“I know you don’t drink alcohol.”
“Thank you.” As she took a sip, ice clinked across the surface, and the ripples sloshed in the slow way they did under reduced gravity. He turned away from her and stared out across the dark landscape, and up at the moon.
“Like a jewel hung in ghastly night, makes black night beauteous and her old face new.” He said. Maliha took another hurried sip and wondered if she should leave; that was a rather racy sonnet of the Bard’s. “Oh, I do apologise, Miss Anderson, I really was talking about the moon. Perhaps you would prefer me to withdraw?”
“No. It is fine, really.”
He took a deep breath and sipped his wine. “It seems a shame we should have to travel without being able to breathe the fresh air, don’t you think?”
“You could travel by boat.”
“I think that might be pleasant, but everyone is such a hurry nowadays, and all the quality liners are in the sky. To travel by boat would mean a great reduction in luxury.”
“I do not think you would be forced to scrub the decks.”
He laughed. “No, perhaps not. But one does enjoy the trappings of first class. And the company can be most pleasing.”
“Sometimes, it can.”
“Perhaps if we were on a coastal scow you would not be forced to replace a missing nurse and not even get paid for the duty.”
The term duty conjured other images in Maliha’s mind to those intended. “I don’t mind.”
He turned to face her. She felt uncomfortable beneath his gaze. “Perhaps you should.”
“It is not my nature, Mr Crier.” She hid behind another sip, and the cold water slid across her tongue. “It is not done.” The words were placatory, but her tone was strained.
“There,” he said. “I believe you are a suffragist.”
“You may believe what you wish,” she said. “Thank you for the water. I believe I shall retire now.”
As she walked away in long, careful strides, she felt as if his eyes burned into her back. She cursed herself for reacting to him. Clearly he was playing some game: he had sought her out, as evidenced by the glass of water; deliberately engaged her in conversation; and then goaded her into reaction. It was all very inappropriate.
vi
Lochana Modi opened her eyes. Her head throbbed in a way that made even looking painful. The cabin she was in was almost complete shadow, just a hint of moonlight. She attempted to rise and instantly clutched at her lower ribs as an agonising stabbing pain ripped through her, she slumped back breathing heavily with a gurgling catch in her throat.
Her bodice was sodden, and her fingers wet with whatever the thick gooey liquid was. She stretched out her arm and stared at the dripping dark that covered the palm of her hand. Then she knew; tears filled her eyes.
It was so unfair. All she ever offered anyone was love.
Cold seeped through her, eating at her. Already her feet were like ice.
“No.” She had meant the word to scare away Death as it came for her. But though the sound came from her mouth she barely heard it above the wheezing. Whimpering with the pain she took hold of the sofa’s arm and levered herself to her feet. She staggered for a moment as she found her balance. Her head swam. Her training told her that she had lost a lot of blood.
She had seen men die. She did not want to die. If only she could get help.
She took an uncertain step towards the door.
Chapter 3
i
It was morning. The sun poured through the windows of the dining salon. Maliha sat alone at breakfast at a small table near the inner wall. The tables near the windows were filled with other passengers. The Spencers had nabbed their own while Mr Crier was eating with some people she recognised but had never spoken with. The general and his wife were at another. Maliha frowned; this was the first morning Lochana had not been in attendance. Perhaps she really was ill, as Temperance had suggested.
There was no one else in first class who would consider checking on her, and it would be inappropriate to approach the general and ask him, especially with what she had observed and Mrs Makepeace-Flynn’s undisguised animosity. No, that was not a discussion to engage in. It would be best if she simply visited Lochana’s cabin.
She took a final sip of coffee; it was a vice, but one could not be completely pure in the real world. Besides, the scent of fresh ground coffee was a form of beauty and there was no point grinding coffee only for the smell.
Leaving the table she headed out through the double doors into the main companionway. It took only a few minutes to traverse the distance to the cabins. She composed herself and knocked lightly. She waited a few moments, then knocked a little harder.
She waited again, a feeling of concern rising within her. She knocked firmly and more times than would be considered proper. A response was not forthcoming. She tried the door handle, but it was locked. She turned from the door, intending to find a steward and alert them to the situation, when something else caught her attention.
The sound of the engines and their vibrations had changed.
Maliha ran to the window. The ship was not due to touch down until they reached Bombay in the late evening, around eleven o’clock. The blueness of the Gulf of Aden stretched out to the horizon with not even an island in sight. But the central rotor was moving to the vertical position. She pressed her face to the glass, peering forward and then to the stern. The other rotors were also turning.
It was impossible to see what was happening from here.
She headed back to the main companionway. She had expected to see hordes of people flooding from the salon and rushing up on deck. But the companionway was nearly empty from end to end, a couple of stewards moving in the lounge to the stern and another she didn’t recognise moving towards the salon.
She took the stairs to the Observation deck. She thought she could perceive the difference in the way the ship vibrated as the rotors would be fully vertical now. The ship would be drifting forward with its thousands of tons of momentum. The captain had not issued orders for reverse thrust, which would have been very noticeable, so she could only assume the change had nothing to do with anything down on the surface. It had to do with the Sky Liner itself.
