The City of Strangers (34 page)

He tried to remember what was there. It was big, running almost the length of the kitchen and living room. It was piled high with packing cases, old furniture, empty oil drums, fishing tackle; there was a line of free-standing shelves at one side, full of tools and timber off-cuts and rows of canned food that must have been there for years. He felt his way slowly to the shelves and moved along till he got to the end. He squeezed in behind them and crouched down. As he did so the door from the living room above opened.

There were feet on the narrow stairs; lamplight lit the cellar; then someone moving across the room; the sound of metal and glass. He assumed it was Dominic Carroll. He had come down for more oil lamps; now he was filling a can with kerosene from one of the drums. There were more feet on the steps. Aaron Phelan was coming down too. Stefan reached into his coat pocket. Whatever happened he wouldn’t be another Jimmy Palmer. The gun he had been given at Police Headquarters was there.

‘There’s a bed made upstairs, Mr Carroll. They can’t have gone long.’

‘Some fucking time to play Goldilocks in my house!’

‘What about in here?’

‘They must have been down for the lamps. I guess they’ve run now.’

‘I’ll look outside,’ said the NYPD man. ‘If they’re still around –’

‘Assholes!’ muttered Carroll.

‘Has this ever happened before?’

‘Once Aaron, years ago. I think it was fishermen or a couple of hobos like I said. I remember they made a bigger mess than this lot. Look, just make sure the grounds are clear. If you see anyone, fire in the air, that should see the back of them. But I’d say they’ll be on their way now.’

Dominic Carroll handed a lamp to Phelan and the two men walked back up the stairs. The light went with them and as the door to the living room closed the bolt outside slid across. Stefan was undiscovered, but there was still only one way to get out.

As he moved from behind the shelves he heard a car horn sounding outside. There was another vehicle arriving; more people. But whoever they were more people would mean more movement and more noise, and that meant more distraction. It would be cover. He had to use that to get the trap door open. He felt his way along the cellar in the darkness, very slowly, feeling with hands and feet for anything he might knock over, anything that might make any sound. He heard more voices.

‘You know Eric Bauer, Mr Carroll.’ Aaron Phelan was speaking.

‘Good to see you again,’ said Carroll. ‘We met at the bookshop.’

‘It was easier to get to than this!’ The voice that answered was a New York voice. ‘You said it was the middle of fucking nowhere, Dominic! It is!’

There was polite laughter. These weren’t old friends.

‘You haven’t met Paul Eisterholz though,’ continued the captain. ‘He’s the Bund leader in Brooklyn and Queens. He knows what Eric’s men are doing at the World’s Fair. Well, the thing’s pretty much done, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a real pleasure, Mr Carroll.’ The voice was another New York voice, but Stefan came from a German family; he didn’t need the name to hear the bit of Germany that was still there, somewhere behind Brooklyn.

‘We’re not here to talk about any of that, Mr Eisterholz,’ said Carroll. ‘It’s going ahead and it’s going to mean big things. It’s going to change everything, for all of us, Ireland as well as Germany. But it’s out of our hands. Barely anyone on our side even has a whisper of it. That includes people who will be here tonight. So it won’t be mentioned. That’s how you want it, right?’

‘On that matter business is closed, Mr Carroll. Here or anywhere else.’ Whatever they were talking about, Eisterholz was more clipped. He didn’t seem to like the fact that this unknown issue had been raised at all.

‘It’s Dominic, please. We’re all friends,’ replied Carroll.

‘You were in Berlin?’ continued Eisterholz.

‘Yes, I’m not long back.’

‘I hope it was successful.’

‘I think it was,’ replied the Clan na Gael president. ‘Very successful.’

There was silence for a moment. Stefan Gillespie could almost feel Carroll and Eisterholz looking at each other. If there were things Eisterholz didn’t intend to talk about, he could tell that the details of Dominic Carroll’s recent visit to Berlin weren’t about to come pouring out now either.

‘You’ll understand that I was speaking to people at a very senior level of course, Paul. A lot of it concerns our activities in Britain and Ireland.’

In the silence that followed two men had established their importance.

