Murder out of the Blue (Maliha Anderson Book 1)

by Steve Turnbull

  MURDER

  OUT THE BLUE

  by

  STEVE TURNBULL

  Murder Out of the Blue

  By Steve Turnbull

  Copyright © 2013, 2017 Steve Turnbull. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-9534886-1-2

  This novella is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system without permission of the publisher.

  Published by Tau Press Ltd.

  Cover art by Drew Northcott (drewnorthcott.co.uk)

  Editor (English) Karen Conlin (grammargeddon.com)

  To my family (you know who you are).

  Chapter 1

  i

  Maliha Anderson glanced down at her watch. Temperance and Lochana were late. RMS Macedonia was scheduled to launch at three o’clock local time, just half an hour away, and the great Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company were strict about their schedules. She looked out at the sun-bleached streets of Khartoum, almost devoid of life in the heat of the day. Flat roofs lay all of a height except for the domes and minarets of the mosques. To the west, the sun’s light shimmered on the rippling surface of the White Nile.

  She leaned forward against the polished wooden rail that curved around the stern viewing lounge of B Deck. A Deck above—for the truly wealthy—had a similar lounge but fewer and larger berths. Those in the cheaper second and third class berths below had no lounge at all; only the Promenade and Observation decks were available to them, with no privacy to speak of.

  All together they were 300 souls packed into a steel and glass container thundering through the sky at 100 miles per hour and an altitude of 3000 feet, courtesy of the Faraday device and the steam-driven rotors on the ends of the six stubby wings.

  The purser had given them a tour after the vessel had lifted from London three days ago. The Macedonia was the latest passenger vessel of the P&O line, flaunted in its newspaper advertisements as a marvel of the skies: a floating Sky Liner with its rotors to take it vertically into the clouds, then swivel to drive the vessel across the firmament. It was, they said, a miracle of engineering.

  Maliha sighed. Always they were “miracles of engineering”. Then she smiled. This truly was a miracle of engineering, and it did indeed please her. She ran her fingers along the painted iron underside of the rail, feeling the bumps of the letters that spelt out the name of the Belfast shipbuilders: Harland and Wolfe.

  Movement outside caught her eye.

  The two lost sheep emerged in sudden colour against the washed-out shades of ochre. They hurried arm in arm towards the ramp. The Welsh copper heiress Temperance Williams, intense with the certainty of a zenana missionary, was travelling to India to save the souls of the Hindu womenfolk. And beside her was Lochana Modi, of Indian birth and nurse to General Makepeace-Flynn. It seemed Temperance had decided to begin her missionary work with Lochana.

  They were unaccompanied again. It had been the same in Constantinople. Temperance was a very modern young woman and did not consider a male escort to be required under any circumstance. And it seemed the general did not mind his nurse going ashore with her; certainly he felt no compunction in co-opting Maliha to push his wheelchair, despite her injury, when Lochana was unavailable. He seemed to think that because she was young, just 19, he could ignore her need for a walking stick when in port.

  “The wanderers have returned, eh?”

  Maliha did not turn to look at the general, who rolled into place beside her, propelled by a steward. He pulled on the cigar clenched in his clawlike fingers and blew a cloud of white smoke at the glass. He ordered the steward to fetch him a whiskey, and the man slid away like a ghost. Maliha leaned forward to watch as the women approached the ship.

  The two figures outside reached the shadow of the liner. One of the ship’s officers appeared from the belly of the vessel and strode down the ramp. He offered his arm to Miss Williams. She ignored him and marched into the ship without even a sideways glance.

  “Certainly has her own mind, that filly,” the general said. Maliha did not need to see the grin on his face to know it was there. “Needs taking in hand. Touch of the crop, eh?”

  “Excuse me, General.” Maliha took up her walking stick from where it leant against the ironwork. Before he had the opportunity to say something even less decent, or call her back, she turned away and limped briskly towards her cabin.

  She slipped between the red leather wingback chairs that would not have looked out of place in a gentlemen’s club; they were so tall one could disappear into them. She strode past the bar on the port side and, beyond that, the small but eclectic library. Not that there was a great deal of time to read on this trip, as she was only travelling as far as Ceylon. They would arrive in a couple of days, but those heading on to Australia had another week to occupy themselves, plenty of time to become bored with deck quoits.

  But, she admitted to herself as she stepped into the stairwell that climbed up to the Observation deck, she had yet to grow tired of the ship launching itself into the blue. It was not as elegant as a seagull catching the uprising winds against a cliff and hovering in space, but it was a “miracle of engineering”. And, once they were in flight, the strain on her leg was so reduced she could forego her stick completely. As there was no one nearby, she allowed herself a smile.

  ii

  The ship’s warning klaxon sounded with two long bursts, indicating the Faraday device would be engaged in just two minutes. Maliha was one of very few people on the Promenade deck; others were scattered along both the port and starboard sides, peering through the gleaming glass that protected them from the outside air. Most passengers disliked the transition to light-weight when the device was activated; they would be in their bunks, in their beds, or at least in chairs. Maliha enjoyed the tranquillity and the unspoken camaraderie among those souls who braved the event.

