Inspector Singh Investigates by Shamini Flint

Author:Shamini Flint [Flint, Shamini]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Police Procedural, International Mystery & Crime
ISBN: 9781429904230
Google: KjBL_XVIoxAC
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-07-05T16:00:00+00:00

It would not have been Inspector Singh's choice to move in to his sister's house. But now that he was no longer in Kuala Lumpur in his official capacity as a Singaporean policeman seconded to a Malaysian case, his budget did not stretch to a hotel. He had called his sister and told her he would be coming to stay for a few days. She seemed indifferent rather than enthusiastic. But there had never been any danger of refusal. The right of family to come and stay indefinitely, whatever the inconvenience and expense, was hardwired into her brain. It was the Asian way. Hospitality was paramount – especially to relatives. They might bitch about each other, nag, complain and occasionally quarrel. But the door was still open if you wanted to stay.

He was at her door now with his small suitcase. She let him in and he sat silently in the gloomy living room waiting for her to make him a drink. It did not take her long to return with the cup of tea, tepid from the addition of cold milk.

She asked, 'How come you are not staying at the hotel?'

He debated telling her that he was freelancing and decided against it. It would give her too much ammunition with which to nag at him for the duration of his stay. She would go on and on about the importance of staying on the good side of one's employers – with her usual sprinkling of judicious anecdotes about her late husband's talent in this field. Singh, who remembered her husband as a gruff, choleric man whose temper had led to an early heart attack, wondered what his sister would have done if he had still been alive to give the lie to all the numerous stories she made up about him to make a conversational point.

He said instead, 'If I stay here they will still pay me the hotel allowance.'

She nodded approvingly, sipping her tea from a mug with Avis emblazoned on both sides. 'That is good!'

Singh did not know if she was referring to his cunning in getting some spare cash or the generosity of the government of Singapore in letting him get away with such an old–fashioned expense fiddle – but it was apparent from the mug that she did not disdain a freebie.

'What would you like for dinner?' she asked.

He shrugged indifferently. He was a fat man with a fat man's lack of fussiness over his diet.

She continued, 'I am making chapattis.'

'Why did you ask me what I wanted then?'

She did not answer but wandered back into the kitchen and he could hear the preparatory clanging of pots and pans. He dragged himself with some difficulty out of the too–soft sofa seat and wandered in after her. She was placing a heavy flat iron skillet on the stove. She lit the fire under it and wiped the surface with a brush of coconut fibre which she had first dipped into a bright green tin of ghee.

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