Long Time Coming (21 page)

The sash put up so much resistance that I thought at first it must
have been relatched. Then, quite suddenly, it gave, in a squeal of wood and a shower of paint fragments. I stood listening for a moment, but heard only silence. Eldritch had stopped coughing. I clambered up on to the sill and in through the window.

I switched on the torch and followed the route Eldritch had plotted for me earlier: out of the lavatory, along the passage past the door into the alley and the receptionist’s room, then up half a flight of stairs to Twisk’s office.

There was the filing cabinet, in the corner of the room behind Twisk’s desk. I made straight for it and pulled open the third drawer down, as instructed. I didn’t know what file title I was looking for until the answer gleamed back at me in the torch beam. SWAN. I lifted the file out, laid it on the desk and flicked it open.

The summer holds in Dublin. It is an idyllically mellow, caressingly zephyred Saturday afternoon in late June. Gentle applause from the smattering of spectators around the pavilion in Trinity College Park greets the emergence on to the field of the British Legation’s cricket XI. They are still somewhat lethargically taking up their positions when still gentler applause marks the arrival of the Royal Dublin Society XI’s opening batsmen. Play is about to commence.

The scene appears so quintessentially English that Eldritch Swan, despatched to patrol the third-man boundary, is moved to remind himself that he is actually in Ireland – an independent, neutral Ireland at that. It is, as Miles Linley has recently reminded him, a looking-glass world of distorted reflections. Swan does not expect to enjoy himself over-much, despite Linley’s assurances that he will. But he has, quite literally, nothing better to do.

His team mates are a mix of career diplomats and supernumeraries, such as himself, drafted in on account of their supposed cricketing competence and vaguely British affiliations. The captain, a natty little fellow with a parade-ground voice called Grigg-Mathers, clearly views the supernumeraries as regrettable necessities and directs them much as he would native troops in a colonial regiment under his command. Third man, or some other unglamorous posting, will be, Swan is certain, his lot for the duration of the innings. But since there are many worse places to be in the world as it is currently ordered, he is not about to complain.

*

Neither the batting nor the bowling scaled any heights as the RDS team progressed uneventfully to a score of 168 for 7. It should have been 168 for 8 according to Grigg-Mathers’ assessment of a skyer Swan had failed to reach. ‘Are you with us, Cygnet?’ Linley had called from the slip cordon. ‘Barely’ would have been the truthful answer.

But the arrival of the RDS number 9 seized Swan’s attention as nothing else had. He was Ardal Quilligan, lean as life, his spectacles flashing in the sun beneath the peak of a cap worn at the most conventional of angles, as he meticulously took guard. He edged his first ball to second slip, where Linley promptly dropped it. Grigg-Mathers scowled and Swan wondered whether it was clumsiness or surprise at the batsman’s identity that accounted for the lapse.

The tea interval gave Swan a chance to pursue the point. To Grigg-Mathers’ chagrin, Quilligan had knocked up a useful twenty-odd and the RDS had totalled 207.

‘Only just seen the blighter’s name in the scorebook,’ Linley explained, emerging from the pavilion, sandwich in hand, as Swan reached it after his journey from the far boundary. ‘I’d wait and see how he wants to play it if I were you. There could be something to be said for your not appearing to know each other.’

That was evidently also Quilligan’s view of the matter. He did no more than twitch his eyebrows at Swan when they glimpsed each other in the press by the tea table. And Swan was soon distracted by overhearing one of the ladies responsible for the lavish spread ask ‘Celia’ to check the urn.

Celia was a strawberry blonde with a good figure and a ready smile, though to Swan’s eye there was nothing startling about her. He was disappointed. Linley’s infatuation with the girl had led him to expect someone altogether more spectacular. But he was also relieved that he did not have to feel jealous. Celia was no Aphrodite. And, from Swan’s point of view, she was all the better for it.

*

Sir John Maffey, the United Kingdom Representative in Éire, as neutral a job title as the politicians either side of the Irish Sea had been able to agree upon, arrived during tea to see how his team was faring. A tall, handsome man in his mid-seventies, with the weathered look and light linen suit of someone who had served his country in many hotter spots than Dublin, chatted courteously with the opposition and effortlessly charmed the tea ladies. Eventually, his eye alighted upon Swan, whom Linley introduced as an old school friend who happened to be in the city on business.

