Echoland (7 page)

The file was much more detailed about Eliza. She was born in 1909, parents a small shopkeeper and a seamstress in the east end of London, minimal schooling, and a variety of jobs. She had come to MI5’s notice as a hanger-on at some of the British Union of Fascists’ marches and meetings. ‘Her interest is less in politics than in her apparent attraction to men in black uniforms, straight arm salutes, and the so-called charisma of Oswald Mosley,’ one sour British Special Branch man had written about her. Interesting, Duggan
thought, that may explain what she’s doing with Hans, a political
connection
. Though Hans would not look good in a black or brown shirt. In fact, he thought, he’d look stupid giving straight-arm salutes. But Hitler was no film star either.

The telephone rang and he picked it up. ‘G2. Duggan.’

‘The hard man,’ Timmy said.

‘Uncle Timmy,’ Duggan said, his body slumping back in the chair.

‘We need to talk.’ Timmy was unusually businesslike.

‘I’m still at work.’

‘Like myself, like myself,’ Timmy said. ‘It wouldn’t be a good idea for you to come in here’ – Duggan assumed he meant Leinster House − ‘but I’ll see you in Buswell’s Hotel in an hour.’

‘I don’t know if I can get—’

‘There’ve been developments,’ Timmy cut him short. ‘A lot of things you need to know.’

He hung up as Duggan was about to protest that he was in the army and couldn’t just go off about family business at the drop of a hat. Not that that argument would have cut any ice with Timmy. Family business was national business to him. Why, he wondered, didn’t Timmy want him to come into Leinster House today when he wanted to parade him around there yesterday?

He sighed and went back to the Harbusch file. The British thought Harbusch moved to Ireland in July 1939 because he saw the war coming and didn’t want to be executed as a spy. Even though they seemed to have no hard evidence that he was spying. At the very least, they would have interned him as an enemy alien. So was his, and Eliza’s, move to Dublin just to save their own skins? Duggan
wondered
. She could’ve been interned too in England for her fascist
sympathies
, whether they were political or sexual; Mosley himself had just been locked up. Or was Hans acting under Abwehr orders?

He flicked quickly through the surveillance reports on the couple
since their arrival in Ireland. They were mainly a collection of
negatives
; they didn’t go near the German legation, didn’t go to any of the depleted German community’s functions in the Gresham Hotel, didn’t mix with the Irish German Friendship Society in the Red Bank restaurant. A report of a surreptitious search of their flat caught his attention. The Special Branch had broken in when the couple were on one of their rare outings but had found nothing incriminating. No transmitters, no code books, only some German novels and English romantic ones. Duggan wondered if Gifford had been on the search.

He flicked forward to copies of letters from a woman in Holland, addressed to Hans care of a shop in Westland Row. A Special Branch report noted that the shopkeeper had been questioned and was
cooperating
, tipping them off when letters arrived, delaying their
delivery
to Hans. ‘I remember with passion our last night of love,’ Duggan read at random from one, its English slightly off key. ‘God willing it will not be long before we do it again and I can still your trembling body with the caress of mine.’ Jesus, Duggan thought, I don’t
understand
any of this. Why was Hans getting love letters from another woman? In English from a non-English speaker? Using a different address meant he didn’t want Eliza to know about her. Or was it all some kind of elaborate setup? For what?

He put a slip of paper in the file to mark where he had finished reading, left the office half expecting someone to ask him where he was going but nobody did. He got on his bicycle and sped down the hill to the quays and headed for the city centre. There was hardly any traffic and he kept up the initial momentum, cycling fast and
enjoying
the exercise, letting it clear his head of all the mysteries it was accumulating. The setting sun was just above a bank of cloud rising from the western horizon and cast a long shadow ahead of him. Beside him, the Liffey was now running faster to the sea as the tide ebbed, hurrying under the bridges as their pillars narrowed its path.
Over the sounds of the still evening he became aware of a droning noise, growing steadily. He looked up but couldn’t see the aircraft anywhere; it sounded like a couple of them. It stopped growing
louder
and began to fade. Probably out over the sea, he thought.

