Up in Flames Read online

  Still, taken together with her husband’s earlier behaviour he wondered whether there might be something more here than the immigrant’s natural mistrust of the police. Wary now, again remembering Catt’s cynical evaluation, he stood up

  Chapter Four

  Upset by the suddenly tense atmosphere, the little boy’s face puckered and he began to cry. Perhaps for the first time in the child’s life, neither of his grandparents attempted to comfort him and it was left to Shazia Singh to gather him in her arms, produce a tissue and try to wipe his tears away.

  Raising his voice over the child’s sobbing, Casey quickly introduced himself, Catt and Shazia Singh to Mrs Khan. ‘Perhaps we could all sit down?’ he suggested to Rathi Khan.

  Before he could say more, Mr Khan brushed past him, grabbed his wife by her forearms and told her, in English, ‘Chandra is dead. And the baby. They were in a fire at the flat.’

  Her hand clutched even more tightly at the gathered folds of her sari as she stared at her husband. Casey half-expected her to collapse, which was why he had been keen for them to be seated before he broke the news to her. But Rathi Khan had forestalled him. Mrs Khan appeared dazed as she stared up at her tall husband. And no wonder, was Casey’s thought. As a breaker of bad news, Rathi Khan was in a class of his own. He was certainly no waster of words or sentiment.

  ‘A fire?’ Mrs Khan repeated, in a voice that was oddly expressionless. ‘They are dead? My Chandra and little Leela?’

  Rathi Khan nodded and took his wife’s arm. ‘Come. Let us sit down as the inspector suggests. He will tell us more about what has happened.’ Distraught, he spoke to Casey in Hindi. ‘Kshama kijiye,’ it sounded like, which Casey seemed to remember was a form of apology, before Mr Khan recollected himself and, with a formal politeness, said in English, ‘Please to come in.’ He led the way across the wide, high-arched hallway to a large and comfortable room with a double aspect to front and rear. Light flooded into the room from the large windows, bathing the room in afternoon sunshine.

  Comfortably furnished with three pale yellow sofas grouped around the empty fireplace, with chintz-covered armchairs scattered in companionable pairs in between, the room revealed little of the origins of its owners. Unlike Chandra’s flat, her parents’ living room had no idol watching over its inhabitants. It seemed to lack ornaments of any sort. Clean, functional, comfortable, but curiously anonymous, it was if its occupants were merely passing through.

  An elderly couple were seated in two of the armchairs. Chandra’s grandparents over from India on a visit, Casey guessed. The man clutched an Asian language newspaper. He stood up, still clutching his paper, as they entered.

  Rathi Khan introduced them. ‘My father and mother, Mr and Mrs Ranjit Khan. They’re here on a visit from their home in India.’ He broke the bad news quietly in English.

  The old man took it stoically, with all the fatalism of India. Tall like his son, and bony, with heavily furrowed features, Casey guessed he was in his late sixties; a generation clearly used to sudden bereavement. His wife remained seated. She had been engaged in cleaning the household brass. It was the first homely touch Casey had observed in the characterless room, and as her gloved hands continued desultorily with her cleaning, he guessed that she spoke little or no English and didn’t understand the reason for the upset; certainly no one had troubled to explain to her what had happened. But although her cleaning continued automatically, her bewildered gaze flickered from face to face. The bindi dot she wore was much larger than her daughter-in-law’s, almost like a third eye. Casey found it oddly disconcerting to be the focus for this unblinking red orb.

  Perhaps intimidated by such a sudden flurry of visitors, Mrs Khan Senior said nothing. But an Asian woman of her generation would have had plenty of practise in keeping her opinions to herself, Casey guessed. He remembered Angela Neerey’s comment that Chandra’s Gran hadn’t been well and he wondered whether the Grandmother, who couldn’t be any older than her late-fifties or early sixties and who looked in reasonable shape, hadn’t invented her ill-health to get out of baby-sitting duties with the ever-bawling Leela.

