Echoland (24 page)

‘I don’t know,’ he repeated. ‘The IRA have been claiming that they kidnapped an English spy.’

‘I didn’t see anything in the papers about it.’

‘Censored,’ Duggan shook his head. ‘The government’s not going to give them any publicity. That’s what they want but they won’t get it. I suppose,’ he waved the flyer, ‘that’s why they’re using things like this.’

‘Is it Jim?’

‘Jesus, I don’t know. Is he an English spy?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Why might they think he is?’

‘Because they’re stupid. I don’t know. This whole thing is,’ she threw her hands in the air, ‘ridiculous. Totally ridiculous.’

‘You’re telling me.’ He pressed his face into his hands as though it would clear his jumbled thoughts. He refolded the note and handed it back to her.

‘No, you keep it,’ she said.

Christ Jesus, he thought, what am I going to tell McClure? I’ll have to tell him the whole story.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked, as if reading his thoughts.

‘What can I do? What …’ he opened his palms in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Fuck,’ he stood up and walked to the edge of the water and looked down through the reflected sky. A shadowy form of a perch circled slowly near the bank of tangled weeds. He lit a cigarette and turned back to her.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’

‘You think it’s true?’

He nodded.

‘You could tell the guards.’

He gave a noncommittal grunt. They knew about it anyway, but did they know who had been kidnapped?

‘Wait a minute?’ he said. ‘You told me that this Jim Bradley had gone back to England for the holidays.’

She nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Why’d you think that?’

She gave it a moment’s consideration. ‘That’s what Nuala told me.’

‘So how could she be kidnapped in Dublin if he’d gone home to England?’

‘He mustn’t have gone.’

‘Then why did she tell you he had?’

‘Maybe he came back.’

‘Ah, Jesus,’ Duggan sighed and sat down beside her again. ‘I can’t do anything unless I talk to her. We’re just floundering around until she comes clean about what’s going on.’

Stella stared back at him, said nothing.

‘You’ve got to tell me where she is.’

‘I don’t know,’ she pleaded.

‘But you know how to get messages to her.’

Stella continued to stare at him.

‘Yes, you do,’ Duggan confirmed. ‘It’s not like I’d be the first
person
she’d ever think of if she needed help. She knew I was involved in all this. And you’re the only one who could’ve told her.’

Stella looked away.

‘Tell her I need to know what’s going on. Ask her what she wants me to do.’

She took a handkerchief from her bag and blew her nose, her head down. Duggan wondered whether she was crying.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I can’t help her if I don’t know what this is all about. I’m just floundering around in the dark. Probably doing more harm than good.’

She nodded, without raising her head and put her handkerchief away. ‘I really don’t know where she is,’ she raised her head. ‘I never lied to you. But there is this other friend of hers who I think does know. I told her about you.’

‘Who’s she?’

Stella shook her head.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Tell me about Bradley.’

‘I don’t have much to tell.’

‘How are you so sure he’s not a spy?’

‘Because,’ she said and then began again. ‘Because you’d know if you ever met him.’

That didn’t mean anything, Duggan thought. Look at harmless old Kitty Kelly.

‘He’s not interested in all that stuff. Politics. Wars. He’s the most gentle person you’d ever hope to meet.’

‘How did Nuala meet him?’

‘They met on the street,’ she smiled a little at the memory. ‘Nuala was crossing College Green and this cyclist ran into her and hurt her knee and then shouted abuse at her and kept going. Jim stopped to see if she was all right. The only one who did. Helped her to the tram stop. That’s Jim.’

‘When was this?’

‘Back in the winter.’

‘And they’ve been going out ever since.’

‘No, not immediately. They met once or twice, I don’t know, before they started going out together.’

‘He doesn’t sound like Nuala’s type to me,’ Duggan mused, more to himself than to her.

‘What do you mean?’ Stella shot back.

‘Well, Nuala’s not the gentlest person in the world. If you know what I mean.’

‘Have you ever heard of opposites attracting?’

‘Okay.’

‘Besides,’ she added, following her own train of thought. ‘He’s not English. He’s Irish. He was born here and his family moved to England when he was little. A year old or something. That’s
why he came back to university here.’

‘To Trinity College,’ Duggan said. Why Trinity with its
pro-British
associations? he wondered. Why not UCD?

They fell silent, staring at the canal water without seeing it. This couldn’t be a coincidence, Duggan thought. That the IRA would
kidnap
Nuala’s boyfriend. It had to be connected with whatever Nuala was up to. So it had to be connected with Timmy. Could it have
anything
to do with spying? No, he didn’t think so. It was all about Nuala and Timmy, one way or another. But what?

