The Chinaman

by Stephen Leather

  He picked a camouflage jacket from a rack and looked at it. It was made of nylon and he heard it rustle even as he held it up. Useless, he thought. You’d hear it hundreds of yards away. And the fasteners were made from the Velcro material that made a ripping noise every time you used it. It was for show, like the knife the skinhead was testing. Pretty to look at, but useless in the field. Just by looking at it Nguyen could tell that the knife had no weight, it would bounce off any live target. He took down another jacket, similar colour scheme of dark and light greens, reminiscent of the tiger-striped fatigues he used to wear in the jungle, made from a soft cotton material that probably wasn’t waterproof but which looked warm. He tried it on and the sleeves were about six inches too long, even over his jacket. He looked at the label. Medium it said. European medium, obviously, because Nguyen was not small for a Vietnamese.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ said a young assistant.

  Nguyen held up his arms. ‘Small size?’ he asked, and the youngster smiled and helped him get it off. He flicked through the racks and pulled out a smaller size, pressed it up against Nguyen’s shoulders, nodded, and asked him to try it on. It fitted.

  ‘Trousers. Same style,’ said Nguyen, and the youngster found a pair of trousers made from the same soft material.

  ‘Anything else, sir?’ he said, and Nguyen nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘Oh yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Many things.’

  He picked up a pair of binoculars, powerful and covered with thick, green rubber, and asked the assistant if it was OK to try them. The boy said yes, but went with him to the door and waited while Nguyen scanned up and down the crowded street.

  ‘I will take these,’ said Nguyen, handing them to the boy. He walked back into the shop. So many things to buy. ‘Bottles,’ he said.

  ‘Bottles?’ queried the boy.

  ‘Water-bottles,’ said Nguyen, pointing to a canteen, khaki-coloured with a green strap. It looked big enough to hold a quart. ‘Two of those. No, three.’

  The boy piled up the purchases by a cash register, sensing that the customer was going to be here for some time. On the wall behind the cash register were a number of replica guns and rifles, dull metal and polished wood. They looked so real, Nguyen marvelled. How could such things be on sale in England? he wondered. Some of the guns he recognised, a Colt .45, a Ruger .22, an M9 9-millimetre semi-automatic. Suddenly he stopped, his heart pounding. It couldn’t be, could it? His eyes widened and he walked over to stand in front of an AK-47, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, perfect in every detail with even its curved ammunition magazine in place. He reached up to touch it, to remind himself how it felt. At the last moment, just before his fingers touched the cold metal, he pulled back his hand and shook his head to clear away the memories.

  ‘Compass,’ he said, and the assistant took him over to a glass-topped counter. On a shelf underneath were a selection of compasses and map-reading equipment. Nguyen pointed at several and the boy took them out for him to examine. Nguyen chose one. ‘Knife,’ he said.

  There were so many knives, more than he had ever seen in any one place. There were penknives with all sorts of gadgets attached – nail files, spanners, scissors, bottle-openers. There were throwing knives, useless ones like the skinhead had been playing with, but also serious, properly balanced heavy knives that could kill from twenty yards in the right hands. Nguyen held a pair of the heavy knives, feeling their balance and knowing they were perfect.

  ‘Can try?’ he asked the assistant.

  ‘Try?’

  Nguyen showed him the knives. ‘Can I throw?’

  ‘Here?’ said the boy. ‘No, no. God, no.’ He looked confused.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Nguyen, putting them on top of the camouflage trousers. There was a big selection of survival knives, big sharp blades, serrated on one side, with hollow handles containing a small compass, a short length of fishing line and a few cheap fishing hooks. Nguyen snorted as he looked at them. Joke knives, not what he was looking for. He was looking for a strong blade, one that he could sharpen until it would cut paper like a razor, with a groove in the blade so that the blood could flow out as it was thrust into a body. No groove and the suction effect would make withdrawing the knife that much harder. The tip of the knife had to be angled, too, so that it could ease the ribs apart and allow the killing thrust to the heart. And the handle had to be heavy enough and sturdy enough so that the blade was kept steady as it was used. A knife was important, your life could so easily depend on it. The choice of scabbard was vital too, the action had to be smooth and silent when the blade was withdrawn and the straps had to be strong and hard-wearing. Nguyen spent a lot of time examining the knives in stock before deciding. The one he eventually selected was expensive, one of the most expensive in the shop, but it was the best. He also took a small Swiss army knife, for its tools rather than its blades.

