‘Good evening,’ said the barmaid. She finished pulling the pint and handed it to an old man wearing a grubby tartan cap. ‘Here you are, Archie,’ she said.
The pub was similar to those in farming communities all over Scotland and Ireland, the sort of pub where everyone knows everyone else and strangers are regarded with suspicion bordering on hostility. It was one large room, a handful of wooden tables worn smooth with age ranged against the outer wall and a bench seat either side of the fireplace which was unlit but contained a couple of roughly hewn logs on a blackened metal grate. The bar ran parallel to the wall, the full length of the room, and behind it was a door that obviously led to the landlord’s private quarters. The walls of the room had once been painted white but had been stained a deep yellow by years of cigarette and pipe smoke and fumes from the fire. The floor was stone-flagged with a large, rectangular carpet of some long-faded red and blue pattern under the tables. On the gantry behind the bar was an impressive collection of malt whiskies, many bearing simple black labels with white lettering identifying the distillery that had produced them.
‘What can I be getting you?’ the barmaid asked, and Morrison indicated one of the Islay malts.
He savoured the bouquet of the deep-amber liquid before sipping it.
‘Good?’ asked the barmaid. She began drying glasses with a white cloth.
‘Magic,’ he said. ‘Could you help me? I’m trying to find Micky Geraghty’s house. Do you have any idea where it is?’
‘To be sure,’ she said. She put down the cloth and reached for the map. She looked at it carefully, frowned, and then giggled. ‘I can’t make head nor tail of this,’ she said. She held it out to one of the men standing at the bar. ‘Here Scott, can you show me Micky Geraghty’s house?’
The man took the map, studied it and nodded. He put it down on the bar and pointed. Morrison looked over as the man ran his finger along a thin black line.
‘Follow the road outside for about half a mile until you get to this crossroad here. Go left and then left again where the road forks, here. About two hundred yards later there’s a single track to the right, you’ll see a white post each side of the entrance. Micky’s about half a mile down the track.’
‘It’s no wonder I couldn’t find it,’ said Morrison, taking another pull of the whisky. He offered to buy the man a drink and quickly extended it into a general offer for his three companions.
‘You know Micky?’ Morrison asked the man who’d given him directions.
‘Sure, he’s usually in here a couple of times a week. And every now and then his escapees will find their way here.’
‘Escapees?’
The man laughed. ‘He runs one of them Outward Bound places but for middle-aged executives. Teaches them survival stuff, rock-climbing, sailing, things like that. Sometimes he makes them spend a couple of nights on one of the islands, or dumps them miles away with just a compass and a pack of Kendal mint cake. The lucky ones manage to stagger in here to beg Tess for a drink.’
The barmaid giggled. ‘They don’t have any money, but we always give them credit. And they always come back and settle up. They’re so grateful, bless ’em.’
Morrison finished his whisky and said his goodbyes. He followed the man’s instructions and ten minutes later he was outside a two-storey grey stone building with a steeply sloping slate roof. There were four cars parked outside the house and Morrison drove slowly past them. The track curved around the house, leading to a large, stone barn which had been converted into flats, and a short row of cottages. There were more cars parked there, all new models, so Morrison reckoned that Geraghty had a group of executives under his wing.
He found a parking space next to a white BMW and walked back to the front door of the house and pressed the bell.
The door was opened by a chestnut-haired girl in tight jeans and a green and white checked shirt. She looked at him with clear blue eyes and raised eyebrows.
‘Is Mr Geraghty at home?’ Morrison asked.
‘Yep, come in,’ she said, and moved to let him into the hall. She closed the door and led him down a wood-panelled corridor. ‘My dad’s in the study,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Who shall I say is here?’ Her accent was north Belfast, as far as Morrison could tell, but soft and with a gentle lilt.
‘Morrison. Sean Morrison.’
‘From Belfast?’ she asked.
‘That’s right.’ He wondered how come she was so willing to let a stranger into her house, especially a stranger from over the water. Surely she must know of her father’s past and that he’d always be at risk from Protestant extremists? They reached a door and she pushed it open. A grey-haired man with a weather-beaten face was sitting behind a desk talking into a phone. The girl showed Morrison in.
