Ratlines (6 page)

C.J.H
.

Ryan fingered the fabric of his jacket. It had been a reasonable suit when it was new, any man would have felt well turned out, but it had begun to show its age. He had admired Haughey’s attire the previous day, the cut of the cloth, the way it flattered his frame. Even if you hadn’t known he was a government minister, you would recognise a man of wealth and influence. It took more than quality fabric to give such an impression, of course, but it couldn’t hurt.

Albert Ryan knew he had a streak of vanity, and of pride, like a vein of silver running through rock. That part of him smarted when he saw younger men who were better dressed, or who drove shining cars. He did not like this aspect of himself, found it ugly and not in keeping with a man of his upbringing. His parents had taught him the virtue of austerity, the Presbyterian values of modesty and hard work.

But still, the beauty of the clothing on Haughey’s back gave Ryan a longing in his soul.

He slipped his jacket on, left the room, and made his way back down to reception with the intention of having lunch. He crossed the high-ceilinged lounge. The maitre d’ greeted him at the glass doors to the restaurant. Ryan paused and surveyed the room and the diners, the expanse of white linen tablecloths, glittering silverware. His gaze travelled across finely cut lapels, French cuffs, silk ties.

The maitre d’ said, “For one, sir?”

Ryan watched the women draped on the men, the jewels and pale skin.

The maitre d’ leaned closer. “Sir?”

Ryan coughed. “Actually, I’m not hungry. Thank you.”

He left the restaurant, exited the building, headed north towards the river, and Capel Street beyond.

“C
ANALI
,” L
AWRENCE
M
C
C
LELLAND
said, smoothing the jacket over Ryan’s torso. “From Triuggio in Lombardy, not far from Milan. Much sought after, not many in Dublin. Very, very nice.”

Ryan studied his form in the full length mirror. Even if the trousers were too short, and the jacket too roomy for his midsection, the suit still looked magnificent.

He was the tailor’s sole customer, standing among racks of expensive cloth and tables laden with shirts and ties. The dark wooden panels seemed to rob the room of light and sound, a solemn quiet hanging over everything. A chapel of silk, herringbone and leather.

“Have you been to Italy?” McClelland asked.

“Yes,” Ryan said. “Sicily.”

“Sicily? Oh, I hear it’s quite lovely there,” the tailor said as he hunkered down to tug at the trouser hems. “I’m more familiar with Milan and Rome myself.”

Ryan had spent four days on the south eastern Sicilian coast in late ’45, a stopover on his way to Egypt. He had been billeted with three other men in an apartment in Siricusa, but he spent most of his time wandering the narrow streets of Ortigia, the tiny island connected to the mainland by a few short bridges.

He had rolled his sleeves up as he walked, opened his shirt wide, the sun beating on him like a blacksmith’s hammer. In the evenings, the place smelled of sea salt and warm olive oil. He ate in the
trattorias
and
osterias
that clustered in the alleys. Ryan had never before seen, let alone tasted, pasta. He ate platefuls of it, mopping up the sauce with fresh bread. He seldom saw a menu; the choice of food was that of the house, rather than the diner, but he didn’t mind. His lifelong diet had been either Irish or army food, the height of culinary sophistication a mixed grill in a swanky hotel, or perhaps a piece of fish on a Friday.

He took four days of pleasure in Sicily before crossing the short stretch of Mediterranean to Egypt and all its torments.

The tailor stood upright and set about Ryan with a measuring tape.

“Hmm.” McClelland placed his forefinger against his lips. “I might struggle a little to make this work for a man of your stature. A man as deep as you are through the chest will often have a more generous waistband, whereas you’re quite a slender fellow.”

He tucked the jacket into Ryan’s flanks, pinned the fabric in place. Standing back, he eyed Ryan from head to foot, the travel of his gaze slow and languid. “Athletic,” McLelland said. “And long legged. But I think I can let the trouser down enough to suffice. With the right shoe, of course. When do you need the suit for?”

“Tomorrow night,” Ryan said. “The minister said to put it on his account.”

