Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy

Chapter Twelve

You turn left out of, Dublin airport, following the Belfast road. Major Mann had arranged for an Irish Special Branch officer to meet us at Drogheda. It was only a twenty-mile drive from the airport and Mann promised to do it in as many minutes, but he didn't count on the narrow, meandering route, the pot-holed surface or on the gigantic articulated trucks that had to reduce speed to a snail's pace in getting through the narrow streets of the villages en route. Nor did he expect the thunderstorm that greeted us. He cursed and fumed all the way. Finally he let me drive.

Drogheda, a colourless town of stone and slate, shone under the steady downpour of rain that in Ireland is called 'a soft day'. A soldier with an automatic rifle and a policeman in a flak jacket sheltered from the rain in the bank doorway. On the wall alongside them there was white spray-can writing: 'No Extradition'.

The Special Branch police inspector was waiting for us with the politeness and patience with which Irishmen meet delay. He was a tall, thin man with fair hair, and was dressed in the sort of dark, plain clothes that policemen wear when they want you to know that they are policemen. He got into the car and sat silent for a moment, wiping the rain off his face with a handkerchief. He removed his hat so that rainwater did not drip into the document case that he now opened on his knees. He found the papers he wanted and tapped them reassuringly. There was a roll of thunder that echoed through the town like a cannonade.

'Mr and Mrs Reid-Kennedy checked into the Gresham Hotel in Dublin four nights ago. His wife stayed there to do some shopping. She checked out yesterday. It's not easy to be sure which nights your man was there with her — the double room was paid for all the time.' He referred to his papers again. 'Mr Reid-Kennedy hired a small van from a hire company in O'Connell Street. He went to a fishing tackle and sporting-goods shop. They say he didn't buy a shot-gun or ammunition but we can never be sure of that, not in Ireland! He did buy a pair of thigh-length rubber boots. Waders — the sort anglers wear for river-fishing. And a waterproof jacket,'

'Rod? Line? Flies?' Mann asked.

'Just the boots and jacket. Then he drove the van up here. He didn't stay at any of the hotels in Drogheda, but two people saw the van he'd hired. A farm labourer saw it being driven back towards town at seven o'clock yesterday morning. He thumbed it, but the van wouldn't stop.'

'Did he identify Reid-Kennedy?' Mann asked.

'Positively. He was disappointed. In this part of the world, people always stop for a hitch-hiker, especially a local man. And it was raining too. Yes, a positive identification.'

The other?'

'The baker's delivery-man saw the empty van parked in the lane at the entrance to a farm — the O'Connor property. He had difficulty getting past, the lane is very narrow there.'

'Tell me about this farm,' said Mann. There was a sudden crackle of lightning that lit the whole street, freezing every movement with its cruel blue light.

'A syndicate of Germans own it,' said the policeman. 'A farm, beef cattle, about five hundred acres.'

There was another rumble of thunder. Down the street came tractors, stray dogs, schoolchildren, dilapidated cars and a religious procession; everyone braved the rain as if they did not notice it.

The policeman put his papers away and locked his case. 'The only thing that bothers me is the petrol. The hire company say he used enough to get as far north as Dundalk, or over the border even.'

Mann grunted and turned to watch a boy on a bicycle. The boy had a shoulder resting against a brick wall, and was flicking the pedals with his toe. 'Where is this O'Connor property?' Mann asked. 'Let's turn it over.'

The policeman looked at the rain. 'There's nothing hard and fast,' said the policeman. 'I'd better telephone Dublin if you want to search.'

'Nothing doing,' said Mann. 'These sort of people we're after could pay a thousand dollars for news about your phone call to Dublin.'

'I'm surprised you trust me,' said the policeman irritably.

'I don't trust you,' said Mann. 'Now let's get on with it — tell them we're looking for blue films or checking foot and mouth disease, or something.'

Condensation was steaming up the windscreen. The policeman produced a handkerchief and wiped a panel clear. 'Straight up this road,' he said eventually. I turned the ignition key, and after a couple of tries I got the car going. 'The next side road on the left,' said the policeman.

We turned off the main road, and climbed through silent villages and a lonely landscape. The rainwashed hilltops were shiny and unkempt in the afternoon light but the ruins of some long-forgotten abbey were only just visible in the gloomy folds of the valley floor. 'Tell me more about this farm,' said Mann.

'This might not be your man,' said the police inspector. 'This syndicate of Germans — Frankfurt, it was — bought the O'Connor farm about two years ago. There was talk of a stud, and then of flying lobsters to Paris but never did anything come of the talk. People called Gerding live there now — man, wife and grown-up son — people come to see them regularly… described as shareholders in the syndicate: well-dressed foreigners come, not just Germans: Americans, a Dutchman, some Swedes and a man who said he was from the Argentine — according to what the taxi-drivers tell us.'

Mann sniffed. 'Sounds like what we're looking for,' he said.

'No neighbours for miles around,' said the police inspector. 'The Gerdings are Protestants — keep themselves to themselves. Hard-working people, the neighbours say. They go into the village for petrol and bread and milk, and into Drogheda once a week for groceries.' He tapped my shoulder. 'We'd better leave the car by the gate. We'll get her stuck in the mud if we try the lane in this sort of weather. Have you got raincoats?'