‘Good of you to turn out, Mr Swan,’ said Maffey. ‘Occasions like this are excellent for Anglo-Irish relations.’

‘Glad to be able to help, Sir John.’

‘Linley keeping you entertained?’

‘Entertained but not necessarily enlightened.’ Swan enjoyed the start Linley gave at that.

‘Really? On what particular subject do you lack enlightenment?’

‘I’m staying at the Shelbourne. I shared the lift yesterday with Malcolm MacDonald, the Minister of Health.’ (This was true enough. Swan had heard the concierge address MacDonald by name and had chanced his arm during their brief journey together by claiming to recognize him from a photograph in the
Sunday Pictorial
. MacDonald, whose appearance was in reality wholly unmemorable, had seemed flattered by this, though not flattered enough to reveal why he was really in Dublin.) ‘He told me he’d come over to look at Irish hospitals, which struck me as so unlikely I asked Linley what he was really up to. But my old chum simply wouldn’t let on. You can take it from me, Sir John, Linley’s discretion is indefatigable.’

Maffey laughed. ‘I’m delighted to hear it.’

‘I explained to Swan that we don’t know any more than he does,’ said Linley, looking by now more than a little relieved.

‘Exactly. London keeps us firmly in the dark, Mr Swan. Now, what about that total the RDS put up? Think you can knock the runs off?’

‘Don’t pull any more stunts like that,’ Linley growled when Maffey
had left them to it. ‘I told you MacDonald’s mission was hush-hush.’

‘But I did meet him in the lift.’

‘Well, kindly pretend you didn’t.’

‘How is his mission going?’

‘It’s gone. He left this morning. And that’s definitely my last word on the subject.’

It was his last word on any subject for a while, since Grigg-Mathers called them into the pavilion at that moment to be informed of the batting order. Despite not bowling, Swan was to go in at number 7. Linley meanwhile was allotted number 3. He bustled off to pad up.

The innings commenced shortly afterwards. Swan waited until a wicket had fallen and Linley had gone in to bat before wandering into the pavilion kitchenette and striking up a conversation with the legation secretaries, Celia among them, who were doing the washing-up. He made clear his connection with Linley, but Celia gave no hint that she knew who he was. She was either well practised in the art of amorous subterfuge or unaware that the flat in Merrion Street had been rented in his name. Swan’s knowledge of Linley inclined him to the latter conclusion.

The Legation XI continued to lose wickets, while Linley held up one end. Grigg-Mathers hit a stylish fifty, but was undone by the left-arm wrist spin of none other than Ardal Quilligan. ‘The damn fellow’s bowling chinamen,’ he complained upon returning to the pavilion, as if accusing him of cheating. But whatever Quilligan was bowling, it was too much for the next man in, who fell first ball.

‘For God’s sake try to bat better than you fielded,’ Grigg-Mathers muttered to Swan in parting advice. The score was 128 for 5, the light perfect and the occasion ideal, in Swan’s estimation as he strode out to bat, for a match-winning contribution from his good self. He had become increasingly irked by the captain’s sarcasm, the failure to use him as a bowler and his lowly placing at number 7. He could recall regularly hoisting sixes into the chestnut
trees during house matches on the Green at Ardingly and reckoned something along the same lines would do the trick here. He had always been a murderer of spin bowling.

Linley had a more cautious approach in mind when they met in the middle. ‘Don’t try tonking him, Cygnet. I’ll take most of the bowling and we’ll see this through.’

There were only two balls left in the over. Swan dutifully blocked them, studying Quilligan’s action carefully and noting the amount of turn he was extracting from the pitch. He reckoned he could handle him with some ease. Linley did not seem eager to give him the chance, however. He hit a couple of twos off the innocuous medium-pacer at the other end and tried for a single off the last ball to keep the strike, but Swan sent him back. He had to dive to make his ground in the end and looked none too pleased.

Swan allowed himself one more sighter against Quilligan, then drove the next ball sweetly to the extra cover boundary, holding the pose so that anyone who had a mind to could admire the stroke properly. A spectator picked the ball up after it had crossed the rope and proved strangely reluctant to return it. The fielder had to walk right up to him before he handed it over. As he did so, Swan recognized him and cursed under his breath. It was Sergeant MacSweeney. And Swan did not suppose the man was given to taking strolls in Trinity College Park on Saturday afternoons.