  She took her place leaning against the rail that separated her from the wide expanse of glass and steel stretching overhead and fully enclosing the open decks. The earlier emptiness of Khartoum had been replaced with crowds, five or six deep, around the perimeter of the air-dock. In their bright clothing they were like a multi-coloured ribbon.

  Beneath her, visible through the glass, distributed along the ship’s hull, were the three port-side wings: each one perhaps half the width of the ship again. At the end of each wing, enclosed in sheaths of beaten steel, were the massive steam-turbines that drove the rotors. For landing and take-off the turbines were turned to the vertical position with the rotors parallel to the ground.

  The klaxon sounded a single long blast: one minute to go. The ship shook as steam tore through the pipes and into the turbines. The rotors resisted for a moment, then reluctantly began to rotate. At first she could follow the individual movements of the blades, but they accelerated quickly and were soon nothing but a semi-transparent blur glittering in the sunlight.

  The klaxon gave three short blasts. There was a count of ten, and the Faraday device was engaged. The sensation was like being at the top of a swing, about to descend. It was like falling without movement. It was not uncommon for people to feel sick at least initially, but Maliha revelled in it; it felt like freedom. She had experienced a less powerful form of the effect in the school and at a fair. However it had been only three days before, travelling in the atmospheric t
rain from Bournemouth to London, that she had felt it at full. Now she was an old hand.

  Further along the deck, near the enclosed Ladies’ Reading Room, a young lad—perhaps only 10 years old—leapt into the air and touched the ceiling of the Observation deck. His father, his clothing marking him as third class, caught him as he descended with the lightness of a bird.

  The rotation of the propellers increased. The ferocious down-gusting wind from them whipped up clouds of dust and sand, but the glass dome that enclosed the whole of the upper decks protected them; while, outside, Khartoum became nothing but a phantom beyond the ship’s own private sandstorm.

  The ship listed to port slightly, and she felt herself pushed against the rail. This was it. Somewhere adjustments were made; valves opened or closed by tiny amounts to adjust the ship’s attitude, and the deck straightened once more. The rotor noise increased again. She knew they were airborne now, but the wind-driven sand filled the air around the ship.

  Then they rose above it. Khartoum lay below with its streets laid out in the form of the Union Jack—the legacy of Lord Kitchener. The Blue and White Nile rivers reflected the intense sunlight. The clouds of sand drifted along the streets but settled out quickly. The ribbon of people had become a ribbon of upturned faces. She resisted the urge to wave back to the children that ran back and forth below them, though in her heart she was as excited as they.

  The klaxon sounded once more to indicate a successful launch, followed by the ship’s steam siren that blasted their farewell to Africa. The ground below twisted as the ship changed its heading towards the east and slightly south to cross to the Red Sea, where it would turn south to follow the coast.

  The central rotors swivelled a few degrees towards the horizontal, giving them forward propulsion and Khartoum slid away beneath them. Maliha lifted her walking stick, held it at its centre as she took bold steps, towards the bow and the Ladies’ Reading Room. As she passed the enthusiastically bouncing boy, he paused and stared. Maliha heard the sotto voce words of a child that has not learned to whisper. “That lady’s been out in the sun too long.”

  “Quiet.”

  “But why…”

  She slipped into the reading room, which was mercifully empty. Most of the ladies would be suffering the vapours after the trauma of launch. This final refuge was near the prow of the ship, just behind the superstructure occupied solely by the captain and his senior crew.

  Although it was called a reading room, reading was perhaps the least indulged-in exercise. When it was occupied, the most common activity was gossip, not that she was invited to take part—not that it would have been an undertaking she would have enjoyed. Being the subject of such malice quickly disabuses one of its merits.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  Maliha jumped. There was a maid holding cutlery and a cleaning cloth.

  “Yes?”

  “This area is for first-class passengers.”

  No escape. If only her skin tone had taken after her father’s more than her mother’s.

  “I certainly hope so. Now, if you will go about your own business, I will go about mine.”

  The girl’s face reddened, though whether from embarrassment or anger Maliha could not tell. She turned away and strode to the windows nearer the bow. It did not really matter anyway. In two days they’d be in Ceylon, and another couple of days after that she would be back home. No more “respectable” women judging her by the colour of her skin.

  The ship had reached its cruising altitude. The propellers were fully rotated to the horizontal and the ship threw itself through the clear blue sky. The sun hung almost directly above and ahead of them while, in the distance, mountains peeked above the horizon.

  The afternoon passed quietly. By three o’clock, the reading room boasted some twenty occupants, from ladies as young as Maliha with their chaperones to women of a certain age and beyond. Maliha felt uncomfortable; there were too many pairs of eyes glancing in her direction.

  Maliha took one last look at the African landscape gliding away beneath them to the thrumming of the six powerful turbines. The temperature inside the ship had dropped as the air they now breathed was vented from the outside and driven through by the pressure of their movement.

