haven’t a clue,’ Duggan said. ‘I’m too young to have ever seen one before.’
‘Too young to be drinking then,’ Jenkins laughed, eyeing the suitcase. ‘All set for another session tonight?’
‘Game ball,’ Duggan lied.
He went down to his cabin and placed the suitcase with care on his bunk. That seemed to have gone well: the Germans had given him a radio and, even better, a message for Hermann Goertz. Which would allow G2 to set up a conversation with the Abwehr, so they would know what interested the Germans in Ireland and be able to control what information went back to Berlin. Unless – he tossed the orange from one hand to the other as he looked at the suitcase – they’re just playing us along.
He lobbed the orange on to the pillow, took a deep breath and held it as he released one catch on the case. Nothing happened. He released the other catch and tipped the lid back with one finger.
There was a package wrapped in khaki canvas in the centre, padded around the sides of the case with packets of cigarettes and brown paper bags. He took out one of the bags and looked into it, knowing from the smell what it was before he saw the roasted coffee beans. He checked a few more bags at random and then took out the cigarettes. Packets of Player’s and Gold Flake in cardboard sleeves. He tipped the five packs out of one sleeve and opened one at random. It only contained cigarettes.
He lifted out the canvas package, turned it over on the bunk and unwrapped it. A pair of headphones was wrapped neatly around the receiver, and a transmitter key around the other part. On top was an envelope, a separate sheet of paper with two wavelengths – numbered ‘1’ and ‘2’– and a note saying ‘Tuesday and Thursday 1835 hours plus 1 hour 45 mins alternative’. The envelope wasn’t sealed and he took out two sheets of paper with blocks of typed letters in neat rows. It didn’t mean anything to him: as he had told the German, he couldn’t read Goertz’s code.
He packed everything back into the case, wondering if he should call back to Maisie O’Gorman with a pack of the cigarettes. He decided against it and closed the case.
He took the case with him back on deck. Jenkins was still there, watching two dock workers guide a cargo of small wooden boxes down into the forward hold. The dockers had a rope each and were straining against them as they steadied the boxes dangling from a crane.
‘The last of it,’ Jenkins said, nodding at the cargo as it disappeared into the hold. ‘Wine. Wonder who that’s for?’
‘Not for us anyway.’
Jenkins grunted his agreement and cast a sly eye at the suitcase. ‘You’ve been shopping,’
‘Hard to resist it here.’
‘If you brought a bit of money you could make a lot more of it.’
‘Is the captain around?’
‘On the bridge.’
Duggan climbed up to the bridge, where the captain was reading a book. He looked up, glanced at the suitcase and gave Duggan an enquiring look.
‘Can you put this somewhere safe?’ Duggan asked.
‘Is it what you think it is?’ The captain left his book upside down on the windscreen ledge.
‘I’ve checked it,’ Duggan nodded. ‘I’ll show you, if you like.’
‘No need. As long as you’re sure.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Leave it there,’ the captain said, indicating the back wall of the bridge. ‘I’ll look after it.’
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��Thanks.’ Duggan put the case where he was told. ‘They’re finishing loading the cargo.’
‘We’ll be sailing with the morning ebb tide.’ The captain gave him a slight smile. ‘About half five. Don’t forget to be back on board before then.’
The increased vibrations and engine noise woke Duggan, and he knew they were about to get under way. He curled up in the bunk and tried to go back to sleep but the throbbing prevented it. He turned on to his back and tried to figure out how much of the noise was in his head and how much in the metal cabin. He had tried to pace himself in Antonio’s the night before, spacing his drinks as much as possible and leaving while the party was still in full swing, but he’d still been pretty drunk staggering back to the ship. Most of the throbbing was from the cabin, he decided, but his mouth was dry and he felt very thirsty.
Jenkins wasn’t in his bunk and there was no sign he had ever been there. He must have stayed up all night, Duggan thought, must be still drunk, doing whatever he had to do on deck as they cast off. His watch showed it was nearly six o’clock. So he’d got nearly four hours’ sleep. He put his feet on the floor and felt the vibrations. The prospect of days of seasickness stretched out before him.
Not this time, he decided, getting dressed quickly and making his way to the galley. ‘You need the cure?’ the cook asked, looking up from a frying pan in which he was turning over some rashers.
‘No. Just thirsty.’
The cook poured tea into a large mug, added milk and three heaped spoons of sugar without asking, and handed it to him. ‘Want some breakfast?’
‘No, thanks.’ Duggan took the tea, made his way to the stern and sat on one of the mooring bollards. Lisbon was already beginning to dissolve into an undistinguishable mass of buildings, backlit now by the sun climbing up over the hills behind it. The ship’s wake was a broad, straight path on the calm sea but the early morning air was spoiled by the stink of diesel fumes.
