by Joe Joyce
‘Some mistake,’ Gifford muttered. ‘Kill twenty-eight or thirty people for nothing.’
Workmen were clearing piles of rubble from what had once been houses, on both sides of the road where a bomb had caused the most casualties. They were shovelling bricks and mortar into barrows and taking them to waiting carts. Men in hats stood in small groups watching them, and a group of boys played King of the Castle, pushing and pulling each other off another heap of rubble.
They followed a loaded cart slowly up to the brow of the bridge over the Royal Canal and overtook it on the other side.
‘Sinead’s pregnant,’ Gifford said, without warning.
‘Jesus,’ Duggan breathed, without thinking.
‘Unfortunately not,’ Gifford said, with a flash of his usual self.
‘Since when?’ Duggan glanced at him as he overtook two cyclists.
‘Not sure. Could be six weeks or more.’
‘When did she tell you?’
‘Last night.’
‘Jesus,’ Duggan repeated. Gifford had obviously had a tough twenty-four hours.
‘Never rains but it pours.’ Gifford gave him a light punch in the shoulder. ‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’
‘Yeah. Of course. You’re happy about it?’
‘Well, the timing isn’t ideal. Don’t know whether he’ll grow up speaking German or English. Or even Irish.’
‘What about Sinead?’
‘She’s worried about her parents. They’ll be upset. But the good thing is she doesn’t live down there with them in culchie land.’
‘You’re going to get married?’
‘Uh-huh. And guess who the best man’s going to be?’
‘Really?’ Duggan laughed, slowing down on the Clontarf seafront to turn into one of the avenues running inland.
‘Who else? We need someone with a shotgun.’
‘I can borrow a Lee Enfield.’
‘Doesn’t have the same ring to it.’
‘Give Sinead my congratulations. It’s great news.’
‘It is,’ Gifford agreed. ‘This way we get the deed done without any preliminaries.’
‘Looks like the deed was done long ago.’
‘The formalities then, if you must be pedantic.’
‘How soon?’
‘As soon as possible. Seems it’ll take a few weeks.’
Duggan slowed again to turn right, into a twisting road of new houses, and tried to remember which one was Benny’s. It turned out to be easy to identify: his battered white van was parked in the driveway.
A worn woman opened the door to them, and Duggan asked if Benny was in. The woman shook her head.
‘Mrs Reilly, is it?’ he asked.
She gave a brief nod.
‘We’re friends of his. Do you know when he’ll be back?’
She shook her head again, seemingly determined not to say a word.
‘OK,’ Duggan said, admitting defeat. ‘Tell him we called. We’re very sorry about the fire at his place in town.’
She gave no sign as to whether this was news to her, or of any interest.
‘Thanks,’ Duggan said.
Back in the car, Gifford said, ‘I don’t think we’ll see Benny around these parts for a long time to come.’
‘You think he’s gone? Without the van?’
‘If I was him, I’d be gone. Wouldn’t you?’
‘He has another place out in the country beyond Raheny.’
‘Forget it,’ Gifford advised. ‘He’s probably over the border by now. Waiting his chance to go to England. Having wiped out his own operation, along with the opposition’s.’
‘A Pyrrhic victory,’ Duggan agreed.
He drove to the end of the road and circled back down to the seafront and headed towards the city centre.
‘He’ll be the most extraordinary baby,’ Gifford said, as if their conversation about Sinead’s pregnancy had not been interrupted. ‘For one thing, he’ll be born three months old. At least as far as his culchie grandparents are concerned.’
‘He?’ Duggan queried. ‘Maybe he’s a she.’
‘He’s not.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure. When was I last wrong?’
‘Yesterday,’ Duggan reminded him.
‘Oh fuck off,’ Gifford retorted with mock anger. ‘A technicality.’
‘That what you told the sarge?’
‘You know him. He doesn’t do technicalities. Or subtleties.’
The office was empty and there was a letter from Gerda on his desk when he got back. He lit a cigarette and propped his feet up on the desk to read it. It was mainly a travelogue, describing her few days off on Long Island, and the temperature rising in New York and how she was looking forward to her first summer there. He read it twice, finished the cigarette, and straightened up at the desk to type a letter back to her.
He told her about Gifford getting married, but not about Sinead’s pregnancy: she had never met either of them but knew of his friendship with them. He was about to tell her that Bill Sullivan was getting married as well, but decided not to. She didn’t know Sullivan either, and he didn’t want her to think he had marriage on his mind, even if everyone around him suddenly seemed to be doing it.
He finished the letter with some more inconsequential comments, conscious as always that it was likely to be read by censors on both sides of the Atlantic, and careful to make no reference to his work. He put it in an envelope and addressed it and picked up the day’s Irish Times and propped it against the typewriter. The main headline said that Murmansk had fallen to the Germans and the report said they were now moving on Leningrad.
Duggan switched to a report about confusion in Washington following a speech by the Secretary of the Navy urging military action against Germany over attacks on American shipping, and President Roosevelt’s comments that he still hoped America could stay out of the war. People were mystified about what was in the president’s mind, a correspondent wrote. Was he preparing the people for war or was the secretary being insubordinate?
