The Poison Tide

by Andrew Williams

  Albert’s features were stiff and cold, like a bureaucratic corpse.

  ‘Make the contact for me.’ Wolff reached into his coat for a slip of folded paper. ‘Hinsch can leave a message at this address.’

  After a moment’s thought, Albert dipped his index and forefinger as if plucking the paper from a muddy pool. ‘Don’t come to my home again.’

  ‘That depends on you. Do your duty, Dr Albert.’

  ‘I always do my duty, Mr de Witt,’ he said in English, releasing the door. ‘It is not necessary for a Dutchman to remind me of my duty.’

  He climbed carefully from the car, then crossed the street without a backward glance. Wolff observed him in the light above the portico, standing below an entablature carved with a laurel garland, in his bowler hat, a hero for the new age.

  Days, a week went by, a fortnight, and every morning a note from Thwaites, a telephone call or a summons to a meeting: London’s impatient, old boy, terribly concerned. Does Albert suspect you? Visit him again. Go to Baltimore and see Hinsch, why don’t you? Wolff said that London could go to hell.

  With Laura’s assistance he was going up in the world – by elevator to the fifth floor of a new brownstone block on the Upper West Side, a well-appointed bachelor apartment with a fine view east over the Hudson. They’d seen a good deal of each other at Christmas, dining first with her father – florid and opinionated and a voice to whip the froth from a pint of stout at fifty paces – then at her sparrow aunt’s home. Wolff was a student of friendship. Priests, politicians and publicans, soldiers and scientists, matrons and maids, he’d inveigled his way into the confidences of them all. Mr McDonnell had presented no great challenge. ‘I like yer,’ he had declared while his daughter was away from their table. ‘You’re a practical man like me. That’s what Laura needs.’ And as a favour to her he had used his friends in the archdiocese to find Wolff somewhere ‘respectable’ to live.

  Thwaites dismissed his new arrangements as ‘foolhardy’. Good cover, Wolff argued, and it sounded quite plausible.

  ‘And who, pray, is paying the rent on this new apartment?’ Thwaites asked.

  ‘Me, Norman, as you ask – from the fruit of my labours on behalf of the Kaiser.’

  ‘Damn cheek!’ Thwaites complained.

  But some sober nights Wolff paid in dreams, too, as he had done in the past – confused images of ten years’ service, waking in the dark, sheets damp, his conscience rocking like an upturned derby hat.

  One evening Laura dragged him to the opera to hear the soprano, Frieda Hempel; he took her to the Clef Club where the pianist Jelly Roll was playing ragtime. There were meetings in draughty halls, more talk of votes for women, of Ireland and Empire, lively debates in which she played a full and passionate part, always impatient for change, determined, but also funny. For all her strong convictions, she took no offence at his teasing and was quick and merciless in her turn. She wasn’t an elegant woman, and she didn’t have a figure like Violet’s to turn heads; she was shorter, with generous curves, her gestures and speech often hurried as she wrestled with an idea or an opinion; pretty but not in a conventional way, sharp intelligence always apparent in her face. Wolff had decided on reflection that her eyes were robin’s-egg blue, the finest he’d been privileged to gaze into.

  Thwaites liked to remind him that the growing warmth of their friendship was supposed to serve a purpose. But Laura was careful not speak of Clan na Gael’s activities and Wolff made no effort to coax them from her – until one Sunday afternoon, the last in January.

  A briny wind was chasing blue-grey clouds westerly across the river, rattling the flag ropes at the Blessed Sacrament School and shaking dead twigs from the trees in front of the church. They had arranged to meet at four o’clock, but it was only a few blocks from his new apartment, so with time to waste he arrived early and was waiting on the sidewalk when members of the Clan began leaving the parochial house. Shrugging on their overcoats, hands planted on hats, bent double into the wind as they hurried along the street to the omnibus stop. Only John Devoy spoke to him.

  ‘Waiting for Laura?’ He shook his grey head disapprovingly. ‘She knows what I think of ye.’

  ‘I’m sure everyone knows what you think, Mr Devoy.’

  Right hand gripping the iron railing, left in a fist at his side, Devoy glared at him like an old bar-room brawler living on his reputation. Wolff returned his stare defiantly.

  ‘Tough one, aren’t ye?’ Devoy muttered. ‘More of a man than that fella Christensen, I’ll give you that.’

  Wolff acknowledged this small olive branch with a smile.

