Echobeat (8 page)

‘We had a lovely Christmas,’ Quinn said. ‘He told us all about growing up in Germany. Christmas in Germany. Sang all the songs for us. ‘
Tannenbaum
’. ‘
Stille Nacht
’. He has a lovely voice.’

‘You know he’s a German spy?’

‘He’s not a spy.’

‘What do you think he’s doing here?’

‘He’s here to help us.’

‘Help us?’ Duggan prompted, expecting to hear that Goertz’s mission was to help defend Ireland against a British invasion.

Quinn nodded, enthusiastic now. ‘Help us adjust to the new Europe. Make sure that the transition works for us after the war. So that we can take full advantage of all the opportunities we will have.’

‘What opportunities?’

‘To be really free at last. To get out from under the British shadow.
And be able to live our own lives like Herr Hitler has shown the German people how to live their own lives in their own culture. To respect our own culture and grow strong and get rid of the talking shops and the Bolsheviks and the moneylenders and all the parasites who feed off us and keep us weak.’

Duggan took a deep drag on his cigarette, taken aback with this sudden speech but recognising its echoes from the reports of the Friends of Germany meetings. ‘And he said all this? That’s why he’s here?’

Quinn nodded.

‘Not to get us to give up our neutrality?’

‘Oh, no. The Fuhrer wants us to remain neutral. He was sent here to help us as well, if the warmonger Churchill attacks us.’ He made it sound like Hitler had personally sent Goertz to Ireland out of his personal concern for the country.

Duggan resisted an impulse to get involved in a political debate. ‘So what happened after Christmas?’

‘He left.’

‘Where did he go?’

Quinn shrugged, showing his disappointment. ‘I don’t know.’

‘He didn’t say?’

Quinn shook his head.

‘What if you wanted to contact him again?’

Quinn said nothing, clearly hiding something.

‘Tell me,’ Duggan ordered, hearing the demanding tone of his old German teacher in his own voice.
Sagen Sie mir.

‘He didn’t say goodbye,’ Quinn admitted. ‘He went out for a walk the day after Stephen’s Day and he never came back.’

‘Something happened to him?’

‘No. She said he was okay. He just had to move. For security reasons.’

‘Who said? Who’s she?’

‘The woman who came to collect his clothes.’

‘Wait a minute. Tell me, step by step.’ Duggan crushed his cigarette butt in the ashtray.

‘He went out for a walk and didn’t come back,’ Quinn said with a hint of impatience. ‘Two days later a woman came to collect his clothes. She said he had to move for security reasons and that he had said to thank me very much. That he enjoyed our discussions.’

‘Who was she?’

‘I don’t know.’

Duggan gave him a sceptical look.

‘I never saw her before,’ Quinn said. ‘She didn’t tell me her name.’

‘What’d she looked like?’

‘Well dressed. She had a fur coat. Well spoken.’

‘By herself?’

Quinn nodded. ‘She drove herself.’

‘What kind of car?’

‘I didn’t see it.’

‘You saw her driving it,’ Duggan pointed out.

Quinn dropped his head.

‘Listen,’ Duggan said. ‘They haven’t charged your wife yet. They’re still deciding what to charge her with. I can have a word with them.’

Quinn raised his eyes and stared at Duggan for a moment. He took a deep breath. ‘A Wolseley,’ he breathed out.

Duggan reached for another cigarette to cover his satisfaction. There weren’t too many Wolseleys around. There shouldn’t be any problem finding the woman. A fur coat and a Wolseley: she had to be well off. She mustn’t have known about the leaflets, just gathered up Goertz’s things, hadn’t looked closely at the side of the wardrobe with Mrs Quinn’s clothes.

‘You must’ve been worried when Herr Goertz went out for a walk and didn’t come back,’ Duggan backtracked.

Quinn nodded.

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing. There was nothing I could do.’

‘You could’ve talked to somebody. To whoever brought him to you in the first place.’

‘He was away. For Christmas.’

‘Who is he?’

Quinn half shook his head. ‘He doesn’t know anything either.’

‘He brought Herr Goertz to you.’

‘He didn’t know who he was.’

‘You asked him?’

‘He didn’t know.’