He was still thinking about MacSweeney when the next delivery came floating down. Perhaps, if he had been concentrating, he would have spotted the googly. As it was, he played an airy drive, the ball spun away instead of in and neatly removed his off bail.

Linley did not shout ‘What did I tell you?’ from the other end of the pitch. His disgusted expression meant there was really no need to. Swan walked off to face the imprecations of Grigg-Mathers, watching MacSweeney marching round the boundary towards the pavilion as he went. They met, as MacSweeney was clearly determined they should, at the pavilion gate.

‘Bad luck, sir,’ he said, grinning broadly as he blocked Swan’s path.

‘Excuse me,’ said Swan levelly. ‘You’re in my way.’

‘Am I, though? Well, I can’t guarantee that won’t happen again while you’re in Dublin, if you know what I mean.’

‘Watch out,’ said the number 8 batsman, who by now MacSweeney was also obstructing.

‘Sorry, I’m sure.’ MacSweeney took an exaggerated step to one side. ‘Be seeing you, Mr Swan.’ He touched his hat and headed on round the boundary.

The Legation XI were eventually all out for 171, losing the match by 36 runs, with Ardal Quilligan collecting seven wickets. Linley was last man out, still a few runs short of his fifty. Grigg-Mathers lapsed into geniality as soon as the cares of captaincy were lifted from his shoulders and astonished Swan by asking if he was available for their next match the following Saturday. Swan prevaricated. Linley urged him to agree. ‘You weren’t the only one Quilligan was too much for, Cygnet. Don’t worry about it. Coming to drown your sorrows?’

The venue for sorrow-drowning was a nearby bar, to which both teams adjourned, with few exceptions, though Ardal Quilligan was one. ‘More noted for his googly than his gregariousness, our Ardal,’ explained Brendan, the affable RDS wicketkeeper, while urging Swan on in his efforts to develop a taste for Guinness. ‘That four of yours off him was a lovely shot. He’d say as much himself if he was here.’

‘I did the collecting of that,’ said Joe, his equally affable team mate. ‘And some fellow was so impressed he didn’t seem to want to give the ball back.’

‘He was a policeman,’ said Swan impulsively. Then, seeing the surprised looks he had drawn in response, he added, ‘Our paths crossed recently in the line of work.’ (There was, after all, no reason why Joe and Brendan should doubt he was a member of the legation staff.)

‘What would the Garda be doing spectating at one of our matches?’ queried Brendan.

Swan shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Maybe he was looking for Heider,’ suggested Joe, laughing at his
own wit, wasted as it was on Swan. ‘I expect the Garda reckon a German spy would very likely disguise himself as a cricketer.’

Brendan chortled at the remark and Swan felt obliged to join in as if he knew all about Heider. He tackled Linley on the subject when they met each other heading for the Gents.

‘I don’t know any more about Heider than the average reader of the
Irish Times
,’ Linley declared as they lined up at the urinal. ‘The Army spotted a Heinkel flying low over the County Meath countryside a few weeks back and found a radio transmitter attached to a parachute in the area. Conclusion: the Germans had dropped a spy who’d lost track of his radio after landing. About ten days ago the police raided a house here in Dublin where they suspected the spy was being sheltered by a former Blueshirt – the Irish equivalent of Mosley’s Blackshirts. They arrested the householder, but Heider – the cleaning woman knew his name, would you believe – managed to give them the slip. He’s still on the run. I imagine the authorities think he’s trying to establish links with the IRA.’

‘Making them even twitchier than usual about visits by foreigners to IRA internees at the Curragh?’

‘Somewhat, yes.’

‘So, in a sense, MacSweeney
was
looking for Heider.’

‘But in the wrong place, naturally.’ They crossed to the wash-hand basin. ‘You’ve nothing to worry about, Cygnet. Just don’t talk to any strange Germans. That’s my advice. Sound as ever, I think you’ll agree.’

The evening grew blurrily uproarious. Swan began to think he really was developing a taste for Guinness. Linley slipped away. Swan suspected he knew where he was going and who was waiting for him there. He wished him well. When he came to leave himself, he was well past worrying about police surveillance. They could follow him or not, as they pleased. They would learn nothing, because there was nothing for them to learn.