Ratlines

by Stuart Neville

  Ryan turned. A man wearing a shabby suit and overcoat stood in the doorway. He held up his open wallet.

  “Detective Garda Michael Harrington,” he said, returning the wallet to his pocket. “I was told you’d be visiting us, but I didn’t expect you for a day or two yet.”

  Ryan extended his hand. “I wanted to get a head start, see the room before too much time passed.”

  Harrington stared at the offered hand for a moment before shaking it. He held a manila folder in the other. “Fair enough. I’ve got this report for you. If you want a look at the body, it’s over at the Regional Hospital.”

  KRAUSS’S NAKED BODY lay on the steel table, eyes closed, dry lips slightly pursed and parted as if locked in an eternal whisper. A Y-shaped incision traversed his torso, from the greying cloud of pubic hair to his shoulders. It had been neatly stitched after his organs had been returned to their rightful places. Below his navel was a hole, scorched and puckered.

  Another line of stitches started behind one ear, ran across the top of his head, and terminated at the other ear. Ryan pictured the pathologist slicing the scalp, peeling it forward until it covered the eyes like a mask, sawing out a section of the skull, and finally removing the demolished brain.

  It had been on Ryan’s eighteenth birthday that he first saw the inside of a man’s skull. A mist-shrouded field in Holland, some miles north of Nijmegen. Ryan couldn’t remember the corporal’s name, only that his head had opened like a crushed melon, bone and blood tearing away, the grey within.

  He had dropped to the ground, the damp of the mud seeping through his uniform, and crawled to the hedgerow twenty yards ahead, certain beyond all doubt his own brain would be smashed out of his head at any moment. When he reached the others, the sergeant said, “Wipe your face off, lad.”

  Ryan had reached up, felt the wetness and grit there, and vomited on himself.

  He was no longer so squeamish.

  On a drainer by a large sink, two acrylic glass vials held the deformed bullets. Ryan lifted and examined each in turn.

  “We dug one out of the headboard,” Harrington said. “It went through the intestine and the kidney and out the back. The other was still in his head. The quack fished it out, said the brain was like jelly. He had to ladle it out. I didn’t understand that. There’s a hole blown out at the other side of his head from where the bullet went in, there was stuff on the wall, but still the quack found that inside him.”

  “Gases,” Ryan said. “They expand inside the head and push outwards. If the killer used a suppressor, the bullet would have lost velocity. That’s why it didn’t exit the skull, and why the other only got as far as the headboard.”

  “Ah,” Harrington said, doing a poor job of feigning interest. “Well, you live and learn.”

  Ryan had read what little information the report contained as Harrington drove him over to the hospital. The only identifiable fingerprints in the room belonged to Krauss. The rest were a faded mishmash of traces left by Mrs. Toal and every guest who had stayed in the room over recent days. It seemed the killer had touched nothing with bare fingers.

  A few possessions lay on a plastic tray. The lighter and cigarette case drew Ryan’s attention. He took a pen from his pocket and used it to turn the case, the light picking out the fine lines of the engraving.

  Harrington noted Ryan’s interest. “I suppose that’s why a G2 fella’s looking into this.”

  Ryan did not reply.

  “There used to be a man rented a farmhouse out towards Boleybeg, a German. He stayed there about six or seven years. There was all sorts of talk about him. I remember when he left, his cleaner told me she’d seen a swastika on his wall, and a painting of Hitler. I didn’t believe her.”

  Harrington waited as if hoping Ryan would express some surprise. When Ryan didn’t, Harrington continued.

  “Then there’s this Skorzeny, the Austrian, living in Kildare. I saw him in the newspaper, shaking hands with some bigwigs at a party. I’d never support the British, but what them Nazis did wasn’t right. I don’t like them coming and settling here just because we’re soft on them.”

  “I’ve seen enough,” Ryan said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “WHAT ARE YOU doing landing in on us this late?” Ryan’s mother asked.

  “I was passing,” Ryan lied. He had pulled over at Athlone and agonised for five long minutes. In the end, he had headed north to Carrickmacree in County Monaghan instead of going straight back to Dublin.