‘Who brought Herr Goertz to him?’

Quinn thought for a moment. ‘A woman.’

‘The woman in the Wolseley?’

‘Could be. I don’t know.’

‘You haven’t asked him?’

‘I haven’t seen him. He’s still away.’

‘Who is he?’

Quinn dropped his head and shook its crown at Duggan.

‘A friend of yours,’ Duggan said, as if he was talking to himself, a statement, not a question. ‘Okay. I can understand that.’ He paused. ‘And your wife’s cousin? The IRA man? Did he meet Herr Goertz?’

‘Oh, no,’ Quinn’s head shot up. ‘He’s a foolish young lad. Hasn’t a brain in his head.’

‘So he wasn’t there when Herr Goertz was there?’

‘No, no. He turned up on New Year’s Eve. Invited himself to stay.’

‘What was he doing in Dublin?’

‘I don’t know. We didn’t want him there but we couldn’t refuse, you know? Family.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Duggan agreed with a heartfelt sigh. ‘So what did you and Herr Goertz discuss?’

‘Germany. How it’s been transformed. Have you been there?’

Duggan shook his head.

‘You should go when the war’s over,’ Quinn’s voice became more animated with enthusiasm. ‘What Herr Hitler’s done is extraordinary. Raised a whole nation off its knees. After everything the French and British imperialists threw at them. Did their best to grind them into the mud. And one man put a stop to it. One man.’ He raised a finger and shook his head in amazement. ‘And look at them now.’

‘You knew who he was, didn’t you?’ Duggan tapped Goertz’s photo.

‘I wasn’t sure,’ Quinn flashed a sly smile. ‘There’d been talk about him.’

‘What talk?’

‘You know, a special representative of the Reich.’
Ein Sondergesandter des Reiches.

‘And you’d heard him mentioned by name?’

‘There were rumours.’

‘What does he think of the IRA?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘But he’s working with them?’

‘Not really,’ Quinn dismissed them with a wave of his hand. ‘They’ll be put in their place when the time comes.’

Duggan put out his cigarette with slow stabs at the ashtray. ‘Okay,’ he switched back to English as he put the photo of Goertz in his inside pocket. ‘Thanks for talking to me.’

‘My wife?’ Quinn asked in English, sounding more uncertain, almost as if it was a second language to him.

‘I’ll have a word with them.’ Duggan gathered up the parcel of leaflets and his overcoat.

‘I wouldn’t like her to go to jail.’

‘I understand.’

‘I know it wouldn’t be for long,’ Quinn looked up at him. ‘It won’t take much longer now. One more push and it’ll be over. The English can’t hold out. The U-boats are sapping their strength and the axe will fall in the spring.’

Duggan nodded, thinking of McClure’s admonishment about armchair generals and strategists. ‘That’s what Herr Goertz says?’

‘It’ll be over by the summer,’ Quinn nodded with satisfaction. ‘We’ll be able to assist them in governing England. Who knows better than we do all the devious English ways?’

Duggan almost smiled at the neat symmetry of the idea, revenge for all those centuries of English rule in Ireland, but stopped himself in time. Quinn was serious. ‘You discussed this with Herr Goertz?’

‘He thought it was a very interesting idea. Worth looking into.’ Quinn watched him move to the door. ‘And there could be interesting positions for a man like yourself. In the new order. An intelligent man with good German.’

Duggan turned back to him at the door and said, ‘
Auf Wiedersehen
.’

‘I enjoyed our talk,’ Quinn relapsed into German.

Outside, Duggan stood on the Bridewell’s steps and inhaled the cold air. The temperature was dropping as the sun went down and the dark bulk of the Four Courts lay before him. ‘I hope you’ve got what you wanted,’ the station sergeant had said as he left and he’d muttered a ‘yes, thanks’. But all he’d really got was a well-off woman in a fur coat and a Wolseley car. And a bizarre job offer to help the Germans run Britain. He shook his head to try and clear it, disconcerted by the realisation that he’d left Quinn a happier man than he had been before.

Commandant McClure was coming out the door of the Red House as Duggan parked his bike. ‘Just in time,’ McClure tossed him a bunch of car keys. ‘We’re going to External Affairs.’

