Mixing With Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

generally make straight for my friend Ganesh to ask his advice. I don’t necessarily follow it, which annoys him. I should, because he thinks clearly and is generally right. (I don’t tell him this, naturally.) But I like his opinion because it helps me form my own opposite one. I’d been on my way to the newsagent’s where he works, anyway, before I’d been hijacked and taken off to the Silver Circle, so the newsagent’s was where I made a beeline for now.
     
    The shop usually presents an innocuous standard appearance for such undertakings. There is a board in the window carrying personal ads. For fifty pence you can hope to sell your old fridge, gain customers for your home hairdressing service (but not for other home services; Hari is a very moral man) or swap something you don’t want for something someone else doesn’t want. That way you probably end up with something no one wants. A would-be-cute placard showing a row of depressed dogs bears the legend ‘Please leave us outside!’ I hadn’t thought anything could make me feel worse, but that did. Bonnie is the one and only dog to whom the restriction does not apply. Hari makes an exception for Bonnie because he’s convinced she’s a good watchdog. There is a stand outside the door with today’s headlines scrawled on it and a dented waste-paper basket which no one uses, preferring to scatter sweet and ice lolly wrappings on the pavement for Ganesh to sweep up later, grumbling. These things are fixtures. But today was different. Even in my distraught state I couldn’t ignore the addition.
     
    Outside the door, the sun’s rays sparkling on its pristine new surface, was a garish yellow and pink space rocket. It bore the legend ‘50p a ride’ and a small child had already found it and clambered inside. From there he was loudly demanding that his mother put fifty pence in the slot and she was equally loudly declaring, ‘I ain’t got it, right? So get out of there!’ I edged past them.
     
    Ganesh’s Uncle Hari was at the counter. He beamed at me from between stacks of chewing gum, chocolate bars and disposable cigarette lighters.
     
    ‘Ah, Francesca, my dear. How are you?’ He leaned closer and whispered, ‘You have seen it?’ He waited, glee and hope on his face, for my reply.
     
    ‘Yes,’ I confessed. ‘You can’t miss it, Hari.’
     
    ‘No!’ he crowed. ‘All the children want a ride. It will be very successful.’
     
    It isn’t like Hari to see success on the horizon. Hari believes that unless you keep a sharp lookout, disaster will creep up and tap you on the shoulder at every stage of life. The way I felt that morning, I was inclined to agree with him. It was disconcerting to find him rubbing his hands over his new project.
     
    A shrill wail was heard from outside. The mother had hauled her toddler from the rocket and was dragging him down the road.
     
    Hari’s optimism shrivelled and died. ‘So little money,’ he said disapprovingly. ‘To make your child happy, so little money. I can’t understand it. What is the matter with people that they can’t see a bargain?’
     
    ‘It’s new,’ I said. ‘Once they get used to the idea that it’s there, it will get plenty of use.’
     
    Hari considered that and accepted it. He nodded. Then he peered down at my feet. ‘Where is the little dog today?’
     
    ‘A friend’s looking after her,’ I said dully.
     
    Ganesh came out of the stockroom at that moment and said, ‘Hi!’ He then looked at me more closely and dumped the boxes he was carrying on the counter. ‘OK if Fran and I nip off for a coffee break?’
     
    This was addressed to Hari whose eyes immediately searched the shop for some urgent job that Ganesh had to do at once. But he wasn’t quick enough to trap Ganesh, who’d already opened the door leading to the flat above the shop and was halfway up the stairs.
     
    I mumbled at Hari and followed.
     
    ‘All right!’ said Ganesh who was waiting for me, arms