  The shop front stood in darkness when Ryan approached along Main Street. He steered the Vauxhall to the rear of the block and parked behind the small van his father drove when he delivered bread and milk around the town. He let himself into the yard and knocked on the door.

  “You’d better come in, then,” his mother said. She stood back and allowed him to enter the small hallway.

  Ryan’s father stood at the top of the stairway, a dressing gown over striped pyjamas, thick socks on his feet.

  “Who’s that?” he called.

  “It’s Albert,” Ryan’s mother said as she climbed the stairs towards him. Ryan followed.

  “At this time?”

  “That’s what I said.” She looked back over her shoulder. “If you’d telephoned, I could’ve had something on for you.”

  Ryan never warned his parents in advance of a visit, and he always arrived in darkness. It had been ten years since there’d been any trouble, but still he remained cautious. They had nearly lost the shop after the petrol bombing. Before that, it had been Mahon and his cronies shouting insults in the street, stones thrown at windows, paint slashed across the glass once. Business had dwindled, almost to the point of his father having to admit defeat and leave the town, but enough of the locals had resisted Mahon’s pressure to boycott the shop to keep its doors open.

  But the fire had been the worst of it, a last desperate act by a man too bitter and full of hate to let Albert Ryan’s transgression go, and he had stayed away for a full year before returning.

  On occasion, he wondered if he would have joined up and gone to fight for the British if he had known the cost to his parents. Every time, he dismissed it as foolishness, knowing a boy of seventeen could have no such wisdom even if granted the foresight. He had stolen the money from his father’s safe to buy passage from Carrickmacree across the border to Belfast, then made his way to the nearest recruiting office, never once thinking of his mother’s tears.

  Now he sat at his mother’s table with a mug of steaming tea, butter melting on a slab of toast. He hadn’t the appetite what with the mortuary’s low odours still lurking in his nasal passages, but he ate anyway.

  Once the plate was clear, he asked his father how business was.

  “Not the best,” his father said.

  “Why?”

  His father fell silent, staring into his mug. Instead, Ryan’s mother answered.

  “It’s the Trades Association,” she said. “And that auld bastard Tommy Mahon.”

  She covered her mouth, shocked at herself for uttering such coarse language.

  “What did they do?”

  Ryan’s father looked up from his tea. “Mahon decided he wanted me out of business for good, so he set his son up with a wee cash-and-carry down the way. He got his friends in the Association to have a word with some of my suppliers. Now I can’t get milk or bread. The only meat I can get is from old man Harney and his sons. They butcher their own animals out at their farm. The only eggs I can get is what I can buy when I’m out on my rounds.”

  “They can’t do that,” Ryan said. “Can they?”

  “Of course they can. They can do whatever they want. They call it protectionism. The associations, the unions, all them boys scratching each other’s backs. They have this country by the balls, and they’re going to run us into the ground.”

  “Maurice!” Ryan’s mother scolded.

  “Well, they do.”

  Ryan’s mother changed the subject. “So, are you courting?�
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  Ryan felt the heat spread from his neck up to his cheeks. “No, Ma. You know I’ve no time for that.”

  “Och, you’re thirty six,” she said. “You’ll be too old if you wait any longer.”

  “Leave him alone,” Ryan’s father said. “He’s got time enough for that yet. There’s old man Harney’s boys are all past thirty, one of them’s over forty, and he’s no notion of letting them get married yet.”

  Ryan’s mother snorted. “Sure, why would he when he’s got four big lads working for him and not a penny to pay for it? Our Albert’s not a farmer. He should be finding himself a nice wee girl and getting settled.”

  “I’m far too busy,” Ryan said. “Besides, I’m living at the camp. I need a place of my own before I can go chasing after women.”

  Ryan’s mother sat back in her chair, raised an eyebrow. “And what would you need a place of your own for? No decent girl would go to a bachelor’s home. And any that would, well, she wouldn’t be the sort for marrying, would she?”

  RYAN SLEPT HARD and deep in his old room, tired from the day’s driving. The bed creaked and rattled as he stirred with the morning’s early light. He borrowed his father’s razor to shave at the washbasin in the corner of the cold bedroom, goose pimples sprouting across his body.

