Elizabeth nodded slowly.
‘I’m sorry. I know you had feelings for him.’ Talia placed her hand on Elizabeth’s and patted it.
‘Not any more. Anyone who could willingly hurt those children has no place in my life.’ Elizabeth held Talia’s gaze and smiled sadly.
The drone of the engines woke her, and Elizabeth sat bolt upright. As she struggled to fully wake, she threw back the covers and went to her bedroom window. Directly above the village, planes – ten, possibly even twenty – filled the sky. It was impossible to tell if they were British or German.
She dragged her dressing gown around her shoulders and shoved her feet into her slippers. She, like everyone, had made it a habit to have them at hand immediately in case they needed to evacuate. A small bag was packed downstairs with blankets, crackers and water.
She went to Liesl first, shaking her awake, before going into Erich’s room. She ran to his bed, the noise overhead louder now. He wasn’t there. Perhaps he’d gone to the bathroom? She rushed out to the landing – the bathroom door was open.
‘Liesl, where’s Erich? He’s not in his bed!’ Elizabeth demanded, but the girl was just as surprised as she was.
‘I…I don’t know!’ Liesl went into her brother’s room. ‘Elizabeth, his clothes are gone and his boots.’
‘Oh, dear God!’ Elizabeth grabbed Liesl’s hand and half pulled her downstairs.
‘Is it the Germans?’ the girl asked.
‘I don’t know, but we need to get you into the shelter – now!’
The first explosion felt like it shook the house to its very foundation; the second, less than a minute later, shattered the glass in the windows. If it were not for the crisscrossed tape to stop flying splinters killing someone, there would be no glass left at all.
Out on the street, neighbours in their nightclothes ran to the village shelter, the basement of St Joseph’s Catholic Church.
‘They’re bombing the base again!’ Mrs McElligott yelled as her husband, the second ARP warden for the village after Mr Morris, urged everyone in the direction of the chapel. Babies howled, children, babies and the elderly were half carried, half dragged, and the villagers of Ballycreggan made a motley crew as they ran up the one street in the village to safety.
They scurried into the church, behind the altar into the sacristy and down the narrow spiral staircase to the basement. There was a bottleneck as the stairs were so narrow, but some of the older boys helped the very young and the infirm, passing them like sandbags in a human chain. Father O’Toole and his housekeeper, the indomitable Mrs Forde, had the basement stacked with blankets and pillows and were now in the process of making large pots of hot sweet tea. The dust from the ceiling fell like snow on everyone below with each deafening thud.
Elizabeth settled Liesl with some neighbours and went back to the stairs. She had to wait, as there was a steady stream of people coming down and there was only room for one person at a time on the narrow staircase.
As she waited impatiently, Mr McElligott approached her and asked her to take a seat with Liesl.
‘I need to get back up! Erich wasn’t at home, Mr McElligott. I don’t know where he is! He went to bed as normal, and when we woke to the explosions, he wasn’t there!’ Elizabeth knew she was screaming – she was borderline hysterical – but panic was taking over.
‘What?’ Mr McElligott was in his eighties and rather deaf.
Again she screamed the situation.
‘Well, Mrs Klein, I’m sorry to say that if he’s not down here, and he’s not in your house, then I have no idea where the little tyke has got to, but I hope he’s got the sense to get down. I don’t know what we’re facing when we get back up there.’ He gestured upwards with his thumb.
‘But I need to go back up,’ she pleaded.
‘Oh, that’s quite impossible, Mrs Klein, quite impossible. You’ll have to wait until the all clear is sounded.’
‘But you don’t understand! I need to find –’
‘I understand perfectly,’ he said, helping a frail old woman down the last few steps. ‘But I will not permit you to go back up there, not until the raid is over. Now please, Mrs Klein, take a seat.’
As he spoke, a deafening screeching sound pierced the air, and the entire building shook.
‘We’ve taken a direct hit!’ someone yelled.
