by Joe Joyce
‘My song,’ Breda said, tugging at Linqvist’s sleeve, interrupting his conversation with Sullivan. ‘Dance, Max.’
Duggan watched her drag him on to the dance floor, thinking, He’s much too distinctive to be a spy, working for the American State Department. He was more than six feet tall, and his height and bright blonde hair made him stand out wherever he was.
Maura was giving him an inquisitive look when he turned back to her. ‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked.
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ she replied.
She moved in close to him on the dance floor, her hair tickling his cheek. ‘So you’re in the Free State army too?’ she said into his ear.
‘I am.’
‘Do you think you’ll be doing any fighting?’
‘I hope not.’
She leaned back to look him in the eye. ‘That’s a good answer.’
‘Is it?’
‘It means you’re a smart man.’
‘It could also mean I’m a coward.’
She shook her head, giving him a serious look. ‘You should keep out of it down here if you can.’
‘That’s the intention.’
‘It doesn’t take many bombs to make people realise how full of shit the armchair generals are.’
He was taken aback by her language and the vehemence in her voice. He increased the pressure on her back, and she moved closer to him again. ‘Let’s not talk about that,’ she said into his ear.
‘No,’ he agreed.
Instead, they talked about her job in a chemist’s in Great Victoria Street, and where he came from, and that he’d never been to Belfast and how she’d had a holiday in Salthill before the war. Duggan began to enjoy the evening as it went on, dancing with Carmel and Breda as well, and relaxing in Maura’s company.
He was in a mellow mood by the time the three of them went off to the ladies’. ‘I hear you’ve been down the west,’ he said to Linqvist, deciding to take the initiative. ‘Fishing.’
‘I was,’ Linqvist said, offering him and Sullivan cigarettes from a packet of Lucky Strikes.
‘Catch anything?’ Duggan asked, flicking his lighter and leaning across the table to light Linqvist’s and Sullivan’s cigarettes.
‘A few packs of these,’ Linqvist said, holding up the cigarette packet with a lazy smile.
‘I hear there were more than a few of them around. And booze and chocolate and even more exotic things.’
‘There were. We only got our hands on a few before it was all whisked away to the London legation.’
‘I’d been looking forward to the Independence Day party here this year,’ Duggan said. ‘But you’re going fishing again with Mr Gray.’
‘Not me. Not this time.’ Linqvist gave him a languid grin. Sullivan watched them, aware that there was something going on beneath the surface of the conversation, but not knowing what. ‘His driver’s back. I was only standing in for him on the trip to Mayo.’
‘Was it a success? The trip to Mayo?’
‘He didn’t catch anything. But he enjoyed himself.’
‘Maybe he was using the wrong flies.’
‘That’s possible.’ Linqvist leaned forward to tap the ash on his
cigarette into the glass tray. ‘I hear you were in Mayo yourself recently. Get any fishing in?’
‘No.’ Interesting, Duggan thought. How did he know that?
‘What flies would you recommend?’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about flies.’ Duggan tapped his cigarette against the ashtray. ‘Never fished with any bait other than the basic. A worm.’
‘A worm,’ Linqvist repeated, nodding his head as if that was meaningful advice. ‘A lot to be said for keeping it simple, I guess.’
The girls returned, looking satisfied with themselves. ‘Have a good gossip?’ Sullivan asked. Carmel swung her handbag at his chest and said, ‘Mind your manners, you.’ Everyone else laughed and they went back to dancing. After the national anthem, as they were leaving, Duggan and Linqvist found themselves side by side going down the stairs. ‘How’s Grace?’ Linqvist asked in a quiet voice. ‘You still in touch with her?’
‘Yes,’ Duggan said, knowing that Linqvist probably knew he was. And knowing, too, that the enquiry was a none-too-subtle reminder that he was in Linqvist’s debt. ‘She seems to like New York.’
‘We should have a talk.’
