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

because the shop downstairs had been abandoned and was semi derelict. It wasn’t unusual to wake in the morning to find a drunk there, sleeping off a heavy night, curled up in the muck and rubbish that had gathered in the empty shop.

In his spare time Wazir set about painting and decorating the flat until it was the best home the Khan family had ever enjoyed. It was 1964; the height of Beatlemania, and their son Ahmed had just turned twenty. Ahmed boasted the haircut, the clothes, all the records, and the girls too, one in particular, a local kid by the name of Gloria Barnes who worshipped the ground that Ahmed trod. George Harrison with a tan, she called him, my gorgeous Georgie, with a tan.

Despite all that, Ahmed was a conscientious boy. He continued to work hard; studied mechanical engineering at Chester Technical College, and was working on some innovatory lock designs, an interest that impressed his father. Ahmed also worked hard in the expanding local mosque, and was well thought of in the community, even if he was consorting with a Christian girl.

Wazir had confided in Nadirah that perhaps they could take over the shop downstairs and open a new locksmith business, and all the family were in favour of that.

They were to be surprised and disappointed.

Wazir took a lease on the shop all right, and then came home beaming, to announce his latest bright idea.

‘We will open a restaurant, an Indian restaurant,’ he said. ‘We will serve curries and make our fortune.’

‘But you don’t know anything about cooking!’ protested Nadirah.

‘No, but you do,’ countered Wazir, and your Aunty Husna in Calicut does too. Write to her. Get her to send her best fifty recipes. Ask her to send us a new recipe every month. Send her a two-pound postal order. She’ll help the family, of course she will! For two pounds she will.’

‘Do you want to know a secret? I ain’t being no waiter,’ chipped in Ahmed.

‘And everyone knows the English don’t like curry! You’re wasting your time,’ protested Nadirah.

‘They do, they will! You’ll see! Once they get the taste, they’ll love it,’ insisted Wazir.

‘Slow down!’ shouted Ahmed, glancing at his excited parents. ‘I feel fine about it; just don’t expect me to wait on table.’

‘Shut up, boy,’ said his mother, ‘and stop talking gibberish.’

‘Oh, please me!’ said Wazir, joining in the fun, as Ahmed and Nadirah shared another smile.

‘Just don’t expect me to hold your hand,’ said Ahmed, grinning.

‘I am not cooking curries all hours of the day and night. It’ll be a total disaster!’ said Nadirah, and she stormed out, leaving Ahmed to share a knowing masculine look with his father.

THE STATE OF KERALA Restaurant duly opened for business on the fifth of October 1964. It was the first authentic Indian Restaurant in the city. Wazir took a small display advertisement in the Chester Observer; even invited the newspaper’s food writer to attend the big opening night.

The writer duly arrived along with his wife, as did fourteen other curious souls. The writer cleared his plates, the wife barely touched a thing, and her constant grimacing worried Wazir, for he imagined a crucifying review would surely follow, a report that could kill the new enterprise stone dead.

The subsequent write up was substantial, it even carried a picture of the Khan family pictured outside the front door, pointing up at the sign, Ahmed smirking, wearing his newly pressed high collared Beatles’ jacket and well groomed Harrison-esque hair.

The newspaper text included the phrase: While this will not be to everyone’s cup of tea, the State of Kerala is a welcome addition to the city’s eateries. Whether it will catch on, only time will tell, but in the meantime, make sure you pay a visit, just in case you miss it.

THE KHAN FAMILY PORTRAYED it as being a great success, which it certainly was not, but they were open for business, and taking money, and backed up by Aunty Husna’s unique recipes that flowed in once a month, as reliable as one of Ahmed’s lock designs, the menu steadily grew, as slowly did the clientele, and in time, the reputation of Wazir’s weird culinary establishment.

‘If you want something different for your tea, or your dinner, get down to the State of Kerala,’ was a comment that began to be uttered in hushed tones in the city’s bars and clubs, and slowly, very slowly, people did just that. ‘It’s hot!’

And it was, in more ways than one.

THE YEARS ROLLED BY and the State of Kerala prospered. Wazir hated paying tax and reinvested as much of the profit in improving the business as he possibly could. He bought the freehold of the building they had rented; and in time the one next door too; and duly expanded the restaurant into there.

He was forever improving the fixtures and fittings in the parts of the restaurant you could see, and the parts you could not, the kitchen, and the living quarters, and the one thing that remained the same, untouched and unrivalled, was the prized menu, for it was the foundation stone of the business.

No one else possessed a menu quite like it, and no one possessed the recipes either, and they were jealously guarded. Cheapskate copycats came and went leaving the State to prosper. The Khans began importing ingredients too, rare and exotic spices that could not be obtained in Britain.

LYING IN HIS BATH ONE evening, Wazir imagined the bare main wall behind the bar needed a focal point. He thought a picture of rural India would do the trick, but the three pictures he commissioned were all slightly disappointing, and to put it bluntly, were not up to the job. Not substantial enough. Not eye catching enough. Not weighty enough.

It was Ahmed who suggested the answer.

‘Use the sword,’ he said excitedly. ‘Use the sword! It was what it was meant for!’

Despite his initial misgivings Wazir warmed to the idea, and the following