  Once washed and dressed, Ryan made his way downstairs, creeping to the back door. His mother intercepted him.

  “Where are you off to?” she asked.

  “Just thought I’d take a quick walk. I haven’t seen the town in ages.”

  “All right,” his mother said. “Don’t be too long. I’ll have some breakfast for you when you get back.”

  The sun grazed the rooftops as he strolled along Main Street, a man walking a horse down the centre of the road the only other person he saw. The sound of the animal’s hooves echoed from the buildings. The man nodded as he passed. A cool breeze made Ryan button his suit jacket.

  He passed shop fronts, businesses generations old, hand-painted signs above the windows, prices and offers written in white on the glass. A needlecraft shop, a dressmaker, a gentlemen’s outfitter.

  They all seemed smaller now, as if the wood and bricks and glass had shrunk over the last twenty years. In the farthest parts of his soul, Ryan knew the reasons he seldom returned owed as much to his resentment of these buildings as they did to Tommy Mahon’s bullying. Even as a boy, he had felt a town like this was no place for him, its streets too few and too narrow, the people mired in its quicksand. Even now, he felt the place tug at his ankles, trying to regain its hold on him.

  As a teenager, Ryan had wondered at his father’s endurance of the town, unable to understand how he did not crave a better life, a bigger life. One day, he asked his father why he took on the family business despite the pittance that it earned, why he had not left and made his own world elsewhere.

  “Because you’ve only got the life you’re given,” Ryan’s father had said. “And it’s good enough.”

  But Ryan knew it would never be good enough, not then, not now.

  He stood outside the shop with the sign saying MAHON’S CASH ’N’ CARRY. Dark inside. He tried the door, found it locked.

  Ryan took another look along the street, saw it was empty, and walked around to the rear of the building. A large car, a Rover, was parked in the alleyway, and a bicycle stood propped against the wall. Ryan heard a voice issuing commands from inside the building. He approached the open doors.

  Gerard Mahon, Tommy Mahon’s son, stood smoking a cigarette with his back to the alley. A young boy, no more than thirteen or fourteen years old, stacked boxes of washing powder at Mahon’s instruction.

  “Good morning,” Ryan said.

  Mahon turned. He had gained weight since Ryan had last seen him, his face bloating with the onset of middle age. He stared for a moment before recognition softened his expression.

  “Albert Ryan? Holy Jesus, I haven’t seen you for years. I thought you’d fucked off to England.”

  “I’m just visiting my parents.” Ryan stepped into the shadow of the doorway, felt the cold of the building, smelled bleach and tobacco. “I see you’re branching out.”

  Mahon smiled and took a drag on the cigarette. “A new venture. Your auld fella can’t have all the business to himself.”

  “I suppose he can’t.” Ryan took another step inside. “It’s a funny thing, though. I heard he’s been having some trouble with his suppliers since your father set you up with this place.”

  Mahon’s smile became a bitter slash. He wagged a finger in Ryan’s direction. “I set this place up myself. Anyone who says different is a lying bastard.” Mahon turned to the boy who had stopped stacking boxes to watch the two men. “Get into the shop. The floor needs mopping. Go on, quick now.”

  The boy did as he was told and exited the store room.

  Mahon turned back, flinched when he found Ryan so close. Ryan stood several inches taller than the other man and he used every one of them.

  “I heard someone had a word with the Trades Association and made sure the suppliers stopped dealing with my father.”

  Mahon shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If your auld fella can’t stand a bit of competition, he’d best pack up and get out.” Emboldened, Mahon raised himself to his full height. “He should’ve got out a long time ago. We could do with a few less of your kind around here, anyway.”

  “My kind? What kind is that, exactly?”

  Mahon licked his lips, swallowed, sucked on his cigarette. “Protestants,” he said, exhaling smoke to plume into Ryan’s face. “Especially when they breed Brit lovers like you.”

  Ryan slapped the cigarette from his mouth. Mahon stepped back, eyes wide.

