by Declan Burke
If I was ever allowed to write it.
So I told her about Gerhard Uxkull, Danish-born, who’d joined the German Navy in 1938. I told her about the secret mission to land a German spy, Klaus Rheingold, in Donegal, and that Smyth claimed to have been sailing aboard the U-43, a U-boat operating out of Kiel that appeared to have left no record of itself behind.
According to Smyth, the U-43 surfaced into poor weather not long after 3 a.m. on the night of 26 February. Smyth was one of four sailors who climbed down with Rheingold on to a slippery deck, where they began inflating a dinghy while Rheingold attended to a number of last-minute checks on his equipment. Conditions were difficult, not least because the covert nature of the mission meant a full black-out. Heavy rain driven by a gusting south-westerly further hampered their efforts, while the narrow deck pitched and bucked on the choppy swell and a fast-turning tide.
‘What’s funny?’ Kee said.
‘You’d have to meet him to find it funny. Smyth’s a serious guy, very precise. Anyway, he said that while the conditions were difficult for launching a dinghy, they were perfect for launching Gerhard Uxkull.’
He had been kneeling on the deck, struggling to keep the dinghy’s bow steady, when a wave slapped the dinghy’s keel and sent the bow crashing into his face.
‘He has no memory of going into the water. One second he was there on the deck of the sub, the next he was sinking. He was wearing a life preserver, so that pulled him back to the surface, and the first thing he remembers is lying on his back staring straight up at the stars. The cold was brutal. A killer. But he was still stunned. If he hadn’t puked he’d probably have just drifted until hypothermia got him. Anyway, he started to swim. Or tried to, anyway. Basically he was just tossed around on the waves while he thrashed his arms and legs.’ A nightmare. ‘He began to panic when he realized the U-43 was nowhere to be seen, that he’d been abandoned in pitch dark on a stormy—’
‘You can skip the poetry, Tom,’ Kee said. ‘Just tell us what happened.’
Smyth’s knowledge of Lough Swilly was of the most basic kind. He knew that it angled northwest to southeast, that it was no more than two miles wide where they had surfaced north of Buncrana, and that he was closer to the Malin shore than the western – or had been at the time of the drop, although he had no idea of how far he had drifted since then. He understood that being picked up on the eastern coast would compromise the special mission and the agent’s cover, but by then Gerhard Uxkull had very little interest in special missions and the greater good of the Third Reich.
He was no swimmer. Had it not been for the preserver he would have long since drowned. In any case, the strength of the current was such that even a champion would have struggled to make headway against it. He was swimming only to stay warm, all the while trying to gauge the fine line between expending enough energy to retain his core temperature and working so hard that he exhausted himself entirely. His hope was that the southerly current would deliver him to the eastern shore before the tide began to turn again. If it didn’t, he would be swept north again and out to sea, and he would be dead long before exiting the lough into the North Atlantic. When he could swim no more he rolled on to his back and drifted, and then he swam—
‘We know he didn’t die, Tom. What happened?’
‘He was picked up by a fishing trawler about two hundred yards off the coast of Delphi. He’d been in the water nearly three hours by then, was damn near deranged and pickled and frozen to death.’
‘So they thawed him out and … Hold on,’ she said, scrabbling for the phone that was ringing somewhere on her person. She found it, took the call. ‘Kee,’ she said.
I sat forward and pressed Pause on the recorder.
‘When?’ Kee said. She listened again, then said, ‘OK, I’m on my way.’ She ended the call, then looked at me. The corners of her mouth turned down. ‘They’ve found a body,’ she said. ‘Pulled out of the canal over at Grand Canal Dock.’
Which wasn’t very far from Fitzwilliam Place.
‘They think it’s Smyth?’ I said.
‘They don’t know – the body’s been in the water a while and there’s no wallet or any identification. But it – he – looks to be the right age.’
‘Be a hell of a coincidence if it’s not him.’
A too-bright smile. ‘Coincidences happen all the time, Tom.’ She was already standing, shrugging into her coat. She retrieved the recorder from the coffee table, switched it off. ‘Even if it isn’t Smyth, we’ll still need to finish this conversation.’
