The Chinaman Read Online Free Page A

Kieu Trinh?’ Both names started with Nguyen so she’d guessed that that was the family name and that everything that came after it were their given names.
    The man frowned. Another customer came in and stood behind Edgington. Griffin tried pronouncing the names again but still nothing registered so she showed him the computer print-out and pointed to the two names.
    He nodded, his eyes wary. ‘My wife,’ he said. ‘And my daughter.’
    â€˜I’m afraid there has been an accident,’ said the WPC. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’
    The man waved his hands impatiently. ‘What has happened?’ he insisted.
    â€˜Mr Nguyen, please, it would be much better for you if we could sit down somewhere.’
    â€˜No staff,’ he said. ‘My wife not in kitchen, so much work to do. What has happened?’ He spoke each word carefully, as if stringing a sentence together was an effort, and he had a vaguely American accent. But he seemed to have no trouble in understanding what she was saying.
    â€˜Mr Nguyen, your wife and daughter are dead. I’m very sorry.’
    He looked stunned. His mouth dropped and his hands slid off the counter and down to his sides. He started to say something and then stopped and shook his head. Edgington turned to the customer and found himself apologising, but for the life of him he didn’t know why. He felt his cheeks redden.
    â€˜Do you understand, Mr Nguyen?’ asked Griffin.
    â€˜What happened?’ said the old man.
    â€˜Is there somewhere we can talk?’ she asked again. She didn’t want to explain about the bomb while she was standing in a Chinese take-away.
    â€˜We can go back of shop,’ he said. He shouted through the hatch and as he opened a white-painted door a balding Oriental with sleeves rolled up around his elbows and a grease-stained apron came barrelling out. He ignored Nguyen and glared at the customer. ‘What you want?’ he barked.
    Nguyen led them down a tiled hallway, up a flight of wooden stairs and through a beaded curtain. Beyond was a small room with heavy brocade wallpaper and a faded red patterned carpet. The furniture was dark rosewood, a square table with carved feet and four straight-backed chairs with no cushions. On one wall was a small red and gold shrine in front of which a joss stick was smouldering, filling the air with sickly sweet perfume.
    In a corner by a small window was a semi-circular table on which stood a group of framed photographs of Nguyen with an old woman and a young girl. Edgington walked over to the table and studied the pictures as Griffin sat down with the old man. Most of the pictures were of the girl, she was obviously the focus of the family. In the most recent photographs she looked to be in her mid-teens and she was absolutely gorgeous, long black hair and flawless features. She could have been a model. There were pictures of her in a school uniform and even in those she looked sexy. The old woman was obviously her mother, but there was little or no physical resemblance. The girl was tall and straight and the woman was small and stooped. The girl’s skin was smooth and fresh and the woman’s dark and wrinkled. The girl had eyes that were bright and sparkling while the woman’s appeared lifeless. As he studied the photographs he heard Griffin explaining about the bomb. Edgington did the calculations in his head – if she’d had the child when she was twenty she’d be under forty, and even if she’d given birth at thirty the woman couldn’t be much older than forty-eight and yet she looked much older. In one of the photographs, the biggest of the collection, the girl was sitting in a chair, her parents behind her. Nguyen was smiling proudly and had a protective hand on her shoulder. They looked more like her grandparents. Something else struck him. There were no pictures of her as a baby or a toddler. In none of the photographs