Gunner Kelly

by Anthony Price

  “Oh no! Debreczen is something else—” Mr Smith held up his hand, fingers widely spread, as though to ward both men off “—there’s nothing at all I know about that! It’s none of my business … what it was, or when it was. And I’m not having any part of it, either.” He looked around him, and Benedikt couldn’t help following his action. But now there was no one at all in sight: the great hall of tanks was inhabited only by fighting machines.

  “Fair enough.” Audley’s flash of irritability was gone. “No one could blame you for that. So … we’ll just forget Debreczen—it’s something else that never existed. Right? And Aloysius Kelly too!”

  Debreczen?

  The Debreczen meetings? Benedikt frowned as the meetings fixed Debreczen for him. But what would an Irish veteran of the Spanish Civil War be doing in a nowhere-town in eastern Hungary, which—so far as he could recall—lay somewhere just on the better side of the Carpathians, almost equidistant from the borders of Slovakia and Rumania and the Ukraine?

  The Irishman looked at Audley wordlessly, and Benedikt could see that Audley friendly frightened him more than Audley hostile. But then, perhaps that was what Audley intended.

  “It’s Michael Kelly—our very own Gunner Kelly—who interests us, Mr Smith, you see?” Audley smiled, first at the Irishman, and then transferred the smile to Benedikt for confirmation. “Correct, Captain?”

  Benedikt nodded. “That is correct.” If anything, he thought, a smiling Audley was more disturbing.

  “And we left him taking the King’s shilling … forty years ago? No—forty-five, it must be …” Audley carried the nod back to Mr Smith. “Which is a long time ago, when you think about it.”

  A long time, indeed! Benedikt tried, and failed, to conjure up pictures of the Ireland of their time—the two Irish youths, one a butcher’s boy, the other a young seminarian … one to become a British soldier, the other to travel a very different road, serving under a newer flag and exchanging the true God for a false one. But both of them had grown old since then, over those long years … and yet now one was mysteriously dead, and the other plotted murderous vengeance, when they both ought to have been drowsing in front of the television sets by their firesides among grandchildren.

  “So when did they meet again, Michael and Aloysius?” Audley prodded the Irishman gently. “Because they did meet again, didn’t they?”

  As a guess, it was nothing extraordinary, really: it was the only computation of the possibilities which made any sense of what was happening now.

  “They met.” The hand resting on the tank clenched.

  “Four years ago?”

  “Ten years ago.”

  “So long as that?” Audley frowned, and fell silent for a moment. “Well now … ten years … and not by chance?”

  The Irishman didn’t reply.

  “Not by chance, let’s assume. And it was Aloysius who sought out Michael—right?” Audley nodded, but more to himself than to Mr Smith, and then turned to the American. “It was about ten years ago that they put the word out on him, wasn’t it?”

  The American stared into space for a couple of seconds. “No. Not so long—more like seven … ‘75—not earlier than that, David.”

  “Hmm … But then he could have seen the writing on the wall before they did. So he could have been setting up his bolt-holes in advance … That’s what I’d have done in his place.”

  ‘They’ … ? Both because Audley was who he was and because Aloysius Kelly had been who he had been, they were not the IRA, estimated Benedikt coldly. The long hunt for him— which now seemed to have extended to a pursuit of Gunner Kelly—sounded much more like the KGB’s Special Bureau No 1 on both accounts.

  “So how did Aloysius trace Michael?” Audley came round to Mr Smith again, and beamed suddenly at him. “Ah! He’d go about it just like you did, wouldn’t he!” He nodded at Benedikt. “There now—that’s a lesson for both of us: the computer gives back only what it’s already been given, and if it lacks that one special bit of knowledge …” He switched back quickly to the Irishman. “And that’s what’s bothering you at the moment, isn’t it?”

  The man’s source—of course! Because once Audley had that, the man himself was superfluous.

  “The old auntie.” This time Audley didn’t bother to smile, because he no longer needed to do so.

