The City in Darkness

by Michael Russell

  ‘Is Niamh all right?’

  ‘I think so. She has a feller in tow, but I don’t know how serious it is. She wouldn’t say either way, would she? But I’m not to tell Mam and Dad.’

  Her smile was a welcome shift in mood.

  ‘Well, if he’s English, I might not look such a bad option.’

  ‘Just shut up, Stefan Gillespie. They’ve never said anything bad!’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘Well, nothing very bad.’

  It was an easier laugh than they had shared in some time.

  ‘I think that’s enough,’ she said quietly. ‘We should go to bed.’

  Stefan lay awake, listening to the city growing quieter. Kate had gone to sleep. It was the first time in a long time he had woken in the night to hear her and feel her beside him in the darkness. It was true what she said; until he knew what had happened to Maeve he couldn’t move forward. However much he wanted it to be different, he had to clear away the debris in his head. He had to cut his way through the darkness. He wished, as he had never wished before that this door had never been opened. Even if it was true that Maeve had been murdered that day by the Upper Lake, it would have been better not to know anything. For a moment he wondered what it was he was looking for. In his head it was ‘truth’, but what then? A court case, a hanging? The truth might be all there was to find. What if he knew and could do nothing? The figure of the murderer he had come to believe in now was only a black, shapeless fog in his mind, but the idea that revenge might need to replace justice was there beside it. He could not pretend it wasn’t. It didn’t disturb him as much as he expected. If that was where this led him he didn’t feel uncomfortable. The truth would mean he would have to do something. And if there was no other way, he would have to do it himself.

  Stefan stood in his bedroom in the suite at the Avenida Palace Hotel in Lisbon, a calm, green room with high ceilings and high windows on to the street. A fan turned slowly above his head. It was late afternoon. Looking out of the window, he could see the heat that was still in the air. He heard the noises of the city, the shouts and the car horns and the clatter of trams, like Dublin or any city, yet with its own distinct rhythm. He left his suitcase unpacked at the foot of the bed. The ambassador had muttered something about things to do. Stefan was still unclear about his duties. Kerney had left him none the wiser, though he sensed his presence was a slight irritation.

  Through the open door was a sitting room with a large, ornate desk. Leopold Kerney’s bedroom was on the other side. Stefan knocked and walked in. The sitting room was common ground but it was there for Kerney to use as an office. The ambassador was at the desk, his back to the bright windows. There were dark landscapes on the walls, brown fields and grey country houses; the sofa and the armchairs were gilded and hard and almost certainly uncomfortable. Two huge mirrors, the silvering spotted with age, filled the walls at right angles to the windows, reflecting the room infinitely back on itself. Kerney was sorting through papers and passports and tickets. He scribbled several notes in a diary, then put some of the papers into a briefcase and the others into a metal dispatch box.

  ‘There is a safe in my bedroom, Gillespie. We will use that rather than the hotel one, I think. There are two keys, so if you take this one . . .’

  He handed Stefan a long steel key.

  ‘They will have a pass key, sir.’

  ‘I know you have to think as a policeman, but I do stay here often. Apart from money and credit notes there’s nothing that would interest anyone.’ Kerney smiled. ‘It is a city full of spies, as anyone will tell you. I don’t know where spying features economically but I think it’s taken over from tourism as one of Lisbon’s mainstays. But if we don’t have much to offer the world in trade now, it’s even less when it comes to espionage.’

  He went into his bedroom and locked away the dispatch box. Stefan had already seen that Kerney’s humour was spare and rarely forthcoming, but he was content to be the slightly out-of-his-depth policeman. Kerney came back in with a crumpled Panama hat and picked up his briefcase.

  ‘I did give you some escudos, Inspector?’

  ‘You did, sir.’

  ‘You’ll want a wander round. If you need a map, the concierge will have one. The best thing is to walk down to the sea and the Praça do Comércio. Right out of the hotel, across the square, the Rossio, through the Baixa Pombalina. It’s a maze but you won’t get lost. It’s a grid. We came up on one side from the harbour. Lots of restaurants there. If you don’t want to venture far there’s the Leão d’Ouro, past the station. Good English too.’

