Echobeat (6 page)

‘Did he say where he got them?’ McClure didn’t look up this time.

‘No.’ Duggan watched him taking his time reading. Was Timmy right? he wondered. Could he be trusted to fight the British? Yes. He shook his head mentally, ridding it of Timmy’s poisonous suspicions.

Something else Timmy had said came back to him. The Northern officer in G2, with the reddish hair. Did that mean that Timmy had met Captain Anderson? Or someone had told him about Anderson, described him to Timmy. And he could be trusted, which meant in Timmy’s lexicon that he was anti-British. Of course, it struck him suddenly, that made perfect sense. Put the pro-British officers on the German desk and the pro-German ones on the British desk: both would be naturally suspicious and determined to thwart every move by their targets.

And where am I in all this? he wondered. He was on the German desk for the very simple reason that he spoke German. And to watch McClure? Was that why Timmy had pulled strings to get him moved
from the infantry to G2? Were these photos a test of McClure’s loyalty?

He rubbed his eyes to clear his head, telling himself to stop creating conspiracies, falling into Timmy’s way of looking at the world. But where do I stand? Who do I want to win the war? He had grown up with stories of derring-do from the War of Independence, although his father refused to talk about it or his part in it: daring escapes, thrilling gunfights, brilliant tactical moves, great ambushes. Decent men forced to fight by centuries of oppression and then by Black and Tan atrocities, murders, burnings, torture. Part of him didn’t want the old enemy to win. But did that mean he wanted Germany to win? He didn’t really know. He just wanted to be left out of it all. Maintain neutrality.

‘Does he have any more of these?’ McClure broke through his reverie.

‘He wouldn’t say.’

‘So Churchill’s not bluffing,’ McClure pushed himself upright and dropped the photographs on a table. ‘It wasn’t just rhetoric in the House of Commons. And his complaint about the ports wasn’t what the government chose to interpret it as, simply a statement of fact, of the burden it imposes on the British.’

‘If they’re authentic,’ Duggan nodded at the photos.

‘They look authentic but it’d be nice to see some more. Especially the conclusions and decisions.’

‘I’ll ask again.’

‘I presume he’s given them to his political colleagues.’

‘Presume so. He said he wanted us, G2, to have them. So we weren’t looking the wrong way.’

‘He thinks last night’s bombs weren’t German,’ McClure said to himself.

‘Timmy can’t go from A to B without taking in X and Y and a few other letters in between.’

‘That’s a good way of putting it,’ McClure gave him an approving look.

Duggan felt embarrassed: that was something his father had said about Timmy, on one of the rare occasions he mentioned him at all. ‘It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to stay out of the war,’ he said. ‘One way or another we’re going to get dragged in.’

‘Depends,’ McClure leaned across the table to put out his cigarette. ‘The British would be crazy to invade and they must know that. At least the military must know that. But the politicians sometimes have different priorities. All we can do is try to make it not worth anyone’s while to come here.’ He stretched himself. ‘It’s like playing chess against two more powerful players at the same time with both chess boards linked so that your defensive moves on one creates dangers on the other.’

McClure picked up the photographs and threw the envelope in a bin. ‘The colonel’s called a conference for eight in the morning to draw up an intelligence assessment for the minister. I’ll bring these up at it. You better be around in case they have any questions.’

‘There’s nothing more I can tell them,’ Duggan made no secret of his apprehension at being grilled about Timmy.

‘It probably won’t arise. Just in case.’

There was a peremptory knock at the door and it opened at almost the same time and Captain Sullivan put his head in. ‘We’ve just had a report from a lookout post of two Heinkels crossing the coast south of Wicklow Head.’

‘Heading this way?’

‘Heading north-west.’

‘North-west?’ McClure stopped, surprised. ‘What’s the target? Derry? That’s probably beyond their range from that direction.’

He hurried out of the room and turned back to them as they followed. ‘Get on the phones and try and chart their course as clearly as possible.’

‘What was that cosy little chat about?’ Sullivan demanded as they returned to their own office.

