Free The Chinaman by Stephen Leather

would help me.’
    â€˜Well . . .’ said Woody, about to back-pedal while he hunted frantically for Today ’s telephone number.
    â€˜I want to speak to somebody at the IRA. Do you know anybody that would talk to me?’
    Woody stopped turning the pages of the newspaper.
    â€˜What are you thinking of doing?’ he asked suspiciously, scenting a possible story.
    â€˜I want to talk to somebody in the IRA, that is all.’
    â€˜I don’t think they’ll help you, I really don’t. And it might backfire.’
    â€˜Backfire? I do not understand.’
    â€˜They are dangerous men, if they thought you were a threat to them, or even just a nuisance, there’s a good chance they’d hurt you.’
    â€˜All I want to do is to talk to them.’
    Woody sighed. ‘OK, for a start you don’t want to talk to the IRA. You’d be better off trying Sinn Fein, that’s the political wing of the organisation. The Sinn Fein spokesmen are well-known.’
    â€˜Could you give me some names, and tell me where I might find them?’
    Woody looked at the photographs of smashed brickwork, broken glass and misshapen metal. What the hell, he thought. Why not?
    â€˜I’ll have to call you back, give me your number.’
    â€˜I gave you before.’
    â€˜I know, but I’m using a different notebook now.’
    Nguyen read out the figures slowly, and Woody promised to ring him back later in the day. He was about to go over to the cuttings library but had second thoughts and instead decided to call one of the paper’s Belfast stringers. Might as well get it from the horse’s mouth. For a change the stringer, Pat Quigley, was helpful, sober and in his office, a hell of an unusual combination and Woody took full advantage of it. He gave Woody three names, potted biographies, where they lived, and contact phone numbers, and told him a foul joke involving two nuns and a bar of soap from which Woody deduced that the man wasn’t a Catholic.
    When Woody called The Chinaman back the phone was answered with a guttural ‘Double Happiness Take-Away’.
    â€˜This is Ian Wood,’ he said, suddenly realising he couldn’t remember The Chinaman’s name. He had just written ‘Chinaman’ in his notebook.
    â€˜Double Happiness Take-Away,’ the voice repeated.
    Woody cursed under his breath, then he heard another voice and the sound of the phone being transferred.
    â€˜Mr Wood?’ said Nguyen.
    â€˜I have the information you wanted,’ Woody said. He read the notes from his notebook, spelling out the names and repeating the numbers several times until he was sure The Chinaman had got them down correctly.
    â€˜Thank you, Mr Wood. I not bother you again.’ The phone went dead before Woody had the chance to ask The Chinaman for his name. There could be a story in this somewhere. ‘Heartbroken Father Pleads With IRA Killers’. ‘Bomb Mission Of Tragic Dad’. That sort of thing. Good Sunday-paper stuff. Woody was about to ring back when there was a shout from the far end of the office.
    â€˜Woody! Call for you. What extension are you on?’
    â€˜4553,’ he yelled back, and waited until the call was put through.
    â€˜Woody?’ said a girl’s voice, soft and with a Scottish burr.
    â€˜Yeah, speaking,’ he answered, groping for a pen.
    â€˜It’s Maggie.’ Maggie? His mind raced, frantically trying to put a face to the name and the voice. ‘How are you?’ she asked.
    â€˜Me? I’m fine, fine.’ He closed his eyes and began banging the palm of his hand against his forehead as if trying to jolt his memory.
    â€˜You do remember?’ she asked, sounding hurt.
    â€˜Of course I do.’ He began flicking through the images in his head, searching for a Maggie.
    â€˜The Coach and Horses,’ she prompted.
    Maggie! The girl with red hair and grey eyes and the earthy