Gunner Kelly dda-13

by Anthony Price

  “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-dummy1

  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 wary 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 dummy1

  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 dummy1

  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 dummy1

  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.”

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  “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 tru
sting 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?”

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  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 dummy1

  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?”

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  “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?”

  “He was one of theirs from way back, all nicely filed. So they knew what they were looking for. We never did.” Audley shook his head. “We never even had a decent photo of him—just one smudgy face in an International Brigade group picture that might have been him in his teens. But no real face, let alone prints or distinguishing marks. He was always a man for the shadows, not the sunlight. . . Shit!”

  The uncharacteristic obscenity surprised Benedikt, and he looked questioningly at Audley.

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  “I was just thinking . . . They were damn good: they let us pick up their sighs of relief after he was dead—that Kelly, Aloysius could be filed as deceased, and the matter was closed. But they must already have had a Kelly, Michael file. And we didn’t even know of his existence, let alone the connection between them. So they’ve been hunting Michael while we’ve been sitting on our arses and twiddling our thumbs—hunting him in our territory.”

  Benedikt forgave the lapse, sensing more than wounded pride behind it. “So Aloysius must have passed on information to Michael.”

  Audley gestured helplessly. “What other interpretation is there? He ran—and they’re after him, damn it! Damn it!”

  Now there was only one thing he needed. And although Kommissar at Wiesbaden could give it to him in no more than the time it took to key the question he wanted it now. “About the Debreczen meeting?”

  Audley was studying the Tiger critically as though he was seeing it for the first time, his eye running along the barrel of the deadly 8.8cm gun to the massive armoured shield which fronted its turret.

  “What happened at Debreczen?” asked Benedikt.

  “What happened at Debreczen?” Audley turned a critical eye towards him. “It was before your time—just about literally before your time, Captain Schneider . . . Damn it! It was before even my time, professionally speaking.”

  Early to mid-1950s, that would make it, estimated Benedikt. At least, if one discounted the unconfirmed report that a very young dummy1

  Lieutenant Audley had not been a simple tank commander in the last months of the war . . .

  “Debreczen is out of the deeps of time—it’s still part rumour and part legend ... we didn’t even get a whiff of it until years afterwards, from the Gorbatov de-briefing, and Gorbatov’s been dead ... for a long time—” Audley smiled suddenly, reminiscently

  “—of cirrhosis, I should add. In a piece of Canada which most resembled his native land ... At least the rat-catchers never caught up with him! Just the booze.”

  Debreczen? Benedikt wanted to say. But he said nothing.

  “It wasn’t actually in Debreczen . . . There was this old Hapsburg castle in the woods. Or ... it was more like a Ruritanian hunting lodge, though God only knows what they hunted there . . . But the Germans had added some huts, and there was perimeter wire—all mod. cons., Nazi-style . . . And, for some reason—perhaps it was accessibility, with no questions asked—for some reason the Russians liked it for what they had in mind.”

  Hapsburg castles Benedikt knew, and hunting lodges and huts and perimeter wire too. But he had never visited Debreczen . . . and where was Ruritania?

  “First, it was like a seminar centre for experts—not only the GB

  spec
ials, but also the foreigners that they really trusted, who could lecture on political conditions in their own countries . . . Like, what they couldn’t do and what they could do—what they’d done wrong in the past, but where the opportunities lay in the future . . . The sort of thing Philby and Co. did a few years later—okay?”

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  Philby and Co. had cut the British deep—so deep that for some of them the very names were taboo. But in this, as in so many other things, Audley was different, even though as a Cambridge man himself his wound must be particularly painful.

  “And then, over the next year or so, they slipped in people from the West one by one—the promising ones they wanted properly educated for the long-term future . . . Not types connected with the intelligence services—not people who were already actively working for them, nothing like that. . . . These were the young ones who had good prospects in civilian life—in business and industry, and banking and the law, and the arts and academic life . . . The sort who might go over to politics eventually, or turn up in think-tanks. The policy-makers, if you like.” The Englishman regarded Benedikt bleakly. “They came for just a week, or a fortnight at the most . . . The sort of time they could lose quite easily in a European holiday—almost untraceable ... As I well know, because I was eventually one of those who drew the shitty job of trying to short-list our Debreczen possibles. And without alerting them, that we were vetting the vacation they’d taken five or six years before . . . whether they’d really been tasting the wine in Burgundy, or skiing in Austria, or counting the Madonnas and Children in the Uffizi. And it was damn near impossible: I got two

  ‘certainties’— one of which turned out to be wrong . . . and two probables, both of which were probably wrong . . . and four possibles, who could be pure as driven snow but have my black question mark against their names for evermore, because I couldn’t absolutely clear them.” He scowled, and shook his head at the dummy1

  memory. “The best part of four months’ work, and really only one name to show for it. I wished to God I’d never heard of Colonel Gorbatov and Debreczen by the end of it—it was a damned shitty job!”