  The detail was more than Stefan needed. But there was a message in Kerney’s brusque good humour. He was being dismissed; the description of a tourist itinerary for him was the only instruction he would get. The ambassador looked at him uncertainly. He wasn’t sure what to make of him.

  ‘I have some business to do and I want to go to Mass first.’ Kerney knew enough to know Stefan wouldn’t be going to Mass. ‘I may see you later, but no need for you to wait for me, Inspector. We’ll be travelling on to Salamanca the day after tomorrow. So, well, soak up some atmosphere. And you will need a hat. I don’t mean a trilby. I’d suggest you buy one.’

  Kerney put on his own Panama to close the conversation, and left.

  Stefan walked to the window. It was still bright, with only a hint of evening in the sky. Since he had an itinerary he might as well follow it.

  He left the room and locked the door. He didn’t take the lift but walked down the circular stairway to the lobby. The ambassador was still there, about to leave ahead of him. As Kerney walked out a man of around Stefan’s age got up from a red sofa by the door and walked out too. Stefan registered him for no particular reason except the sharpness of the creases in his remarkably uncrumpled white linen suit. He recognized him. He had seen him at the harbour, where the same thought about the suit had struck him. He thought no more of it. He went to the concierge’s desk and got a map, and asked where he could buy a hat. Then he went out to see if he could find his way through the city to the Praça do Comércio and the sea.

  He was hungry as he came out past the carved and sculptured façade of the Central Station that dominated this corner of the Rossio. He ate in the blue-tiled Leão d’Ouro as Kerney had suggested. It was early and he was the only customer. For the moment what was on his mind was the fact that it seemed unlikely Leopold Kerney would let him know anything about anything, let alone the Germans and Frank Ryan. He left an hour later and crossed the Rossio to make his way towards the Tagus, but the huge square was a sea of people, blocking his way. A procession filed across the far end.

  Close to the front was a statue of the Virgin Mary, held high on a dais, glittering with stars. Behind came a line of embroidered banners and statues of saints. There were clerics in purple and red; priests followed by brothers in grey and white habits; men in tailcoats and top hats; army officers in uniform; men in hoods and high-pointed hats. A line of choristers in white and red sang. There was the smell of incense as priests and altar boys swung their censors. Behind them men, women, children, streamed into the square. He couldn’t get through. He would have to wait for the procession to pass. He turned back across the Rossio towards the colonnaded building that was the National Theatre. He had only drunk water in the Leão d’Ouro and, though the air was cooling now, he was hot. He went in search of a beer. He needed an antidote to all that holiness.

  To the right of the theatre he passed the white façade of a big church where another crowd was spilling out. It was then that he glimpsed Leopold Kerney, who had been to Mass in the church. Stefan didn’t want to be seen. There was nothing wrong with being there but he had no doubt about the way the ambassador had dismissed him. One way or another it would look as if he was following him, which would be no help in gaining confidence and trust. He stepped into the shadows of the building opposite, turning his back. Kerney was heading in the opposite direction. He wouldn’t see him.

&n
bsp; Only a few yards away, sitting on a wall, was the man in the white linen suit, its creases as sharp as in the lobby of the Avenida Palace. He was reading the Daily Mail. He had to be English. It wasn’t only the newspaper; something about him said he couldn’t be anything else. He got up, stubbed out a cheroot, and sauntered away. There was a studied ease about his movement that was so self-consciously casual that it wasn’t casual at all.

  Stefan watched him walk past the colonnades of the theatre. Kerney was just ahead. He had seen this man three times now. That held Stefan’s attention along with the odd way he moved. The ambassador stopped. The briefcase under his arm had fallen. As he bent to pick it up the man in the white suit stopped. He turned away and took out a cheroot, as if pausing to light it. Seconds later the ambassador walked on. The man lit his cheroot and followed. There was no doubt; he was following Leopold Kerney.