‘I’ll leave you here,’ she said. She left the door open and went back down the corridor. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a television set.
Geraghty waved at Morrison with his free hand, indicating a leather chair to the side of the desk, and Morrison sat in it.
‘I’m booked pretty much solid now until the end of August,’ Geraghty said into the phone. He listened, frowned, and looked at a large book on the desk in front of him. ‘What, the twenty-eighth? Yes, we could do that. Until the eleventh? OK, I’ll pencil your group in for that. Can you drop me a letter confirming it? Yes, yes, I’ll look forward to it. Take care.’ He replaced the receiver.
‘You’ll be Sean Morrison?’ he said, taking Morrison by surprise. Geraghty laughed at his discomfort. ‘Liam was on the phone to me earlier, said he didn’t want me worrying overmuch when a stranger arrived on my doorstep. More likely didn’t want me taking your head off with a twelve-bore. Good to see you, anyway, Sean. There’s a bottle by the table next to you, pour yourself a drink, and one for me, too.’
Morrison poured two measures of Irish whiskey. ‘I’m surprised we never met in Belfast,’ he said as he poured.
‘I was what you might describe as low profile,’ laughed Geraghty. ‘I was always kept pretty much in the background.’
‘I know of the work you did, of course. You were one of my heroes.’
‘I’m sure you don’t know half of it,’ said Geraghty, raising his glass. ‘But thanks anyway.’
They drank. The study was very much a man’s room. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined one wall, every inch filled with a mixture of paperback novels, leather-bound classics and wildlife reference books. The other three walls were wood panelled, much the same as the hall outside, with several framed prints of hunting dogs. The furniture was sturdy, well-worn leather and wood that had long since lost its shine, comfortable chairs, a spacious desk with a brass reading lamp and three small circular tables. It was a room in which Morrison felt secure. To the right of the desk was a small window overlooking the line of cottages. A light winked out and Morrison could imagine an exhausted executive collapsing on to his bed.
If the study inspired a feeling of security, the man himself suggested a quiet confidence, that Micky Geraghty was a man who kept his word, a good guy to have at your back in a fight. He looked to be in his early fifties, broad shoulders and strong hands. His hair was grey but it was thick and healthy and his skin was wrinkled from exposure to the elements rather than age. His blue eyes were set aside a nose that had been broken several times. It was a strong, good-looking face, one that Morrison was sure would go down well with Japanese tourists wanting a set of antlers to take back home.
‘Did Liam tell you why I was coming to see you?’ Morrison asked, and Geraghty nodded.
Morrison continued: ‘The idea is for you to go in with me. You find him, I’ll do the rest.’ From the look of it Hennessy’s reservations were groundless, Geraghty appeared to be enthusiastic about the idea. Morrison relaxed, settling back in the chair and sipping his whiskey.
Geraghty laughed, his eyes sparkling. ‘I’d love to help, Sean, God knows I owe Liam a favour or two, but you’re going to have to count me out.’
&
nbsp; Morrison frowned. ‘I don’t understand, what’s the problem?’
Geraghty leant back in his chair and swung his left leg up on to the desk. It was covered in greying plaster from his toes to just above his knee. He slapped the cast and pulled a face. ‘This is my problem,’ he said ruefully. ‘I broke it two weeks ago. The Doc says it’ll be a couple of months yet before the cast can come off. Until then . . .’ He shrugged.
Morrison’s heart fell. For a wild moment he thought that perhaps Geraghty was making it up, that the cast was fake and he was just using it as an excuse to back out, but his disappointment seemed genuine, and so did the cast. It had been autographed in several places and the plaster was crumbling a little around his toes.
‘How did it happen?’ he asked.
‘Teaching a group of sales reps to climb. I went up a rock-face to knock in a bit of protection and the guy who was paying out the rope lost concentration. I slipped and he let me fall about thirty feet further than he should have done. Problem was, I was only twenty-five feet above the ground. He was very upset about it.’
‘I bet,’ said Morrison. ‘Who’s running things while you’re out of action?’
‘The admin and the lectures I can handle myself, and I’ve a couple of instructors working with me. And my daughter, Kerry, the girl who let you in, knows as much as I do.’