  Light as a feather she managed a gentle bound across the room, successfully negotiating maiden aunts and highly strung debutantes. She smiled to herself as she took hold of the door handle, then composed her features to perfect neutrality as she opened it and stepped through onto a deck thronging with passengers from all classes.

  She walked the length of the Promenade deck, skirting the central games area. High above, the triple domes of glass and riveted steel allowed the sun to pour through. A few hardy souls played quoits in the blazing light, but nothing more energetic. Through the glass ceiling, she could see the starboard funnel, near the stern, churning out smoke from the furnaces. The speed of their progress ripped it into a horizontal trail.

  iii

  Maliha reached B Deck through the port-side stern stairwell. She considered returning to the lounge as there was a good chance it would be empty at this time of day, or at least there would be a chair in which she could hide. She turned towards the stern but had gone only a few paces, long bouncing ones though they were, when she grabbed the brass rail to bring herself to a halt.

  The afternoon sun and the porcelain sky were so bright that everything inside the lounge was nothing but shadow. Dark against the blinding backdrop was the wheelchair-bound figure of the general, facing the slim silhouette of his nurse. As Maliha watched, he gestured violently at her, his hand outstretched and open upwards. Lochana turned towards the window and took a step away.

  The roared words of the general—“Don’t you turn your back on me!”—penetrated the thrumming of the rotors. The rest of his words were lost. Lochana turned back and took his hand, clasping it in both of hers. Maliha could almost imagine the touch as if it were some performance of Shakespeare, as if they were star-crossed lovers.

  The outrageous ill-manners of her eavesdropping struck her. She turned on her heel, embarrassed by her own behaviour and the scene she had witnessed. In an instant she resolved to return to her cabin; the real world was too full of emotion, too full of care to be easily borne. She tore herself away from the thing she should not have witnessed.

  “Miss Anderson?” The sharp nasal tones of Mrs Barbara Makepeace-Flynn—a woman of few words and considerably less empathy—sliced the air. Maliha almost stumbled over her own feet as the woman emerged from the passageway that led to her cabin.

  The general and his wife occupied separate cabins a short distance down the passage from Maliha’s room. The nurse’s cabin was next to the general’s, with an adjoining door. It was an arrangement that now took on an entirely different meaning in Maliha’s thoughts. The unbidden images that surfaced in her mind would have made a paler woman visibly flush.

  Not quite understanding her own motivations, Maliha took a few more steps before turning to speak to Mrs Makepeace-Flynn, arranging herself so the woman would have her back to the lounge, her husband, and his nurse.

  “Can I help you, Mrs Makepeace-Flynn?”

  “You will accompany me to afternoon tea.”

  A lady did not eat in public without company. Maliha was in no doubt that if it had been Temperance Williams who had crossed Mrs Makepeace-Flynn’s path, she would have been a more acceptable choice. Miss Williams was a far better option, with her Britishness unmistakably marked by her pale skin. As that wise child had commented, the best that could be said of Maliha was that she had been out in the sun too long: an offense almost as bad as having an Indian mother. The fact that her Brahmin mother was a member of the Indian aristocracy meant nothing to the pure-blood British.

  “You are too kind.”

  The woman harrumphed as if she were well aware of just how demeaning it would be for her. But Maliha was not paying attention. The lovers had moved further towards the wide expanse of glass at the rear of
the vessel and out of sight behind a pillar, with the general wheeling himself easily in the reduced gravity. But it was not they who caught her eye now, but the Indian-born steward who leaned out from behind the bar and stared unashamedly at the general and his nurse.

  Another harrumph interrupted her and was also noticed by the steward who disappeared back into the bar. Maliha turned to see Mrs Makepeace-Flynn paused and waiting. Maliha fell into step half a pace behind the general’s wife who did not deign to continue their conversation. Maliha knew she was a convenient sop to convention and nothing more.

  iv

  Maliha made her excuses to Mrs Makepeace-Flynn as soon as it was decent to do so: after two cups of tea and a delicious macaroon. She headed back to her cabin, calculating the hours to Ceylon in her head. It did not require any amount of cleverness to see why the general might prefer a younger woman to his wife. But that said, if one were treated so abominably by one’s husband, how could one not become bitter? The Bard had it right about tangled webs woven by deceit. One could only hope the outcome would not resemble that of the Bard’s most famous tragedy.

  Maliha unlocked and entered her cabin. While not one of the best first-class accommodations, it was far from unpleasant: a comfortable lounge area with a sofa, armchairs, and a coffee table; a writing desk; a small bookshelf; a double bed behind a screen; large windows that could be opened in a pinch; and a separate room for one’s toilet. A palace, compared to the dormitories of the boarding school.

  She smiled as she placed her walking stick by the door. How pleasant it would have been if her roommates had succeeded in their plans to have her removed to a room of her own. She arranged her skirts and sat lightly in an armchair, the large rectangular window giving her a clear view of the blue sky and brown earth of the Sudan. The prejudice of the other girls blinded them to the irony of their plan. The teachers, however, were not easily swayed, and unfortunately the plan had not succeeded.