The Star and the Shamrock

by Jean Grainger

  ‘I am nothing like you,’ she spat, fury at having her home invaded like this overtaking her terror. How dare this man enter her house, endanger Liesl and Erich and claim they had anything in common. ‘Nothing at all. This cannot be about Irish nationalism. What Hitler is doing is wrong, so horrible, and if you can help him, then you’re all as bad as he is… And as for you’ – she turned to Talia, who was now beside her in the hall – ‘you traitorous bitch! You pretended to love those children, my children, when all along you were every bit as bad as those Nazis that strut about in their uniforms. You’re both pathetic. Get out of my house!’

  She snapped her head back to face the man at the sound of the pistol being cocked.

  ‘No, don’t shoot!’ Talia screamed, charging at him. The shot fired and Elizabeth dropped to the floor. She could see feet and hear shouting – Talia and the man were struggling. Then blood. It wasn’t hers, she was almost sure. She got up on her hands and knees and tried to help Talia, who was pinned under the weight of the man now, blood spurting from her shoulder. His gun was still in his hand as he punched Talia in the face. The young woman stilled.

  Elizabeth launched herself on him, trying to pull him off Talia, but as he swung around, his fist connected with her mouth. She sprawled onto her back. Blood spurted from her lip, and her head was throbbing. She must have banged it on the corner of the hallstand as she fell.

  There was a ringing in her ears. She tried to get up, but then the man bent down and dragged her roughly to her feet, his fist clasping a bunch of her hair. He jerked her head painfully, and whispered slowly in her ear, ‘I’m not interested in what you think of me, but let me tell you this. The German lass won’t ever speak to anyone again, but if you do – and I mean if you tell anyone about this – know that something very bad will happen to those wains of yours. Do you hear me?’

  He shook her and repeated, ‘Do you hear me?’

  She refused to answer, her face inches from his, his sour breath assaulting her nostrils.

  ‘Now, I know some unsavoury characters who’d love nothing better than some time alone with that wee lass of yours. The wee lad too, if you know what I mean? And if you say a word to anyone, then that’s exactly what will happen, and they’ll be praying they’d gone to the camps with their mammy and daddy. Do we have an agreement, Mrs Klein?’

  Elizabeth nodded. She could feel that her front tooth was loose, her mouth was filling with blood, and she thought she might vomit.

  He shoved her, and she fell back down on the floor, forward this time, landing painfully on her knee. Her head was beside Talia’s foot. He then stood on her ankle, putting his whole weight on it. She screamed and felt she might pass out.

  Chapter 28

  The door slammed and he was gone. Elizabeth forced herself to focus, to not pass out, though the pain was excruciating. She dragged herself level with Talia, and realised the younger woman was breathing. It was shallow, and her shoulder was soaked in blood, but she was alive.

  ‘Talia, wake up! You’re all right, wake up…’ Elizabeth pleaded.

  The younger woman’s eyes fluttered for a moment, ‘Elizabeth,’ she whispered. ‘Daniel…’ She couldn’t say more.

  ‘Daniel what?’ Elizabeth gasped, spitting blood.

  But Talia’s eyes were closed again.

  Elizabeth dragged herself, inch by painful inch, to the door. There was no way she could gather the strength to reach the latch, but she managed to take her mother’s cast iron boot cleaner, a heavy thing, and bang the inside of the door, hoping someone passing by would hear.

  ‘Help…’ She knew her voice wasn’t strong enough. A few thumps on the door were all she could manage. The room was spinning, and a wave of nausea made her vomit. It was a mixture of blood and the contents of her stomach, and she retched until there was nothing left. Her ankle was so painful, and she could see it was at a very odd angle; it was certainly broken. She wiped her eye on her sleeve – more blood.

  She would have to try something else. As she attempted to drag herself into the sitting room where there was a window onto the street, she heard voices outside.

  The people outdoors knocked, and she tried to speak, to call out, but she couldn’t.

  ‘I wonder if the side is open. I only need the tools in the shed.’

  She heard Levi’s voice as he moved away from the front door. Then the sound of the garden gate being opened. Please let them look in. They might see Talia, as the door between the kitchen and the hall was open. She tried once more to drag herself back, and to her relief, heard raised voices, followed by the sound of glass breaking.