  After one, furrowed glance at his wife as if worried she wouldn’t share his stoicism, Ranjit Khan insisted on shaking the hands of the two policemen. He ignored Shazia Singh, much as his wife, after several more troubled glances, ignored them and went quietly back to her slow rubbing. Presumably, she had been well-trained from an early age not to intrude on men’s business.

  All the conversation so far had been conducted in English, a language it was clear the old lady didn’t speak. It seemed cruel to keep her in ignorance, but if she truly wasn’t well. Casey didn’t want to be the unwitting cause of even more upset. Maybe it was best that her son break the news to her after they had left. And given Rathi Khan’s none too gentle way with bad news, Casey thought it might be kinder if he, Catt and Shazia Singh didn’t form an audience.

  Although it was a warm day, the windows were closed. Presumably this was for the grandmother’s benefit, as the old lady’s sari was overladen by several thick shawls and a chunky buttoned cardigan. And as he remembered the sweltering heat during parts of the year in India, Casey guessed she felt cold even on what English natives would consider to be a perfect summer’s day.

  Once they were all seated, the Rathi Khans on one of the long yellow sofas, Catt, Shazia Singh and himself on assorted chintz armchairs, Casey explained as gently as he could, that it didn’t look like an accidental fire.

  Chandra’s mother stared at him. ‘Not, not accident?’

  Her husband waved her question aside, as if in reminder that, as the man of the house, it was for him to do the questioning. She subsided meekly enough, but the glance she darted from under her lowered lashes held something more than meekness. ‘What then? Arson, do you mean?’

  Casey nodded. ‘It looks that way. Had your daughter received threats of any kind? Had she upset anyone recently?’

  Rathi Khan started to shake his head, then stopped and gazed thoughtfully at him as if the connection had just occurred to him. ‘You’re thinking of those other arson attacks on local Asian families, are you not, Inspector? You think someone did — that, to my daughter and the baby?’ Mr Khan glanced worriedly at his wife and mother and back to Casey.

  ‘It’s seems a possibility,’ Casey admitted. ‘That’s why I need to know as much about her life as you can tell me. Did anyone threaten her?’

  Mr Khan hesitated, then said slowly, ‘Chandra did mention something. Two white youths hassled her only last week outside the flat. She was putting the rubbish out. Called her — well the usual racist nastiness. My Chandra is — was,’ bleakly, he corrected himself, ‘a spirited girl. She never meekly accepted abuse from anyone, even when it might be more sensible to say nothing. She told me she called them a pair of ignorant idiots and that they should go back to school and learn some manners.’

  ‘Did they assault her?’

  ‘She said one of them tried to grab her arm, but she was too quick for them and got the gate between them and her. Told them that if they didn’t go away she would call the police. After shouting more obscenities, they left.’ He shrugged. ‘That was all there was to it.’ His troubled gaze met Casey’s. ‘Do you think they might have done this dreadful thing?’

  ‘We don’t know, Mr Khan. It’s early days. Tell me, when exactly did this exchange between your daughter and these youths take place?’

  He frowned as he thought back. ‘It was on Thursday morning. Just a couple of days ago.’

  Today was Saturday. A short enough distance in time for any of her neighbours who had observed the youths to remember their behaviour. ‘Did your daughter describe them to you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Skin-head yobs is all she said. These aggressive, shaven-headed youths all look so alike, don’t they? Do you think they could have come back and set the fire? From such little provocation?’

  It was Casey’s turn to shrug. ‘We can’t rule anything out at this stage, M
r Khan. Obviously, we’ll speak to your daughter’s neighbours. See if any of them saw these skinheads. We might get a fuller description. It’s possible they’re known if they’re local.’

  The little boy’s chatter broke into the pause in their conversation. He was standing by Shazia Singh’s knee and had obviously taken to her. He had raised the sleeve of his shirt and displayed a bandaged arm with all the pride of a wounded warrior as he chatted in Hindi.

  His grandmother called to him, quite sharply, ‘Kedar, come here. Not to bother the police lady.’

