The Last Kashmiri Rose Page 3

  Joe asked again, ‘So much for the basic story. Were there witnesses?’

  ‘No. Not really. The party she was with were ahead and had gone on round the corner. There was a beggar on the path and he saw it happen. His evidence was just what you’d expect – Sheila’s horse had shied and poor old Sheila went over the cliff – it’s quite a height – and didn’t stand a chance. The horse survived, incidentally. Bold as brass. But … the only unusual thing was that she was not a regimental wife – her husband was in the IAMC. Still, in everyone’s mind it counted as another death on the station.’

  The bearer came into the carriage with a copper tray on which stood a coffee pot and tiny china cups. He set it down beside Nancy and she resumed her story.

  ‘Now we go back to Joan Carmichael, wife of Colonel Carmichael. A bitter man. Didn’t do quite as well out of the war as he thought he ought to have and got stuck at Lieutenant-Colonel. I knew him very slightly from my distant childhood; he was the worst the Indian army had to offer – all moustache and bluster, not kind to the young officers, not popular with the men. I don’t think he and Joan had much of a life together.’

  Joe sipped his coffee, his mind more distracted than he would have liked by the story-teller. So she was presumably born and brought up in India; he would have guessed that from her easy manner and knowledge of the language.

  ‘Tell me what happened to Joan.’

  ‘Ah, this really makes my blood run cold! She was killed by a cobra. Not unknown in India though actually less common than people back home seem to think. They’ve all read The Jungle Book! They all expect a cobra to pop up out of the plug hole every time someone takes a bath!’

  ‘I always travel with a mongoose,’ he said seriously.

  She laughed and carried on with her tale. ‘Well, it’s a pity Joan didn’t have hers with her that day. She always rode out every morning – most of us do – and she always went the same way.’

  ‘Does anyone know exactly what happened?’

  ‘Well, the police work seems, for once, to have been quite good. Again, I’ve read the reports. There were evidences that she – er …’ She seemed suddenly embarrassed and finished with a rush, ‘that she had dismounted to answer a call of nature. Can you imagine anything more appalling? Being bitten by a cobra with your knickers down? I’m not trying to make a joke of it but there’s something awful about people … it’s just the kind of thing that makes us laugh until we think about how terrible it must have been.’

  ‘It’s a very human reaction,’ said Joe easily. ‘You must have encountered it a lot when you were nursing. We certainly did in the trenches. Laughing was sometimes the only thing that kept us sane. In the beginning. It made the unspeakable something we could handle.’

  They were both silent for a moment, thoughts on the death and final painful indignity of the Colonel’s wife.

  ‘But how did they know it was a cobra?’ Joe asked. ‘I have never been to India before and perhaps there are things obvious to an old Koi-hai that would be a mystery to me …’

  She leaned forward, suddenly intense.

  ‘They knew it was a cobra because it was still there! At the scene. This sounds really extraordinary and there may be a simple explanation but – it makes me shiver to talk about it – but, someone had killed the cobra – chopped its head off – and left it lying there right beside Joan’s body.’

  ‘But that means …?’

  ‘Yes, that someone passing by had seen Joan lying dead. Someone passing very soon after the attack. Or even witnessing the attack? Soon enough after to have caught the cobra and have killed it. But why? In revenge for Joan? It’s macabre! Now, Mr Policeman, what do you make of that?’

  ‘Did the police at the time form a theory?’

  ‘As far as they were able to discover there were no witnesses to this death, not even a passing beggar. They thought, as I suggested, that perhaps a woodsman – a charcoal burner perhaps – may have tried to save her from the snake, killed it and then realising it was a hopeless case just cleared off and kept his head down.’

  Joe sat in silence for a moment, suddenly grieving for Joan Carmichael. Lonely Anglo-Indian wife, unsatisfactory marriage, unkind husband, seeking what relief from boredom she could find by riding out in the early mornings, suffering the while from a bladder complaint, it really was a bleak and pathetic story.

  Following his sorrowful thoughts, he turned to Nancy. ‘Had she friends?’

