Up in Flames (19 page)

             
‘And you think, like our other arsonists, Gough and Linklater, that he might be beginning to make a habit of it?’

             
Catt shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. Insurance companies are regarded as fair game by most people.’

             
‘But his daughter and granddaughter were in the house,’ Casey protested.

             
‘Which brings us back to the loan-sharks being the arsonists.’

             
Casey sat back. They had come full circle. ‘Very well. I’m going to pay another visit to Mr Khan. Find Shazia Singh, will you? I’d like her to accompany me. In view of this new information I want to check he was at the High Street shop last Saturday when Chandra’s fire was set. While I’m doing that, I want you to get back to your snouts and find out if they know anything more. And try that vicar again. If Gough at least is out of it as far as Chandra’s case goes, the sooner we get it confirmed the better.’

The same racks of clothes still stood outside Rathi Khan’s High Street shop cluttering the pavement, still full of low-priced dresses and trousers. Funny, but Casey felt that in the interval since their last visit so much had happened that the entire stock should have changed.

             
The weather was still warm, only now it was becoming oppressive. The shop door was open to let in some air and from the open doorway came the sound of Indian music, the ‘wailing’ kind as Dean Linklater would no doubt describe it. Casey stopped to listen. After a minute, he asked Shazia what the song was about.

             
‘What Hindi songs are always about,’ she told him with an amused glance from her bold tawny eyes. ‘Thrills and spills, love and passion, with a hero who is good to him mum and who always marries a virgin. The usual Bollywood stuff. Masala movies, they’re called because like a good curry there is a little bit of every flavour in one dish. Maybe you ought to try going to see an Indian film, sir,’ she suggested artlessly. ‘It would give you a glimpse beneath the surface of Indian life, if nothing else.’

             
The suggestion had been made in that half-teasing, half-challenging way he had come to recognise. He wondered if she thought him too stuffy and conservative to take her up on her suggestion. He felt sufficiently challenged to mutter, ‘Maybe I will.’ There was a cinema just around the corner that showed mostly Indian films. A visit might provide him with an ‘in’ on an aspect of Indian culture that would give him a different perspective from the usual runaway bride scenario that was all that hit the headlines here. Perhaps he could ask his mother to go with him. She had spent a lot of time at the cinema whilst they were in India - when she wasn’t haggling at the bazaars or disappearing to spend time with fake fakirs.

             
He’d forgotten what a jolt to the senses the shop’s interior was. The pastel shades of England outside on the street seemed wishy-washy when contrasted with the vivid colours of the sub-continent. Like splattering’s from an artist’s palette, brilliant bales of material: a deep rich emerald, a blue as deep as Indian summer skies, a wanton’s red, lustrous golden saffron, were stacked where they could fit. Pinned to the walls were the cholis or tight-fitting bodices worn under saris as well as a wide selection of jootis, the traditional Indian shoes with their exquisite, colourful embroidery and curled toes that his mother still favoured. He’d prevailed on her to only wear them about the house.

             
Some of the chotis and saris were very ornate with extensive gold metal embroidery. They looked expensive even to Casey’s untutored eye.

             
There was no sign of Rathi Khan at the shop today. Casey decided to stay, anyway, and question Mrs Ghosh. Govind Ghosh, the sole assistant, was busy with half-a-dozen Asian women of varying ages who all seemed to be together. They gesticulated excitedly, chattering like magpies, as length after length of material was spread out on the sideboard counter and pored over. More chatter ensued as the qualities of each material were discussed, until finally, one of the younger women fell upon the latest material displayed. And an even more animated discussion broke out.

             
Apparently, she wasn’t to be swayed from her choice. Hugging the gorgeous red, heavily-embroidered brocade proprietarily to her bosom with one hand she waved off objections with the other, talking vociferously all the while. 

             
Around the mid-40s, neat-figured and with bright, busy brown eyes that seemed to miss little, Govind Ghosh was evidently an excellent saleswoman, for she immediately bustled about and seemingly in seconds had produced the matching choli and an assortment of jootis, and other finishing touches and set about completing the sale before the bride could be persuaded to change her mind. Casey hoped she would prove as efficient when it came to answering his questions.

             
He was beginning to recognise the particular lilt and cadence of Hindi even if he had yet to remember little of the vocabulary. ‘Why that one, I wonder,’ he murmured now as he nodded his head at the selected material. ‘What is it, anyway?’ he asked, nodding as the girl’s choice of sari was folded and wrapped. ‘Some sort of fancy party outfit?’

             
Shazia Singh smiled. ‘In a way. It’s a wedding sari. Red for a bride. Unlike the western tradition, white is for widows, not brides.’

             
Casey nodded. He recalled Shazia telling him that before; he wondered he hadn’t remembered it from his travels, but then weddings and their requisite accoutrements were not at the top of most ten year old boys’ lists of things to know. He’d spent most of his time in India making sure he had a bed for the night and finding work so he could buy food. ‘Strange how such different customs evolve.’

             
The bride-to-be went off clutching her purchases, followed by her small army of advisors, and the assistant turned to Casey and Shazia Singh with a smile. She clearly remembered them from their previous visit for she apologised for keeping them waiting, then asked, ‘How is Mr Khan? Such a dreadful business.’

             
Casey nodded. ‘He seems to be bearing up, Mrs Ghosh. He hasn’t been in today?’

             
‘No. With what has happened, I wouldn’t expect him. Normally, he’s always here on a Wednesday and Saturday, checking the stock and so on.’ Mrs Ghosh shook her head worriedly, ‘It still hasn’t been done from last Saturday. Mr Khan went rushing off at lunchtime that day and I haven’t seen him since.’