  17

  O Elevador da Glória

  Stefan followed the Englishman. The Englishman followed the ambassador. The man kept assiduously to the distance he had been taught. Stefan imagined him counting the optimum number of passers-by between him and his quarry. But the man struggled with Kerney’s pace. The ambassador was walking too slowly to be easy to follow; his pursuer was too impatient to amble and had to keep stopping instead. Stefan kept back in the double pursuit. He knew the ambassador was heading for the Avenida Palace.

  He saw them both cross the road at the Central Station and carried on towards the Praça dos Restauradores. At the Avenida Palace, Kerney spoke to the doorman who hailed a taxi. As the taxi drove off the Englishman was unperturbed. He went into the hotel. Stefan crossed over and did the same.

  Inside, Stefan stood in the lobby and lit a cigarette. The Englishman was at the concierge’s desk. Conscious that the lobby was almost empty, Stefan stepped into the bar. He picked up a copy of the London Times, several days old, and gazed at the front page dense with small advertisements, not reading but watching the man in the linen suit in conversation with the concierge. When he turned away Stefan saw a banknote passed across the desk. The way it was palmed told a story about how it had been earned.

  The man in the linen suit stepped across to the entrance and went out. Stefan put down the paper and walked after him. He stood back as the door was held for a small, round woman in her sixties. She wore a grey suit and a grey hat decorated with pheasant feathers. Her face was flushed from the day’s heat. She carried an easel, a pallet, paints, an unfinished canvas, a large handbag of great age. Stefan smiled politely as she passed; she took no notice of him. Her eyes were fixed determinedly on the reception desk.

  When Stefan emerged from the Avenida Palace the Englishman was getting into a taxi. It turned right towards the Rossio, the opposite direction to the one the ambassador took. Apparently the surveillance was over.

  Back in the hotel Stefan approached the concierge’s desk. The man was no longer there. He waited a moment then turned to reception, where a tall, spindly man peered down with unconvincing patience at the grey woman clutching her painting accoutrements. She had the sharp, clipped English accent that identified her class rather than where she came from.

  ‘It’s a question of light. The window is extremely unsatisfactory.’

  ‘It is the only window we have available, senhora.’

  ‘I was outside the hotel just now. There are windows everywhere.’

  ‘But the hotel is full, senhora. It is the war, of course. Desculpa.’

  ‘Light is important to me. I am here to paint.’

  The receptionist looked down at her equipment and nodded.

  ‘We have light outside, everywhere, a great deal.’

  She narrowed her eyes.

  ‘I don’t expect sarcasm at your prices. If you would look again.’

  The receptionist turned the pages of the register mechanically.

  ‘Do you have good light?’ The woman looked at Stefan.

  ‘Good enough, I suppose.’

  ‘But you don’t paint?’

  ‘No, I don’t paint.’

  She regarded him with a stern, teacherly look.

  ‘Light feeds the mind. You must have felt that sometimes.’

  The receptionist shut the register loudly and shook his head.

  ‘Perhaps in a day or two.’

  ‘I shall be gone then.’

  ‘Desculpa, senhora.’

  She turned towards the lift. The receptionist raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Mrs Surtees,’ he said, as if the name was sufficient explanation, then resumed a static, obliging smile. ‘How can I help you, Senhor Gillespie?’

  ‘I’m looking for the concierge.’

  ‘Agostinho is in the baggage room. I shall fetch him.’

  ‘I’ll find him, don’t worry.’

  He moved to the concierge’s desk and lifted the counter flap.

  ‘Mr Gillespie, we prefer our guests do not—’

  The concierge was sitting on a chair, surrounded by cases, bags and trunks, with a bottle of beer and a ham roll. He stood up as Stefan opened the door.

  ‘Desculpa, Senhor Gillespie, if you ring the bell—’

  ‘A little business needs a little privacy.’

  The concierge frowned; the Irishman was not in search of baggage.

  ‘There was a gentleman in earlier. You were talking to him. I know him from somewhere. I just can’t place him and you may know his name.’

  ‘A guest, senhor?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s a guest, but he was in the hotel this afternoon. More than once. In fact, he left only a few minutes ago. An Englishman, in a rather good linen suit. About my height, my age, fair, a little tanned.’

  ‘Not a guest? Then I don’t know him.’ Agostinho smiled, but it was an uneasy smile, the one he kept for questions he didn’t want to answer.