‘Will I leave these inside?’ Duggan caught the keys and took the parcel of leaflets off his carrier.

‘Bring them with you. It’s what we’re going to talk to Mr Ó Murchú about.’

In the city centre the footpaths were filling up with people leaving work, muffled against the cold, some carrying torches in the gloom of the half-blackout. The traffic moved sluggishly, cyclists weaving among the buses and trams and cars. Duggan filled McClure in on what Quinn had said, his preference for speaking German, his description of Goertz as a special representative of the Reich.

‘Huh,’ McClure snorted at that. ‘Interesting to know if that’s how Goertz is describing himself.’

‘I’m not sure,’ Duggan cast his mind back. ‘I think that may just be how Quinn sees him.’

‘Even so. That could be useful for Ó Murchú in his dealings with the German legation. As in, who are we supposed to deal with? You or this man who claims to represent your government and is actively conspiring with our internal opponents to undermine our government?’

Duggan nodded at the thought, watching in his rearview mirror for a tram to lumber past so he could overtake a dray. ‘What’s Germany like?’ he asked as they got clear and moved up Westmoreland Street to the next blockage in College Green.

‘It’s a few years since I was there,’ McClure shrugged. ‘Like Quinn told you. An extraordinary transformation. If you’re prepared to overlook the price of it.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘No room for any dissent. Do what you’re told, think what you’re told to think, or get beaten up and thrown into a concentration camp. It’s got worse by all accounts.’

‘I thought it was only the Jews.’

‘No, not just them. They’re the scapegoats for everything that’s gone wrong for the Germans.’ He paused. ‘The Germans can be full of self-pity and self-righteousness at the same time. Love to have someone to blame for their own problems.’

A thicket of cyclists slowed them again as they waited to turn into Merrion Square. They parked and stood to one side, waiting to enter Government Buildings as a group of young women came chattering down the steps. Ó Murchú was standing at his window, looking out on the deserted forecourt of the College of Science next door when they were shown in. ‘Gentlemen,’ he turned, indicating chairs, and sat behind his desk. ‘Well?’

McClure gave him a concise report of the previous night’s bombings, the evidence that they were German and their latest information about Hermann Goertz, and handed over a leaflet from the package Duggan held on his knee. Ó Murchú placed it on his desk and read both sides, rubbing the backs of his hands in an unconscious gesture. ‘Somebody who knows their Irish well.’ He looked up. ‘And there’s no doubt these were in the possession of this man whose host thinks he was a special representative of the German government?’

‘No, sir. No doubt.’

‘Good. That’s very useful. Can you leave me some of them? I’m sure the Taoiseach will like to see them.’

Duggan placed a fistful of the leaflets on the desk.

‘Have you seen this?’ Ó Murchú held out a sheet of paper torn from a telex machine. McClure took it and held it so that Duggan could read it at the same time.

It was a report from the American news agency Associated Press in Berlin, quoting a German government spokesman. Asked about the bombs dropped in neutral Ireland he replied: ‘Those bombs are English or they are imaginary. Our fliers have not been over Ireland, and have not been sent there, so someone else will have to explain those bombs.’

McClure gave a short laugh and shook his head.

‘You find it amusing?’

‘No, sir. Just hard to credit.’

‘There are people who will believe it.’

‘Not that the bombs were in our imagination.’

‘That they were English,’ Ó Murchú watched him closely.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘We’re considering whether to allow the newspapers to print it. What do you think?’

McClure glanced at the sheet again and left it on the desk. ‘I think you should.’

‘Why?’

‘Because those who think the English are dropping German bombs from German planes will think so anyway. Everybody else will be taken aback at the dismissive way they treat the deaths and damage they’ve caused here.’

Ó Murchú nodded. ‘Not very diplomatic of them to suggest we are imagining such things. As I’m sure Herr Hempel will agree when
we point it out to him. And,’ he tapped the Goertz leaflet, ‘it’ll be interesting to see how he equates this with his government’s support for our neutrality.’ He stood up and they stood as well. ‘Thank you, gentleman. Your information is very useful.’

Back in the car, McClure said, ‘You better follow up on the woman with the Wolseley.’

