Ratlines Read online

  Whatever these killers wanted from Skorzeny, whatever fate awaited him, many would say he had it coming.

  Many, but not all.

  Ryan remembered the discussions in his father’s shop. As a boy, stacking shelves and sweeping floors for the odd penny his father would allow him, he listened to the men discuss the goings on in Europe. They talked about Chancellor Hitler. Would de Valera—still Taoiseach then, still riding on the back of the revolution—side with Chamberlain? If it came to it, would he ask his fellow Irishmen to fight alongside the British?

  Unthinkable, some would say. Old Dev would never sell his people out to the Brits.

  But that Hitler, others would say, he’s bad news. No good could come of his shouting and blustering. Someone needs to put some manners on him.

  But he’s just a good nationalist, like us, looking out for his own people. Just like old Dev did, like Pearse and Connolly did in 1916.

  Not the same, no, not at all. Dev and the rest fought for freedom. That Hitler’s a dictator, pure and simple, and he’s a fascist.

  And so the arguments would go on as young Albert Ryan swept the floors and cleaned the windows, and Ryan’s father would keep his counter tidy and say little. Sure, it’s nothing to do with me, he’d say, let them fight it out if they want, just so long as they leave me and mine out of it.

  In the end, Ryan’s father had been right. Ireland stayed out of it, after a fashion.

  But Ryan did not. He saw what the Nazis had done, the charred remains of the continent they had raped and mutilated. The men, women and children, the human beings, left to wander the roads, everything they owned clutched in their hands or tied to their backs. They spoke of what they’d left behind. Not the possessions, but the bodies. The bodies of those they loved, abandoned to the dogs and the insects.

  Ryan still dreamed of them. Not as often as he used to, but sometimes. He thanked God he had not entered the camps. The stories travelled across Europe’s wastelands, about the living skeletons, the mass graves, the bodies stacked high, half burned, half buried.

  Men like Skorzeny had done that. Willingly.

  And now Ryan was protecting them.

  He stopped, his chest pressed to his knees, his breath held tight in his lungs. He had stopped counting, had no idea how many he’d done. No matter. He turned over, his body straight, his hands flat on the floor, and pushed.

  Who were the predators who stalked Skorzeny? The man who had humiliated Ryan the night before, was he one of them? Or something other?

  The floor rose and fell beneath Ryan, drops of sweat darkening the carpet’s fibres. He relished the sensation of the muscles of his shoulders and flanks taking the strain, the clarity of it. He worked until his body burned, his lungs straining, his mind flitting between a dark-haired man and a red-haired woman, uncertain of whom he feared more.

  With his mind focused by the exertion, he returned to the file Haughey had supplied. He read and re-read the minister’s notes, and his own. The same two names snagged his suspicions however hard he tried to broaden his gaze.

  Hakon Foss and Catherine Beauchamp.

  He repeated the woman’s address in his mind and went to the map that lay on the desk.

  RYAN HAD WASHED, shaved and dressed in his old suit, and was about to go for breakfast when the telephone rang. The receptionist asked if he could put a call through. The caller had declined to identify himself. A foreign gentleman, the receptionist said.

  “Yes,” Ryan said, knowing.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant Ryan,” Otto Skorzeny said.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  “What have you to report?”

  Ryan told him he had two names he wanted to investigate further, people close to Skorzeny.

  “Who are they?”

  Ryan paused, said, “I’d rather not say.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “And if I insist?”

  “I will refuse,” Ryan said.

  Skorzeny remained silent for some time before he said, “Very well.”

  Ryan considered whether he should tell the Austrian about the dark-haired man. He saw no advantage in keeping the information secret, but neither could he see a way to impart the information without revealing to Skorzeny that Ryan had been left on his knees in the toilet of a public house. He knew by instinct and experience that to show such weakness to a man like Otto Skorzeny could be fatal. Should he take that risk?

