The Chinaman (36 page)

‘Sean, come and look at this.'

He stood next to her and looked down at the tangle of thorny strands.

‘What am I looking at?' he asked.

She pointed with the end of her pole. ‘See that bit there, see how it's stuck under that thorn?'

‘Yes,' he said hesitantly, not sure what she was getting at.

‘See how it's under tension,' she continued. ‘It's slightly distorted, it's been pushed into that position and the prickles on that bit are holding it down.'

‘Which means what?'

She sighed and gave him a withering look. ‘It means, Sean, that something, or somebody, pushed it into that position. Watch.' She used the ski-pole to push the bent strand and it sprang free and wavered in the air like the antenna of a huge insect. Kerry began pushing more of the brambles to the side. ‘Help me, Sean,' she said.

Together they cleared a section of the undergrowth away from the earth. ‘There! See?' she said. There were two smudges in the soil. ‘He was walking on the balls of his feet.' She held the torch down and shone the light at an angle to the impressions, the shadows highlighting the marks.

‘Yes, I see it now. God, you're right. He must have been hiding behind the tree, and attacked our man from behind.'

‘Come on, we'll go round the tree in the opposite direction, see if there are any better footprints there.'

She and Morrison pushed the brambles apart and followed the curve of the tree around. She found the crack in the trunk and moved aside to show Morrison. In the soft earth were clear signs that The Chinaman had waited there, a number of footprints and a circular indentation which Kerry explained was probably made by his knee. She showed him places on the trunk where he had leaned against it and scraped away parts of the lichen on the bark. She pointed at the best example of a print with her pole. ‘Now we use our notebooks,' she said, opening the binoculars case. She took out her notebook and pencil and with painstaking concentration made a drawing of the print, using the tape measure to ensure that it was an exact copy. She watched as Morrison did the same, correcting him over the shape of the heel of the boot and the pattern of the sole. ‘We do this so that we'll always know from now on if it's his footprint that we're looking at,' she explained. ‘And when we've finished this we'll draw a print of him walking on the ball of his foot.'

When they'd finished the drawings to Kerry's satisfaction, she took the two men along the edge of the path, following the prints of running men past the two exposed traps. After a hundred yards or so the trees thinned out and they were standing in a large field, lush, green grass peppered with daisies and dandelions.

‘Question now is which way did he go when he left the woods?' she mused. She pulled the peak of her cap down and scanned the horizon. ‘Come on, Chinaman, which way would you go? You'd be pretty exposed crossing the field wouldn't you, even if you waited until it was dark. So you'd look for cover, wouldn't you?' She turned to Kavanagh. ‘Did your men go after him, across the field?'

‘No, we reckoned he went to ground somewhere in the copse, but we couldn't find him. We didn't have enough men.'

‘And were there any animals in the field?'

Kavanagh scratched his head. ‘I don't think so.'

Kerry dropped down low and scanned the field, moving her head slowly but keeping her eyes fixed ahead.

‘What are you doing?' Morrison asked curiously. She kept turning her head left and right as she answered. ‘Changes in colour,' she said. ‘Easier to spot when your eyes are moving. If he went through the grass he'd alter the way the blades lie. The underside of a blade of grass is a bit lighter than the part that faces the sun. You won't notice one or two but you can spot a trail through long grass. That's one of the ways we track deer. Trouble is the grass reorientates itself fairly quickly, just a few hours if it isn't too badly damaged. It depends how tall it is. This is quite long so it could take a while before it reverts to the way it was. Damn, I can't see anything. Come on, walk over here.'

She took him a few paces to the left and tried again. She slapped her thigh in frustration. ‘Damn,' she said. She stood up and arched her back, her hands on her hips. ‘The light's starting to go,' she said. ‘Let me just check the edge of the wood and then we'll call it a day.'