‘Yes,’ Duggan said in a decisive tone, hoping to make it clear that there were things he wanted too.
‘You know McDaid’s in Harry Street? After the Holy Hour tomorrow?’
‘Fine.’
Outside, Linqvist and Breda said goodbye to the others and crossed the street to the median, where his two-seater MG was parked alongside the rough concrete of the bomb shelter. Envious glances followed them from the crowd emerging from the Metropole as Linqvist accelerated away. Is he trying to be conspicuous, driving such a fancy car when few people had any petrol, never mind a sports car? Duggan wondered.
They waited for a horse-drawn growler and Sullivan gave the driver Carmel’s address in Glasnevin as they got in. Duggan sat beside Maura, opposite Sullivan and Carmel, and they knocked shoulders as the carriage swayed over the cobblestones. It wasn’t late, but the buses and trams had stopped running hours earlier and O’Connell Street was busy with couples heading home on foot from the cinemas. The night was almost balmy, a warm breeze coming through the open window, and the motion of the carriage and the clop-clop of the horse’s hooves left them sleepy by the time they reached Carmel’s house in Mobhi Road.
Inside, Carmel and Maura disappeared into the kitchen at the back of the house while Duggan and Sullivan stood in the front room, its air stale from lack of use.
‘What was all that talk of fishing about?’ Sullivan asked.
Duggan told him about the Norden bombsight and how Linqvist had been offering a reward for its recovery.
‘Did we know that?’
‘Not till I heard about it in Mayo.’ Duggan took a deep breath. ‘Did you tell Carmel I was down there?’
Sullivan nodded after a moment.
So that was how Linqvist knew, Duggan thought. ‘And that I was in Lisbon?’
Sullivan nodded again.
‘And she probably tells Breda everything.’
‘And she tells Max,’ Sullivan finished for him. ‘Yeah. Fuck.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Duggan assured him.
‘You’re not going to tell the boss, are you?’
‘No, no. Course not.’ Duggan paused as a thought occurred to him. ‘But we could use it. You could tell her that we’re very upset with Max and his friends. At the games they’re playing behind our backs. While we’ve been straight with them.’
‘Yeah,’ Sullivan said with a slow smile. ‘I’ll do that.’
‘Do what?’ Carmel asked, pushing open the door with her elbow as she carried in a tray of tea things.
Sullivan tapped his nose and waved his finger at her. ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’
‘And information made him fat,’ Maura said as she followed Carmel in with a plate of queen cakes.
‘Or maybe it was the cakes,’ Duggan said to her.
‘You can only have one,’ she shot back.
They continued their light-hearted banter as they had cups of tea and ate queen cakes. Afterwards, Sullivan and Carmel disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Duggan and Maura together on the couch in the unused room. They sat in silence, he very conscious of her closeness and tempted to move towards her, knowing she would respond if he did. It was unlikely he’d ever see Gerda again, not while the war lasted anyway. And who knew how long it would last? And how it would end? And what the world would be like afterwards?
‘Listen,’ he said, unsure what he was going to say and running his fingers down the back of her hand where it lay between them on the couch. ‘I . . . ’
‘I know,’ she said, turning her hand over to entwine his fingers with hers. ‘You have a mystery girlfriend
. In America.’
‘Mystery?’ he said. ‘How mystery?’
‘Nobody’s ever seen her,’ she smiled, letting her head tilt sideways in a question mark.
‘That was just the way things worked out. She wasn’t here very long. I mean, I didn’t know her for very long before she went away.’
‘Must’ve been love at first sight then.’
‘You’re teasing me.’
‘Aye. I’m sorry.’ She moved towards him and kissed him on the lips.
Her presence was almost overwhelming: the press of her breast against his chest, the taste of her lips, the smell of her hair and the softness of her skin. He knew all he had to do was put his other arm around her and prolong the kiss. But he hesitated on the point of abandonment and she pulled back.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ she said. ‘I really enjoyed it.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I hope we’ll meet again before you go home.’
