The Chinaman (34 page)

He took his place in the grandstand and scanned the crowds through his binoculars. He spotted a couple of minor starlets who were wearing considerably more than they did in their movies, and several captains of industry who presumably had nothing better to do at the office. There was minor royalty around, too, but he couldn't see any of the heavyweights. He wondered what the chances would be of catching one with the blast but knew that the likelihood was remote. Not that it mattered, the fact that a bomb went off at an occasion attended by the Royal family would be more than enough to guarantee worldwide coverage. He checked out the positions of the television cameras, which were there to cover the crowds as much as the horses. They'd have no problems recording the explosion and its aftermath.

He studied the race card for a while, though he didn't plan on placing any bets. The steward had been right, though, Eddery did look a sure thing in the third race. O'Reilly looked at his watch. Half past one. The aluminium case was under his legs, silently counting off the seconds. Part of him wanted to go now, to get as far away as possible from the bomb before the alarm clock completed the circuit, but he knew that if he left it unattended for any length of time there was a risk that it might be discovered. Fisher had been quite specific about the timing, and, besides, McCormick wouldn't be outside until exactly five minutes before two. He re-read the race card and surveyed the crowds again, anything to keep his mind off the bomb. Once or twice he found himself eavesdropping on the chatter going on around him but he stopped himself and blocked out the conversations. His neighbours in the stand would be at the centre of the explosion and he didn't want to know anything about them. He didn't want it to be personal.

The minute hand on his watch gradually crept around to ten to the hour and he stood up, stretched, and lifted his case on to the seat. He took off his hat and placed it on top of the case and then moved himself along the row to the aisle, apologising all the way and looking for all the world as if he was on a pre-race visit to the toilet or the Tote. He walked up the aisle, passed the bar and took an escalator down to the ground floor. He slowed down and ambled across the grass to the pre-arranged exit, some way along from where he'd come in so that he wouldn't be recognised by the stewards. The pavements outside were still thronged with racegoers waiting to get in and he pushed through, smiling apologetically.

The green and white Yamaha 750 purred up to the kerb. McCormick was wearing black leathers and had on a white helmet with a tinted visor. A second helmet was attached to the side of the bike and McCormick unclipped it and handed it to O'Reilly. He put it on and fastened the strap under his chin as he slipped on to the seat and found the foot rests. McCormick clicked the bike into gear and drove off towards London. The roads away from Ascot were clear but he stuck to the speed-limit because there were so many police around. Even so, they were still four miles away from the racecourse when the bomb exploded.

Woody was in the office early so that he could hit the phones before Simpson and the rest of the news desk staff arrived. He wasn't surprised that he couldn't get through to Sir John Brownlow himself because the
Sunday World
didn't usually get to the top of the lists of calls to be returned by Members of Parliament. Woody's luck was in, though, because he did get to speak to Sir John's assistant, a pleasant-sounding girl called Ellen. She remembered The Chinaman coming to see her boss, but like Woody couldn't remember his name. He told her that the family name was probably Nguyen and she went off to check the MP's correspondence files. A few minutes later she was back on the line.

‘His name's Nguyen Ngoc Minh,' she said. ‘I've got his letter here.' She read out the address on the letter and Woody checked it against the address of the Double Happiness Take-Away. They matched. He asked Ellen to spell out Nguyen's full name and he wrote it down in his notebook and then he asked her to read the letter out to him. It was pretty much the same story that he'd told when he visited the
Sunday World
's office, and there didn't appear to be any information in the letter that would help Woody track him down.

‘Can you remember anything else about this Chinaman?' Woody asked. ‘Anything at all?'

‘Well for a start, he isn't Chinese,' said Ellen. ‘He was Vietnamese, that's what he told Sir John. I can't remember if he said he was from the north or the south, but I certainly got the impression he was a refugee. You know, one of the boat people. He has full British citizenship.'

‘Anything else?'

