The Chinaman (3 page)

‘What next?' he asked, grinning.

‘Yes,' said the man who'd opened the door and who was now sitting on a flowery print sofa by a tall wooden bookcase. His name was McCormick. ‘What do we do next?'

Fisher smiled. ‘You're so bloody impatient,' he laughed. He turned to look at the occupant of the chair by the window, the one they called The Bombmaker. ‘That depends on what MacDermott here comes up with.' The Bombmaker grinned.

The comedy show was interrupted for a news flash and a sombre man with movie-star looks reported that sixteen people had died in a bomb explosion and that the Provisional IRA had claimed responsibility. They then cut to a reporter in a white raincoat standing under a street-lamp in Knightsbridge, who said that police now believed that the bomb had been in the back carrier of a motorcycle and that it had been detonated by a timing device.

O'Reilly punched the air again, and The Bombmaker's grin widened.

The police car drove slowly down Clapham Road. Constable Simon Edgington's left hand was aching from the constant gear changing and he cursed the bumper-to-bumper traffic under his breath. It wasn't even worth switching the siren on because there wasn't enough room for the cars and buses to pull to the side.

‘It's getting worse,' he groaned.

‘Sorry?' said his partner, a blonde WPC called Susan Griffin who had joined the Met on the graduate entry scheme. One of the high-flyers, a sergeant had told Edgington, closely followed by a warning not to try anything on because she'd reported the last constable whose hand had accidentally slipped on to her thigh during a hasty gear change.

‘The traffic,' he said. ‘We're going to be all night at this rate.'

She looked down at the sheaf of papers on her black clipboard. ‘This is the last one,' she said. ‘Chinese or something. God, I don't think I can pronounce their names. Noog-yen Guan Fong and Noog-yen Goy Trin. Does that sound right?' The names on the sheet were written as Nguyen Xuan Phoung and Nguyen Kieu Trinh.

He laughed. ‘Sounds like a disease,' he said.

She gave him a frosty look. ‘It's not really a laughing matter is it, Simon?'

Edgington flushed. Griffin was a year younger than him but she acted as if she already had her sergeant's stripes. But his embarrassment came from the fact that he knew she was right, it wasn't the sort of thing to joke about. He wanted to tell her that he was just nervous, that he was trying to relieve the tension that was knotting up his stomach, and that he'd never thought when he signed up three years earlier that he'd have to knock on the doors of complete strangers and tell them that their nearest and dearest had been scattered all over Knightsbridge by a terrorist bomb. He wanted to explain but knew he'd sound like a wimp so he concentrated on driving.

They'd been given three addresses, all south of the river. The first had been a middle-aged couple in Lambeth, a schoolteacher and his wife. Their teenage son had been in the passenger seat of an old Mini that had been fifty feet or so from the motorcycle when the bomb had gone off. Several pieces of wire that had been wrapped around the explosive had burst through the windscreen and torn his face and throat apart. The couple had already seen a report of the bombing on the evening news and before Griffin had spoken the wife's legs had given way and her husband had had to help her to a chair in their cramped kitchen. Edgington had been quite happy to let his partner do the talking, he didn't think that he could have kept his voice steady. He'd joined the police to catch criminals, not to act as some kind of messenger of death. And she'd done it so bloody well, sat them both down, made them cups of sweet tea, phoned their daughter and arranged for her to come round and look after them. She'd sat with them on the sofa until the girl came and then left them to their grief. All the time Edgington had stood by the kitchen door, feeling useless, but Griffin hadn't mentioned it when they got back into the car.

The next call had been at a small flat in Stockwell. No relatives this time, but a boyfriend who burst into tears and hugged the WPC when she told him what had happened. They were going to get married, he'd sobbed. She was pregnant, he said. She held him until the tears stopped and sat him down and asked him if there was anyone she could call, a friend or a relative. Did she suffer, he asked. No, she lied. The sergeant had told them that the girl had died screaming on the pavement with both her legs blown off. ‘No, she didn't suffer,' she said without hesitation.

He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and she gave him a handkerchief while Edgington telephoned the boy's mother. She said she'd be around in fifteen minutes and Edgington and Griffin decided that he'd be OK on his own until then. They left him hunched over a mug of tea which he clasped tightly between his hands.

‘It's coming up on the left,' she said.

The traffic crept along and eventually they reached the turning.

‘Number 62,' she said before he asked.

He drove slowly, counting off the numbers. ‘Are you sure?' he asked.

She checked the computer print-out on the clipboard and nodded. ‘That's what it says here.'

He stopped the car and they both looked at number 62. It was a Chinese take-away, with a huge window on which were printed gold and black Chinese letters and above it a sign that said ‘Double Happiness Take-Away'. Through the window they could see two customers waiting in front of a chest-high counter.

‘That's it,' she said, opening her car door. Edgington caught up with her as she reached the entrance and followed her in.

Behind the counter was an old Oriental man shouting through a serving hatch in a language neither of them could understand. He turned and placed two white plastic carrier bags full of cartons of Chinese food in front of one of the customers and took his money. There was a loud scream from the kitchen and the man stuck his head back through the hatch and shouted and waved his arm.