‘I’ll go and check outside, Mr Carroll,’ said Aaron Phelan quietly. ‘Before the others get here, OK? Just to make sure everything’s in order –’

Stefan heard the policeman’s footsteps move to the front door. He had reached the trap door himself. He could feel he was underneath it. But he couldn’t open it with the NYPD man outside. He stood in the darkness. He was next to a wooden barrel. His hands moved over it, tracing out its shape. It would do the job. If he stood on the barrel he would be able to reach very easily. When there was more noise he would slide it under the trap door.

‘Let’s open some whiskey, gentlemen,’ said Dominic Carroll.

The three men moved into the kitchen; the voices were still clear.

‘You read about Seán Russell’s arrest, in Detroit?’ Carroll continued.

‘I certainly did,’ said Bauer. ‘That’s quite a stir you’ve made.’

‘I was at the station with him when he was arrested. Windsor was the latest stop on the English king’s tour of Canada. We only had to say Seán was going there, set up a few secret meetings that weren’t very secret, and say we were heading across the Ambassador Bridge. If looks could kill he might have been dangerous, but the British didn’t like him being there –’

‘It seems to have come off well,’ laughed Eisterholz.

Stefan was almost underneath them now. The trap door opened up just behind the kitchen. He could even hear the whiskey pouring into the glasses.

‘It was enough. The FBI leaped on him and hauled him in. They’ve been questioning him about a plot to blow up Georgie that never even existed, which means they’ve all done their job and everybody’s happy. And we’re happy too. Because as for the rest of it, Seán’s become a hero overnight, for doing nothing! We’re up to seventy-two furious Members of Congress now, demanding an explanation and an apology from Roosevelt for trampling on Seán Russell’s rights and Irish sensibilities. If they don’t get it they won’t be at the Congressional reception for the king when he gets to Washington. Not that there’ll be much of a reception to turn up for!’

The last words were met with silence again.

‘The end of the conversation,’ said Eisterholz.

Stefan could feel irritation being held back by the Bund man.

‘We don’t need to say it a third time, Dominic. We will be in the company of friends tonight but friends can only be trusted so far. Your friends in the IRA, even mine from the Abwehr.’

‘Don’t sweat, boys. Here’s to the future! Sláinte!’

The chink of glasses. The German American returned the toast.

‘Sláinte!’

‘And I can hear our other guests!’ said Dominic Carroll.

Stefan could hear too. There was a third car arriving, and another close behind. The three men left the kitchen. They walked through the living room and went outside. He heard car doors slamming and the sound of new voices. He strained to push the barrel across the cellar floor. It scraped across the cellar floor, but there was no one above to hear it. He climbed on top of it. Reaching up in the darkness, he could feel the two trap doors. His fingers found the bolt that held them shut. He pulled hard. For a moment it wouldn’t move. He pushed this time, using both hands. It shot back as the sound of footsteps on the floor above him filled the cellar again.

The floor was shaking slightly. He wasn’t sure how many people were in the room now, eight, nine, ten. The buzz of conversation was loud. He was sure it ought to be enough to cover any sound he made opening the flaps and climbing out. But there was a voice he needed to hear first; Captain Aaron Phelan’s. The policeman had been outside, looking for signs of intruders. If he was still there now Stefan might be opening the doors in front of him.

‘Gentlemen, before we begin!’ Dominic Carroll’s voice was loud. He was calling the gathering to some sort of order, and the conversation dropped. ‘I’d like to introduce Bob Monteith to you. Some of you may not know who he is. If you’re Irish you damn well should do!’

There was some laughter.

‘Bob lives in Detroit now, but in 1916 he was commanding the Irish Brigade that Irish patriots formed to fight against British imperialism, and to stand alongside Germany in that battle. He was the man Roger Casement chose to land with him from the submarine that brought him from Germany to Banna Strand, to join the Easter Rising. When Roger Casement was betrayed, Bob Monteith escaped. He lives in Detroit now, where he’s still fighting for Ireland and still fighting British imperialism. He’s one of Father Coughlin’s leaders in the Union for Social Justice, and he’s a man who knows well what a true friend Ireland has in Germany and its Fuehrer!’

There was a murmur of approval; and scattered applause.

‘We’re here because we all know war is coming to Europe, because we know that for the freedom of Ireland, the true freedom of America too, Germany must win and Britain must lose. We’re here to do what we have to, to make that happen. But before we chew the fat, Bob has a message from the Shrine of the Little Flower. He brings us all Father Coughlin’s blessing.’

