The Ellie Hardwick Mysteries Read online

  ‘Ah. Well. Glad I was able to be of some help,’ I said stonily. ‘Here’s hoping I’ve inadvertently brought down the government. Some good at least will have come of it.’

  He took my cup from me and placed it with his on a table. In a second he’d slid to the floor and clamped me in a tight hug. ‘Sorry about that. Unforgivable! Because I was preoccupied it doesn’t mean I wasn’t having a good time! All the same—not quite my scene. This is more like it.

  ‘I say, Ellie,’ he said uncertainly, tugging at his throat, ‘you won’t misinterpret the gesture . . . won’t scream blue murder and run a mile, will you, if I start to take off this bloody awful tie?’

  DIE LIKE A MAHARAJAH

  An Ellie Hardwick, Architect, Mystery.

  ‘Why don’t you ask little Miss Know-It-All? She’s over there by the lake pretending to sketch. I bet she can identify it for you. And give you the Latin name for it into the bargain! . . . Oh, you’re all such weeds! I’ll go and find out.’

  The penetrating voice of Phyllis Wickham-Skeith carried clearly as far as my ears through the still air of an Indian afternoon. She probably hadn’t intended me to overhear, I decided generously. I didn’t look up. I felt rather than heard the embarrassed murmuring from the rest of the group as they turned and walked away and, a moment later: ‘Ah, there you are, Ellie dear! Now do tell—we’re all dying to know—exactly what is this pretty little flower? We were all sure you’d be able to identify it. We would have asked our guide . . .’ She looked about her theatrically, ‘but Govind always seems to be indulging in some religious observance when one wants to consult him.’

  ‘Sensible bloke, Govind,’ I thought bitterly. ‘Now, why don’t we all adopt a mysterious oriental religion which compels our absence for a few minutes when Phyllis is on the prowl with her incessant and mindless questions?’

  I took the silky pink lotus bud she was flourishing and put on a show of interest.

  ‘Ah, yes. This is undoubtedly Jalebi Pavarti.’ Between clenched teeth I muttered something which could be taken for Hindi—by someone who didn’t speak Hindi. It was an item I remembered from last night’s menu.

  ‘There! I thought you’d know! Now, how do you say that in English?’

  ‘Pavarti’s Nipple,’ I said, improvising and praying the Hindu goddess of Love wouldn’t strike me down for my disrespect.

  Prudish Phyllis wouldn’t rush to broadcast that piece of information! Predictably, she lost all interest in the lotus and dropped it, unregarded now, on the grass. But she hadn’t finished with me yet. She approached the painting I was busy with and peered over my shoulder. I cringed and tried to block her view in that protective gesture that comes automatically to third-rate painters like me.

  There was nothing third-rate about the subject, though. It was a scene worth painting. Peacocks strutted across lush lawns which swept in a very English way up to the elegant façade of the hunting lodge of the Maharajas of Ulmar. Of palatial size, the lodge was a blend of eastern and western architectural styles as perceived by one of the cleverest architects of his day. Sir James Hardwick had combined practicality and pomp with wit and genius to produce in 1880 the essential must-have for the Maharajahs of Rajputana. It had been widely admired and Sir James had found himself much in demand all over India. Even the great Sir Edwin Lutyens had been influenced by his style.

  ‘Good one, great-great-grandfather!’ I thought, with a rush of pride in my ancestor and I flicked a highlight on the glowing amber stones I’d tried to reproduce on my watercolour. ‘Glad I came and saw your stuff for myself!’ I intended to work the picture up when I got home to Suffolk and hang it on the office wall.

  ‘Why don’t you just take a photograph, Ellie?’ came the querulous voice of Phyllis over my shoulder. ‘The camera gives a much more reliable record I always say. And, anyway, you won’t have time to finish that—we’re due back on the coach in half an hour. They’re loading our suitcases already.’

  I flicked a bit more and pretended not to hear her.

  ‘You really ought to put in a scale figure, you know, otherwise it could be taken for a dolls’ house—or something the size of Blenheim. And you could, with advantage, miss out half those curlicues. There—below the pediment . . . Too much of a flourish—don’t you agree? Far too complex. These Indian architects just don’t know when to leave well alone!’