  “No—”

  “Yes. You slipped, and now you’re kicking yourself for it—although it’s easily done, and we all do it when we’re scared … And I could be charitable, and assume that you don’t want the old lady bothered by great gallumphing Britishers with Irish accents … Or I could be uncharitable, and suspect that you’re more worried about someone remembering that you’d been to see her just recently, and putting one and one together to make two—eh?”

  The Irishman had composed his features, but the knuckles on his fist betrayed him to Benedikt. “No. I was just thinking … word of an Irishman—that’s all.”

  “And quite properly.” Audley looked down his nose. “She’s your contact. But you don’t exist, so she doesn’t exist either.” He shrugged. “Simple.”

  “Your word on it?” Apart from the knuckles Mr Smith was steady now.

  “No. You already have my word, I can’t give it to you twice. Over here … a gentleman only has one word—would you have insulted Michael Collins or Frank Ryan like that?”

  The Irishman rolled a glance at the American. “Insufferable! And you wonder why we’re as we are, by God!” Then he relaxed slowly, with a light in his eye not present before. “And yet … you have no Irish blood in you by any far remote mischance, Dr Audley?”

  “Not a drop. No Irish raiders ever reached Sussex—fortunately for them. Good Anglo-Saxon, Mr Smith, I’m afraid. King Alfred’s men … the ones who beat the Danes in the end—remember?”

  “But not the Romans. Or the Normans?”

  “The Romans were before our time. The Normans were no more than a useful tincture, to tone us up. We assimilated them—as you have assimilated your English aristocracy, Mr Smith … We’ve done the same with anyone prepared to stay the course—French Huguenots and German Jews—and the Poles and GI’s left quite a few souvenirs behind them more recently.”

  “And now the Pakistanis and the West Indians?”

  “Nothing wrong with them. They may not play rugger, but they play damn good cricket. In a hundred years’ time they’ll have improved us—” Audley grinned at the CIA man “— they’ll be as English as Howard is American … It’s you Irish who make a tragedy of your history—you have this boring obsession with re-living it, as though it mattered what Cromwell did in Drogheda and Wexford any more than what Vespasian did to Maiden Castle with his legion just down the road from here, outside Dorchester …. It doesn’t worry me that we were once a Roman colony—it lends a touch of class to what would otherwise be rather dim tribal history … and it makes the archaeology much more interesting.” He waved a hand. “It’s all a joke, so long as we don’t have to live through it, and we can laugh at our ancestors slipping on the historical banana skins, don’t you see?”

  He was challenging the Irishman to disagree with him in a way that no Irishman could disagree, thought Benedikt.

  “So what did Auntie tell Aloysius Kelly ten years ago?” Audley came on frontally, like any good tank commander who reckoned he could break through the centre now, with no more messing around on the flanks to draw the Irishman’s reserves away.

  “Aargh … it wasn’t Aloysius she’d kept in touch with—it was Michael who was her boy … it was always him that she’d been close to—her man had been with Michael Collins, not one of the Republicans—a Free Stater, when it came to the Treaty—and he’d been alongside the English in the trenches too, before that, so it was Michael that was always closer to her. And it was Michael that kept in touch with her over the years.”

  “But then Aloysius turned up—?”

  “Out of the blue. Asking after Michael.” The Irishman had lost his war
y look. “He said there was this debt he had, that had been on his conscience for more years than he cared to remember. But now he’d come into a bit of money—and he showed her a wad of notes to prove it …. It was before the darkness had come on her, while she could still see what was close up …”

  “What did she make of him?”

  “She didn’t like the sound of it—of him … There were too many notes—and it was English money—and she’d not a lot of time for the English, but she’d no time at all for Aloysius—it was Michael who’d written to her over the years, with never a word from Aloysius until he came through her door as bold as brass, with his handful of money …. No, she didn’t like it at all. But just at that time Michael had been having some bad luck: a bit of bother with his insurance, he said, after he’d had this knock in his taxi … but she reckoned it was more likely it was a knock in the betting shop he’d taken, the way he fancied the horses as every good man should … So in the end, balancing that against the other, she let him have Michael’s address. And that was the last she saw of him—” he stopped suddenly.

  “Yes?” Audley was right: there was more.

