The Chinaman (23 page)

In the space of an hour, three of his men had been injured and all they had to show for it was a description of a small Oriental man in camouflage gear carrying a rucksack. And if he wasn't armed before, now he had a gun.

Hennessy had posted four guards around the farm and everyone else was now indoors. Joe Ryan and Sarah were staying in their own cottage. With three men injured, one driving the car to Belfast, and Murphy on his way to London with Mary, it left Hennessy with just Jim Kavanagh and Willie O'Hara sitting at the kitchen table. He poured O'Hara and himself measures of whiskey and asked Kavanagh what he wanted.

‘I'll make myself a brew, if that's OK with yez,' Kavanagh said. He pushed back his chair and put the kettle on the stove.

‘We're going to need more men,' Hennessy said to his back. Kavanagh shrugged but didn't turn round as he busied himself washing the teapot and preparing a cup and saucer. ‘Can you arrange for half a dozen good men from Belfast?'

‘I'm not sure if that's such a good idea, Liam,' said Kavanagh quietly.

‘What do you mean?' O'Hara emptied his glass and mumbled something about checking the bombed outhouse and let himself out of the back door. ‘What do you mean, Jim?' Hennessy repeated.

Kavanagh turned round, drying his cup with a big, white tea-towel. ‘I'm just not sure that we're going to be able to solve this just by bringing in more people, that's all. There were a dozen here last night and they didn't stop him.'

‘They weren't prepared,' said Hennessy.

‘They were prepared when they went into the wood,' said Kavanagh. He put the cup and the cloth on the draining-board and sat down, looking earnestly at Hennessy. ‘Look, Liam, yer know that I'd do anything to protect ye, anything.

But this isn't a question of numbers, it's quality not quantity. Yez could bring in a hundred men but they're used to the city, not the country. They're used to fighting in the streets not in the hills.'

‘So we bring in men from the farms. Come on Jim, that's not what's worrying you. Spit it out.'

Kavanagh looked uneasy, as if knowing that what he would say would offend Hennessy. Hennessy found his reluctance to speak embarrassing, he'd always thought that they trusted each other implicitly.

‘What's wrong, Jim?' he pressed.

Kavanagh leant back in his chair, as if trying to put as much distance as possible between the two of them. ‘This man, this Chinaman, has made it personal. It's ye he wants, right enough. Not the organisation. Ye. I just think that if ye use too many of the organisation's resources, it could backfire on yez.'

Hennessy nodded. Kavanagh had a point. There were men in Belfast and Dublin who were looking for an excuse to discredit him. They were unhappy at the move away from violence and blamed Hennessy for the switch in policy.

‘And the thing of it is, I don't reckon that bringing in more men is going to help. Look at it this way, he could travel ten miles or so in a few hours with no trouble at all. And a ten-mile radius from here will cover about three hundred square miles – that includes Newry, Castlewellan, and Warrenpoint, and most of the Mourne Mountains. There aren't enough men in the whole of Belfast to cover an area that large.'

‘So we don't search for him. OK. But I have to have guards here. I can't just sit here defenceless and wait for him to attack again.'

‘But how long do ye keep the guards here, Liam? A week? A month? A year? Round-the-clock protection from one man – think what a drain that would be on the organisation's resources. Think how it would look. I'm telling ye this as yer friend, yer understand? Playing devil's advocate, yer know?'

Hennessy nodded. ‘I know, Jim. I don't doubt your loyalty, you know that.' He reached over and squeezed Kavanagh's arm. ‘I already owe you my life, you don't have to prove anything to me. And I know you have my best interests at heart. But what am I supposed to do? He obviously means business.'

‘If ye want my opinion, it was a mistake coming here. It's too open, there are too many places to hide.'

‘It sounds like you've had a change of heart, Jim. I seem to remember that it was your idea to get me out of Belfast in the first place.' He said it softly, not meaning to criticise.

‘That was then,' admitted Kavanagh. ‘I thought it was a good idea because I didn't think he'd know about the farm. But now that he does know I think we should go back to Belfast. All yez need there is me and Christy, maybe a couple of others. Now that we know who he is he won't be able to get close to ye. He'll stick out like a sore thumb in Belfast.' He held up his hands. ‘I know what yez going to say, that he managed to blow up yez office while we were there, but yer've got to remember that when he did that we didn't know what a threat he was then. It won't happen again.'

