‘I really loved him, you know. And I still do.’
She fell silent, her eyes in the candlelight shimmering with tears, and Joe waited, finding no words to speak, sensing that she had almost got to the end of her story.
‘The war was on its last legs by then, though we didn’t know it. There were miles of red tape to unwind so it was two months before we could get married. As soon as we could we said our goodbyes and suddenly everybody was going home – all the Yankee boys, the British singing “Auld Lang Syne” and the Raj. Rif. just smiling. Quite a lot of us were crying including me and then we were off in a train to Paris for a honeymoon. From there to Marseilles, on to a P&O steamer to Bombay and all my dreams came true.’
‘All your dreams?’ asked Joe quietly.
Chapter Thirteen
‘ALL MY DREAMS?’
Nancy repeated his question slowly and her eyes slid away from his to focus on the single orchid which stood in a slender silver vase between them. She was silent for a long while, gently stroking its silken petals and, from her silence, he understood that she was considering his deeper meaning.
‘No. Not all my dreams. But most of them. Such as they were at the time. India was still white and gold and all that I had hoped for. The people smiled and the sun shone. The blood and the pus and the misery, the noise and the squalor, they were all far behind in France. I remember saying to myself, “I’ll have clean clothes every day!” And, of course, in India you do have clean clothes every day. I was coming alive again. But then …’
Her face suddenly grew bleak as memory returned. ‘Peggy Somersham, my best friend. There was I in India surrounded by the peace and comfort that I’d longed for and suddenly here was my friend lying dead in her bath. I knew that somebody had come into my paradise and murdered someone close to me for no reason I could think of. And why Peggy? Why not me? I was back with death. I was back with blood. And more than I have ever hated anybody or anything I have hated the man who was responsible for this!
‘I imagined how he’d done it and tried to reconstruct it. I didn’t get a scrap of co-operation from Bulstrode, condescending bastard that he is! If I tried to interest him or suggest he ought to look a bit further, he would just give me that irritating laugh, the laugh that said, “There, there! Don’t you dirty your pretty little hands. This is man’s talk. You wouldn’t understand.” So I rang Uncle George and we talked about you and about the forensic techniques and criminal character analyses we’d heard you lecturing on and we agreed – “That’s the man for us!” And Uncle George – he’s very good at that – pulled a few strings and here we are. He’d take it as a personal triumph I think if you could pull this off!’
She reached out and took Joe’s hand in both of hers and said, ‘It’s transformed the world to have you here!’
Joe looked with tenderness into her excited face. ‘Nous gagnerons parce que nous sommes les plus forts!’ he said.
‘Who said that?’
‘It’s what the poor old frogs said at the beginning of the war. Never lacking in confidence! But then, in the end, I suppose they did win out.’
The khansama slid into the room, taper in hand, and proceeded to relight the candles. Nancy stayed him with a gesture and one by one they flickered and went out. The tiniest, discreetest shuffle in the corner of the room marked the appearance of ayah and, in a gentle voice, Nancy dismissed her. In moonlit silence with the mutter of the city drifting up from the street below, the bark of a dog, the call of a night bird, a sudden clamour from the market as suddenly cut short, seemed only to accentuate the silence that had fallen between them.
She looked up, at once both innocent and alert. Her innocence left Joe longing to hold her close, ruffle her hair and kiss the tip of her nose, to draw her down on to his lap, to sleep with her, to wake with her, but the air of alertness delivered an entirely different message. His mind went back to a bar in Abbeville and to an officer in the French Women’s Army. She’d downed her second cognac and, staring closely into his eyes with that same concentrated alertness, had whispered a phrase whose crudity had left him breathless, ‘Baise-moi, Tommy!’
What would he say if Nancy had said the same? He knew exactly what he would do. In desperation, he made a half move towards her but she anticipated him and, falling to her knees beside him, she put her arms round his waist and buried her face in his lap. When she looked up her eyes were wet with tears but she was laughing at him.