  ‘Thank you Phyllis,’ I said truculently. I looked at my watch. ‘Oh, dear! You’re right. I am short of time. You wouldn’t just pop down to the lake and gather up a fully-blown sample of one of those Pavarti Specials would you? I noticed a whole colony of them at the lake’s edge by that little pavilion. I’d like to take a closer look at one . . . perhaps make a quick sketch . . . identify it properly,’ I said. ‘And while you’re down there why don’t you just jump in and swim with the crocodiles?’ I added but I didn’t say it aloud.

  Anyone else would have known I was just trying to get rid of her but another of Phyllis’s traits was that she loved to be seen to be of use. She hurried off towards the lake and I was left in peace. The tour group was a small one—thirteen—and I was the unlucky thirteenth. The others were comfortably in couples and I was uncomfortably by myself. I would have been even less at ease, however, had the fourteenth member of the party turned up as scheduled. An on and off relationship had clicked into reverse gear a fortnight before the holiday and one of us had to cancel. Without too much heartache, Jack had elected to go off to the Caribbean with my cousin. I had thought the tour would rid me of my seething anger but there are some conditions not even the colour and splendour of India can cure.

  We were touring Rajasthan staying in ancient royal palaces, decorated merchants’ houses or, as today, in country houses complete with game reserves and waterholes for wild life. This was the last day of the ‘Live Like a Maharajah’ tour and we were setting off very shortly for Delhi and the jet back to Heathrow. I had grown to like my fellow travellers. They were an ill-assorted bunch but we all had one thing in common—we all hated Phyllis. And I include in this club her husband, Timothy.

  It wouldn’t be fair to say he was hen-pecked. Have you ever seen a goose go on the attack? Forward rush, wings flapping, beak open? That was more Phyllis’s style. And the years of stepping out of her way had taken their toll. Timothy was middle-aged with greying fair hair, pale blue eyes and that long sheep’s face that some English academics have. He looked like something that had been forced to grow in a cellar. I think he was probably quite attractive when he was young. Before he met Phyllis. But now he was hesitant, uncommunicative, a man cringing inside a shell he’d built for himself.

  We tried to cheer him up and anaesthetise the wounds made by Phyllis’s barbed remarks. With a laugh or a complicitous smile we tried to convey to Timothy that we understood. It was OK. He wasn’t to concern himself if his wife had the sensitivity of an armoured tank and a voice that could shatter glass. The brunt of all this reassurance fell on kind-hearted Paula Parrish from Godalming who had appointed herself chairman of the T.W-S Protection Society and encouraged the rest of us to distract Phyllis’s attention from him whenever we could.

  ‘Give the poor old thing a break,’ she’d said on Day 4 (Jewels of Jaipur). ‘He’s ever so interesting when you get him on his own. He’s a historian, did you know that? And a very well-known one! He writes books on the Moghul Empire and that’s why they’ve come on this tour. He’s following in the tracks of the Emperor Akhbar, apparently. Now that would make a good TV programme, don’t you think?’

  ‘Shove over Simon Schama!’ laughed her partner Ben, a dentist Paula had confided she was ‘trying out’.

  ‘You’d think Phyllis would take more of an interest, wouldn’t you? Push him along a bit instead of always putting him down. What’s her problem?’ Paula wondered.

  By Day 5 (Marvels Of Mewar) Caroline Hughes thought she had the answer. ‘She just doesn’t like men! You should hear what she said to my husband at breakfast yesterday. Tell them, Steve!�
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  Steve demurred.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, mate,’ said Ben cheerily. ‘She’s done it to all the blokes! Tongue like a scalpel! Snip! Snip! Just remember not to touch the meatballs vindaloo.’

  ‘It’s poor old Govind I feel sorry for,’ said Liz Cresswell, taking up the tale. ‘Do you know she’s threatened to report him to the tour firm? I heard her taking his name and number . . . said he’d been . . .what was it, Larry?’

  ‘Neglectful . . . inattentive . . . incompetent . . . something like that.’

  ‘Can you swear to that?’ The clipped tones of Colonel Richard Thwaite (British Army Retired) sounded like the cocking of a rifle.

  Larry straightened and replied smartly, ‘Those were the repeatable epithets. She’s going to lodge a formal complaint with “Tracks East” when we get back to London.’