The answer to that was clear, Duggan thought. Roosevelt was preparing public opinion for entering the war.
He opened the paper and began reading an editorial predicting that many people would go cold during the coming winter because of the absence of English coal, even though the government had 30,000 men on the bogs cutting turf. And the coal shortage would mean cuts in electricity and gas as well.
‘You busy tonight?’ Sullivan asked as he returned from visiting Hermann Goertz in Arbour Hill Prison, around the corner.
Duggan shook his head. He had nothing to do at the moment other than wait.
‘The girls have changed their minds. They want to go out tonight instead of Friday.’
‘Suits me fine.’
Sullivan glanced at the letters beside Duggan’s typewriter. ‘I hope you’re not two-timing Maura,’ he said as he went to his place at the end of the table.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. Carmel and she are very close. I don’t want to get caught in some love triangle of yours.’
‘A love triangle with letters,’ Duggan laughed, wondering not for the first time whether Sullivan’s fiancée was as intimately involved with all her friends’ and relations’ lives as he claimed.
‘I hope you’re not messing her about.’
‘How am I messing her about?’ Duggan asked, picking up his letter to Gerda. ‘She knows about this. I told her.’
‘I know, I know. But you know what women are like.’
‘What are they like?’
‘They get notions.’
‘She thinks it’s serious?’ Duggan sounded incredulous. ‘It’s not like that.’
‘I know,’ Sullivan said, dropping his voice and glancing over Duggan’s shoulder to make sure there was no one at the door. ‘I know that it’s Max you really want to see. You’re just using her as an excuse.’
Duggan gave no si
gn that he was right or wrong.
‘That’s what I mean about messing her about,’ Sullivan continued. ‘She’s reading something else into it.’
‘She said that?’
‘No. But that’s what’s going on in their heads. I know.’
Duggan sighed, knowing that Sullivan was probably right, but not knowing what was going on in his own head. He liked Maura and in other circumstances would certainly have been happy to go out with her. But it felt like he was being disloyal to Gerda. Even though he had no idea if that relationship was going anywhere. Or could go anywhere. Already their letters were becoming more distant, more formulaic. Like boats drifting farther apart on unseen currents.
‘What do you think of him?’ Duggan asked, steering the conversation back towards easier territory. ‘Max?’
‘He’s all right,’ Sullivan shrugged. ‘Seems a straight guy. Good company.’
‘He ever ask you anything about things in the office here?’
Sullivan shook his head.
‘About me being in Lisbon?’
‘No. That just came up in general conversation. Is he up to something?’
‘It’s his job to be up to something. But nothing out of the ordinary for a diplomat. As far as I know. Does he talk about the war? Politics?’
‘No,’ Sullivan said. ‘It’s purely social.’
‘What do you know about his background?’
‘He’s from one of those states in the middle of America. Minnesota, I think. Second-generation American. His grandparents went there from Sweden.’
‘Both sets?’
‘No,’ Sullivan said, pausing as he search his memory. ‘His mother’s background is much more varied. Even some Irish blood there. Some Scandinavian too, I think. And maybe some German and even Indian.’
‘He told you that?’
‘It just came up one time in general conversation. Said he was a right mongrel.’
‘Where was he before he came here?’
‘In Washington. This is his first posting abroad.’
Duggan rolled a sheet of paper into his typewriter and started writing a brief note of what Sullivan had told him, stopping at the possibility of a German background. Can he be working both sides? he wondered. Someone had told the Germans about the Norden, and Linqvist had certainly known about the bombsight.
Sullivan watched Duggan for a few moments. ‘You’re investigating him?’
Duggan shook his head and turned to make sure there was no one behind him. ‘He seems to want to talk to me. And we’re just making it easy for us to meet. Don’t mention it to anyone,’ Duggan said, pointing at the ceiling. McClure occasionally lectured everybody about avoiding gossip in the office.
Sullivan nodded his understanding.
‘How’s Hermann?’ Duggan asked him.
Sullivan muttered a curse. ‘I’m only sorry you didn’t get stuck with him.’ Sullivan had been on hand at the German spy’s arrest, although Duggan had done most of the work on the case. ‘He’s worse than a cracked record: the same thing over and over again.’
‘And his meeting with Thomsen from the legation?’
‘Interesting,’ Sullivan said. ‘They didn’t seem to be too friendly. It was short and all very formal. “How are you?” “How are you being treated?” That sort of stuff. Our man with the ears got the impression there was no love lost between them.’
‘That’s good.’ But not too surprising, Duggan thought. They already knew that relations between Goertz and the German legation were bad, he complaining about their lack of assistance and recognition of his role, and they not wanting to become embroiled in his spying activities, especially his relations with the IRA. ‘Nothing that should concern us then?’
‘Not a whisper.’
The Phil Murtagh band finished up the quickstep set with a flourish and they all drifted back to their table. ‘Thirsty work,’ Linqvist said. ‘Time for another round.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Duggan offered.
They walked over to the mineral bar and joined the queue.