‘Joe,’ she said, ‘listen! I don’t need to do any explaining, I think. You must have guessed I don’t know much about this. Oh, God! You’re so precious, you’re so special and you’re so absolutely my lifeline – I don’t want to disappoint you and I know that happens sometimes.’
More moved than he could imagine, Joe lifted her face and turned it towards him. He kissed her gently and then kissed her open-mouthed. A small murmur, a small cry and they were standing.
‘What do we do now?’ Nancy asked awkwardly.
‘Well, I’ve got a perfectly good bedroom over here somewhere,’ said Joe waving a hand vaguely.
‘And I’ve got one over there. Shall we spin a coin?’
‘No,’ said Joe. ‘Come with me.’
Chapter Fourteen
HE AWOKE IN a cocoon of disordered bedclothes. Not only disordered bedclothes – clearly the mosquito net had been in some way detached during the night as witnessed by a large number of bumps along his back. The bed beside him was warm from Nancy. His mind was a turmoil, remembering the innocence and the excitement with which Nancy had joined him in the night and remembering the smiles and gentle laughter, the tender clenching of her body as she lay with him.
He supposed that everyone in that large household would know exactly what had occurred. And if they knew, it was to be assumed that it would be no time before the Governor would know. He had tried to talk about this with Nancy but she had been unable to acknowledge that there might be social implications to their tempestuous night. What, he wondered, would be the reaction of the Governor? “Ship this bloody policeman home on the next boat!” He didn’t think so. He thought her uncle was well aware of what would be the consequences of his so careful sleeping arrangements, to say nothing of his well-chosen wines. He even supposed that the Governor had brought this about for a purpose of his own. His mind ranged widely, seeking what may have been the purpose. He had, at their first meeting, spoken deprecatingly of Andrew Drummond. Feeling sorry for her, could he be putting a little distraction his niece’s way, condoning adultery? Joe had heard the stories everyone had heard about the looseness of morals in tropical India and wondered whether he had been too quick to dismiss them as wishful nonsense. All the same, there was something here he did not understand.
Tired of appearing in uniform and duly bathed, he dressed in plain clothes and sat down to an enormous breakfast. Government House, clearly suspended in an Edwardian vision of what such things should be, had provided egg, bacon, coffee, a rack of toast and – to crown everything – a plate of well-made porridge. He might have been breakfasting in Oxford in the nineties.
When he had worked through this and, lighting a cigarette, had stepped out on to the balcony, the khitmutgar appeared, salaaming.
‘The memsahib asks that you will visit her as soon as you are able to do so,’ he said. ‘And there is an individual downstairs to see you.’
‘An individual? What sort of individual?’
‘It is a Sikh havildar of police,’ he replied, managing to convey that a Sikh havildar of police waits until he is sent for.
Joe’s instinct was to say, ‘Show him up,’ but he decided that this would be a breach of protocol and asked that his visitor might be shown into an office where he could later come down and interview him after he had been announced to the memsahib.
Nancy greeted him with a beaming smile and, with a quick look round to assure herself that, for once, they were truly alone, advanced and put her arms round his neck. She kissed him firmly and said, ‘Good mornin
g, Holmes. I see that Mrs Hudson has served you with one of Baker Street’s best as well as me. Now tell me – what are your plans for today?’
‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘they were first to come and see how you are. No problem about that – you look absolutely blooming! How extraordinary! You’re supposed to look pale and woebegone – “Now by my morning sickness I have lost my virtue to this rude and rammish clown.” You know, all that sort of thing.’
‘Can’t be bothered,’ said Nancy. ‘You’re quite conceited enough already so I’ll merely say – you were wonderful! It was wonderful! I was wonderful – wasn’t I?’
‘Yes,’ said Joe.
And there was a washed and dewy freshness about her face that he had never seen before.
‘I’ll answer your question though as to what we’re doing today. Good Naurung awaits us downstairs.’
Suitably escorted they followed the khitmutgar down through the house, through the company rooms, through a discreet door into the offices at that early hour busy with Bengali clerks scribbling, chattering and bowing politely as they passed through.
