Echoland (23 page)

‘I only heard a bit of it. And only one side of it. Would I make a good spy?’

‘The best,’ he said. ‘Especially because you look so innocent.’

‘Would you fuck off,’ she smiled demurely. ‘You see? It’s catching. You fellows are corrupting the whole building with your foul mouths and bad manners.’

‘Next time the boss calls you on the switchboard ask him what the fuck he wants,’ Duggan suggested.

‘I might just do that,’ she said. ‘I’m getting fed up of Dublin
anyway
. It’s all talk and no action.’

He got the message and was about to ask her out when she
continued
. ‘What’s Tintown?’

‘The internment camp in the Curragh. Where your man will be going for the duration of the war.’

Good and Ganly’s office was in an old building around the corner from where South Leinster Street rounded into Lincoln Place and they crossed the road ahead of a slow-moving horse and cart coming out of the city.

‘We’d like to see Mr Good or Mr Ganly?’ Gifford showed his
warrant
card to the receptionist.

‘They’re not in at the moment,’ she said, looking from one to the other.

‘It’s in connection with flats you let on the far side of Merrion Square,’ Gifford said.

‘The flats owned by Mrs Wilson,’ Duggan added.

‘That’d be Mr Whyte,’ the receptionist said. ‘He looks after them.’

She picked up her phone and called Whyte. ‘Two gentlemen in the front office to see you,’ she said and paused. ‘It’s, eh, official,’ she added. ‘From the police.’

They followed her directions up to the first floor where Whyte was waiting for them, a man in his late twenties trying to look older than his years, helped now by his frown of concern. He brought them into a meeting room and placed a blank pad on the table in front of him as if it was the first plank in a defensive wall.

‘We’re investigating some people who might be renting one of Mrs Wilson’s flats in Merrion Square,’ Gifford said. ‘And we’d like to see whatever information you have about them.’

‘You’ve been talking to Mrs Wilson?’ Whyte sought approval for helping them.

‘Yes,’ Duggan said, without elaboration.

‘The German gentleman?’

‘Yes. But not just him.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Any details you have. When they moved in. Their references. Any problems you’ve had with them.’

‘Well I can answer the last question first. We’ve had no problems at all with Herr Harbusch.’

‘Or any of the others?’

‘No. They’re all very satisfactory tenants. Very respectable people.’

‘And the other questions,’ Gifford took out a notebook.

‘Perhaps if I showed you the file? It would be the simplest way of dealing with those.’

‘That would be a good idea,’ Gifford agreed.

Whyte left and returned in a few minutes with a dull green file. ‘That goes back a good while,’ he laid it in front of Gifford. ‘Since before Dr Wilson died. You should start at the beginning. They’re the most recent lettings. Probably the ones you want.’

‘Excellent,’ Gifford said. ‘Thank you.’

‘May I leave it with you? I have a number of things to do.’

‘Certainly. Thank you.’

‘I’m in the office across the corridor if you need anything else.’

Gifford slid the file to his right so that it was between them on the table and opened it. The first entry was Kitty Kelly’s, the newest
tenant
in the building. There was a page of notes about her, written in a prim and clear hand, headed with the date 5/9/39, the week the war began. Most of the notes were cryptic. ‘War’ was one, probably the reason given for her move to Dublin, Duggan presumed. It was
followed
by an address at St Andrew’s Hill, EC4.

‘Her old address in London?’ Gifford pointed his pen at it and wrote it in his notebook.

There was another address in London with a man’s name before it. ‘Landlord?’ Gifford noted it.

Another line said ‘Royal Liver’ followed by an arrow pointing at ‘Dub office’. The last line said ‘agreed 21/-’ and ‘B of I, College Gr’.

‘That’s a lot for a pensioner,’ Duggan said. ‘Twenty-one shillings a week.’

‘You mean it would be a lot for Kitty Kelly. If she was Kitty Kelly and not Adolf Hitler’s granny,’ Gifford muttered.

The next page was a letter from the manager of Royal Liver Insurance in Dublin repeating some of the same complimentary
phrases about Kelly that Duggan had already read in the message from MI5. He must have contacted London and got the information from them, Duggan thought.