The farmhouse was on the brow of a hill, with the outbuildings forming a rectangle on the shallower slope to the east of it. The track that was too muddy for our car followed the ridge of the hill. There was a magnificent view from here for anyone prepared to look into the blinding rainstorm. But in spite of the noise of the wind, the dogs heard us. Their barks turned to howls as Mann struggled with the rusty bolt on the farmyard gate.

'Not exactly what the Lufthansa ads would lead us to expect,' said Mann. He clawed at the bolt angrily and its sharp edge took the skin off his thumb. He swore.

The yard was also lacking that sort of orderliness that one expects from a syndicate registered in Frankfurt. The uneven cobblestones were strewn with spilled feed, matted hay, and puddles of rainwater over blocked drains. The farmhouse door was locked.

The birds have flown,' said the police inspector, but he unbuttoned his coat and loosened his jacket. It was the sort of thing a man might do if he was reassuring himself about the availability of his pistol.

I tried the window and slid it up without difficulty.

'Hullo there,' shouted the policeman through the open window. The wind blew the net curtain so that it billowed over his face. There was no sound from within the farmhouse but the dogs barked as if in response to the call. I tugged at the skirt of my raincoat so that I could get one leg over the window-sill. The policeman pushed me gently to one side. 'This is my patch,' he said. 'I'm used to the kind of things that might be about to happen.' He smiled.

I suppose all three of us had done that kind of thing before. I covered him. Mann remained outside. We went through every room and inevitably there was the silly feeling when you look under the beds. 'No one at all,' said the policeman as he opened the last cupboard and rapped its wooden interior to make sure there were no hollow sounds. I went over to the window, raised it and called down to Mann in the yard to tell him the house was empty. By that time he'd taken a quick look around the out-buildings.

They too were empty. The rain had almost stopped now and from this upstairs window I could see miles across the flat countryside of Kells, to where a dying sun was making a pink sky above the lakes of Meath. I saw the farm dogs too. They were wet and miserable, sitting on the manure heap behind the stables. 'Look at this,' called the policeman from downstairs. I went down to find Mann there too. They were both sifting through the ashes that buried the hearth. They had found some pieces of stiff plastic, about the size of a postcard. A dozen or more of them had fused together into a hard plastic brick. That had prevented their destruction in the flames. Mann picked a small white block from the ashes. 'What's this?'

'A fire lighter,' said the inspector. 'A compound of paraffin wax. They are used to start domestic fires. They'll get the coal or peat going without the need of paper or wood.'

'Is that right,' said Mann. He sniffed it. 'Well this baby didn't ignite. If it had done, we wouldn't have found anything at all.'

'Well, now, you can tell me something,' said the inspector. 'What is this laminated plastic?'

'Microfiche,' said Mann. 'Microfilm's little brother. Microfilm is on reels, and just dandy for someone who goes to a public library to read War and Peace but if you want to select your material these are far better.' He prised one of the plastic postcards away from the rest, and held it up to the light so that the policeman could see the fingernail-sized pages of photographed data.

'I'll want to take some of this with me,' said Mann. 'Just a sample. O.K.?'

'As long as you leave enough for the lab to tell us what kind of material it is.'

'This is all classified material from U.S. Government sources,' said Mann.

'Why here?' said the policeman.

'The Irish Republic is accessible — your passport checks are perfunctory, and now the Russkies have got an embassy here the place is crawling with agents. With Ireland in the E.E.C., there are few restrictions on Europeans entering. From the United Kingdom there's no check at all. Come on, feller, you know why.'

'I suppose you are right,' said the police inspector.

'Yes, I am,' said Mann. He put a couple of microfiche cards into his wallet.

'Will you hear those dogs,' the policeman said to me. 'I was brought up on a farm. My father would have sold dogs that fled when strangers entered the house, and howled their lungs out behind the raspberries.'

I got to my feet without answering, and went to the front hall. I picked up the phone, to be sure it was connected, and put it down again. Then I unbolted the massive front door. It must have been a century old and designed to withstand a siege. I stood in the porch and stared out across the fields. Cow dung had been spread across the grassy fields, and a few rooks were striding about and pecking it over. They were fine big birds, as big as vultures, with a shiny blue sheen on their black feathers. But most of the birds were in the sky — hundreds of them — starlings for the most part, wheeling and sweeping, great whirlpools of birds, darkening the pink evening sky, chattering and calling and beating the air forcibly enough to make a constant whirr of noise.

'Phone up your people,' I said finally. 'Get a police doctor and some digging equipment. There will be three bodies, I imagine… the people who call themselves Gerding… buried where the dogs are baying.'

The policeman said, 'So that's why the dogs are howling out there in the rain. I should have guessed that, I've lived in the country. I'm sorry.'

'Forget it,' I said. 'I've never lived in the country but I know the kind of bastards we're dealing with.'

This man Reid-Kennedy?' said the policeman.

'Panel truck to move the micofiche machine… waders and waterproof jacket to shield his clothes from blood splashes… two extra gallons of gas to burn papers, and God knows what other material.'

'But why leave the telephone connected?'

'We're not dealing with teeny-boppers,' I said. 'He didn't i want the telephone engineers arriving in the middle of his ' shenanigans.'

The Irish police inspector said, Then your man is a foreigner; an American most likely. Our lads have learned better than to fear interception at the hands of over-prompt telephone engineers.'

Mann looked at him to see whether he was being sarcastic but, having failed to decide, gave no more than a grunt, and turned back to his microfiche. Almost as suddenly as they had begun, the starlings swooped, settled and went silent. Now there was only the sound of the dogs.