Geraghty saw the look on Morrison’s face and he smiled. ‘I hope that wasn’t a chauvinistic comment I saw forming on your lips,’ he said. ‘Kerry knows as much about tracking as I do, and she’s been teaching survival courses with me for five years or more. And if the truth be known, she’s a darn sight fitter than I am, even without the cast.’
‘Why, Dad, you’ve never said that to my face,’ said a voice from behind Morrison, and he turned to see the girl, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips and her eyebrows arched.
‘How long have you been there, girl?’ asked Geraghty. He didn’t appear annoyed and Morrison knew that from where he was sitting he could see the length of the corridor leading away from the study so there was no way she could have crept up on them without him seeing her. In fact, the chances were that Geraghty had paid her the compliment knowing that she was within earshot. Morrison wondered how much she knew about Geraghty’s past.
‘I just came to see if you and Mr Morrison wanted a cup of tea, or something. God forbid I should eavesdrop.’ She shook her hair back from her face and swept it behind her ears. She had her father’s eyes, and the same confident way of holding her head with the chin slightly raised. Her skin was healthy and bronzed and she was wearing hardly any make-up, just a touch of blue eye-shadow and mascara. Morrison put her age at about twenty-five. Geraghty was right, she looked fit. She caught him looking at her and she grinned at him. He looked away.
Geraghty held up his whiskey glass. ‘We’re doing just fine,’ he said.
‘And I,’ said Morrison, getting to his feet and putting his glass on the table, ‘must be going.’
‘I’ll show you out,’ said Kerry. Morrison shook hands with Geraghty, who wished him well, and then followed Kerry back down the hall. She wasn’t wearing shoes and her bare feet brushed against the carpet. ‘Uncle Liam wanted my dad to do something for him, is that right?’ she asked.
‘Something like that,’ said Morrison.
She turned to look at him, stopping so suddenly that he almost bumped into her. Her clear blue eyes bored into his. ‘What did you want him to do?’ she asked. ‘It must have been important for you to have come all this way. Important for the Cause.’
Morrison looked at her, unsure how to react. She had called Hennessy ‘Uncle’ and she was undoubtedly her father’s daughter, but he didn’t know her well enough to discuss IRA business with her. ‘We needed his help, but his leg puts paid to that,’ he said.
Her eyes sparkled and she reached forward, touching his arm. ‘Don’t go yet,’ she whispered. ‘Come with me.’ She took him past the front door and into a comfortably furnished lounge. The television was on but the room was empty. She nodded towards an overstuffed sofa. ‘Wait there for a while,’ she said. ‘Let me talk to my dad. OK?’
‘OK,’ Morrison replied, bemused. He sat down and crossed his legs and wondered what the hell she was up to.
Kerry walked back to the study where her father still had his leg on the desk. He had a knitting needle in one hand and was wiggling it down inside the cast trying to get at an itchy place. He grinned at her apologetically. She was forever warning him that scratching would only make it worse.
She leant against the door jamb and folded her arms across her chest.
‘Uncle Liam needs our help, yes?’ Liam Hennessy wasn’t a blood relative, but he was just as close. He was her godfather and when they’d lived in Ireland barely a month went by when she didn’t see him. He’d taught her to ride on his farm, had given her the run of his rambling library and spent hours just talking with her when her mother was in hospital and dying bit by bit. Kerry loved Liam Hennessy fiercely and would do anything to protect him.
‘He needs my help,’ said Geraghty.
‘It’s been five years since we were in Ireland, so I guess it’s something they think only you can do, something that you can’t do with a broken leg? Something to do with tracking, is that it?’
Geraghty sighed. ‘Why don’t you just ask me what it is they want, Kerry? It would save us both a lot of time.’
‘You’ll tell me?’ she said, surprised.
‘Try me,’ he answered.
‘What is it Uncle Liam wants?’
To her surprise her father explained about The Chinaman and how Hennessy was stuck in his farm. ‘He wanted me to go with Morrison, to go into the countryside and flush him out.’
‘And then what?’
