THIRTEEN

Sunlight streams through the barred windows of the visiting hut at the Curragh internment camp, striping the bare, planked interior with shadows. Eldritch Swan sits on one side of a long table, topped with a wire-mesh barrier, that divides the room. His legs are crossed and he is tapping his knee with his forefinger to distract himself from his powerful desire for a cigarette. The warder who admitted him seemed to take some pleasure in telling him smoking was prohibited. It is Swan’s impression that more or less everything is prohibited in this grim complex of tin-roofed wooden huts. He is drawn to contemplate, as he waits, the sheer horror of confinement in such a place. He could not bear it. He feels sure of that. It would crush him.

A door opens at the end of the room on the other side of the table. Swan sees a man enter, followed by a warder. The man is tall and broadly built, though clearly emaciated. There is not a spare ounce of flesh on him. As a result, his big-boned jaw is even more prominent than it might otherwise be and his eyes are set deep in their sockets. He has crew-cut fair hair, a deep scar across one cheek and a notch in one ear. He is wearing a buttonless green shirt and coarse-fibred trousers. His boots, Swan observes, are laced with string. But from his posture alone it is apparent that he is not crushed. He is in prison. But he is not in despair.

The warder closes the door behind him. ‘You can sit down, Quilligan,’ he says. ‘One touch on the wire and we’ll have you out of here and into solitary for a fortnight. Is that clear enough for you?’

Quilligan nods and sits down in the chair opposite Swan. Quite suddenly, the sunlight is extinguished by a cloud neither of them can see. The shadows dissolve.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Quilligan, noticing Swan’s nose twitch. ‘They only allow us one shower a week. And we’re in the middle of the week.’

‘What did you do to end up here?’ Swan asked, for want of any subtler opening gambit.

‘I stayed true to my principles, Mr Swan. That’s quite enough to put you behind bars in a country with a traitor for Taoiseach.’

‘I know nothing about Irish politics.’

‘That’s the privilege of your race. I sometimes wish I knew nothing of them either.’

‘Well, why don’t you put them behind you, then?’

‘How would I do that?’

‘I’m here to discuss your son.’

‘You’re Cardale’s errand-boy. Do I have that right?’

‘I’m authorized to speak on his behalf.’

Quilligan smiled. ‘I have it right, then.’

‘Mr Cardale tells me you’re a gifted artist.’

‘That depends on your point of view. The last spell I did in solitary was for being found in possession of a charcoal portrait of Gerry Boland, our revered Minister of Justice. They didn’t think it was sufficiently flattering. But, like I told them, an artist must remain true to his calling.’

‘Mr Cardale wants you to lay down the rifle and take up the brush, Mr Quilligan. He wants you to follow the path of peace.’

‘And he’ll meet me on it, will he?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to see your son?’

Quilligan’s right arm shot out. The warder started forward. Quilligan froze, his fist clenched. Then he bowed his head and lowered his arm. ‘Watch yourself,’ said the warder, stepping back, his key-chain jangling to rest.

‘I don’t know what Cardale’s told you about me, Mr Swan,’ Quilligan said quietly. ‘I’ll do you the favour of supposing he’s misled you. It’d be unlike him not to. There was a time when I thought I could put the cares of my homeland behind me and make a name for myself in the world as a painter. I went to London. I impressed a few people. I tasted a modicum of success. It was sweet, but cloying. Then I met Susan Cardale. That such a man should have such a daughter is a mystery beyond my fathoming. She was altogether lovely. I adored her. And, wonder of wonders, she adored me. I would have died for her. That she should die for me – for our child – is a grief that will never heal. Cardale, to do him the small amount of justice he’s owed, must mourn her as well, I know. But to use some weaselly lawyer to steal my son from me, to have me branded in an English court as such an unfit father on account of my patriotism – my Irish patriotism – that I wasn’t to be permitted any contact with him …’ He sat back in the chair and stared hard though the wire at Swan. ‘I’ll never forgive him.’

‘Never’s a long time.’

‘A day’s a long time in here.’

‘Leave, then. See your son.’

‘Cardale will allow me to do that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? What’s softened his flinty heart?’

‘Perhaps he thinks Simon, as he grows older, should know his father.’

‘And perhaps you think I’m a credulous idiot.’

‘He’ll allow you to see Simon as often and for as long as you like. All you have to do in return is go to London and … paint a few pictures for him.’

‘A few pictures?’ Quilligan chuckled mirthlessly. ‘I suppose you know what that means better than I do.’

‘I’m just delivering a message.’