The last page about Kelly was a brief letter from the manager of the Bank of Ireland branch in College Green saying Miss Kelly was a new customer having retired from her position in Great Britain and had adequate funds available to rent the property mentioned.

The following pages were about Mr and Mrs Harbusch and
followed
the same pattern. As did the following entries about the other tenants. None of it told them anything that seemed new or relevant. Except, Duggan thought, that Jameson, the man he had accosted on the street, was the longest tenant.

‘So?’ he leaned back in his chair.

‘So,’ Gifford shut his notebook. ‘She decided to get out of Dodge as soon as she heard the bad guys might be on their way into town. As soon as war was declared. And,’ he flipped through the file pages, ‘exactly a month after Hansi and Eliza called on our friend here.’

‘So she came here because they were here. Followed them from England.’

‘One of the team,’ Gifford agreed. ‘Not an innocent old woman caught up in something she didn’t understand.’

‘Does she have an English accent?’

‘What did your legman and fellow officer say?’

‘I forgot to ask him.’

‘Want me to interrogate him?’ Gifford gave an evil grin. ‘I’ll make him talk.’

‘Was Sinéad telling you about her boss?’

Gifford nodded. ‘And I got a call from my inspector asking what the hell was going on. I told him that Ward was so distraught that his fight for Ireland was at an involuntary end that he fell down the stairs. Made a lot of unfortunate noise.’

Duggan closed the file. ‘We should see if Mr Whyte can add
anything
to this.’

Gifford stood up and pulled out his revolver. ‘I’ll go get him.’

‘Jesus,’ Duggan laughed and Gifford put his gun away and went to get Whyte.

‘My boss has a few more questions,’ Gifford said when they were all seated again.

‘Yes,’ Duggan aimed a sideways kick at Gifford’s shins under the table but did not connect with anything. ‘Did Miss Kelly come
looking
for this particular flat or was she just looking for a place in
general
?’

Whyte puffed out his cheeks as he thought back. ‘No, she came to us about this particular address. She didn’t ask about anywhere else.’

‘And had she seen it before she came to you?’

‘Oh, no,’ Whyte said as if the idea was ridiculous. ‘We’re the sole agents.’

‘I mean,’ Duggan added, ‘did she have friends living there or had she seen it for some other reason?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘And did you show it to her?’

‘Yes, I took her around to see it. To see a couple of flats in the building, actually. There were a couple available. She chose the ground floor one. Said she didn’t want to have to climb any more stairs than she needed to.’

‘And did she give you any indication why this particular building?’

‘Its location,’ he said, as if that were self-evident. ‘Very convenient. Very respectable area. And its own private park, of course.’

‘And Herr Harbusch? Did he want this building too?’

‘That was earlier,’ Whyte pulled the file over and opened it to remind himself. ‘Yes. No. I mean he came looking for somewhere suitable for his wife and himself. Actually, it was an apartment in
Fitzwilliam Square that brought them to us but they didn’t like it when they saw it.’

‘And then you showed them the Merrion Square one?’

‘Yes. That was more to their liking.’

‘How did you find Herr Harbusch?’

‘A pleasure to deal with. A gentleman. Very decisive. German, you know. Knew what he wanted.’

‘Okay,’ Duggan looked at Gifford to see if he had any questions.

‘Miss Kelly,’ Gifford said. ‘Does she have a strong English accent?’

‘No,’ Whyte said. ‘I wouldn’t say strong. But she does have an English accent although you can hear the brogue under it. She was in London for fifty years, she told me.’

Back in the office Duggan typed out a brief report of the conversation with the estate agent and copied down the addresses from the page Gifford had torn from his notebook. He went looking for McClure, found him in a corridor and gave it to him.

‘They’re not going to thank me for this,’ McClure said of MI5. ‘They’ve got more than enough on their plate. Probably burning files rather than creating new ones.’

‘That bad?’

‘You heard?’ He looked exhausted, Duggan noticed. ‘The French army has laid down its arms. It’s all over on the Continent. The Germans have got everything they wanted. From Poland to the Pyrenees. In little more than nine months.’

‘Maybe the British will look for terms now?’

McClure shook his head. ‘Not Churchill.’

‘Others,’ Duggan realized that was what he was hoping for; an end to the threat of war, to the uncertainty.

