The City in Darkness Page 23

  ‘There is nothing to worry about, María.’

  ‘You’ve told me that too many times.’

  ‘Everything will be all right.’

  ‘You’ve told me that too many times as well.’

  ‘Because I believe it.’

  ‘I know you have to say that, Frank.’

  She spoke even more quietly. He heard a few words, but enough.

  ‘Do you trust them? Do you trust all these people?’

  ‘I trust Leo Kerney. And there are friends I trust.’

  ‘It will be soon then,’ she said.

  ‘Whatever happens, María, I will find a way – we’ll find a way . . .’

  She nodded and crossed herself.

  ‘You know I want you to leave, María, and Leo will help you.’

  ‘Yes Frank, you make it sound very easy.’

  ‘It can be. Ireland is out of it, all of it. All of this too.’

  The idea that she could get to Ireland was as much a fixation in Ryan’s head as his own determination to find his way home. It was what was driving him now, and for that to make sense she had to be a part of it. Some of the time she almost believed it could happen herself. And if she could not do that all the time, at least she had to let him believe it.

  ‘Nothing is easy, María. But things still happen. They’re going to. We’re alive, aren’t we? That’s not easy. Plenty of times the other option felt a fuck sight easier. But you have to be alive, even to think that. I woke up the other day and I realized how unlikely it is. I shouldn’t be alive, should I?

  ‘I only want to know you’re safe, Frank, to know where—’

  She was aware of the guard, watching them. Raoul spoke a little English, which was why he was always there, but it wasn’t enough for him to understand much of what they said. Today he seemed more indifferent than usual. He chain-smoked with an almost affable smile on his face. He grinned and winked at Ryan, then pursed his lips into an exaggerated kiss.

  ‘You’re a gobshite, Raoul, a fucking arse of a gobshite.’

  The prison guard laughed and lit another cigarette.

  Ryan looked at María in silence. He put his right hand over his heart.

  ‘I’m here. This is where I am.’

  ‘Wherever I am, wherever you are . . .’ she said the words slowly. He couldn’t hear them all but he didn’t need to. She bowed her head. She would not show the tears she felt coming. She knew that this would be the last time here. He would not say it but she could see it in him. It was hard for her not to think it would be the last time she saw him at all. His smile seemed to say he didn’t believe that, but he was always good at smiling.

  It was dusk as María Duarte left the Prisión Central. The man in the shabby black suit who watched the visitors leave was familiar to everyone, a very unsecret secret policeman who checked the prison’s visitors’ lists and recorded who came and who went for the Burgos security police. At the end of each day he quizzed the guards on what they had heard and seen. He nodded at María as she passed. There was a strange intimacy between the security police and the people they watched. It was a job, after all, and they all knew one another.

  But today María was aware of only one thing; this would be the last time her visit to the gaol would be counted. This would be the last long walk back to Burgos. She had to pray for the safety of the man she loved; she had to pray that in different ways they would both be delivered from this place. Yet something had ended that had been at the very heart of her life for a long time. However much she hated it, she was losing something.

  Stefan arrived in Burgos after dark. It had been a slow journey from Salamanca. The railways had not recovered from the years of war and several times his train halted for half an hour and more, for no apparent reason, at some single-platform station in the middle of an endless plain of borderless, featureless, ditchless fields of grain and grass and stony soil.

  He spent the night at a small hotel, the Norte y Londra, as instructed by Leopold Kerney. Major Eckhart was already in Burgos; he would contact Stefan at the hotel. Eckhart had been spare with details; all Stefan knew was that they would leave the city the next night.

  There was a day to kill and although Stefan had no inclination to be a tourist it was wise to maintain the role he had established with the inquisitive receptionist at the hotel. He was an Irish Catholic pilgrim, following the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James. It answered all questions. But sitting at the hotel doing nothing would make him conspicuous. As a visitor his business was to tramp the city’s streets and riverside walks and gaze at the wonders of the cathedral. So the next morning he did as expected. He walked from the hotel along the Calle de la Paloma to the cathedral. Having gazed at the Gothic façade he left the inside till later and walked the streets and the parks, taking little in, until the morning had gone. It was time. The man in the gaol would be waiting for him now.