‘With the guards?’ Duggan drove faster now, as the rush hour had tailed off and the streets had emptied.

‘They’ll probably be able to tell who she is just from the description. One of those well-off women who support the IRA. Who’ve been looking after Goertz since he arrived.’

‘Why is he so popular with them?’

‘Politically or personally?’

‘Politically I can understand. But he’s nothing much to look at.’

‘Ah,’ McClure grunted. ‘They probably love his
Mitteleuropa
formality. Heel clicking. Bowing. Hand kissing. All that. It’s not all about looks with women.’

Duggan shot him a glance to see if he was joking but he was looking at the road ahead, unsmiling. ‘Check as well,’ McClure said, ‘if the guards raided any of these women’s homes just before Christmas. He seems to have gone to Quinn’s house on the spur of the moment. He may have been flushed out of somewhere else.’

‘They needed somewhere new for him in a hurry,’ Duggan nodded.

‘Yes. And all the usual haunts were not available for some reason.’

‘And why did he leave Quinn’s so suddenly? Without any notice?’

‘Perhaps they didn’t have much confidence in Quinn. Or in the Friends of Germany.’

‘And now they’ve got him back in their own circle.’

‘Could be they’ve got him back in some place that was raided recently by the guards. And they think lighting won’t strike twice.’

Duggan pulled into army headquarters and waited for the sentry to raise the barrier.

‘Could be all wrong,’ McClure said as he got out of the car and they walked into the Red House. ‘But you might have a chat with that Branch man you’re friendly with.’

‘Peter Gifford?’

McClure nodded. ‘He seems to be the kind of fellow who can think sideways.’

Duggan smiled to himself and filed the comment away to tell Gifford. Inside, an orderly stopped them to hand a message to Duggan. ‘Contact Miss Maher urgently,’ it said.

‘Did she leave a number?’ Duggan asked him.

‘No, sir,’ the orderly said, glancing at McClure, who had also stopped. ‘She said you knew where to find her.’

Duggan looked at his watch. It was almost seven thirty. She’d be gone from her office by now. And he realised he didn’t have a number for her digs, or even know if there was a phone there. He passed the note to McClure.

‘She rang three times,’ the orderly said and added, with another glance at McClure, ‘She said it was urgent and’ – he hesitated – ‘that you knew where she lived.’

‘Thanks,’ Duggan said. The orderly hurried away, thinking he had dropped Duggan in an embarrassing position in front of his superior officer. ‘I’ve no idea what this is about,’ Duggan added to McClure.

‘Only one way to find out,’ McClure said. ‘Take the car.’

Duggan turned left at Phibsborough and went over the canal and turned right into Iona Road and idled along, trying to remember
which house was Gerda Meier’s digs. The street lights were out, apart from the cowled lamp at the corner with Botanic Avenue. Thin strips of light showed around blinds in a few windows. He parked and got out and looked up and down. This one, he decided, picking the second of a pair of semi-detached houses.

The house seemed to be in darkness but he opened the iron gate and knocked twice. A light flicked on in the hall and a middle-aged woman in a wrap-around housecoat opened the door. ‘Come in,’ she said before Duggan managed to say anything. ‘She’ll only be a few minutes.’

‘Ah, Gertie?’ Duggan managed to stammer as he stepped in, not sure he was at the right house.

‘You know what the girls are like,’ the woman said, closing the door behind him and opening another one into a parlour. It had the cold air of an unused room and the woman bent down to plug in an electric fire. ‘Titivating herself,’ she added with a smile. ‘She’ll be ready in a few minutes.’

She straightened up and looked him in the eye. ‘Paul, isn’t it?’

Duggan nodded. So he was at the right place.

‘You’re in the army?’

‘That’s right,’ he said.

‘Did you know Gertie in Cork?’ She folded her arms, settling in for a long interrogation. The electric fire burned off the dust on its element, adding to the disused atmosphere. The room was almost cold enough for them to see their breaths.

‘No,’ Duggan said. ‘I’m from the west.’

‘What part?’

‘Galway.’

‘Oh we have a Galway girl here too. You might know her. Maureen Mannion?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘She’s from Galway city. Salthill.’