‘He must be sorely pressed to resort to this.’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘Oh, I think you could. If you wanted to.’

‘I have a document with me signed by Cardale. It commits him to waiving the order he obtained against you after his daughter’s death. Would you like to see it?’

‘My friend here would intervene before I had a chance to read it, Mr Swan. Keep it in your pocket.’

‘Would you be allowed to look at a photograph?’

‘What’s the subject?’

‘Simon. Taken recently.’

Quilligan seemed suddenly close to tears. He raised his hand to his face and took a deep breath, then turned towards the warder. ‘Mr Swan has a snapshot of my son, Mr Grogan. I know you’re a father yourself. May I take a look at it?’

Grogan walked over to a position behind Quilligan and nodded to Swan. ‘You can go ahead and show him, sir.’

Swan took out his wallet and removed the photograph. He laid it on the table close to the wire. Quilligan leant forward and stared long and hard at it.

‘Put it away now, sir,’ said Grogan when half a minute or so had passed. ‘Or you’ll be upsetting him.’

Swan replaced the photograph in his wallet and put it back in his pocket. Grogan retreated to the door.

‘Thank you,’ murmured Quilligan.

‘Why did you come back to Ireland, Mr Quilligan?’ Swan asked.

‘Susan was dead. I wasn’t allowed to see Simon. I was no use to anyone in London, least of all myself. Here I could … serve the cause.’

‘The cause hasn’t served you very well in return, as far as I can see.’

‘But, as you said yourself, you know nothing of Irish politics.’

‘Mr Cardale’s making you a generous offer.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘Doubt away. It’s still the best offer you’re going to get.’

‘He expects me to renounce everything I’ve believed in and fought for since 1916.’

‘He’s not interested in the undertakings you need to give to extricate yourself from this place. Only in … what follows.’

‘Time’s nearly up,’ said Grogan.

‘What’s it to be, Mr Quilligan?’

Quilligan sighed heavily. ‘Take your document to my brother Ardal. He’s a solicitor in Dublin. He has an office in Parnell Square. If I hear from him that it’s legally watertight, I’ll sign myself out of here and go to London with you. Is that good enough for you?’

It was more than good enough for Swan. He left the camp heartily relieved that he had done what was required of him and, with any luck, would never have to return there. The three-mile walk into the nearest town provided him with a badly needed breath of fresh air. Even a long wait at the station for a train to Dublin, and the agonizing slowness of the train when it eventually arrived, did not dent his spirits. All he had to do now was have Ardal Quilligan vet the document drawn up by Cardale’s solicitor, which he was confident would bear any amount of scrutiny, then sit back and wait for Desmond Quilligan to arrange his release.

So far, Swan’s journey to Ireland had been arduous and disagreeable. The so-called express from Euston to Holyhead had taken thirteen hours, most of them at night, with the windows blacked out. The ferry to Dun Laoghaire had been appallingly overcrowded even before seasickness had added its horrors to the voyage. And visiting the Curragh was an experience he would gladly have spared himself. But happier days lay ahead. He had booked himself into the Shelbourne, Dublin’s finest hotel, and was looking forward to living without the blackout, food rationing and the nerve-nibbling threat of aerial bombardment as a prelude to full-scale invasion. The longer it took the authorities to acknowledge Quilligan’s renunciation of the armed struggle and set him free, the longer Swan could enjoy the material advantages of neutrality – at Cardale’s expense.

The train reached Kingsbridge station in Dublin late that muggy afternoon. Swan knew better than to hope for a taxi. There was petrol rationing in Ireland as in England. The buses were as jam-packed as their London equivalents. He was minded to walk to the Shelbourne, with a soothing bath and a fine dinner in prospect to reward him for the effort.

But his walk never took him further than the station exit, where a pair of burly, brown-suited men with narrow gazes and unyielding expressions closed in on him. One flourished a warrant card.

‘Eldritch Swan?’

‘Yes. What—’

‘Garda Síochána Special Branch. We’d like you to come with us, please.’

‘What the devil for?’

‘Because you’re under arrest, Mr Swan,’ the other man growled. ‘And if you want to reach the Castle with your skull intact, I suggest you quit blustering and do exactly what we say. There’s a car waiting. Let’s go, shall we?’

