by Joe Joyce
Duggan jumped as someone poked him in the back. ‘How’s about you?’ Captain Anderson from the British desk announced himself. ‘Very interesting photos you got about the Brits’ strategy.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Be great to know the source,’ Anderson sat back against the table. ‘I mean the original source.’
‘I know. But my source won’t say.’
‘You could ask him again. Explain that it’s in the national interest that we talk directly to that person.’
‘I can try,’ Duggan agreed, thinking that he knows it was Timmy. ‘But he wouldn’t budge the last time.’
‘He might change his mind when he realises just how important it is.’
‘He knows how important it is. But I’ll explain to him again.’
Anderson clapped him on the shoulder and left. Duggan felt that he had been patronised but shrugged mentally. At least McClure had wasted no time passing on the information. So much for Timmy’s insinuations.
The commandant himself arrived and said to Sullivan, ‘Good work last night. You’re putting it all on paper?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Sullivan looked up, a hint of satisfaction crossing his grey face.
‘Well?’ McClure turned his attention to Duggan.
Duggan told him of the flight paths of the Heinkels. ‘No indications that they were in trouble,’ he added. ‘So they didn’t jettison their bombs for that reason. Unless they were short of fuel to get back home.’
McClure shook his head. ‘Shouldn’t have been. So,’ he paused, summing up. ‘Clear night, perfect visibility. They fly up the Irish Sea. Can’t mistake that. Drop their bombs on open ground. Drop incendiaries on open ground. What appeared to be open countryside. Turn around and fly home. Mission accomplished. But what was the point of it? What was the mission?’
Duggan wasn’t sure if that was a rhetorical question but said nothing.
‘Were they trying to hit the Curragh camp?’ McClure continued. ‘They had to know it was there. Why would you drop incendiaries on open ground?’
‘Another message,’ Duggan offered.
McClure nodded. ‘But it kills two women and a girl. Inadvertently.’ He glanced at Sullivan who had stopped typing and was following the conversation. ‘Come with me.’
Duggan followed him into his office. McClure sank into his chair with a sigh and waved Duggan to another chair. He caught sight of one of the leaflets Duggan had found in Quinn’s house and picked it up from the desk. ‘Where are the rest of these?’
‘The guards have them. In the Bridewell. In their evidence locker.’
‘We should get them back. We don’t want them floating about.’
‘I asked. But they wouldn’t give them back.’
‘We’ll ask again.’ McClure let go of the leaflet and watched it float to the desk. ‘Things are balanced’ – he paused – ‘so delicately.’ He picked up the leaflet and let it fall again. ‘That’s all it might take. For one side or the other to make a move.’ He watched it for a moment, then reached for a cigarette and lit it. ‘Looks like we’re in a situation where both sides are looking for an excuse to invade. Or, even better for them, trying to provoke the other into doing it first.’
‘I’ll go down to the Bridewell again and try and get them back.’
‘Your information about the British plan is on the nail,’ McClure went on, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘They’ve told the Department of Supplies that they have to cut back on the coal they can give us. And the oil and fertilisers and other things. Because of the losses on their convoys. Barely enough supplies getting through to maintain themselves. And their war effort.’
‘The first part of their plan,’ Duggan nodded. So, it was starting. Regrets at first. You have to understand our problems, the way things are. Then up the pressure. You’ve got to help us, it’s in your interest too. We both need to secure these convoys and your western ports are the only way to do it. Then, it’s a matter of life or death. We must have those ports to survive. So we have to take them by force if you won’t let us have them. No choice.
‘Exactly,’ McClure nodded. ‘There are talks still going on between officials. They say they’re sorry but that’s just the way it is. Have to concentrate on providing for their war needs. And their own population. No mention of quid pro quos. Or of retaliation for neutrality or not giving them access to the ports or anything like that.’
Duggan lit a cigarette too and they smoked in silence for a moment.
‘What about all the food we’re sending them?’ Duggan said.
McClure shook his head. ‘We don’t want to escalate the situation with threats of retaliation. Just play into the hands of those who want to invade, get it over and done with.’ He leaned back and stretched his arms above his shoulders and then straightened up at the desk. ‘Anyway, that’s none of our business. A matter for officials and diplomats and the government. But it’s a hell of a situation. Very dangerous.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Our jobs,’ McClure sighed and gave him a grim look. ‘Gather the best intelligence we can. Make sure that whatever happens doesn’t happen by accident. By people getting the wrong end of the stick. Misinterpreting something.’
Duggan half stood to reach the ashtray on the desk and stub out his cigarette. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Keep on the Goertz trail for the moment. Your man Quinn is the best lead we’ve got on him for a while.’
‘Could I just ask you something?’ Duggan said. ‘Just to be absolutely clear. We are trying to catch him, aren’t we?’
