The Blood Upon the Rose (20 page)

‘I hope not, for your sake. But I cannot run the risk. I'm no good at disguises and I don't intend to use them. Indeed, with a face like mine I could not. What I can do, though, is cooperate with you personally. Any equipment or information which I need, you can bring to me at an address which I will give you.’

Reluctantly, Commissioner Radford agreed. He took a small, creased photograph out of his pocket and gave it to Andrew. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is all most of my officers have to go on. It is the only photograph that we have of Michael Collins. If you can identify him from that, you're a better detective than I am.’

Andrew looked at it. It was a blurred, overexposed picture of a man with black hair brushed sideways across his forehead, a round, rather heavy face, with a strong chin and dark, shadowed eyes. The face was staring at the camera, rather vacant, lost - like a young man leaving home, Andrew thought, off to the war or a job in a distant city.

‘It was taken in 1916, after the rebellion. He was being sent away to prison in England with the rest. They spent the next six months in a camp at Frongoch, in North Wales.’

Living off the fat of the land, after they had tried to shoot us in the back, Andrew thought. While I was stuck in Flanders, knee-deep in mud and bones.

The young man in the photograph looked awkward, vulnerable; but Andrew did not feel sorry for him at all.

11

WHEN ANDREW'S GERMAN grandparents had first visited Dublin, in the 1880s, they had bought a three-storey terraced house in Nelson Street. It was not very grand, for they were not that rich, but it was in a decent enough street, which at the time looked as though it might become fashionable. It had not done so, but that was not his grandparents' fault. His mother had loved the house, and Andrew, in turn, had lived in it as a student. Now it was the only house he owned; a private, lonely place full of mould and damp and memories, where he could brood without interruption. A place, too, where no hotel porter or waiter working for Sinn Fein could report on him as a visiting British officer. He had not realized how important that was, until he had met Sir Jonathan in the Castle.

After the meeting he sat alone in his living room, smoking. The smoke curled in lazy circles above him, obscuring the ceiling. He considered the possibilities.

Killing Collins would be easy enough. He could do it with a gun, a knife, a bomb, with his bare hands if necessary. Andrew had killed enough men to know that all he needed was surprise and utter determination. The problem was how to find the man. The more he thought about that, the more impossible it seemed.

Collins was able to move freely around Dublin because half of the city supported him, and the other half was afraid or didn't want to become involved. Andrew had no doubt that any phone call he made, any letter he sent to the police or the army, could be intercepted by Sinn Fein workers in the Post Office. Hotel staff, delivery boys, news vendors, hospital nurses, doctors, shop assistants - any of these might be Sinn Fein supporters, ready to pass along information they thought suspicious, not to the police, but to the IRA. This was what the government's clumsy policy of coercion, delay, and deceit had led to: exactly the opposite of the normal situation, in which the public supported the police.

But the politics of it were not Andrew's concern. The Republicans had burnt his home, they had conspired with Germany during the war and killed his mother; that was enough for him. But how would he go about finding the man?

He imagined himself wandering the pubs and hotel bars in the city, striking up conversations with strangers, asking if they had seen Mr Collins lately. Perhaps he could pull the photo out of his pocket to jog their memories, offer them a small reward? The idea was absurd; the Shinners would be on to him as soon as he opened his mouth. And once seen, his face was against him: he was so much easier to recognize than other men.

Perhaps he could offer to join the Volunteers, saying he had fought in the war and seen the light? Not impossible, but highly unlikely. They would be suspicious, check up on him. If they found out he was a landlord, they would never believe him; so he would have to invent a whole new identity. And even then it was highly unlikely he would get to see Collins: he would be a new recruit, given simple duties at first, watched to see how well he did.

So how could he get near the man? Collins was Finance Minister as well as being in charge of Intelligence operations and assassinations of the police. Andrew wondered about the embossed receipt Slaney had tried to sell him at Ardmore. A receipt printed with the signature of Michael Collins. What would Slaney have done with the money once he had collected it? Brought it up to Dublin, probably, delivered it to the Finance Minister in person. What if Andrew took his place? He could turn up with a bag of notes, and shoot the man while he counted them.