‘I'm sorry, that's all I can remember,' she said. ‘Wait a minute, I've just had a thought. Why don't you try the Home Office?'

‘The Home Office?'

‘Sure. If he was a refugee then they'd have to have a file on him. It wouldn't matter if he was Chinese or Vietnamese or whatever. There's a hell of a lot of paperwork to go through to get citizenship.'

Woody thanked her gratefully and flicked through his contacts book. He'd met a Government Information Officer who worked in the Home Office some years earlier when he'd been chasing up a story on immigration and he'd taken her for a couple of boozy lunches afterwards to thank her. He couldn't recall her name but he'd filed her under ‘Home Office' in his book. Annie Byrne. She wasn't there when he called but he left a message and he passed the time reading the morning papers and drinking coffee until she called back.

‘Woody, long time no hear,' she said. She seemed genuinely pleased to hear from him and Woody tried to remember why he hadn't kept in touch with her. He explained that he was trying to get information on a refugee but skipped over the IRA connection. Was there any way that he could get to see the man's file?

‘Certainly not officially, no,' she said. But she suggested that Woody came round to her office at lunchtime anyway, which Woody took as a good sign.

While Woody was on the phone the news desk drifted in one by one and when he hung up Simpson waved him over.

‘You're in early, Woody,' he said. ‘Got much on?'

‘A couple of things. I'll let you know when they harden up.'

‘OK, I've got something here that needs knocking out, something worthy of your talents.'

Woody sensed a trap.

‘Don't look so nervous, Woody. You're gonna love it. I want you to give me fifty places where you can take the kids over the summer holidays. You know, a guide for the little horrors that the parents can cut out and keep.'

‘Thanks, mate.'

‘Come on, Woody, cheer up. A shift is a shift, it's all money in the end.'

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,' said Woody, and slouched back to his desk.

He left the office just before noon and took the Tube to St James's Park. He'd assumed that Annie was just after a lunchtime drink and a chance to catch up on Fleet Street gossip so he was pleasantly surprised to be shown into her office. She was a short, bouncy girl and she shook him firmly by the hand. She spoke like a head girl and laughed a lot and Woody wondered how long it would be before she was snapped up by one of the Civil Service high-flyers and installed in a country house where she'd breed children and horses. She was a very attractive girl but Woody remembered why he'd never tried to see more of her. She was, he realised ruefully, totally out of his league.

There was a blue cardboard file on her desk and she tapped it with her left hand. An engagement ring glinted under the lights. It was a big diamond. The girl had done well. ‘Nguyen Ngoc Minh,' she said. ‘I tell you, Woody, this is one damned interesting file. It's just a pity that I can't let you see it. Home Office regulations, you understand. It'd be more than my job's worth. And you know how much my job means to me.' She grinned and then looked at her watch. ‘Golly, is that the time. Look, Woody, I've got a meeting to go to. Can you amuse yourself for a while? I'll be gone for about half an hour. OK?'

‘OK. Do you want me to wait outside?'

Annie walked around her desk and patted him on the shoulder as she headed for the door. ‘No, Woody, you stay where you are. I'll be back.'

She closed the door behind her and Woody leant over and picked up the file. It wasn't the first time a civil servant or a police officer had shared information by leaving an open file on a desk, and Woody was sure it wouldn't be the last. At some point in the future he knew Annie would call in the favour. Besides, she'd already read through the file to check that it contained nothing secret or damaging to the Government. He opened it and began leafing through a sheaf of forms and written reports with a growing sense of wonder.

There were reports from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Hong Kong and from the Hong Kong Government's Security Branch, documents from the US Consulate, photocopies of service records and signed statements from senior American army officers detailing Nguyen's time with the US forces. One of the sheets was a photocopy of the inside of a British passport with Nguyen's photograph and there were photocopies of two awards made to his unit in Vietnam. There was a Meritorious Unit Commendation and a Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation, along with a memo from a US colonel recording the fact that Nguyen's unit had the highest body count in Vietnam during the first half of 1973. By the time he'd finished reading the file he was shaking his head in amazement. The man was a bloody war hero, a trained assassin and an expert in jungle warfare.