‘Let’s get out of here before we’re buried alive!’ shouted another.
Almost instantaneously, people started screaming, running towards the small stone steps once more, desperate to get out.
Mr McElligott and Father O’Toole stood at the base of the staircase, trying to demand order.
‘Ladies, gentlemen, please! We are upsetting the children!’ the priest shouted over the din.
They heard a crash – another blast – and large lumps of plaster were knocked off the walls.
The people ignored him, some pushing the burly priest aside to get at the steps once more.
As the crowd surged forward, Mr McElligott took a whistle from his breast pocket and blew it. The shrill sound caused the crowd to pause.
‘It is an offence to defy the ARP warden in the event of a raid. I insist that everyone move back and wait. I’ll go up and assess the damage and report back.’
The cacophony of horrific noise outside rendered him almost unheard, but because of his statement and the urging of the priest and others, the people who had surged forward did as he asked.
The bombs were dropping constantly now. It was impossible to decipher one blast from another as the village and presumably the RAF station not four miles away were bombarded. Elizabeth found Liesl, and the child clung to her. Together, they stood in the basement, totally helpless to do anything but wait.
After what seemed like ages, the bombs stopped and everyone just stood, rooted to the spot, holding onto their families, waiting.
Unlike in Liverpool, there was no all-clear siren to wait for in Ballycreggan. Mr McElligott, old Dr Parsons, whose son, young Dr Parsons, had been shot down over Germany, and Corny Andrews, the blacksmith, climbed the steps.
‘What if they are up there?’ Liesl whispered. ‘What if they dropped them in parachutes and they are up there waiting for us? What if they’ve got Erich?’ Liesl began to cry, and Elizabeth rubbed her back.
‘It was just an air raid, darling. I’m sure of it.’
A thought struck Elizabeth. Did the Luftwaffe come calling this night in particular because they knew the base had been restocked by the US military over the last two days? And if so, how did they know? Daniel couldn’t have told them. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but she refused to believe it.
She needed to get out of there, to find Erich. If anything had happened to him… She couldn’t even think about it. He was upset because she said she blamed Daniel. In hindsight, it was probably foolish, but she wanted to see Talia’s reaction. While she was deeply suspicious of the other woman, she needed something else before going to Gaughran. What if she was wrong? Her reputation with the refugees would be forever damaged, and Liesl and Erich’s sense of community with them could be destroyed forever. The stakes were very high, and she wanted to be as positive as she could before she said anything.
Others sat wide-eyed and terrified as they waited to be allowed out, but she just worried constantly about Erich. Where could he be? Would he have gone to the farm? To his friends or Rabbi Frank? A horrible thought struck her – what if he went to the base to try to see Bud?
After what seemed like an eternity, the men came back down and told them it was safe. Wearily, and with deep anxiety about what they might face when they emerged, they began to climb the stairs once more. The sight that greeted them rendered the entire community speechless. The village was in ruins – flames licked the houses that had been hit, and remains of curtains hung in glassless windows. The main street looked like a mouth with several missing teeth. The church spire was gone – all that remained was a pile of rubble – and a large crater had been gouged
out of the village green where the children had played earlier that day. The post office was in flames, and beside it, Bridie’s sweetshop was but a charred memory.
Elizabeth rushed past all of the carnage, knowing she should probably stop to help, but she needed to find Erich. Thankfully, their end of the street was unharmed apart from broken glass, and she and Liesl let themselves in, calling Erich’s name frantically.
He wasn’t there. She would try the farm. Pulling on her dress and coat, she told Liesl to stay at home in case he came back. She pushed her bike out the side gate, pedalling furiously for the three miles away from the carnage in the village, until she saw the lights of the farm up ahead. Her dress was wet from perspiration and her hair was hanging down, but she didn’t care.
The Jews were all gathered in the dining hall. Though their farm wasn’t hit, they could see the flames from the base out on the coast.
‘Elizabeth!’ Talia ran to her. ‘Thank God you are all right. Are Erich and Liesl safe?’
