The Chinaman by Stephen Leather Page B

That’s exactly what he wanted. And can you imagine what the Press would do if they even thought we were considering something like that? They’d scream “Big Brother” and “Violation of Human Rights” and you know they would. Remember Gibraltar? They don’t think about the people whose lives were saved when the SAS stopped the car bomb from being detonated. All they remember is the IRA being shot while they were on the ground. Remember the uproar over the Belgrano ?’
    Ellen didn’t argue. She knew full well that there was no point in taking sides against her boss. She was there to learn from him, not to antagonise him. She smiled and brushed a loose strand of hair off her face. ‘I’ll get the next one in for you,’ she said sweetly while wondering how such a racist could ever get elected. There was so much she still had to learn, she realised.
    Jon Simpson took the call from the uniformed security guard at reception. ‘There’s a chap down here wants to speak to a reporter,’ he said gruffly.
    â€˜What about?’ asked Simpson.
    â€˜Dunno,’ said the guard.
    â€˜Do me a favour and ask him, will you?’ sighed Simpson. The security guards weren’t paid for brain power, just for bulk, but there were times when Simpson wished they were a mite brighter. There was a pause before the guard’s laconic voice returned.
    â€˜Says it’s about the bombs.’
    Simpson felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The IRA bombing campaign had been going on for more than four months and the police seemed to be no nearer catching the bombers. Maybe the punter downstairs held the key, it was amazing the number of times that they came to the paper rather than going straight to the police. Or perhaps it wasn’t so surprising – the paper paid handsomely for information. The news editor looked around the newsroom to see who was free and his eyes settled on Woody who was reading the Daily Star and picking his teeth with a plastic paper-clip. It had taken Woody weeks of plaintive phone calls before Simpson had allowed him to start shifting again and only after he’d promised not to drink on the job. Not to excess, anyway. Expecting Woody not to drink at all was asking the impossible. And he was a bloody good journalist.
    â€˜Woody!’ he yelled.
    Woody’s head jerked up and he came over immediately, pen and notebook in hand. He was still at the eager-to-please stage. ‘There’s a punter downstairs. Something about the bombs. See what he’s got, will you?’
    Woody nodded and headed for the lift. The man waiting downstairs was Oriental, wearing a blue duffel coat with black toggles, faded jeans and dirty training shoes. He was carrying a plastic carrier bag and was wiping his nose with a grubby handkerchief. He snorted into it and then shoved it into his coat pocket before stretching his arm out to shake hands. Woody pretended not to notice the gesture and herded the old man towards a group of low-backed sofas in the far corner of the reception area. Carrier bags were always a bad sign, he thought, as he watched the man settle into a sofa next to a large, spreading tree with weeping leaves. Punters who arrived at newspaper offices with carrier bags often produced strange things from them. During his twenty years as a journalist Woody had just about seen everything. There were the paranoids who thought they were being followed and who would produce lists of numbers of cars that were pursuing them, or taxis, or descriptions of people who had appeared in their dreams, or lists of MPs who were in fact aliens operating from a base on the far side of the moon. There were the punters who felt they’d had a raw deal from one of the big international companies and had photocopies of correspondence going back ten years to prove it. There were the nutters who claimed to have written Oscar-winning film scripts only to have