‘No,’ he lied.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, guiltily. ‘Perhaps I’ve said too much.’ Her sea-green eyes were earnest and beautiful. ‘But you knew Christensen — is he a traitor? Did he know about… well, all those things in the newspaper?’
‘You don’t approve of sabotage?’ He raised his brow quizzically. ‘At Liberty Island you pointed to the Black Tom yard and said—’
‘I remember. But has Mr Gache’s adventure helped us — Ireland, I mean? I don’t think so.’
Wolff gave a small shrug. ‘If you get your guns, and if—’
He was interrupted by the chink of china, and the conversation belonged to Nina again. She had read the stories of German sabotage too — fussing with their cups — and she was sure her Roddy wouldn’t approve. Wolff caught Laura’s eye but she frowned and looked away, her hands clasped in her lap, pulling her skirt tighter over her thighs than she might have wished if she’d known.
‘The Germans are going to give us a bad name,’ Nina exclaimed.
‘She doesn’t know Roger as well as she thinks,’ Wolff remarked later, as he walked with Laura to the station. With the last of the light the snow was turning to ice, the sidewalk treacherous, and she accepted the offer of his arm.
‘Perhaps in this one thing,’ she said defensively.
In more than this, Laura, he thought with a wry smile.
‘Gache, I mean von Rintelen, has gone, but I expect you know,’ she continued.
‘I guessed.’
‘But you’re still here…’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Have the police spoken to you?’
He’d been expecting her to ask: ‘Tell the Clan “no”.’
‘That’s unfair.’ She shook her arm free.
‘But your friends in Clan na Gael think there’s a spy?’ He turned to face her.
‘Mr Devoy and the rest of the committee say so.’
‘And they think it’s me,’ he prompted.
‘No,’ she said too quickly, avoiding his gaze. ‘Everyone is under suspicion.’
‘I proved my worth.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s horrible,’ and she began to walk on alone.
‘Hey,’ he followed her, offering his arm again. ‘For what it’s worth, I don’t think there is a spy. Rintelen was careless, that’s all.’
‘Can we talk about something else,’ she pleaded; ‘please.’
So Wolff asked her to join him for dinner — ‘the day after tomorrow,’ she said. Then he told her he’d moved to the Plaza — ‘Please say nothing to your friends’– and he could see she was uncomfortable with their first secret, this small conspiracy of silence, but not enough to refuse. Even in this I’m a spy, he reflected, sipping whisky in the solitude of his hotel room. What can she see in this fellow, de Witt? Perhaps some principle — he was anointed by Casement — perhaps danger and the pull a woman feels for a certain sort of man, an Antonio with his ice-cream cart.
Dinner at the Cafe Francis; Laura in a white evening gown from Paris, a gift from her father, she said, because he was ready to pay a king’s ransom for her to look like a ‘proper’ lady. They were easy together and de Witt spoke as much truth about the past as he dared, but for the most part he listened as she talked with passion of her hopes. ‘I admire you,’ he declared, ‘you’re so full of life;’ and she blushed with embarrassment and pleasure at the warmth in his voice.
The following day, they went shopping on Broadway, and the day after, Wolff heard her speak at a women’s suffrage meeting and lost his temper when a couple of Christmas drunks had the temerity to heckle.
‘We’re having dinner with Laura’s father — the Catholic Club of all places,’ he confided to Thwaites when they met at the safe apartment. ‘New territory for me.’
‘Oh? Business or pleasure?’ Thwaites enquired slyly.
‘I’m fond of her,’ he said, rising to pour another drink; ‘so, yes — pleasure and a little business. I’m enjoying New York. Don’t you think I deserve that?’ He brandished the bottle. ‘For you?’
Thwaites shook his head. ‘She may be spying on you.’
Head bent, forefinger to his lip, he grappled with this thought for a moment: ‘She’s not duplicitous. But indirectly — yes, it’s possible. Who knows what her Clan comrades ask about me? I expect they’re like us.’ He smiled and raised his drink in an ironic salute.
‘Won’t give you C’s lecture, because you gave it to me,’ Thwaites replied, contemplating Wolff over the rim of his glass. ‘Just hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘Oh, I do,’ he lied. Then, as a sop, ‘She’s my only way into Irish circles here, and if the Germans kick off another campaign…’
But as soon as he floated the thought he was angry with himself — it wasn’t how he wanted their friendship to be.
‘I say, are you listening?’ Thwaites pushed his leg playfully with the end of his stick. ‘I’m telling you about your old friend, Hinsch.’ He ignored Wolff’s sigh. ‘He’s back in Baltimore. Hilken too. Missing Martha’s tarts, I dare say. Oh, Christ!’ he exclaimed. ‘Fucking Turks.’ He was struggling to rise from his chair — ‘Sorry about the language, old boy’ — perspiring with the effort and pain.
‘And you want me to make the contact.’
‘I think my leg’s worse today,’ he muttered, leaning heavily on his stick. ‘We’re pulling out of Gallipoli, you know. Such a mess. Awful bloody mess.’
‘What do you want, Norman?’ Wolff stood up and walked over to the drinks tray.
‘Another gin.’ He slumped back in his armchair. ‘I’m so damn stiff. Must be the cold.’
‘I mean, Hinsch,’ said Wolff, thrusting a glass at him.
‘Sir William wants to know what you think.’
‘What I think?’ Gazing down at Thwaites, his hands in his trouser pockets, easy because for once no one else’s opinion mattered: ‘I think — wait. It’s too soon to do anything — they’re still looking for a spy. The Irish know I’m here so the Germans will know too.’ Reflecting for a moment: ‘Dr Albert’s still in New York?’
‘Pretending to be the perfect guest.’
‘He would be my first contact again.’
‘When will you try? The thing is, Sir William has to tell London.’
‘I’m sure C’s first thought will be for my safety,’ Wolff observed with mordant sarcasm. ‘Tell him what you like.’
Thwaites shook his head disapprovingly, pulled at his ear, shifted restlessly, sipped his drink, then smiled brightly, like a burst of winter sunshine: ‘After Christmas then.’
Wolff was guilty of a small injustice. As C pushed his Rolls from village to village his thoughts often turned to Wolff and his business in America, in particular the troubling text of a signal intercept in the briefcase beside him.
The officer prisoners at Donington called their camp ‘the zoo’, but to Cumming’s eye it was something closer to a palace. He didn’t hold with the mollycoddling of the enemy’s young gentlemen. The commandant was a fusspot called Picot, no longer fit for active duty. But after bitter coffee and the usual conversation about the war, he had the decency to surrender his office and a roaring fire. Cumming waited with his back to it, pondering whether he should attempt the interview in his indifferent German. From the lawn in front of the hall, excited English and German voices and the thump of a football reminded him of the ceasefire in no-man’s-land the previous Christmas. By order there would be no fraternisation with the enemy this year and, after so many thousands more casualties, who would wish to attempt it?
There was a sharp knock at the door and it was opened unbidden by the prisoner. Captain von Rintelen cut a less imposing figure than Cumming had imagined from the descriptions he’d been given, but his smug smile suggested he was quite as self-regarding.