Naurung greeted them with his usual self-sufficient deference. ‘I had thought, sahib,’ he began, ‘that we should speak to my father. He doesn’t have much to tell you but he was concerned – as a policeman, you understand – with the deaths of two of the ladies. Of Mrs Forbes and Mrs Simms-Warburton.’
‘Can you bring him to us?’ asked Joe.
‘I can certainly bring him to you but better, perhaps, that we should go to him. It is not far. He works outside the Law Courts. He is a letter-writer now that he has retired from the police. The letter-writers all talk to each other. It is what I think you would call a trade union. They know a lot.’
Joe turned to Nancy. ‘Shall we? Not too fatigued to attempt a little walk?’
Nancy gave him a repressive look and they set off into the mounting heat of the day to walk westwards along the Esplanade towards the red-brick gothic splendour of the Law Court building. line of scribbling or tapping figures seated under the arcade. A Sikh turban marked him out from the rest and, given only the disparity of years, Naurung senior looked exactly like his son. He was at work. Joe paused for a while and watched. The old man’s client squatting on his heels in front of the smart new Remington typewriter leaned over and whispered urgently and volubly. Naurung listened and replied, obviously rephrasing what he had just heard, and then proceeded to tap out an agreed statement on his typewriter. Coming to the end of the letter, he wound the sheet out, read out what he had typed and handed it to his customer. Grateful thanks and a handful of coins were politely accepted and before the next client could shuffle forward, Naurung hailed his father and led them to him. He made the introductions in English and the old man turned to greet them in the same language.
‘I am honoured.’ he said, ‘that the police sahib from the Scotland Yard visits me in my humble place of business.’
‘I am honoured,’ said Joe, ‘that the renowned retired officer of police should set aside important concerns and spare a little time to illuminate the past for a London policeman but it has seemed to your son and it has seemed to me too that there may be thoughts that it would be sensible for us to share.’
‘I am of that opinion. But this is not a seemly place for such a discussion. Will you allow me a few minutes and I will be at your service?’
Naurung senior closed and locked his typewriter. He turned to the man on his left and addressed him at length. ‘He is an ignorant man and a humble man but he is honest and I will leave my typewriter and my place under his protection. Now, perhaps the sahib and the memsahib will follow me?’
Walking with Joe while Nancy and his son fell in behind, the old man led them north round two corners into a backstreet and to a staircase above which there was an inscription in Hindustani. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a Sikh establishment and it is run by friends and relations of mine. Here we will be private.’ And he led them up a narrow staircase to a wide room from which arcaded windows led to a balcony and in which tea and a dish of sweetmeats appeared. It was clear to Joe that they had been expected. He sat down with Nancy at a table and Naurung’s father sat down opposite. Naurung himself took up a sentry-like stance at his father’s side and the old man listened with the closest attention to everything that Joe had to say but it was clear at intervals that he had lost the thread and when this happened Nancy intervened in translation and occasionally Naurung did the same. The conversation proceeded in English with intervals of Hindustani.
‘My son has told me all he knows of your investigation and I add this to the knowledge of the affair I have derived from my own experience when working with Bulstrode Sahib at Panikhat,’ the old man began. Joe thought he caught the ghost of an expression at the name Bulstrode, an expression he had seen many times on the face of the younger Naurung. Dislike? No – disdain. ‘I am aware of a disturbing implication,’ he said.
Nancy stumbled over the word and after a short debate Naurung supplied it.
‘I will explain. I think, outwardly, in Bengal all is calm. Money was made during the war and people – though not all people – are prosperous but the burra sahib – your uncle – is not a fool. He looks under the surface. He did not invite the distinguished police commander …’ He bowed to Joe. ‘He did not invite you, sir, for nothing, or just – excuse me – just to humour his niece. He has a long memory. He thinks of the past and he also thinks of the future. The decision to move the capital of India from Calcutta to Delhi is resented by educated people in Bengal. And there is much resentment still about the war. The English talk always of the gallantry of Indian soldiers in France and there are gallant legends. What we know is that of the “gallant” band who set off to France a very great number did not return. Look, if you do not believe me, at the casualty returns amongst Bateman’s Horse. It is believed that valuable Indian lives were squandered.’
