Woody looked at the couple, confused. ‘I’m sorry, you’re not the man I wanted to see. I wanted Mr Nguyen.’ He had assumed that The Chinaman owned the restaurant because of all the cash he had, but perhaps he was an employee. ‘Does Mr Nguyen work here?’ Woody asked.
‘No,’ said the man.
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘No.’
Woody was taken aback. He took his notebook from his pocket and looked at the telephone number that Nguyen had given him. He picked up one of the printed menus off the counter and compared the telephone number there. They were the same. He held the notebook out to the man. ‘Look, I spoke to Mr Nguyen at this number. Here.’
The man didn’t look at the notebook. ‘I own Double Happiness now,’ he said.
‘So Mr Nguyen was the previous owner?’
‘He own Double Happiness before. He sell to me.’
At last Woody understood. ‘But you don’t know where he went?’
The man shook his head.
‘He was very upset about what happened to his family,’ said Woody. ‘Do you know if that was why he left?’
‘No.’
‘No you don’t know why, or no that’s not why he left?’
‘No,’ the man repeated. ‘I busy, you go now.’ He made to go back to the kitchen.
‘Do you have a photograph of him?’ Woody asked.
The man’s eyes screwed up. ‘What do you mean?’
Woody drew a square in the air with his hands. ‘Photograph. A picture. Click, click!’ He mimed using a camera.
The man nodded enthusiastically. ‘Ah! Picture!’ he said.
‘You have?’ Woody asked eagerly.
‘No,’ he answered, shaking his head.
Woody saw the doorway that led off from behind the counter. ‘He lived upstairs?’ he asked, and pointed.
‘My house now,’ said the man emphatically.
‘Can I look?’ Woody asked.
‘No.’
‘I’ll pay,’ said Woody, reaching across to lift up the counter.
The man raised the knife and it glinted under the shop’s fluorescent lighting. ‘This my house now. My restaurant. My house. You go now.’
Woody held up his hands, admitting defeat. He left the shop, thought about eating the sweet and sour pork but decided against it and dropped it into a rubbish bin before walking back to the Tube.
Hennessy sat at the kitchen table with Jackie sprawled at his feet and a pile of typewritten sheets in front of him. Except for the dog he was alone. Jim Kavanagh was in the next room, while Willie O’Hara had gone upstairs for a few hours’ sleep after volunteering to be on guard duty overnight.
The papers Hennessy was studying were the lists of the munitions supplies that had been secreted in mainland Britain. There were sixteen lists in all. Most had arrived at his office before they’d left Belfast and he’d requested that the few remaining lists be delivered to the farm. Of the sixteen, five had been raided with about thirty-five pounds of Semtex in all unaccounted for. Detonators had been taken, and some ammunition, but no guns or rifles were missing. What worried Hennessy was that there appeared to be no common thread linking the arms dumps that had been tampered with, either geographically or in terms of people who knew about them. Hennessy was starting to think that perhaps more than one person was involved, or that security among the high-ranking IRA officials wasn’t as secure as it should have been. And there was the added complication that whoever was behind the bombings could have lied when compiling the list of the contents of his own caches. He slammed the table in frustration and Jackie jerked awake, ears back. To have gone to all that trouble for nothing, cursed Hennessy. Jackie got to her feet and put her head in his lap, whining for attention, and he stroked her flanks.
Kavanagh popped his head around the door. ‘There’s somebody coming,’ he said.
Hennessy gathered the papers together and put them into one of the drawers of the Welsh dresser. ‘It looks like Hugh McGrath. It’s his car, anyway.’
Hennessy went with Kavanagh through the hall to the front door. Two of the guards had already stopped the blue Volvo some fifty yards or so from the house. There were four men in it, including the driver. Hennessy used his hand to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun and recognised the grey, slicked-back hair and angular features of Hugh McGrath, wearing the tinted glasses that gave him what Mary always mockingly referred to as his Clint Eastwood look. McGrath owned a farm to the south-west, several hundred acres but little in the way of crops or livestock. Instead he earned a small fortune taking advantage of the price differentials between the North and South. That’s how McGrath would have explained it. Hennessy called it by its true name – smuggling.
