The City of Strangers (39 page)

Stefan tried a man-of-the-world smile; it wasn’t reciprocated either.

‘What about the Free State soldier, John Cavendish?’

This was the conversation Stefan Gillespie didn’t want. He didn’t know whether the NYPD man had just been waiting to ask that question because he knew more all the time, or whether he was only fishing.

‘What’s he got to do with it?’

‘You knew him.’

‘I can hardly say I knew him. I met him at Mr Carroll’s party, on Patrick’s Day. We didn’t have very long to get acquainted, as you know.’

‘You didn’t know him better than that?’

‘No, but I know a lot more about him now. I’ve been sitting at Centre Street with your brother reading the reports on the investigation into his death, as requested by the consul general. Yes, I should’ve stuck to that.’

‘I think Kate O’Donnell was pretty friendly with Captain Cavendish,’ said Phelan slowly. ‘They were working together, over at the World’s Fair.’

‘I wasn’t very interested in who else she was friendly with, Captain,’ said Stefan. ‘I was interested in how friendly I could get her to be with me.’

‘You think that was all he did, Sergeant – Mr Cavendish?’

‘All he did what?’

‘Someone told me he was in Military Intelligence at one time.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘A Free State soldier and a Free State detective would have a lot in common, the way things are in Ireland now, with de Valera cracking down on the real Republicans. If he was G2, maybe you’re in Special Branch.’

‘You know who I am. You know why I came to New York.’

‘You tell a good tale, Sergeant,’ replied Phelan. ‘And it seems to hang together. I know you’re not Special Branch. I know you really are a sergeant in Baltinglass. Mr Carroll wanted you checked out. But you still worry me. The IRA never really got anything on Cavendish, but there were things going on, there was information going out somewhere, and he was in it somewhere. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but that’s the impression I’ve got. Now, out of nowhere, there are things that have gone wrong, very wrong.’

‘So a woman gets out of a nut house and goes home to her family?’

‘That’s not what I’m talking about.’

‘Then you’ve lost me, Captain.’

Aaron Phelan looked at Stefan Gillespie for a long moment.

‘Mr Carroll is still pretty pissed about his wife.’

‘You’ve told me.’

‘That would be enough,’ continued the NYPD man. ‘It would be enough to teach someone a very serious lesson. Mr Carroll doesn’t get involved in that sort of thing. I deal with all that for him. I make my own decisions. He doesn’t like to know. Why should he? I could almost have decided to let it go, even though I’m pretty pissed too. You made me look like a real jerk, because he had to know some of it. He had to know she’d left the country. I don’t like being humiliated like that, Sergeant. But when I put being pissed together with, well, other things nagging me –’

He took the gun out of his pocket again.

Stefan tensed himself; he could do nothing. And it was unexpected. Whatever his fears outside the Empire State Building, he had felt them ease away as Aaron Phelan’s words had focused so much on Niamh Carroll. That was all the NYPD man really knew. What he hadn’t understood was what he had done to Aaron Phelan in the only eyes that mattered to him, Dominic Carroll’s.

The two German Americans stood up. They didn’t like this at all now.

‘Look, Mr Phelan, a bit of roughing up –’

‘Don’t worry, boys. I told you, we’re doing Mr Carroll a favour.’

‘All you said –’

‘All you need to do is clear up the mess!’ snapped Phelan.

Suddenly the door opened. Aaron Phelan spun round, surprised and irritated. But he knew the man who walked in. And so did Stefan Gillespie. It was the Abwehr man he had met in Central Park, Rudolf Katzmann. It was the man he thought he had glimpsed in a mirror at the Pennsylvania only two hours earlier, watching him. Now he knew he had been right.

‘It’s Captain Phelan, isn’t it? We have met before.’

‘I work for Mr Carroll.’

‘Of course,’ smiled the intelligence officer. ‘What is this?’

‘There’s a problem to attend to here, Mr Katzmann, that’s all. It’s not your problem though. If you’ve got some interest in it, then get on to Paul Eisterholz. I spoke to him about it on the phone yesterday and he cleared it. You know these things need doing sometimes. It’s not German business.’

‘I see,’ said Katzmann softly. ‘He’s an informer?’

‘It’s close enough.’

‘An IRA informer?’

‘It’s between me and Paul, Herr Katzmann. These are Paul’s men.’

Phelan was impatient now; he jerked his head at the two Bund men.

‘Paul is no longer here,’ said Rudolf Katzmann. ‘He has no men.’