  “It was some time later … It was the next year her sight went, and she’s a bit vague about time after that. A year or two, maybe … there were these two fellas came looking for Aloysius—had he been to see her? Did she know where he might be? ‘Old friends’, they were, and for old times’ sake, having lost touch with him, they wanted to meet up again.” Mr Smith paused. “It was just her in the house, with her great-grand-niece for company—and these two fellas.”

  An old blind woman, and a child, thought Benedikt. And … would that be two ‘old friends’ from Special Bureau No 1, come to ask questions only the very brave or the very foolish refused to answer?

  “They didn’t have a chance, of course—not a chance!” The Irishman settled his glance finally on Benedikt himself, as though it was he who needed education most. “ ‘Oh yes’, says she—and thinking it’d serve Aloysius right, whatever he was into, but now there was Michael to remember, which was the name and address they were after—‘Oh yes’, says she, ‘that fine boy Aloysius—him that put those two Black-an’-Tans in the gas works furnace at Tralee—a fine boy!‘ And that flummoxed them, because they were foreigners, and if they’d heard of ’Black-an‘-Tan’ it was in the history books—or a drink across an English bar, more likely. ‘Oh no’, says one of them. ‘This is Aloysius Kelly, our old friend—him that was Frank Ryan’s friend in Spain, auntie.’ And she looks into the air between them and nods. ‘Frankie Ryan?’ she says. ‘No—but he was a fine boy too! Yet he had no part in what was done at Tralee—it was Kilmichael he was at, when they took that Auxie patrol— an’ it was Tralee, where the Tans burnt down the Town Hall afterwards, that Aloysius was—with young Seamus, that was killed by the Free Staters afterwards, and little Patrick Barry, who’d made his fortune in America an‘ wanted me to join him. Only it was Mr Kelly that I’d given my word to—that you see there on the mantelpiece, above the fireplace, in his silver frame.’ … And every time they asked her a question, she gave them an answer that was more than fifty years out-of-date, would you believe it!” Mr Smith shook his head admiringly. “And when I was there, not a week ago, it was Cruise missiles she wanted to know about—it’s her great-grand-niece, that’s still not married, who has to read the paper to her every day—The Irish Times, is what she takes—and her an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, by God! Not a chance, they had: they went away thinking her senile—and she’d run twenty rings round them!”

  Audley swayed forwards. “So how did you get her to talk to you?”

  “Aargh! She knew my mother—and my grandmother before her. And she knows where I stand.” The Irishman gave Audley an uncompromising look. “And I told her that Aloysius was dead, and that Michael was on the run because of it… And not a postcard she’s had from him, these four years. But I said I’d maybe pass on the word, if I could.” The look softened suddenly. “Is that something I can do—with a clear conscience?”

  Audley compressed his lips into a thin line. “To be honest… I don’t know.” He considered the Irishman. “But I’ll put it to him, and he can choose for himself. That’s a promise I’ll include with my word, if you like.”

  The Irishman gave him back the same consideration. “She would take that as a kindness, for she set great store by him. And … and I would take it kindly, too.”

  Audley shook his head. “Better not say that, Mr Smith. Better say a debt repaid, and the slate clean—since we have never met.”

  The Irishman looked at Audley for another moment, and then turned to his American. “I think it is time for my other appointment. And I’m thinking I would not like to miss it, now, more than ever.”

  “Okay.” The CIA man looked at his watch, and then at Audley. “David .. . ?” But there was something in the question that was looking for more than mere permission to withdraw.

  “Hail and farewell, trusted ally.” Audley lifted a hand. “I’ll be seeing you … very soon … Is that soon enough?”

  “Okay.” The American gave Benedikt a nod. “And I guess I’ll be seeing you too, Captain … Let’s go, Jim.”

  The Irishman started to move, and then paused suddenly, twisting back towards them in mid-step. “Michael… Michael was the easy one, and that’s the truth. But that was a long time ago, Dr Audley, and there’s things that a long time teaches.” He closed his eyes for a second. “And if he’s been running … running changes a man. And … most of all … whatever Aloysius touched—don’t you be trusting it not to turn in your hand, Dr Audley. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Benedikt watched the two men weave between the tanks until Audley’s voice recalled him.