He left his bicycle at the railings in front of Buswell’s Hotel, a
couple
of Georgian houses knocked into one inside. He climbed the steps and glanced over at Leinster House. There were a handful of cars parked inside the railings, on either side of the incongruous statue of a lugubrious Queen Victoria. ‘Should’ve been blown up years ago,’ Timmy would shake his head regularly. But blowing it up would’ve broken every window in Leinster House, the National Library and the National Museum. At the very least.

Timmy was in the bar, holding court with a circle of cronies, all laughing too loudly at some banter. ‘I must talk to this man here,’ Timmy slapped one of them on the back when he saw Duggan. ‘Man of the future. Not like you fucking has-beens.’

Timmy had recovered his hail-fellow-well-met demeanour and led Duggan to a quiet corner of the bar. ‘What’ll you have?’ he asked. ‘Brandy seems to be the order of the day.’

‘Glass of Guinness will be fine,’ Duggan said, pretending to ignore Timmy’s broad wink. His heart sank, hoping Timmy hadn’t dragged him here just to pump him for information about the latest German spy. Timmy called to the barman and raised his almost empty glass for another whiskey.

‘Somebody’s happy with his day’s work today,’ Timmy said in a disapproving tone. ‘Must’ve been laughing their heads off when they saw the black smoke coming out of the departments’ chimneys this morning. On a boiling hot summer’s day.’

The barman gave Timmy another glass of Paddy and put a
half-pint
glass of water beside it. Duggan waited for him to explain what he was talking about, knowing he didn’t need to ask, he’d be told.

‘Caused a right old panic,’ Timmy tipped the remnants of his old glass into the new one and topped it up with a splash of water. ‘Herr Brandy’s arrival. Had them burning files all over the place. Until wiser heads prevailed. Realized what it was all about.’

Duggan said nothing, remembering the bags of documents marked ‘BURN’ in the Red House. Timmy tasted the whiskey and nodded and put it down on a coaster. ‘Brandy,’ he said slowly, ‘is a plant.’

‘A plant?’

‘Fucking Brits,’ Timmy said. ‘You can’t be up to them. Just the sort of trick they love to pull.’

‘Brandy is a British agent?’ Duggan looked at him.

Timmy gave him a solemn nod. ‘Some of us are too long in the tooth to be fooled by this kind of trickery. Might have worked once upon a time. Not anymore.’

‘I don’t know.’ Duggan thought of the array of material seized from Held’s house. The money, the military insignia, the transmitter, the code book, Plan Kathleen.

‘Take a step back,’ Timmy took an unconscious step backwards. ‘Think about it. Who benefited from all the panic this morning? Sensitive files being burned in some places. The Germans coming, moryah. Parachutists raining down on us any minute.’ Timmy gave a snort, dismissing the idea as ludicrous. ‘Whose interest was all that in?’ He nodded at Duggan as if he had answered him. ‘Right. The Brits.’

The barman put the glass of Guinness in front of Duggan and Timmy dug some coins out of his trouser pocket and put the price of the drinks on the counter. Duggan took a sip of the stout.

‘Result was a right old panic,’ Timmy continued. ‘Everyone on high alert. A step away from falling on our knees and begging the British to come over the border and save us.’

Timmy put down his drink and took out his cigarette case,
finished
. He offered Duggan a cigarette but he said he’d have one of his own. Timmy lit both of them and inhaled a lungful of smoke with satisfaction.

‘Do you think Held is a British agent too?’ Duggan asked.

‘Who knows what Held is?’ Timmy gave an expansive wave with the hand holding the cigarette.

‘He’s half German.’

Timmy conceded that with a nod. ‘But do you know who’s living with him?’

‘Who?’

‘A woman who’s not his wife,’ Timmy said. ‘A woman who’s the wife of an RAF officer.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ Timmy said with satisfaction, resting his case.

They sipped at their drinks, pulled on their cigarettes, thinking their own thoughts. If Timmy only knew about G2’s contacts with MI5, Duggan thought. And that MI5 had added to the overnight panic with a warning of an imminent German invasion.
Unternehmen Seelöwe
and
Unternehmen Grün
. Straws in the wind? And the ties that bind them together? The code book, he thought. That’d prove who Brandy worked for. If it deciphered other
encrypted
German messages.

