For the past month, his daily existence had been like this. A complicated game of waiting, afternoon journeys on trams, days made up of pauses and blank spaces, all the time trying to come up with the connections, the people and the places that would bring him closer to achieving his mission. Over the past few days, he felt as though he were growing bodiless, like a ghost, haunted by this feeling of emptiness, his will to go on existing only within the memory of a single accidental kiss.
When it grew closer to his meeting with McAleer, he made his way back to Leeson Street. He walked along the shop fronts looking for somewhere warm to wait. He ordered a pot of tea and sat at the back of an empty cafe. He thought of his earlier conversation with O’Shea, the sense that he had hinted at something darker occurring at the life assurance offices. ‘I must congratulate you, an outsider, for finding me here. You have come to the centre of things…’ He had the uncomfortable suspicion that he might be falling into some sort of trap. He stared through the café window at the pre-dusk sky, waiting, as his cup grew cold in his hands.
Two small ragged boys from the tenements stopped and peered through the glass. They had thick, dirty hair and wide eyes that seemed beyond fear or pain. They pointed at Kant as though he were some sort of aimless spirit, an object of pity. He buried his head in a newspaper, searching for headlines about other parts of the world, anything that might remove him momentarily from the watchful streets of Dublin.
When he looked up at the window, the boys had disappeared. A group of schoolchildren with a teacher entered the teashop, surrounding him with excited voices and the scraping back of chairs. He relaxed a little as the teacher, a young woman, ordered ice creams. He went back to reading his newspaper.
A draught of air carried a sweet, sophisticated scent to his nostrils. The smell of cologne. He looked up. Two men had entered, removed their hats, and taken up the table by the door. The one with his back to Kant turned to speak to the waitress in a sharp English accent. He was surprised to recognise Isham’s clean-shaven profile, his hair neatly parted, suit pressed stiff. He turned his attention to the corporal’s tall, broad-shouldered companion. If anything, he was better dressed and more business-like in a city suit with a white shirt and smart cuffs that looked as though they could slice butter. He was talking to Isham with the self-important air of a man conducting business, a thick wave of brown hair falling over his forehead. Kant failed to place where he had seen his face before.
He was about to hail Isham when he remembered that no agent was permitted to acknowledge another while in the field. ‘Show no sign of recognition that might jeopardise a secret mission’ was the instruction he had drilled into him. Instead, he listened through the noise of the children, making out snippets of their conversation. Isham’s voice was almost unrecognisable. Flattered sounding and at the same time confiding. Through the gang of children, the reporter had an intermittent view of their table and the window beyond. Women rode by on bicycles with brown parcels in their bags. A terrier ran after them. The corporal pulled his seat closer to the table and poured his companion some tea. Kant had the feeling that Isham was playing a role, enjoying a situation over which he had complete control. He studied the other man’s reactions. He noted that, although the big man’s lips were grinning, his dark eyes were not. They glinted with intense wariness.
‘Dublin Castle is watching the money,’ he heard Isham say. ‘They’re chasing the money. They won’t rest until they have blown your finances to kingdom come.’
‘What can they do?’ said his companion, shifting his shoulders slightly. He had a country brogue, soft and rising.
‘Shut down your accounts for one thing. Then they’ll go after the banks holding your money. They’ll arrest the bank managers and close down their branches.’
‘Then we’ll just keep moving the money. Besides, a lot of it has already been converted into gold and hidden away.’
‘No matter how many times you move it, British intelligence will follow every twist in its journey, every secret account.’
The big man moved uneasily in his seat. He opened a packet of cigarettes and lit one.
‘When they find out how you’ve spent some of the money, they’ll trumpet the news in all the newspapers,’ said Isham. ‘The rest of the world might stop feeling sorry for Ireland.’
The man examined the tip of his cigarette as if trying to divine guidance from the thin curl of smoke.
‘My people at the life assurance office have become experts at moving and hiding money,’ he said, his eyes glinting a little more fiercely. ‘We’ve financed a shadow government, a prisoner’s aid scheme and a guerrilla war with this complex network of cash. Do you think your bunch of civil servant snoopers is going to undo all this?’
The big man caught Kant’s gaze. The reporter’s eyes slid away and he picked up the newspaper again. He glanced back at the table to find the man staring straight at him, flashing a charming grin with just a hint of slyness. Something about his confident eyes, the easy smile and the lilting accent set off a memory like a flashbulb that almost jolted Kant out of his seat. The man bore an uncanny resemblance to Dublin Castle’s smudged photographs of Mick Collins. Recognition must have shown in the reporter’s face because the big man began to inspect him more closely. He buried his face in the newspaper, but he could tell that the man’s head did not move, and that his eyes remained steadfast. The table grew silent. Kant felt the burning radiance of his interest prickle his scalp.
After a while, Kant glanced up and was relieved to see the two men had returned to their hushed conversation. He found it difficult to banish the reward posters for Collins’ arrest and his photograph from his mind, the heavy fringe of brown hair, the sly, confident eyes, and Dublin Castle’s assertion that he was the most wanted man in Europe. He tried to reassure himself that if the man were Collins, Isham must be playing some sort of covert role in the IRA’s set-up. Another thought flashed through his mind. They had mentioned an assurance office. Did they mean the Dublin Life building? With all the mental concentration he bent to marshalling words for his newspaper reports, he tried to keep his thoughts clear, to swim through his rising anxiety. ‘You have come to the centre of things…’ O’Shea’s voice rang like a warning bell.