‘Sure, yeah.’ I got up too, and then just stood there, not knowing what I should say. ‘Look, if there’s anything I can do …’
An icy smile. ‘Identify him, you mean?’
‘Well, I don’t know. But I suppose, yeah, I was one of the last people to see him.’
‘Maybe the last, Tom. So don’t go rushing off anywhere, taking any trips. If it is Gerard Smyth, and if it looks like he didn’t go into that canal under his own steam, you’ll be the first person we’ll want to talk to.’
‘That’s bullshit. Why would I go looking for him today, hang around outside his flat, if I’d done anything like that?’
‘You might be smarter than you look. Or think you are, anyway.’
‘Kee …’
‘Tell you what you could do,’ she said. ‘Just to show willing, that your conscience is clear.’
‘My conscience is crystal fucking clear.’
‘Great. So you won’t mind leaving your passport with me for now. Unofficial, like. Just until we know you have no reason to do a runner.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Maybe so. But imagine how stupid I’d look if I walked away and you disappeared.’
I could see her point. So I stomped off back to the office and rooted out the passport, and stomped back down the hall again. Kee asked for the tattered card she’d given me, and scribbled a number on the back. ‘That’s my personal phone,’ she said. ‘If you hear anything, ring me straight away.’ When she offered the card I refused to take it, so she put it on the table. Then she took one last look around. ‘I take it you’ll be staying here tonight?’
‘Fucking right I will.’
‘Good. I’ll be in touch,’ she said, and left.
TEN
I went to the bay window and watched Kee as she walked out of the car park, opened the Mégane, tossed the Doctor on Call sign on to the passenger seat, drove away.
Then I went up the hallway to the bedroom, dragged the khaki duffel out of the wardrobe and set it on the bed. Threw in some T-shirts and jeans, a couple of sweaters, boxers and socks. If Kee thought I was going to hang around an apartment where guys could break in whenever the mood took, some crew good enough to leave no trace of themselves behind, she was bat-shit insane.
The last thing to go into the bag was the laptop. The plan I’d agreed with Shay Govern that morning was that I’d catch him up by flying to Derry, make my own away around to Delphi Island via Letterkenny. But even as I brought up the Aer Lingus website (the vomit-comet internal flights were always half-empty, so there’d be no problem booking a seat) I was wondering if that was such a smart move. If the crew had been good enough to break in and leave no sign, and had spent time on the laptop, then there was every chance they were tech-savvy enough to bury a tracer on it that would track my every keystroke.
So, no flight.
I was packing away the laptop when I remembered telling Kee I’d email Iggy, let him know the score. So I dug it out again, fired up Gmail and sat on the bed with the laptop on my actual lap for the first time in years.
Iggy –
I hope all’s well. Not so good at this end. That thing with Shay Govern has gone wide.
I interviewed a guy yesterday, Gerard Smyth, who told me a story that confirmed what I’m guessing Govern told you in confession. Now Smyth’s gone missing and there’s a body in the canal and the cops think it could be him.
Bad enough,
but now it looks like there was someone in my apartment this morning, some bastards who took a file Smyth gave me and left no sign they were here.
I’m expecting them back, Iggy. If they got Smyth, why wouldn’t they come for me? Wait until night, make sure I’m asleep, then come sneaking in, making no sound …
Me right there in the dark with a baseball bat.
Good plan, right?
Or might be, if the closest thing to a baseball bat I own wasn’t a proofreading ruler. And even if I did have a bat or knuckledusters it’s no kind of plan. If it ever comes to a scrap between me and professionals my money’s on the other guys, because at least that way I’d collect on the bet when I got out of hospital, maybe pay off some of my bills. That’s presuming I ever made it as far as a hospital, didn’t wind up in a canal …
I’m taking off, Iggy. Getting out of Dodge until this settles down, whatever the fuck this is. Heading for that place in Cork, near Kinsale – remember I told you about it? I’ll call tomorrow at noon, check in. If you don’t hear from me, call some cop you know you can trust and then duck for cover.