Fine. But how would he know where to take the money? Only by catching someone like Slaney, and forcing the information out of him. The man would not only have to be tortured to get the information, he would have to be kept out of circulation so he couldn't warn Collins afterwards. There might be passwords, well-known meeting places, couriers to collect the money at the station. Couriers who knew who normally brought them the money.

Too complicated, Andrew thought. Another bad idea.

He stubbed out his cigarette, and pulled the blurred photograph of Michael Collins out of his pocket. This was the only picture they had, of a wanted man who was a Member of Parliament and holder of four posts in a rebel government - one three-year-old cutting from a group photograph.

He stared at it for a long time, but it told him nothing. I have to get into that man's mind, he thought. If I am going to catch this beast, I must learn to think like him. I need something that will take me straight into his presence, without anyone being suspicious about my face or my background. But what?

Abruptly, he stood up, put the photograph away, unlocked his door, and strode downstairs into the street.

He crossed the river and strolled across St Stephen's Green, looking at the ducks and at mothers pushing prams. In one corner toddlers were playing hide-and-seek in some irregular, grassy ditches - the remains of the trenches that the Citizen Army had dug on the first, heady morning of the Rising in 1916. Andrew smiled contemptuously. What utter amateurs, to dig trenches in the middle of a city square, overlooked by tall buildings! Most of the British Army had spent four years trying to get out of the foul deathtrap of the trenches, and fight a war in the open - these play-actors couldn't wait to dig them in the middle of a city park. They had even laid out a picnic in a summer-house, he had heard. But the moment they had been fired on from the Shelbourne Hotel, they had scampered away to the College of Surgeons, leaving their cucumber sandwiches and soft drinks behind.

Collins had brought the IRA a long way since then. They no longer stood up like statues waiting to be shot at, they disappeared into the sea of people. But they were not strong enough to take on the British Army, whatever they pretended. They'd need whole shiploads of German guns for that, not just the single one which had scuttled itself off Cork in 1916. But the war is over, it's too late to ask Kaiser Bill for help now.

Isn't it?

Andrew checked in his stride, nearly running over a small child who was chasing a hoop. The germ of an idea began to hatch in his mind. He lit a cigarette, his fingers trembling slightly with excitement. Perhaps. It wasn't all clear yet, but he could see no immediate objection. He smiled, and began to walk back past Trinity College, waiting for the details to emerge in his mind.

If I were Michael Collins, he thought, I might just be interested in that.

‘Lord save us!’ Michael Collins's voice boomed across the little room. Paddy Daly looked up curiously.

‘Whatever is it now, Mick?’

Collins waved a big hand impatiently. ‘Wait till I've finished. Then you'll see all right!’ He laughed, drummed his fingers on his desk, and gave a whistle of pure amazement.

Sean watched, bemused. It was an impromptu meeting of the Dublin division of the IRA. He himself had brought in the letters, one of which Collins was now reading. The others in the little upstairs room in Bachelor's Walk - Paddy Daly, Liam Tobin, Mick McConnell - sat around smoking or waiting patiently. Richard Mulcahy, the IRA Chief of Staff, was also there, as was Cathal Brugha, the Dail's Minister of Defence.

Collins was always like this - restless, ebullient, so bursting with his own energy that no one could survive five minutes with him without being overwhelmed by the force of his personality. He worked twice as hard as other men, twice as fast; and with so much noise that no one else could do anything without being interrupted once a minute.

Now, as he sat at the desk reading a letter, a smile of pure delight shone out of his face like the sun; and was then chased away by a frown of deepest suspicion, equally theatrical. He finished the letter, and drummed his fingers again noisily on the table, deep in thought. Then he suddenly laughed, and threw himself back on his chair, so that it banged against the wall, resting on its two back legs. Collins was a big man, fifteen stone at least, and the flimsy chair creaked ominously under the treatment. He pushed his thick black hair away from his forehead, and beamed at the others.