  What else? He looked up and down the shop. There was so much he could use. A tent. A sleeping-bag. A small stove. A lightweight blanket made from foil. A folding axe. A rucksack. A first-aid kit. Nguyen was tempted, but at the same time a part of him knew that equipment was often a trap. It slowed you down, you spent more time and effort carrying it and looking after it than you did fighting. He remembered how he used to go into the jungle in fatigues and sandals, with a water-bottle, a few pounds of cooked rice in a cloth tube tied around his waist and nothing else but his rifle and ammunition. He and his comrades travelled light and covered ground quickly and silently. How they laughed at the ungainly Americans, sweating like pigs under the weight of their huge rucksacks. You could hear them coming for miles as they hacked and tripped their way through the undergrowth. So many were killed before they even had a chance to open their precious backpacks, but they never learned.

  ‘Anything else?’ asked the assistant, jarring Nguyen’s thoughts.

  He walked over to a rack of walking boots but decided against buying a pair. The ones he had back at his house would be better because they wouldn’t need breaking in. ‘I want a small rucksack,’ he said. The assistant showed him a big, blue nylon backpack on an aluminium frame with padded straps and Nguyen said it was too big and that the colour was wrong. ‘Too bright,’ he said. He pointed to a small dark-green rucksack, the sort that children might use to carry their school-books. It had no frame and when Nguyen tried it on it lay flat against his back. He adjusted the straps and walked up and down the shop. It felt comfortable and made next to no noise. He removed it and handed it to the assistant. ‘This one is good,’ said Nguyen.

  The assistant placed all Nguyen’s purchases in a large plastic carrier bag, totalling them up on the cash register as he did. Nguyen paid in cash. As he waited for his change he looked wistfully at the AK-47 replica. So many memories, he thought.

  On the way to the Tube station he walked past a photographer’s shop with shelves full of cameras and lenses. He went in and asked if they sold flash-bulbs.

  ‘Flash-bulbs?’ said the man behind the counter. ‘Don’t get much call for those these days. They all have built in flashes now.’ He frowned and rubbed his chin. ‘I’ve got some somewhere, I saw them a couple of weeks ago. What sort of camera are they for?’

  Nguyen shrugged. ‘Any sort. But not the square ones, the ones they use in the little cameras. I want the single bulbs.’

  ‘Yeah, I know the sort you mean. Hang on, let me check out back.’ He disappeared through a door and Nguyen heard boxes being moved and drawers opening and closing.

  ‘You’re in luck,’ he called. ‘How many do you want?’

  ‘A dozen,’ Nguyen shouted back.

  The man returned with two packets and handed them to Nguyen. ‘I can’t guarantee they’ll still work, mind,’ he said. ‘They’re old stock and I don’t know how long they’ve been there.’

  Nguyen examined them carefully and then nodded. ‘They will be perfect,’ he said. He paid in cash, put the packets into his carrier bag and left the shop.

  ‘We need more exp
losive,’ The Bombmaker said. Fisher ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. He stretched his legs out and lay back in the leather sofa.

  ‘How much do we have left?’ he asked.

  ‘A couple of kilos, no more. We’ve plenty of detonators, though.’

  Fisher smiled. ‘Fat lot of good they’ll be to us without the stuff that goes bang,’ he said. ‘I’ll get us more, don’t you worry.’

  McCormick came into the lounge from the kitchen and put down four mugs of coffee on the table by the side of the sofa. O’Reilly got up from his easy chair and took one of them. He walked over to the french windows and looked over the Thames as he drank.

  ‘Isn’t it about time we moved?’ asked McCormick.

  ‘Why move?’ said Fisher.

  ‘In case they track us down. We’ve been here for months, sure enough. Normal procedure is to keep moving, never stay in one place for too long.’