  ‘I don’t really know. It didn’t occur to me to find out. Acquaintances, obviously. You couldn’t live in a place like this without acquaintances, but close friends, no, I wouldn’t know. Is it important?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. It’s just that I was getting such a sad picture. I’d like to have thought she had some nice chum she could call in on, on her way back from her ride.’

  She arched her eyebrows. ‘A sentimental policeman? But I know what you mean … We can ask about. There are quite a few officers and their wives on the station who were there before the war. They haven’t been there all the time, of course. They move around. Everyone in India moves around! They may have been posted to several other stations in the meantime but they will remember. If they were here, they will remember. You can count on that.’

  ‘And you say the first death occurred in 1910?’

  ‘Dolly Prentice. Twelve years on – and that’s a lifetime in India – but people still remember Dolly! Half the regiment were in love with her from what I hear. Even the memsahibs liked her and that’s unusual because she was young and quite lovely. There are photographs. They salvaged almost nothing after the fire but a tin trunk with the family valuables in it wasn’t too badly damaged and it contained, among other things, two photograph albums. She was a real English rose, Dolly – all fair hair and huge blue eyes. The sort of fluffy, feminine creature that turns men’s heads … all the charm of a twelve-week-old kitten …’

  Joe smiled. He looked at the rather sharp profile being offered to him, the tilt of the chin, the straight, determined nose and the knowing, mischievous smile, and thought that Nancy Drummond would not have had a great deal in common with Dolly Prentice.

  ‘She was married to …?’

  ‘Major Prentice as he was then. Giles Prentice. He’s now Colonel Prentice and commands the Bengal Greys on the station. You will meet him, of course.’

  ‘Was their marriage a happy one?’

  ‘I can’t tell you for certain. I’ve heard stories. Some say he worshipped Dolly and certainly there is evidence that he was completely undone emotionally by her death. Some say he was indifferent to her. He’s a rather … well, you will decide for yourself … but I think he’s a bit odd. A difficult man to understand or like. But whatever his faults he clearly wasn’t responsible in any way for Dolly’s death.’

  ‘Can you be certain?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Beyond any doubt. He was in Calcutta dining at the Bengal Club with the selection board at the time of the fire. He was apparently truly devastated when he got back and they told him about it. The officers had left the bodies in the place where they found them in the wreckage of the bungalow and …’

  ‘Bodies? Did you say bodies?’

  ‘Oh, yes. There were two. In the bedroom. There was Dolly’s body still lying on the bed and there was another …’

  Her voice faltered and she looked uncomfortable as she frowned, considering how to go on.

  ‘Another?’ he prompted.

  ‘Yes, another. Holding Dolly in his arms. It was Chedi Khan. Prentice’s Pathan bearer.’

  Chapter Four

  ANGLO-INDIA GOES TO bed early. Anglo-India wakes up early too. Joe Sandilands was awoken at six o’clock by the insistent clamour of a bugle. The Reveille. And as his mind fitted the words which British soldiers had taken to singing to this jaunty call:

  ‘Wake up Charlie, Wake up and wash yourself. Wake up Charlie, Get up and pee!’

  Joe, half awake, thought himself back in France. Back in the army
. Back in the war. It was a moment before he realised that the bugle was sounding in the hot awakening of an Indian summer day and not echoing flatly across the muddy fields of Flanders. He fought his way out of his mosquito net and stepped down to feel the welcome coolness of the tiled floor.

  He had had a troubled night. His brain had coursed with a mass of undigested and uncorrelated information. His attempt the night before to write up his notes had not been entirely successful. His damp wrists had blotted the page. Ink had run on the soft foolscap paper with which Nancy had supplied him. Paper stamped ‘The Office of the Collector of Panikhat’.

  He pulled up the blind and opened up the window and leant out. Feeling the promise of another hot day and, mindful of the formidable list Nancy had given him of people he ought to see, he was aware that these might be the only hours during the day that he could have to himself. He decided to set off on a voyage of exploration before it got too hot. He armed himself with a small notebook stamped ‘The Metropolitan Police. New Scotland Yard W1. Telephone, Whitehall 1212.’