  Although Shazia told her the child was no trouble, Kedar’s grandmother was insistent. Obediently, Kedar went and perched on her lap. Once settled, he lost interest in everything but his bandage and gazed at it with a pleased smile on his otherwise serious little face.

  Rathi Khan’s mother suddenly paused in her desultory brass-rubbing and spoke to her son in Hindi; softly at first and then with a growing sound of demand as he apparently tried to evade her questions. He must finally have given in and broken the news to her because her hands flew to her face. She let out a terrible wail, stood up and staggered. The brass ornaments she had been cleaning crashed to the floor at her feet, creating an appalling cacophony that set Casey’s teeth on edge.

  Rathi Khan caught his mother and half-carried her back to her chair. She collapsed into it, tearless as yet, but with a lost, hollow look in her eyes, she began to chant the names of her granddaughter and the baby over and over again.

  ‘My mother is not well,’ Rathi told them quietly as Mrs Khan’s cries upset the little boy and started him sobbing all over again. ‘It is best she doesn’t know all the details. I have told her only that they are dead. It is enough. For now, at least.’

  His mother plucked at his sleeve. Her voice had turned querulous; even Casey caught the note of reproach although he failed to understand the Hindi. With a glance of apology for his visitors, Rathi Khan excused himself and half-dragged, half-carried his mother from the room.

  He returned after five minutes. ‘I have given her a sleeping pill,’ he told them. ‘It is better that she sleeps. She might bear her grief more calmly after a rest.’ He sighed softly, gazed at his quietly weeping wife, and grandson and observed, ‘No amount of weeping will bring them back.’

  He had called his son during the drive from the shop. And now, as Casey heard another car pull up on the forecourt, he guessed it was the son. He glanced out of the window and saw a sharp-suited Asian man in his mid-twenties slam the car door and hurry to the entrance. Footsteps approached the door, and after a single glance that took in the little tableaux of police, parents and grandfather, he crossed immediately to his mother and embraced her.

  ‘My son, Devdan,’ Mr Khan explained by way of introduction.

  Apart from saying, ‘Dan,’ in correction of his father in what seemed to have become an automatic Anglicised adoption, the younger man simply nodded in acknowledgement of their presence, but said nothing. He was a good-looking young man, with a straight, classically sculpted nose, firm lips now tightly-pressed and highly-planed cheek bones. Tall, with his father’s features and light skin, he carried himself well. His plentiful hair blow-dried in a sleek style, he looked modern, totally English in a way his parents would never be. He sat on the other side of his mother, lifted the little boy from her lap and onto his own and took the hand that still had a death-grip on the material of her sari. Casey began his questioning again.

  ‘I understand that your daughter and her baby lived alone. Isn’t that a little unusual?’

  Rathi Khan’s hand gripped his wife’s other hand more tightly as he told Casey, ‘It was a temporary arrangement only. Just until I could organise something better. My daughter was recently widowed,’ he explained. ‘Naturally, I wanted her back home with her family, but we are bursting at the seams here at the moment. As you see, I have my mother and father over from India on an extended visit, my son, his wife and two small children, as well as my younger daughter and my wife and myself, all living here. The house may look large, but it still has only four bedrooms.’

  Casey nodded, but he still thought it odd that room couldn’t have been found for the widowed Chandra and her baby. How much space did one young woman and a small baby take up, after all? But then, as he recalled all the paraphernalia expectant colleagues had bought in preparation for a new infant he thought Mr Khan might have a point. Even so, and especially given the series of local arson attacks it seemed foolhardy for him to have left his daughter alone in a flat in a rundown part of town.

  He wondered where the son’s wife and the younger daughter and granddaughter were. They must be out or all the commotion would surely have brought them running. ‘I understand that Chandra had only lived at the flat for a short time — you own it, I believe you said, Mr Khan?’

  ‘Yes. It is my flat. Of course, until her husband died, my daughter lived with her in-laws.’

