two men who had been with Keller stood, watching the boy as he sang, with the same rapture as everyone else. There was no sign of Keller now. He didn’t seem to be there any more.
‘So who are the two fellers who were with Mr Keller, Anto?’
‘I don’t know the young one, Mr Gillespie. He’s something to do with the German embassy though. But everyone knows the older one. That’s Mr Mahr, Adolf Mahr. He’s the director of the National Museum. We know him very well in the Shelbourne.’ There was just a hint of condescension. Anybody who was anybody ought to know who Adolf Mahr was.
Stefan nodded. He knew the name well enough, even if he didn’t know the face. Was it
Then all at once the whole dining room erupted into song as the first verse was repeated, with everyone singing now — Adolf Mahr and the man from the German embassy too. The sound seemed to fill the Shelbourne Hotel. ‘Germany arise, our battle cry. Our Aryan blood shall never die!’
Stefan and Dessie walked out on to Stephen’s Green.
Dessie was still humming the tune he’d heard inside.
‘I’ll say that for the Jerries, they know how to throw a party.’
Stefan was aware that he was still holding something in his hand. He looked down at the small brass lapel pin Santy had given him. It was the size of a farthing, a black swastika on white enamel. Round the edge was a circle of red with the words ‘Deutschland Erwache’. Germany Awake.
Neither of them had noticed the fair-haired man sitting in a leather armchair by the porter’s desk in the Shelbourne lobby. As they left he was still reading the same page of
Kildare Street was almost empty. The National Library and the National Museum were dark, along with the buildings of government they framed at Leinster House. On the other side of the road the offices in the flat-fronted Georgian terraces were dark as well. A few taxis trundled up to Stephen’s Green in search of customers. A man walked past with a Yorkshire terrier. A young couple, slightly drunk, crossed the road, arm in arm, giggling, as Stefan made his way home to Nassau Street. A lot had happened, but very little about the day made sense. Keller, the clinic, Hannah Rosen, Jimmy Lynch and Special Branch, the Convent of the Good Shepherd, Susan Field. As he passed the National Museum the unlikely company Hugo Keller kept struck him again. Why had a Special Branch detective sprung him from custody, only to deliver him to the Shelbourne for a conversation with a German embassy official and the director of the National Museum? And what about the missing woman? Was he right to trust Hannah Rosen’s instincts? Was it really so unreasonable that a pregnant woman couldn’t face an abortion and just ran away? For a moment the questions faded, and he smiled to himself, thinking about Hannah again. He remembered not wanting the conversation with her to stop. Perhaps he should have felt more uneasy about that, because it had nothing to do with what they were talking about. Yet he wasn’t. He was thinking about her in ways he still only associated with his dead wife. And there was nothing wrong with it. There was an exhilaration in him now that he had almost forgotten. But none of that had anything to do with why he trusted Hannah’s instincts. That had to do with being a policeman. Since leaving Hannah in Rathgar, the sense that something very nasty had happened to Susan Field had only grown in him.
The wall of Trinity College, with the tall trees behind it, stretched ahead of him as he reached Nassau Street. It was noisier here. The pubs and restaurants were still turning out. There were taxis and trams; there were Christmas decorations in the shop windows; there was the breath of beer and whiskey in the cold air. He unlocked the narrow door squeezed in between O’Dea’s optician’s and Duval et Cie’s Parisian Dyers and Cleaners. The two rooms in Nassau Street he rented from James O’Dea were above the optician’s shop, on the first floor. The room at the front looked out over the gardens of Trinity. Mr O’Dea had told him, as if he should be paying extra, that if you stood on a chair you could see over the wall. In the year he had spent at Trinity he knew the gardens well enough. In fact the college gardens were the only thing he’d ever really liked about the place. But he never did have any desire to stand on a chair in the window to look at them. As he opened the door on to the steep staircase, the fair- haired man had stopped at the corner of Kildare Street. He watched Stefan Gillespie go in.
Stefan was surprised to see the light on in the hall. It wasn’t very welcoming; a bare bulb, no shade, and only twenty-five watts. But the optician didn’t usually let the lights burn late. He had a habit of taking the fuses out at night so none of his tenants could leave them on and waste his money. Late home always meant feeling your way up the stairs and along the landing in the darkness. But now, when Stefan reached the turn in the stairs, he could see the door to his room was open. Someone was inside.
He leapt the remaining stairs and raced across the landing. He stood in the doorway. The room had been turned inside out and upside down. The drawers had been tipped out, the sofa was on its back, books had been swept off the bookcase on to the floor; the contents of the kitchen cabinet were everywhere. Then he heard a sound. There was someone in the bedroom. He moved more quietly now, across the room to the door by the window. But even as he took the first steps, he sensed there was someone behind him, someone who must have heard him coming. He didn’t have time to turn round. Hard wood hit his head. And he collapsed, unconscious, to the floor.
There was darkness inside his head and a dull throbbing pain. Before full consciousness came, he felt as if he was struggling to climb out of that darkness; when he tried to move his limbs nothing happened. Then his eyes opened abruptly and adrenalin pumped the realisation of danger through his body. He knew his attackers were still there. Cold water was dripping down his face. There was the smell of whiskey. A round, red face looked down at him, so close that for a moment he saw only the eyes. A hand poured water from a jug. As the face retreated he saw the mouth open into a grin of uneven, tobacco-stained teeth. He was being pulled up by his shoulders from the floor. For an instant he was upright, but only for an instant, before he was pushed into an armchair. Detective Garda Sean Og Moran looked down at him. The grin was instantly replaced by a look of vacancy, as if the guard had just shifted into neutral, and was simply marking time. Stefan turned his head. It hurt. And it would hurt more. He already knew who he’d find looking at him next. There was a smile on Detective Sergeant Jimmy Lynch’s pinched lips too. Or maybe he’d just bitten into a lemon.
‘You should have said, Jimmy. I’d have had the kettle on.’
‘I wanted it to be a surprise.’
‘I’ll have to see if I can a find a surprise for you some time.’
‘They say you’re quite the clever lad, Stevie.’
‘I’ve been cleverer.’ He raised his hand to touch the back of his head.
‘I told Inspector Donald Duck to keep his fucking nose out of Special Branch business, and yours. Did the holy bastard not pass that on to you?’
‘He did say something. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention.’
‘I can say it louder.’
Lynch looked round. Moran stepped forward.
‘If you told me what Special Branch business it was — ’
Sean Og’s fist hit his face full on. It may have been luck that it wasn’t harder, or maybe the detective garda knew how to judge these things. If it had been harder, it would have broken Stefan’s nose. As it was he could feel the warm trickle of blood; seconds later he tasted the salt on his lips.
‘That’s a lot clearer. It’ll be a matter of national security then.’
‘No, it’ll be a matter of how far Seanie can push your nose into your face if you don’t do what your inspector said. I can’t stand insubordination. That’s right, isn’t it, Seanie?’ Lynch smiled. Moran’s yellow teeth showed again; his shoulders moved up and down several times; a snort of laughter.
‘I’m missing something, that’s the thing, Stevie.’
For the first time, Stefan didn’t reply. For the first time, Jimmy Lynch was giving him information about what he was doing here.
‘I want everything you took from Keller’s,’ he continued.
