The Chinaman (39 page)

He wiped his feet carefully on the mat by the kitchen door and walked through to the lounge. The door was half open and he walked in to find Hennessy sitting in one of the armchairs by the unlit fire. He didn't get up as Morrison entered. ‘Sit down, Sean,' he said. He seemed distant, almost shocked, and the one thought in Morrison's mind was that there had been another bombing. As he went over to the sofa he realised there was somebody else in the room, standing by the door. It was Christy Murphy.

‘Christy!' he said, surprised. ‘When did you get back?'

Murphy looked away from Morrison and seemed ill at ease.

‘Christy, you can wait outside,' said Hennessy, and Murphy practically ran out of the door so keen was he to get out of Morrison's presence. Hennessy studied Morrison with unsmiling eyes as Murphy closed the door and Morrison began to worry, but the fear was a shapeless, nameless thing, made all the more terrifying by his inability to identify it. He wanted to speak, to ask what was wrong, but felt that to do so would be to imply guilt and that his interests would be best served by keeping quiet. He could feel sweat on the palms of his hands but he resisted the urge to wipe them on his trousers. Liam Hennessy might look like a kindly grandfather but he had the power of life and death and would have no compunction at all about killing somebody who he thought had crossed him. Thoughts of Mary Hennessy flashed into his mind and he felt his cheeks redden.

‘The bombers have claimed responsibility for the Ascot bomb,' Hennessy said flatly.

Morrison frowned, because that surely was good news, and yet Hennessy said it as if he was announcing the death of a close relative. ‘And?' he said.

‘And they didn't use the codeword. In fact, they said they weren't going to co-operate with the authorities any more and that there would be no more use of the code-word system.'

Hennessy looked at Morrison with cold, unblinking eyes and Morrison fought to keep his own steady on the older man's face, trying to stay cool. Eventually he weakened and looked out of the window. The two men with the shotguns were back. He looked at Hennessy again.

‘Which means that somebody tipped them off,' said Hennessy. He continued to stare straight at Morrison and again Morrison was forced to avert his gaze. ‘The problem is, only two people knew about the reason for the change in the codeword. You. And me.'

Morrison held up his hands. ‘I don't know what you're thinking, but I didn't tell anyone, Liam. I knew how important this was. I spoke to Bromley, and that was all. I swear, on my mother's eyes, I swear it.'

Hennessy steepled his fingers underneath his chin and studied Morrison as if he was an undecided juror.

‘You must have said something to somebody, Sean. Think very carefully.'

The two men sat in a silence which was disturbed only by the ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner. Morrison was genuinely bewildered, because he knew that he hadn't broken Hennessy's confidence. He was sure of it. And yet Hennessy seemed so convinced.

Morrison shook his head, not knowing what Hennessy expected to hear.

‘Would it help if I told you that I had Christy follow Mary in London?'

Morrison felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. He would have been able to face it better if Hennessy had shouted or banged his fist or thrown something at him, but he did none of those things, he simply sat in his easy chair and waited for a reply. It was his quiet acceptance of the facts, an acceptance that bordered on apparent indifference, that made the man seem all the more menacing. Morrison wondered if he was about to die, shot in the back of the head because he'd slept with another man's wife. He thought of lying, of claiming that she had just popped round to the hotel as a casual visitor, but he knew that it wouldn't work. Murphy wasn't stupid, he'd have found out that she'd gone to his room and would have known how long she was in there.

‘Liam, I'm sorry . . .' he began to say, but Hennessy held up a hand to silence him.

‘I don't want apologies, I don't even want to know what happened in your room. We'll leave that for some other time. All I want to do right now is to establish what went wrong, how they found out what we were up to. I know Mary was in your room on Monday morning, what I don't know is what you said to her. What you talked about.'

‘You don't suspect Mary, surely?' said Morrison.

‘At the moment I don't know who to trust, you've quite clearly demonstrated that I'm no judge of character,' said Hennessy savagely. ‘Now don't fuck with me, Sean. Did you or did you not discuss our plan with Mary?'