McClelland’s face greyed around a thin smile. “Yes, the minister does like to take full advantage of our credit service.”

CHAPTER SIX

A
S EVENING LIGHT
faded to darkness, Albert Ryan spent an hour at Helmut Krauss’s small home on Oliver Plunkett Avenue, close to Dublin’s docks. It stood at the middle of a terraced row of identical houses, Victorian or Edwardian, he couldn’t be sure. They faced newly-built tenement blocks, ugly structures that cast a sullen shadow over the street. A small patch of garden had been laid over with concrete slabs. A brass plaque by the doorbell carried the words
HEINRICH KOHL: IMPORT, EXPORT, ESCROW SERVICES
. A Garda officer waited on the doorstep to let Ryan in.

Inside the house, the parlour had been converted to a small office with an antique desk surrounded by filing cabinets. A telephone sat on the desk alongside a typewriter, a ledger and a selection of pens. The room contained only two chairs: one for Krauss, and one for a guest. It appeared the German did not employ a secretary.

Ryan opened the ledger at a random page and scanned the entries. Business names, ports of departure, dates, sums of money mostly in pounds. He ran his fingertip down the name column, turning from page to page, looking for anything of significance. The amounts of money were modest, the highest figures in the low thousands, and most coming to only a few hundred. The ports covered northern Europe, anywhere within easy sailing distance of Dublin or Dundalk.

He closed the book and turned his attention to the filing cabinets. All were unlocked and contained invoices, purchase orders, statements of account, and the occasional letter. Nothing to suggest Krauss has been involved in anything illegal while running his business here.

Ryan left the parlour-turned-office and went to the kitchen at the rear of the house. The cramped room smelled of grease and tobacco. A dresser stood to one side, well stocked with alcohol. Krauss apparently had a taste for vodka. More boxes of bottles stood piled on the floor, emblazoned with Russian text, obviously some perk of his import business.

A tin bath stood propped in the corner, a privy in the backyard. Ryan opened the cupboards, found nothing but stale bread, tinned food and cleaning materials. He made his way upstairs.

Two small bedrooms, one disused, the other filled with neatly arranged personal bric-a-brac. Rolled socks and underwear lay on the unmade bed, the items Krauss had chosen not to take on his trip to Salthill.

An open letter lay on a bedside table. Ryan reached for the lamp beside it, flicked it on so that he could make out the text in the thickening darkness. He sat on the edge of the bed and examined the single sheet of paper. German, handwritten in a neat script. Ryan understood little, but he recognised the name of Johan Hambro, and that of the churchyard near Galway he had been buried at a few days ago.

Given the mild disarray of the room, Ryan guessed that Krauss had left in a hurry, not taking time to tidy away the rejected clothes or make his bed. Krauss seemed to have been a man of order and discipline. Ryan imagined the German would be embarrassed to know a stranger now observed the mess in his home, however minor.

A chest of drawers stood facing the foot of the bed. Ryan opened the first drawer and searched through the folded shirts with their frayed cuffs and replacement buttons. The second held more socks and underwear, and the third revealed more of the same. But underneath them, a bed of photographs, postcards and letters.

Ryan lifted them out, one-by-one. The letters were mostly in German, and after a few, he gave up trying to distinguish recognisable names from the tangles of words. Instead, he focused on the photographs.

Many were family portraits, stern mothers and fathers, round-faced children, the occasional horse or dog. A few showed rows of uniformed men, tall men, strong men, peaked caps on their heads, lightning bolts on their collars. Some were formal portraits, the men standing upright or sitting with their hands clamped to their knees, staring hard at the camera. Others showed them eating and drinking, collars loosened, laughter almost audible from the heavy paper.

When Ryan thought of his time on the Continent, back when he was a boy pretending to be a man, these were the scenes he wished he could isolate in his memory. Officers lined up at long tables, mugs of beer, voices raised so high it made his eardrums hurt. But when he tried to focus on such sounds and images, others crept in, the burned and bloodied things, the howls and screams.

Yet he could not leave that life behind.