‘Secrets,’ Duggan smiled at him.

Back in their office Sullivan took a pound note from his pocket and put it down on the table in front of Duggan. ‘Your money back,’ he said. ‘You owe her half a crown change.’

‘You asked her for it?’ Duggan looked at him in amazement.

‘No. She offered. Said it was only fair. She had a great time and wouldn’t have been able to go if you hadn’t invited her.’

‘Tell her thanks,’ Duggan said, flicking a half-crown coin to Sullivan. ‘That’s very good of her. And tell her I’m sorry I was so late.’

‘That’s why she had a good time,’ Sullivan sniggered as he caught the coin. ‘She got to meet that fellow from the American legation. Got a date with him now.’

‘Who is he anyway?’

‘He’s got some strange name. Max something.’ He searched his memory. ‘Max Linqvist.’

‘What does he do in the legation?’

‘Cultural attaché.’

Duggan laughed, thinking of Ó Murchú’s dismissal of the extra German diplomats being described as cultural attachés when they were almost certainly intelligence people.

‘What?’ Sullivan gave him a sharp look.

‘He didn’t look very cultured to me,’ Duggan backtracked. ‘Looked like a bit of a chancer.’

‘Oh, jealous are you?’ Sullivan rubbed his hands in delight. ‘Wait’ll I tell Breda. She’ll be even more delirious.’

The phone rang and Sullivan picked it up and Duggan heard him exclaim, ‘Jesus!’ as he pulled over a notepad and sat down and began taking notes. He looked up when he finished and said in bewilderment, ‘They’ve bombed Carlow.’

‘Carlow?’ Duggan repeated, equally bewildered.

‘Somewhere near it. Out in the country.’

‘What’s there?’

‘How the fuck would I know?’ Sullivan left the room in a hurry with his notepad.

Carlow, Duggan thought to himself. That couldn’t make any sense. He suddenly remembered he hadn’t told McClure what Timmy had told him about the Friends of Germany man called Quinn and his important visitor. He had been about to when Sullivan interrupted them.

McClure was in a corridor telling Sullivan to get down to the scene of the bombing as quickly as possible. ‘I want to know everything you can pick up about it,’ he said. ‘Every little thing.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Sullivan said, a mixture of apprehension and enthusiasm on his face. He rarely got out of the office, one of his gripes with Duggan, who was always out of the office.

‘There seems to be casualties,’ McClure said to Duggan. ‘All unclear at the moment.’

‘There was something else I meant to mention to you,’ Duggan said apologetically and told him quickly what Timmy had said about Quinn.

McClure’s reaction was interrupted by someone shouting, ‘There’s bombs falling on the Curragh!’

There was a shocked silence around them. ‘On the camp?’ McClure called back, seeking confirmation that it was the military camp, the army’s main base, that was under attack.

‘Not sure, sir,’ the voice which had announced the news said. ‘HEs and incendiaries falling in the area. No reports of direct hits.’ And added, ‘Yet.’

McClure looked at Duggan. ‘Maybe you were right. Maybe we are the target. Two nights running.’ He shook his head and walked away but stopped and turned back. ‘Check it out.’

‘What?’ Duggan asked in confusion.

‘That fellow you just mentioned. Quinn.’

‘Now?’

McClure nodded and walked away.

Duggan felt like the pupil kept in at break time as a punishment while everyone else played outside. He was aware of the heightened background noises in the building, the phones ringing, doors banging, hurrying footsteps, urgent voices. But he didn’t feel excluded, only because he knew why McClure had told him to check out Quinn while mayhem may be about to descend. High explosives and incendiaries on the Curragh, he kept thinking at the back of his mind as he turned the pages of the file on the Friends of Germany. ‘Serious consequences.’ The Germans hadn’t been making empty threats.