  Back in the cathedral square, he left the city through the dark tunnel of the Santa María arch and walked across the river to the station. It was the most anonymous place to find a taxi. He was out into fields within minutes and soon on the dirt road to the fort on the hill that was the Central Prison.

  He waited inside the gate until Señor Escovedo, the governor, came to meet him. As they moved through the crowds of prisoners in the great courtyard, Escovedo extolled the architecture of prison, which he said was the finest in Spain, if not Europe. It was noisy as all prisons are; as in all prisons no one seemed to take any notice of anything yet everyone watched. Coming out of the sunlight from the main courtyard they climbed steps to the governor’s office. The sounds inside were no different to the prisons Stefan knew at home. Prisoners spoke in low voices all the time yet somehow there was always shouting. The smell was the same too, even in the administration block’s corridors; tobacco, urine, carbolic soap.

  Stefan sat in the empty room that was Escovedo’s office for ten minutes. Then the door opened. The governor muttered to a thin, gaunt man in a grey overall that hung on him like an unpegged tent. Escovedo smiled.

  ‘Señor Ryan.’

  The door closed behind the governor as he left. They were alone. Frank Ryan grinned, then walked straight past Stefan Gillespie to the desk. He opened a leather cigarette box and stuffed several handfuls of cigarettes into his pocket. He kept one back and used Escovedo’s silver lighter to light it. Then he turned to Stefan.

  ‘Want one?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘He’s taken to calling me Señor Ryan. Used to be coño, basically cunt, but he makes señor sound like same thing now. Still, that’s grand.’

  He stepped across and shook Stefan’s hand warmly.

  ‘What do I call you other than inspector?’

  ‘Stefan, Stevie, take your pick, Mr Ryan.’

  ‘It’s Frank.’

  Stefan took out the letter from Leopold Kerney and handed it to him.

  ‘From Mr Kerney, it’s a kind of reference.’

  ‘Well, you come highly recommended already.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘María says you’re all right, I don’t know why.’

  ‘Probably because I found a friend of yours searching the ambassador’s room at the Irish College – and on her behalf I’d say.’

  ‘Mikey Hagan?’

  Stefan nodded.

  ‘Jesus, does anyone know?’

  Stefan shook his head.

  ‘Not even Leo?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. That wasn’t too clever of Mikey.’

  Stefan chose to say nothing about the Englishman who had died in Lisbon. But he thought of him again. Spying on the Abwehr wasn’t clever.

  ‘The reference seems exemplary, but what’s the job, Stevie?’

  ‘The job is to see you out of here and out of Spain.’

  ‘And they sent you all this way, just for that?’

  ‘They sent me for a number reasons. Mr Kerney is carrying a lot of money. There was also a feeling what he was
up to with you and German Intelligence was somewhere between embarrassing and dangerous. I think a few people felt that a bit of distance, for him, would be – well, diplomatic.’

  Ryan looked at Stefan for a moment; he liked the honesty.

  ‘But they are behind Leo? Dev and the rest?’

  ‘They want you out. I don’t think they want to know how.’

  ‘No, they wouldn’t. I’m not sure I want to know myself.’

  He stubbed out the cigarette and lit another one.

  ‘Well, it’s good of Dev to keep an eye on me, for whatever reason.’

  ‘You’ll be leaving tonight.’

  ‘Tonight!’

  Frank Ryan looked away as he said the word. He frowned, as if there was something about it he couldn’t quite grasp. He looked more fragile now. The energy he had drawn on, coming into the room, wasn’t easy to find; it was fading. He leant forward. He spoke quietly, more intensely.

  ‘Is it real? For fuck’s sake, it has to be real this time, Stevie!’

  When Stefan returned to the Hotel Norte y Londra there was a note from Eckhart. It said only ‘Tomorrow 01:00’. It would be an odd time to check out. It would be odder if he spent the rest of the day waiting. He resumed his role as pilgrim and walked the streets he had walked that morning. He ate and drank coffee to pass the time and, back in the Plaza Rey San Fernando, he went into the cathedral where, for a while, the overwhelming beauty of its interior and the sound of the choir singing Vespers did drive everything else from his head in a way that was welcome, for a while. But it was only a postponement.