‘I spoke to him yesterday.’ The captain looked at the two German Americans. ‘Tell this guy to fuck off. You don’t take orders from him.’

‘They do now,’ smiled the Abwehr man. ‘There has been, well, let’s say a change of management. Paul has disappeared. Unfortunately no one knows where he is, but he was dabbling in things that were really beyond his competence. Sometimes there is a price to pay for that. I don’t know enough about the IRA to know whether that’s true of you and Mr Carroll, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. So, I really think you need to tell me why you’ve brought Mr Gillespie here, and what you intend to do with him.’

‘You know who he is?’

‘As a matter of fact I do.’

‘Well, he’s fucked off Mr Carroll, and maybe more –’

‘So you’re going to shoot him.’

‘I think you want to go a bit higher up before you start throwing your weight about. You need to talk to Mr Carroll and Seán Russell. You might want to remember that Mr Carroll was in Berlin two weeks ago. If you don’t want to watch, go outside. I can get rid of the body without anybody’s help.’

Aaron Phelan turned to Stefan, holding out the gun.

‘He’s a loose end. You’ll have to trust me, Mr Katzmann.’

‘All right, Captain,’ shrugged Katzmann. ‘It’s your decision –’

Stefan flung himself off the chair at Phelan. His hands were still cuffed. But it was all he could do. As he moved he heard the explosion that filled the room. His head hit Aaron Phelan. For a moment he didn’t know that it had actually hit Aaron Phelan’s dead body. The NYPD man was a bloodied sack of potatoes. Stefan was on the ground next to him. He felt nothing. Surely Phelan couldn’t have missed him at that range? He was staring into the policeman’s open eyes. But they were the eyes of a dead man. There was blood trickling from his mouth. He started to get up. Katzmann was standing over the body with a gun, looking down.

‘Unfortunately, you are the loose end, Captain Phelan. I wouldn’t necessarily feel obliged to act on that, but you don’t seem to know when to leave well enough alone.’ His eyes moved to Stefan as he put the gun back into his pocket. ‘Is that an Irish trait, Sergeant Gillespie? I rather think so.’

Stefan said nothing. The Abwehr man turned to the two American Bund men. He spoke to them in German, sharply. They stood to attention.

‘Get rid of the body. The river will do. The IRA need know nothing. But I don’t think he has to disappear as completely as Paul Eisterholz. I know the Irish like a good funeral. I wouldn’t want to deprive him of that.’

Without a word the two men walked across to Captain Aaron Phelan’s body. One of them reached into his pocket; he handed Katzmann a small key. Katzmann stepped over the dead man and undid Stefan’s handcuffs.

‘You’ll probably want to get back to your hotel and pack, Sergeant.’

Stefan sat beside Katzmann as the German’s crossed into 7
^th
Avenue from the park. He glanced left at the tower of the Hampshire House along 59
^th
Street.

‘It seems you took over from John Cavendish after all, Mr Gillespie.’

‘I don’t think I did, Herr Katzmann. It was about a woman who didn’t get on with her husband, and another woman I liked. That’s it. I don’t know what else Captain Phelan had in his head. All I know is I couldn’t get it out.’

‘We should probably leave it at that then, Sergeant. You won’t know anything about a bomb that was planted at the World’s Fair today, in the British Pavilion. In anticipation of King George’s imminent visit it seems.’

‘I heard about it when I was at Police Headquarters earlier today. And I heard they’d found it, on the radio. Two cops were killed, isn’t that right?’

‘No one knows who did it, of course,’ said the Abwehr man.

‘I guess between the FBI and the NYPD they’ll find out.’

‘I very much doubt it.’

‘You very much doubt it or you hope they won’t?’

‘It was certainly nothing to do with the Abwehr. My superiors would not be altogether enthusiastic about replacing the present English king with a man who is quite as captivated by our Fuehrer as the Duke of Windsor. There will be a war, as any fool knows. When it comes we fully intend to defeat Britain, and we will, as any fool knows too, even American fools, with the exception of the biggest fool of all, President Roosevelt. But defeating Britain and turning it into a Hitler-worshipping satellite of our Thousand Year Reich are two very different things. One day Germany may have to get rid of Hitler and the Nazis, and we may want the world to resume something more like normal service. When that day comes it will be useful if the rest of the world still exists. Not that any of those thoughts are mine. I am as loyal to the Fuehrer as any German alive.’