It was obvious from the file that G2 had someone in the inner council of the Friends of Germany. There were detailed reports of all their meetings. He skimmed over the motions of congratulations to Adolf Hitler for his speech on the seventeenth anniversary of the Munich beer hall putsch in November, the condemnations of parliamentary democracy and capitalism for undermining the moral fibre of the Gael, and the debates on how the new European order would work in Ireland. Peter Gifford hadn’t been exaggerating too much either, he thought. They were planning to turn the country into four regions, each province controlled by a Gauleiter. And some of them clearly saw themselves as in the running for the roles.

Quinn was a regular contributor to their discussions. A brief
biography described him as aged thirty-nine, a clerk in the Electricity Supply Board, a devout Catholic who had wavered a little when he witnessed the German renaissance under Nazi rule while on a cultural exchange programme in Berlin. On his return to Ireland he kept up his links with the local
Ausland
branch of the Nazi party in Dublin until its effective dissolution at the start of the war when its members returned to Germany.

There was nothing in the file yet about their New Year’s Eve event. Duggan lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair, half an ear still on the hubbub outside, wondering what to do. Quinn had obviously been close to the Nazi Party members in Dublin but they were all gone. He would probably help a German spy if asked. But would a German spy ask? Surely that’d be too big a risk for Goertz. On the other hand, there was no record of Quinn being arrested or questioned or kept under surveillance. He and his friends tended to be dismissed as fantasists or lunatics, an irrelevant sideshow.

Until they emerge on the victorious side, Gifford had said. Gifford, he thought. He checked his watch. It was just after midnight but there was a fifty-fifty chance that Gifford was on the night shift again. He picked up the phone and had to wait for the operator to get around to him and give him the number of the Special Branch in Dublin Castle.

To his surprise, he got Gifford on the line. ‘Do you know a Friend of Germany called Quinn?’ he asked.

Gifford gave a theatrical sigh. ‘You’re not still sitting in D’Olier Street in your monkey suit, are you?’

‘He might be harbouring an interesting visitor for Christmas.’

‘Christmas is over.’

‘I know, but,’ Duggan hesitated before committing himself, ‘but there’s a chance he’s still there.’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘Information received.’

‘You been reading our manual?’ Gifford laughed. ‘Looking for a real job?’

‘Just trying to make you look good,’ Duggan retorted. ‘Improve your arrest record.’

‘So who’re we going to arrest? This Quinn fellow?’

‘I’m more interested in whoever might be staying with him.’

‘What’s his address?’

Duggan told him and Gifford said he’d call back. He sat back, aware that he was probably exceeding his instructions. But there was no one to ask for direction at the moment. Everybody was too busy. And what if Goertz was there? And if the rumours were true? That he was being allowed to remain at liberty, as a conduit to the German military? But McClure had said that wasn’t true. And they had tried to capture him several times before. All he was doing was checking out Timmy’s information about Quinn.

The phone rang shortly afterwards and the sentry at the front gate said, ‘Your Special Branch escort is here, sir.’

Duggan hurried out and was met by Gifford. ‘That was quick,’ he said.

‘A few of the lads were bored,’ Gifford led him towards the first of two cars on Infirmary Road. ‘Dying for something to do.’

Duggan sat into the front passenger seat, Gifford into the driver’s seat. ‘Captain Duggan, sarge,’ Gifford said to the older of the two men in the back seat and pointed a thumb at the Red House as they went by. ‘The big new brain in there.’

‘Another young fucker wet behind the ears,’ the sergeant growled at him. He was in his late thirties and looked too big for the car, squashed beside another large man. ‘Who are we apprehending?’

‘There may be a German agent there,’ Duggan said as they drove off.

‘You have a search warrant and all that?’ the sergeant demanded.

‘Ah, no,’ Duggan admitted. ‘I thought we’d just call on Mr Quinn and talk to him.’

The sergeant snorted and the other man in the back seat gave a short laugh. ‘What’s the word from the Curragh?’ the sergeant demanded.

‘I haven’t heard the latest,’ Duggan admitted. ‘Some high explosive bombs and incendiaries were dropped but they missed the camp. There’s a full scale alert there.’