  Fisher shook his head. ‘No, that’s exactly what they’d expect us to do. They’ll be checking all the small hotels and bed and breakfast places. A group like us moving around will stick out like a sore thumb. And after the Knightsbridge bombing every landlady in Britain is on the lookout for Irishmen. How long do you think it would take until we were rumbled?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ said McCormick reluctantly. ‘It’s just . . .’

  ‘Look,’ interrupted Fisher, ‘we’ve had this flat rented for almost a year. It’s on a long-term lease, paid direct from a dummy company bank account. As far as the landlord is concerned, it’s rented to a stockbroking firm who use it for visiting executives from the States. This place is perfect.’

  O’Reilly tapped on the window. ‘And if the SAS knock on the front door, we can leg it over the balcony and down the Thames,’ he said.

  ‘If the SAS find out we’re here, we won’t be going anywhere,’ said McCormick. ‘Bastards.’

  ‘Nobody is going to find out where we are,’ said Fisher. ‘Nobody. So long as we stay right where we are. Our more immediate problem is to get hold of some more Semtex.’

  O’Reilly turned away from the window, sipping his coffee. He took the mug from his lips and smiled. ‘You want me to get it?’

  Fisher nodded. ‘Tonight. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I can do it.’

  ‘I know. But this one is hard to find. You’ll need me there.’

  McCormick coughed. He took a handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans and sneezed into it. ‘I’m going down with a cold,’ he said, but nobody registered any sympathy. He inspected the contents of the handkerchief and put it back into his pocket. ‘And when we’ve got the stuff, then what?’ he asked.

  Fisher’s eyes sparkled and he looked over at The Bombmaker. ‘Something big,’ he said. ‘Something very, very big.’

  Nguyen took the Tube back to Clapham and stored his purchases in the shed at the back of the yard behind his shop. It was a big metal garage but the main door had long ago been boarded up and now it contained three big chest freezers full of frozen meat and vegetables, sacks of rice and bottles of soy sauce. There was also a long wooden bench and racks of tools along one wall. Nguyen placed his carrier bag on the bench, padlocked the door and then went through the shop to his van which was parked outside. He drove to a large do-it-yourself store in south London and spent more than an hour filling a large trolley. He bought sections of plastic drain-pipe, insulation tape, three large bags of fertilizer, a soldering iron and several packs of solder, and other tools that he knew he’d need which he didn’t already have in his shed. He paid in cash, and on the way back he stopped at a large filling station. He filled the tank and bought two large plastic bottles of antifreeze, three cans of Shell motor oil and half a dozen cans of white spray paint to match the colour of his van, and a can of black paint.

  Pham was washing bean sprouts in the kitchen sink and he grunted a greeting as Nguyen walked by. Pham had agreed to buy the restaurant and had already paid Nguyen in cash. The bank had agreed to transfer the mortgage on the property to him and after a long but good-hearted argument over the value of the kitchen equipment and the food in the fridges Nguyen had agreed to accept thirty thousand pounds. Nguyen didn’t ask where Pham had got the money from, but he had relatives in Manchester who had probably helped out. He was planning to switch to Vietnamese cooking, though Nguyen doubted that it would be a success, so far away from the West End. He and his wife had decided when they first moved to London that they were more likely to make money if they kept to a Chinese menu, even though they personally found the cuisine bland and boring. Still, it was up to Pham now. Nguyen had promised to be out by the end of the week but he knew that Pham was keen for him to go as soon as possible so that he could move into the flat upstairs.

  After putting the rest of his purchases away in the garage, Nguyen sat at his table and crossed off the list everything he’d already bought. There were three items left: two kinds of acid and glycerine. He knew how to make the acid he needed from other quite innocuous and easily available materials. It was messy, but possible, but there was no need because this was England not Vietnam and here there were firms where you could buy chemicals, no questions asked. He took a well-thumbed copy of Yellow Pages and looked up Chemical Manufacturers and Suppliers. After three calls he had found one firm who would supply him with concentrated acids (for etchings, he’d said) and he arranged to collect a gallon of glycerine from another firm. Nguyen thought it prudent not to buy all three from the same supplier.