‘We’ve got what you’ve been looking for,’ Duggan said in a quiet voice as they waited.
‘That was quick.’ Linqvist glanced at him. ‘Unless you’ve had it all along.’
‘It’s just been handed in. I’ll drop it around to you tomorrow.’
‘You want to claim the reward?’ Linqvist smiled.
‘No. But the Department of Defence might bill you for salvage, custody and delivery charges. Which will come to much more than the reward. How many millions did you say it was worth?’
‘I didn’t say what it was worth. I said what it cost.’
‘Isn’t it worth what it cost?’
‘Is anything?’ Linqvist laughed. ‘It’ll be a great help to your credit rating in certain quarters.’
‘Seems our credit rating with the State Department needs all the help it can get.’
‘Don’t know if it’ll help you there, but it’ll help elsewhere.’
Duggan was about to ask where ‘elsewhere’ was, but they were at the counter. Linqvist ordered a collection of lemonades, oranges and Cidonas. They took three each back to the table.
‘You offered to show me the sights,’ Maura said to Duggan as they danced later. ‘I’d love to drive up into the Wicklow Mountains.’
‘There’s not much driving going on now. No petrol.’
‘Carmel says you have a car all the time.’
‘Only for work.’ So, Duggan thought, Sullivan’s been bitching about me again. McClure’s white-haired boy. Able to take a car whenever I want it. No questions asked.
‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed.
‘We could go to Bray or Greystones on the train.’
‘I’ve been there.’
They danced in silence. Peggy Dell was singing ‘In Other Words, We’re Through’. The lyrics about adding two and two made Duggan wonder if the drive to Wicklow had been some kind of test. I’ve obviously failed it if it was, he thought. Does that bother me? He didn’t know.
‘A friend of mine has just got engaged and I was thinking of taking them out to dinner to celebrate,’ he said on the spur of the moment. ‘Would you like to come along too?’
‘When?’
‘Nothing’s arranged yet.’
‘Yes,’ she said, moving closer to him. ‘I’d love to.’
Fourteen
McClure’s office was empty when Duggan went to collect the Norden bombsight, and he debated for a moment whether he should take it without telling him. He was searching for a blank sheet of paper to leave a message when the commandant came in carrying a notepad. Duggan told him he was about to hand the Norden back to the Americans.
‘OK,’ McClure said. ‘The Germans are transferring five hundred pounds into your bank account.’
‘What?’ Duggan said in surprise. ‘How do you know?’
‘The British.’ McClure sat down and tossed his pad on to the desk. ‘Money’s not here yet. But the transfer has been ordered through their bank in Zurich.’
‘How do they know that?’
‘Must have a man in the bank.’
And why are they telling us? Duggan wondered. To impress us with their reach. And to show that they’re willing to share information about this conduit to the Germans. That we’re not just messengers. But involved in the deception. ‘That’s not good,’ he said.
McClure gave him a quizzical eyebrow.
‘They’re muscling in on our operation. Turning it into a joint one.’
‘It’s already that,’ McClure corrected him. ‘In effect. But we can still close it down at any time. Have Sean McCarthy interned. Break the connection.’
‘Five hundred pounds? That’s more than two thousand dollars.’
‘Exactly. They’ve obviously got something in mind other than trying to outbid the Americans for the Norden. And we’d like to know what.’
‘But we’re still giving this back to the Americans?’ Duggan asked, p
ointing at the Norden’s box, which he had left on the edge of the desk.
‘Yes. And draft a message for the Germans telling them the Americans have got the bombsight back. That their reward paid off. And asking how the IRA can help them at the moment. Any specific intelligence or operational requirements. Let’s see what they’re up to, now that this diversion is out of the way.’
Duggan returned to his office with the Norden and phoned the American legation. Linqvist wasn’t there but he was told he’d be back in half an hour. He occupied the time writing a message for the Germans and then checked that Linqvist was there and told him he was on his way.
He drove into the Phoenix Park behind an army lorry loaded with turf, and followed it up the main road until it stopped where a huge clamp of turf was beginning to rise more than three feet from its foundation. The Dublin wits had already christened the broad road through the park ‘the new bog road’. He continued on up to the Phoenix Monument and turned left into the gateway of the American legation.
He waited while a guard made a call and then told Duggan to follow the driveway up to the main house. Linqvist came out a side door as he parked and walked over to the car, his feet crunching on the gravel. Duggan wound down his window and said, ‘There it is,’ pointing at the box on the passenger seat.
Linqvist gave the box a cursory glance. ‘You have time for a stroll?’
Duggan got out of the car and they walked along the front of the building and around its side, to the ornate gardens behind. The sun was shining but the shadows of passing clouds drifted over the green grass of the lawns and the parkland beyond and the distant Dublin Mountains were a haze of purple. Birds twittered in the hedges, the only sound breaking the silence apart from their footsteps on the path. They could have been in the countryside, miles from any urban area.
‘A delicate situation has arisen,’ Linqvist said at last.
They kept walking. Duggan said nothing, waiting for him to explain.