Hennessy took a long, thoughtful swig from his glass.

‘I don't know, Jim. He got to the car, didn't he? And he's obviously a patient bastard. He'll just wait until he gets another chance, sure enough.'

‘Yeah, but he'll be waiting in Belfast, not hiding in a wood. In the city we can search for him without worrying where we're stepping all the time.'

The two men sat in silence for a while as Hennessy considered his options. He knew that Kavanagh was talking sense, but he knew too that there were advantages in keeping The Chinaman away from Belfast. God knows what it would do to his reputation if it became known that he was being stalked by a maniac with home-made bombs. The Press would have a field day. And so would his enemies within the organisation. Damn The Chinaman. Damn him for ever.

‘There is something else yez should think about,' said Kavanagh, interrupting Hennessy's thoughts. Hennessy raised his eyebrows quizzically. ‘The reason he's after yez,' Kavanagh continued. ‘He wants the names of the team who're planting the bombs in London.'

‘We don't know who they are.'

‘No, but yer trying to find out. And yer'll find out eventually, they can't keep going for ever. Either we'll find out who they are or they'll make a mistake and the fucking Brits will get them. Either way that'll be the end of yez problem. All we have to do is to keep him off yez back until then. Liam, I know you're handling this yezself, but how close are ye to identifying them?'

Hennessy looked levelly at Kavanagh. He trusted the man sitting in front of him, but it was crucial that only Sean Morrison knew what he had planned. ‘At the moment we're no closer than we were a week ago,' he said. ‘But if everything works out it shouldn't be much longer. Days rather than weeks. That's all I can say.'

‘That's good enough for me, Liam,' said Kavanagh. The kettle began to shriek and he stood up and poured boiling water into the teapot. ‘Until then, we'll stick to yez like glue. When is Christy back?'

‘I told him to take Mary all the way to London and to hang around for a while to make sure that she isn't followed. He should be back tomorrow night.'

There was a scrabbling at the door and Jackie bounded in, her tongue lolling and her coat damp. She careered over to Hennessy and put her head in his lap; he stroked her absent-mindedly.

‘I hear what you're saying,' Hennessy said to Kavanagh. ‘Let's wait until Christy gets back until we decide what to do.'

‘It's yer call, Liam. But if I were ye I'd get a few more men around – not from Belfast but locals, workers from nearby farms maybe, fellahs yez can trust. They'll be used to dealing with poachers and the like and at least they'll be careful where they put their feet.'

‘That's a good idea, Jim. I'll make a few calls. It shouldn't be a problem.'

Jackie growled softly, seeking attention.

Woody had the mother and father of all hangovers. His head felt twice its normal size, his mouth was dry and bitter and every time he moved his stomach lurched and only an intense effort of will kept him from throwing up. It was a normal Sunday morning. Saturday was always the paper's busiest day and once the presses started running and they'd checked that the opposition papers didn't have any earth-shattering exclusives then all the paper's journalists headed for the pub. The Saturday-night sessions in the King's Head were legendary, but Woody didn't just go for the alcohol and the company, he went because he had to keep in with the news desk and the paper's executives. The paper, along with most of Fleet Street, was cutting back all round, slashing a red pen through expense claims and reducing the number of casual shifts. It was like a game of musical chairs and Woody was fighting like hell to ensure that when the music stopped he'd be one of those left sitting at a desk. The hangover was a small price to pay.

He heard the phone ring on the floor below and one of the other tenants answered it and then he heard his name being called.

Woody groaned and pulled a pillow over his head. Footsteps clattered up the stairs and a hand hammered on his door and the student who lived in the bedsit directly below his yelled that the office was on the phone. If it had been anyone else Woody wouldn't have bothered answering, but a call from the paper probably meant there was a shift going so he coughed and forced himself to sit up, feeling waves of nausea ripple through his stomach. He breathed deeply and groped for a pair of jeans before padding slowly down the stairs, holding his head in his hands.