‘I’m not from the city.’

‘Oh, what part—’

She was interrupted by the door opening. Gerda stood there, her face made up, black hair glowing, set off by a silver slide above her left ear. She was wearing a well-cut navy dress, scooped at the neck and tight at the waist, under an open gabardine overcoat. A necklace and broach matched the silver slide in her hair. ‘I’m ready,’ she smiled at Duggan, belting her coat.

‘You look lovely,’ he said.

The woman pushed him out the door of the parlour and opened the hall door for them. ‘Enjoy the picture,’ she said, seeing them out.

Duggan followed Gerda to the gate and she waited for him on the footpath. He glanced back at the house and caught a curtain falling back into place in an upstairs window.

‘I hope you’re not angry,’ she said.

‘No, of course not,’ he indicated the car.

‘I had to say you were a boyfriend.’

‘How did you know I’d turn up?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘And what if I hadn’t?’

‘Then they would all have been sad for me,’ she gave him an impish smile. ‘And we would have had a nice night in, complaining about men. You can’t rely on them.’

Duggan laughed and walked her around to the passenger door to open it for her. Like Hermann Goertz would do, he thought.
Mitteleuropa
formalities. He shook his head in wonder at this sudden jump from the world of spies and politics and diplomacy and war to … what? He sat into the car and was aware of her proximity and the clean smell of bath salts.

‘Will you drive away a little bit, please?’ she asked.

He started the car, twisted on the headlights to dim and edged into the road.

‘I was in the restaurant today,’ she said, all business now. ‘Mrs Lynch asked me to come in because someone was sick. Nobody wants to rent flats at the moment so Mr Montague said I could leave. So he could leave early too, I think.’

Duggan dawdled along, waiting for her to tell her story.

‘It wasn’t very busy. There were no Germans there. But that English painter I told you about was there again. You remember? Roddy Glenn?’

Duggan nodded. ‘The one who was trying to talk to the Germans last time.’

‘Yes. He tried to talk to me but I ignored him at first. But then I couldn’t ignore him all the time. He told me he wants to meet some important Germans. But they won’t talk to him. The German prisoners won’t talk to him. They think he is an English provocateur. He asked me to tell them that he’s not. And that he has very important information for them.’

‘What?’ Duggan let the car coast to the kerb and faced her.

‘I asked him but he wouldn’t say. He asked would I tell them, the Germans, that he is not a provocateur or a spy. That he is an artist and a pacifist. He is opposed to the war.’

‘Do you think he knows? That you speak German?’

‘I wondered about that. But I don’t think so. I asked Mrs Lynch about him and she said he has been talking to all the waitresses. She said she’s going to ban him if he doesn’t stop pestering everybody.’

‘What’s he saying to them?’

‘The same thing, I think. Mrs Lynch nodded her head again and again when I told her what he was saying. That’s when she said she’d ban him.’

‘Has she banned him?’

‘No, not yet anyway. I said it was all right, I didn’t mind him talking to me.’

Duggan struggled to fish his cigarette case out of his jacket pocket from under his overcoat and offered it to her. She took one and he lit their cigarettes and opened his window a little to let the smoke out.

‘He said there’s a group of English artists here. All pacifists. They came here because they are against the war. All war.’

‘And he’s one of them?’

She shrugged. ‘I presume so.’

‘Is there ever anyone else with him?’

‘He’s always alone when I’ve seen him.’

‘Strange,’ Duggan inhaled and gave a short laugh.

‘What?’

‘We should send your landlady down to talk to him.’

‘She was questioning you?’

‘You rescued me just in time. She was about to reach down my throat and extract the contents of my stomach.’

Gerda laughed. ‘She is a busybody. That’s what you say? A busybody?’

‘That’s exactly what she is. If you could survive her questioning you’d never need to worry about a
Sicherheitspolizei
interrogation.’

Gerda inhaled deeply, closed her eyes and exhaled, letting her body slump a little with the expelled air. Duggan caught her reaction and cursed himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘That was a stupid thing to say.’

She acknowledged his apology with a slight nod. They sat in silence for a while.

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked at last. ‘About Roddy Glenn?’