McClure looked at him for a moment. ‘Let’s put it this way,’ he said. ‘We want to find him. We want to know what he’s up to. When we know where he is and what he’s doing, someone will decide what to do with him. Okay?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Duggan stood up and went towards the door.
‘And,’ McClure stopped him with a wintry smile, ‘we shouldn’t really speculate about the bigger picture. The country has enough armchair generals and strategists without us adding to their number.’
Duggan cycled along Benburb Street and then cut down to the quays and the raw east wind pushing the tide up the Liffey hit him in the face. He lowered his head into it, pushed harder on the pedals, thinking about what McClure had said. And Sullivan. Both had seemed shocked in their own way, McClure by the evidence that the British were really following a plan that would lead to invasion. Sullivan by coming close to the reality of the war, seeing where people had died, in the middle of nowhere. Randomly. For no reason.
In the Bridewell, the station sergeant gave him a disgruntled look and said something into a phone. ‘This is against regulations, you know,’ he said to Duggan as they waited. ‘Once something goes into the evidence locker it can’t come out again.’
Duggan nodded, rubbing the backs of his hands, trying to warm them up, not caring about the sergeant’s problems. Whoever McClure had talked to had obviously overruled him and his regulations.
A young guard arrived in the office with the package of leaflets and handed it to Duggan. ‘And Mr Quinn?’ Duggan prompted.
‘He’s waiting for you,’ the sergeant said. ‘That’s against regulations too. He’s been charged so he can’t be questioned again.’
‘I’m only going to talk to him,’ Duggan said. ‘Not question him.’
‘I can only do what I’m told,’ the sergeant said, almost to himself, as if preparing for a defence barrister demanding to know why he had allowed evidence to be removed. He nodded to the young guard who led Duggan out of the room.
‘What’s he been charged with?’ Duggan stopped at the door.
‘Offences Against the State,’ the sergeant said. ‘Harbouring a member of an illegal organisation.’
‘What’ll he get for that?’
‘Six months.’
‘His wife? Has she been charged?’
‘Not yet.’
Duggan thought for a moment. ‘Could I make a quick phone ca
ll?’
The sergeant raised his eyes, sighed, then nodded at the guard who showed Duggan into an empty office. Duggan phoned McClure and asked him if he could offer Quinn the release of his wife if he cooperated.
McClure thought about it. ‘I’ll get onto it,’ he said. ‘But don’t offer any cast-iron guarantees.’
Quinn was at the same table in the same interview room. His arms were crossed on the table, his head resting on them. Duggan thought at first that he was asleep but he raised his head slightly when the door opened. He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was spiked up from the way he had been resting his head.
Duggan took off his overcoat and placed it and the parcel of leaflets on the spare chair at his side of the table. He offered his hand to Quinn. After a moment, Quinn gave it a perfunctory shake and straightened up.
‘Have you been here all night?’
Quinn shook his head.
‘Did you get any sleep?’
‘Not much,’ Quinn said in a hoarse voice and coughed to clear his throat.
‘I’d like to have a talk with you,’ Duggan said, settling himself on the chair. ‘Unofficially. Nothing said here will be used against you in court or anything like that.’
‘Wer sind Sie?’ Quinn coughed again.
‘Ich heiße Paul Duggan.’
‘Are you a policeman?’ Quinn continued in German.
Duggan shook his head, offered nothing more, intrigued by Quinn’s switch into German. Did he feel more comfortable speaking German? Like earlier when he’d been more forthcoming in German? But why? Was he distancing himself from his current predicament? Living in some fantasy world where Germans already ruled?
They looked at each other in silence for a moment. Duggan reached into his inside pocket and took out their only picture of Hermann Goertz, the British police one taken when he’d been jailed in England before the war for spying. He placed it on the table facing Quinn. ‘Was this man your Christmas visitor?’ he asked in German.
Quinn took his time responding. Then he nodded.
‘What’s his name?’
‘I don’t know. He never told us his name.’
‘Had you ever met him before?’
‘No.’
‘Did he ever come to the Friends of Germany meetings?’
Quinn shook his head.
‘How did he come to spend Christmas with you?’
‘Someone asked if he could stay with us for a few days.’
‘And you didn’t ask who he was?’
‘No,’ Quinn shrugged.
‘But you knew he was a German?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he spoke German to you?’
Quinn nodded. ‘And English to my wife. She doesn’t speak German.’
‘She’s not in the Friends of Germany?’
‘She’s not interested in politics.’
Duggan took out his cigarette case, offered him one but he shook his head. Duggan lit one for himself and pulled the tin ashtray within reach. ‘So what happened then?’
‘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?’
&nb
sp; ‘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.’