Price anomalies between the two parts of the divided Ireland meant that McGrath could always make a turn somewhere, be it on wheat, pigs, milk or petrol, or by smuggling things like contraceptives to the south or antibiotics to the north.
Hennessy had always been unhappy at McGrath’s smuggling operations but he was a powerful man within the organisation and had many supporters. His role as liaison officer with the Libyans was also vital to the IRA, and he was one of the few men from the organisation who had actually met with Gaddafi. McGrath knew his value and capitalised on it.
The Volvo pulled up in front of the farmhouse and McGrath unwound his angular frame from the back seat. He was a good head taller than Hennessy, even with his slight stoop. He held out his hand and his grip was strong and confident.
‘Liam,’ he said. ‘How are you this fine afternoon?’
‘Fine,’ said Hennessy. ‘Come on in.’ McGrath’s driver and his two bodyguards stayed in the car as Hennessy led him into the lounge. Hennessy waved him towards the floral-patterned sofa in front of the unlit fireplace.
‘Drink?’ he asked, and McGrath asked for a whiskey. Hennessy half filled two crystal tumblers before settling down into a leather wing-tipped chair opposite the sofa. Jackie butted the door open with her head and lay down at Hennessy’s feet after first sniffing at McGrath’s legs and accepting a pat on the back.
‘How goes it?’ asked McGrath.
‘It’s going OK.’
‘You checked out my arms dumps?’ McGrath had been responsible for three arms caches, all close to London, and according to the reports Hennessy had received one of them was missing two packages of Semtex.
Hennessy nodded and told McGrath what his searchers had found. Or rather, what they hadn’t found.
‘I can’t believe that one of mine has been touched. Do you have any idea yet who’s behind this, Liam?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘It makes a mockery of our security, right enough. I know we don’t see eye to eye on the question of mainland bombing campaigns, but this looting of our supplies is something else. We have to know who we can trust, Liam. Our organisation depends on it.’
Trust and fear, thought Hennessy. In equal amounts usually, though in McGrath’s case it was mainly fear. He came from a long line of Catholic landowners. His father was one of the driving forces behind the removal of many Protestant farmers from the border country. His method had been simple and brutal. He had targeted all the farms in the area where there was only one son and he had had them systematically murdered. When the parents became too old to work the farm and they were put up for sale, he made sure that there were no Protestant offers. Those farms where there were several children waiting to claim their inheritance were forced out of business by arson and poisoning campaigns and they, too, were sold to Catholic buyers. McGrath’s own farm had once belonged to a Protestant family until their only son was shot through the back of the head as he sat on a tractor eating his lunch one day. The farm was put up for auction a year later and the sealed bid from McGrath’s father was the highest, just as he knew it would be. Ironically, McGrath was an only son himself, with three sisters as siblings, but in his case it had been an advantage – not a death sentence.
‘I gather you’re
having a wee spot of bother,’ said McGrath, stretching out his long legs.
‘It’s nothing I can’t handle,’ said Hennessy.
‘An explosion in your office, your farm and car bombed, Mary whisked off to London, and now Jim Kavanagh is trawling around the farms looking for men to guard you at night. I don’t doubt that you can handle it, whatever it is, but I thought I might be able to help.’
‘I’m working on it,’ said Hennessy. He was worried about showing weakness in front of McGrath. He was one of the most political, and ruthless, men in the organisation, and always called in his debts. Accepting favours from Hugh McGrath was like doing a deal with the devil himself.
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ McGrath asked.
Hennessy knew there was nothing to gain by not telling McGrath, because the man’s intelligence network was second to none. He’d find out everything anyway. Hennessy explained about Nguyen and how his questions had turned into threats and how his threats had become reality. McGrath listened, occasionally grunting.
‘Would it help if I seconded a few of my men?’ McGrath asked once Hennessy had finished.
