by Daniel Kemp
On release from his last concentration camp, Schuschnigg was repatriated to Austria and invited by the Americans to join the then fledgling Austrian government. He was, according to Jack's story, waiting in the American Embassy in Vienna when Alain Aberman made his own personal travel application. He could not check the documents that Alain had submitted, but he could have him followed when he left. It was the following day that Aberman was killed. Kurt Schuschnigg refused the invitation offered him to serve in government, preferring to emigrate to America and start a new life. According to Jack's report that's what he did. The fear of his betrayal of innocence and the wish to survive a revengeful witness can be written convincingly into any good conspiracy and that was what Jack was relying on.
* * *
The phone rang in my hotel room twenty minutes later. It was Richard Stockford.
* * *
Whether or not it was the truth that Fianna told me on our flight to New York I had no way of knowing, but that wasn't of primary importance, the fact that she was convincing was. She and the younger Shaun had been taken into the orphanage when their parents had perished in a fire that destroyed their home above the bakery in which they worked in the small town of Carrick-On-Shannon, when Shaun was seven years old and Fianna two years his elder. Their mother, Rebecca, had been overcome by the smoke fumes and their father, Michael, had died from the burns he suffered when rescuing his two children. Fianna had a burn on her upper arm as a remaining legacy of that fateful night, but Shaun was spared any injury. He was to face agony later.
Father Finnegan had already established his place at Athlone by the time the two children arrived, but his penchant for naked boys dancing before him was unknown by anyone else connected to the home. At each of his weekly dancing sessions the male selections were made to recite the initials of Schuschnigg in a song he composed:
I know a devil called S c h u s c h n i g g, who once killed a man that he could clearly see.
He ran him down in a big fat car, so the story he could have told would never go far.
If you close your eyes then maybe you will see, that the murdering devil of S c h u s c h n i g g still lives in me!
Shaun told Fianna of the song, and she too had nightmares.
Jack's version of the story now deviated from the truth. Whereas the real Shaun was murdered by Finnegan, I, as Fianna's brother, simply ran away in fear. The name and the song stayed branded onto my subconscious as though put there by a scalding iron, only to come alive again when reading that name in the London evening newspaper. Fianna stayed at the orphanage for a few more months after my disappearance then she was placed in a normal home owned by a family called Gleeson who lived in Dublin. She had a list, compiled by Jack, of positions she took as employment which she assured me she had memorised.
The murder of Father Finnegan was carried by many publications with speculation being kept to the minimum that his murderer, Bridget Slattery, never added to. Fianna, under that assumed name, was deemed to be psychotic and committed to a variety of mental institutions before playing a leading role in Henry Acre's death. Why Finnegan had only murdered Shaun from all the others was not known nor commented on. Like Fianna, I had a separate letter from Jack that was for only my eyes. I believed every word.
He confirmed my suspicions over the father of Leeba's child, along with my supposition that the once King, Edward VIII, of the British Empire, was guest B at the Chancellery. The reason for that meeting was to discuss the new order of things when, as all three men expected, Britain was overrun by the Nazis. Hitler had a daughter and the world knew nothing of it. Jack implied that would change if Schuschnigg ever opened his mouth. As I read on I understood why he had not, but also why now he might.
The atrocities that the Nazis inflicted upon the Jews is a well-documented subject, often in graphic detail, but one programme that I had never seen mentioned was the propagation of Jewish children by at least one Jewish parent. The Nazis were nothing if not pragmatic. They knew the extermination of the Jewish race, although taking time, would inevitably lead to its extinction. The babies born in the concentration camps were to be the future; human beings bred solely for medical experimentation. Ideally they wanted pure Jewish bred children from fine ancestral stock!
One of those used in this programme was Kurt Schuschnigg. He descended from a very distinguished Austrian family, having traceable roots back many centuries, including attachment to the Habsburg monarchy. No precise records of births were kept by the Nazis, therefore no exact number of children fathered by Schuschnigg could ever be known, nor their names and sex. Perhaps, Jack suggested, the Gross-Rosen concentration sub camp complex-born thirty-two-year-old chief executive of the German chemical company in talks with Richard Stockford was not one of them, but he wanted no chance to be taken over Schuschnigg involvement. Loose ends, as he called them; ones that need to be tied together, he added. I wondered why it was necessary for Fianna to help in connecting those loose ends.
By now you're entitled to accuse me of being stupidly naive and I will plead guilty to that offence. I cannot even offer youth and inquisitiveness as a just defence, as having studied psychology I should have been asking more questions than I had. On self-examination I could say that Jack had replaced the father I had known so little of, and it was in his reports I'd found the purpose I was searching for. But I very much doubt anyone would fall for that one. Jack was like a smooth pebble in my mouth, helping me to keep my aspirations moist whilst travelling through the dry desert of life.
* * *
Fianna was starting to conduct her own examination of motives on boarding the plane.
“Is it not bothering you, Shaun, that you're here at all?” she asked, to which I answered, “Should it?”