He tried to think it through. Nuala was supposedly kidnapped. Timmy paid a supposed ransom. Then sent some of his old IRA friends or contacts to get it back. Nuala gave back the money. Then her boyfriend was supposedly kidnapped by the IRA as a spy. Was that why she gave back the money? Someone had paid her back in kind? Timmy. Would have to have been him.

Then why threaten to execute the boyfriend? Hold him hostage against prisoners in Belfast? Put out flyers? There was no way the British were going to release them. So the IRA had to execute Bradley or lose credibility. What had Nuala started? If she had started all this?

‘Jesus,’ he breathed aloud.

‘What?’ Stella looked at him in alarm.

Duggan sighed. ‘There’s a chance that this is all a hoax,’ he said.

‘Really?’ she perked up. ‘You think so?’

‘It’s a possibility,’ he said, adding, ‘A small possibility.’

‘Oh,’ she relapsed into her pensive state.

Duggan stood up. ‘I have to go back to work.’

They walked back to the nurses’ home in silence. At the door, he put his hand on her arm and said, ‘Don’t worry. It’s probably not as bad as it looks.’

She nodded, leant forward and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Thanks.’ She turned and went inside.

Duggan took out his packet of cigarettes and found it empty again. I’m smoking too much, he thought, not even aware I’m doing it half the time. He walked his bicycle some fifty yards to the shops and bought a large packet of Sweet Afton. He lit one and cycled slowly, one-handed, up Mount Street and cut into the laneway behind Merrion Square to avoid passing Harbusch’s windows. He came out on Mount Street Upper and crossed over to Sinéad’s office.

Her desk was empty and he went straight upstairs, hoping to find Gifford alone. He was.

‘Do you know anything about the IRA kidnapping an English spy?’ he asked him.

‘I’ve heard talk,’ Gifford gave him a cautious look.

‘Do you know who the spy is?’

‘I haven’t heard that talk.’

Duggan took a deep breath. ‘I think it may be my cousin’s boyfriend.’

Gifford gave a slow grin. ‘Your family seems to be able to cause as much trouble as the Abwehr and MI6 put together.’

Duggan took the flyer from his pocket and gave it to Gifford.

‘I take it this note at the top is from herself? The elusive cousin?’ he looked to Duggan who nodded in confirmation. ‘And that she
hasn’t emerged from the undergrowth in person?’ Duggan shook his head.

‘So who’s Jim?’ Gifford asked when he had finished.

Duggan told him all he knew.

‘What’re you going to do?’

‘Fuck knows,’ Duggan scratched his head in irritation and lit another cigarette. It tasted harsh; his mouth was beginning to feel like an ashtray.

‘You going to pass it on?’

‘Should I?’

Gifford shrugged.

‘It might be a hoax?’ Duggan offered. ‘Like Nuala’s kidnapping.’

‘Tell me more, Sherlock.’ Gifford pulled over the chair and sat on it backwards, his arms folded on its back.

‘Nuala wasn’t kidnapped, just pretended to be. This could be a pretence too. My uncle Timmy getting revenge on her.’

‘And if your cousin-in-law ends up dead in the mountains next week? A bit of cardboard around his neck saying “spies beware”?’

Duggan rubbed his eyes and with a thumb and forefinger squeezed the bridge of his nose.

‘He’d do that?’ Gifford had a hint of admiration in his voice. ‘Uncle Timmy would threaten to kill his daughter’s boyfriend?’

Duggan shrugged and went over to the window and leaned against its side.

‘Right,’ Gifford said as though he was responding to an answer. ‘You don’t want to have to explain all that has gone before. What you’ve been up to while pretending to be working on the nation’s behalf.’

Outside, the breeze made the barest movement in the tree tops. As usual there was no sign of life in the Harbusches’ flat.

‘You have to give your uncle the third degree,’ Gifford said behind
him, still on his chair facing into the room. ‘Call his bluff. Beat the truth out of him.’

Duggan grunted. He had been thinking that too. But a
confrontation
with Timmy was the last thing he wanted. Actually, the second last, he told himself. Explaining all to McClure was a less palatable prospect.

‘And,’ Gifford got off the chair and turned to him, ‘if that doesn’t work, I can always report that Bradley is the kidnapped spy. Based on confidential information from a top secret tout. You.’

Duggan considered the idea. That would keep him out of it while passing on the information.

‘But I have to warn you,’ Gifford added, ‘that if those lads who were here earlier get me into a quiet room and want to know who the tout is I’ll tell them everything as soon as they raise a hand. Every last thing. They won’t even have to hit me once.’

‘Okay,’ Duggan said. ‘Thanks. I really appreciate your help.’

‘Never fear,’ Gifford pretended to be riding a fast horse. ‘The
cavalry
is coming.’

‘Hi-ho, Silver,’ Duggan smiled.

‘That’s more like it,’ Gifford slowed down his pretend galloping and whinnied to a stop. ‘The Lone Ranger.’