  ‘Mrs Klein!’ Bridie’s brother-in-law John ran to her. Levi bent down beside Talia.

  ‘Call the police!’ Levi shouted at two of the boys, standing terrified on the doorstep, who were helping to lift a broken bedframe. He tried to find a pulse in Talia’s neck.

  John Mac lifted Elizabeth to the couch, having made sure her neck and back were all right. Despite his efforts to be gentle, she whimpered in agony.

  The alarm was raised by the boys, and within moments, crowds surged from the hall. The police were on constant alert in the village after everything that had happened, so the local constables arrived within moments.

  Constable Wilson asked her questions, but she couldn’t focus on them, his face swimming in and out of her line of vision.

  ‘Liesl… Erich…’ she managed.

  ‘Liesl and Erich are outside, but Mrs Morris is keeping them in the kitchen until we clean you up,’ Dr Parsons said as he shooed everyone else out except Eli, the Polish dentist from the farm.

  Dr Parsons did a preliminary examination. He shone a light in her eyes and determined that her ankle was indeed broken, her knee possibly dislocated and her head and lip would need stitches. He filled his syringe with something that he then administered to her through her arm.

  ‘We’d better get you to hospital as soon as possible,’ he said, putting his stethoscope back in the bag. ‘I’m calling the ambulance, so just stay here until it comes.’ His tone brooked no argument.

  ‘Eli, could you have a look? There’s one loose anyway, but you’d have a better idea of the damage.’ The doctor stood back and allowed Eli to examine her mouth. The two men had become friends in the past few months and were often seen enjoying a game of chess in the pub.

  Eli prodded her teeth gently with his fingers and then smiled. ‘Just one loose. The others are fine. You have some abrasions to your inner cheek and lip, but they can patch that up. Don’t eat anything hard, and you might not lose it.’

  ‘But I…’ She tried to get up, but a searing pain in her head stopped her. She winced and lay back down. ‘Can you ask Constable Wilson to come in here?’ she said.

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ the old doctor asked, his huge hairy eyebrows furrowed in disapproval.

  ‘No…it really can’t.’

  ‘Very well, but you need to rest, Elizabeth. I won’t have you doing anything until you get the all clear from the hospital, do you understand?’

  She nodded and smiled weakly. He had been their family doctor until she left for England, and beneath his gruff manner, he was a very kind man.

  She remembered him setting her nose when she had been hit by a football in the schoolyard when she was nine, and he’d taken very good care of the people of Ballycreggan for over fifty years. Losing his son in 1940 had almost killed him; his wife died of TB in the thirties sometime, and he and his boy were very close. Mr Morris had told her how proud he was when young Douglas Parsons was accepted to study medicine in Queens University, Belfast. That boy should now be running the practice and old Dr Parsons spending his days fly fishing, but the war meant there was no such thing as retirement. Douglas was younger than Elizabeth; she remembered him being born just before she left for England. To Dr Parsons, Douglas was a loss from which he would never recover, but in the great scheme of things, he was just one more in an ever-increasing death toll. Dr Parsons’ friendship with Eli
had brought him out of his depression, and everyone was relieved for him, and for themselves.

  ‘I do, Dr Parsons, I promise. But I have to speak to the police as fast as possible – it’s really important.’ Whatever injection he’d given her was working, and while the pain was still very much present, it wasn’t all-consuming. ‘I feel better.’

  ‘That will be the morphine. It will get you over the worst until we can get you to hospital.’ He placed his hand on her forehead, checking her temperature. ‘Very well.’ He sighed as he packed up his things in the bag that was as old as he was.

  ‘Oh, Dr Parsons, is Talia dead?’ she asked as he left.

  ‘No, she’s gone in the first ambulance. They arrived a few minutes after I did.’ He nodded, saying no more, and left.

  Within a minute, the young constable arrived in the sitting room. ‘I’m glad you feel up to talking now, Mrs Klein. Now if I could just ask you a few –’

  She cut him off. ‘I need you to bring Gaughran here immediately.’ Even talking hurt.