The community gathered around her, anxious for news. It seemed like Liesl, they too feared an invasion.
She ignored their questions, instead telling them about Erich. Nobody had seen him. They asked all of his friends, but nobody had.
‘But he went to bed just before I left to come back here. Do you think he snuck out?’ Talia seemed distressed.
‘I don’t know, Talia. I hoped he was here. The only other place he would go is to the base – he might have gone looking for Bud.’ Elizabeth allowed those words and what they might mean to sink in. ‘Well, if he’s not here, then I have to go there,’ she decided, getting up to leave.
‘They won’t let you anywhere near it, not after this,’ said Levi. He was sitting with Ruth.
‘If my child is there, they will not stop me,’ Elizabeth retorted through gritted teeth.
‘I’ll drive with you. It’s safer with two.’
The last thing Elizabeth needed was the monosyllabic Levi, but she had no time to argue and it would be quicker in a car.
‘Did anything happen, something to make him run off like that?’ Levi asked as they drove.
It was the longest sentence she’d ever heard him say.
‘Yes,’ she said. There was no point in lying, and if he knew the full story, he might have some ideas about where to find the little boy whom she’d come to think of as her son. ‘He asked me if I thought Daniel Lieber would hang, and I said that I thought he would. He was really upset and went off to bed.’
Levi nodded. He took a cigarette from his packet and lit it as he drove. ‘Daniel didn’t do those drawings, you know.’
‘How do you know?’
Levi shrugged. ‘I just know he’s no German spy. Anyone could have done those. He left his drawings all over the place. We worked together on the boiler for weeks – there was no manual, so he made lots of diagrams of how it worked. We had to take it apart and put it back together again, so he drew the components at each stage so we would be able to rebuild it. On the wall in the barn, where the boiler is, he wrote a legend for what each symbol meant, in case it wasn’t him fixing it next time.
‘When we were planning the construction of the new shul, he drew the plans for that too. Everyone saw them and could offer suggestions.’
Elizabeth’s mind raced. ‘Did you tell the police that?’ she demanded.
‘I did, but they had made their minds up. I think they needed to arrest someone, and Daniel was the obvious choice.’
She was incredulous. Surely the police would have taken that information into account. ‘And were you the only one to say it?’
Levi gave her a glance, and she realised she should not take her frustration out on him. He’d done the right thing.
‘I brought it up at a meeting, and everyone agreed. Ruth, Talia, the rabbi – everyone knew he left things like that there all the time.’
‘But you didn’t take it further?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’ Elizabeth wanted to shake him.
He spoke slowly. ‘Because they got the information we had through the interviews they did and later through the rabbi – he’s our spokesman.’
‘But if you knew…’ She was frustrated with his attitude.
‘Mrs Klein, we are guests here. We have the legal status of refugees. We told the police what we knew, what we thought, but there wasn’t anything else we could do. Daniel is a good man, and I don’t believe him to be guilty, but we are not in a position to challenge the authority of the country that is hosting us.’
He turned the car out onto the coast road. ‘I don’t have any evidence, except that he left his drawings everywhere and my opinion that he didn’t do it.’
‘I don’t think he did it, either, but if not him, who?’
Levi’s dark eyes caught hers for a split second.
‘Someone who is still here, still passing information, if tonight’s raid is anything to go by.’ Levi exhaled a long stream of blue smoke.
That was Elizabeth’s thought as well. She made a snap decision. ‘Can you please go to the base alone? There’s no point in two of us going. I’m going back to the village to contact the police. We need help to find Erich.’
It was hard to know who to trust, but she needed to trust this man now.
‘I’ll come to your house afterwards,’ he said as he nodded and pulled the car over. She was less than a mile from the village. The base was still burning in places, the flames visible from the high coast road, despite having fire trucks and pumped water.
That was secondary now. She needed to find Erich. The possibility of anything having happened to him was one she couldn’t countenance.