‘I’m sure we will.’
‘If there’s anything you want to see in Dublin, let me know.’
She went to the hall door with him, holding hands, and kissed him on the cheek as he left. He walked back to Phibsborough, still feeling her physical presence, and passed a couple entangled in each other in a doorway as he turned at Doyle’s Corner towards the North Circular Road. He took his time, enjoying the warmth of the night, passing by the cattle market with its smells of the country, and wondering if Gerda was back from her holidays, if maybe she’d met someone, had a holiday romance, if it was realistic to think they’d ever see each other again.
The sky was indigo in the east behind him, but lightened towards the west into an inky blue that presaged the coming dawn as the earth turned on its slow round.
Eleven
The phone rang and Duggan picked it up and gave his name. ‘Commandant Flood for you,’ the switchboard orderly said.
‘Commandant,’ Duggan said, straightening up on the chair unconsciously.
‘That wiring diagram you sent us,’ the Air Corps man said. ‘Why was the writing in English?’
‘Ah . . . ’ Duggan hesitated, confused by the question and unable to formulate an answer.
‘It’s a German bombsight,’ the commandant said in an accusatory tone, as if G2 had been trying to catch out the Air Corps by asking a trick question.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I. Why was it in English?’
‘Because it came from an American manual.’
‘Why would the Americans have a manual about the Heinkel bombsight?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ Duggan said, perplexed. ‘Maybe it wasn’t actually a manual.’
‘What was it then?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ Duggan repeated. ‘It was found in the wreckage of the Flying Fortress that crashed in Mayo.’
The commandant gave a harrumph, as if that was the final straw. ‘Well, our lads say it’s a drawing of the electrics in the bombsight I showed you the other day from the Heinkel.’
Duggan was about to say that maybe it was from an American report on German equipment, but Flood had hung up. Duggan tipped back his chair and put his feet up on the table and his hands in his trouser pockets. He had assumed the diagram was of the Norden bombsight, but there had been no reason to jump to that conclusion. The pages had not been in the box with the Norden – the obvious place for a manual. It could as easily have been an intelligence report on Luftwaffe equipment as anything else. Which suggested there might have been other interesting things on board the Flying Fortress.
He dropped his feet to the floor again and picked up the phone. He asked the switchboard to get him the Garda station in Mayo, where he and Gifford had met the sergeant.
‘Boss wants you,’ Sullivan said behind him as he came into the room. ‘Got something for you.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t say.’
‘Is it urgent?’ Duggan nodded at the phone. ‘I’m just waiting for a call.’
‘Didn’t sound urgent,’ Sullivan said, yawning as he sat down at the end of his table.
‘You stayed late at Carmel’s?’
Sullivan nodded. ‘You left in a hurry.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Without even saying goodbye.’
‘I didn’t want to interrupt you.’
‘Anyway,’ Sullivan said through another yawn. ‘Maura took a shine to you for some reason.’
‘You told me it wasn’t going to be like that.’
‘You know what Carmel’s like,’ Sullivan said in a fond tone. ‘You might as well tell her not to breathe as tell her not to be match-making.’
The phone gave a single ring and the switch told him his call to Mayo was on the line.
‘Ah, the young bucks,’ the sergeant said when Duggan identified himself. ‘Ye got back to the big smoke safely.’
‘We did, thanks,’ Duggan said. ‘There was something I wanted to check with you.’
‘Fire ahead.’
‘That diagram you gave us. Was it part of something else? A bigger document?’
‘I couldn’t tell you. What I gave you was what was given to me. ‘
‘Were there many other documents lying around after the crash?’
The sergeant took a deep breath as if he was thinking. ‘There was all sorts of stuff lying around. There were some papers around all right. But nobody was paying them much attention. If you follow my meaning.’
