The Poison Tide (36 page)

‘I would have called but – well, you must have seen the papers.’

There was a long silence.

‘We could meet for lunch,’ he ventured.

‘I’m glad you’re safe. But my friends say I—’

Wolff interrupted. ‘You don’t sound glad.’

‘Oh, it’s so difficult on the telephone,’ she blurted in exasperation. ‘Our friends are anxious. Trust no one, they say, until we can be sure – and it’s been weeks since . . .’

‘I know. I’m sorry,’ he said, with complete sincerity.

Another silence, but when she broke it he heard the old mischief in her voice: ‘And I’m busy. Tomorrow I have a meeting in the morning, and I’m visiting Mrs Newman in the afternoon . . .’ she paused deliberately, ‘. . . at three o’clock.’

‘I see.’ He smiled. ‘Thank you.’

The windows of his East Street apartment were opaque with frost, the stove cold and his bed unmade. He scraped away a square with a penknife and examined the stiff faces of passers-by, the empty doorways and windows opposite. ‘Trust no one,’ the Clan
had warned Laura. So they were still looking for their traitor. Wolff had toyed with the idea of moving to somewhere safer uptown for Christmas but standing in the bare sitting room in his overcoat he resolved to leave at once. Just two small cases and he clattered down the stair to his landlord for the last time, handed in the key, a few dollars, and as cover, a post office address for mail he wasn’t expecting to receive. Then he took a cab to Grand Central and another to the Plaza Hotel, where he paid for a comfortable six-dollar-a-night room with a bath.

The following morning he telephoned Casement’s sister. She was pleased to hear from him, but resentful that he’d neglected her. ‘So much to discuss . . . Roddy was asking after you . . . if you can come to tea . . .’

Punctual, at three, he lifted the broken gate in the picket fence and crunched down the path. Nina Newman was watching for him and opened the door as he was shaking the snow from his hat.

‘Laura is visiting, did I say?’ she asked, taking his overcoat. ‘She’s just arrived.’

Wolff had prepared with care: a sober grey suit and Tyrian purple tie – just a hint of something radical. Combing oil into his hair, he’d discovered a suggestion of silver at his temples that left him out of sorts, then ashamed of his vanity. She was so much younger, perhaps fifteen years.

In the middle of the little sitting room, the same dusty armchair throne, but this time Laura was to hold court. Still pink from the chill, she rose to greet him with an arch smile. ‘Quite a coincidence.’

‘A happy one,’ he replied.

‘So much has happened, Mr de Witt. So much,’ Nina Newman gushed, directing him to the chair at Laura’s side and taking the one opposite. ‘Roddy’s in despair. It’s the Germans.’ She leant across to the mantelpiece for an envelope she’d left in anticipation. ‘He writes that “. . .
no man was ever in such a false position . . . I’m sick at heart and in my soul . . . swines and cads of the first order.
” The Germans are killing him, Mr de Witt – not the people, of course – the government . . . and that man, his valet – Christensen – says the British asked him to spy on Roddy – to murder him, I shouldn’t wonder.’ She paused to contemplate this perfidy with furrowed brow, eyes deep set and brooding like her brother’s.

‘I’m sure he’s safe.’ Laura touched her hand. ‘Don’t you think so, Mr de Witt?’

‘In Germany, yes,’ Wolff replied distantly, his thoughts still with a slippery bastard called Christensen. ‘If he doesn’t do something—’

‘And who can believe that, that . . . Norwegian – Christensen?’ Nina interjected, twisting the end of her handkerchief. ‘What does Roddy see in him? He’s a thief, duplicitous – that business with his wife . . . he’s in Berlin and Roddy’s too sweet-natured . . .’ She rattled on unhappily for a few minutes more before excusing herself to make some tea.

‘No one in the Clan
trusts him,’ Laura observed, touching her hair, drawing his gaze.

‘Roger?’

‘No!’ she exclaimed indignantly. ‘Adler Christensen. Only—’ she bit the corner of her lip, uncertain whether she should say more.

‘Berlin doesn’t trust Christensen,’ he prompted.

‘Oh?’

‘Von Rintelen said so. Asked my opinion.’

A sharp little shake of her head, auburn hair catching the light from the window: ‘First the brigade in Germany, then Christensen; some people are questioning his judgement. It was Roger who asked the Clan to help your German friends. Did you know?’

‘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 Gaché’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.

‘Gaché, 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 Café 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.

‘My name is Smith – Captain Smith,’ Cumming declared in English.

‘Like the captain of the
Titanic
?’ Rintelen remarked. His handshake was limp and careless, and Cumming was startled by the strangled pitch of his voice. Taken with the spirit of the house perhaps he was dressed in a brown wool suit like a country squire. ‘You have come from Admiral Hall?’ he asked, settling in a chair at the desk. ‘How is the Admiral? I enjoyed our conversations. There is a bond between naval officers, the sea, don’t you think? It is always the same. After the war we will be friends.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. As you say, the camaraderie of the sea.’ Cumming smiled benignly. ‘And I want to take a little of your time – a few small points I’m hoping to clear up.’

‘But you understand my position?’ Rintelen opened his arms and his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘I’m an officer of His Majesty’s navy, there is nothing . . .’

‘Yes, yes,’ Cumming interrupted. ‘Delmar, Captain, who is he?’ and dipping into the pocket of his uniform jacket he produced the square of signal paper. ‘This was sent from your embassy in Washington two days ago. It says,’ he paused, lifting it a little so he could observe Rintelen above its edge; ‘it says, “For Count Nadolny, General Staff, Section P. The Irish advise that the New York police are satisfied they have broken network. Delmar now ready to resume operations New York, New Jersey, Boston, Baltimore, Newport News. Require start date for Phase 2. Hilken estimates a cost of 25,000 dollars. Answer immediate. Hinsch.”’

Rintelen was still smiling but the corners of his mouth looked a little tighter.

‘What do you think of that, Captain?’ prompted Cumming. ‘Nadolny’s running another operation – you knew of course?’ He waited for Rintelen to speak, resuming after a few seconds when he showed no inclination to do so. ‘You’re surprised, I can see that,’ he guessed, ‘Hinsch didn’t tell you. I thought Hinsch was your man.’ He paused again. ‘Twenty-five thousand dollars. A lot of money. What do you think Delmar is going to do with it?’

Rintelen shrugged. ‘I cannot say.’

‘Guess.’

‘Go shopping on Fifth Avenue?’ Rintelen gave a yelp of laughter, but it sounded brittle.