  ‘I hear you did good work for the Germans.’ Devoy frowned, his eyes lost beneath his shaggy Old Testament brow. ‘Just mind you’re careful with our Laura, now.’ He wagged a biblical forefinger; ‘I know she’ll be careful with you.’ He scrutinised Wolff’s face for a few more seconds, then nodded and walked away, turning the collar of his well-worn coat up against the wind.

  ‘It’s just Mr Devoy’s way,’ Laura said, when he related the substance of their conversation. She was cross and upbraided him for arriving early.

  ‘Ashamed of me?’ he asked provocatively, the wind sweeping them along the sidewalk in the direction of Central Park.

  ‘How can you suggest such a thing?’ she chided.

  ‘You spoke to Devoy about—’

  ‘Mr Devoy asked me,’ she interjected defensively.

  ‘You told him you’d be careful not to tell me anything.’

  ‘Oh! For goodness’ sake!’ she exclaimed, and she pulled her arm free and turned to face him, exasperated and at the same time beguiling. ‘What did you expect me to say to him? It doesn’t mean I don’t trust you. How can you say so?’ Her eyes were blazing with indignation, and Wolff loved her for showing no respect for the difference in their ages. But was she protesting too vehemently? ‘We have to be so careful, especially at this time,’ she declared. ‘Things are happening at last,’ she added, filling the pregnant silence. ‘It’s difficult – Mr Devoy knows you’re a friend of Sir Roger’s.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He reached into the dark space between them to take her hand for the first time. Perhaps she blushed, he felt her tense, but she made no effort to withdraw it. ‘But I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why is my friendship with Roger an issue? Is it Christensen?’

  ‘Things are happening,’ she repeated. ‘Sir Roger and Mr Devoy don’t agree about, well . . .’ her voice fell away.

  ‘Guns?’ He took a half-step closer to her. ‘It’s about guns to Ireland then.’

  ‘No. Not really. I can’t say.’

  ‘Of course not,’ he replied quickly, but his tone was a little rueful. ‘Come on, it’s too dark and chilly to argue in the street.’

  ‘Are we arguing?’ She sounded anxious.

  They chose a quiet trattoria a few blocks from the park, and once they’d settled her hand crawled across the gingham tablecloth to rest lightly upon his: ‘You do understand?’ Her face was pink with cold and confusion. ‘Please, Jan,’ she pleaded, ‘don’t sulk.’ That made him smile, and he gave her hand an affectionate squeeze.

  ‘Of course I trust you,’ she whispered, a little crossly this time; ‘I couldn’t be friends with someone I didn’t trust.’ She was lost in thought for a moment, biting the corner of her bottom lip. ‘Everyone’s in a flutter, you see – even more than usual.’ She glanced round the restaurant, then leant closer. ‘The rising in Ireland – it’s going to happen – soon – there are plans. And there are German guns. Only, not everyone agrees – Sir Roger thinks we’re making a mistake.’

  ‘A mistake? Why? I thought – but you mustn’t tell me more,’ he said earnestly.

  ‘But I trust you – you see? And I want you to rejoice with us.’

  He closed his eyes momentarily and gave a regretful shake of the head. ‘It’s too early for rejoicing . . .’ then after a pause, ‘I shouldn’t have asked you.’

  ‘Why?’ She smiled a
nd reached for his other hand, clattering a knife against a plate and drawing the gaze of the waiter. ‘Don’t worry. Put it from your mind – and you didn’t ask, I offered.’

  But she was wrong. He’d drawn it from her, tempting her into an act of faith. As they ate and spoke of other things, he considered the intelligence she had given him with something close to dismay. I shouldn’t have asked, he’d said to her with sudden clarity. Perhaps he’d hoped she would have the strength to hold her secret close. It was too late to put it from his mind, but he didn’t wish to hear more.

  ‘You seem distracted,’ she observed. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought you here. It’s a simple place.’

  No, he assured her, it was perfect in its simplicity; and for a time he tried to bend his mind to easy conversation. But later a Polish pianist played in the restaurant, his bony fingers stroking the keys, and the aching poignancy of his music was almost too much to bear. Why did I press her? And during one short piece Wolff felt, then shaped, the conviction that Laura could never know. Never. He wouldn’t hurt her.

  A Prelude in E minor by Chopin, she told him, as the manager helped her into her coat. ‘But it’s rather sad.’