  Before he could decide, Skorzeny said, “I would like to extend an invitation.”

  Ryan blinked. “Oh?”

  “To my home. I’m hosting a small gathering tomorrow evening. You will know some of the people. Our friend the minister, for one. Tell me, do you have a sweetheart?”

  Ryan hesitated. “I know a young lady,” he said eventually, then cursed himself for the way it sounded. He could hear the smirk in Skorzeny’s reply.

  “Then, please, bring along this young lady whom you know.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And one more thing. Be ready for a match.”

  “Sir?”

  “We shall fence. I told you I’ve been seeking a reasonable opponent. You might be that man. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”

  The telephone clicked and died.

  RYAN ENJOYED A substantial breakfast before dropping his good suit off at a cleaner’s, then walked to Capel Street where McClelland’s Tailors had just opened. Lawrence McClelland stood arranging shirt boxes on a shelf when Ryan entered. He turned to see the visitor, his face blank for a moment before recognition burst upon it.

  “Ah, sir, how is the Canali doing for you?”

  “Very well,” Ryan said.

  McClelland circled the table stacked with garments and fabrics. “And what can I do for you this morning?”

  “I’d like to see some ties,” Ryan said. “And maybe a couple of shirts.”

  McClelland nodded, his chest deflating. “And should these also be added to Mr. Haughey’s account?”

  Ryan did not hesitate.

  “Yes, please,” he said.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  RYAN DROVE NORTH out of Dublin, heading for Swords. The city thinned and gave way to green fields. Within a few minutes, the white hulk of the airport terminal came into view, an Aer Lingus craft leaping skywards from the near horizon. The airport had expanded apace since the terminal had been built in the early forties, routes to almost anywhere you could imagine.

  The map lay open on the passenger seat next to Ryan, a circle drawn in pencil where he believed the home of Catherine Beauchamp to be.

  He passed through Swords and its quiet Main Street, then the council housing of Seatown. Dirty-faced boys paused their soccer games to watch him pass. A gang of dogs chased the car, barking. They let him go after a hundred yards or so, satisfied they had protected their domain.

  Ryan held the map across the steering wheel, his attention flitting between it and the way ahead. The road narrowed to a short bridge that crossed the river. On the other side, he turned right, the trail barely wide enough for the Vauxhall. Branches clanged on the metalwork.

  He followed the road, hedgerows and trees to his left, water to his right. The spindle of a river broadened as he drove, at first only half a dozen yards wide, then a dozen, then fifty, then a hundred, until it swelled into the estuary.

  Swans gathered in the reeds and wandered onto the road, blocking Ryan’s path. Fearless, they ignored the car as he inched towards them. He half-clutched, nudging forward, the swans merely waddling a few inches further along the track, no notion of making way for him.

  Ryan got out of the car, tried to shoo them away. They hissed at him, then resumed their loitering. Ryan opened his jacket wide, like wings, and flapped at them, made himself as big as he could. At last, the swans were sufficiently annoyed to return to the water. He got back into the car and set off again.

  Up ahead, the road arced out towards the water where the land formed a miniature peninsula. Wa
ter lapped on to the track, and the Vauxhall’s tires whooshed through it. As the wheels once more found a dry surface to cling to, a wall seemed to grow out of the hedgerow. Within it, set into an archway, a gate. Ryan slowed as he checked the map.

  Yes, he believed this was it, the small nub of land stretching away to the estuary opposite the gate.

  He pulled the car onto the coarse grass that grew between the road and the shore, applied the hand brake, and took the key from the ignition. A sharp wind blew in from the open expanse of water. Across the estuary, hazed in the distance, he could see Malahide.

  Ryan walked back to the gate, found it locked. He peered through the bars, saw a low cottage beyond a beautifully tended garden and a gravel path, and off to the side, a barn that served as a stable.