             
Casey’s ears pricked up. ‘He went rushing off, you say? What time was this?’

             
‘About 1.30 p m it would have been. After he had the phone call. Poor man to get such distressing news and on Krishna’s birthday, too, a day that should bring only auspicious happenings, not tragedy.’

             
Casey frowned. As far as he was aware no-one but Catt had rung the shop last Saturday, the day of Chandra’s death and Catt had only rung to check that Rathi Khan was there, not to break the bad news. So who had? Maybe Chandra’s next-door-neighbour had called him? But as Casey recalled that Angela Neerey had been unsure if the High Street shop was one of Mr Khan’s he realised it was unlikely. It was curious. So was the timing of the phone call. He questioned Mrs Ghosh further, but it turned out that she had only assumed the call and the fire were connected afterwards as Rathi Khan apparently hadn’t uttered a word of explanation before he left the shop.

             
‘How long was Mr Khan here, before he rushed off?’ Casey asked.

             
‘He’d only arrived five minutes before. Said he’d had trouble with his car. I teased him that it was time he bought a new one. Always he has the new cars, but I suppose with his parents over from home he hasn’t had time to arrange a new one.’

             
By Casey’s estimation Mr Khan had had three years in which to make such a purchase. He could only presume that Govind Ghosh knew little about cars and less about her boss’s financial situation.

             
It was interesting that Khan hadn’t arrived at the shop till around 1.25 p m. He could have been anywhere. It meant he was still under suspicion, especially after what ThomCatt had discovered.

             
What the assistant said next stunned him, pointing as it did to Khan’s possible involvement in the deaths, however accidently.

             
‘Such a dreadful business. And so desperately sad that the fire happened on a day Chandra and the baby weren’t even suppose to be there.’

             
Casey frowned, glanced at Shazia Singh and said, ‘What do you mean?’

             
‘Chandra was meant to be in London that day, her and the baby. Visiting cousins, I think. It was all arranged.’

             
Casey’s frown deepened. ‘Are you saying that Mr Khan, too, assumed his daughter and grand-daughter would be in London that day?’

             
‘Well yes. Of course. He was the one who arranged the trip. He was worried about her and thought it would cheer her up. It was only later that he realised she hadn’t gone. But surely Mr Khan told you all this when you spoke to him?’

             
‘No. He must have forgotten in all the upset,’ was Casey’s oblique comment as Govind Ghosh looked doubtfully at him. Brought up by hippie parents in a loving but disorganised and permanently changing home as they kept one step ahead of bailiffs, Casey found it more difficult than the cynical TomCatt to believe Chandra’s father could have been responsible for her murder and that of her baby. Catt’s abandonment as a toddler had left him badly scarred emotionally under his cocky, protective shell. He couldn’t be expected to have much faith in parental love. Casey admitted he had little reason to have much faith in it either, but he thought most parents would draw the line at killing their offspring. Now he asked, ‘So when did he realise she hadn’t gone, was in fact still at the flat?’

             
Mrs Ghosh hesitated, then, with a fatalistic shrug she ploughed on anyway, in the manner of one whose indiscretions have gone too far for backtracking. ‘It was the telephone call that made him realise they hadn’t gone to London. At least I can only assume it must have been that as I have never seen him so upset.  I don’t know who the call was from, but immediately after, without a word to me, he rushed out. He didn’t even stop to get his jacket, which was most unlike him. Mr Khan is a very particular gentleman always. Never goes anywhere without his jacket and his tie all nicely done up, like so, never mind what the weather is doing. As I said, I’ve never seen him in such a state.’

             
‘And you say you have no idea who the phone call was from?’

             
Mrs Ghosh shook her head again. ‘No. And Mr Khan didn’t say. Just pushed past me as if I wasn’t there. Most unlike him to be so rude. He was usually a very well-mannered, considerate gentleman.’

             
The information that Rathi Khan had expected his daughter and grand-daughter to be away from the flat on the day of the fire certainly strengthened their suspicions that he might have had something to do with it, or at least arranged for a couple of thugs to torch the place for the insurance in their presumed absence. If so, what must he be feeling now?

When Casey got back to the station, he told Catt what he’d learned. ‘It’s got to be connected to the fire,’ he added. ‘Time
-wise, it’s too much of a coincidence to be anything else.’

             
Catt nodded. ‘Perhaps one of Chandra’s neighbours phoned him?’

             
‘Possibly, though unlikely. She’d only been there a couple of weeks, remember. But get the house-to-house team to check it out. Get on to British Telecom, too. I want to know who made the call. Then I think we’ll go and have a word with Mr Khan and see what he can add.’

None of Chandra’s neighbours admitted ringing her father. But as Chandra had only lived at the flat for a few weeks it was unlikely, as Casey had said, that most of them would even know her by sight, never mind have reached the stage of intimacy to induce the exchange of contact numbers. So who had made the telephone call? It was a bit of a mystery and one that Casey wanted cleared up as soon as possible. All that British Telecom had been able to tell them was that it had been made from a public phone box a few streets away from both the Khan and Bansi homes. Their only hope of an answer lay in asking the call’s recipient. Even if he chose to lie to them about it, for whatever reason, such an evasion would be almost as revealing as the truth.

There was no answer at Rathi Khan’s home, though Casey could have sworn he caught a brief glimpse of a face at the front window. But further knocking produced no response. They had just got back into the car when Mr Khan’s Rover pulled into the drive.

              They got out of the car again and approached as he locked his car door. He seemed to be making a bit of a production over it.

             
He turned slowly to face them. ‘Inspector.’ He nodded at Catt. He looked tense, expectant, as if he was gearing himself up for more bad news. ‘Has anything happened?’ he asked quickly. ‘Have you found-’