“If I was you then, yes, I would,” she replied before continuing, “and a bit quicker than yourself. Before you say a thing that you might be ashamed of, let me put a few pointers your way. You're a policeman who just happened to shoot dead an Irish army brigade commander and then fell into the path of the mysterious Jack Price. How convenient was that for the both of you, huh? I've had me ups and downs with the police in my time but I'm more used to the ones like the Scarface I met and told you of than handsome burly ones like yourself. I reckon your man Jack turned your head, with you falling in love with the adventure stories he told of a hero rescuing some dumb maiden in need of a good seeing to. I hope I'm none too vulgar for you, Shaun, but it's the way of the world nowadays. I have a couple of questions you might like to chew on as we take to the air,” she said, her eyebrows raised in a questioning fashion.
“Why pick you to shoot a Republican Army man? You're young and a bit too inexperienced for my thinking. I would have thought there must be loads of coppers better qualified and already tested in killing. While I'm on the subject of shooting people dead, you seem mighty cold about it all. It's as though you do it every day of your life. Like making a cup of tea first thing in the morning, or tying your shoelaces. It's not natural, Shaun. Did you not feel anything when you shot him dead?”
“Not a thing! I knew he wouldn't hesitate firing his own gun and killing that guard. He had a history of violence that stretched back many years, plus someone in the gang had told me that he intended this hold-up to be more of a political statement than just a robbery. I had my orders and followed them. That's what people like me do, Fianna. We uphold the law.”
She looked away and laughed, more mocking me with derision then scornfully, then she asked, “So, doing away with this old man Schuschnigg is lawful, is it, Shaun? Is that what you're telling me?” She never waited for any reply.
“Scarface is the killer type, he could easily do Schuschnigg anytime, come to that so could Jack. Why use us to load the bullets? Another question for you while I have your attention.”
If the truth were known, neither of us were paying full attention to what was being said. We had been airborne for a few minutes and for at least one of those minutes staring at the 'Do not
Smoke' light. As soon as it was switched off we both reached for our cigarette packets. It was Fianna who exhaled first.
“Why this story of us being brother and sister and Finnegan being the piggy in the middle who connects us? It seems too complicated and unnecessary just to bump someone off. Where's the need to tell the Stockfords anything? There's been an undisturbed secret for thirty-five years. With the proper names being changed it's nigh on impossible to link any Sternberg to a Stockford. Why rock the boat now, Shaun?” I had no answer to her puzzlement and in actual fact her worries were my own.
“I've got a question for you, Fianna. Who turned you into a lesbian?”
“Get away with you, Shaun me boy. Save the masculine flirting for the girls that care. Tell them of your talents and I'll say no word of your windy habits in that camp bed of yours last night. Sounded like you had a machine-gun up your back-side. I blamed myself, by the way. Should have made allowances for a soft, half-baked Irishman from London town and not Londonderry! I would have done better ordering a mild Chinese curry and not a hot Indian one as I did for me brother's tea. Are you next going to tell me what I'm missing out on, Shaun, because believe me; I'm not missing a thing!”
“There either speaks the voice who experienced disappointment, or…” I was not allowed to finish.
“Or the experience of male incompetency that you could more than adequately replace, Shaun? Was that roughly what you were about to say?”
“Actually no! I was going to be somewhat derogatory and ask if they really were men you'd been with. But your assumption about my long term motives were correct though.”
“So you fancy me then, Shaun, do yer? Is it the challenge of the spiritual conversion that I represent or just the physical pleasure that you'd be after?”
“Would it be immodest to say the only conversion that would follow the sex would be a conversion to the enjoyment of that sex? But that's something we'll never know, will we?”
“You'll never know, but I do, and no mistake. I was almost raped when I was fourteen by three boys, but then fully raped days after.” Her sarcasm had turned to anger. “Don't bother to tell me you were about to offer the mystical awakening of love for a man instead. That really is bullshit! All men are animals.” Abruptly her brief denunciation stopped, but I wouldn't leave it alone.
“What made you fall in love with an animal, Fianna?”
“There was nothing that made me, Shaun. It's just there was no one to stop me.”
Chapter Eleven
A White Picket Fence
“I didn't go to a family called Gleeson when I left that orphanage. That was Jack's deception. I was fostered out to a home about ten miles away from it, where I had to attend a day school, one change of bus away from the pretty white picket-fenced house of Imelda Duggen and her husband Keith. It was in the early days of spring, when I was on my way to catch my first bus home from school that the attempted rape happened. The bus only ran every half an hour and I missed it by seconds, seeing it drive off as I rounded the corner leading to the stop. I had stayed late for an art class. I wanted to be a painter at that age. It was so mild that the jacket I had worn in the morning, when the dew hung on until the warming sun melted it away, was no longer needed. It rested under my arm that carried my school bag. There were three boys about my age coming towards me. All of them were in high spirits, joking and giggling amongst themselves. Their faces got more threatening as they neared me.
