Echoland (25 page)

‘Hello?’ Duggan said into the receiver, unsure of what to expect.

‘Superintendent Gifford here. I want you to come down to the
Bridewell to assist in the interrogation of a prisoner.’

‘Me?’ Duggan asked, wondering if Gifford was serious or just messing.

‘Yes.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes. I’m waiting for you.’

‘Is that a good idea?’ he asked, thinking what he would say if
anyone
asked what he was doing there.

‘Now or never,’ Gifford hung up.

Duggan was there in ten minutes and locked his bicycle against the railings outside the garda station. Gifford was waiting for him inside the main door, beside the public office, and brought him in through a door and downstairs to the basement to where the tunnel led
underground
to the neighbouring courthouse.

‘I’m not sure about this,’ Duggan said.

‘Our friend Billy is about to go on his country holidays,’ Gifford said as they walked. ‘And we won’t get another chance.’

‘He’s being interned?’

Gifford nodded. ‘God knows when he’ll be back.’

He pulled back a bolt on a door and they went in to a half cell, half interview room. The walls were a grimy green and Ward was sitting at a small table in the centre of the room. He looked dishevelled, his thick black hair in an unruly tangle, his shirt was open to his stomach, and he had dark rings under his eyes. It was obvious he had had little if any sleep and had had a hard time since they had seen him last. He looked at them without interest.

‘Someone here who wants a word with you, Billy?’

‘
Is saighdiúir na phoblachta mé
,’ he said in a tired voice, a mantra he had been repeating for a long time now. I’m a soldier of the republic.
‘
Níl tada le rá agam leatsa
.’ I’ve nothing to say to you.

‘
Is fíor saighdiúir na poblachta mise
,’ Duggan said, sitting down across from him. I’m the real soldier of the republic. Gifford stood with his back to the door, arms folded. ‘
Saighdiúir de Oglaigh na hÉireann
.’

That drew a retort from Ward. ‘The Brit puppet army,’ he
snorted
in English. He seemed to have exhausted his Irish.

‘This is not about armies,’ Duggan said. ‘This is personal.’

‘You want to hit me?’ Ward raised his jaw. ‘Go on. You might as well have a go too.’

‘Why were you following me?’

Ward dropped his eyes to the scarred table top.

‘Who asked you to follow me?’

Ward gave no sign that he had heard.

‘Were you acting under orders?’

Duggan took out his cigarettes, took one and lit it, and left the packet open on the table. He stood the lighter upright beside it and blew a slow stream of smoke at the nicotined ceiling and began again.

‘Where’s my cousin?’

Ward glanced up, surprised.

‘What have you done with her?’

Ward looked at him.

‘You killed her?’

‘No,’ Ward blurted out.

‘So why’s she disappeared off the face of the earth?’

Ward was about to say something but remembered his
instructions
and remained silent.

‘You killed her and kidnapped her boyfriend.’

Ward shook his head slightly as if he was irritated by such
stupidity
.

‘That’s the way it looks.’

Ward shifted in his seat, glanced at the cigarettes.

‘You killed my cousin,’ Duggan persisted. ‘Nuala. That was her name.’

‘Nobody killed your fucking cousin,’ Ward blurted.

‘So where is she?’

‘How the fuck would I know?’

‘You were looking for her and now she’s disappeared.’

Ward sighed and shook his head.

‘Where’s her body?’

‘For fuck’s sake.’

Duggan changed tack. ‘Why’d you kidnap her boyfriend?’

Ward relaxed.

Duggan noticed and changed tack again.

‘You killed her while kidnapping her boyfriend.’

Ward stirred again.

‘Was it an accident?’

‘Look,’ Ward put his arms on the table and leaned forward as if Duggan was stupid. ‘Nobody killed your cousin.’

‘So where is she?’

‘We don’t fucking know. That’s what we were trying to find out.’

‘Why?’

Ward settled back in his chair.

‘Why’d you want to find her? If you’d got her boyfriend?’

Ward seemed content that he’d said all he was going to say.

‘Would he not tell you where she was?’

Ward gave a slight smile.

Duggan settled back and stared at him, finishing his cigarette. He seemed to have lost whatever leverage he had had on him. Ward looked back at him, confirming it.