She burst from the door out onto the deck; the sun beat down through the dome from the front, but Maliha’s attention was immediately grabbed by the passengers spread out along the outer rail, peering down. She moved towards them. They were most closely pressed together near the stern where the windows came to an end. She could only join the group next to the nearest person standing in line with the central rotor.
Being careful not to touch the man, she stretched out across the rail and attempted to make out what they were looking at. Unfortunately, the man was quite large, and he, too, was stretching to see around the crowd to his left.
Maliha sighed quietly. This was not the first time she’d had this sort of problem though, on previous occasions, those blocking her had been doing it deliberately. At least it wasn’t malicious this time. There was nothing for it but to step up onto the railing. There was no danger to life, as the wall of glass and steel prevented anyone from falling overboard; the only risk was to her pride, and she had little enough of that. And not one iota to lose to the other passengers.
She lifted her skirt and placed her boot on the lowest metal rail, then hauled herself up with a slight twinge from her injured thigh, but that passed quickly. She sat on the rail and leaned out, pressing her outstretched hand against the cold glass for support. She looked down.
The most immediate impression she got was that there was now nothing between her and a three thousand foot drop to the sea below. Then her attention was taken by events in the side of the vessel. A hatch had been opened in the hull above the rear wing, below the level of the rotor.
A platform had been run out, and three sailors stood half in and half out, holding a rope as another crew member climbed down rungs set into the hull. At intervals, he ran his
rope through attachments mounted parallel to the rungs: a wise precaution, as the down-draught from the rotor whipped his hair and clothes like a gale. She noted he had a second, much thinner, rope being paid out as he descended. A second man with a stout rope about his waist exited the hatch and followed the first down.
The rear rotor itself was running perfectly smoothly as far as she could tell, and he did not appear to have any tools; she wondered what he could be doing. It was then she saw it, flapping and fluttering under the rotor’s gusting power, a collection of rags caught on the rear wing. Then she let out a gasp as she saw a hand moving, and the randomness of the air flows lifted the rags to reveal a slim body before hiding it again in the next moment.
Maliha stared in morbid fascination as the crewman reached the curved surface of the wing and stood under the battering force of the rotor. He attached the rope to another hook embedded into the metal, then took measured steps across to where the tangled clothing continued to flap about. Kneeling beside the body, he took a few moments to examine it, and then pulled on the second rope.
A stretcher was passed out from the hatch just as the second crewman made it to the wing; he reached the body and helped the first crewman guide the stretcher as it was buffeted back and forth in the wind. Once on the surface of the wing they lashed it down and proceeded to disentangle the body from where it was caught. They transferred it to the stretcher and strapped the arms, body and legs.
At their signal the rope attached to the stretcher tightened, and it rose from the wing. Holding their end of the rope tight, they managed to get the stretcher up to the hatch without bumping it against the hull too many times. The stretcher was brought inboard. But in those last moments, Maliha had seen everything she needed to see. It was Lochana Modi. Dead.
ii
Maliha stepped down awkwardly from the rail, surprised to see the much bigger crowd that now surrounded her. A man directly in front of her pushed into the space she had vacated by the rail. He didn’t even look at her. But with the recovery of the body, the crowd along the rail broke apart. Only those wanting to watch to the bitter end continued to hang over the edge.
The low buzz of conversation grew steadily as those who had not been able to see were told the events by those who had. Maliha pushed through the crowd as carefully as she could. She needed to get to the purser, the only member of the senior crew that a passenger could easily contact.
Under ordinary circumstances, she would have avoided the crowded stairs that led from the Observation deck down to the Promenade, but this was no time to worry about such things. She pushed her way through the crowd and joined the queue of passengers heading down. There was barely a glance in her direction.
A jumble of thoughts pressed in on her. How had Lochana’s body come to be outside the hull? If she hadn’t become caught on the wing, she would simply have disappeared without a trace into the sea. Temperance had seen her in the lounge sometime between six and seven, so she had been alive then. But seemingly no one had seen her afterwards. Could she have fallen from the Promenade deck? That seemed impossible; there were no opening windows on either of the open public decks.
Maliha crossed the Promenade deck heading forward to where the purser’s office was accessible from the passenger deck and the ship’s superstructure.
The cabin windows had catches which were soldered to prevent tampering. They could be opened but with difficulty. Lochana’s cabin was inboard and had no windows, but she did have access to the general’s cabin, so if she had been able to open the window there she could have fallen that way. But would she have taken her own life?
Maliha pushed open the door into the purser’s outer office. A large oak desk acted as a barrier across the cabin. A crewman of Indian origin and unhappy demeanour stood at a filing cabinet replacing a folder. He looked round as she entered.
“I must speak to the purser immediately.”
The man smiled. “I am afraid he is unavailable at present, Miss Anderson.”