‘Pity they didn’t hit Tintown,’ the sergeant said. Tintown was the slang for the internment camp holding IRA men. ‘Solve a lot of our problems. Even better if their own friends did it.’

‘They won’t do it,’ the other man said with a touch of regret. ‘They’d only hit their own as well.’ The internment camp for German combatants was beside Tintown. The one for British internees was at the other end of the military camp.

‘They should move Tintown to Little Jerusalem,’ the sergeant said.

Duggan was about to suggest that the previous night’s bombing couldn’t have been aimed at the Jews but held his breath. They crossed Charlemont Street Bridge and Gifford asked the sergeant if he wanted him to stop on the main road. ‘No,’ the sergeant said. ‘Drive right up to the house. We only want to have a chat with Mr Quinn.’ The other detective sniggered. ‘But quietly,’ the sergeant added. ‘No lights.’

Gifford turned off the main road into a terrace of small red-brick houses behind short gardens. Duggan realised he knew this road: it was where his cousin Nuala had been staying with a friend earlier in the year. Gifford drove slowly, checking the numbers on either side and calculating where Quinn’s house was. ‘Should be the eleventh on the left,’ he said quietly, flicking off the car’s lights. He cut the engine
as they approached and let the car coast to a stop outside the house. They all stepped out, leaving their doors open. The sergeant went back to the other car and sent the men from it in search of the laneway running behind the houses.

The night was calm and the road was quiet. All the houses were dark except for one opposite where there was a barely noticeable red glow in an upstairs window. A holy lamp, Duggan thought, remembering the red votive lamp in one of the shattered houses on the South Circular Road the previous night. There was no sign of life in Quinn’s house. The garden in front was well tended, spiky bushes shaped and the grass trimmed around the edges.

The sergeant strolled back to them, hands in his trouser pockets, his overcoat flapping open, looking around like he had just arrived from the country and wasn’t used to suburban streets. He stopped when he reached them and did a full circle, nodding at last to Gifford. Gifford opened the iron gate carefully, lifting it as it began to scrape on the ground and Duggan and the sergeant followed him up the short path to the door. The other detective stayed where he was, on the road beside the car.

The sergeant lifted the brass knocker and banged it down hard three times. The noise shattered the silence, seeming to reverberate along the street. The sergeant waited a moment, then bent down and raised the letter box flap with care and took a quick look followed by a slower one. He put his mouth to the opening and shouted ‘Garda Síochána!’ and hammered the door again.

In the silence that followed there was a creak above them as someone raised a stiff window. The sergeant stepped backwards to see what was happening and there was a smooth metallic click and Duggan thought, hammer, he’s cocking a gun – and in the same instant the detective on the street shouted, ‘Watch out!’ There was a
bang above them, and the sergeant hurled forward into Duggan and smashed him against the wall.

The detective on the street fired two quick shots and glass broke and shards fell around them and there was a return shot from upstairs. The sergeant had his revolver out, took a step back and fired two quick shots at the window. More glass broke. There was a moment’s silence. Duggan, flat against the wall, tried to get his breath back, feeling like his ribcage had been squashed. Gifford was against the wall on the other side of the door, his revolver in hand. All three of them watched the detective leaning on the roof of the car, his gun pointed at the upstairs window, trying to read the expression on his face in the gloom. He raised his arms in a signal of ignorance.

There was a burst of shots from the back of the house, several guns firing at once, impossible to tell how many rounds. More glass shattered and a door banged and two more shots sounded from more than one gun. The detective on the road reached into the car and came through the gate at a run and kicked the hall door. The lock gave and the force of the kick bounced the door off the wall behind, knocking something over. The detective pushed the door open with his foot and dodged inside, his torch flashing from side to side. The sergeant followed and Gifford went after him but the sergeant snapped, ‘Watch the car.’

Duggan bent down, his hands on his knees, catching his breath, and thinking that couldn’t be Goertz. He’d know better than to try and shoot his way out. He was an experienced agent. Or would he? And hoping it wasn’t Goertz, and that he wasn’t dead in the back garden now. Jesus, he thought, what would the Germans do if we’ve shot one of their agents? Would they care that he fired first? And it was all his, Duggan’s, doing.

