The Bag Carrier by Stephen Leather

Author:Stephen Leather [Leather, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

(Harry)

I wasn’t sure what the parking situation was going to be around the cinema so I caught an Uber cab and got there ten minutes early. I stood outside the cinema looking at a poster for the movie we were going to see. I couldn’t make sense of it, but the main character seemed to be a very beautiful Indian woman who was surrounded by men who appeared to be dancing with spears and swords.

‘Her name is Padmaavat, she was a Queen in medieval India,’ said Ayesha behind me.

Her voice was so soft that it didn’t make me jump. I turned and smiled at her. She had on a pale purple headscarf and a bright red trenchcoat with black buttons and black boots and over her shoulder was a black bag that looked expensive. ‘You could creep up on the devil himself,’ I said.

She shrugged and smiled prettily. ‘I’m small. I don’t make a lot of noise.’

I laughed and resisted the urge to give her a hug. ‘I was just thinking that maybe the movie wasn’t a good idea.’

‘It’s sub-titled,’ she said. ‘You’ll be fine.’

‘I meant job-wise. I’m supposed to be here officially. I’m not sure that watching a movie is official.’

‘Okay,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘How about this? You’re not very familiar with my way of life, are you?’

‘In what way?’ I asked. ‘Because you’re female, Asian or Muslim?’

She laughed and quickly covered her mouth with her hand. Her tiny hand. She was wearing three intricate gold rings and her nails were painted a bright pink. ‘I suppose the last two, you’ve come across women before, I’m sure. What I meant was you could consider it research. It was obvious at the mosque that you were a fish out of water, a Bollywood movie might help you on your learning curve.’

I grinned. ‘I hope my bosses see it that way.’

‘I won’t spoil the plot for you, but it’s a love story. Most Bollywood movies are. Padmaavat lives in a Kingdom in the north west of India. A sultan in a neighbouring kingdom sets his sights on her and lays siege to the fortress where she lives.’

‘I’m looking forward to it.’

She laughed and again she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘You don’t sound like you mean it.’

‘I mean it.’

She looked at her watch, a gold Rolex. ‘Let’s go in,’ she said. ‘I want popcorn. And a fizzy drink. And some chocolate.’

‘You are here for the movie, right?’ She laughed again. She seemed to be laughing at pretty much everything I said.

We went in and I bought her sweets and her drink and felt a little as if I was a father taking out a daughter. I knew her date of birth, of course, and that she was twenty-six years old. Hell, yes, I was easily old enough to be her father.

‘Are you okay, Harry?’ she asked, catching me deep in thought.

I wondered if I should correct her and insist that she called me DI Porter but that would have sounded churlish so I just smiled and nodded.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.