There was silence in the room. Stefan knew who Robert Monteith was. He had some idea now of what this meeting really was. Clan na Gael and the IRA, the German American Bund, maybe German Intelligence, maybe the Abwehr man he had met in Central Park. For a moment he thought he heard some words in German.

This was all part of what John Cavendish knew, but only a part of it. Stefan had heard some of it. He didn’t know what was happening in this meeting, but he knew what everybody knew. The King of England was on a tour of Canada; after Canada George VI was coming to America, days from now. And somehow there was something about that that wasn’t to be talked about here, in front of people joined by nothing except their hatred of Britain. Somewhere in there was what John Cavendish had been scraping away at. Somewhere in there was what he was looking for in IRA ciphers. Somewhere there perhaps was the reason he was dead.

Dominic Carroll had joked about a bomb plot that didn’t exist. It wasn’t much of a stretch for Stefan to imagine one that did.

The voice that spoke next was an Irish voice. It wasn’t an old man’s voice, but the fragility of age was in it. There was an American twang too, but Stefan could hear the accent of his own county over it. Monteith was a Wicklow man. He spoke quietly, but there was a sense of excitement and intensity behind it. Stefan heard how much this moment mattered to him.

‘Father Coughlin asked me to say these words: My prayers and my blessings are always for peace, but if peace cannot come except by the destruction of everything we hold holy, then we have to stand against the warmongers, against Britain with its capital and its empire, against Jewish gold, against the Red Terror. We have to join together, America and Germany, Germany and Ireland, and all the people of the world who see the evil that eats away at our true democracy, the democracy of faith. Britain cannot be allowed to push America into war, and no true American will stand by and watch as politicians bay for blood. To fight the warmongers is not only our work, it is God’s work, and may his light shine upon you all.’

A few murmured amens filtered down into the cellar; feet shuffled, and then the buzz of conversation picked up again in the room over Stefan’s head; the floorboards creaked. He had to get out to find Kate and Niamh.

‘Find a seat!’ Dominic Carroll called out. ‘There are more chairs round the house. Aaron, there’s a cupboard full of glasses in the kitchen and half a dozen bottles of Bushmills on the table. See to the drinks, will you?’

‘OK, Mr Carroll. They’re on their way.’

So Phelan was inside; Stefan knew that now. He couldn’t wait any longer. He pushed up one of the flaps of the trap door, holding it so that it didn’t drop. He pushed the second one open and lowered it as quietly to the ground. He was standing on the barrel now. He pushed the lamp up on to the ground and then levered himself through the opening.

He was outside, at the back of the house, just to one side of the kitchen window. He knelt down and closed the trap doors. He could see Aaron Phelan through the window, taking glasses from the cupboard. He crept forward, out of the pale light thrown out by the lamp in the kitchen, and he walked away, into the trees.

When he reached the boathouse Stefan stopped, looking out at the lake. He could see nothing; he could hear nothing. There was a slight shimmer on the water, but it was just a great stretch of greyness spreading out to meet the greyness of the sky. There was no horizon to see. There was certainly no boat to see. He moved on into the trees beyond the jetty and the boat house. There was a kind of path but after a few yards it stopped. The trees hadn’t seemed so thick in daylight. But they were dense now. He had to risk his voice. He was a long way from the house now. He threaded his way into the wood. He called out in a low whisper. It still sounded louder than he wanted it to sound; but it had to be loud enough for Kate and Niamh to hear him.

‘Kate!’ he hissed. ‘Kate! Niamh!’

He waited.

There was only the lapping of the water.

‘Where are you? It’s time! Come on!’

He heard a noise behind him. He looked round to see Kate. She was holding a heavy iron bar. Niamh stood behind her, dazed and silent still.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Kate.

‘I couldn’t get out. I had to go through the cellar.’

‘Is it the police?’

‘No.’

‘Are they looking for us?’

‘No.’

‘Then who –’

‘It doesn’t matter. They don’t know we’re here. I’ll tell you later.’

Kate looked at him a moment. She wanted a better explanation than that, but he had to have a reason for not giving it. She knew that. She knew too how hard it was to keep Niamh calm. But she had to know something.