  “Here, now, you better watch who you’re—”

  The blow caught Mahon beneath his Adam’s apple. He dropped to the floor, his knees cracking on the concrete, his hands going to his throat. Ryan kicked him hard between the navel and groin. Mahon collapsed onto his belly, his face turning from pink to purple.

  Ryan undid his belt buckle and stood astride Mahon. The leather came free with one pull, and he crossed his hands to form a loop. He bent down, slipped the loop over Mahon’s head and around his neck.

  Mahon gave an agonised croak as Ryan hauled him up onto his knees. He brought his fingers to his throat, tried to force them between the belt and his skin. Ryan tightened his hold. Mahon’s body jerked and bucked.

  Ryan put his lips to Mahon’s ear. “Now listen to me. I will call my father in two days. If he doesn’t tell me his suppliers have delivered everything he wants, I will come back for you. Do you understand me?”

  He loosened the belt. Mahon choked on air. Ryan pulled again, tighter than before.

  “Do you understand me?”

  He allowed Mahon to inhale.

  Mahon mouthed a word, the only sound the hissing sibilant at its tail. He nodded and coughed, drool spilling from his lips.

  Ryan took the belt away, let Mahon crumple to the floor. He walked to the doorway to the alley. Looking back over his shoulder, he said, “Two days.”

  Mahon writhed, his hands up to deflect a blow that would never come.

  Albert Ryan returned to his parents’ home, enjoyed the cooked breakfast his mother had prepared, and then set off for Dublin.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BUSWELLS HOTEL STOOD near the corner of Molesworth Street and Kildare Street, the white citadel and green gardens of Trinity College to the north, the sprawling open pastures and leafy walkways of St Stephen’s Green to the south. The voices of paperboys called the headlines over the grumbling of traffic. The bus strike had ended only a few days before, and the passengers looked happy to no longer have to rely on the substitute transport the army had provided.

  The hotel’s receptionist handed Ryan a note along with his key as he checked in. He had stopped off at Gormanston on the way to Dublin and gathered a few clothes and wash things into the bag that now lay at his feet. The restaurant jangle
d and chattered with lunchtime clientele. Ryan recognised a Teachta Dála, an Irish member of parliament, watching a young woman cross the foyer, a key in her hand, heels clicking on the white marble floor. She paused at the foot of the stairs leading to the guest rooms, glanced back over her shoulder at the TD, and climbed. The Oireachtas, the seat of Ireland’s government, stood just yards around the corner. Buswells hosted many politicians and their companions, their secretaries, their assistants. The beds above creaked with the secret passions of the country’s leaders.

  The TD waited a few moments before following the young woman, unaware he was being observed.

  Ryan had never stayed at Buswells. It was not the city’s most luxurious hotel—the Shelbourne and the Royal Hibernian offered greater decadence—but the room that had been placed at his disposal would certainly be better accommodation than he was used to.

  He carried the note and the bag upstairs, found his room on a small landing at the junction of two flights of carpeted steps. It held a single bed, a wardrobe, a corner washbasin and a radio on a bedside locker. Yellow and brown nicotine stains clouded the ceiling. Through the greying net curtain over the lone window, across the road, he saw the grandeur of the Freemasons’ Hall, white stone columns and arches, like a greek temple transplanted to a city side street. Ryan dropped his bag on the bed, took off his jacket and sat down. He opened the note.

  Ryan,

  Make sure you go and see my tailor today. I want you looking presentable when you meet our friend in Malahide tomorrow night.

  C.J.H.

  Ryan fingered the fabric of his jacket. It had been a reasonable suit when it was new, any man would have felt well turned out, but it had begun to show its age. He had admired Haughey’s attire the previous day, the cut of the cloth, the way it flattered his frame. Even if you hadn’t known he was a government minister, you would recognise a man of wealth and influence. It took more than quality fabric to give such an impression, of course, but it couldn’t hurt.

  Albert Ryan knew he had a streak of vanity, and of pride, like a vein of silver running through rock. That part of him smarted when he saw younger men who were better dressed, or who drove shining cars. He did not like this aspect of himself, found it ugly and not in keeping with a man of his upbringing. His parents had taught him the virtue of austerity, the Presbyterian values of modesty and hard work.