The Chinaman (20 page)

When he reached the courtyard and its collection of cars he slowly scanned every inch, his eyes wide to pull in as much reflected light as possible. Only when he was sure that no guards had been posted did he turn right and slip along the rough wall towards the farmhouse. He drew level with a large window made up of four dirty panes of glass in a wooden frame and he peered inside. He could see metal barrels stacked on top of each other, thick wooden benches and a collection of farm tools. He eased himself past the window and reached a wooden door with ornate metal hinges. There was an ancient keyhole and two bolts, one high up and one near the ground. He gingerly pushed back the upper bolt and was relieved that it moved silently and smoothly. Though the door was old and battered, it was obviously regularly opened. The second bolt was similarly quiet. He held his breath, seized the metal door handle and turned it slowly. It grated a little but not enough for the sound to carry and then he pushed the door inwards. It hadn't been locked and it opened with a mild creak. Nguyen slid inside and closed the door behind him.

The room smelt of dust and decay and there was a bitter chemical taste to the air. Nguyen went over to the barrels. Most of them were full and according to the labels they contained weedkillers of various kinds. He was glad that they weren't fuel drums because at this stage he wasn't planning to burn down the house, he simply wanted to prove to Hennessy how serious he was.

He knelt down on the concrete floor and took off his rucksack. He took out one of the pipe bombs, an alarm clock and two of the shortest coils of wire. The glass had already been removed from the clock leaving the hands exposed. Nguyen fastened one end of one of the coils of the wire to the hour hand of the clock, twisting the wire around three times and then spreading the copper strands out into a fan shape. He did the same with the other piece of wire and the minute hand. He cut the length of wire in half with his knife and bared the cut ends. He took one of the batteries from his pocket and connected the wire from the minute hand to one of its terminals, and the loose piece of wire to the other, before setting the clock to twenty-five minutes to five and checking that it was fully wound. He now had about fifty minutes before the two wires came together. He put the pipe next to the wall under the windows and then connected the two wires protruding from it to the timing circuit by twisting the ends together. When the minute hand had crawled round to meet the hour hand and the two bare wire ends touched they would complete the circuit between the battery and the flash-bulb detonator which would in turn explode the bomb.

He repacked his rucksack and put it on before he gently rolled four of the full barrels of weedkiller over and ranged them around the bomb in a semicircle which would have the effect of concentrating the blast against the wall where it would do the most damage. The hands of the clock were forty minutes apart when he edged silently through the doorway and bolted the door.

Nguyen retraced his steps, but he didn't begin crawling when he left the courtyard, instead he ran around the barns in a low crouch, dropping down only when he came within earshot of the cottage. When past the cottage he rose up again and jogged by the stables. The horses were locked inside and he heard snorts and whinnies but no panic. He reached a point in the field where he could see the entire front of the farmhouse and he dropped down into the grass. He took his binoculars out of the rucksack, put them on the grass in front of him, and looked at his watch. Eight minutes to go.

He lay listening to the night sounds: the hoot of a hunting owl, the bark of a faraway fox, the whup-whup of army helicopters. In his mind, Nguyen pictured the clock ticking away the seconds, and his concentration was so intense that it was almost as if he could hear the metallic clicks emanating from the storeroom, getting louder and louder until the air resonated with the beat and he was sure it would wake everyone for miles around.

The blast, when it came, shocked him, even though he was expecting it. From where he was he couldn't see the explosion but the farmhouse was silhouetted by the flash and a fraction of a second later he felt a trembling vibration along his body and a thundering roar filled the night.

He clamped the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the farmhouse. Within seconds a light went on in one of the upstairs rooms and a figure appeared at the window. Nguyen recognised the man as being one of those who had searched him at Hennessy's office. No other lights came on upstairs so Nguyen got to his feet and, keeping low, scurried back along behind the stables. He moved carefully but he was sure that all eyes would be on the shattered outbuilding which was now burning fiercely. He heard the horses neighing in their stalls and the thuds as they kicked out with their hooves. He dropped down and crawled because he realised that someone would probably go in to calm them down. He made his way past the cottage and didn't stop until he was in the orchard. He crouched behind an apple tree and examined the upstairs rooms of the farmhouse. The door of the cottage burst open and a middle-aged man in a striped dressing-gown came running out, shouting, followed by three bare-chested young men. Nguyen checked them out through the binoculars. They were holding guns.