Gifford stirred himself and walked slowly around the room, behind Duggan and then behind Ward, his arms still folded. He
stopped behind Ward and Duggan could see Ward brace for a blow on the back of the head.

‘Did the army council approve all this?’ Gifford asked. ‘Give full and thoughtful consideration to every aspect of the operation. Send orders down the chain of command. General to commandant to
captain
. However it works. You military lads understand all that. Till they reached down to your good self. And you say whatever you say in your army, aye aye, captain, yes sir, no sir, and go and do it. Was that how it was?’

Duggan watched Ward unflex his muscles a little.

‘Or, was this a little freelance operation? A little bit on the side, so to speak?’ Gifford went on, unhurried. ‘Showing initiative. Very
commendable
. Or,’ he paused, ‘was it at the behest of somebody else? Somebody other than your superiors.’

Ward narrowed his eyes and Duggan decided that had hit home.

‘How much did Timmy Monaghan pay you?’ Duggan asked.

It wasn’t altogether a shot in the dark but it had an immediate effect. A look of horror flashed across Ward’s face.

‘Uh, oh,’ Gifford said. ‘Using the army of the republic for private gain. A little nixer on the side. I don’t think they’ll take too kindly to that. And,’ he drawled, ‘I hear your system of court-martial is a bit … what would you say? … rough and ready. No right to silence or any of that namby pamby stuff. Charged. Guilty. Bang. Bullet in the back of the head.’

Gifford came around to Duggan’s side of the table. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I think we’re finished here. This
saighdiúir
here,’ he clapped Duggan on the back, ‘will be writing a report about this whole business for his superior officers and he’ll do a couple of extra carbon copies. One for my superiors and another for your army council.’

Duggan stood up, closed his cigarette packet and put it and his lighter in his pocket.

‘Tintown might be a very hot place, Billy,’ Gifford said as they went out. ‘Think about it.’

Gifford shot the bolt on the door outside and they smiled at each other. ‘That should do the trick,’ he said as they went upstairs.

‘You scared the shit out of me anyway,’ Duggan said. ‘If my bosses find out what I was doing here.’

‘I better make sure they keep him here for another day or so,’ Gifford stopped on the steps outside.

‘Have you told them about Bradley?’

Gifford shook his head. ‘Not yet. We’ll wait and see what emerges here.’ He went back into the station.

‘The captain was looking for you,’ Sullivan said when he got back to the office.

‘What’d he want?’

‘Your advice on the progress of the war, I imagine.’

Duggan turned and was walking out in search of McClure when Sullivan added, ‘And your cousin left a message,’ putting verbal inverted commas around the word cousin. ‘She said you’re to call around to her this evening after work. No matter how late.’

Duggan grunted and stopped for a moment. Stella must have something from Nuala.

‘I’m glad to see you’re wiping that fellow Gifford’s eye,’ Sullivan said. ‘Thinks he’s too smart. But he’s not half as smart as he thinks.’

‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ Duggan said, thinking of how Gifford had rescued their chat with Ward. Turned up the pressure on him.

‘And you’re not as dumb as you let on,’ Sullivan continued, on his own track. ‘Maybe that works better with women. They don’t like smart arses, do they?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ Duggan shrugged. ‘They’re all a mystery to me.’

‘There you go again,’ Sullivan gave an admiring laugh. ‘Ah, Jaysus, I’m just a thick up from the country. I know nothing. Would you lie down here beside me and explain it all to me now?’

‘It doesn’t work,’ Duggan said.

‘You’re doing all right.’

‘I’m doing nothing.’

‘Tell him to call around no matter how late,’ Sullivan said in a wavering falsetto.

‘She’s my cousin,’ Duggan said.

‘My cousins don’t leave me messages like that,’ Sullivan resumed his normal voice. ‘Shower of bitches.’

‘Why don’t you try both approaches,’ Duggan suggested. ‘Be a dumb culchie and a smart arse jackeen. See which works better.’

‘Ah,’ Sullivan said sadly. ‘I’ll have to find someone to practise on first.’

‘Women,’ Duggan said. ‘They’re a mystery.’

‘But not one we’re paid to unravel,’ McClure said behind him. ‘Thankfully, we don’t have anything so complicated to deal with it.’

Duggan swung around, embarrassed.