She began walking slowly along the perimeter of the copse with Kavanagh and Morrison following behind. She scrutinised the ground and the vegetation overhanging the grass. Several times she stopped and bent down to examine a fallen leaf or a twig, causing the two men to pull up short, but she found nothing to give an indication that The Chinaman had passed that way. Then, just as she was about to give up, she saw a large leaf that had been pressed into the ground. She picked it up and held it out to Morrison. ‘Yes!' she exclaimed. ‘See how it's bruised, how it's been crushed across the middle?' she said. ‘That's a sure sign that it's been trodden on.' She turned it over. There were several grains of soil pressed into it. ‘See that? You can tell by the state the leaf's in that it happened within the last day or two. See how it's still fairly fresh?'

Morrison nodded. ‘But couldn't it have been an animal?'

‘It would have had to have been a fairly large animal, I mean the bruising couldn't have been done by a rabbit or a fox. I reckon this is where The Chinaman came out of the wood. Now, did he go across the field, or did he walk along the edge to that hedgerow?' She scanned the field again with her strange fixed stare. ‘No, not that way,' she murmured. She continued along the side of the copse, pushing straggling vegetation to the side with her pole.

‘Got him!' she cried, and waved the two men to come and stand beside her. She grinned and pointed down. At some point in the past a tree stump had been poisoned to kill its roots and the earth for some distance around it was devoid of grass. There, in the soil, were two prints, a left foot and a right foot, less than a metre apart. She took her notebook out and compared the prints to her drawing. They matched.

She slipped two elastic bands on the ski-pole, twisting them around so that they gripped tightly, then held it above the two footprints, parallel to the ground and an inch or so above the soil. She put the tip of the pole above the back of the heel of the front print and slid one of the bands to mark the position of the tip of the toe of the rear print. Morrison watched her, enthralled. Kerry moved the pole so that it ran through the centre of the rear print and she slid the second elastic band down to mark the position corresponding to the rear of the heel, so marking the length of the stride. She stood up and showed her pole to Morrison. ‘Did you follow that?' she asked, and he nodded. ‘OK, you have a go then.' She watched over his shoulder as he positioned two elastic bands on his own pole.

When he'd finished he got to his feet. ‘Do you want to tell me what we're doing?' he asked.

‘Now we've got a record of the length of his stride, and the length of his footprint. And you can use the stick to get an idea of where the next footprint is when you're following a trail. I'll show you tomorrow.'

‘You didn't learn that following deer around the Highlands,' said Morrison.

‘I got it from a book,' she said. ‘A guy called Jack Kearney wrote it. My dad has it in his collection.'

‘And where did he learn a trick like that?'

‘He was a border guard in southern California. He spent more than twenty years hunting down Mexicans who tried to get into America illegally, and he used to help track down missing kids and the like. Come on, I just want to see which way he went when he got to the hedgerow. My bet is that he turned right and headed east.' She was right. When she reached the hedge she followed it along and eventually discovered a footprint. ‘Look, let me show you how to use the stick,' she said. She put the two elastic bands on either end of the print. It was a perfect fit. ‘You can see from the way the heel is slightly deeper than the sole that he was walking, rather than running. So if we put the toe marker on the front of the print, and swing the pole around in an arc, we know that the next print should be within the area it covers. There you are. See?'

Morrison looked and saw the rounded mark of a heel in the ground, not as clear as the first print but definitely there, nevertheless.

Further on the ground sloped sharply down. Kerry held up her hand to stop the two men and she spent a lot of time examining the slope.

‘That's interesting,' she said, indicating a bluebell that had been crushed against the grass.

‘He went that way?' asked Morrison.

‘Look at the way it's been trodden on,' she said. She sat down on the grass next to it and Morrison joined her.

‘I don't follow you,' he said.

‘The head of the bluebell is higher up the slope than the stalk. That means that whatever squashed it was moving up the slope, not down. If it was The Chinaman, he was coming this way, not going.'

‘You mean it would be the other way if he'd been going down the slope?'

‘Think about it, Sean, picture a foot coming uphill. It'll push the stalk up. And a foot going down would push the stalk down.'

‘Was it definitely him?'