‘No,' said Morrison immediately. ‘I mean yes, sort of. She already knew what you were doing.'

‘She did not,' said Hennessy emphatically. ‘I told no one. And I mean no one.'

‘But I'm sure . . .' He lapsed into silence, trying to remember exactly what she'd said as she lay in his arms in the afterglow of their love-making. ‘She seemed to know already.'

‘Think carefully about what she said. We spoke on the phone, remember? Could she hear what we were saying?'

It all came back to Morrison with a rush, him lying on his back talking to Hennessy on the phone as Mary made love to him. ‘Yes, she could hear us,' he said. His voice sounded a million miles away. He wondered if Hennessy could see into his mind, if he knew exactly how he'd been betrayed. ‘And you're right, it was afterwards that she mentioned the codeword.'

‘She steered the conversation?'

Morrison nodded. ‘She made it sound as if you'd already told her what was going on. Most of the time I was just agreeing with what she said.'

‘She is good at manipulating people,' said Hennessy, his voice loaded with sadness. Morrison suddenly felt sorry for the man. And guilty. And afraid.

‘You think that Mary told the bombers?' asked Morrison. The possibility seemed so remote it was almost laughable.

‘Not directly, no. But I think she found out from you what we were planning, and I think that she passed that information on to someone else.'

‘Who?'

Hennessy fell silent again. He leant forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees. He took a handkerchief from his top pocket and wiped his brow. ‘Do I trust you, Sean? After the way you've betrayed me, can I trust you?'

‘My loyalty to the Cause has never been in question, Liam. The thing with Mary, that's different. I never meant to hurt you, I didn't plan for you to know. We were always very careful.'

‘You lied to me, you went behind my back. And now I'm supposed to trust you?'

‘Liam, I'm sorry. If it makes a difference, it was one of the reasons I went to the States. To put distance between Mary and me. To stop it.'

‘You mean she wanted to continue the affair?' Hennessy sounded wounded, hurt.

Morrison realised he was making it worse by talking about it. Maybe Hennessy hadn't even considered that the affair had been going on before he went to New York. ‘We decided it was best,' he lied. ‘Liam, whatever happened is in the past, what matters now is to get these bastards and to put an end to the bombings. To do what we set out to do. We can deal with our personal problems afterwards.'

Hennessy nodded and settled back in the chair. ‘Maybe you're right, Sean. All right, we'll put that to one side. For the moment we'll concentrate on minimising the damage, maybe even turning it to our advantage.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I had a visitor before you and Kerry arrived. Hugh McGrath. He knew Mary was in London, but there was no way he could have known that.'

‘Unless she told him?'

‘Unless she told him,' agreed Hennessy. ‘She spoke to you, she tricked the information out of you, and then she called him.' Hennessy let it sink in, and then twisted the knife. ‘She used you, Sean.' There was bitterness in his voice, a nasty edge which cut through Morrison. He wondered then whether Hennessy really was prepared to put the affair behind them while they sorted out the bombing business. But he knew that Hennessy was right. Mary had bedded him and used him, barely waiting for him to leave before ringing McGrath. Another thought wormed its way into his mind. Maybe she was also McGrath's lover. Maybe she did to McGrath the same things she did to him, gave him her kisses, her passion, her energy, the things he thought she saved solely for him. He thought of her sitting astride McGrath, his hands on her breasts, her riding him until she came, and he felt the anger burn inside and realised for the first time exactly how bitter and betrayed Hennessy must have felt.

‘I know she was angry, but I never thought she'd go that far,' said Hennessy, almost as if he was talking to himself, or unburdening himself at confession. Morrison couldn't think of anything to say, knowing how easy it would be to provoke the man. ‘Mary never forgave me for not going after the men who killed her brother.'

‘They're all in Long Kesh, aren't they?'

‘You know as well as I do that we could get to them, wherever they are, H-blocks or no H-blocks. She knew that, too. She never let me forget it. We've been arguing for months. Years.'