Tom
I clicked Send and the email disappeared into the ether. I shut down the laptop, packed it away and zipped up the duffel.
Ready to go.
Ding-dong.
Raymond Chandler has this line, advice for writers, where if you’re ever stuck for something to happen, have a guy come through the door with a gun in his hand.
Chandler was notoriously picky, though, was always rewriting. So maybe in an earlier draft it read: ‘Have an ex-wife come through the door with a six-year-old by the hand.’
There was a time when I’d have given anything to have Rachel in my bedroom. Now wasn’t such a good time.
‘It’s only two nights, Tom.’ She kept it low but urgent, whispering. Just the way I’d always liked her in the bedroom. ‘And OK, I know it’s short notice and you’ll need to rearrange your Monday, but she’ll be in school most of the day and she gets picked up after, gets driven to after-school. So all you really need to cover is tomorrow and Monday morning. We’ll be back that evening. Or I will, anyway.’
‘I know, yeah. That’s not the issue.’
‘I can’t take her down there, Tom. Peter’s a mess, he can’t even drive. You know how close he was to his mother.’ I knew nothing of Peter’s relationship with his mother, and cared about as much. ‘And I can’t look after both of them,’ she said. ‘I’m stressed enough as it is.’
I could hear the sound of cartoons blaring from the TV in the living room, Scooby-Doo, Emily parked about two feet from the screen sitting on her lettuce-green Trunki carry-on. Peter, apparently, was outside in the car, having himself a meltdown in the passenger seat.
‘I can’t do it, Rach.’
‘You won’t do it.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘It never is, Tom. Not with you.’
I could have told her what I was involved in, I suppose. Nazi massacres and spooks breaking in. Old guys gone MIA, presumed drowned. All of which would play beautifully with any judge presiding over an application for custody of a six-year-old girl.
Blanking Rachel, refusing straight up to look after Emily in a family emergency – that wouldn’t play too well either.
But if I had to make a decision, then it’d have to be …
Ding-dong.
Rachel didn’t stick around long after Kee walked in. I guess she thought Kee was the reason I couldn’t take Emily for a couple of nights. She was right in a way, just not the way she thought. I was a man, Kee was a woman, and Rachel was hot stuff when it came to basic math. Not that she was pissed about Kee per se, the slow up-and-down look she gave Kee notwithstanding. It was that I was putting Kee before Emily.
By the time I’d worked up a line that might have put her straight, Rachel was long gone, although not before going down on one knee to wrap Emily in a hug and warn her to take care of Daddy, he looked like he was having a mid-life crisis.
She didn’t know the half of it.
Kee, bemused, said, ‘Who was that?’
‘Rachel. My wife, technically speaking.’
‘OK. But she’s coming back, right?’
‘To me? No, she’s hooked up with Peter now.’
‘I mean here. Soon.’ An edge in her tone. ‘For the kid.’
‘She is, yeah. On Monday evening, all going well.’
‘Daddy?’ Emily said, eyes on the TV as Shag and Scoob plunged headlong down a mineshaft.
‘Yes, love?’
‘What’s a mid-life crisis?’
‘It’s what happens to daddies when they realize their little girls don’t love them any more.’
‘Oh.’
‘Tom?’ Kee was nodding towards the hallway. ‘A word?’
I followed her out, up the hallway to the office.
‘She can’t be here right now,’ Kee said. ‘Are you kidding me?’
She was right, of course. At least in theory. But there was no getting around the fact that Emily was sitting right there on her Trunki in the living room, watching cartoons.
There being nothing to gain from telling Kee what she already knew, I asked if the body they’d pulled from the canal was Gerard Smyth.
‘We don’t know. Could be. He’s the right age, it’s not far from where he lives …’ She was shaking her head, lips pressed together. She glanced back up the hallway and lowered her voice. ‘He had no ID on him. So we’ll need someone to identify the body.’
‘If you’re talking about me, you can forget it. There’s no way I’m taking Emily anywhere near a morgue.’
‘She wouldn’t have to go.’
‘Forget about it. Ring Jack Byrne – he knew the guy better than me.’