The phone was hanging down by the wall and he pulled it up and put it against his ear. His head swam and he closed his eyes.

‘Ian Wood,' he said, flinching as the words echoed around his skull.

‘Woody?'said a voice. It was a man, but Woody couldn't place it.

‘Yes?'

‘Woody, it's Pat. Pat Quigley. I didn't get you out of bed, did I?'

Woody moaned and leant against the wall. ‘What the fuck do you want, Pat?'

‘Jesus, Woody, you sound terrible. Are you sick or something?'

‘Pat, you have exactly ten seconds before I go back to my pit. It's Sunday morning, you should be in church and I should be in bed.'

‘Got you, Woody. OK, listen. Do you remember those Sinn Fein guys you were asking me about a while back?' Woody grunted, but said nothing, so Quigley continued. ‘Well, there's something funny going on here. I've been told that someone has started some sort of vendetta against one of the men I told you about, Liam Hennessy. He's one of Sinn Fein's top advisers, and a leading lawyer here.'

‘A vendetta? What the fuck are you talking about?'

‘Someone set off a bomb in his office. Just a small one, a chemical bomb I'm told, not high explosive. A warning, maybe. No one was hurt. It seems like a coincidence, you know, happening so soon after we spoke. That's all.'

‘I still don't see what you want from me, Pat.' Actually Woody had a pretty good idea what was going on. As well as stringing for the
Sunday World
, Quigley filed copy for one of the daily heavies and they were probably pushing him for a Sunday for Monday story, what with it being a quiet news week and all.

‘I was thinking that perhaps you passed Hennessy's name on to someone, someone who might want to, I don't know, put pressure on him, maybe. I mean, I'm told the attack wasn't sectarian, it was too amateurish for that. Come on Woody, what's going on?'

‘Fucked if I know, Pat. Honest. Anyway, my notebooks are all in the office, I can't do anything now. But I'm sure you're barking up the wrong tree, mate. It was just a reader who wanted to contact someone in Sinn Fein, that was all.'

‘OK, Woody. I thought it was worth a try. Maybe I'll call you in the office during the week.' He sounded disappointed, but Woody felt no urge to help him, not in his present weakened state. Besides, Woody could smell a possible story. What was The Chinaman's name? He couldn't remember so he stopped trying and instead concentrated on getting back to his room without throwing up over the threadbare carpet.

The taxi dropped Morrison close to the South African embassy in Trafalgar Square. A group of half a dozen demonstrators were outside, standing on the pavement close to the road. They were dressed like students, pale-faced girls with straggly hair and men with beards and John Lennon glasses. One of the women had a megaphone and she harangued two policemen who stood either side of the door to the building. ‘End Apartheid now!' she yelled, the electronically amplified shriek echoing off the stone walls of the embassy. Morrison wondered why they bothered. You didn't change things by standing on street corners with faded banners and shouting slogans. You changed things by taking action, by hurting those in power, and then by negotiating from strength. And by being committed to change. The anti-Apartheid movement in the UK had never really learnt that lesson, mainly because they had never experienced the discrimination they were protesting about. The vast bulk of them were from comfortable middleclass backgrounds or were working-class kids with chips on their shoulders. Most of them weren't even black. They'd be a hell of a lot more effective if they couldn't get work because they followed the wrong religion, if they didn't have a fair say in the running of their own lives, and if they and their friends and family could be beaten and tortured by the soldiers of an oppressive regime in a country that didn't even belong to them. The IRA was effective because its members cared and because they all stood to benefit if they were ultimately successful and the British pulled out of Ireland.

He crossed over the road and walked by one of the huge, majestic lions. It was surrounded by a group of Asian tourists laden with designer shoulder-bags and expensive camera equipment. A crocodile of Scandinavian sightseers were following a tour guide and Morrison stopped to let them go by. There were pigeons everywhere, fluttering through the air, sitting around the fountains and waddling along the floor. They had grown fat and lazy and had no fear of humans. On the contrary, they gathered in noisy flocks around the tourists who had paid for little tubs of bird seed and sat on arms and wrists while they fed.