Echobeat (23 page)

Duggan felt a weight lift off his shoulders as he threw his butt out
the window too. ‘She would be very upset if she knew the police were following her,’ he said. ‘Even more so if they were to approach her. Or her family.’

‘Leave it with me,’ McClure nodded agreement.

‘Her relations in Austria are having a very hard time,’ Duggan said, feeling a sudden urge to talk about her. No more than Gerda herself, he realised that he had nobody to whom he could really talk about her, about her true identity.

‘She talks about that?’

‘She has no one else to talk to. Nobody else knows who she really is, except us. And if the guards keep making inquiries in Cork, they might come across her family and if they call on them …’ Duggan let the thought hang there, as though it didn’t bear thinking about. ‘I mean, she’s very sensitive about the—’

McClure raised a hand to stop him. ‘Don’t tell me anything that I might have to report.’

‘Sorry,’ Duggan muttered, realising that his sudden enthusiasm to talk about her had probably already confirmed McClure’s suspicions about his relationship with Gerda. He slowed down on Nassau Street and waited to turn into Kildare Street.

‘It’s not a good idea to become too close to agents,’ McClure said, his tone mild to lessen the rebuke. ‘As a general principle. It can lead to complications.’

Duggan parked outside the National Library and they got out and walked past the closed gates of Leinster House. ‘I’ll try and have the surveillance lifted,’ McClure said in a quiet voice as they entered the pedestrian gate to the reception hut. ‘We can’t be operating at cross purposes.’

The snow shrouding the statue of Queen Victoria in front of the building was beginning to drip and pool onto her lap as they walked around it and went through the main entrance and were put in a
waiting room to one side. They sat on two chairs and McClure drew a sheet from the file he carried and passed it to Duggan. ‘He’ll want to know about this as well,’ he said.

It was a report confirming from several unnamed sources that American naval or military personnel were active in Derry, apparently preparing facilities there for a possible base. So, that man in the pub in Dundalk, whatever his real name was, was right, Duggan thought.

‘You been reading the papers?’ McClure asked in a low voice.

‘Just the headlines,’ Duggan admitted.

‘President Roosevelt is going ahead with his plans to lend and lease more supplies to Britain. So, it’s probably only a matter of time before something happens to involve them directly in the war. One too many U-boat attacks on one of their ships or on a passenger liner like the Lusitania in the last war, or something like that. And then they’ll base destroyers and men openly in the North. Without giving us advance notice, never mind consulting us or asking our permission.’ McClure raised an eyebrow to see if Duggan realised the implications of that.

Duggan nodded. At its extreme, it was tantamount to an American invasion of our national territory, he thought, albeit territory already occupied by the British. At the very least, it isolated Ireland, leaving it the only democracy in the English-speaking world to remain neutral. The only neutral democracy of any kind, apart from Sweden and Switzerland. And the Americans could exert a lot more moral pressure than the British.

He was about to say something when the door opened and a hard-faced woman of indeterminate middle age held it open for them. She didn’t say a word and led them silently through empty corridors, their stagnant atmosphere waiting for a summons to action, and up a back stairs to a small office where there were two desks at right angles to each other and a couple of chairs against a wall painted a washed-out
green. She took her place again behind one desk and began typing with hardly a pause. The man behind the other desk, balding prematurely, looked them up and down with the air of disapproval that civil servants always seemed to adopt towards military men and said: ‘The Minister’s been delayed.’

McClure and Duggan sat down and waited. The civil servant sorted through a pile of papers, ticking some, passing others to his secretary’s in tray. The secretary paid no attention to the growing heap, maintaining the fast rhythm of her typing, the heavy key strokes broken only by the tinkle of the warning bell as she came near the end of a line and the crash of the platen rolling up to another as she flicked it across with her left hand.

The room was stuffy and Duggan found his eyes getting heavy with the heat and the steady sound of the typing. He tried to think about the Goertz operation and whether there were any other leads that he had overlooked. Having everything dependent on a shifty character like Benny Reilly was far from ideal. It was too much to hope for that he would simply give up Goertz. Assuming that he really knew where he was.