  He walked out into the Plaza Rey San Fernando. The bars and restaurants were busy now. It was an intimate space compared to the piazza of the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, more like the centre of a country town than a great city. As he looked round the square he smiled. Across the cobbles was a figure in grey, at an easel. He ambled toward to Mrs Surtees. She was absorbed in what she was doing. She spoke without looking up.

  ‘Estoy lo siento, señor, están bloqueando mi luz.’

  ‘You mean I’m in the way.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Gillespie, what a lovely surprise.’

  ‘Can I have a look?’

  ‘I’ve only really started. I wanted to catch the evening light.’

  Stefan peered at the pale streaks of watercolour.

  ‘Now, don’t say “it’s very good”! Am I capturing the light?’

  ‘You’re beginning to.’

  ‘Beginning to will do,’ she laughed. ‘Are you here long?’

  ‘I leave tonight.’

  ‘Oh, what a pity! I was going to suggest a brandy later.’

  ‘I’ll have to leave you to it, Mrs Surtees. Good to see you again.’

  ‘So where now?’

  ‘Oh, northwards.’

  ‘The mountains?’

  ‘You’re going to tell me there’s somewhere not to be missed.’

  ‘I am too old to be teased, Mr Gillespie. Do take care.’

  He walked away towards the Calle de la Paloma. When he left the square he looked back. Mrs Surtees was totally absorbed in her painting again, staring intently up at the façade of the cathedral, then down to the easel. It was an encounter with what was ordinary, real. None of the reasons he was in Spain touched on that now. It felt like a long way home.

  That night Stefan left the Hotel Norte y Londra at 1 a.m. In the Calle de San Juan Major Eckhart and Oberleutnant Triebel waited in a black Citroën limousine. There was little to it in the end. Triebel drove straight to the Prisión Central. Eckhart went in while Stefan sat in the back of the car and Triebel gazed at a map of the route he would be driving. A small door next to the prison gates opened. Two men came out; Konrad Eckhart and Frank Ryan. Ryan wore a suit and an overcoat; the clothes hung as loosely as the prison overall had.

  Eckhart held the door; Ryan got in beside Stefan.

  ‘Well, who would have thought it could be that easy?’ he said.

  Eckhart was in the front and the car was pulling away; he laughed. Frank Ryan laughed too but next to him in the back of the car Stefan could feel him shaking, almost uncontrollably, and breathing fast, irregularly.

  ‘All right, Frank?’

  ‘An bhfuil Gaeilge agat?’ Ryan asked quietly if he spoke Irish.

  ‘Go leor.’ Enough.

  Eckhart reached back, holding out a hip flask.

  ‘There’s some whiskey, Herr Ryan.’

  ‘You’re a gentleman, Konrad.’

  Frank Ryan took a long, slow mouthful before he handed it to Stefan. He was breathing more easily, but the shaking had not quite stopped.

  ‘It’s hard to get some things out of your head,’ said Ryan in Irish. ‘When someone takes you outside in the middle of the night there, it’s to shoot you. I suppose it was odds on no one would tonight, but then I never had much luck as a betting man. Still, I’m very glad you’re here, Stevie.’

  It was a long drive north to the mountains of Asturias. No one really spoke. Frank Ryan gazed almost continually out at the night. Most of the way he could see little in the darkness; occasionally there were farmhouses, villages, sometimes a town. Everything was silent and empty. They saw few vehicles. But even the night was miraculous for a man who had just left the confines of the Prisión Central. Stefan dozed intermittently; each time he woke Frank Ryan was still gazing out, his head sometimes pressed against the window, as if he was breathing the night air in through the glass.

  At times the car stopped and the Germans argued about the road to take. Stefan picked out signposts that seemed to be repeated and then disappeared. For a long time it was Aguilar de Campoo, on a road where even the villages were few and far between. Then they drove through a town and the signs for Aguilar de Campoo were gone. The villages were bigger now; signs were for Torrelavega and finally, hours later, a name he recognized, Santander.