‘I hope more Germans are as loyal as you, Herr Katzmann.’

The Abwehr man laughed; he drove on for a moment saying nothing.

‘I don’t know whether Captain Cavendish knew about the bomb,’ continued Katzmann, ‘but he did know something was going to happen. And he knew it involved, well, shall we call them rogue elements. I don’t know whether rogue elements applies to the IRA, who seem to be under the impression that a king calling himself Edward VIII would hardly be on the throne five minutes before handing the island of Ireland over to them in its entirety. However, it certainly applies to anyone who thought killing the English king was in Germany’s interests. One way or another Captain Cavendish had decided I was probably worth talking to. Whatever he knew about bombs, he didn’t believe the Abwehr would have countenanced it.’

‘He was going to tell you something?’ said Stefan.

‘Tell me what? What you know nothing about, Sergeant?’

‘Something like that, Herr Katzmann.’

‘He spoke to me that night at the Hampshire House, St Patrick’s Day. I had suggested we talk before, but he had been, well, standoffish, let’s say. In our line of work you can be sure anyone in the same line who suggests a conversation is looking for more than he intends to give. As of course I was. He asked me to meet him that evening, on one of the empty floors. Naturally it wouldn’t have been good for either of us to be seen talking to each other.’

Stefan realised what the German was telling him. It wasn’t about a bomb or an IRA and American Bund assassination, it was about Cavendish.

‘You were there.’ It was all he said.

‘Yes.’

‘You know who killed him?’

‘I walked up the stairs. I was a little late. When I got there I could hear voices, angry voices, and sounds I recognised. I didn’t go much further, but I saw enough. It was a fight, well, not a fight. It was dark, but I could see John Cavendish was being held and he was being hit. There were four or five men, from the team that had been playing some game. The hurlers, isn’t that the word? I’d seen them at the party, drunk from the start.’

‘And you walked away?’

‘Any public contact of that sort would have embarrassed us both.’

‘Maybe John would have preferred being embarrassed to being dead.’

‘My job doesn’t offer much in the Good Samaritan line. Obviously I had no idea at all how it would end. If I had I would have found a way to mention it to somebody. There were enough policemen there. I’m sorry, that’s all I can say. In our profession it doesn’t do to get into awkward situations. How he got into a scrap with a bunch of drunken ball players –’

‘They followed him up there,’ said Stefan simply.

‘Do you know something about it?’

‘I know something. I can’t make any sense of it though. It seems –’

He shook his head. He remembered the party. He remembered the anger in the face of the hurler who had spoken to John Cavendish. He remembered the look on the captain’s face too. He had felt the darkness, even though he had no idea what it was about. And he still had no idea, though he now knew it had cost the G2 man his life.

He didn’t believe Rudolf Katzmann was the only person who knew something though. Someone in the NYPD did. He didn’t know how high it went; he didn’t know how many detectives knew. But the runaround he had been given was all about covering up what happened. There was no unpicking that now, at least not in New York. Katzmann would not be walking into Centre Street to make a statement. But it wasn’t over; he owed John Cavendish more than that. He was taking what he knew back to Ireland. The people who killed the intelligence officer didn’t have a police force to cover up for them there.

In the Statler Bar at the Pennsylvania Stefan Gillespie bought a bottle of whiskey. He took it up to his room. He put it down on the desk and walked into the bathroom to get a glass. He found himself shaking. He went to the sink and stared into the mirror. Suddenly he threw up. The telephone was ringing. He splashed his face with water and went back to the bedroom.

‘This is Roland Geoghegan, from the consulate.’

‘And how’s it going, Roland?’ he said, coughing.

‘The consul general wants to speak to you.’

‘I’m grand too, Roland.’

‘Mr McCauley would like to speak to you now. If you could –’

‘Are you sure?’ interrupted Stefan.

‘What do you mean, am I sure?’ said the third secretary shortly.

‘On the Owen Harris front I’m hoping to get him on a plane tomorrow without him getting killed in an NYPD cell or giving an interview on what’s funny about killing your mammy. As for the rest, tell Mr McCauley he’ll need to decide how much he wants to know, on a variety of subjects relating to dead intelligence officers, Clan na Gael presidents, bombs in World’s Fair pavilions, the IRA and German Intelligence, and what the NYPD never got round to telling anybody about the Cork hurling team. He won’t want to know everything. He might not want to know anything. But without your diplomatic training, Roland, I’m too fucked to guess what bits to leave out.’