Up in Flames Read Online Free PDF Page B

as it was pretty as its streets were even narrower than the Victorian Ainslee Terrace on the town’s outskirts, where Chandra Bansi’s flat was situated.
                  Catt dropped Casey and WPC Shazia Singh outside Rathi Khan’s clothes shop. And as the shop was housed in one of the quainter buildings in a road barely wide enough to allow a single vehicle passage, Catt had to drive off to find somewhere to park
                  Outside, the shop rails held the usual assortment of western clothes; dresses, skirts, blouses, shirts and trousers, mostly coloured modern drab. But inside, the shop  was alive with enough colour and scent to intoxicate the senses. Brightly coloured silks and cottons cascaded from grey oak beams. They made a startling, vivid contrast to the plain simplicity of whitewashed plaster and half-timbering and made the store look a particularly alluring Aladdin’s Cave of jewel-bright treasures.
                  As Shazia Singh spoke quietly to the female assistant who disappeared into the back recesses of the shop after darting one curious glance at Casey, he gazed around him. And as he took in the familiar, brilliant colours of India and smelled the sandalwood perfuming the air, he was immediately transported back to his childhood.
                  Inevitably, thoughts of India brought his parents to mind. He had been very young, of course, when they had brought him on the hippie trail to India, like many others before and since, following in the path The Beatles had trod before them. He had been dragged all over the country on their wanderings. Even now, he could still recall the smells of exotic spices as well as the other, less exotic and equally pungent aromas brought by inadequate or non-existent drainage coupled with stifling heat. He had caught malaria. It still troubled him occasionally. He had come to hate the place.
                  Of course, his parents had loved it, so they had all stayed for months. His mother had even adopted the wearing of saris and salwar kameez, in her element in the colourful crowded bazaars. She had gone a long way to becoming more Indian than the Indians. A peculiar role reversal when it was Asians in England who were often depicted as trying to out-English the English.
                  Nowadays, in an England grown coarse, with their politeness and courtesy, Asian immigrants were more English than the English, many of whom had forgotten or never learned the good manners of previous generations.
                  Briefly, he wondered how his parents were. The smallholding on which they lived had no telephone. And although Casey had bought them a succession of mobiles they always either lost them or never bothered to switch them on. Certainly, they rarely rang him. But although that no longer either surprised or upset him, they were still a perpetual worry. He hadn’t seen them for some time and the thought made him uneasy. He resolved to somehow find time to drive out to their smallholding buried deep in the Fens to see how they were getting on.
                  With a sigh, he thrust these personal anxieties to the back of his mind and forced himself back to the here and now. It struck him that Rathi Khan seemed to be taking an inordinately long time to come the short distance from the back of the store. While they continued to wait, Casey did some more studying of his surroundings.
                  The age and style of the building didn’t readily lend itself to clothes retail. It was cramped, with unexpected steps which raised the floor level for no apparent reason that Casey could see. Unless the medieval mind that had designed the row thought it a good wheeze to twist ankles and rick backs.
                  Mr Khan had made an attempt to meet the old building halfway. Instead of the expected modern shop counter, there was an ancient sideboard. A