Gifford gave him a worried look. ‘You hit?’

Duggan shook his head. ‘Your sergeant mistook me for a shortcut.’

‘Yeah, he does that a lot.’

The door had swung half shut and Gifford pushed it open with his foot and clicked on the hall light. There was a man on the stairs in a plaid dressing gown. Gifford swung his revolver up, the hammer still cocked, ready to fire, and the man raised his hands over his head. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he said. Duggan, outside, squinted through the gap under the door hinge and saw a slice of white face.

‘Who are you?’ Gifford demanded.

‘Seamus Quinn,’ the man said. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Who else is in the house?’

‘Only my wife. In the bedroom.’

‘Tell her to come down.’

Quinn called to her and she appeared a moment later at the top of the stairs in a pink dressing gown. She put her hands up tentatively.

‘We didn’t know,’ Quinn said again.

‘Didn’t know what?’

‘That Jimmy had a gun.’

‘Who’s Jimmy?’

‘My cousin,’ the woman said. Duggan breathed a sigh of relief – it wasn’t Goertz.

‘He’s a bit hot-headed,’ Quinn offered.

There were footsteps on the path outside and Gifford stepped into the hall, his back against the wall so he could glance behind. The sergeant and the other detectives were leading a man to the car. He was handcuffed and wearing only a shirt and trousers: he was shivering either from the cold or the violence.

Duggan stepped back to them and told the sergeant that the owner and his wife were in the hall and what she had said. The sergeant walked into the house and demanded, ‘Jimmy who?’

‘Burke,’ the woman said.

‘From?’

‘Mayo. He’s my cousin.’

‘He’s in the IRA.’ The sergeant made it a statement.

‘He’s a bit hot-headed,’ Quinn said again.

‘He’s lucky he’s a shite shot,’ the sergeant snorted, ‘or he’d be going for the big drop. So it’s only attempted murder of gardaí in the course of their duties at the moment. And you’re in for aiding and abetting.’

‘We didn’t know,’ Quinn pleaded. ‘We didn’t know he had a gun.’

The sergeant nodded towards the car. ‘You’re coming down to the station.’

‘Are we under arrest?’

‘Don’t get fucking smart with me. Get in the car.’

‘Can we get dressed?’

The sergeant thought for a moment and then said to Gifford, ‘Watch them.’

Gifford followed the couple up the stairs. ‘Sorry this didn’t work out,’ Duggan said quietly to the sergeant.

‘It’s worked out grand,’ the sergeant gave him a crooked smile. ‘Much better than some German. Another fellow for Tintown. If it’s still there.’ He turned back as he was leaving and added, ‘Have a look around. With your search warrant.’

At the top of the stairs Gifford was standing at the half-open door of the main bedroom, watching Quinn get dressed, his wife shielded by the door. Duggan went into the small box room from which the shots had been fired. The cold night air came through the broken window. Blankets and sheet were thrown back on the single bed where Burke had jumped up at their knock and an eiderdown had slipped to the floor. A small cardboard suitcase was open on the floor, a jumble of clothes spilling out of it. Duggan rifled through it quickly and looked under the bed, pulled back all the bedclothes and lifted the
mattress, went through the pockets of a jacket on the back of the door. There was nothing of interest.

He moved to the back bedroom, a bigger room with a wider bed. The top half of the window was smashed and the glass from a picture of the Sacred Heart on the opposite wall was on the floor. He looked under the bed and opened a dark wooden wardrobe and flicked through some dresses and blouses and a light raincoat. There were two pairs of worn women’s shoes on the floor and beside them a brown paper parcel tied up with string. Duggan lifted it out onto the bed and tried to open the knot. His fingers were cold and he blew on them for a moment.

Outside, Gifford was saying, ‘All right, come on,’ and he heard them clump down the stairs a moment later.