‘Now listen to this, you lot!’

As if they could do anything else.

He flourished the letter dramatically, and began to read.

Lambert's Hotel Dublin

12 January 1920

Mr Michael Collins

Minister of Finance

The Mansion House

Dublin

Dear Mr Collins,

I write to you in the strictest confidence, and you will treat this letter accordingly, I trust. I had the honour, until November 1918, in the army of His Majesty Kaiser Wilhelm II, to be an officer. During the time of the war, I was to the General Staff attached, and met several times with your esteemed countryman Sir Roger Casement, he who later so tragically in London was hanged. As you know, Mr Casement was in Germany hopeful of recruiting Irish prisoners of war to fight in Ireland against the British; and also he wanted to buy many guns for you and your country in your war of national independence to use. Despite the needs of our own soldiers, we were able to provide 20,000 rifles which we from Russian prisoners had taken, together with 4 million cartridges, and 10 machine guns. Most unfortunately, these weapons did not reach you, because our Captain Spindler was forced to sink his ship, the Aud, near Cork to avoid capture by the British Navy.

I think perhaps you will share with me my belief, Mr Collins, that had these weapons reached you, the course of the war, and of your country's history, might well changed have been. I say this as one who knows it well that you yourself fought against the British Imperialists in Dublin that Easter of 1916.

‘It's a rum sort of English he writes,’ said Paddy. ‘All the words in the wrong places, somehow.’

‘Probably because the man's a German,’ said Collins. ‘Or if he isn't he wants us to think he is.’

I write to you now because, at the end of the war, into my possession there fell some 20 Maxim water-cooled machine guns, and one million cartridges. I do not have to tell you, perhaps, that these guns by far the most effective small-arms weapon were on either side during the entire war; on one occasion I myself witnessed two of them destroy a Scottish battalion in ten minutes.

Also, I have nearly one hundred Mauser Selbstladepistole C96, and some Parabellum Artillery pistols, which I can sell to you. You will understand, I suppose, that so far all in my power has been done these weapons out of the hands of the British and French armies to keep. However, I myself do not need them; whereas it occurs to me that perhaps you do. I, on the other hand, need money. As you are the Finance Minister in your government, it may be possible that we can do business.

For such a deal, I must meet you personally. I am resident in this hotel for the next week. If this idea interests you, please make contact. If not, you will destroy this letter, I trust.

Your most sincere and humble servant,

Count Manfred von Hessel.

‘There you are!’ Abruptly Collins slammed his chair forwards, stood up, and began to pace up and down, his hands in the trouser pockets of his thick suit. ‘Well, boys, what do you think?’

‘We could surely do with them,’ said Richard Mulcahy. A lean, fit, intense young man, he had led by far the most effective action outside Dublin in 1916. Unlike everyone inside the city at that time, Mulcahy had believed in a war of speed and movement. His brigade had attacked the British, engaged them in small, destructive actions, and then got away - as the Boers had done in South Africa. It was a strategy he and Collins favoured for all units now. There were to be no more grand symbolic martyrdoms.

Cathal Brugha looked at him sarcastically. A man of undoubted bravery, Brugha found it hard to maintain friendly relations with his more energetic colleagues. ‘The pistols, maybe,’ he said. ‘But not Maxim guns, surely? Have you seen the size of those things? Where are you going to fire them - down O'Connell Street?’

‘I was thinking more of the country,’ said Mulcahy patiently. ‘With a weapon like that, our lads in west Cork and Wexford could take on a whole company of British troops and hope to beat them.’

‘Sure, and then they'd send over four more regiments,’ Brugha snapped back. ‘I’ve told you before, what we need is to send someone over the water to kill Lloyd George and the British Chief of Staff. That'll bring it home to them. And we won't do that with a heavy machine gun.’

‘But we could have done with one at Ashtown!’ Collins burst in irritably. ‘By God, if we’d had one of these things there, young Martin would still be with us, and Johnny French would not!’