‘Arguing?'

‘Mary's always been one hundred per cent behind the organisation, much more than most people realise. We used to have the most fierce arguments, she couldn't understand why I was trying to take a more conciliatory line with the Protestants. She was always pushing me to gear up the campaigns, to turn the screw, to drive the British out. And that was before Gerry was killed. His death pushed her over the edge, I guess. I should have realised, I should have talked to her more. But by then I suppose we'd stopped talking. Really talking, you know what I mean?'

Morrison nodded, but he was fearful of being forced into the role of confessor. Hennessy was a man who guarded his secrets jealously.

‘McGrath was always a possibility, anyway,' continued Hennessy. ‘He makes more money out of the border than anyone else in the organisation, and he has strong links with Gaddafi. It'd also explain why we haven't been able to pin down the active service unit's bombmaker. It could be a complete outsider, someone that McGrath sent to Libya for training without telling us.'

‘Is that possible?' said Morrison, eager to turn the conversation away from Mary.

‘Perfectly. We've always given him a lot of leeway when it came to dealing with the Libyans.'

‘But why would he have to take explosives and equipment from our stocks? Couldn't he just bring in his own supplies?'

‘Some, maybe, but not on any large scale. He'd have to use our established routes to get it into the country and he couldn't do that without us knowing. And he'd know that if he was discovered organising secret deliveries that we'd know what he was up to. He wouldn't want to take the risk. Much safer to take what he needed from existing caches.'

‘OK, so assuming it is McGrath, what next?'

‘He has to tell us where the bombers are,' said Hennessy. ‘We get him here and we get the names from him.'

‘He's a powerful man, Liam. He carries almost as much influence with Dublin as you do, and he's virtually got his own private army on his farm. We can't just wade in and expect him to open up to us.'

‘I know, I know. I'm going to speak to Dublin now. And McGrath is going to come to us. I want you to call him and tell him that I've called an emergency meeting of our top officials here at the farm. Tell him it's about a change in our bombing strategy, that should bring him running. Tell him the boys are coming down from Belfast and the meeting is for noon.'

‘Sure,' agreed Morrison. He felt somewhat easier now that Hennessy was concentrating on McGrath but he knew that underneath his neutral exterior the man must be in turmoil. Liam Hennessy was well used to concealing his emotions in the courtroom, and his big advantage had always been that his opponents never knew what he was thinking. He was a difficult man to read, but, no matter how calm he looked, the business over Mary would be gnawing at his insides and at some point it would emerge into the open. Morrison would have to be careful, very careful. One of the men with shotguns was looking into the window and he caught Morrison's eye. The man winked. Morrison didn't feel any better.

Fisher stood on the balcony with half a loaf of stale bread on the table next to him. He picked up a slice and tore it into small pieces and tossed them out into the air. A flock of unruly seagulls sitting on a barge across the river came squawking over and swooped and soared around him. He picked up another slice and ripped it into small bits and threw them one at a time high into the air so that the birds could catch them on the wing.

‘You know what I'd like?' said McCormick behind him.

‘What's that?' Two of the black-headed gulls collided in mid-air with the sound of a quilt being thumped.

‘A twelve-bore shotgun,' said McCormick. ‘Then we could have some real fun.'

‘You, McCormick, have no beauty in your soul.' Fisher tossed out a handful of bread and birds swooped from all directions, beaks wide and wings flapping. When all the bread had been devoured, he went back into the flat.

‘It's done,' said The Bombmaker.

Fisher sat down and looked at the laptop computer. ‘It looks so inoffensive, doesn't it?' he said, running his hand along the smooth plastic. ‘And it works just as it did before?'

‘Sure. There's no way of discovering that it's been modified unless it's taken apart. And they won't do that.'

‘Excellent,' said Fisher.

‘I've even fixed it so that the time is set by using the keyboard. It's a trick the Libyans taught me, a relatively simple program incorporated into the disk operating system. Once we know when we want it to explode, I call up the program and input the time. The computer does the rest.'