The only place that felt like a home was a barracks. The town or country didn’t matter, whether he slept in his room at Gormanston Camp, or some tin hut in a foreign field. Ryan might have understood this to be unhealthy had he ever given it thought.

In truth, he wasn’t sure if he missed having what most men would consider a home. A wife and children. Walls to contain them all. He had grown accustomed to eating in mess halls, sleeping on thin mattresses, living by the orders of his superiors. Only occasionally did he awake in the night, terrified by the advancing years and what his future life would be when the surrogate family he had chosen had no more use for him.

Ryan leafed through the photographs until he found one, a formal portrait of a young man, his cap worn with pride, his buttons shining in the studio’s lights. He recognised the handsome face of Helmut Krauss, twenty years before he lay dissected on a mortuary table. Such confidence, the surety held in the eyes, the subtle smile on the lips.

You never thought you could lose, Ryan thought. At one time, Helmut Krauss and his kind were certain they would possess the earth and every soul who dwelled upon it. Now Krauss burned in whatever hell had been set aside for him. Ryan searched his soul for pity and found none.

He returned the photographs and letters to the drawer before dropping to his knees and peering underneath the bed. A box lay within arm’s reach. A trail through the dust showed that the Guards had already dragged it out and examined its contents. Ryan grabbed the box’s edge and pulled, hoisted it up onto the bed, folded back the lid.

The Guards had been instructed to leave everything as they found it. Including the Luger P08 and Walther P38 pistols that lay on top of the red cloth, along with the paper bag of loose nine millimetre Parabellum rounds and a single leather holster. Ryan lifted the weapons from the box, examining each of them in turn. They appeared well maintained, smelled of fresh oil. He set them side by side on the bed, placed the holster and the bag of rounds next to them, and lifted the red cloth.

It unfolded to a large rectangle, a white circle at its centre, black lines intersecting. Ryan bundled the swastika into a ball and dropped it to the floor.

A manila folder lay at the bottom of the box. Ryan lifted the folder, opened it, revealing loose typewritten letters, written in English. He read the first.

To whom it may concern
,

This letter is to confirm that the bearer, Helmut Krauss, has been known to me for many years. I can attest to his honesty, integrity and general good character. Should any further reference by required, please write to me at the above address
.

Yours Sincerely
,

Bishop Jean-Luc Prideux

It listed an address in Brittany. Ryan flipped through the remaining dozen, more letters of reference, all praising Helmut Krauss. The last few were replies from the Department of Justice. Ryan picked out phrases from the text.

This department has no objection …

A man of good standing …

On condition that Mr. Krauss does not …

Ryan returned the folder to the box, covered it with the swastika. He looked down at the two pistols, black and glowering on the bedspread. The Luger was much loved by collectors; Ryan had known many soldiers who had taken them home from the front, trophies of their battles on the Continent. But the Walther was also a handsome weapon, similar in performance to the Luger, but a more modern design by thirty or more years.

He tried each of them in the holster, found the Walther to be a better fit. That decided it. Ryan stripped the case from a pillow, stuffed the Walther, holster and rounds inside, and knotted the opening. He dropped the Luger into the box, which he slid back beneath the bed.

As he left the house, Ryan thanked the Garda officer who had let him in.

“I’m just taking a few items for examination,” he said, showing the weighted pillowcase.

The officer did not object.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“H
ELLO, WHO IS
this?” a man answered with a thick eastern European accent.

“My name is Albert Ryan. I’d like to speak with the Rabbi of your congregation.”

Ryan sat on the edge of his bed in Buswells, the telephone to his ear. The skin on his throat stung from shaving. Morning sun warmed his back.

“Well, you are. I am Rabbi Joseph Hempel. How may I help you?”

I
T TOOK LESS
than fifteen minutes to drive south from the city centre to the synagogue on Rathfarnham Road. The building stood back from the street, separated by a high wall and hedge, with well tended gardens. It was a grey block of a structure, flat-roofed, with five windows in the shape of the Star of David above a row of square glass panes. Its sturdy bulk, and the walls around it, gave the synagogue the appearance of a compound under siege.