The door of the café opened. The two were leaving now, the big man laughing jovially with his hand on Isham’s shoulder. They did not look behind at the reporter. Kant spent a while counting out the change in his pocket, then he paid his receipt and walked out. The sun was almost setting on the empty street; neither the English corporal nor the broad-shouldered Irishman were anywhere to be seen.
It was shortly after five, and he was late. He walked up the street, telling himself that the appointment with Mr McAleer had nothing to do with Isham’s meeting in the café or their talk of hiding money. He was searching for a missing secretary, nothing else. Once again, the thought of Lily Merrin and her pretty face liberated warm feelings within him, the memory of her kiss filling him with a strange confidence, in spite of the growing tightness in his chest and the drumming of his heart. He remembered her anxious breath next to his ear, the tingling trace of her fingers, and the desperation of her twisting body. He was no longer the indifferent reporter hiding in a corner of a hansom cab, the spy weighed down by the aimlessness and apathy of fighting in a war that meant nothing to him. His imperative now was to ensure her safety, and his only available strategy was to let himself be carried towards the dark centre of things. The sense of moral urgency quickened his footsteps.
However, his optimism was cut short when he looked up at the life assurance building. The low winter sun blazed upon its glass, but he could still make out the shapes of two figures brooding behind the central window. One was O’Shea, the other, hanging a little back in the shadow, was the broad-shouldered man from the cafe. O’Shea raised his hand in greeting and smiled. Kant slowed his pace, his thoughts spinning in his head. It was too late
now to change the course of his path, to turn back without arousing suspicion. Again, he tried to grasp the significance of Isham’s meeting with the man he suspected was Collins, and the appointment that O’Shea had arranged for him. What if Isham were upstairs, too? What if the big man knew everything about his mission? Would Isham allow him to fall into a trap? Whatever the answers he had to continue as if he hadn’t overheard the conversation in the café.
This was what it meant to be living in a city full of revolution, thought Kant. People swept along by chance encounters, the aimless and impatient pulled into the inner rings of dangerous plots, friends and enemies merging into a single stream. He gathered his will and mounted the steps. He glanced up at the window one last time; the golden evening light had deepened, filling the glass with a radiant darkness.
EIGHT
As soon as he pushed open the door of the Dublin Life building, Kant could hear footsteps running quickly down the stairs. He entered an empty reception, and a moment later O’Shea appeared, still wearing his friendly smile.
‘I’ve allowed the staff to leave early, Mr Kant,’ he said. ‘The only people left in the building are here on appointment to see Mr McAleer. You’ve nothing to worry about in terms of secrecy.’
O’Shea accompanied him up to the first floor where he unlocked a narrow door that looked like a cupboard. He led the reporter along a dark side corridor, up a short flight of steps and into a gloomy waiting room. At first, Kant thought he was still in the Dublin Life building but a glance at the view from the window led him to believe otherwise. He was in another building entirely. He suspected that the side corridor was a secret passageway joining the two buildings, and that he had happened upon a secret office. O’Shea pulled out a seat and told him to wait for Mr McAleer’s call. He disappeared back through the passageway.
Kant’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light and made out the shape of a figure waiting quietly beside him. He was surprised to see a man in a policeman’s dark green uniform, staring grimly ahead. He could smell his sweat, sense the tension in his body, and was reminded of the soldiers dug in at the trenches on the Western Front, dreading the order to advance. They both waited, staring at the door in front of them.
‘Mr Kant,’ shouted a voice from the next room.
The reporter rose and opened the door. At the far end of a mahogany desk, silhouetted against the window, stood the broad-shouldered man from the café. Opened files covered his desk like a bureaucratic form of the card-game patience. Unlike O’Shea’s office, the paper had not turned yellow with age. Instead, the pages looked freshly typed, sheathed in gleaming black covers.
The man motioned Kant to approach. ‘My name is not Jack McAleer, Mr Kant, as I’m sure you’ve guessed already.’ He spoke in a brusque but friendly tone. ‘My name is Michael Collins, and you are most welcome to my paper fortress. Built of memos and minutes by an army of secret typists. Forget about bombs and guns. The real war of independence is being fought here on paper.’ He thumped a stack of files emphatically.
‘It’s true,’ said Kant, who was surprised he could find his own voice. ‘Information is power. Facts, figures, propaganda…’
‘Which is why my interest has been sparked by your reports.’ Collins walked straight up to Kant, shook his hand and led him to a seat. ‘With information like this we can grab the British by the throat.’
Kant glanced at the desk and saw freshly printed stacks of the Irish Volunteer handbook and heaps of pages outlining what appeared to be a food-rationing scheme. He also noticed a black revolver lying on top of a pile of green membership cards.
Collins sat down at the other end of the desk, lit a cigarette and gave Kant a quick grin.