  ‘But you were talking to him.’

  ‘It is possible, senhor.’ The concierge shrugged as if to say he talked to so many people that no one could expect him to remember them all.

  ‘I doubt your memory is as bad as all that, Agostinho.’

  Stefan took out his wallet.

  ‘There are a number of ways we can do this. One is that I tip you for the information you’re going to give me. Another is that I raise hell with the manager about the information you’ve been giving to this man you can’t remember, about the Irish ambassador to Spain. We have an honorary consul here. He may feel it’s worth raising with your foreign ministry. I don’t know who looks into that sort of thing, but not the traffic police.’

  Stefan pulled out a dollar bill and put it on top of a trunk. The concierge put a hand over the dollar; when he moved it the note was gone.

  ‘The man is English, is that right?’

  ‘Sim, Senhor Gillespie.’

  ‘And his name?’

  ‘Senhor Chillingham.’

  ‘Do you know why is he so interested in Mr Kerney?’

  Agostinho shook his head. Why, was outside his remit.

  ‘I’m not sure I can top what he paid you, Agostinho, but I can make life more uncomfortable for you. What did he ask? What did you tell him?’

  The concierge wasn’t sure how far the Irishman would push. People who bought information didn’t normally want the authorities involved; they didn’t want scenes. But he was unsure where to put the Irish in Lisbon’s industry of information buying and selling. This was his first Irishman.

  ‘He wanted to see the register after you arrived. He knows Mr Kerney but not you. He wanted to see your passports, to know how long you were staying, where you were going to. What train you were taking.’

  ‘He talked to the receptionist as well?’

  ‘People want information in Lisbon, it is normal.’

  ‘Good. If it’s normal, what do you know about him?’

  Agostinho’s eyes were on the wallet. Stefan took out another dollar.

  ‘He is from the British Embassy, senhor.’

  ‘And what did he want when he came bac
k just now?’

  ‘To know anything Mr Kerney had asked me to do for him.’

  ‘And had he?’

  ‘To book a table this evening. Tavares in the Rua da Misericórdia.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  The concierge gave something between a shrug and a nod.

  ‘Shall we say if Mr Chillingham wants information from now on, it would be a grand thing if you don’t know anything, whether you do or not?’

  ‘Of course, senhor,’ said Agostinho with wide-eyed sincerity.

  ‘Is this restaurant far?’

  ‘In the Barrio Alto.’

  The concierge gestured vaguely over his shoulder. Stefan took out the map of Lisbon he had in his pocket and put it on the top of the trunk.

  ‘Quickest is to the Elevador da Glória, the tram to the Jardim de São Pedro, here. Out of the hotel and to here. At the top go left on to the Rua da Misericórdia and Tavares is on your right. You will see a balcony and then the wooden doors. Very elegant. Very discreet.’ He marked the restaurant and then looked at Stefan. ‘It is not a cheap restaurant to eat in, Mr Gillespie.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t eat. I’ll get a sandwich on the way back.’

  Stefan took the yellow funicular tram up the steep cobbled lane to the Barrio Alto. He set off along the winding Rua da Misericórdia. It was a narrow street full of tiny shops and bars, busy in the bright evening. He was aware that the man from the British Embassy knew who he was; he had seen him, probably at the harbour coming in off the flying boat, certainly at the Avenida Palace Hotel. But he had been unnoticed outside the Igreja de São Domingos when Kerney came out after Mass, and he wanted to remain unnoticed. However, if the man was watching the Tavares restaurant it would be a static surveillance. It was very different. He was the one who would be drawing attention to himself if he spent too much time there.

  Stefan saw the wood and glass doors of Tavares ahead on the right. He kept to the left. He strolled idly by, not changing his pace. He glanced through the restaurant window and saw only gold and a glittering chandelier. There were three cars parked on his side of the Rua da Misericórdia near the restaurant; a grey limousine, the chauffeur lying back asleep; a red coupé surrounded by teenage boys; a soft-top Citroën taxi with a young driver immersed in a newspaper. He saw no sign of the linen suit.