He paused and looked a question at Joe.
‘I was in France,’ said Joe, ‘and that same opinion was widely expressed by returning British soldiers including myself. The Germans described the British army as “an army of lions led by donkeys”. I agree. But it is not of Indian troops alone that this could be said. I started the war with six cousins and now I have one.’
‘Many Sikhs could say the same,’ said the old man and went on, ‘but it is our religion to die always with our faces to the enemy and serving our King. The Sikhs do do not complain but there is much ill feeling among others towards the British for involving the Indian people in a struggle that is not their own. But further …’ He paused for a moment to emphasise the point he was about to make. ‘… it is believed that the British are subtle and clever and they are taking steps to separate Hindu and Muslim. I believe this myself. And it is being said openly that this move to divide Hindu and Muslim is motivated by the policy of “divide and rule”.’
The last thing Joe wanted was to find himself stirring about in the snake pit of Indian politics but the Naurungs appeared so earnest in their desire to prevent a catastrophe which they could clearly see on the horizon that he made an effort to listen closely. Could the Naurungs be uncovering the undisclosed reason Uncle George had been so eager to involve him?
He accepted another sweet pastry and asked carefully, ‘What are you saying? Where is this leading?’
‘I am saying that, though apparently calm, the political situation is explosive and – if you will hear me – our affair of the memsahib murders may have a disastrous part to play. Remember that in 1858 it was in Bengal that the match was applied to the powder trail that so nearly blew British India to smithereens.’ He produced the word with pride. ‘And remember that then the powder keg was suspicion – unfounded perhaps but suspicion all the same – that the British were intent on forcibly converting the sepoy soldiers to Christianity. The fuse seemed a trivial enough matter to the British. They had issued to the soldiers cartridges which it was rumoured had been greased with pig and cow fat. To load his gun t
he soldier had to bite off the top of the cartridge thus polluting himself whether he were Muslim or Hindu. It was said that this was a cunning British means of destroying the caste of the Indian regiments. But the British were not cunning – careless perhaps and thoughtless, but the tragedy was that this was the fuse that was lit in Bengal in the hot weather when tempers grow short. Stations like Panikhat here in Bengal and Meerut near Delhi saw the first explosions.’
Joe remembered the pathetic plaques on the older bungalows. He remembered Kitty lost in a past which to her was only a touch away.
‘Who will forget Memsahib Chambers, a young wife and pregnant, cut to pieces, the first victim. The first of hundreds of Englishwomen to die hideously at the hands of the mutineers. And because their women and their children had suffered so badly the English reprisals were equally hideous. The hangings, the sepoys tied to cannon and shot to bits … a dark time.
‘And it would not need much to bring that horror back. Already we have the same pattern – many grievances, many suspicions. Let it be suggested in the bazaars that there is a movement, a movement to dislodge the British, and many – often ignorant – people would follow. The situation is once again extremely dangerous.’
‘Again,’ said Joe, ‘I am asking where you are leading me?’
The room fell silent while they awaited his reply until at last he said, ‘I think, Commander, you believe, as I do, that all these tragedies are linked? And looking at the evidence it would seem that in each case there was present a mysterious and disappearing figure. Consider the wife of Carmichael Sahib. Who was it who killed the cobra? People would assume a native. The wife of Forbes Sahib. Where now is the saddhu – a material witness if ever there was one? And the ferryman who made so gallant a rescue attempt when the wife of Simms-Warburton Sahib was drowned? And, most recently, the native box-wallah who came forward so helpfully to say that, though he had been in the alleyway by the bungalow of Memsahib Somersham at the time of her death, he had seen and heard nothing suspicious?’
The Last Kashmiri Rose Page 16