‘I doubt it. Any terms the Germans would offer would have to be
unacceptable to the British. They have the upper hand.’

‘So where’ll they invade next? Us or them?’

‘That’s the question,’ McClure gave him a wan smile, ‘that we’re trying to answer. We’ll only be a diversion one way or the other, not the real target. But a lot of people can die in diversions.’

Duggan turned to go and a thought struck him. ‘Why don’t we arrest Harbusch and Miss Kelly?’

‘It’s not the time to be arresting German spies. We just want to know their plans and to thwart them.’

‘But we tried to arrest Brandy. Goertz.’

‘We tried to detain a German flyer who parachuted onto our
territory
,’ McClure gave him a crooked smile. ‘Like we detain any of the belligerent forces who happen to land here one way or another. How would we know he’s a spy? We assume he’s a pilot who bailed out of a damaged plane.’

‘Ah,’ Duggan said. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘It’s a delicate balancing act,’ McClure corrected him. ‘Not
upsetting
anybody. Not giving anybody an excuse to invade. While
planning
for all eventualities.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Keep neutrality in the forefront of your mind. That’s the policy and that’s the objective. We don’t want anyone to be killed in
someone
else’s diversion.’

Amen to that, Duggan thought as he went back to his office.

Sullivan was there, writing a note at Duggan’s place. ‘A message for you,’ he stopped writing. ‘Your cousin Stella wants to see you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Is that a code? For your one?’

‘No. It’s my cousin.’ Duggan was so used to the lie now that he almost believed she was his cousin. Indeed, he had met her more often than he had seen his real cousin Nuala in recent years. And
Stella was also coming to mean trouble. ‘How is Miss Kelly?’

‘We were at Mass again this morning. I’m building up a great stack of indulgences.’

‘You might be needing them soon. Did you hear about the French army?’

‘Yeah. Kaput, as the Germans say,’ he giggled.

‘We might be next.’

‘No way, my old man says. They’ll go straight for the English.’

‘And then?’

‘Then it’ll be all over,’ Sullivan said as if it was stating the obvious.

‘They’ll just leave us alone.’

‘Why not? We’re not at war with them.’

‘There were a lot of countries not at war with them.’

‘They were in the way. But we’re not in the way. We’re not between them and the English.’

‘And after they take over England? What then?’

‘Then it’s just politics, the old man says. The North and all that. Sorting out who’ll run what. But the war will be over.’

‘And we’ll all be speaking German.’

‘Yeah,’ Sullivan said. ‘You and the captain have a head start on most of us.’

‘
Sehr gut
,’ Duggan replied.

Stella strode into the hall of the nurses’ home, her face tight with
tension
. Was everybody looking tired and tense? Duggan wondered. She led Duggan outside without a word and turned left, towards the canal.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Another message from Nuala.’

‘And?’ he said, quickening his step to keep pace with her.

‘In a minute. I’ll show you.’

They crossed the road diagonally at Mount Street Bridge and went down to the canal bank and a little way along it to the first bench. The water was still, reflecting the few puffy clouds in the deep blue sky. A convoy of ducks went by, rippling the sky’s reflection into folds, as she dug into her handbag and took out a piece of paper
folded
into a tight square.

Duggan felt his stomach go hollow as he unfolded it. It was clear from Stella’s demeanour that this was not good.

It was a crudely printed handbill, headed ‘British Spy Held For Volunteer Exchange’. He scanned down through it. A British spy had been captured by the Irish Republican Army and would be executed unless five named volunteers held illegally in Belfast by the occupying forces were released. The deadline was noon on the last day of June, less than a week away. There was some more rhetoric about
imperialist
undercover tactics designed to facilitate their re-invasion of all of Ireland, but Duggan skipped back to the handwritten note on the top of the page.

‘Tell Paul it’s Jim,’ it said in Nuala’s easily identifiable looping script.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Duggan leaned back hard against the bench, raising his face to the sky.

‘Is it true?’ Stella searched his face.

‘Yes,’ he looked at her. ‘I mean, it could be. Which part of it? I don’t know.’

He read through it again, paying more attention to every part except the names of the prisoners in Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast. They meant nothing to him; he had never heard of any of them. Stella watched him, waiting.