But he kept coming back to the sickening thought that Anderson had had the Special Branch spying on him and Gerda. Though they couldn’t have actually seen them in Montague’s office. Or could they? Even if McClure had the surveillance called off, would Anderson accept that? Or would he go a step further and have someone question Gerda? Which would devastate her. Probably encourage her to go to England, join her sister there. Never seeing her again was not something he wanted to think about.

The only way to be sure of stopping further investigation is to wrap up the Glenn mystery as soon as possible, he thought. This whole thing had started off as a low-level operation, just keeping an eye on the German internees. But now it had reached the stage where
it involved the Minister on his way to see President Roosevelt. He had to find out what was going on, who Glenn was and what he was up to, as soon as possible. So they would leave Gerda alone.

Fifty minutes later the phone on the civil servant’s desk rang. ‘Yes, Minister?’ the man said, listened a moment, and then added without a question mark, ‘Yes, Minister.’

He put the phone down and said to McClure, ‘The Minister has important government business to conduct and cannot see you now.’

McClure and Duggan stood up and the civil servant held out his hand. ‘You have a report for us.’ McClure handed over his file. ‘You can find your way out,’ the civil servant said, somewhere between a question and an order.

‘Yes, sir,’ McClure said and they retraced their steps down the staircase to the ground floor, down a narrow corridor behind the empty Dáil chamber and turned a corner into the stately original building. Timmy Monaghan was coming towards them, his hands in his trouser pockets, like the lord of the manor taking a leisurely stroll around his home, admiring the family portraits and checking on the cleaning staff.

‘Fuck,’ Duggan breathed.

‘How’s the men?’ Timmy beamed from one to the other, blocking their way.

Duggan introduced McClure and Timmy to each other. ‘Ah, yes,’ Timmy shook McClure’s hand. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Oh, Jesus, Duggan squirmed, unconsciously moving from foot to foot, trying to flee.

‘All good,’ Timmy was still shaking McClure’s hand. ‘All good.’ He paused as a thought struck him. ‘I’m just going down for a bit of grub. Would you lads like to join me? Get a change from army cooks.’

‘That’s very generous of you, sir,’ McClure said. ‘I have to go to a meeting. But Paul here is free for lunch.’

‘When I was his age you couldn’t keep me fed,’ Timmy said to McClure, as if Duggan wasn’t there. ‘Eating morning, noon and night. If I got the chance.’

McClure gave a polite laugh. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’ He held out his hand to Duggan who took a moment to realise what the gesture meant. Duggan handed him the car keys and caught the hint of a wink, the flicker of an eyelid, as McClure took them and turned away. Only someone who knew his customary unblinking stare would have noticed it.

‘So,’ Timmy said as they went towards the members’ dining room, ‘you trust that fella?’

‘
Yes
,’ Duggan sighed with emphasis, not wanting to have this conversation again.

‘I warned you about him before, didn’t I?’ Timmy ignored him.

‘What are you doing here?’ Duggan changed the subject.

‘Getting out of the house,’ Timmy laughed, as if his explanation was the most obvious thing in the world. He put on a sombre face. ‘And preparing for next week’s emergency sitting about the shortages, of course.’ He gave a delighted laugh. ‘We’ll watch the Blueshirts getting upset about their Brit friends trying to put pressure on us by cutting our supplies.’

‘Are you going to use those documents about the British plans?’

‘I’d use them in a shot,’ Timmy retorted. ‘If it was up to me. Show up those fuckers at their devious tricks again.’

So the government knew about them and wasn’t going to use them, Duggan thought. Interesting. Probably don’t want to create any anti-British feeling. But it meant that Timmy had handed them over to his political masters as well. Or, he thought, the other way round. Maybe they’ve had them all the time and Timmy somehow managed to get his hands on them.

He was trying to work out what that could mean as they went into
the dining room. It was almost empty. A group of six men were gathered at a table inside the door, laughing over the punchline of some joke, and two other men faced each other in an intense discussion halfway down the room.

‘Men,’ Timmy waved at the bigger group as they passed by. Duggan recognised Frank Aiken, the Minister, among them. Important government business, he thought. Another of the group was starting another story, ‘That same lad was going up to Carlingford one time …’

They took a table at the back, Timmy facing the room to keep an eye on everything. A waitress came over with a menu. ‘Well, Betty,’ Timmy ignored the menu. ‘What do you have for us today?’