Duggan left it as late as possible but it was still bright as he cycled around Stephen’s Green and across to Camden Street and up over Portobello Bridge after ten o’clock. The distant mountains were beginning to turn purple in the waning light and he sped up Rathmines Road between the tramlines and over to Timmy’s house. He had decided he didn’t want to talk to him in Buswell’s Hotel again, he wanted somewhere quiet.

Timmy’s new car was in the driveway as he freewheeled through
the gravel to a halt and climbed the steps to the front door. The young maid opened the door.

‘An bhfuil sé féin sa bhaile
?’ he asked her.

‘
Tá
,’ she pulled the heavy door open wide to let him in.

Timmy appeared at the end of the corridor, a look of irritation on his face. It remained in place when he saw who the caller was. He said nothing but led Duggan into the room where they had met before. He flicked on a standard lamp and sat down at the part of the table he used as a desk. Duggan sat opposite him.

‘Well,’ Timmy said, adopting his politician role, ‘what can I do for you?’

‘Billy Ward has been arrested.’

‘Who?’ Timmy looked puzzled.

‘The fellow who did this to me,’ Duggan touched the bruise on his cheek, now a circle of dark colours.

‘Good,’ Timmy said. ‘That’s good. You caught him.’

‘Not me. The Special Branch.’

‘Good,’ Timmy repeated. ‘And they’re going to charge him with assault?’

‘No. Not with assaulting me. I didn’t report it.’

‘Okay,’ Timmy’s gaze was steady, his voice neutral.

‘He was following me.’

‘Following you?’

‘That’s how they caught him.’

Timmy’s gaze remained steady. ‘The Special Branch is protecting you?’

Duggan noted the response. Timmy didn’t ask why Ward would be following him. He was right. Ward had been working for him.

‘That’s what you came to tell me?’ Timmy continued after a moment.

‘No,’ Duggan took out the folded-up flyer and passed it across
the table. ‘I came to show you this.’

He watched Timmy read it, his face inscrutable. He was in his locked-down position, adopting a passive poker face to everything instead of his usual ebullient, blustering self. Duggan wondered what had happened to change his demeanour. He didn’t think it was his arrival; Timmy seemed to have been in this mood before he turned up.

‘Aye,’ Timmy said when he had finished, ‘I heard something about it. Didn’t I tell you about it before?’

‘I thought you might be able to tell me what it’s really about?’

Timmy looked down at the flyer. ‘It’s clear what it’s about. They’ve got a spy and they’re trying to trade him.’

‘He’s Nuala’s boyfriend.’

Timmy gave a deep sigh and said nothing.

‘Jim Bradley.’

‘That’s his name?’

‘You didn’t know?’ Duggan didn’t try to hide the incredulity in his voice.

‘Jaysus’ sake,’ Timmy said, reaching for a cigarette. He tossed one across the table to Gifford. ‘She won’t give me the time of day. You think she’d tell me about her boyfriends?’

‘Aunt Mona might have told you. Or someone else in the family.’

‘You’re an innocent young lad,’ Timmy said.

‘You don’t know him?’

‘How the fuck would I know him?’

Duggan took a deep drag on the Player’s and the stronger dose of nicotine went straight to his head, almost making him dizzy. Wrong question, he thought. This was getting him nowhere. But trying to interrogate Timmy was beyond his ability. He was much too wily to be caught saying anything he didn’t want to say. Change tack, he told himself.

‘Who is he anyway?’ Timmy interrupted his thoughts.

‘A student in Trinity College.’

‘Ah,’ Timmy nodded as if that was conclusive. ‘English.’

‘No, Irish. His parents went to England when he was young.’

‘Hah,’ Timmy revised his opinion but didn’t change his mind. ‘A West Briton. There’s nothing more that type want than a repeat match. Think they’d win the next time.’

‘Is there anything that can be done?’ Duggan asked, offering a touch of pleading. ‘To get him released?’

Timmy registered the change of tone and adapted too. ‘Difficult,’ he said. ‘Very difficult. If the fellows they want released were down here we might be able to fudge something. But there’s no talking to those fuckers up north. They don’t give a damn. Even about their own men.’

‘You think he’s really a spy?’

‘What does Nuala say?’

‘She doesn’t say anything to me,’ Duggan said. ‘I don’t know where she is. I haven’t talked to her.’

‘But she’s sending you messages.’ Timmy ran his hand along the top of the flyer. The edge of the paper was jagged where Duggan had torn off Nuala’s message. ‘What does she think?’

‘She doesn’t think he is.’

‘Well, that’s something anyway,’ Timmy leaned forward to tap ash into the ashtray between them. ‘It’d be a sorry day if anyone in this family had anything to do with the British after all your father and I went through to get them out of this part of the country.’

