The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 David Carter (autobiographies to read txt) 📖

Wazir approached and stood before them. Adopted his best English accent, pronunciation he had heard on the radio, and said, ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, but I am seeking this address. Could you possibly help me? Can you please set us on the right road? Please, Sirs.’

‘Please Sirs, is it?’ said one to the other, grinning.

Wazir nodded hopefully. Added again, ‘Yes Sir, please.’

The first policeman nodded across the dock road and said, ‘See that tram, the green tram,’ he was speaking loudly as if Wazir was deaf, or an idiot, ‘THE GREEN TRAM!’

Wazir glanced at the old tram as it clanked along the road. ‘I see the tram.’

The policeman nodded and grinned at his colleague as if he were making headway. ‘That tram goes to Upper Parliament Street; all you have to do is follow it.’

Wazir glanced back at the green and cream tram, gaining speed, and clanking and heading away.

‘But we can’t follow it, it goes too fast, we have child,’ glancing down at Ahmed.

The policemen peered down at Ahmed too. He was a cute little kid, and the kid looked worried.

The policeman was talking again, ‘That’s OK, the trams run every fifteen minutes, just follow each one as they come along, you can’t go wrong.’

Wazir beamed. ‘Oh I see, thank you so very much.’

‘You’re all right, pal,’ said the policeman.

The second one spotted the cricket bat.

‘YOU LIKE CRICKET?’

Wazir glanced down at the bat; thought of the bejewelled sword sleeping within.

‘Oh yes, I like cricket, we all like cricket in India.’

‘MIND IF I HAVE A GO?’ said the policeman, reaching down and easing the bat from Wazir’s grasp. Nadirah looked alarmed. The boy still looked worried.

The policeman didn’t notice. He’d grabbed the bat and was practicing his batting stance, grinning at the others. Playing a classic cover drive, an aggressive cut through the slips, a hook over his left shoulder, high in the air, over the ropes, ‘SIX!’ he yelled, and looked awfully pleased with himself.

The policeman stood up and handed the bat back to Wazir.

‘IT’S A HEAVY BAT!’

‘Yes,’ said Wazir, ‘heavy bat,’ confused and unsure what to say.

‘YOU MUST SUPPORT LANCASHIRE,’ said the show off batsman, ‘LANC-A-SHIRE!’

‘Lanc-a-shire,’ repeated Wazir. ‘From now on I support Lanc-a-shire.’

The policemen shared a look, and one nodded hopefully and said, ‘That’s the ticket.’

Wazir turned around. He thought he heard another tram coming. The policemen smiled at one another, grinned at the strangers, and pointed across the road to the approaching tram.

‘YOU FOLLOW TRAM!’ said one of them. ‘YOU’LL BE ALL RIGHT.’

‘Yes, we follow tram,’ said Wazir, and he beckoned his family across the busy road, to be closer to the clanking beast that was banging up toward them.

After they had gone one policeman said to his mate, ‘See! They are not all thick. I have always been able to communicate with foreigners.’

‘Yeah, Harry, course you have, let’s go and grab a cuppa tea.’

99 UPPER PARLIAMENT Street was a four story mid Victorian property. Its best days were long behind it. One of the windows on the second floor was broken. The front door was cracked and bowed and badly needed a paint, and up above, some of the Welsh slates on the roof had come loose and had slipped down, several precariously balancing on the edge, as if a puff of wind would send them hurtling to the street below, but to the Khan family, it looked like a palace.

They were tired and cold and hungry, and needed to get inside out of the drizzle. There were four white bell pushes lined up vertically beside the door, and after studying them for a second, Wazir pushed A. He could hear the long continuous sound of the bell ringing inside. They all could.

A moment later the door opened and a handsome face peered down at them, a friendly face, an Indian face, who glanced at the little boy, and the pleasing on-the-eye woman, and the upright gentleman... and the impressive cricket bat he was holding.

Had they really come all this way from the State of Kerala carrying a blessed cricket bat? What did the man imagine he was going to do? Play cricket all day? In this climate? In this country? Ignorance is bliss. What a fool! The handsome man scoffed, and then said the most welcoming words he could have uttered.

‘You’d better come in, you look tired and hungry. We have been expecting you.’

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Wazir was set to work in the laundry. Worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, but the work wasn’t overtaxing, and his family was safe and fed, and at the end of the month Wazir was given two crisp green one pound notes. Nadirah was set to work in the kitchen, and when she wasn’t doing that, was told to clean and polish the house. She received nothing, and was happy enough to do that, for a while. Ahmed would be instructed in prayer, while discreet enquiries were made as to where he could attend a suitable school.

The Khan family shared one small room at the very top of the house, set in the attic where water would drip in whenever it rained.

Wazir volunteered to climb up and fix the roof; and everyone stood nervously outside in the street on the morning he did precisely that. The roof didn’t leak again, and Wazir’s determination, skill, and courage had been noted.

He spent part of the money he received on a good lock, MADE IN ENGLAND, it said, just like the ones at home, and fitted it to a cupboard that was set in the eaves in their little room.

Inside the cupboard the cricket bat soundly slept, safe and secure, out of sight, out of mind, and inside the bat, the bejewelled ceremonial sword slumbered on.

No one outside of the Khan family knew it was there.

It would remain incarcerated for years.

Twenty-Five

Walter and Karen were back in Swaythling’s office, sipping best Robusta coffee, Swaythling had insisted