‘The bacon and cabbage is very nice, Mr Monaghan,’ she said. ‘And the oxtail soup.’

‘That’ll do us nicely,’ Timmy rubbed his hands.

‘It’s a good thing I ran into you today,’ Duggan said as the waitress left, trying to seize the initiative.

‘Why’s that?’ Timmy gave him a suspicious look.

‘I have to know where those documents came from.’

‘You’re a persistent little pup,’ Timmy said without antagonism, taking a half-slice of slightly grey bread from a plate and buttering it.

‘You know how it is,’ Duggan said, encouraged. ‘Information itself is one thing. Where it comes from is another. And just as important.’

‘True, true,’ Timmy folded over his half slice of bread and bit into it.

Duggan waited for him to chew. Timmy took his time, as if he was chewing on something hard. ‘All I can tell you is that those documents are the real McCoy,’ Timmy said at last.

‘I know. But it’s still important to know where they came from. And why. What if we aren’t being shown the missing pages because they might make the overall meaning different?’

‘The meaning is perfectly clear. The Brits are preparing the
ground for an invasion. To play the game all over again. Churchill won’t take his beating from the Paddies. That’s the beginning and end of it.’

‘I know,’ Duggan agreed, realising that he had struck a productive line: Timmy himself would never be satisfied with a piece of information without knowing its source and building a conspiratorial motive into its dissemination. ‘But knowing the source would help us in all sorts of ways. You know that.’

The waitress came with their deep dishes of thick brown soup. ‘And we’ll have a glass of milk too, Betty,’ Timmy said as she put them down. He took a pinch of salt from an open bowl and scattered it on his soup. He tasted a sample, licked his lips in approval, and set to eating.

Duggan did likewise, wanting to ask him who Aiken was with. The Minister’s group was laughing again. It didn’t sound like they were discussing important matters of state.

‘Strictly between ourselves,’ Timmy laid down his spoon and dropped his voice. ‘I don’t know where those documents came from.’

Duggan looked at him in surprise, his spoon halfway to his mouth. He hadn’t expected that: Timmy was never one to admit to ignorance of anything.

‘I mean,’ Timmy corrected himself, ‘I know where I got them, of course. From a reliable man. But I don’t know how they got into the system.’

‘The system?’

Timmy waved a hand, indicating their surroundings.

‘The government?’ Duggan asked.

Timmy shrugged, uncomfortable, and turned his attention to Aiken’s group.

‘You mean the government had the documents first? You didn’t give them to them?’

Timmy nodded, his gaze still focussed on the other end of the room.

‘And where did they get them?’

‘You don’t think they’re going to tell anyone that,’ Timmy turned his attention back to Duggan. ‘Least of all a humble backbencher.’

The waitress came back with two glasses of milk and took their soup dishes away.

‘Actually,’ Timmy continued when she had gone, ‘I’m sorry I ever told you about them. But I thought you fellas should know what was going on. So you won’t be caught napping when the Brits stab us in the back.’

Duggan sipped at his milk, realising that there was a layer of things going on of which he knew next to nothing. That G2 was operating at one level but the politicians were the people with all the cards, playing a much higher game. ‘Where do you think they got them?’ he asked, certain that Timmy had a theory and would want to share it now that he had admitted his own minor role.

‘That’s the question,’ Timmy gave a serious nod. ‘Those fellas in External Affairs have a lot of sources. Their man in London knows everyone there. He used to work for them, you know. Very high up in their civil service before independence.’

‘You think he got them? The High Commissioner?’

Timmy shrugged. ‘The thing is,’ he added, ‘they’re genuine, whoever got them. We have the proof of it now. They’re cutting our supplies. Following their plan. And unless we give them the ports, they’re going to try and take them by force. But you fellas will stop them. Give them another bloody nose like we did in our day.’

It’ll be a different kind of war, Duggan thought but said nothing, wondering instead why Ó Murchú had seemed to treat the documents as new information when he had got them from him. Perhaps he wasn’t high up enough in the hierarchy to have received them in his own right. Still, it made him doubt Timmy’s version of events.