  Wolff met Wiseman the following morning. Gaunt and Thwaites were at the safe house too. They had summoned him to talk about the Germans and he sensed at once that they were bristling for a fight. ‘You must go to Baltimore,’ Wiseman insisted, as soon as the terse pleasantries were over. They were taken aback when Wolff agreed at once, even a little disappointed. Wiseman offered his reasons, although it was hardly necessary: ‘Can’t hold off any longer. Our masters have intercepted a wire authorising Agent Delmar to resume his activities. Been on holiday, what?’

  For an hour they sat in the stuffy smoked-filled sitting room discussing Wolff’s best course, although there was really only one. ‘Our chaps down there will let you know when Hinsch is aboard his ship,’ Wiseman said. ‘It’s asking a great deal, I know.’ He was always charming enough to sound grateful. ‘Rough customer, Hinsch,’ he continued. ‘He may not be pleased to see you.’

  Wolff was sure he wouldn’t be.

  ‘Didn’t expect you to roll over and offer your tummy like that,’ Thwaites observed when they were alone. ‘Quite took the wind out of Sir William’s sails.’

  ‘Is that possible?’ Wolff enquired.

  He made light of his sudden acquiescence, falling back for an explanation on the first word in the Bureau’s lexicon, the word to trump all other words: duty. The truth? In so far as he was able to perceive the truth, his decision owed more to guilt than a sense of duty. Guilt, because even when Thwaites enquired, astutely perhaps, how things were ‘with your Fenian girl’, he chose to say nothing of plans for the Rising. He wasn’t entirely sure why. He’d meant to – and he knew it was topsy-turvy to chase a new secret in Baltimore in order to feel a little better about concealing the one Laura had shared with him: trading lies and loyalties.

  I will tell them about Ireland – soon, he decided. I will. I have to because they are with the enemy. Casement, his garrulous sister, Laura . . .

  Did he have a choice? There were boys from the fenland villages he knew well, stumbling with fear in their hearts into no-man’s-land, trench whistles ringing in their ears. In this together, C would say. But wasn’t that merely the shell of duty, like Norman Thwaites fighting for lads he’d left on the Turkish wire? Was there sense in such thinking? Where would it end? Was it thinking at all?

  As he slipped out of the safe apartment, he remembered that his mother used to upbraid him in verse, the old cliché about the tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive. Christ, he’d been practising a long time. And now he was struggling with confused feelings, searching for a way to unravel some of the threads he’d spun, because . . . he admired Laura more than he should. He wanted her. Did he love her? He wasn’t sure, but if he didn’t quite yet, he knew he would soon. He’d stepped from a high building and the sidewalk was rushing towards him.

  So, a month after his encounter with Dr Albert, Wolff caught a train to Baltimore, and from its new railway station took a cab round the harbour basin to the hard-working dockland district of Locust Point. At its eastern edge, in the shadow of the city’s historic fort, stood the Bremen pier where thousands of German immigrants had stepped ashore in the country they wished to make their home. In the years before the war, Captain Hinsch’s ship, the Neckar, was often to be seen there. Her last voyage had brought her to the pier with passengers and cargo a fortnight after the pistol fired in Sarajevo led to the outbreak of general hostilities. Since then, she had travelled no further than a cable distance to her new berth among the tramps and colliers plying their smoky trade from the wharfs at the tip of the point.

  It was a cold day but blue, the sun bright on the water. The harbour ferry was steaming out of the old clipper yard on the opposite shore, the breeze whisking its plume away to the west in a horizontal line. Beyond the roof of a low shed, Wolff could see the frayed and faded house flag of Norddeutscher fluttering from the Neckar’s foremast, and walking round it to the wharf, her sharp black bow. She was larger than he’d imagined, five hundred feet in length, riding high and rusting in the slack water of the dock. At the foot of her gangway, a junior officer was supervising the unloading of supplies from a wagon. Wolff introduced himself and, with the determined authority of one used to addressing Germans in uniform, asked to be taken to the captain.

  The skipper of the Neckar filled his little chart room. It was the first time Wolff had seen Hinsch in uniform, immaculately groomed, clean shaven, blond hair combed with a little oil: his sour expression was the same.

  ‘What are you doing? You shouldn’t have come here,’ Hinsch declared belligerently.

  ‘Albert gave you my message?’

  He gave a curt nod.

  ‘Well?’ Wolff prompted.

  ‘The British have von Rintelen,’ he snapped. ‘Stopped his ship, took him off.’

  ‘Are you accusing me? They stop most ships,’ Wolff observed coolly; ‘they stopped mine.’