  The heat struck him as he stepped from his verandah on to a corner of the parade ground and reminded him that he should be wearing a hat. To his right a tree-lined road opened before him and, glad of the shade, he set off down this. It was evidently called Victoria Road (what else?) and a quick reference to his notebook reminded him that William and Peggy Somersham had lived at number 9 (a house which John and Alicia Simms-Warburton had occupied before the war) and, further, that Sheila and Philip Forbes, the doctor, had lived at number 30.

  Although the bungalows were of many different periods evidently, they all conformed to the same pattern. They each had a passionately tended garden within a dusty compound, thatched roofs, tiled roofs, even corrugated iron roofs, wide eaves and, on all sides, a wide verandah. Views into the interior as he went on his way revealed pyjama-clad men beginning their day, women in early morning deshabille, here and there children being got ready for the day or playing in the sun with attentive servants. In most gardens a water carrier was seeing to the avenues of pot plants that lined every entrance drive. Further reference to his notebook revealed that Dolly and Giles Prentice had lived at number 5 Curzon Street.

  Walking on, a branch road set off to the right identified itself as Curzon Street. In 1910 there had been a substantial house at number 5 but now there was nothing. The plot was set apart from its neighbours at the end of the cul de sac, its rear open to cultivated fields and, Joe calculated, eventually to the river. And wide open to a night attack by dacoits, he thought. He made his way on to the abandoned site but his progress was hindered by the dense scrub and weeds which struggled across the place where Dorothy Prentice had died in the fire and where Chedi Khan had died holding her in his arms. Joe stood for a moment, feeling his way back to that disastrous night. He was not surprised that Prentice had chosen not to rebuild. Consulting his notes again, he discovered that Prentice, however, had not gone far away. The neighbouring property was now his, a large bungalow whose garden adjoined the scene of the old disaster.

  But disaster seemed to be all around him. As he pressed on down the street, he peered more closely at little plaques attached to the gates of some of the older bungalows and shivered in spite of the warm morning when he understood what he was reading.

  ‘In this bungalow on Sunday the 17th of May 1857 died Mrs Major Minter and her three children, cut down by mutineers and their bodies thrown down the well’ read the plaque on number 1 Clive Street. At number 9, Captain Hallett of Bateman’s Horse had died ‘gallantly defending his wife and son from an attack by mutinous Sepoys. All were hacked to death.’

  Who was it who had called India ‘The Land of Regrets’? He walked on and a turning led him once more back to the parade ground where the full heat hit him. He decided it was time to turn back. Two young officers trotted past, eyeing him curiously until, with a flash of recognition, one called out derisively, ‘If you want to know the time, ask a policeman!’

  Joe was not in the mood to be patronised and favoured them with a repressive police stare, a stare he had perfected in dealing with recalcitrant fusiliers during the war and London’s criminal classes and even disrespectful police constables. He was pleased to note that it did not seem to have lost its force; under his level regard, both seemed abashed.

  Resolving never again to step out into Indian sunshine without a hat, Joe turned back in the direction of his dak bungalow. By the time he reached it, military Panikhat had awoken to full and raucous life. Nailed boots marching formed a clashing foreground to the softer noises of the town and marching orders, familiar to Joe, were heard in an almost continuous stream.

  ‘Move to the right in fours! Form fours! Right!’

  And, from a distance, ‘At the halt! On the right! Form close column of platoon!’

  ‘Good old army,’ thought Joe, ‘though what relevance this has to infantry action on the north-west frontier which is probably what’s waiting for these men, I can’t imagine. Probably pretty useful for Wellington’s army in the Peninsula and here they are, still at it! I’ve been out of the army for four years but I could step back in and form fours!’

  He returned to the care of the bearer assigned to look after him. His bearer had decided that, on this his first public appearance in Panikhat, he should be in uniform. Pressed, folded and neat, his khaki drill lay on the bed. In the ghulskhana his bath was full, his towel folded over a towel horse.

  The bearer appointed to him, his palms pressed together, greeted him. ‘Egg, bacon, sahib. Coffee. Jildi.’

