The Red Thread by Dawn Farnham Read Free Book Online Page A

façade, huge characters advertising their names and wares. Children spilled from doors and played in the rubbish-strewn street. They stopped to watch the men go by. Living cadavers sat crouched on low chairs, sucking on soup and noodles. A Chinese barber had set up his stool in the shade of a ramshackle wooden building. A line of customers crouched, waiting.
    Zhen ran a hand over his head and face and felt the prickly growth. A shave would be wonderful. A bath would be heaven. All the coolies stank of sweat, their clothes stiff with dried seawater.
    Two imposing, dark-skinned men with fierce, dark eyes, massive red turbans and great black beards walked slowly by, eyeing them. The overseer and his coolie group instinctively moved aside to let them pass.
    â€˜Police,’ the overseer called to the group, pointing to a building on the corner of the bayside street they had left. ‘That’s the police station. Stay away from them and do as you are told; there’ll be no trouble.’
    The town was small, and just two streets later they shuffled into a dilapidated building, the kang coolie house. Seeds sprouted in the walls of the narrow building. Saplings struggled for life along the parapet. Spidery ferns clung to every crack, as if the jungle were determined to take back its territory. Dark, slimy stains ran the length of the façade. The upper floor was shuttered. There was an air well towards the middle of the building, and another at the very back, next to the kitchen. Here was a chipped stone bench with two clay stoves covered in soot. Wood was stacked under the bench; bent and beaten iron woks and crusty utensils hung from the scorched, greasy yellow walls. In the back well there was an open stall with a stinking bucket, black and brown lumps encrusted on its side. Insects spawned on the dirt-strewn surface of a shanghai jar filled with stagnant water. Hollow-eyed, bony-chested men lay on shelves on either side of the squalid passage, unmoving as the newcomers passed.
    Pock Face pointed to two shelves at the back of the building, one above the other, close to the waste and slops cupboard. It was better than the ship only because it was not rocking. The smells of stale cooking oil, stale air, stale sweat, shit and opium fumes were overpowering. A feeling of hopelessness stole over Qian. He sat on the low shelf, drew up his legs and stared at Zhen. His left eye began to twitch.
    Zhen took a look around, scratched his chin and said quietly,
    â€˜ Aiya ! Still the mind, you big girl. Remember the farmer. Tomorrow we will go to the temple and speak to the gods and anyone else who might be around for a chat. I’ll have a word with Pock Face tonight.’
    He sat at Qian’s side.
    â€˜Take the top shelf, rats have further to run.’

3
    When Charlotte awoke it was late afternoon. She could hear movement in the house. She was bathed in sweat and flung open the shutters to the verandah. Air wafted over her. She went out again to the big earthenware water jar, took up the ladle and began to pour the cool water over her body, slip and all.
    â€˜That you, Kitt?’ called Robert.
    â€˜Who else?’ she called, happy he was home.
    â€˜Will you nae join me on the sitooterie, Miss Macleod?’ It was their grandmother’s term for a verandah or a gazebo or any place where you ‘sit oot’, and it never failed to reduce them to giggles.
    Laughing delightedly, she wrapped a large cotton cloth around her and went, trailing watery footsteps across the wooden floor, into the front living room. He was seated in a big rattan chair on the verandah, which looked over the fort and out to sea. The awnings on the riverside were all down against the sun. She plopped wetly into the seat beside him.
    â€˜You look cool. Auch, it’s been damned hot today and I’ve been on horseback most of it. This job is turning out to be tough.’
    He smiled as he said this, though, and she knew he