Hennessy shook his head. ‘No thanks, Hugh. Jim Kavanagh is getting a few of the local lads in. And I’m hoping to bring Micky Geraghty over. He should be able to track the bastard down, sure enough.’
‘Geraghty? Will he come back?’
‘I hope so. I reckon he’ll stand more chance than a group of townies trampling over the fields.’
‘I hope it works out. But let me know if you need help, OK?’
‘I will, Hugh. I will.’
McGrath drank his whiskey. It seemed to Hennessy that he had something on his mind.
‘Is there something else, Hugh?’
‘I don’t know, Liam. It’s this whole business of bombing on the mainland. Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. Maybe now is the time we should be applying pressure, not pulling back. Now is just the time to show our strength. To show that we’re serious. And to give the British public a taste of their own medicine.’
Hennessy raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Let them have roadblocks on their roads, armed troops in their towns, body searches before they go into shops. Let them feel what life is like under an oppressive regime.’
‘I don’t doubt that the bombs on the mainland will result in an over-reaction from the Government, and I know that’ll probably result in a backlash of public opinion, but what about the damage the bombs are doing to our image? They’re killing civilians, Hugh. With no warnings. They’re not legitimate targets. You know as well as I do what we say in the Green Book that we give to volunteers. The only civilian targets that are legitimate are the Establishment, those who have a vested interest in maintaining the present status quo in Ireland: politicians, media, judiciary, business elements and the British war machine. That’s virtually a direct quote.’
McGrath shook his head. ‘There are no soft targets, no hard targets. Just targets. The Brits elected their Government, so they’re responsible for it. They are all legitimate targets, every bit as legitimate as those in Ulster.’
‘And no warnings?’
‘That’s what makes them so effective. You should be embracing these bombers, Liam. You should be grateful to them, for the way they’re raising the profile of the Cause around the world.’
Liam looked incredulous. ‘By killing civilians?’ he said. ‘What do you think that does for our reputation?’
McGrath held up his hand as if to calm an impatient child. ‘It doesn’t matter. It never has. That’s the big mistake everyone makes, Liam, they assume that when we kill what you call a soft target everyone turns against us. It doesn’t happen. We kill a couple of tourists by mistake, we blow up a child, we shoot an old woman, it has no effect. It doesn’t affect the votes we get at election time, it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to the amount of money we raise. In fact, you know as well as I do that a big bomb on the mainland, aimed at civilians or the army, often results in more money flooding in from the States, not less. It proves to them that we’re serious, that we’re prepared to fight for what we believe in.’
McGrath shook his head, almost sadly. ‘Liam, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, I really can’t. It used to be you who had the drive, the energy. It was you who put the fire into the boys. Have you forgotten? Aldershot 1972? The M62 bombing in 1974? The Guildford pub bombings the same year? The Hilton bomb in 1975? You were with us then, Liam, you were the one who was calling for an escalation of the campaign, right enough.’
‘That was then, things have changed,’ said Hennessy. ‘There’s a time for violence and there’s a time for negotiation.’ He sounded tired.
‘The Regent’s Park bandstand bomb in 1982? The Brighton bombing in 1984? Have you forgotten that you were involved, that you pushed for them? What was it you said then, when Thatcher escaped? They were lucky. They’ll always have to be lucky, but we only have to be lucky once. Christ, Liam, you knew what you were talking about then. And it holds true now.’
Hennessy said nothing and McGrath continued. ‘Look what the ANC achieved in South Africa, through violence, look at Israel, founded on bloodshed.’
Hennessy stood up and went over to the window. McGrath’s bodyguards and driver were sitting patiently in the Volvo. One of them looked up when he saw the movement at the window.
‘You’ve not forgotten what we’re fighting for, have you, Liam?’ said McGrath quietly.