Geraghty fixed his daughter with his eyes, suddenly cold and harder than she’d seen them for a long time. ‘If he’s lucky, Liam will hand him over to the police. If he’s unlucky, well, you know that some of Liam’s friends can play pretty rough, Kerry. It could get nasty.’
‘But the man’s trying to kill Uncle Liam, that’s what you said. So he’s only got himself to blame.’
‘Whatever. But it’s all immaterial anyway, Kerry. I can’t do it, they’ll just have to find someone else.’
She leapt to her feet and leant over the desk, her hair swinging from side to side.
‘No!’ said Geraghty before she could speak.
‘But I’m perfect for it,’ she said, exasperated. ‘You’ve taught me everything there is to know about tracking, and yet you never let me prove how good I am. You never let me take the hunting parties out on my own.’
‘You know why that is. The Germans and the Japs pay top whack to be taken out by a traditional Highland gamekeeper, tweeds and flat cap and all. It’s part of the enjoyment for them, it’d spoil it if their tracker was a pretty girl young enough to be their daughter.’
Kerry ignored the compliment, realising she’d been sidetracked into an old argument.
‘I know about tracking, and I know the area around Uncle Liam’s farm, probably better than you do. I’ve ridden and walked over every inch, I know every hiding place.’
‘It’s several hundred acres, my girl, I doubt if you know every inch.’
‘It’s three hundred and twenty-four acres, Dad, and I know it like the back of my hand.’
‘It’ll be dangerous,’ he warned, and she knew then that she’d won the argument about whether or not she had the ability.
‘Dad, which of us is the best shot?’
‘I can’t fault your marksmanship Kerry, but I’m not having you trekking around the Irish countryside with a hunting rifle. It’s practically a war zone.’
‘All right then, I won’t take my gun. But it’s Uncle Liam this man is after, not me,’ she pressed. ‘He’ll be focused on him, not me.’ She waved her hand at the books lining the wall to her left. ‘I’ve read every book on trapping and tracking on those shelves, and I read most of them b
efore I even went to school.’
It was true, Geraghty acknowledged. Even as a child she’d had a fascination for the books, and she’d taught herself to make snares and simple traps and learnt to recognise spoors and tracks from the diagrams they contained. There were other books, too, manuals on warfare and booby traps and explosives, some that he’d bought out of curiosity and others that he’d acquired in connection with his work for the IRA, and she’d read them just as avidly. But unlike Geraghty, almost all her knowledge of booby traps was theoretical and not practical.
Kerry could see that her father was wavering so she decided to raise the stakes.
‘It’s not just a question of helping Uncle Liam,’ she said. ‘I want to do something to help the Cause. I didn’t stop you when you said you wanted to leave Ireland after Mum died, but you know that deep down I wanted to stay in Belfast and help in any way I could. I feel as strongly as you do about getting the British out of Ireland. You know that.’ Geraghty could feel the intensity of her conviction burning across the desk, and he remembered how, years before, he had felt the same desire to see a united Ireland. ‘Let me do this, for the Cause if not for Uncle Liam. This is something I can do, something that’s a hell of a lot more constructive than throwing petrol bombs at troops or harassing the RUC.’
Geraghty closed his eyes and rubbed them with the backs of his hands. He sighed deeply and Kerry knew that she’d almost won. One more push and he’d agree. It was time to play her trump card. She sat back down in the chair, pulled it closer to the desk, and leant her elbows on it so that her head was on a level with her father’s. ‘And,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘it would get me away from here for a while.’ She paused, for emphasis. ‘From him,’ she added, just in case he didn’t get the message.
‘You’re not still seeing him, are you?’ Geraghty asked.
‘I’m trying not to,’ she answered. For almost a year she’d been having an on-off affair with a British Telecom engineer who lived nearby. He was married but couldn’t make his mind up whether to leave his wife or stop seeing Kerry. He’d sworn that he hadn’t touched his wife in years, but midway through the affair he’d confessed that she was pregnant and that he couldn’t abandon her. ‘I suppose it’ll be a fucking virgin birth,’ she’d screamed, and thrown an ashtray at his head, but the following week she’d phoned him and their lovemaking had been better than ever.
The Chinaman Page 23