  A slender woman, a bucket of feed in her hands, stared back at him from the barn door. A horse ate from the bucket, its long neck reaching over a gate that had been cobbled together from wood and corrugated metal sheets.

  “Catherine Beauchamp?” Ryan asked.

  The woman put the bucket down, slipped her hands into her trouser pockets, and walked towards him.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her French accent delicate as a petal.

  “My name is Albert Ryan. I work for the Directorate of Intelligence.” He held up his identification. She stopped half way across the garden, too far away to see the card. “I’d like to speak with you,” he said.

  “I’m not sure I wish to speak with you,” she said, her English perfect, a layer of grit in her voice. She wore her greying hair in a bob, held back with clips. Ryan could make out her fine features, now turning jagged with age, and the heavy smoker’s lines on her upper lip.

  “I’m working for Otto Skorzeny.” It was barely a lie, and worth the telling, because her expression shifted when she heard the name. “I’m investigating the killings of Alex Renders, Johan Hambro and Helmut Krauss. And Elouan Groix.”

  She flinched. Hadn’t she known of the Breton’s death?

  “I don’t know anything about that,” she said, keeping her distance, a waver creeping into her voice. “I’m afraid you’ve wasted a journey.”

  “Even so, I’d like to speak with you. It won’t take long.” He considered a gamble, decided to risk it. “I’d rather not tell Colonel Skorzeny you refused to cooperate.”

  Her face hardened. She marched towards the gate.

  “Threats might gain you some advantage in the short term, but they will cost you more in the long run, mister … what did you say?”

  “Ryan. Lieutenant Albert Ryan.”

  She fished a key from her pocket and unlocked the gate.

  BEAUCHAMP HEATED COFFEE in a pot over the fire before pouring two cups. She placed one on the table in front of Ryan. It tasted stale and bitter, but he did not grimace.

  The interior of the cottage was not dissimilar to the one in which Elouan Groix had died, the home Célestin Lainé had abandoned. The kitchen served as a living area with its sink and fireplace. One of the two doors stood ajar, and Ryan saw a neatly made bed, and shelves stacked with books. The kitchen too housed full bookcases, four of them. On the table were several notebooks, jotters, loose sheets of paper. They carried looping scripts, arranged in rows, verses in a language Ryan did not recognise.

  “I still write,” Beauchamp said, taking a chair opposite Ryan. “No one wants to publish me these days, but still I write because I must.”

  “Poetry?” Ryan asked.

  “Yes, mostly, and essays, and stories. I used to write novels, but I don’t have the will anymore.”

  “In Breton?”

  “Ouais,” she said, lapsing into French. “It’s a beautiful language, lyrical, like music. My work does not translate well into English. It doesn’t have the rhythm, the melody of Breton. Breton is more like the Cornish language, and shares much with your Irish. Tell me, how is your Irish?”

  “I only remember a few words from school,” Ryan said.

  She gave a sad smile and lit a cigarette. “You don’t speak your own language? You prefer to speak the words of your oppressor? Don’t you see the tragedy of this?”

  “I never had the desire to learn.”

  She let out a lungful of air and smoke, disappointment wheezing from her. “So go on and ask your questions. I will answer if I can.”

  “How close are you to Otto Skorzeny?”

  “Not very. He assisted me in finding my way to Ireland, along with some other Bretons. Célestin knows him better.”

  “Célestin Lainé is a friend of yours?”

  Again, that sad smile on her lips. She pulled one knee up almost to her chin, her heel perched on the edge of her seat. “Yes. More than that. Many years ago, we were lovers. Now, I don’t know.”

  “Elouan Groix died at Lainé’s home.”

  She stared at some distant point, far away from her cottage.

  “Poor Elouan. He was a good man. But not a strong man. Not a fighter. How is Célestin? Was he hurt?”

  “No,” Ryan said. “Mr. Lainé is staying with Colonel Skorzeny, as far as I know. You knew him in France?”

  “Yes. We carried out actions together, back in the thirties.”