‘First, I want you to satisfy my curiosity. What gave you the idea in the first place; coming to Dublin and sticking your bloody English nose in our little war?’
Kant hesitated. Before he could continue, Collins pointed the burning end of his cigarette at him.
‘I’m familiar with the lines you’re going to feed me. I’ve heard them countless times.’ He leaned forward aggressively but the tone of his voice was still good-natured. ‘I’ve seen scores of men like you since the end of the Great War. God save us, but there are more of you every day. Showing up like worms. Some of you are rebelling against your upbringing and society in general. With your crudely formed notions of Irish nationhood, you think you can help shape our destiny, mould a piece of Ireland in your bare hands.’ Kant shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘On the other hand, there are those of you who come with less noble intentions. I have my informants at the docks paying close attention to all new arrivals. I know that the majority of you are more devils than angels. Come to sniff out my blood money.’
He paused and stared hard at Kant. His face looked magnified; the reporter could see every pore in his broad-jawed face, the thick wave of his brown hair, the lashes of his eyes, the inkblots of his pupils.
‘I understand you have been asking questions about Lily Merrin. What has drawn you to this woman?’
‘She has engaged my reporter’s curiosity. I am concerned she might be the latest victim of a lust murderer. One who has already struck several times.’
Collins stood up behind his seat and gripped the backrest.
‘My suspicions have been aroused because this is the wrong sort of story for you and your newspaper. Most of the women in your file were working for the IRA. Why should an English reporter and his readers care about rebel Irish women?’
‘If a series of outrages have been committed against Irish women, then they will be.’
‘England has grown war weary. I do not think its people are interested in what is happening here.’
‘Then you underestimate the power of public opinion in your fight for independence. England won a war fighting against the oppression of smaller nations. Its civilians deserve to know if a crime has been committed in their name.’
Collins rested his cigarette on an ashtray. His face looked at once serene and fierce, and his eyes were firm, making it difficult to hold his gaze. Blue spirals of smoke wafted in the air.
‘Are you a spy, Mr Kant? It would be better to tell me the truth now, rather than I find out myself later.’
‘I’m a reporter working to finish a story,’ Kant replied with a steady voice. ‘Also, I have no wish to see more young women go missing or be murdered in this gruesome way.’
Collins relaxed a little and returned to his seat. ‘Mr Kant, my war is completely dependent upon the careful documentation of information. In fact, I would say that information is the life-blood of my war.’ He picked up the reporter’s file. ‘If that information is wrong or contaminated then it undermines my position and the legitimacy of my operations. Wrong information is more treacherous than a bullet aimed at my back. If I believe you have submitted wrong information in this report, I will have you shot. Make no mistake about that.’
‘I can assure you that wrong information is just as treacherous to a reporter.’
‘But how can I trust you? If you are the keen reporter you claim to be, you must be giving Dublin Castle a regular nightmare. They have an extensive network of spies. They ought to have gotten wind of you by now and deported you back to England.’
Kant chose his words carefully. ‘My understanding is that British intelligence is trying to suppress the details of this case. They are sensitive to the value of propaganda.’
‘Then you have been in touch with the enemy. You must tell me the truth. Who are you in this game of Dublin Castle’s?’
‘I’ve heard so much propaganda I’m not sure I know what the truth is myself.’
‘Then let me tell you. The truth is what will hurt you.’ He grabbed the revolver from the desk and walked over to the reporter. ‘I have a simple proposal to save your life. Take my gun, walk out of this office, and shoot that bloody policeman sitting in the waiting ro
om. Then I will know the truth.’
Kant did not move as Collins shoved the gun in his face. The IRA man’s hard eyes shone with humour, as though the task might only be a jest to test the reporter’s nerve.
‘I tell you now I’m giving you this chance to gain my trust and save your life.’
Still the reporter did not flinch.
‘Why do you hesitate? The policeman is an enemy of the Irish people. There is not a soul in this building who will stop you. All you have to do is use a little physical effort. Just pull the trigger and release.’
Kant took the gun and stared at it in his hand.
‘What if the policeman doesn’t deserve to die? What if he has a wife and five children?’
‘He’s a spy from Dublin Castle trying to dupe the IRA with useless information. I’ve grown tired of his countless attempts to entrap me.’
Kant’s fingers twitched on the gun. He would never be in a better position to gain the confidence of the IRA leader, and prove that he could be trusted with the innermost secrets of the rebel organisation. He tried to summon enough courage to walk out into the waiting room and pull the trigger. But it wasn’t courage he needed. It was hatred, a stubborn, pitiless hatred, and all he felt was sadness at the cheapness of life, its transitory nature, and sympathy for the policeman who did not come to the Dublin Life building to die.
‘I thought there would be a purity and nobility in your fight for a new Ireland,’ he said.
Collins gave an incredulous laugh. ‘What made you think our war would be any different from other wars? Killing can only be combated by killing, and the end always justifies the means. I’m warning you now, if you don’t use that gun, your inaction could lead to the death of several good Irishmen.’
‘The policeman is no longer effective as a spy if you’ve blown his cover. Killing him will change nothing. Tell your men to ignore him and he will disappear.’
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