‘Already tried. He’s still not answering.’
‘Shit. Really?’
‘Yeah. What’s this job he’s doing?’
‘No idea. I don’t live with the guy, Kee.’
‘Well, he’s off the grid. Him and Smyth.’ She had her hands in her coat pockets again. I wondered if she was recording the conversation. ‘You really can pick them, you know that?’
‘I didn’t pick anyone. I was minding my own business, and they came to me.’
She was nodding while I was talking but not really listening, her gaze roving around the office. Then she realized what was missing.
‘Where’s your laptop?’ she said.
‘I put it away.’
‘Put it away or packed it away?’
‘Packed it, yeah.’
‘I thought we agreed you were going nowhere.’
‘That,’ I lied, ‘was before Emily arrived.’
She shrugged, conceding the point. ‘So where are you taking her?’
‘Cork. There’s a place near Kinsale, we were there once on holiday. There’s a nice beach, it has a Blue Flag, we can do some—’
‘Great, yeah.’ She leaned past me, toed the office door shut. ‘Listen, I’m not supposed to do this but needs must. Brace yourself.’ She took her phone out of her coat pocket, brought up her photo album. ‘Is this him?’
Maybe it was the light, or maybe her phone’s camera wasn’t up to snuff, but he looked ghastly. A greeny-blue cast to the pallor that made me think of Paddy Kavanagh again. He must have been in the water for a long time, because the skin that had been stretched taut on his bones was bloated now, gone slack. His puffy eyes, thank Christ, were closed.
‘Is it him?’ she said again.
‘Yeah.’ I wanted to puke. ‘Are we done now?’
‘For now. I can’t use this as an official ID, but at least now we know we’re not looking for Smyth any more.’
‘You think it was deliberate?’
She considered that. ‘We don’t know. There’s no sign of assault, nothing that makes it look like he was forced into the water. The post-mortem will tell us more.’ She put away her phone, slipped her hands into her pockets again and straightened her shoulders. ‘You know I can
’t let you just drive off to Cork, Tom.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You’re the last person we know who saw Smyth alive. Then, you were hanging around his flat this morning.’
‘We’ve been through this,’ I said. ‘If I was the one who tipped him into a canal, why would I go banging on his door?’
‘Because you might want us to think that you believe he’s still alive. Which was why you stuck around after, went to the coffee shop. Hoping someone like me would turn up, so you could say something along the lines of what you just said.’
‘You’re telling me I’m a suspect.’
‘Right now you’re a person of interest and you’ll be helping us with our enquiries until such time as we decide otherwise. So Cork’s off the agenda.’
‘You want me to stay here? With Emily?’
‘We can take Emily and place her—’
‘No.’
She shrugged. ‘In that case, yes. You stay here with Emily. The other option,’ she said as I opened my mouth to protest, ‘is that I arrest you for non-cooperation, obstruction, put you in a holding cell until we’ve had a chance to post-mortem Smyth. That way you get to ring your ex-wife, she swings back around to pick up Emily. But I get the impression that that wouldn’t be ideal either.’
‘I had nothing to do with it, Kee.’
‘I don’t think you did. But there’s no way I’m going back to the office and telling them I let you swan off into the sunset. Oh, and I’ll need that laptop. Your phone, too.’
‘How come?’
‘Standard procedure, Tom. Don’t take it personal.’
I puffed out my cheeks, let it all go. Nodded at the double doors of the wardrobe behind her, where I stored my lever arch files on the top shelf. ‘The backpack’s in there,’ I said. I reached past her, opened the door. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘if I’m going to be here with Emily, we’ll have protection, right? Someone watching the apartment.’
‘I can arrange that,’ she said.
‘Sorry, it’s on the other side,’ I said, edging around her, reaching for the other wardrobe door. She stepped aside as I bent down to reach into the wardrobe and as she moved I shunted forward, my shoulder shoving her left hip. She reeled back, hands still in her pockets. One heel caught the wardrobe’s lip and down she went with a startled ‘Hey!’ that was cut off as I slammed the doors shut.
