The City of Shadows. Michael Russell

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СКАЧАТЬ the small bar it was packed. People were spilling out into the hallway. Inside much of the conversation was in German, loud and enthusiastic and fuelled by large quantities of highly proofed Christmas cheer. The detectives squeezed through to the bar, Stefan apologising in festive German. Dessie caught the barman’s eye.

      ‘A hot whiskey.’

      ‘That’ll be two!’ called Stefan.

      The barman poured two whiskeys and topped them up with hot water from the kettle. Stefan was trying to locate Keller. Dessie took the drinks and moved his hand towards the wallet in his jacket pocket. It was a gesture. He didn’t intend to pay and the barman didn’t expect him to. He simply waved his hand. It was on the house. It always was. Stefan pushed his way through the noisy crowd again, exchanging more Christmas greetings in German as he went. Then he stopped, close to a corner table where Hugo Keller sat with two other people. There was a sharp-featured, middle-aged man with balding, close-cropped hair and thick-rimmed circular glasses, and a younger man, with a shock of dark hair, wearing a brown suit that bore a small swastika emblem on one lapel. The two older men were arguing. It wasn’t comfortable and it certainly wasn’t festive. But they spoke quietly and it was impossible for Stefan to pick up even a few of the words. The younger man sat back, smoking a Turkish cigarette, with an expression of impatience. Keller became aware someone was watching him. He looked up.

      Hugo Keller was surprised, but it was only seconds before the same look of supercilious self-confidence he had shown when he was arrested reappeared. The other two looked at Sergeant Gillespie too. They had no idea who he was. Keller fired some kind of explanation, unheard over the melee. The older man in glasses looked even more ill-tempered. He was distinctly put out by the explanation. The three got up abruptly. Stefan smiled at the abortionist and raised his glass. ‘Fröhliche Weihnachten!’ The Christmas greeting spread through the bar, until even the three men trying to leave were forced to respond to the people around them wishing them a Merry Christmas. Hugo Keller was only a few feet from Stefan, who was still irritated by the smirk of invulnerability that hung about his smile. ‘Did you find what you were looking for, Herr Doktor Keller?’ He stressed ‘Doktor’. The smirk disappeared. Stefan had thrown these words out on a whim, but he had got something back. Whatever was being searched for at twenty-five Merrion Square, it hadn’t been found. Then Keller was gone. The detectives downed the whiskeys and pushed their way back through the crowd to the hotel lobby. As they extricated themselves at last from the bar, the three Germans were ahead of them, just turning into the dining room.

      People were stepping aside for Father Christmas and his entourage, now emerging from the party, their task completed. Chriskindl continued to call out ‘Ho, Ho, Ho,’ and ‘Herzliche Weihnachtsgrüsse!’ He reached into his pocket and handed small Nazi lapel pins to anyone sitting in the hotel lobby or passing through it. He grabbed Stefan’s reluctant hand and thrust one into it. The policemen carried on to the doors that opened into the party. All around children were playing with their gifts from Santy, at the tables, on the floor. Several of them ran out into the lobby chasing a boy who held a model fighter plane over his head, all making rat-tat-tat machine gun noises.

      In the restaurant, waiters were ladling out mulled wine. Someone started playing the piano. After only a few notes an abrupt and almost complete silence descended on the noisy gathering. A boy of nine or ten was lifted up on to one of the tables. He started to sing. As he did, everyone in the room who wasn’t already standing, rose. Detective Sergeant Gillespie was one of the few people – besides the partygoers – who understood the words. They had nothing to do with Christmas, but after some of the day’s events they made him feel very uncomfortable. ‘Deutschland erwache aus deinem bösen Traum! Gib fremden Juden in deinem Reich nicht Raum!’ Germany wake from this fearful dream. Give Jews no room to live and scheme. Germany arise, our battle cry. Our Aryan blood shall never die! There were tears in watching German eyes. Even Dessie MacMahon, who understood not a single word, was captivated by the boy’s perfect voice.

      ‘Let’s go, Dessie,’ said Stefan abruptly.

      As they turned, he beckoned the porter over. He looked back into the room once more, pointing to where the 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 The Irish Times that had called Adolf Mahr ‘the father of Irish archaeology’? Or was it Éamon de Valera? Mahr was an important man. He was certainly a friend of de Valera’s, which made you an important man now, whatever you did. He was also head of the Nazi Party in Ireland.

      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 The Irish Times he had been reading when they stepped inside the hotel. Folding the newspaper and tucking it under his arm, he sauntered out after them with a nod to the porter, whistling the music that still echoed from the dining room. He stood on the steps, watching the detectives walk to the corner. Dessie MacMahon crossed over and continued along Stephen’s Green; Stefan Gillespie turned into Kildare Street. The fair-haired man walked to the same corner, lighting a cigarette. He waited until Stefan had left the lights of the Shelbourne behind and then followed him.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