Blind Justice

by Nathan Burrows

  “Hello,” Emily said, broadening her smile.

  The Chinese girl didn’t smile back, but continued to stare at her.

  After a few more seconds of silence, Emily continued, “Do you speak English?”

  The girl finally stirred into life. “Yes, I speak it pretty well all things considered,” she replied, the Norfolk accent obvious even to Emily, who tried to hide her surprise.

  “Oh, okay,” Emily said, scrabbling in her pocket for her identification card. “Good stuff. My name’s Emily Underwood. I work for the—”

  “I know who you work for,” the girl interrupted, raising her eyebrows. “The Environment Agency.”

  Emily’s mouth opened an inch before she closed it again.

  “Look, I’m sorry. But I know my grandfather’s going to be in a right old mood for the rest of the evening what with you visiting.”

  “No, that’s fine. I get that we’re not often that popular,” Emily said. “But after the last inspection…” She let the sentence hang.

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve tried to talk to Granddad, but he’s quite stubborn. His shop, his ways. I’m only here helping out because he doesn’t speak English, and Gran’s not well. My name’s Wang by the way.”

  Emily remembered the grandmother described as a translator from the report. “Oh dear, I hope she gets better soon,” Emily said, smiling with what she hoped was a sympathetic expression.

  “Come on then, let’s get it done. But I warn you, you’re probably not going to like it,” Wang said, her smile fading as she turned away and walked back towards the kitchen door.

  An hour later, Emily was sitting back in her Mini with her mobile phone pressed against her ear.

  “Mr Clayton, it’s desperate in there,” she said. “If anything, it’s worse than the last visit.”

  Her manager’s voice echoed down the line, “How’d you mean?”

  “Well, the food storage is still all over the place. Top shelf is seafood. All types of it. Prawns, fish, something else. No idea what though. Next shelf down might be beef, but it’s difficult to tell.” Emily flipped the page of her notebook. “And on the bottom shelf is something that’s almost pink, but tinged with blue. None of it’s refrigerated.”

  “Right, well that’s an offence right there.”

  “There’s more,” Emily continued. “Mice droppings everywhere, open bags of dried noodles and rice on the floor. There’s a bunch of eggs, and something’s died in the bucket they’re in.”

  “Something?” The incredulity in her boss’s voice was obvious. “What sort of something?”

  “I think one of them might have hatched.”

  There was a silence on the other end of the line before her manager carried on. “What’s going on with the disabled toilet? In the last report, it was blocked.”

  “Well it’s not blocked now, but it’s not a disabled toilet any more,” Emily replied. “It’s been, er, it’s been converted.”

  “Into what?”

  “A bedroom. There’s a bunk bed in there now. I mean, it’s still got a toilet but it’s now one with people living in it.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Mr Clayton breathed down the line.

  “I spoke to the poor girl working there, and her grandfather won’t do anything about it. He says that only Chinese people eat there, so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Okay,” Emily’s boss said, his voice resigned. “We’re going to have to close them down. I’ll get a team out to you to give them the good news.”

  “No, it’s okay. I can manage it. There’s only the young woman helping out, and the grandfather here. I get on fine with her, and he’s quite elderly,” Emily said. She was desperate to finish this job off, and didn’t want Mr Clayton to think she couldn’t cope with a simple closure notice. “I’ll say we’re just closing it for the evening, and that we’ll be back tomorrow to help them get sorted out. They won’t know it’ll lead to a prosecution.”

  “Only if you’re sure, but any problems at all, you just let me know, Emily. Okay?” he said.

  “Sure, no problem. I’ll have the report for you in the morning.” After saying goodbye to her boss, Emily started walking back across the car park. A large 4x4 pulled in, and a man in his forties with a child of about nine or ten got out and started walking toward the takeaway.

  “Sorry, excuse me,” Emily called out to the man.

  He turned to face her.

  “I’m afraid the Chinese is closed for the evening.”

  “No it’s not,” the man replied, pointing to the sign on the door. “Look, it’s still open.”

  “Well, it won’t be in a couple of minutes’ time.” Emily showed the man her Environment Agency identification card. “Trust me.”

  The man’s face paled as he shepherded his son back to the car.

  “So I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to close the takeaway for the evening, Mr Wong.” Emily looked at the elderly Chinese man standing on the other side of the counter and waited for Wang to translate.

  As Wang finished speaking, Mr Wong shook his head from side to side. He spoke in rapid Mandarin, his anger obvious.

  “He says that this will not be possible, not tonight or any night,” Wang said.

  Emily looked at her, not wanting to come across as desperate. “Could you tell him that this isn’t something we’re asking him to do?”

  Wang started translating, and Emily added, “It’s something we’re telling him to do.”

  When Wang had finished talking, Mr Wong looked at Emily, his eyes almost completely closed. He turned on his heel and marched back into the kitchen.

  “You might want to think about leaving,” Wang called over her shoulder as she followed her grandfather into the kitchen.

  There was a fierce argument going on behind the closed door with Mr Wong’s voice becoming louder and louder. When the sound of pots and pans banging together started, Emily took a step toward the takeaway entrance. Wang was shouting back at her grandfather, so Emily turned and unlocked her car through the window with the remote. Maybe it was time to admit to Mr Clayton that this wasn’t something she could deal with after all? Her suspicions were confirmed when Mr Wong came bursting back through the kitchen door. Emily took one look at the huge machete in his hand and sprinted towards the door.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” she said, heart pounding as she struggled with the door. Push not pull. Fail. She managed to fall through the door just as Mr Wong rounded the counter, waving the machete above his head and screaming at her in rapid Mandarin.

  The little old man was a lot quicker than he looked, and he was gaining on her as they ran across the car park. Emily got to the car, threw open the door, and almost dropped the keys on the floor as she fumbled to get the key in the ignition.

  “Come on, come on,” she muttered. “Please start.” Her hands trembling, she managed to turn the key in the ignition and, to her relief, the car started at the first time of asking. As she left two streaks of rubber on the Chinese takeaway’s car park, Emily started laughing. Partly out of fear, but mostly out of relief. The machete was something she was going to have to leave out of her final report to Mr Clayton. She slapped her hand on the steering wheel. She was still full of adrenaline, but as she looked in the rear-view mirror at the receding Mr Wong, she started laughing much louder than she normally did.

  “Chicken Chow Mein!” she shouted at the top of her voice. “Pork Balls!”

  Wow.

  Not only have you read Blind Justice, but you also read the extract of The Butcher. Did you like it?

  I promised you a message you’d love before you started reading the extract, and here it is - just for people like you who’ve got this far! If you want to read the next few chapters of The Butcher, visit butcher.nathanburrows.com and I’ll send them to you along with (very) occasional updates on my writing.

  Speak soon.

  Nathan Burrows

  ustice