Hennessy whirled round and jabbed his finger at McGrath. ‘That’s not bloody fair!’ he shouted. ‘I won’t have you questioning my loyalty. Not now, not ever. There’s no one who’s done more for the Cause than me and my family. It’s not three years ago that I buried my own brother-in-law, and before that my father and two cousins. My family has shed more than its fair share of blood.’ He stepped towards McGrath as if about to attack him. ‘And, I might add, my family hasn’t been profiting from the border. We’ve given our lives in the struggle for a united Ireland, not set out to make fucking money from it. So don’t you ever, ever, ask me if I’ve forgotten what we’re fighting for!’ He loomed over McGrath, his cheeks red and spittle spraying from his mouth. His fists were bunched and his shoulders quivered with tension.
McGrath looked stunned. He opened his mouth to speak but then seemed to think better of it.
‘God damn you, McGrath!’ shouted Hennessy. ‘Get out of my fucking house. Now!’ He stood glaring at the man sitting in front of him and then turned and stormed out of the room. He waited in the kitchen until he heard McGrath leave the house and the Volvo start up and drive down the track. Hennessy stood over the sink, gripping the edge of the draining board with his shaking hands. He felt the acidic taste of vomit in the back of his throat and he retched several times but nothing came up from his stomach. He poured himself a glass of water and was drinking it when Kavanagh came into the kitchen.
‘Are ye all right?’ he asked Hennessy.
‘A wee exchange of words with Mr McGrath,’ said Hennessy. ‘I lost my temper with him.’ Hennessy tried to get his thinking straight. What had upset him so much? Part of it was McGrath’s total unwillingness to even consider his point of view, and his almost inhuman eagerness to see innocent bystanders murdered. There was also the bitter memory of the friends and relatives who’d died, deaths that Hennessy had never really gotten over, like Mary’s brother, Gerry. That was another reason for the burning anger coursing through his system, Hennessy realised. Mary.
‘Jim, did anyone speak to McGrath on the way in?’
‘Just one of the men on guard. He recognised him straightaway and let him through.’
‘No one else? Did you say anything to him?’
Kavanagh looked mystified. ‘I didn’t, Liam. I’ll ask the others. What’s wrong? What d’ye think might’ve been said?’
Hennessy took another mouthful of water and swilled it round his gums before spitting it into the sink. The sour taste
was still there, washing wouldn’t get rid of it.
‘He knew Mary was in London,’ he said quietly. ‘I want to know how he knew.’
Even with the address Hennessy had given him, Morrison had a hell of a time finding Geraghty’s house. The village it was supposed to be near was just a sprinkling of stone cottages in a valley sheltered from the biting winds of the North Sea and none of the roads seemed to have names. Geraghty was supposed to be living at Garryowen Farm but there was nothing even remotely like that on the map Morrison had bought in Inverness. It was dark and there were spots of rain flecking the windshield. Morrison decided to try the local pub, a weathered stone building with leaded windows that glowed yellow like the eyes of a wild animal. He parked his hired Rover next to a collection of mud-spattered farmer’s vehicles and didn’t bother locking his door. Above him the pub’s sign – a fox with a dead chicken in its jaws – creaked in the wind. He pushed open the gnarled oak door and more of the yellow light oozed out, bringing with it the hubbub of pub conversation, predominantly gruff, masculine voices discussing sheep prices and football. It all stopped when he stepped over the threshold. It was, Morrison realised, like the scene in a vampire film when the stranger asks for directions to Dracula’s castle. At a table near a shoulder-high hearth four old men in tweeds had been playing cards, but they had all stopped and were looking at him, wondering who he was. Under the table lay a black and white sheepdog, its ears up as it sniffed in his direction. A line of four younger men standing at the bar with pints of beer in front of them turned as one to look at him and even the barmaid, blonde haired and rosy cheeked, checked him over as she pulled a pint.
Morrison smiled at no one in particular and closed the door behind him. There was a thick mat just inside the door and Morrison carefully wiped his feet on it.
The card game began again and the dog settled its head down on to its paws with a sigh. Morrison walked over to the bar and put down the map.
The Chinaman Page 22