‘I do,’ Duggan said, assuming he meant there was much more interest in the booty. ‘Could you ask the man who gave them to you if he saw any other papers? Even better, if he has any others?’
‘I can surely.’
‘Thanks for all your help.’
‘No bother at all. Have ye claimed the reward yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘So the treasure hunt can go on,’ the sergeant chuckled. ‘There’s still a few young lads taking a rare interest in the bog now and then. But it’s tapering off.’
‘Good for them to get some fresh air,’ Duggan laughed.
‘How’s your Branch friend?’ The sergeant seemed in no hurry to end the conversation.
‘He’s fine.’
‘He hasn’t been put back into uniform yet?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘He’d want to watch himself. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him turn up some place down here one of the days, if he’s not careful. Back in uniform in Belmullet or somewhere.’
‘I’ll warn him next time I see him.’ Duggan smiled as he imagined Gifford’s horror at being posted to some rural outpost. He’d never stay in the Garda Síochána if that happened.
He hung up and went in search of Captain Anderson on the British desk. He found him with his head in his hands, focused on a lengthy document he was reading.
‘Can I interrupt you for a moment?’ Duggan asked.
Anderson looked up at him, put a pencil on the page he was reading and closed the file over from the back so that whatever it said on the front was not visible. ‘You were to keep me in the loop about that plane,’ he said in an accusatory voice.
‘That’s why I’m here,’ Duggan lied.
‘Everybody knows about the American reward for a bombsight now.’
‘There was no mention of it when you were down there with the salvage crew?’
‘You think I was keeping it secret so I could claim the reward?’ Anderson shot back.
‘No,’ Duggan said evenly, not interested in getting into an argument with him. ‘You remember I told you my interest was in documents on the plane?’
‘That’s what took you down there?’
‘I came across some documents that had been handed in to the guards,’ Duggan said, ignoring the question.
‘What kind of documents?’
Duggan paused, then decided there was no reason not to tell him. ‘Wiring diagrams of German bombsights.’
‘German bombsights,’ Anderson repeated.
Duggan could see him trying to figure out what this meant, could see that the information had piqued his interest. ‘Two pages of them, but no commentary, or any indication of what they were from.’
‘You think it was part of something else?’ Anderson said, thinking aloud. The hostile edge to his voice had disappeared.
‘Looks like it. They’re not the kind of thing you’d send somebody on their own. Not without a covering note, at the very least.’
Anderson nodded his head several times, opened the bottom drawer on his desk and took out a file. He flicked through the first couple of pages and stopped at a typed list. ‘The inventory of everything they took away,’ he said, running his finger down the list. Duggan glanced at it over his shoulder. It included parts of the aircraft that had broken away from the main wreckage, and then the boxes of supplies destined for the London legation.
Anderson’s finger stopped and he tapped an item: ‘One leather briefcase’.
‘That was open,’ Anderson said. ‘Had details about the flight. Weather forecast. Route and so on. I assumed it was the pilot’s. Briefing documents.’
He continued running his finger down to the end of the list.
‘That’s it,’ he said, looking up at Duggan. ‘Nothing that looks likely. Though Christ knows what had disappeared before we got there.’
‘And none of the Americans or Brits asked about anything that was missing?’
‘Not a word. There were jokes about parties in the locality. But not a mention of anything they wanted back.’
Duggan thanked him and was heading for the door when Anderson asked, ‘What do you make of this reward?’
‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ Duggan replied, turning back.
‘Can’t be much of a secret if they’re telling everybody about it.’
‘And why didn’t they ask you about it when you were there?’
‘They’re up to something.’
‘But what?’
‘Fucked if I know,’ Anderson shrugged. ‘Keep me posted.’
‘Will do.’
Commandant McClure was standing by the window, looking out at the sun-washed parking area, his chin propped in the heel of his left hand. He half turned as Duggan entered, after a cursory knock, and nodded towards his desk. ‘Your German friends have responded to your message,’ he said.