  At this, the son burst into a sudden torrent of Hindi. His father waved his hand at him and glanced at Shazia Singh as if to remind him of her presence. He seemed to be doing his best to shut his son up. But the son shook his head vehemently, turned to Casey and in unaccented English, told him, ‘My sister’s in-laws threw her and the baby out of the house. She—‘

  ‘It is not necessary to tell the police this,’ his father broke in. ‘It is not relevant and—’

  ‘Why should we keep it secret?’ Devdan Khan demanded. ‘It is their shame, not ours.’ Devdan — or Dan, as he seemed to prefer to be called — over-rode his father’s objection and turned back to Casey. ‘My sister had not borne a son, you see. She was a disappointment to them. And then, when Magan, their son and Chandra’s husband, died, they blamed my sister.’

  Casey sat forward. Although he had already learned this from Chandra’s neighbour, it was as well to get the more intimate, family version. ‘Why was that?’ he asked. Was it possible that Chandra and the baby had died as a result of a family feud? Such things weren’t unknown. It seemed that one of her family, at least, might suspect such a possibility.

  ‘It was nothing.’ Rathi Khan broke in again. ‘It was just that they were distraught, grieving. My son is too young yet to understand that the pain of bereavement can make people hasty and unthinking.’

  ‘I, too, am grieving,’ Dan pointed out to his father. ‘Their grief is no excuse for what they did.’ He turned back to Casey. ‘Chandra and her husband had had an argument the day before he died and—’

  ‘My daughter could be a little wilful,’ Rathi told them. He sighed. ‘It is the western influence. She was too out-spoken for a young woman.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Dan broke in. ‘Her husband wanted to make up, so to please her, he gave her money to buy new clothes for herself and the baby. He dropped her and Leela at the shops. He had an accident on the way back.’ He paused, then added, ‘A fatal accident. Her in-laws blamed my sister. When they arrived back home from the hospital Mrs Bansi, her mother-in-law, began to scream at Chandra. Told her she had brought bad karma to their family.’ He sighed. ‘All the usual religious mumbo-jumbo was used as an excuse. Anyway, they threw her out, her and the little one. Told her she should take herself to Varanasi or Vrindavan and try to behave like a dutiful sorrowing widow.’ He broke off to explain to Casey and Catt, ‘They are two towns in India where unwanted widows go to live out the rest of their days mourning their husbands.’ His voice thickened as he added, ‘Chandra and Leela would still be alive if it wasn’t for their cruelty. She would have been safe at their house, not alone at the flat and vulnerable.’

  Was that the closest any of the family would come to an accusation? Casey wondered. He also wondered why Rathi Khan was so keen to play it down. Perhaps it was a generation thing? Or perhaps, as well as the marital connection, there were also business connections between the two families. Asian families tended to tie interwoven threads of kinship. No doubt he was concerned that he might suffer business loss on top of his personal bereavement. Was he, in that fatal
istic Indian way, saying that life must go on? It wouldn’t help this practical aim if his son spread his anger amongst the wider Asian community. Besides, at this stage there was no evidence to point the finger at Chandra’s in-laws. Anyway, hadn’t Dan Khan said that his sister would have been safe if she had remained at the home of her in-laws? The use of such a word scarcely implied that he suspected them of being the cause of Chandra’s death.

  But it was for him to investigate this and every other possibility. And as there would never be a better time than now, while they were unguarded and outspoken in their grief, to discover if there was any such evidence, Casey probed a little deeper. ‘So there was bad feeling between your families?’

  Dan Khan shrugged. ‘They had been saying unkind things about Chandra. Untrue things. Making all kinds of accusations. They even—’

  ‘That is enough, Devdan,’ his father insisted. ‘What’s done is done. It was their grief talking, I am saying, nothing more. Like your poor sister, it would be more seemly if you kept a respectful tongue in your head, my son. Remember to whom you are talking.’

  From Dan’s silent, but simmering expression, Casey guessed he would get no more information. At least, not in the presence of Rathi Khan. Now he changed the subject and asked Mr Khan, ‘Was Chandra security conscious?’