  ‘They arrested him – not you.’

  ‘I’m more careful. You saw yourself how—’

  ‘And the stories in the newspaper?’ Hinsch interrupted. ‘You know nothing about those? Koenig was arrested . . .’

  ‘You’re blaming me?’

  Hinsch glowered at him for a few seconds then looked away, his right hand trailing across a chart to a pair of dividers. ‘It might be you – or an Irishman – I don’t know. It’s over, anyway. Finished.’

  ‘Over?’ Wolff looked pained. ‘Don’t take me for a fool. Mind if I sit down?’ He perched at the edge of a swivel chair bolted to the deck before the table. ‘Are you in charge of the new operation? Look, Hinsch, you know what I can do – I’m not German, and yes, I want to be paid – paid well – but this work suits me, and I have my reasons, you know them well enough. You don’t like me – I don’t care much for you – but we want the same thing.’ He paused in hope of acknowledgement but the lines on Hinsch’s face seemed to indurate like clay. ‘I’m not here as a supplicant but as an enemy of the British Empire,’ Wolff added testily. ‘Berlin gives the orders and I was sent here to be of service.’

  ‘There is no operation,’ he retorted. ‘I’ve said – no work.’ He spoke without respect, as if he were upbraiding the least member of his crew. ‘And if I change my mind, I know how to find you.’

  Wolff shrugged. ‘Have it your own way. I’ll contact the embassy – or Berlin.’ It sounded lame but it was all he could think of to say. He stared at Hinsch for a few seconds more, refusing to be intimidated by his enmity, then picked up his hat from the table and dusted a speck from its band. ‘I can find my own—’

  ‘There was a body.’

  Wolff started, his right hand frozen over the hat. ‘What?’ he barked impatiently to disguise his confusion.

  ‘You know about this, I think?’ Hinsch asked, searching his face.

  ‘No �
�� and perhaps I shouldn’t.’

  ‘The police are asking questions. It was one of their men.’

  Another frisson of anxiety. ‘A dead policeman?’ Wolff heard himself say.

  ‘A nobody. An informer, but working for them,’ Hinsch squinted at him suspiciously. ‘They found his body in the bay, but he was killed at the terminal in Hoboken – stabbed, then thrown in the water,’ he paused, his eyes flitting away, ‘by someone else, I shouldn’t wonder. They’ll catch the killer, they say – won’t let it lie. They spoke to the crew of the Friedrich der Grosse,’ he paused again, lifting the dividers to stare down the line of them at Wolff. ‘Perhaps they’ll want to talk to you. Best be prepared.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wolff, ‘yes, I will be,’ and he tried to smile.

  Slowly down the ship’s gangway, slowly along the quay, concentrate on walking slowly, head up right, eyes to the front, determined not to falter in view of the bridge. Hinsch suspected but didn’t know. The Germans must have disposed of the body. Did the police have a description of de Witt? He’d tried to bury the memory, but bastard Hinsch had spat on it and burnished it until it was bright again. He must warn Wiseman and Thwaites. He would have to tell them he’d failed to find a way back inside the operation too. Hinsch wasn’t going to contact him – not in a month of Sundays. Or was he looking for an excuse to give up?

  Confused, disconsolate, he walked a little way from the dockyard gates to stand at the kerb for a taxicab. From a sailors’ bar close by, drunken voices, a snatch of Southern song, although it was only one o’clock in the afternoon. After only a few minutes he changed his mind and set off for the station, relieved to be on the move. It was simple enough to follow the curve of the street round the harbour, the downtown skyline always ahead of him. Half an hour at a brisk pace and he would take a horse-drawn cab from one of the piers on the waterfront for the final mile. The wind was freshening still, obliging him to keep a hand to his hat but lifting his spirits a little. In another place, in different shoes, he would have run, chasing away frustration and his sense of foreboding. He was a little breathless – he knew he was out of condition – the rhythmic click of smooth leather soles, fast enough for sideways glances from strangers, but not fast enough to free him from his own cutting thoughts. At the corner of Light Street and Lee, he broke his stride, shuffling round a carter who was scooping oats back into a sack he’d emptied on the sidewalk. ‘Watch your feet,’ he grumbled, but Wolff ignored him, brushing his bent shoulder as he stepped from the kerb, checking his stride again for an oncoming cab. In a moment it was upon him, clopping, squeaking, jangling, barely worthy of a second look except that it was him.