A light had gone on in the window on the right-hand side of the building, the end nearest the outbuildings, and there were lights in the two rooms on the left. As Nguyen watched, a woman came to the window and opened it. She was middle-aged and dark-haired. A light came on downstairs and then the door opened and two figures appeared. One of them was the man he'd seen at the far side of the building, the other was Hennessy. They ran towards the flames. A young woman ran out of the cottage and the middle-aged man shouted something at her. She changed direction and headed for the stables.

From the farmhouse four more men emerged, none of whom Nguyen had seen before. One of them was carrying a fire extinguisher and the rest had shotguns at the ready. The flames were flickering out of a jagged hole in the wall where the door and window had been. Most of the roof tiles had been blown off and were scattered around the courtyard and on the cars. The fire extinguisher spluttered into life and the man played foam around the hole. The girl ran out of the stables carrying another fire extinguisher and she gave it to the man in the dressing-gown. He joined in the fire-fighting. The woman shouted down and Hennessy waved at her and yelled something back. Probably his wife, thought Nguyen. One of the men went back into the farmhouse and reappeared with another fire extinguisher and before long the three columns of foam had the blaze under control. Nguyen decided he had seen enough. He crawled on his belly, away from the farm and into the darkness. There was a wedge-shaped copse of trees about a mile away that he'd earlier identified as a suitable place to lie up during the day and which would allow him to keep the farm under observation.

Murphy and Hennessy stepped gingerly over the broken brickwork and peered into the smoking wreckage of the outhouse. Steel barrels had been torn apart in the explosion and they were careful not to tread on any of the twisted shards. The blast had shredded the tough, wooden benches and chunks of wood were scattered around misshapen tools, what was left of them.

A slate from the shattered roof crashed down on to the floor and Murphy pulled Hennessy back. ‘Careful, Liam,' he said. ‘We'd better wait until daylight before we go messing in there.'

Hennessy nodded and followed Murphy back out into the courtyard.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what in heaven's name is going on?' said Joe Ryan, standing with an empty extinguisher in his hand, his dressing-gown flapping around his legs. Ryan had been the manager of Hennessy's farm for more than twenty years. He'd been a little surprised when Hennessy and Mary had arrived with McMahon, Murphy and seven men from Belfast who were now standing around the courtyard carrying various weapons that obviously weren't for shooting rabbits, but Hennessy hadn't offered an explanation and Ryan hadn't asked for one.

Hennessy went over to his manager and put a reassuring arm around his shoulder. ‘My fault, Joe, I should have told you earlier. But I had no idea he'd follow me here.' As they walked to the kitchen door of the farmhouse he explained about The Chinaman.

Mary was waiting for them in the kitchen in a green silk dressing-gown and slippers. She'd made a huge pot of coffee and had placed a bottle of Irish whiskey and a dozen glasses on the table for the men. She poured a generous measure into one of the glasses and gave it to her husband. She told Murphy to fill the rest of the glasses for the men who were filing in behind him. ‘Are you all right?' she asked Hennessy, touching his shoulder as she spoke, her concern obvious and genuine.

‘I'm fine, right enough,' he said.

‘Another warning?' she said, and he wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

‘He wasn't trying to kill anyone, if that's what you mean, Mary,' he said, and took a mouthful of the smooth whiskey.

He turned to Murphy. ‘Get Kavanagh down here straightaway,' he said. ‘Tell him there's no point in looking for The Chinaman in Belfast. And tell him to bring a dozen or so of his men here. Including Willie O'Hara.' Murphy grunted and went out to use the phone in the hall.

Ryan pulled a chair out and sat down, helping himself to a mug of coffee. ‘Has this Chinaman got hand grenades or what, Liam?' he asked.

