The Jade Garden (The Barrington Patch Book 2) by Emmy Ellis (reading diary txt) 📗

wiser. Inside, though, he hated what he did, what his family did, and wished he could run the takeaway without the added extras.

He couldn’t. No getting away from it, he was stuck here. He could go back to China, but what of his sons, his wife, his other relations? They’d all built a life here, and for the younger generation, the north of England was all they’d ever known, his sons born on these shores. How could he expect them to transport their worlds elsewhere due to bad results on the back of a decision he’d made years ago? Because that was what they’d have to do if Li Jun decided to pack this in. If they remained in the UK, Cassie and her people would find them. Force them to continue at the Jade.

Or face death.

He’d like to think Cassie wasn’t as hot on imposing the rules as Lenny had been, but since she’d taken over, she’d more than proved she had a ‘screw loose’, as Dequan put it. Li Jun privately thought the contents of her whole toolbox rattled around, but he’d never say so. Never utter anything like that out loud to anyone but his kin.

She’d been on the phone out in the yard and came into the kitchen, jerking her head to let him know she needed to talk to him, leading the way into the office. He could hardly tell her not to—her mother, the elegant Francis, owned the takeaway now, but really, all belonged to Cassie, she was the one running things.

He sat at the desk. “We are a chef short. I need to be out there helping if it gets busy.”

“I’m aware of that.”

He thought about events prior to the nasty person coming in. “It seems odd to me.”

“What does?”

“That we did not have any customers for a while before the man arrived. Could it be people were warned off?”

“Hmm. Told to come back later?”

“Exactly.” He sighed. “We are always busy.”

“I’m looking for more than one person then.” She went to the unplugged fridge in the corner and opened the door. Inspected the contents, brushing a finger along the front of a shelf. “If customers were warned either end of the street, the masked man can’t be in two places at once.” She clenched her jaw. “I need to know exactly what happened tonight. Every little detail you can remember.”

Li Jun closed his eyes, and the slicing action of the machete pranced about in his mind. He winced and snapped his eyes open. What would he see in his dreams, his nightmares? Would he ever get tonight out of his head?

Li Jun tidied a stack of business cards then wiped down the counter, the cloth skimming over the open menus he’d placed beneath the glass top.

A customer, Graham Knowles, sat in the takeaway, reading a menu pamphlet as so many did while they waited for their order. Li Jun often wondered whether they wished they’d chosen something else once they spied the images of the food on offer, maybe telling themselves, “Next time, I’ll have that next time. Didn’t know they did duck in black bean sauce. Always thought it was just orange.”

Li Jun prided himself on being different, providing unusual options.

He glanced through the cutout in the wall. Jiang stood closest to the back door chopping onions into petals for the curries, Tai beside him doing a good job of slicing the slab of char sui, the red edges vibrant from food colouring. Li Jun made his own marinade, none of that rubbish in a plastic tub for him. He’d been taught to create meals from scratch as a child and had brought his knowledge to the UK. Taught his family, too.

Dequan and Yenay, busy in front of the double-wide hob, cooked the large order for Graham. Two lots of chicken chow mein, four chicken curries, one beef. Three char sui fried rice, one egg fried. Three spare ribs. On top of that, prawn crackers, sesame toast, and umpteen fat spring rolls. A party, so Graham had said, and once his food was cooked, he was nipping along the road to The Shoppe Pudding that stayed open late. A birthday cake awaited him, and a couple of cheesecakes, one of them a New York, apparently, on account of a guest not liking strawberry, the ‘awkward bastard’.

Tai stopped his slicing and helped with packaging the food, and in no time, the order was placed in a cardboard box and balanced on the ledge of the cutout.

“Number three,” Li Jun said out of habit, despite only Graham being there.

The man rose, placed his plastic yellow card with a large black marker-penned ‘3’ on it, and took the box. He said his thanks and goodbye, plus, “See you next week for the usual.”

So he hadn’t been tempted by other choices on the menu then. No black bean duck for this one. Graham lived alone and always had a beef curry with egg fried rice. Li Jun had found that people stuck to what they liked for the most part, not daring to venture into the realm of new tastes once they’d discovered their ‘usual’. He knew most customer’s favourites off by heart.

Graham left, the door sucking shut, and placed the food on the passenger seat of his car directly outside. He walked along to The Shoppe Pudding, and Li Jun smiled. It would be Jiang’s birthday soon, and they’d have a family feast. Maybe he’d buy himself a cake from down the road, too.

Li Jun watched the street for a moment, snatching the chance for a rest while it was quiet. A row of houses stood opposite, their roofs hidden by the enveloping darkness, the red-brick facades on display from lights shining through windows where the curtains hadn’t been drawn yet. Inhabitants lounged watching telly, their big screens flickering with