  ‘Well, I’m sure Inspector Gaughran will be happy to speak to you in due course, but in the meantime, I am the police officer in –’

  She held up her hand to stop him. He was in his late twenties and full of his own importance. She had no patience for him. ‘Just get Gaughran, please. I’ll only speak to him.’

  Her insistence must have worked because as she was lifted by the paramedics to the waiting ambulance, she heard him say, ‘I’ll have the inspector meet you at the hospital, Mrs Klein.’

  She managed to nod. She felt peculiar, like she was not in her body.

  Erich and Liesl broke away from Mrs Morris to see her being carried out on a stretcher.

  ‘I’m all right, my darlings, just a little cut…’ she managed to rasp. They were snow-white and looked terrified.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ a kind paramedic said as he carried the end of the stretcher. ‘Your mum will be right as rain in a few days. She just needs patching up.’

  The journey to the hospital was a blur, and she assumed they must have given her something to make her sleep because when she woke, she was in a private room with a view over Dunville Park.

  She was parched and twisted her head painfully to see if someone was around to get her a drink. Sitting on a chair reading the paper beside her was Detective Gaughran.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Klein, you’re back to us.’ He smiled.

  She couldn’t talk as her mouth was so dry, so she gestured to the jug of water on the nightstand. He understood and poured her a glass, which she drank in one gulp. He refilled it.

  ‘Are Liesl and Erich all right?’ She remembered the IRA man’s threat.

  ‘They are with Mrs Morris and her husband. They said they’d take care of them until you were home. Don’t worry – they’re fine.’

  ‘I need to tell you…’ She felt a bit woolly in the head. It must have been the drugs, but she hoped she was making sense, as she needed Gaughran to understand everything. Her leg was in traction; her ankle must have been set while she was unconscious. The pain was manageable, dull and definitely there, but she needed to think clearly.

  She told him everything that had happened since she uncovered the satchel, breaking frequently for sips of water.

  She told him about the papers, the two sets for Talia and the one in the name of Hans Hoffman but with Daniel’s photograph. She explained as best she could what Talia had said, how she seemed enslaved to Hitler’s ideology, but how – as far as she remembered it anyway – Talia jumped on the IRA man to stop him shooting Elizabeth.

  He allowed her to speak, never interrupting her, and when she concluded, he simply nodded. ‘Thank you, Mrs Klein. You’ve been more than helpful. Miss Zimmermann is now in custody, and her chances of survival are good though she’s lost a lot of blood. We are hoping that she will help us with our investigation once she’s fit enough. My officers have arrested a man we are sure was the one who attacked you. He had those documents on his person, so we have that evidence now, and both he and McGuinness will also be helping us with our enquiries before facing trial for treason.’

  ‘Is Daniel a spy?’ she whispered, hardly able to face the answer.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t comment, as it is an active investigation, but thank you for your cooperation.’

  He stood to go.

  ‘But you can’t just go and not tell me… What about the threat against Liesl and Erich? He…he said he knew people who would hurt them. I won’t be able to let them out of my sight.’

  Gaughran turned, his face showing compassion, a rare emotion. ‘That was a terrible threat, I know. And you must be worried, but I can tell you this. I have been dealing with the IRA all of my career, and in this case, we know McGuinness and his accomplice were operating outside of them. McGuinness was IRA at one stage, no doubt, but he doesn’t take direction well, so the top brass had more or less cut him loose. I can’t go into any detail on the case we are investigating at the moment, but I can assure you that the man he sent was just trying to scare you. I have it on the best authority from those he threatened you with that neither you nor the children are in any danger from them. The IRA have no gripe with you, Mrs Klein, and both McGuinness and his accomplice are in custody and will be remaining so for a very long time, I would imagine, so you need not worry. Even so, I will ensure an extra policeman is stationed in Ballycreggan until this whole situation is resolved.’

  She believed him. There was something about Gaughran. He wasn’t friendly or comforting, but there was an integrity to the man she appreciated.

  ‘I’ll be in touch if I have any further questions. Get well soon, Mrs Klein.’ And he was gone.