When she ran into Ballycreggan on the main street, she saw the police car outside her house. Her heart lurched, and a cold sweat prickled the skin all over her body. No, please God, no! Please don’t let them be there to give her bad news!
Detective Gaughran was in her living room, a uniformed policeman with him. Liesl sat on the couch. She was dry-eyed.
‘Ah, Mrs Klein, I understand from this young lady here that her brother is missing?’
‘Did you come here… Do you know something?’ She was confused.
‘No, unfortunately not. I don’t know anything about a missing child, but I have my officers on the case now. I came here tonight to ask you a few more questions actually.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets. His hat sat far back on his head – it had been a long night. ‘Is there somewhere we could talk?’
‘Yes, um… Come in the kitchen.’ She turned to Liesl. ‘Levi is gone to the base. Erich’s not at the farm.’ She knew she should try to reassure the child, but she was too distraught. What had happened now?
Gaughran followed her into the kitchen and closed the door behind him. The early dawn light was streaking the sky in glorious vermillion and purple. How could the sun rise like it was just another day when the whole world was in chaos?
‘Does the name Xavier McGuinness mean anything to you?’ His eyes never left her face.
‘No.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know anyone of that name. Should I?’
He extracted a photograph and handed it to her. It was of a very distinguished man in his fifties, longish curly grey hair, perfectly groomed, a luxurious moustache. Unforgettable.
‘He runs a gallery in Belfast. I didn’t know his name. He sells paintings by Talia Zimmermann there.’ She handed the photo back to Gaughran.
‘Well, your address was found among his things when he was arrested this evening. It seems he was in possession of a radio transmitter, a wireless set, and had been broadcasting information to Germany. He’s known to us as IRA, and we also know he met a person travelling on a German passport in a pub in Belfast in 1938.’
Noting her look of surprise, he explained, ‘we make it our business to know what people like him are up to. The IRA have links to Nazi Germany. Hitler’s feeding the Irish republicans here and in the South some old guff about getting a United Ireland in return for help to
beat the common enemy, Britain. It’s no secret that the RAF base was being fairly heavily stocked in the past week or so. We believe he sent a message about the activity in Ballyhalbert over recent days earlier on today, so he’s who we have to thank for tonight’s attack.’
Gaughran looked exhausted. He took off his hat and ran his hand over his thin hair. ‘So, Mrs Klein, do you have any explanation why this man would have your address on a piece of paper in his wallet?’
Elizabeth thought for a moment. She had been putting this off because she wanted to be sure, but now her only concern was finding Erich. On the other hand, the trial could happen any day. She made a decision.
‘No, but I do have something to show you.’
She went to her bureau, where she’d hidden the sheets of paper she’d taken from Talia’s bag. Returning to the kitchen, she said, ‘You might need to come outside. I think the light may not be good enough in here.’
She opened the back door, and he followed her out into the early morning light. She held the paintings up, showing him what she saw, and he peered.
‘Where did you get these?’ he asked.
She explained everything as quickly and as efficiently as she could – the visit to the gallery, the alleged letter, and then finding the paper in Talia’s bag.
‘And you only thought you would mention this now?’ Gaughran’s voice was a mix of frustration and incredulity.
‘I didn’t know anything concrete until yesterday when I found the painting. I was going to come to you today. Talia was here yesterday evening. I wanted to be sure – they have all been through so much, and if I were accusing someone in the wrong, just because I wanted to clear Daniel’s name…’ She paused, willing him to understand. ‘But then the raid, and Erich going missing…’
‘All right, Mrs Klein. I’m going to need you to make an official statement –’
She interrupted him. ‘Look, my little boy is missing, and I need to find him. Perhaps later I can –’ She got up to go, but Gaughran stood in front of her.
‘I’ll ensure the officers assigned to looking for Erich spare no effort, Mrs Klein, but for now, I’m going to have to ask you to come to Belfast with me for questioning.’
The Star and the Shamrock Page 20