Michael Russell - The City of Shadows

She was standing by the door, pulling on her coat.

‘Recording angels have been in my family a long time.’

He knew he wouldn’t stop her. She’d find where Hugo Keller was, one way or another.

‘All right, we’ll go. But I’ll take the gun.’ He held out his hand.

Stefan and Hannah got off the tram by the railway station in Langfuhr. There were new street signs as they crossed the main road, the recently renamed Adolf-Hitler-Strasse. They turned into Eschenweg. That was the address Francis Byrne had given Stefan. It was quieter here. Small apartment blocks lined the suburban street at first, with the ever-present swastikas hanging from almost every window. At the far end of the street there were several bigger, older houses with red-tiled roofs and tidy gardens. The last house, on the corner with Mirchauer Weg, was a lot less tidy. Trees and uncut bushes screened it from the road. There was no gate; it lay among the weeds that sprawled across the garden, rotting where it had been thrown a long time ago. The house reflected the garden. The paintwork was peeling; a length of gutter had come away from a wall and hung down almost to the ground; the broken shards of roof tiles crunched underfoot as Stefan and Hannah walked up the steps to the front door. Even from the outside it reminded Stefan of the empty, dilapidated rooms upstairs at Keller’s house in Merrion Square. He stood at the top of the steps, still unhappy about what they were doing.

The door was slightly ajar. Hannah stepped past him and pressed the bell. It rang loudly. There was no movement inside the house. They waited. She pressed the bell again. There was still no response. Stefan pushed open the door and walked in. Hannah followed him. There was no carpet; the floor was thick with dust. But on a table there was a new telephone. Next to it was stacked a neat pile of unopened letters. He stopped by the table, looking through the letters. One of them had a Saorstat Eireann stamp on it. He put it in his pocket, unseen by Hannah who was continuing along the hallway.

There were two large rooms on either side. One was furnished with a sofa, an armchair and an unmade bed; the other was empty. Stefan was behind Hannah again as they passed the stairs and entered the kitchen. They didn’t see the broken furniture or the smashed crockery or the blood on the blue and white delft tiles of the big stove in the corner. They only saw the figure of the man stretched out on the floor. His hands and feet were tightly bound. He was almost naked. His bruised, wealed body was black with congealing blood. It was the right address. They had found Hugo Keller.

He wasn’t dead. Stefan found a knife on the kitchen floor and cut away the ropes. They sat him against the wall. He opened his eyes and looked at them, as if coming out of a deep sleep that he didn’t want to leave. He was struggling to find the place and the time he had been brought back to.

‘I know you.’ He was looking at Stefan. He turned to Hannah. He was sure he knew her too, but he couldn’t quite remember. He coughed. His face contorted. He had found where he was now and it was a place of pain.

‘They’ve gone?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

He looked at Hannah again; he remembered her now. ‘The priest told me you were here.’ There was a smile on his lips for a second. ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad, would it, an Irish gaol? Well, better than this, eh?’

‘We’ll get an ambulance.’ Stefan glanced at Hannah. She nodded.

‘It’s too late.’ Keller’s eyes seemed clearer. ‘It’s Hannah, yes?’

‘We can worry about that later. Stefan can phone — ’

‘I’m enough of a doctor to know, my dear.’ He coughed again and a spasm of pain rocked his body. Blood trickled from his mouth. ‘They’ve done enough. They killed Father Byrne. It was my fault. I was the one they didn’t trust. I’d found out. They knew I’d found out. He didn’t even know what they were going to do. He didn’t know anything.’

‘I’ll phone now,’ said Stefan getting up.

‘No!’ Somewhere Hugo Keller found the strength to bark it out like an order. ‘There’s no point. I know. Do you think they’d send a doctor anyway?’ He clutched at Hannah’s coat. ‘He didn’t even know. The priest didn’t know what they really wanted! Neither did I. I’d only just found out why he was so important. It wasn’t only information. He was a way in. That’s why he mattered so much.’ There was unexpected determination in his voice. But then he stopped, his head dropping, his breath slowing. He struggled to look up at Stefan. ‘When he’s dead they’re going to blame the Jews. That’s what it’s for.’ He closed his eyes. Now the place he was in seemed to be fading. ‘I didn’t want to know. I wanted to find a way home. I just wanted a way back to Ireland!’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Hannah.

Keller stared, as if he had forgotten who she was again.

‘Blame the Jews for what?’

‘They’re going to kill him,’ whispered the Austrian.

Hannah looked at him blankly. ‘Kill who?’

‘Count O’Rourke.’ Hugo Keller grimaced in pain, choking out the words. ‘They’re going to kill the bishop. If the election doesn’t go the way — ’ His eyelids drooped shut. There was a rasping in his chest. Phlegm and blood oozed from his mouth. His eyes half-opened again. He was still looking at Hannah, but the present was slipping away. ‘Your friend shouldn’t have died. There was time. I told the guard to take her to the hospital! But he didn’t. I thought she’d just died. I didn’t know. I didn’t know he’d killed her. I don’t know why. He was working for the priest.’

Stefan and Hannah stared at him; this contradicted everything.

‘But Father Byrne didn’t know anything, he didn’t know she was dead,’ said Stefan. Could the priest have fooled him that much?

Even in Keller’s pain there was irritation.

‘Not the flunky, you gobshite! The monsignor.’

The words meant nothing to Hannah. Stefan understood though.

‘What monsignor?’ said Hannah.

Hugo Keller seemed to be staring straight ahead, straight into her eyes, but he didn’t see her.

‘Who are you talking about?’ Hannah was almost shouting.

‘He’s dead, Hannah,’ said Stefan, taking her arm.

She moved back a little, still gazing down at Hugo Keller.

‘What did he mean, Stefan?’

‘We need to go.’ He pulled her up.

‘I don’t understand who was he talking about.’

‘It can wait. I’ll explain. We’re not safe here.’

As they turned round, two men were standing in the doorway, watching them. The first was Kriminaloberassistent Klaus Rothe. The other was the bearded man who had come to feed the dogs at the hunting lodge above Oliva. Rothe was surprised, but not so surprised that the long barrel of a Mauser machine pistol wasn’t already pointing at Stefan and Hannah.

‘We came to clear up one pile of shit and now we’ve got three.’ He walked forward. ‘That’s your Jewess then. You’re right, she’s worth a fuck. If I had more time I might try her out first. But we’ve got an election to win.’

‘She’s the one from the lodge,’ said the man they knew as Karl.

‘Now you know why Jews have big noses. They stick them in where they’re not wanted. But then Jews aren’t wanted anywhere, are they?’

Stefan stood very still. There weren’t many options he could see.

‘We’ve got no idea what went on here. We don’t care. This is about something that happened in Ireland, that’s all. We were too late anyway. He was already dead.’

‘It looks to me like you killed him, Herr Gillespie.’

The Gestapo man was pleased. It made the mess easier to clean up. He had Hugo Keller’s murderers in front of him. He only had to shoot them and the job was done. Stefan didn’t have to fill in the gaps to be able to read that thought. Talking wasn’t going to get them out of this, but talking could buy them seconds.