“Are they real those tits of yours, or just apples stuffed down your blouse?” the middle one asked. Seconds passed before I could answer. “Go away,” I said, but by now they were beside me and no one else was about.
“I bet they're only pimples and it's all padding to make them look that big,” the shortest one baited, and stupidly I reacted to his derision.
“No, they are not,” I replied without fear of what was to come.
The tallest of the three boys said, “We don't believe you. Show us then.” There's no point in asking me why, but I cupped my breasts in my hands and shook them. “You'll just have to dream about them then, won't you.” I had been around boys all my life, never frightened by them but shortly I was to find out that these three were different.
“No, we won't, Rory, will we? We're going have a look now.” Rory was the tall one. Foolishly I thought I could outrun them across the field to my right and for a while I did, but then I tripped on some roots I hadn't seen, falling face down on the grass. We were behind a big, spreading bush under a tree. One of them fell on my back and pinned my arms to the ground.
“I'll have her after you,” he said, spreading his weight over me, forcing the air from my lungs. I knew exactly what was about to happen, but I tried desperately to appeal to a better nature that just wasn't present.
“Leave me alone,” I pleaded. I felt more hands pull my briefs clean off, ripping them as he did so. The one on my back was now sitting on my shoulders. It was then that I felt naked flesh pushed against my legs. Then I felt cold hands on my hips as the boy between my legs attempted to lift my bum up. From somewhere I found the strength to lever the one off my back, sending him flying to one side. Then I twisted and kicked the boy, Rory, who was trying to penetrate me in the face, leaving him sprawled out with his trousers and pants trapped around his ankles. His nose was bleeding. As I got to my feet I swung my bag at the third one, who too had his pants around his ankles. This one fell awkwardly, screaming in pain holding two fingers of his left hand. I prayed to God for a knife that day, Shaun, and had he granted that prayer it wouldn't have been fingers I would have cut off! I picked up my coat and bag, and made off across that field.
“I'll kill you, you bastards! You wait and see,” I cried through my tears in their direction, hoping it could be so.
When I arrived home it was Keith who called the police after Imelda had told him almost all of what I had told to her. I was pretty in those days of 1961, Shaun, and yes I followed the fashion of the day imitating what I saw on the TV. Keith disapproved and had remarked in the past about my choice of clothing along with what he called my general behaviour. Imelda thought it best not to start him off again.
“Her clothes are too tight and too short. She acts and dresses like a tart. She'll get into trouble that one; you mark my words, you'll see,” he had said more times than she liked to remember.
It was she who poured me a bath, taking my grass-stained skirt, blouse and cardigan from me as she did so. Then she asked, ”Was it so warm this morning that you had no need for tights or panties, Fianna, my dear?” She was now thinking that maybe all along her husband had been right.
”I left them there in that field. They were ripped off. There're no good now are they?” I replied maybe a bit too harshly, but I was unaware of the thoughts mulling through her mind.
The absence of that particular clothing was the same issue that the policewoman put to me.
“They say you were not wearing any underwear, Fianna. What's more they contend that you lifted your skirt, exposing yourself to them, when you were walking towards to the bus stop together. This, they say, led them to believe that you would be a willing participant in what they had already proposed. They add that you had plenty of time to catch that bus at six forty-three had you not previously invited them to join you in the girls' toilets at the school where you preformed an act of masturbation in front of them. They also allege that later in the park, where you had agreed to have sex, you changed your mind and they stopped; never pressing you on that promise.” The policewoman waited for my reply; I had none other than a complete denial, but that did not stop the accusations.
“They deny attempting to rape you. One of the boys' fathers is saying that you are malicious in making this complaint, attempting to cover up your own guilt in misleading his son and the other boys. In essence he's saying that you are trying to protect your own reputation by slurring their names. You had second thoughts, in other words.”
She leant forward across the dividing coffee tabl
e and looked me directly in the eyes.
“What they are saying, love, is that you started it all by provoking them, leading them on to believe that you wanted sex. You never screamed nor fought back, any bruising that you may have was caused accidentally when you invited one of them, (she checked her note book), James Craig to sit on you just before you had a change of mind. He claims that you broke his fingers when you snatched your bag from him when he was about to place it under your head. He alleges that it was your suggestion by the way. I have to tell you that unless an independent witness comes forward it is your word against theirs, and there are three of them, remember. Attempted rape is a serious crime. One that we investigate thoroughly, including all allegations of it. Unless you can prove that the boy, Rory Mulligan, ripped off those missing briefs of yours then I'm afraid my advice must be to forget it. If you go to court, no jury will believe you. They're going to be more inclined to believe three stories rather than one, especially if it's unsubstantiated by evidence, Fianna.”
“They are either very good liars, Mrs Duggen, or it's true that Fianna led them on,” the welfare minded policewoman quietly told Imelda as she left, with opportunistic Keith overhearing every word.”
* * *
Sitting back heavily into her chair, she recalled what I can only describe as a story from hell. As much as I tried to listen without showing emotion I couldn't. I reached for her hand and she took it.