  “And during the war?”

  “He fought. I wrote. Propaganda. Essays, articles, that kind of thing. We distributed pamphlets in the towns and villages.”

  “You were a collaborator.”

  She turned her gaze on Ryan, her eyes like needles piercing his skin. “Call me that if you must. I considered myself a patriot and a socialist. The Germans promised us our independence, our own state, our own government. We believed them. Perhaps that was naive, but isn’t that the prerogative of the young?”

  Beauchamp drew deep on the cigarette, its tip flaring red in the dim cottage. She held the smoke in her chest for a while before letting it leak from her nostrils. Then a cough burst from her. She took a tissue from her pocket, spat in it.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Do you know the term: Dweller on the Threshold?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s a spiritualist idea. Or occultist, depending on your point of view. It has different meanings to different people. Some consider the Dweller a malevolent spirit that attaches itself to a living person. Others describe it as a past evil, a dark reflection of oneself from a former life. We all have this thing. Something that hides in our shadow, something that shames us.”

  She studied the swirling blue patterns of the smoke that hung between them.

  “I don’t understand,” Ryan said.

  “What I did during the war, the people I allowed to attach themselves to me, the things I wrote. What I allowed myself to be in that life. All these, they are my Dweller on the Threshold.”

  “You mean guilt.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “If I had known the truth of it, the Germans who promised us so much, if I’d known what they were doing to those people, the Jews, the Roma, the homosexuals, I would have made a different choice. Do you believe me?”

  Ryan did not answer the question. Instead, he asked, “Do you resent Otto Skorzeny?”

  “In what way?”

  “Any way.”

  She laughed. “I resent that he has grown rich and fat. I resent that his love of money and power has drowned the love of his country. I resent that he allows himself to be a show pony for the Irish bourgeoisie. Are those enough ways?”

  Ryan leaned forward, his forearms on the table. Pages of poetry rustled beneath his elbows.

  “Has anyone ever come to you and asked about Colonel Skorzeny or any of the other people like you?”

  She tried to hide it, but there it was, a flicker. Then it was gone.

  “People like me?”

  “Foreign nationals. Refugees from Europe.”

  “You mean Nazis,” she said. “Collaborators.”

  “Yes.”

  She stubbed out the cigarette. Glowing tobacco embers floated up from the ashtray. “Why do you ask me
this?”

  “Whoever has been targeting Skorzeny’s associates, your friends—”

  “My friends? They are not my—”

  “Whatever they are to you, a well-trained and organised team of killers has been targeting them. And they have an informant. Someone with access to Skorzeny’s circle. Someone who has reason to turn against their friends. Someone like you.”

  She shook her head, her eyes distant. “This is nonsense. Where do you get this idea? Nonsense.”

  Ryan kept his silence, watched her as she turned her gaze to the window overlooking her garden and held it there. He counted the seconds until she said, “I would like you to leave now.”

  “Listen to me,” Ryan said. “If you have betrayed Colonel Skorzeny, your only hope is to tell me now. If you have passed on information to others, tell me who they are, and what you told them.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “I … I didn’t … not me.”

  Ryan reached for her, touched her forearm. She recoiled.

  “You know what Skorzeny will do to you. Talk to me and I’ll protect you.”

  She shook her head and smiled. “Oh, you are a child, aren’t you?”

  “On my life, I will—”

  Papers scattered as she slapped the tabletop with her palm. “If Otto Skorzeny desires a man’s death, or a woman’s, then death will come. Don’t you know this? He plucked Mussolini from a mountaintop. He fucked Evita right under Perón’s nose. Then he robbed the fascist bastard blind and was thanked for it. This is his power. Not an office, not a title. No law will stop him.”

  Beauchamp stood, went to the sink, gripped its edge.

  Ryan got to his feet. “Please, you know the alternative. You know what Skorzeny will do to you if he gets to you first. Either you talk to me, or you—”