He came back to the counter and smiled up at Edgington and Griffin.

‘What I get you?' he asked. He was a small man, his shoulders barely above the counter. His face was wrinkled but the skin wasn't slack, his cheekbones were clearly defined and there were no loose folds under the chin. It was hard to tell exactly how old he was, he could have been in his forties and had a rough life, or he could have been a well-preserved sixty-year-old. Griffin noticed how sad his eyes were. They were eyes that had seen a lot of suffering, she decided.

‘Are you Mr Noog-yen?' she said, and he nodded quickly but corrected her pronunciation, saying his name as ‘Newyen'. The single customer left at the counter stood openly watching and listening to the conversation. Edgington stared at him until the man's gaze faltered and he studied the menu pinned to the wall.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?' Griffin asked the old man.

‘I very busy,' he replied. ‘No staff. You come back later, maybe?' There was a thud from the hatch and he went over and picked up another carrier bag. He handed it to the customer. ‘Come again,' he said.

‘I'm afraid we have bad news for you,' said Griffin. She looked at the clipboard again. God, she thought, how do you pronounce these names? ‘Mr Nguyen, do you know a Xuan Phoung or 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.'

‘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.

‘Mr Nguyen, please, it would be much better for you if we could sit down somewhere.'

‘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.

‘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.

‘Do you understand, Mr Nguyen?' asked Griffin.

‘What happened?' said the old man.

‘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.

‘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 was she any younger than seven or eight. Curious.

‘Please,' said the old man behind him and Edgington turned round to see him holding out his hands. ‘Please, the picture.'

Edgington took over the big framed photograph and handed it to him. He didn't speak, he didn't know what to say.

The old man cradled the frame in his arms and then hugged it to his chest. There were no tears and he made no sound, but the intensity of his grief was painful to watch.

‘Who did this to my family?' he asked eventually.

‘The IRA,' said Edgington. They were the first words he'd spoken in the room and his voice sounded thick with emotion. He cleared his throat and Griffin looked up, surprised that he'd spoken. ‘The IRA have claimed responsibility,' he said.

‘IRA,' said Nguyen, saying each letter slowly as if hearing them for the first time. ‘What is IRA?'

Edgington looked at Griffin and she raised her eyebrows. Was he serious? He sat down next to the old man.

‘Terrorists,' he said quietly.

‘What do they want, these terrorists?'

Edgington was stumped for an answer and he looked helplessly at Griffin. She shook her head, knowing that what the old man needed was sympathy and a sedative, not a political discussion. The man turned to her. ‘What do they want?' he asked her.

‘They want British troops out of Ireland,' she said reluctantly.

‘How does killing my family do that?' he asked.

She shrugged. ‘Is there someone I can get to come and take care of you?' she asked. ‘Do any of your family live nearby?'

‘I have no family,' he said quietly. ‘Now I have no family. I am alone. These IRA, will you catch them?'

‘Yes,' she said, looking him in the eye.

‘And will they be punished?'

‘Yes,' she repeated. Lying was coming easily to her today.

‘Good,' said the old man. He nodded as if satisfied.

The second edition was coming off the presses when Woody finally got back to the office. He slumped in his chair still wearing his raincoat. He'd spilled something down the front of it and when he dropped his head on his chest he could smell whisky. ‘What a waste,' he mumbled.

The reporter at the desk next to his leant round a potted plant and said: ‘Simpson is after your arse, Woody.' There was more than a hint of sadistic pleasure in his voice as he passed on the bad news. Like Woody he was a freelance and each time a freelance was shafted there was more work to go round for everyone else.

‘Thanks,' said Woody, determined not to show how worried he was. He needed the work, God he needed the work, and he'd been banned from most of the London papers over the last twelve months or so. He was finding it harder and harder to get through a shift without drinking, and that didn't go down well in the new high-tech world of modern newspapers. In the old days, the days when reporters looked like reporters and they worked on typewriters that sounded like typewriters, then the Street was full of characters – men and women who could take their drink and whose work was better for it, and who would be fondly forgiven if they were found late in the evening, flat on their backs under their desks. The news editors then would call for the office car and have them sent home. If they were really badly behaved then perhaps a just punishment would be handed out, a nasty door-stepping job in the pouring rain or a night-time road accident in the middle of nowhere, character-building rather than malicious. Not these days. These days most of the journalists seemed to be straight out of university with weak chins, earnest eyes and stockbroker voices. Few of them could even manage shorthand, Woody thought bitterly, and it was a common sight in the newsroom to see them plugged into tape-recorders transcribing their tapes and breathing through their mouths. Woody remembered the purgatory he'd gone through to get his own spidery shorthand up to the required one hundred words per minute, and the rest of the shit he'd had to go through before he got to Fleet Street. Now the papers were all staffed by kids, kids who if you managed to drag them bodily into a bar would drink nothing stronger than bubbly water. Ian Wood was forty-two years old but at that moment he felt he was going on eighty.