  Colonel Thwaite considered this. ‘Indeed?’ he said. ‘Govind has a young family, I understand. This job’s important to him and it seems to me that a chap’s career should not be put on the line at the whim of this lady whose judgement I would have considered questionable.’ He raked the group with a narrow-eyed blue glare. ‘Do you agree?’

  We agreed. We’d have agreed to follow Colonel Thwaite over the top. Any top.

  ‘Govind’s wonderful!’ Everyone hurried to present their own account of the Hindu guide’s humorous and deeply knowledgeable contribution to the holiday.

  But now it was Day 14 (Dreams of the Desert) and it was drawing to a close. A welcome close for everyone. The trip had been too long by a few days and a few hundred miles, too hot, too mesmerising and too full of Phyllis. All eyes and minds were on transport: the coach to Delhi where we would have a last supper and the BA jet we would catch in the early hours of the morning.

  In a spirit of defiance I stayed at my easel after Phyllis walked off and worked on my painting for a further twenty minutes. Nothing more interrupted my solitary pleasure. I enjoyed the hot, earthy smells, the distant fluting laughter of the flock of girls in bright saris of acid yellow, pink and jade green who wandered elegantly about the gardens, baskets on heads, pruning and tidying the already immaculate grounds. Behind me a troop of langur monkeys quarrelled noisily in a tree top and a peacock gave an ear-splitting shriek.

  I left the painting under the tree to dry off. It wouldn’t take long in this heat. In the meantime I made my way over to the coach where the others were beginning to gather. In the efficient Indian way, all was ready a good half hour before the estimated time of departure and the group was assembling, water bottles in hand, sun hats on. Govind had trained us well.

  The last few stragglers strolled in from the lake and the palace and the count began. Unusually, Govind was not in attendance and the bus-driver who knew us all by now and was learning his numbers in English began to count heads.

  ‘Twelve guests,’ he announced. ‘Twelve.’ He held up one finger.

  ‘Come in now number thirteen,’ said a chirpy male voice. ‘Your time’s up!’

  ‘Phyllis?’ said another voice uncertainly. ‘I say—anyone seen Phyllis? Ah, here comes Govind. Govind, my wife appears to be missing!’

  * * *

  The body was retrieved from the centre of the lake by the hotel wild-life warden who had taken a boat out on sighting something white bobbing on the surface.

  * * *

  ‘It’s my fault she’s dead!’ I wailed again. ‘If I hadn’t sent her to pick a lotus bud . . .’

  The other ten made comforting noises and Paula passed me a pack of tissues. We were all strained and agitated. We were herded together in the sumptuous surroundings of the Polo Bar but the red plush, the gold and mahogany did little to lift our spirits. The men anxiously checked their watches every five minutes.

  ‘Do you think they’ll keep us much longer?’ said Steve. ‘I’ve got a conference on Thursday. Can’t afford to miss that plane! How much longer do you suppose they’ll grill him for? They’ve had him in there for ages.’

  ‘Well, when a wife dies in India I expect the first thing you do is check out the husband,’ said Bill, a retired barrister. ‘I would. They can hardly suspect poor old Tim of bumping her off for her dowry though! If ever there was one, it would be long gone, I should imagine. Anyway—relax! I think the investigation’s in good hands. That was a very impressive young man. What was his name? Hari Singh—yes, that was it.’

  The tall, rangy Inspector of the Rajasthan Police CID had been quite a surprise. He and his sergeant had drawn up in a white Landrover emblazoned with the motto of the force in Hindi and English. We all noted that they were ‘Committed To Serve’. We were further reassured by his professional manner and his efficiency and by the fact that he spoke better English than most of the group. But his gaze had gone through us like a lance as he lined us up for a briefing and the smart khaki uniform, I recognised, was a thin disguise for the Rajput warrior underneath. He had stated his intention of interviewing each of us and had begun by isolating and then questioning Timothy Wickham-Skeith.

  ‘Come off it, Bill!’ Steve protested. ‘It was plainly an accident. Misadventure . . . whatever you like. Happens all the time. I think the hotel is much to be blamed for not posting danger notices.’