  Fisher stopped the car and switched off the engine and the lights, allowing the darkness to envelop them like a shroud. He and O’Reilly waited until their eyes became used to the blackness, listening to the clicking noises from the engine as it cooled. They were parked at the end of a lonely lane not far from Bexley station, half and hour’s drive south-east of central London. Both men were dressed in dark pullovers, jeans and black shoes, outfits that wouldn’t stick out at night but which didn’t obviously mark them out as burglars. If they were unlucky enough to come across the police then they’d just pretend they were a couple of queers looking for a bit of privacy. That had been Fisher’s idea, and O’Reilly hadn’t been exactly bowled over by it.

  ‘Look, I promise not to kiss you,’ Fisher had joked.

  O’Reilly had laughed nervously.

  ‘Not on the mouth, anyway . . .’ O’Reilly had winced and Fisher knew he’d hit a nerve so he let the joke drop. He mentally filed O’Reilly’s over-reaction for future reference, a possible weak point. Fisher did that with everybody he came into contact with, memorising their strengths and weaknesses and the buttons that had to be pressed to get the desired responses.

  ‘Are you right?’ he asked O’Reilly.

  O’Reilly nodded. They got out of the car and Fisher led the way, climbing silently over a stone wall and walking across the dew-laden grass. O’Reilly’s foot knocked against something hard that crunched and rolled, and then he heard a rustling noise behind him, something small scamppering through the grass and making snuffling sounds. Hedgehogs, he realised. There were dozens of them, rolling into tight, spiked balls whenever they sensed the two men.

  They reached another wall, this one taller than the first, and they had to scramble over. It surrounded a graveyard, close-clipped grass and gravelled paths, the gravestones a mixture of old stone crosses, chipped and weather-worn, and new, clean-cut marble. To their left was a grey stone church with a steeple. In the distance a vixen barked, and her call sparked off a cacophony of howls from dogs in the nearby housing estate. The two men dropped down into a crouch, their backs against the wall, while Fisher got his bearings.

  He pointed towards a white concrete angel with spreading wings. ‘This way,’ he said, and took O’Reilly along the grass verge, past the angel and between two waist-high tombs, the sort vampires might lie in to sleep away the daylight hours, safe from sunlight. They walked through the drooping branches of a willow and then Fisher headed over to five tombstones lined up in front o
f the boundary wall like a stud poker hand. He kicked the one in the centre.

  ‘There it is,’ he said. ‘Help me get it up.’

  They knelt down together, scraping away the soil to slip their hands underneath the stone and then they pushed it up, grunting with the strain until it came off the ground with a wet, slurping sound. They stood the stone upright and then leant it against the wall. The smell of damp, stale earth filled O’Reilly’s nostrils and made him want to gag. Fisher scraped away the soil like a dog looking for a bone. Less than a foot down his fingers touched plastic and he pulled up a polythene-covered parcel which he handed to O’Reilly. There were two other bundles, one of which was obviously a rifle, but Fisher ignored them. All they needed this time was Semtex. They unwrapped the parcel and took out half the packages of explosive, six in all. They took three apiece, rewrapped the rest and put them back in the shallow hole before pushing the damp soil back and replacing the gravestone. They checked the surroundings to make sure that they were still alone in the graveyard, and then they left as silently as they’d arrived.

  Nguyen drove his Renault van down the alley behind the shop, the early morning sun glinting off the bonnet. He’d already opened the two wooden gates that led to the shop’s back yard where they usually unpacked deliveries and transferred the food into the freezers in the garage. He parked the van and switched off the engine. He had put on a pair of old overalls after he’d bathed that morning, and he pulled on a pair of plastic gloves. The van was white, three years old and mechanically sound. It had always been parked outside because the garage was used for storage, so it was rusting a little, and it had taken a few knocks from other cars. The name of the restaurant and the telephone number had been drawn in black paint on both sides. Nguyen had painted each letter himself, slowly and carefully, it had taken him hours, but it was the work of minutes to spray over them with a can of white spray paint. He sprayed the paint thinly so that it wouldn’t run and he waited thirty minutes before giving it a second coat, and then a third to make sure that the lettering was completely covered.