  Joe thanked him in English and, deciding it would be churlish not to wear the uniform put out for him, stepped thankfully into the bath which was neither hot nor cold and washed away his sticky night and his no less sticky walk. Breakfast appeared at astonishing speed and, assuming that someone would tidy his room, empty his bath, empty the large top hatlike contrivance in the corner which did duty for a closet, he decided it was not too early to embark on his course of obligatory calling.

  He thought that the Police Superintendent should come first followed by the doctor, the Collector and, not least, the CO of the Bengal Greys who, by a small note on his table, had elected him an honorary member of their mess. A second note from the Panikhat Club told him he had been elected a member (‘for the duration of your stay’) of the Club. In both of these he detected the hand of Nancy Drummond.

  Armoured against the growing heat by a standard issue British army pith helmet that some thoughtful soul had left in his bungalow, he set off to walk to the office of the Police Superintendent.

  The Police Superintendent was cold, the Police Superintendent was resentful and far from pleased to see him. He was pleased enough not to have to deal with what he clearly believed to be a nonsensical mare’s nest uncovered – as he put it – ‘by the women’, though relieved to find, after a quick look at the medal ribbons on Joe’s chest, that he was dealing with, if not a soldier, at least someone who had been a soldier.

  He looked Joe over, his sharp blue eyes cold and suspicious. ‘Don’t know what on earth you’ll make of this, Sandilands! And please don’t think it was any idea of mine to waste your time with it!’ he began almost without preamble. ‘Don’t want to pre-empt anything you may find out for yourself but, in my opinion, this is a lot of nonsense and even if it wasn’t a lot of nonsense, we’re looking at a cold trail. A very cold trail. If there’s the slightest thing I can do to help – though I can’t imagine what – let me know. For a start, we’re chronically short-handed here. The Governor blandly suggests I put an officer at your disposal. Easy for him! I’ve assigned a police havildar to you. Naurung Singh. His English is quite good, you’ll find, if you don’t rush him. He served for a year as interpreter to a British unit and – well –’ he gave a chilly smile, ‘we haven’t got anybody else. He’s very ambitious and I wouldn’t recommend you believe everything he tells you. Tries hard to please, if you understand what I’m saying. I’ll call him in in a minute but in th
e meantime – where do you want to begin?’

  Without giving Joe a chance to reply he went on, ‘Rather expect you’ll want to begin with the Somersham bungalow.’ He threw a key on to the table between them. ‘Take Naurung with you – he’ll show you around. Not that there’s much to see. It had pretty much been trampled over by the time I got there. I was out myself in the native town when it happened …’ He cleared his throat and stirred uncomfortably.

  Joe waited in silence for him to carry on.

  ‘Bit of petty thieving going on. In the bazaar. By the time I got word of the unfortunate occurrence the world and his wife and his bearer had traipsed through. At least three people had handled the razor … Somersham himself was covered in blood, the whole household scurrying about yelling and in the middle of it all Mrs Drummond, cool as you like, taking photographs!’

  ‘Exactly how much cleaning was done?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Hot country, India,’ said Bulstrode, ‘as I’m sure I don’t need to remind you. No refrigerated units here for storing … er … cadavers. And you can’t just let blood lie indefinitely. To cut it short – I had to order the cleaning of every surface that had blood on it. Apart from that everything’s as I found it when I entered.’

  Joe’s heart sank. A cold trail and a clean one. Deliberately cleaned? Nancy’s suspicions were beginning to chip at his objectivity.

  ‘I suggest you have a look at these,’ said Bulstrode, depositing a wad of papers on the table. ‘I haven’t had time to copy them – we can’t call on the squad of clerks I expect you’re accustomed to at the Yard – so for heaven’s sake don’t lose them. Documents relating to the other deaths the women are getting worked up about. I’ve put aside all the transcripts of all the police interviews in each case. Pretty formidable file, I’m afraid! And that’s something Naurung won’t be able to help you with – he doesn’t read English all that well. (He’ll have to improve if he’s going to get where he wants to in the force.) Ask him anything though – where to go, who to speak to, who to salute and who not to salute and so forth. Still, at least when you’ve read through these, you’ll be able to set the ladies’ minds at rest. Quell the clucking in the moorghi-khana …’