‘Come with me. I want to talk to you.’

Duggan followed him down the corridor, apprehension rising with every step. What if he asked him about Ward? Or even where he’d been for the last hour? He’d just have to get it all off his chest. Which would be a relief in a way. Although the consequences
probably
wouldn’t be nice. But maybe he wasn’t cut out for the intelligence business. This double life was too much of a strain.

McClure took him into the colonel’s empty office and they sat at a small conference table.

‘There’s something you should know,’ he began. ‘It’s top secret. You’re to keep it to yourself. But I don’t want you adding two and two and getting three and three-quarters or four and a half.’

Duggan waited, intrigued.

‘Your analysis of the Harbusch correspondence is right,’ McClure continued. ‘It is about supplying German weapons to somebody here. Somebody other than the IRA. They wouldn’t have to try very hard to persuade them to take them.’

He paused and changed direction. ‘One of our main problems is arms procurement. We have the men but we don’t have rifles and
sufficient
ammunition for all of them. Never mind heavy weapons. The British won’t, probably can’t, sell us any more. The Americans are holding back as well. So where do we get them? Enter the Germans with a friendly offer. They have a large number of Lee Enfields
abandoned
by the BEF at Dunkirk. They’ve offered them to us.’

Duggan made no effort to hide his surprise.

‘The advantages are obvious. The Lee Enfield is our standard rifle, so no problem with new weapons and different size ammunition and so on. But,’ he paused, ‘you can see the but.’

Duggan nodded, not sure that he could see all the disadvantages.

‘The main one is that it puts us into the Axis camp,’ McClure spelled it out.

‘But we’re already buying weapons from one of the belligerents,’ Duggan offered.

‘Precisely,’ McClure said. ‘“Already.” That’s the key. We’ve always bought weapons from the British, so there’s no change of policy in continuing to do so. Shifting to the Germans would be new. A
political
statement. With inevitable consequences.’

He watched Duggan work through the possible consequences.

‘Put it like this,’ he continued, ‘the British would know very
quickly
if we got a large supply of Lee Enfields. The Germans promise secrecy but that’s meaningless. The British know we’re short of arms. Everyone knows that. And they’d know too that we hadn’t got them from one of the other democracies, the US, Canada. And they’d very
quickly work out that these were guns laid down by their men who surrendered in France or were left on the beach at Dunkirk. They wouldn’t be very happy about that.’

‘They might use it as a reason to invade.’

‘Possibly. More likely, they’d retaliate by cutting off the supplies we rely on them to get. Oil, coal and so on. Anyway, you see the point.’

Duggan nodded.

‘So that’s why the government politely and immediately rejected the German offer. Thanks, but no thanks. Through official channels. The German legation and so on.’

‘So,’ Duggan grappled with this information, ‘who is Harbusch negotiating with?’

‘That’s the question,’ McClure lit a cigarette.

‘Could it be one of the pro-German groups here?’

‘Doubtful. They’re not organised in any military way. They wouldn’t know what to do with them. Mainly a bunch of crackpots.’

‘General O’Duffy?’ Duggan suggested.

McClure nodded as if O’Duffy proved his point and pushed back his chair. ‘Anyway, it might become clearer now that we can read both sides of Harbusch’s messages. But I wanted you to know the
background
so you can see the wider picture. And I want you to go back over everything and write a report on what we now know and what it might mean. Don’t be afraid of following your instincts.’

‘Okay,’ Duggan stood up as well.

‘You’re enjoying this work?’

‘Yes.’ This part of it, he thought. ‘Very much.’

‘Good,’ McClure dismissed him.

It was late before he finished tapping out the report, one-fingered, on the big Royal typewriter and teasing out all the assumptions and
presumptions that had already been made and revising them with the latest information. Sullivan was long gone off duty and he left it on McClure’s desk and cycled up the quays to the city centre.

The night was warm, almost balmy. The street lights on the
corners
were coming on and the roads were empty as he sped along, unhindered by any traffic. There were few people out. Pools of light and the mumble of voices and occasional laughter came from the pubs, their doors wide open to cool the interiors.

He went down Pearse Street, turned into Westland Row and then into Fenian Street and into the empty car park in front of Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital. The same porter was on duty at the desk and gave him a sour look when he asked for Nurse Maloney.