He went back through the papers, filling his notebook with dates and copying down quotes from the reports. God, it was good stuff. Amazing. The story in the file was award-winning copy in itself. If Nguyen really was after the IRA, it would be dynamite.

It was a very thick file, sheet after sheet. Even in the early eighties, when Nguyen was in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, all incoming Vietnamese boat people were given a thorough grilling to check that they weren't Communist spies or simply criminals on the run. Nguyen Ngoc Minh's story was so complicated, and, Woody had to admit, so frankly unbelievable, that he was interviewed many times. Officials from the UNHCR and the Hong Kong Government's Security Branch had gone over his story again and again, cross-checking and cross-referencing in an attempt to catch him out, until eventually they believed him.

Woody flicked through the file, taking down details of Nguyen's switch to the South Vietnamese and his time with the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols. The fact that Nguyen had been left behind by the Americans and his time in prison and the re-education camp were detailed in the matter-of-fact reports. Woody could only imagine the horrors the man had endured before he'd finally managed to escape. There were few details of the actual journey to Hong Kong, though it was clear that two of his daughters had died. Nguyen had refused to expand on what had happened and the psychiatrist reckoned that Nguyen was trying to block out painful memories.

Woody wrote quickly. By the time Annie returned to the office the file was back on her desk and Woody was sitting reading through his notes.

‘Sorry about that,' she said.

‘No problem,' he smiled.

‘I hope you weren't too bored. Right, come on, you can buy me lunch.'

Morrison and Kerry arrived at Belfast airport late in the afternoon. Willie O'Hara was there to meet them with the Range Rover. Morrison got in the front passenger seat while Kerry climbed in the back. She noticed a large black stain on the seat and O'Hara explained that they'd used the car to take Jimmy McMahon to the hospital.

‘How is he?' Morrison asked.

‘On the mend, thank God. If the bomb had gone off a second later it would've taken his legs off. But it looks as if he's going to be OK. This focking Chinaman is bad news, I can tell you. He was at it again last night.'

‘He was?'

‘Yeah, he set fire to one of the barns. And killed Hennessy's dog.'

Kerry leant over the seat. ‘Jackie? He killed Jackie?'

O'Hara nodded. ‘Slit its throat.'

Kerry slumped back into the seat, her hand over her mouth. To Morrison it seemed that she was more upset about the dead dog than about the man in hospital. They drove in silence down the M2 towards the city. When they passed the ferry terminal Kerry leant forward again. ‘I'm going to need some things. Can we drive into the city?'

‘Yeah, good thinking,' said Morrison. O'Hara turned off the motorway and guided the car through central Belfast. They had to pull to one side when a fire engine came up behind, lights flashing and siren blaring. In its wake followed two armoured RUC Land-Rovers. They parked the car and walked to a shopping centre, a pedestrian road sealed off with a metal fence at either end. To get in they had to pass through a turnstile and two surly RUC officers checked through Kerry's handbag and body-searched Morrison and O'Hara. Kerry had said she wanted to go to a sports shop, the sort that sold skiing equipment, and O'Hara took her to one that he knew of.

‘I've got to be honest, Kerry, but you're not likely to see much in the way of snow in County Down at this time of the year,' said Morrison as she examined a selection of ski-poles. She took one from the rack and held it, feeling its weight. She wasn't satisfied and replaced it with another, slightly longer, version.

‘We'll need tracking sticks,' she explained. ‘Walking sticks will do but ski-poles are the best. You can use them for moving vegetation, and they stop you getting tired. Choose one for yourself, pick one that feels sturdy but not too heavy. This one's fine for me.'

Morrison followed her advice while she went over to a display of American baseball caps. When he caught up with her she was looking at herself in the mirror, a blue cap on her head.