The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 by David Carter (best finance books of all time .txt) 📕

‘Move along the bus, please, plenty of seats upstairs,’ called Wazir cheerfully, as the bus rapidly filled.

Ding! Ding! He pressed the bell and the bus heaved and shook and eased away from the stop.

At the last second, Ged the Gestapo came flying through the air, caught hold of the vertical bar, and heaved himself on board with a glare at Wazir, and a smile and a wink at the pretty young wife with the podgy toddler on her lap, on the bench seat just inside the bus.

‘And how’s my Paki-Lackey?’ Ged yelled down the cabin, as Wazir went about collecting fares.

Ged always addressed Wazir in that way, and many of his workmates had come to do so too, including his own driver. Not many thought it odd; it was the norm, it was only in jest after all. Foreigners had to learn to have a sense of humour.

Jimmy Mac conspicuously never used the phrase.

‘I am not a Pakistani,’ Wazir protested, on first hearing the expression, ‘I am a Muslim from India, I am Indian.’

‘India, Pakistan, there’s no difference to me,’ Ged sneered, smirking at some passengers, some of whom stared at Wazir with a mixture of curiosity and sympathy, though they would look away when Wazir caught their eye. ‘All the same shithole hellhole to me,’ continued Ged. ‘I served in Ceylon in the war; I know what I am talking about.’

Wazir would bite his tongue and grin his way through the tense times that Ged the Gestapo spent on Wazir’s bus.

Ged didn’t like Wazir Khan.

Didn’t agree with it at all, the policy of letting in the natives, as he referred to Wazir, and anyone else with a less than pristine white skin, come to that. Ged was determined to get rid of Wazir Khan, he had no business working on the buses, on his buses. Come to think of it, he couldn’t imagine why the hell Jimmy Mac had employed him in the first place, but then again, it was Jimmy Mac after all, and natives always looked after their own. It was just the same in Colombo. Lazy fookers they were, the lot of them, Ged would tell his pals in the Bus Staff Club at the back of Paradise street, where you could get a pint of sour local Higsons ale for a penny less than anywhere else.

Ged would only air his views in public when Jimmy Mac wasn’t present, because for some godforsaken reason Jimmy Mac was well thought of by the powers that be, and was now senior to all the inspectors, including Gerrard Fox.

‘Show me your papers,’ snapped Ged.

Wazir presented the records of his journeys that day. Luckily, it was only the beginning of the shift and the standard cash float was accurate and intact. Wazir was a meticulous bookkeeper and would always pay his overspend fund, as he referred to it in his mind, into the Post Office in India Buildings, indeed he had done so that lunchtime, just in case he was checked and searched. Good job he had.

Ged wasn’t so easily convinced.

‘Takings are down, Khan. Can you explain that?’

‘How do you mean, Inspector?’

‘It’s plain fookin’ English, oh I forgot, your English isn’t great, is it? I’ll spell it out for you, lah! Four buses are out on the Crosby run today, and your takings are consistently the lowest. How do you explain that, my subcontinental chum?’

Wazir pulled a puzzled face and shook his head. He couldn’t explain it at all, and had no intention of doing so.

‘Someone has to take the lowest,’ suggested Wazir, after a few seconds thought.

‘Yeah, but it’s funny how it’s always you, Paki-lack!’

‘Maybe they don’t like me.’

‘I can understand that!’

‘I’ll try to sell more tickets, Mister Fox.’

‘Inspector to you! Have you got any money on you?’

‘I have four shilling and thrupence in my pocket.’

‘Show me!’

Wazir took out the change.

‘Is that all you’ve got?’

‘It is, Inspector, I tell you.’

‘Well, let’s have a little look, shall we,’ and Ged Fox began tapping Wazir’s pockets for evidence of stolen money.

Nothing there. Clean as a whistle.

Ged grimaced and rammed his hands deep into his dark raincoat pockets. He leant toward Wazir and whispered, ‘I’m watching you, Khan, you’re up to something, one slip from you and you’re out,’ and he turned and heaved himself up the stairs.

‘I not slip up,’ shouted Wazir, after Gestapo Ged, ‘I honest man,’ but Gerrard Fox was already on the top deck sitting on the back seat sucking hard on his pipe, and wondering how the hell the native was getting away with it.

SATURDAY, AND WAZIR was late home. Nadirah began to fret. Wazir had jumped on the ferry across the Mersey, a pleasant enough ten minutes and the river was busy, but soon across, where he strode up the gangplank after everyone else. The tide was out and the climb substantial, and the air thick with the stench of oily mud and filthy seawater. At the top at the exit Wazir took in the view.

To the left was Birkenhead Woodside railway station. The London train was about to depart and was letting everyone know about it, black loco and tender spitting smoke and steam, ten rapidly filling maroon carriages, as latecomers raced from taxis and buses to board. Ahead, and to the right, were a sprinkling of blue and cream Birkenhead Corporation buses, the same old work horses that Wazir crewed every day, as an old green Crosville single decker came bumping down the hill, its journey done, an F27 from Frankby, wherever that was.

Wazir hurried past the bus shelters, glancing at timetables and journeys, until he found one that went to Prenton, the number 77, he’d remember that, and he jumped aboard. He asked an old guy to tell him when they arrived there and the old bloke dressed in filthy work clothes said, ‘Sure kiddo,’ before taking a second glance at the dark stranger, and then back at his Liverpool Echo.