Read The Chinaman for Free Online Page B

his pipe and quickly averted his eyes, but too late to keep the guilt from his face. The old man had called out his name but Bromley didn’t look back as he headed for the sanctuary of the lift.
    Bromley tamped down the tobacco with his thumb. It wasn’t that he was afraid of talking to Nguyen, it was just that there was nothing to tell him. There had been six bombs in all, a total of thirty-two people dead, and the IRA had claimed responsibility for each explosion and assassination. The bombs had been of different types, though Semtex was always used. They were pretty sure it was the work of one IRA active service unit and that they were based in London for most of the time, but other than that, nothing. They were no closer now than they were when the bombing campaign had started ten weeks earlier. Bromley had told Nguyen that during one of the first telephone calls. Maybe what the old man needed was counselling, or a psychiatrist. Bromley held the phone between his shoulder and his ear while he lit the pipe and puffed it until the tobacco glowed. The pipe, and the tobacco, had been a birthday present from Chris, his fifteen-year-old son, paid for from the money he’d saved working on his paper round.
    â€˜She was only sixteen,’ Nguyen had said of his daughter. Bromley wondered how he would feel if Chris had been killed. His stomach went cold at the thought of it and he heard himself tell the man on the desk that he’d come down and speak to Nguyen.
    â€˜You’ll come down, sir?’ repeated the man, not believing what he’d heard. Bromley hung up without replying.
    Nguyen was standing by the reception desk and he stepped forward to meet Bromley as the lift doors opened.
    â€˜Detective Chief Inspector Bromley, it is good of you to see me,’ he said slowly and bowed his head. No mention of the countless times that the policeman had refused to even acknowledge his existence. Bromley felt a rush of guilt. He asked the man behind the desk if there was an interview room free and he was told there was. Bromley took Nguyen through a pair of double white doors and along a corridor to a small square room containing a table and two orange plastic seats. He motioned Nguyen to the seat nearest the door but the old man waited until Bromley was seated before he sat down. Bromley drew on his pipe and studied him through a cloud of smoke.
    Nguyen was smiling earnestly like an eager-to-please servant. His clothes were clean but scruffy, as if they’d been slept in, and his hair was lank and uncombed. The hands clasped on the table were wrinkled but the nails were neatly clipped. After twenty years as a policeman Bromley had acquired the knack of summing people up at a glance but he had no idea where to start with Nguyen. Maybe it was because he was Oriental. Certain points were obvious. Nguyen was not a rich man, but he had the look of a man who was used to hard work and responsibility. There was suffering too, but you didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work that out, Bromley knew. His English was reasonably good, though he had to make an effort to choose his words carefully, and there was something vaguely American about his accent. He seemed honest and straightforward and he looked Bromley in the eye as he waited for him to speak.
    Bromley took the stem of the pipe from his mouth and ran his left hand through his short-cropped beard. ‘Mr Nguyen, you must realise that we are doing everything we can to find the people who killed your wife and daughter. Everything that can be done, is being done, you must believe me when I tell you that. There is no point in you coming here every day. If there is something to tell you, we will telephone you or we will write to you. Do you understand?’
    The old man nodded twice, and his smile widened. Several of his back teeth were missing, and one of his canines was badly chipped. ‘I understand, Detective Chief Inspector Bromley,’ he said