Ryan slipped his fingers into the envelope and extracted the sheet of paper, unfolded it. The red stain formed angel patterns across the fabric of the page. He read the typewritten words.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Skorzeny,
We are coming for you.
Await our call.
“Has Skorzeny seen this?” Ryan asked.
Fitzpatrick said, “Colonel Skorzeny has been made aware of the message.”
“Colonel Skorzeny and I will be attending a function in Malahide in a few days,” Haughey said. “You will report to us there with your findings. The director will give you the details. Understood?”
“Yes, Minister.”
“Grand.” Haughey stood. He paused. “My tailor,” he said, tearing a sheet from a notepad. He scribbled a name, address and phone number. “Lawrence McClelland on Capel Street. Go and see him, have him fit you up with something. Tell him to put it on my account. Can’t be putting you in front of a man like Otto Skorzeny wearing a suit like that.”
Ryan dropped the bloody envelope on the desk and took the details from Haughey. He kept his face expressionless. “Thank you, Minister,” he said.
Fitzpatrick ushered Ryan towards the door. As they went to exit, Haughey called, “Is it true what I heard? That you fought for the Brits during the Emergency?”
Ryan stopped. “Yes, Minister.”
Haughey let his gaze travel from Ryan’s shoes to his face in one long distasteful stare. “Sort of young, weren’t you?”
“I lied about my age.”
“Hmm. I suppose that would explain your lack of judgement.”
CHAPTER THREE
The sun hung low in the sky by the time Ryan drove into Salthill. His buttocks ached from the journey, cutting west across the country, pausing outside Athlone to relieve his bladder by the roadside. On three occasions he had to stop and wait while a farmer herded cattle from one field to another. He saw fewer cars as he travelled further from Dublin, driving miles at a time without seeing anything more advanced than a tractor or a horse and cart.
He parked the Vauxhall Victor in the small courtyard adjoining the guest house. Fitzpatrick had handed him the keys along with a roll of pound and ten shilling notes, telling him not to go mad on it.
Ryan climbed out of the car and walked around to the entrance. A hardy wind carried salt spray up from the rocks. He tasted it on his lips. Gulls called and circled. Their excrement dotted the low wall that fronted the house.
The sign above the door read ST. AGNES GUEST HOUSE, PROPRIETRESS MRS. J. D. TOAL. He rang the bell and waited.
A white form appeared behind the frosted glass, and a woman called, “Who’s there?”
“My name is Albert Ryan,” he said. “I’m investigating the crime that occurred here.”
“Are you with the Guards?”
“Not quite,” he said.
The door cracked open, and she peeked out at him. “If you’re not the Guards, then who are you?”
Ryan took his wallet from his pocket and held up the identification card.
“I’ll need my glasses,” she said.
“I’m from the Directorate of Intelligence.”
“The what?”
“Like the Guards,” he said. “But I work for the government. Are you Mrs. Toal?”
“Yes,” she said. She looked back to the card. “I can’t read that. I need to find my glasses.”
“Can I come in while you look for them?”
She hesitated, then closed the door. Ryan heard a chain slide back. She opened the door and allowed him to enter.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” she said as he followed her into the dim hallway. “It’s just I’ve been plagued with all sorts of people since the news got out. Newspaper men, mostly, and others who just want to see if the body’s still here. Monsters, all of them. Ah, here we are.”
She lifted her spectacles from a table and perched them on her nose. “Let me see that again.”
Ryan handed her the card. She studied it, reading every word, before handing it back.
“I’ve already told the Guards everything I know. I’m not sure I can tell you anything different.”
“Maybe not,” Ryan said. “But I’d like to speak with you anyway.”
He looked to the room to his left where a middle-aged couple and a young priest took their leisure. The lady read a paperback book, while the gentleman smoked a pipe. The priest studied the racing pages of the Irish Times, marking the listings with a stubby pencil. Mrs. Toal reached in and pulled the door closed.
“I’d rather you didn’t disturb my guests,” she said.
“I won’t. Perhaps I could take a look at the room where the body was found. Then maybe we could have a chat.”
She turned her gaze to the stairs, as if some terrible creature listened from the floors above. “I suppose.”
Mrs. Toal went ahead. Old photographs of Salthill and Galway City hung on the walls alongside prints of Christ and the Virgin, and what appeared to be family portraits of generations past.
“It’s a shocking thing,” she said, her breath shortening as she climbed. “He seemed a nice enough man. Why someone would want to do that to him, I really don’t know. He may have been a foreigner, but that doesn’t account for it. And there’s me all booked out for next month, all them people coming in to see President Kennedy when he visits — they’re landing the helicopters just up the road, you know — and now I’ve got blood all over my carpet. I’ll have to do that room top to bottom. How can I expect anyone to stay in there with blood on the carpet? Here we are.”
She stopped at a door bearing the number six and fished a ring of keys from a pocket in her skirt. “I’ll not go in with you, if you don’t mind,” she said as she turned the key in the lock.
“That’s fine,” Ryan said.
He put his fingers to the handle, but Mrs. Toal seized his wrist.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” she said, her voice dropping low. “There was drink taken. I found a bottle on the bedside locker. I don’t know what sort of drink it was, but they’d been at it when it happened.”
“Is that right?” Ryan asked.
“Oh, it is. And he wouldn’t be the first man to meet his death when drink was taken. I know. My husband was one of them. He died right outside my front door. He had a bellyful of whiskey and porter one night, then he fell on those rocks out there. Split his head open and drowned when the tide came in.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Ryan said, meaning it. “I’ll come and find you when I’m finished here.”
“All right, so.” She nodded and went to the stairs. “Call me if you need anything.”
Alone, Ryan turned the handle and entered the room.
The smell came first, like metal and meat gone bad. He coughed and brought one hand up to cover his nose and mouth. With the other, he felt for the light switch and flicked it on.
A simple guesthouse room like any he’d ever stayed in. Tasteful floral wallpaper, patterned carpet, a washbasin in one corner, a wardrobe in another. A single bed with one locker beside it, and a chair facing them both.
And a reddish-brown cluster on the wall, small pieces of solid matter barely visible from this side of the room.
Ryan took slow steps towards the foot of the bed. Beyond it, a dark pool on the carpet, the vague shape of a folded body scraped in chalk. Powder dusted the surfaces of the windowsill and the bedside locker, ghosts of fingertips scattered through it.
A small suitcase sat open on the floor at the foot of the bed. Ryan crouched down next to it and sorted through the items within. Underwear, socks, three packets of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes, and a bottle of imported vodka. He stood. A wash bag sat on the edge of the basin, a shaving brush and a razor, a toothbrush and cologne.