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

her world it wasn’t a fair world, it wasn’t a fair England. She wondered how long it would take to get to Pakistan, and how she would get from Islamabad to Chitral, wherever the heck that was.

Would there be transport?

Would she have to walk, or ride a blinking donkey, or what exactly?

She shivered again, and tried to shut such thoughts from her mind.

And what would he be like, this sixty-eight year old warlord who couldn’t speak a word of English, this old man from the interior who she was now betrothed to. It didn’t bear thinking about. She wondered if he had any teeth. She wondered if he would stink.

Some men in their sixties were rickety wrecks, while others were reasonably presentable. With her luck she just knew what her future husband would be like, and the thought of him touching her, and sleeping with her, this old man who her mother had said would most assuredly reek of old goat, well, it wasn’t exactly guaranteed to turn on a girl. How could she possibly cope with that?

She wondered if she could somehow buy a mobile phone, maybe ring Luke, if she could do that there was still hope, and then she wondered why she should allow herself to be taken in that car with such opinionated men, who clearly couldn’t abide her company, and she pondered on why what she had done was so reprehensible.

She certainly didn’t want to go to Pakistan, and she didn’t want to be married, unless by some miracle it was to the sweet Luke Flowers, but most of all, she didn’t understand why she should do as these over-bearing men ordered.

Result? She wouldn’t do it.

Not a chance.

She would rather kill herself than that.

Much rather kill herself.

The car had joined the motorway.

She peered between the heads of the two silent men before her, and glanced at the speedometer. The German blue tints sent back their eerie message. The car was travelling at well over 70mph toward her destiny, and with a little luck they would get stopped for speeding, and maybe she could plead to the officers that she was being kidnapped, which to all intent and purposes was the truth, even if one of her kidnappers was her own father and the other, her brother.

No, that wasn’t going to happen, being stopped, she knew that well enough, and she knew too that she would not go to Pakistan. That simply wasn’t an option.

She would rather open the door and throw herself from the speeding vehicle. She would wait until they were overtaking a rumbling truck. Then she would do it, ease open the door and dive beneath the rolling wheels of the truck in the inside lane.

It would be a terrible end, but preferable to reverting to the Stone Age, and an ancient way of life, and a vile and illiterate husband who beat her and reeked of goats, living in a faraway land where the locals did not even speak either of her languages.

THE MOTORWAY HIT AN incline. It wasn’t yet fully dark. There was a truck up ahead travelling the same way. It was coming back into the dipped beam of the BMW. The wagon was one of Midge Ridge’s, those maroon and cream trucks that haul grain and animal foods the length and breadth of the kingdom, those famous trucks that you can buy models of in most service stations and toy shops, models that guilty fathers acquire for their sons in a hurry when they have forgotten to buy anything else.

It was hauling a full load of Canadian durum wheat out of Birkenhead, bound for one of the Manchester corn mills, and it was struggling with its heavy load up the hill. It was less than forty yards away.

Sahira’s left hand snaked out toward the door, low down, out of sight of the men. For a moment the BMW had to slow too, there was a caravan in front being pulled by a four by four, and Mohammed glanced in the right wing mirror, thinking he might move out and overtake, but the third lane was suddenly full of fast traffic too. Nowhere to go.

He held station, eased back on the accelerator.

The truck was slowing still, and though the BMW was slowing as well, it was still overtaking the long wagon. Sahira glanced to her left. Saw the driver in the cab, seemingly going backwards, minding his own business, singing lustily along to the radio, something about Angels, if her lip reading was working OK, and that seemed oddly appropriate.

Sahira said a quick final prayer in her mind, and mumbled a goodbye to her beloved mother, and a goodbye to Luke too. At least she had known him, at least she had known what life was all about, at least she had known how truly exciting life could be, as she noisily flipped open the door handle and threw herself to the left.

The door didn’t open.

Central locking.

Wonderful invention.

Childproof locks.

Better still.

They’d saved another life.

Worth having.

‘What are you doing back there?’ snarled Mohammed, hearing the noise, sensing the movement, glancing back over his left shoulder.

‘She tried to open the door and throw herself out!’ snarled Maaz.

‘Did you, Sahira? Is that what you tried to do? You stupid girl!’

‘She’s not only a sinner, she’s a coward,’ said Maaz, and he grinned at his own summation, ‘Can’t take her punishment, that’s her trouble.’

‘I want no more of it!’ yelled Mohammed, glancing ahead, and seeing a clear road. He took his right hand from the wheel and aimed a slap at her, back over his left shoulder, but missed. She felt the draught from his hand as she swayed back into her seat. Then he was facing the front again, muttering to himself, and easing his right foot down on the accelerator, for he wanted the day over and done with, he wanted an end to the whole sorry business. He wanted to be rid of the girl once and for all, the