Timmy looked around the bar. It wasn’t full but it was getting to the stage where voices were too loud, laughter was too hearty, and
stories
were being repeated and seemed even funnier than the first time round. Two of his earlier drinking companions came over to him.

‘Can we get a lift up to Lamb Doyle’s later?’ one of them asked while the other swayed in front of Timmy and Duggan.

‘If I’m going,’ Timmy said.

‘Why wouldn’t you be going?’ the drunker of the two demanded.

‘Later, men, later,’ Timmy shooed them away. He turned his back to the room and took a typed document from his inside pocket, unfolded it slowly, keeping it shielded by his body. ‘Take a quick look at that.’

The first sentences grabbed Duggan’s attention: ‘England is
beaten
. Neither time nor gold can save her now.’ His eyes ran down the page, absorbing, rather than reading, the content. Now was not the time, it argued, to do anything to alienate the Germans. Every other remaining neutral was trying to come to terms with them, getting off the fence, getting on the winning side, looking to the post-war world, Germany ruling all of Europe. Joining the Allies now would be
disastrous
, no matter what they offered on the North; we’d be on the
losing
side and pay the penalty. We’d be occupied, maybe lumped together with Britain in one colonised unit. At the very least a
pro-German
neutrality would leave us in an advantageous position in relation to the national question when the post-war situation was being negotiated. There was even a case to be made for joining … Timmy took it from his hand before he could read any more, folded it and put it back in his pocket.

Duggan gave him a questioning look. There had been no heading on the document, no name at the end of it.

‘Top secret.’ Timmy put his finger to his lips. ‘Top. Top. Secret.’

Duggan wondered if he was drunk. He had seen Timmy down copious glasses of whiskey at family gatherings and never appear as drunk as others who had matched him. His speech sometimes became just a little disjointed, that was all.

‘That’s from the top,’ he began again, suddenly fixated with the word top. ‘From the very top. The top. And secret. Very secret.’

‘The Taoiseach?’ Duggan dropped his voice.

Timmy nodded. ‘Men around him. Good men. Good advisers.’
He glanced around him. ‘I’ve been a bit worried about the Chief, you know. Told you that the other night. I know he sees things the rest of us can’t see. But I’ve a theory. I’m worried he spent too long
negotiating
with the Brits about the ports and the annuities. Big mistake to spend too long talking to them. Big mistake to talk to them at all. Look what happened Collins. Just tell them to fuck off and leave us alone. Only way to deal with them. But,’ he tapped his jacket where he had put the document, ‘he’s getting the right advice now. On the right track at last.’ He raised his glass, as if proposing a toast. ‘A nation once again.’

Duggan raised his glass too and took a drink.

‘What does your father think?’ Timmy asked.

‘About all this? I don’t know. I haven’t been home in over a month.’ Anyway, his father never talked about politics.

‘He’d see through all the old British tricks,’ Timmy said. ‘From the old days.’

Duggan’s father had been in the IRA during the War of Independence as well as Timmy but had taken no part in the Civil War afterwards. He never spoke to Duggan, or, as far as he knew, to anyone about those days. Timmy was always curious about his father’s political opinions, confirming that his father never spoke to him about them either.

Timmy signalled to the barman for another round. Duggan protested that he had to get back to the barracks.

‘There’s one other thing,’ Timmy said with a heavy breath. He seemed totally sober again. ‘Nuala.’

‘I talked to her friend Stella today,’ Duggan said. ‘She said she doesn’t know where she is. She’s been on night duty and out of touch with everyone.’

Timmy gave no indication that he had heard. He reached into his
other inside pocket and took out a brown envelope and handed it to Duggan. He took out the single sheet of paper and unfolded it.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Duggan said and looked at Timmy with horror.

‘It’s a joke,’ Timmy said.

‘You’ve got to call in the guards now.’ Duggan dropped the sheet onto the bar, realizing that they shouldn’t be touching it at all. There could be fingerprints on it.

Timmy snatched if off the bar and shook his head. ‘It’s ridiculous.’

Duggan took it back from him; whatever prints had been there had probably been destroyed by now. Letters and words had been cut from newspapers and stuck to the page in a crude message.
We have your daughter
, they said.
£5,000 to get her back. Ad in
Herald
before weekend to signal his agreement: Thanks to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour for prayers answered – TM.