‘Can't say for definite. The grass is too thick and springy, there are no marks in the soil. But if it is him, he's going back the same way he came, he's not just running away. He's returning somewhere.' Kerry looked up at the darkening sky. ‘We might as well go back,' she said. ‘We'll make an early start tomorrow.' Morrison stood up and helped Kerry to her feet.

‘Shouldn't we go on?' Kavanagh asked.

‘We need a good light,' she explained. ‘Otherwise we'll miss something. We know which way he's headed now, we can pick his trail up at first light.'

The three of them walked back to the farmhouse together. Hennessy was waiting for them in the kitchen. Sarah Ryan was there and she rushed over to hug Kerry and kiss her on both cheeks.

‘Liam didn't tell me you were coming,' she cried. Sarah was a couple of years younger than Kerry and when they were teenagers they had spent a lot of time together during the school holidays, riding and picnicking in the countryside around the farm.

‘God, it's been so long,' Kerry said.

‘I've a few more wrinkles,' laughed Sarah.

‘Twenty-two years old and you talk about wrinkles, wait until you hit twenty-four!' They hugged each other again.

‘Do you want some sandwiches and coffee?' Sarah asked, and Kerry and Morrison both said yes.

O'Hara came in from the hallway as Sarah busied herself with the food. ‘Any luck?' he asked.

‘More than I would have thought possible,' said Morrison, leaning his pole against the Welsh dresser next to Kerry's. He held out his notebook.

‘Very good,' said O'Hara. ‘By Sean Morrison, aged four.'

‘It's a drawing of his footprint, you prat,' laughed Morrison. He handed it to Hennessy. ‘Kerry found the spot where he was hiding in the woods. And we think we know which way he went.' He took off his baseball cap and dropped it on the table.

‘Uncle Liam, do you have a map of the area? A large-scale one,' asked Kerry.

‘I think so,' he said, and went through to the lounge. He returned with several maps including a large one rolled up in a cardboard tube. He popped it open and pulled it out and she helped him spread it over the kitchen table. Morrison used a cruet set to anchor it down at one side and Sarah gave them two knives to weigh down the other side.

Kerry sat down in front of the map while Morrison and Hennessy looked over her shoulder. She traced out the route they'd taken with her finger, down the track, across the field to the copse, around the edge of the trees and to the hedgerow. ‘We got as far as here,' she said, tapping the map. ‘But the light was starting to go and I didn't want to make any mistakes. We'll start again first thing in the morning. The interesting thing was, Uncle Liam, there were signs that he was going back the way he'd come. As if he had a base somewhere, you know what I mean?'

‘That's a thought,' said Hennessy. ‘He must be staying somewhere. I suppose I just assumed that he was living rough.'

‘What about the van?' said Kavanagh. ‘He'd need somewhere to store the stuff he used to make his explosives. And the landlady in Belfast said he drove away in his van.'

Kerry took one of the small-scale maps and spread it out on top of the first map. She drew a line on it in pencil. ‘This is the way he was heading,' she said. The line cut across the B8 and B180 and through Dundrum Bay. ‘That's his general direction, so if we assume that wherever he was heading was twenty degrees or so either side of that line, we're left with this,' she said, and drew two more lines either side of the original one, creating two wedge shapes.

‘That's still a hell of a lot of countryside,' said Kavanagh, unconvinced.

‘Agreed, but he's not likely to be travelling too far, not at night. Let's say two hours, six miles maximum. That would put him in this area.' She made a curving line that cut across the first three lines.

‘That includes a good piece of the Mourne Mountains. And a fair smattering of villages,' said Kavanagh.

‘He's not likely to leave his van where it would be seen,' said Morrison. ‘He's not stupid. He'll know that the army is all over the place and that they don't take kindly to strange vehicles.'

‘The van is the key,' agreed Kerry. ‘Assuming he has the van, he must have driven it to where he hid it, which means it can't be too far away from a road. I don't think he'd hide it in the mountains, even if he could drive there. I think we should look for a wooded area with a road nearby. I reckon this is the best bet.' She pointed at the Tollymore Forest Park.