‘Maybe you could talk to some of your old comrades,’ Duggan leapt at the opening Timmy had given him. ‘See what could be done?’

Timmy gave him a look, almost of admiration. ‘I don’t know. The government wouldn’t like it. Can’t be going off on solo runs. Aiken’d have my guts for garters.’

‘But it’s your daughter. Surely they’d understand that. Family, like you said.’

‘Anyway, most of those lads don’t want to talk to us nowadays.’

‘But some of them do,’ Duggan pointed out.

‘And what if he is a spy? I wouldn’t cross the road to save an English spy.’

‘What’ll Nuala do if they kill him?’

Timmy slumped back in his chair, not needing to answer that.

‘Maybe Billy Ward’ll be able to help us,’ Duggan added after a moment.

‘What? Is he involved in it?’

‘The Branch think he is,’ Duggan lied.

Timmy reached forward to stub out his cigarette. ‘I’ll see what can be done.’ He leaned back. ‘And tell her to come and talk to me, for God’s sake.’

Duggan went into the office the next morning, still mulling over his conversation with Timmy. Had that been a clear message? Get Nuala to talk to me and I’ll get Bradley released. Or was he reading too much into a casual juxtaposition of two things? Fucking politicians, he thought.

Sullivan gave him a triumphant look. ‘Post’s arrived,’ he said.

Duggan didn’t know what he was talking about.

Sullivan pointed at the letter on his desk. ‘Kitty got a letter.’

Duggan sat down and looked at the envelope as he lit his first
cigarette
of the day. He noted the Swiss stamps and the return address in Zurich. The envelope was already open and he took out the typed page and read it with care and then read it again.

‘Point out to your client that we need a firm decision,’ it said. ‘These parts are in stock and available for immediate delivery but
they may not be in a short time as there are other parties with an interest in them. It should be emphasised that these parts are not available from elsewhere. Our competitor cannot fill the order and his promises are only empty words. Should your client turn down our offer, his future may be affected adversely. Thus, a decision is required. Time is of importance. Strike while the iron is hot!’

Duggan opened his Harbusch file and found the copy of the last letter Harbusch had sent to the Abwehr post box in Copenhagen. He put the two side by side and read through both, Harbusch’s letter first, then the latest arrival.

Yes, he thought. This is a reply to Harbusch’s comment about a competitor and firming up the offer. He’s been told to push the
negotiation
to a conclusion. Give them a deadline. But who? The IRA? Machine parts were clearly weapons. The Germans were offering immediate supplies, so why wouldn’t the IRA accept them
immediately
?

The references to a competitor could only be to the British. And they were offering unity. Not to the IRA, but to the government. So, were the Germans negotiating with the government too? Offering weapons rather than Britain’s words? That made sense.

McClure came in and looked over his shoulder at the two letters. ‘Well?’ he asked.

‘This seems to be a reply to that,’ Duggan pointed from one letter to the other.

‘Yes,’ McClure said. ‘We’ve completed the circle.’

‘But what does it mean?’ Duggan looked up at him.

‘It means Harbusch is a spy. Kelly, too.’

‘But who’s the client he’s trying to do a deal with?’

McClure took a step backwards and gave him a thoughtful look. Then, he gave a slight nod.

So it was the government, Duggan decided. And that’s why they
didn’t just arrest Harbusch and Kitty Kelly. They were an uncover conduit to the Germans. And now they had the instructions the German negotiators were given. He could see why McClure was pleased.

‘Get that copied,’ McClure pointed to the latest letter, ‘And dropped back to the newsagent.’ He turned to Sullivan. ‘Is there someone keeping tabs on Miss Kelly today?’

‘The Special Branch,’ Sullivan said.

‘Okay. Keep up the good work. Both of you.’

‘What was that about?’ Sullivan asked when McClure had gone.

‘What?’

‘Who’s the client stuff? The question he didn’t answer?’

‘Need to know,’ Duggan said, tipping the side of his nose.

‘Fuck you,’ Sullivan said without venom. ‘Just because you can talk to superior officers like that doesn’t mean you can talk to me like that.’

Duggan laughed. ‘Listen,’ he said, as another thought struck him, ‘have you heard anything about this British spy the IRA is supposed to have caught?’

‘Not much.’

‘You know who the spy is?’

‘No. Do you?’

‘No,’ Duggan said. ‘I was just wondering what was happening.’

‘Why don’t you go and ask the captain over there?’ he inclined his head across the corridor.

‘I don’t think I’d get away with that,’ Duggan said.

‘Want me to do it for you?’ Sullivan suggested. ‘I’ll tell him General Duggan wants to know.’

Duggan waved away Sullivan’s sarcasm as his phone rang.

‘The Special Branch,’ the switchboard orderly said.