  “Well … coming from ‘Jim Smith’, that was a gipsy’s warning, and no mistake!” Audley spoke wonderingly.

  “You knew him?”

  “I think maybe I do … by reputation.” Audley half-shrugged. “Not my field, though. But our loyal ally certainly did us proud, no doubt about that, by golly!”

  Benedikt frowned. “But he only gave you a connection between … Aloysius Kelly and Michael Kelly that was years ago—ten years?”

  Audley gave him a sidelong look. “He didn’t bother telling me what we both knew. Waste of time, don’t you know!”

  That was far enough, decided Benedikt. “No, I do not know. So you need to tell me, I think. And preferably without patronising me.”

  The Englishman’s ugly face broke up quite surprisingly. “My God! I’m sorry, Benedikt! I was, wasn’t I! And quite without justification too. In fact… in fact, I wouldn’t like you to put it down to damned insufferable British delusions of superiority—quite the opposite, rather… More like butterflies in the stomach making me nervous.” He grimaced.

  “About Aloysius Kelly?”

  “About Aloysius Kelly—right.”

  “And … Debreczen?” It was hard to stay angry with him, even allowing for the certainty that he was also a clever man. “Is it that important?”

  “Aloysius Kelly and Debreczen!” Audley drew a breath. “You feed either of them into your computer, and the little red lights will start flashing.” He looked at Benedikt. “I don’t know why … but I had this pricking of the thumbs that I was on to something here.” He looked around. “Only … I’m not really intuitive—I like little sharp facts, like diamonds—or juicy soft ones, like currants and raisins in a suet pudding.” He came back to Benedikt again. “And now I’ve got something I can’t wear and I can’t swallow, by Christ!”

  Benedikt made a disturbing discovery: the disadvantage of playing second fiddle to David Audley was that the man’s confidence and omniscience was irritating. But David Audley suddenly nervous was rather frightening.

  Audley seemed to sense his disquiet. “Not to worry, though. We’ve maybe got a bit of time … The point is that he knew I’d know where Aloysius was killed.” He gave Benedikt an evil grin. “Car bomb in his garage. Spread him
like strawberry jam.”

  “Where?”

  “Airedale. Little cottage on the far side of the valley from Keighley … lovely country. Just down the road from Bingley. Which is just down the road from Bradford, you see.”

  “Where Michael Kelly drove his taxi?”

  “Just so. And altogether too coincidental.” Audley sighed. “At least, it is now—in retrospect …. At the time, the bomb brought in the Special Branch, and they brought in our people … who in turned picked up enough evidence in the cottage to identify the strawberry jam as Aloysius Kelly. And what made him so very interesting was not simply that he’d been on our wanted list for years, but that more recently we’d had word that he was on their wanted list as well. In fact, it was a toss-up who wanted him more—them or us.”

  “Them being the KGB?”

  “Them being Spetsburo One—the strawberry jam makers.” Audley showed his teeth. “So now you’re going to ask me why he ran? And the short and humiliating answer to that is—we don’t know.”

  Benedikt frowned. “You mean … he was not defecting?”

  “From them he was. But not to us, and not to the Americans either. He went to ground, and he never surfaced—and he had time to pick and choose, too. The way it seems to have been … then the troubles began again the Russians sent him back to Ireland—to Dublin—to stir the pot maybe, certainly to watch out for their interests. But then something went sour.” The big man shrugged. “What went sour—we don’t know … He’d been away a long time … it was the same old enemy, but not the same old country as it was in Frank Ryan’s day … and he was older, so maybe he was wiser—or maybe he was just older and very tired. Only God knows now, anyway.” He looked at Benedikt. “All we know is that he ran. Because one day we wanted him—to get what he knew—and the next day they were after him to make sure we didn’t get it.”

  “But the KGB found him first.”

  “Yes.” Audley grimaced. “And on our home ground too … Though they had advantages we lacked, to be fair.”

  “Such as?”