  The land had been rising; the road was steeper, the bends sharper. When they stopped to refuel, they all got out. Eckhart and Triebel took jerry cans from the boot. Frank Ryan and Stefan Gillespie looked up. They could see the mountains of Asturias ahead, though the night was full of clouds. Among the clouds were patches of white; there was enough light to see the undulating lines that joined the patches. It was snow on the high peaks. The Irishmen were silent. Then Ryan started laughing.

  ‘Fuck me, that’s something, isn’t it?’

  He slapped Stefan hard on the back. Then he stopped laughing, and looked at the mountains in silence again, very still; he crossed himself.

  They continued into the mountains, skirting the high peaks, and soon the car was heading downhill towards the coast. There was light in the sky as they turned off the road to Santander at Torrelavega; shortly afterwards they saw the sea. It followed them, appearing and disappearing with the bends in the road. Stefan marked the names he saw, looking for Pendueles. There were signs to Llanes, where Frank Ryan’s boat would depart.

  The car turned on to a dirt road and passed under a low railway bridge. Stefan registered the sign: Pendueles. They continued with the railway line above them on one side and fields and low hills on the other; the sea was visible in the distance. They stopped at the gates to a tall, square house, standing back from the road in a big garden. The sunlight picked out the white plaster walls, the red-tiled roof and the stone balconies in front of each window, and it also picked out the bright blue shutters and the blue wood of the glass conservatories the first-floor windows opened on to. The house had two names in Pendueles, the Casa de los Sacerdotes Irlandeses or, because of the colour, the Casa Azul, the Blue House.

  It was a peaceful place; it was a welcoming end to the journey.

  Oberleutnant Triebel blasted on the horn. An elderly man opened the gates. He was dark and balding and seemed irritated by their arrival. He was eating; they had interrupted his breakfast. Stefan smiled. The man belonged to the house, not the Abwehr. As the car pulled up at the entrance to the Blue House and they got out, a man emerged. He was in his early twenties, dr
essed in what passed for holiday clothes. He didn’t need to speak for Stefan to know he was a German Intelligence officer. He saluted Eckhart stiffly and nodded pleasantly towards Frank Ryan and Stefan.

  ‘You’ll all want some breakfast, sir,’ he said in German.

  ‘We will, Pelka. Is Oberst Melsbach here yet?’

  ‘He arrived yesterday from Lisbon, sir.’

  ‘The plane landed all right?’

  ‘The field is just a kilometre away, the way you came in.’

  ‘And the pilot’s happy about taking off from there?’

  ‘He’s a Condor Legion man, knows the area from the Civil War. He says he’ll have no problem. Steinhaus and the pilot have camped up there. They’ll refuel it today. And there’s a Civil Guard to keep the locals at bay.’

  ‘Did I hear “Früstück”?’ said Ryan in English. ‘My German hasn’t got far, but it has got as far as that. Breakfast, fellers! Roll it out, please!’

  Stefan registered what he had just heard. Ryan spoke barely any German; he had made nothing of it. Otto Melsbach, the Abwehr colonel, was there. He had arrived in an aeroplane. It wasn’t difficult to get to Pendueles from Lisbon; the overnight train and a car would have brought him. Landing a plane in the middle of nowhere didn’t make much sense, unless you had a reason to. Stefan wondered about the boat from Llanes.

  ‘You two had better come and meet the colonel,’ said Eckhart.

  ‘He’s in the study,’ called Leutnant Pelka.

  Eckhart crossed the hall and knocked on a door.

  ‘Komm herein!’

  The major opened the door. There was a desk in the middle of a book-lined room. A short, bullet-headed man stood up. He wore a tweed suit that suggested he had worked at dressing casually for the wrong climate. He gazed hard at Frank Ryan, then he burst out laughing.

  ‘No need to introduce me to Frank. We are old comrades.’

  Eckhart was taken aback. Stefan looked at Ryan. The expression he couldn’t hide was shock, not surprise; his face, grey and pale from the prison regime, had been drained of the little colour it had. He wasn’t laughing.