Thus was it fated that Eldritch Swan should spend his first night on Irish soil not between the crisply pressed linen sheets of the Shelbourne Hotel but in the dingy confines of Dublin Castle. He had told Quilligan he knew nothing of Irish politics, but he knew enough of Irish history to be well aware that his destination had been the bastion of British colonial rule until 1922. The police car that sped him along the Liffey quays and in through an arched gateway to the Castle’s lower courtyard was taking him to a place riddled with bad memories and old grudges. It was odds on that one or other of the policemen he met there would relish the chance to give an arrogant Brit a taste of his own medicine. Standing on his rights, whatever they were in Irish law, was therefore unwise. He had been an unwilling visitor to police stations before, but such experiences, he suspected, would aid him little in the minefield of national sensibilities he was now entering.

Two uniformed constables marched him into a flagstoned basement room, furnished with a table and three chairs. He was deposited in one of them. The constables’ glowering expressions deterred him from saying a word. The two Special Branch officers entered the room a few minutes later at a conspicuous saunter, smoking cigarettes. The shorter of the two pulled the vacant chairs into position on the opposite side of the table from Swan and sat down.

He was a lumpy-faced fellow with small eyes, yellow buck-teeth and a crooked grin. His colleague, a smarter dressed, handsomer man altogether, chisel-jawed and unsmiling, leant on the back of the other chair and looked levelly at Swan.

‘Empty your pockets,’ he said, with calm insistence.

Swan obeyed. Pen, handkerchief, cigarette case, wallet, passport and the envelope containing Cardale’s document ended up on the table in front of him.

‘I’m Inspector Moynihan, Mr Swan; Special Branch. This is Sergeant MacSweeney.’

‘Grand evening for a chat, Mr Swan,’ said MacSweeney, whose grin threatened to become a permanent feature.

‘Can I ask what this is about?’ Swan ventured.

Pointedly ignoring the question, Moynihan picked up his passport and flicked through its pages, pausing at the one bearing the most recent stamps. ‘I see you entered the United Kingdom on the first of May. Where had you travelled from?’

‘Antwerp.’

‘I mean where did your journey begin?’

‘Antwerp.’

‘Sure about that, sir?’ put in MacSweeney.

‘Yes.’

‘It wouldn’t have been Germany, then?’

‘No, it wouldn’t.’

‘Do you know who Sean Russell is, Mr Swan?’ Moynihan asked.

‘No.’ MacSweeney sniggered at that.

‘Chief of Staff of the IRA. Currently to be found comfortably accommodated in Berlin, discussing who knows what with the Führer. Something endangering this country’s neutral status, perhaps. Coincidentally, he entered Germany just around the time you left … Antwerp.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Swan, reminding himself not to raise his voice. ‘I know nothing about the IRA.’

‘But you’ve just been to visit one of their trusted foot soldiers in the Curragh: Desmond Quilligan. We picked him up after the Magazine Fort raid last December. A ruthless man. A stick-at-nought character if ever I met one. What did you want with him?’

‘Quilligan fathered a son while he was in England a few years ago. The mother died in childbirth. Her father secured custody of the boy and took out an order banning Quilligan from contact with him. Recently, the old man’s softened his attitude. He sent me here to persuade Quilligan to leave the IRA, come back with me to London and help raise his son.’

‘Do you seriously expect us to believe that?’

‘It’s the truth.’ Swan opened the envelope and held out the document for them to see. ‘Look.’

Moynihan craned forward and looked. He read for a moment, then nodded. ‘What do you think, MacSweeney?’

‘I think it’s the biggest load of shite I ever heard, sir.’

‘I’m inclined to agree. You can put your document away, Mr Swan.’

‘But—’

Moynihan cut him off with a slap of his palm on the table top. ‘Let’s be clear. We want to know why you went to see Quilligan, what you were doing before you left Antwerp, whose orders you’re following and what those orders require you to do next. We don’t want fairy tales about love children in London and doting grandfathers with hearts melting like butter left in the sun. Do you understand?’

‘I’m telling you the truth.’

‘We’re not stupid, Mr Swan. It’d be a grievous mistake on your part to think we are.’

‘I’m a British citizen. I demand you notify the embassy of my detention and the charge I’m being held on.’

Moynihan sighed and sat down. He gazed almost pityingly across at Swan. ‘Your government doesn’t have an embassy here, merely a humble legation. Pretending you don’t know that is a nice touch, I must say. As for charges, under the Emergency Powers Act we can hold you indefinitely without charge. Indefinitely means as long as we like: as long as it takes for you to start telling us what we need to know. So, why delay? Why force us to resort to unpleasant methods of persuasion? You look like a reasonable man. Save yourself a lot of trouble. Believe me, you’d do well to.’

‘This is outrageous.’

‘No. This is good advice. Give us what we want.’

‘I’ve told you everything.’

‘Not yet. But you will.’

‘That’s a promise,’ said MacSweeney.