  ‘What? And put off the tourists?’ said Bill. ‘BEWARE CROCODILES—that’s going to look good in the foreground of everyone’s holiday snaps, isn’t it? And, be fair, now—they did warn us about them. But remember this area’s suffering from a vast reduction in tourism at the moment. They can’t afford for any more visitors to be put off by a shock-horror story like this finding its way onto the internet or page one of the tabloids.’ He narrowed his eyes, and swept us all with a barrister’s air of secret knowledge. ‘Hmm . . . we might find that useful. And the fact that there’s been such a hoo-ha over the next test match series. It’s due to take place next month in Delhi. Lots of visitors expected. Boost to the economy. India will beat us hollow, of course, and they’re looking forward to that.’

  ‘But the English team’s playing silly buggers . . . threatening a boycott,’ said Steve, catching on. ‘It wouldn’t take much to turn this into a double media disaster. See what you’re getting at, Bill. They’ll want to avoid any adverse publicity. Can’t afford another fiasco like the Greek one last year . . . Did those blokes ever get back home? Stands to reason. Nothing if not diplomatic, Indians. They’ll do the right thing. We’ll all be shipped out on the next plane—out of their hair!’

  ‘Quite agree!’ said Colonel Thwaite. ‘That would be their best plan. Swift, sensible, discreet. The last thing they want is news coverage of some dotty lotus-gathering memsahib getting herself gobbled up by a crocodile. We’ll get our marching orders any minute.’

  But an hour later, Timothy was still closeted with the Inspector.

  ‘What if—heaven forbid!—they were to accuse poor Timothy of murder? What would they do with him?’ asked Paula in distress.

  ‘Arrest him. Hold him. Try him eventually,’ said Bill. ‘And we all noticed the local lock-up.’

  Several shivered at the memory of the desolate concrete block of a prison we had driven past the previous day.

  ‘We can’t let that happen! Can we?’ said Paula. ‘We can’t leave him behind in a place like that to struggle with a foreign justice system! Come on—we’ve got to get together on this!’

  ‘Quite right, Mrs. Parrish,’ said the Colonel. ‘And I think it’s clear what our tactics must be.’ He smiled a thin smile. ‘Their first error was to leave us all together in the same room.’

  Through my grief and shock and self-recrimination an idea had been bubbling. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘you don’t have to worry about making up a story. If it comes down to giving an alibi, we don’t need to dream anything up. I can prove that Timothy had nothing to do with his wife’s death. But let’s not force the Inspector’s hand. I’ll just go in when my turn comes—he said he’d take us in alphabetical order.’ I looked around. ‘So that puts just the two Cresswells ahead of me.’
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  The two Cresswells were duly called and were finished in ten minutes. I took a deep breath on hearing my name announced and strode as confidently as I could on knocking knees into the presence of Inspector Hari Singh and his sergeant. The inspector was seated behind the gleaming expanse of the manager’s desk, the office and IT equipment commandeered by the Rajasthan Police.

  ‘And you, I suspect, are Miss Hardwick?’ The voice was deep and smooth but with an edge of grittiness.

  I confirmed his suspicions. He waved a negligent hand at a bronze bust which sat in the centre of the mantelpiece. ‘The same name as the honourable architect of this magnificent pile.’

  ‘The same family,’ I admitted. ‘The same profession, though I’m still working at the reputation.’

  He grinned and asked a few basic questions. His sergeant tapped away at the keyboard of his lap-top. He studied the screen and gave a confirmatory nod to the inspector. Hari Singh noticed my wondering glance and unbent a little. ‘Sergeant Mishra has a degree from the London School of Economics,’ he commented. He waited for my admiring murmur and pursued his theme. ‘The Rajasthan Police do not spend their time hurrying to the scene of dacoity and dowry crimes on a camel as some westerners imagine. You are most likely these days to find us hacking our way through the thickets of the cyber-crime jungle. Death by crocodile has a very old-fashioned ring to it.’

  ‘She did die . . . um . . . by crocodile, then?’ I asked, mortified. ‘We didn’t know for certain. No one’s told us anything.’

  ‘The remains are at present undergoing a post-mortem examination at the Medical College Hospital but a preliminary inspection by our police doctor indicates that death was caused by loss of blood, shock and possibly drowning following the severance of limbs.’