  For the rest of the day, apart from visits from various doctors and nurses checking her ankle and knee as well as the stitches to her lip, inside and outside her mouth, and the twelve to the gash over her eye, she just stared at the ceiling, mulling over everything. Had Daniel ever been in the attic? Had Talia? She remembered thinking how it was strange that the trapdoor opened so easily and that there were few cobwebs or little dust considering that, as far as she was concerned, nobody had been up there for decades. She was wrong, clearly.

  She racked her brain to try to think of opportunities either one of them might have had. Daniel was never alone in her house as far as she knew, but then he could have let himself in during the day when she was at school. The back door was always open. Would he do that? What was Talia trying to tell her at the end? She just said ‘Daniel’. What did she want her to know? That Daniel was innocent? Daniel was guilty?

  She thought back to the day she visited him when she asked him outright if he was a spy. He had locked eyes with her and totally denied it. Was he lying? Surely she’d have seen it there, as it takes a very accomplished liar to lie straight to someone’s face and give nothing away. But then, that’s how they trained spies, wasn’t it?

  Talia had ample opportunity. She babysat, so she could have gone up when the children were asleep, though it was hard to visualise. Liesl was a very light sleeper, so someone clattering about on the landing with a ladder would surely have woken her. Was she a spy? It seemed the most likely option, but then was she acting alone? Were she and Daniel a team?

  Later that day, she was thrilled to see her door open and Liesl and Erich’s faces appear. Mrs Morris was with them; Mr Morris was waiting in the car.

  ‘Elizabeth!’ They rushed to her. ‘Are you all right?’

  Erich’s eyes were like saucers when he saw the big cast on her leg and the bandages on her face. The nurse said the gash over her eye was deep and the area around it was very bruised. She knew she must look terrifying.

  ‘I’m fine. Honestly, I look worse than I am.’ She tried to sit up but failed.

  ‘Mrs Morris, thank you so much for taking care of them. I don’t know when I’m going to be allowed out, but –’

  ‘Don’t worry, my dear. They are fine at our house, aren’t you, children?’ She smiled and Erich piped up.


  ‘Mrs Morris is making us pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, the way to this one’s heart is definitely through his stomach.’ Elizabeth started to smile but stopped, the action hurting her face.

  ‘Do the police know who did this to you?’ Liesl asked, her face full of concern.

  ‘Oh, just a burglar. He knew the houses in Ballycreggan would be empty with the thing in the hall, so he thought he’d pop in and help himself. I turned up at the wrong time is all. Don’t worry – the police got there, so we are quite safe, and he’ll be going to jail for a long time, so all’s well that ends well.’ She tried to infuse her voice with optimism and reassurance.

  ‘Was it anything to do with Talia? She was hurt too, wasn’t she?’ Liesl whispered.

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. She just called in, wanting to help with the cleanup.’

  Elizabeth hated lying, but the truth was far too much for them to endure. She changed the subject. ‘Now, what have we here?’ she asked, looking in the brown paper bag the children had brought. ‘An apple and a sticky bun!’ she exclaimed with delight, though with her loose tooth, she wasn’t going to take any chances. ‘Yummy! I was worried I’d missed out.’

  They seemed relieved that she wasn’t too badly injured, and they spent the rest of the visit talking about how successful the event was in the hall and how every single thing she’d found in the attic was now being used by a needy family.

  Mrs Morris explained how the school had avoided a direct hit, so that was something.

  ‘Levi and Ruth said we could stay up at the farm if we wanted to, but the food is nicer at Mrs Morris’s,’ Erich whispered to her as they prepared to leave.

  The principal and his wife had no children, much to their sadness. They loved their pupils, and so Elizabeth knew her two were in good hands.

  ‘Thank you again, Mrs Morris. I really appreciate it,’ Elizabeth said as she kissed the children goodbye. Erich was a little teary, but Liesl put her arm around him.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely having them,’ Mrs Morris said kindly. ‘Honestly, it’s no bother at all. Please now, just rest and take it easy. Edmund and I are perfectly well able to care for this pair. It’s summer holidays anyway, so we are always at a bit of a loose end. Though with all the activity in the village trying to patch everything up, we’re very busy.’