‘Nitroglycerine,' said Hennessy. ‘He made his own nitroglycerine in Belfast.' The kitchen was full now, men standing or sitting, some of them still coughing to clear the smoke from their lungs. Ryan's daughter, Sarah, stood behind her father, smoothing down his hair, more to calm her own shaking hands than anything.

Hennessy stood with his back to the sink and cleared his throat loudly to attract everybody's attention. ‘We're all going to have to be on our guard,' he said. ‘I've underestimated The Chinaman up until now, and that's not a mistake I intend to repeat. For the rest of tonight I want six of you on guard outside.' He nodded or pointed to the six men to indicate those he'd chosen. ‘Jimmy McMahon can sleep in the kitchen and I'll have Christy Murphy stay by the front door. Joe, you and Sarah should lock yourself in the cottage, and keep Tommy with you. Everyone else try to grab some sleep. By tomorrow I'll have worked out what we're going to do.'

The men assigned to guard duty finished their whiskey, checked their guns and went outside. Ryan and his daughter went back to their cottage with Tommy O'Donoghue in tow.

Murphy came back into the kitchen. ‘Jim's on his way.'

‘Good,' said Hennessy. ‘Mary and I are going to bed. Jimmy'll sleep here tonight. Can you stay in the hall? We'll get a proper rota fixed up tomorrow after Jim gets here.'

‘Fine by me,' said Murphy.

Hennessy and Mary went up the stairs together. She carried a bright-yellow mug of coffee cupped in both hands. To Hennessy, though, it appeared that she was more annoyed than upset by the disturbance. In the bedroom, she put the mug down on her bedside table and brushed her hair with short, attacking strokes.

‘I don't think you should stay here, not with all this going on,' said Hennessy, taking off his dressing-gown and hanging it on the back of the door.

‘I was thinking the same myself,' she answered, watching him through the dressing-table mirror as she brushed her hair. He walked over to the open window and looked down at the courtyard. There were two of his men there, one with a shotgun. They waved and he waved back before shutting the window to keep out the smell of smoke. He drew the curtains with a flourish.

‘The house in town isn't safe, even while The Chinaman's here,' he said. ‘Abroad would be best, just until we've solved this problem.'

‘This problem!' she said, and laughed, her voice loaded with irony. ‘This problem, as you call it, Liam, is stalking around our farm with nitroglycerine bombs intent on God knows what and you call it a problem. You can be so pompous at times!' She shook her head, sadly, while Hennessy stood confused, not sure what to say. She made the decision for him. ‘I thought I'd go and stay with Marie.' Marie, their daughter, was studying sociology at university in London and there were still some weeks to go before summer holidays. They'd rented her a one-bedroom flat in Earl's Court and Mary had been to stay on several occasions.

‘I'd prefer it if you went well away, to America or the Caribbean, London is still a bit close to home,' he pressed.

She turned to look at him, still brushing her hair. ‘Liam, I'll be perfectly safe in London,' she said frostily. ‘In the first place, he's hardly likely to know about Marie's rented flat, and in the second, it's you he's after, not me.'

Hennessy couldn't argue with that, so he reluctantly agreed.

‘Besides, I'll fly over and I'll make sure I take a very close look at everyone else who gets on the plane. If I see anyone who looks vaguely Chinese, I'll call you,' she said. She put down the brush and switched off the light. He heard the rustle of silk against her skin and then she slipped under the quilt. He got into his side of the bed.

‘Good night,' she said. He felt a light kiss on the cheek and then she turned her back on him, drawing her legs up against her stomach. Liam lay on his back, his eyes closed tight.

The French window was wide open allowing the fresh river air to stream in along with the early morning sunshine. Denis Fisher sat on the white plastic chair, a stack of Sunday newspapers on the circular white table. He was wearing a white T-shirt and faded blue Levis and a pair of black plastic sunglasses. His feet were up on another chair, he had a cup of strong coffee at his elbow, and he appeared to be at peace with the world. He ran his fingers through his blond hair and stretched his arms above his head.