Maliha was impressed, though she could appreciate the benefits of knowing all of the ship’s first-class passengers by sight. They could be very difficult. “I expect he is dealing with the body you found on the wing.”
“A most unfortunate affair.”
“Yes, of course, but I know who she is.”
He became serious. “You know?”
“It’s General Makepeace-Flynn’s nurse, Lochana Modi.”
He picked up the phone on the desk, consulted a chart of dialling codes next to the phone, and dialled a four digit number.
“It is the assistant purser here … Yes … Is the purser available? … Yes, quite important … Yes, sir. I have one of the passengers here. She says she knows who the body is … Lochana Modi, General Makepeace-Flynn’s nurse … Miss Maliha Anderson … yes, sir. Very good.”
He slowly placed the phone back in its cradle.
“Would you mind waiting?” He indicated a row of hard-backed wooden chairs upholstered in green leather. Maliha took a seat. She felt the vibrations in the ship changing again and surmised they were underway once more. She glanced at the two clocks on the wall. One showed the time in London while the other was local time. They were now three hours ahead. She adjusted her watch; they had already gained an hour on Constantinople and Khartoum.
iii
The ship’s doctor, in leather apron and with his shirt sleeves rolled up, examined the body of the woman. The examination room was crowded with the captain, purser, and master-at-arms, as well as the doctor’s assistant and the ratings who had brought the body on board.
The death would not look good on his record, thought the captain. Fifteen years as the master of passenger vessels, ten years in the Royal Navy before that, and never anything like this.
The doctor cut away the tattered remains of the outer clothing, enough to examine the body. The skin was covered in pink splotches with a network of scrapes and abrasions across the entire surface.
The purser excused himself.
“All this damage is post-mortem,” the doctor said to the unasked question. “Rigor mortis is setting in now.”
The MAA looked interested. “So she was killed this morning?”
“Can’t say, there’s no rigor at low temperatures; she could have been out there all night.”
“So when?”
“Hypostasis—the blotches—suggests all night, but there’s no distinct pooling; she was moving around the whole time by the looks of it.” He looked up at the captain. “It’s a miracle we found her at all. If she hadn’t got caught, she’d have been gone and you’d just have had a missing person.”
“Can’t say that would have been worse,” said the captain. “Any idea how she died?”
The doctor smiled. “That’s the easy bit. Here.” He pointed to a spot just below the ribs on the left of the body where an inch-long ragged hole broke the skin. With a gloved finger he prodded and looked inside with a small electric torch. “The blade was probably about six to eight inches long, quite thick too. Whoever did it certainly made an effort to cause damage; made a right mess of the liver. She would have taken a while to die though. Very painful.”
“Are you saying she was murdered?”
“Unless she accidentally fell on the blade, then wriggled about a lot before getting off and throwing herself out of the window. No? It was murder.”
The captain sighed and turned to the master-at-arms while the doctor attacked the remainder of the clothes. “All right, you’d better start an investigation.”
“This is a little outside my experience, sir.”
“None of us is going to come out of this looking good, Chief. If we can sort it out before we hit Bombay—”
“Oh, dear God.” The doctor’s voice was a complete change from his previous blasé attitude. The others stared at him. “Lochana Modi was not a woman.”
The MAA spluttered. “Are you sure?”
“It is a fairly fundamental factor in medical training but if
you doubt me feel free to take a look at him yourself. I’m sure you’re familiar with the basics.”
iv
The cabin door was pushed open by a large man with a ruddy complexion and a handlebar moustache. Along with his height and girth it gave him a commanding aspect, and he knew it. Maliha did not know who he was beyond the fact he wore a uniform and was not the purser. She resolved not to be intimidated as he came to a shuddering halt before the desk. The assistant purser glanced purposefully in her direction. He turned and loomed over her.
“Miss Anderson.” He thrust out his hand. She was uncertain whether he intended to shake, or pull her from her seat. She stood and placed her hand in his. It disappeared, but his skin was soft and he did no more than squeeze gently. “Please come into the office.”
The assistant already had the door open and, having seated Maliha opposite the officer’s chair, closed it gently after them.
“I am the master-at-arms, Charles Grey. You may refer to me as Mr Grey. I am dealing with the current situation.” He stared at Maliha for a moment, as if seeing her for the first time. It was a look she had seen many times before. It came with the cognisance that the person in front of them was not as white as the viewer had previously thought. “Would you like some tea?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “Perhaps we should get to the point?”
He nodded and looked down at the desk. He scanned it and, failing to find what he was looking for, opened a drawer from which he extracted a number of sheets of paper with rows and lined columns. Something for accounts, she thought. He took a pen from the rack and wrote her name at the top, the date and the two times which he took from his two wristwatches.
“I am investigating the death of a passenger.”
“Yes.”
“I understand you have some relevant information?”
“Did they not tell you?”
“I would rather hear it first-hand.”
“All right. The woman you recovered from outside, it’s Lochana Modi. She came aboard with the general. She’s his nurse.”
Murder out of the Blue (Maliha Anderson Book 1) Page 3
