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can’t.’
    ‘On duty?’ Timmy gave him a sideways look as he led him into his study. A fire blazed and the large table he used as a desk was littered with papers. He lowered his bulk into the armchair to the right of the fire, his back to the window, and Duggan sank into the other one. ‘So, this is an official visit?’
    Duggan shook his head. ‘Not really. I just hoped you might be able to help me with something.’
    ‘Or else?’ Timmy gave him a hard stare.
    ‘Or else nothing,’ Duggan felt flustered, taken aback by Timmy’shostility. Gone was the avuncular, smiling, back-slapping host of Christmas Day. The usual Timmy, in fact. ‘It’s to do with work but …’
    ‘Ah, always happy to help you lads,’ Timmy said, changing his demeanour, and pulled himself up by the arms of the chair. ‘You’ll have another one of those cigars your father gave me.’
    ‘No, thanks.’ He’s just trying to knock me off my stride, Duggan thought, unsettle me. It might’ve worked in the past but not anymore. I’m up to his ways. ‘Too strong for me.’
    Timmy took a cigar from the open box of Don Carlos Imperiales on the desk, sat back down and made a production out of lighting it. ‘So,’ he said through a cloud of smoke, ‘the penny has dropped, has it?’
    ‘Which penny?’
    ‘That our neighbours will be paying us an unwanted visit any day now.’ Timmy gave a crooked smile, liking his own metaphor. ‘Coming in the back door without as much as a by-your-leave.’
    ‘That’s not my area.’
    ‘It’ll be everyone’s area soon enough.’
    ‘It’s a complicated situation.’ Duggan shifted in his chair and lit a cigarette.
    ‘Nothing complicated about it. You saw Churchill’s speech. As plain a message as anyone could ask for. You don’t have to be in intelligence to read it.’
    ‘So why would they send such a plain message if they planned to invade?’ Duggan said, immediately regretting allowing himself to be dragged into a Timmy-style debate.
    Timmy gave him a congratulatory nod, recognising a debating point. ‘To soften us up. Prepare the ground in America.’
    ‘The point is,’ Duggan tried to get the conversation back on his track, ‘that we don’t want to give them any excuse.’
    ‘When did the Brits ever need an excuse to fuck up Ireland? Imarked your cards for you months ago. But you didn’t want to know, for some reason.’
    ‘Any excuse,’ Duggan went on, avoiding the invitation to rehash old conversations, ‘that they could use in America. That might work in America. To justify their action.’
    ‘Like what?’ Timmy demanded with the air of someone confident that there was no answer to his demand.
    ‘Like German activities here.’
    Timmy waved his cigar in the air, dismissing the idea as if it was as insubstantial as the trail of smoke left behind.
    ‘The more reasons they have, the more likely they are to invade,’ Duggan went on. ‘Especially if they can point to German plots.’
    ‘Hah. It didn’t work the last time,’ Timmy said, referring to the Easter Rising and British attempts to portray it as a German plot.
    ‘Doesn’t mean it won’t work this time. Especially with an American president who’s dying to get into the war on the British side.’
    ‘His party won’t let him. We’ve still got a lot of clout there.’
    ‘Not enough clout to make him sell us the weapons we want,’ Duggan shot back. ‘And need.’
    Timmy conceded the point with a small nod and drew heavily on his cigar. ‘You know where you could’ve got the weapons you need. Offered to you on a plate but you wouldn’t take them.’
    ‘Your party leader turned down the Germans’ offer,’ Duggan reminded him. The government had rejected a German offer to supply the Irish army with British weapons captured in France.
    ‘On the advice of you lads,’ Timmy snorted. ‘Are you still working with that fellow McClure?’
    Duggan nodded, knowing what was to come.
    ‘I warned you about him, too.