Murder out of the Blue (Maliha Anderson Book 1)

by Steve Turnbull

  The lunch gong sounded, echoing down the passageways.

  “Oh good, all this sleuthing has made me quite ravenous,” said Temperance. “Shall we?” She put her arm out for Maliha to slip hers through and smiled. Dutifully Maliha did so while hiding her reluctance and allowed herself to be led through the ship to the dining salon.

  Friendship was a concept she understood in principle, but since leaving India and all her real friends at age eleven, it was not something she had experienced. She had soon learned that any friendship offered at the school was always a mask for betrayal. She found it hard to imagine that Temperance’s offer of camaraderie was honest, though she had no sensible reason to doubt it.

  There were fewer people in the salon than usual. Those who knew they were not the perpetrator considered themselves potential victims. Rationality did not come into it.

  The table was set with melon. Maliha sat in her usual seat. The place to her left where the general would normally have sat contained a chair and an untouched place setting, likewise the next seat which would have been Lochana’s. Mrs Makepeace-Flynn sat in her place with Temperance beside her. Maliha was somewhat surprised, since that would normally have been where Mr Crier sat; he was one place further along. Max and Valerie were not in their places. Maliha was on her own.

  Mr Crier stood up. “Miss Anderson, would you consider it inappropriate for me to sit next to you; otherwise there will be no one for you to talk to.”

  Maliha did consider it inappropriate and had a great deal to think about, but those were not words she could say. “You are very thoughtful, Mr Crier.”

  Which is how she found herself having luncheon with a man. He dug his spoon into the melon. Waiters drifted in and removed the food from the other settings.

  “A most unpleasant business,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have an opinion on it?”

  “I see no value in having an opinion, Mr Crier. This is not art, it is murder.” She punctuated her comment by cutting into the melon with her spoon and taking a mouthful. A dribble of juice escaped her lips and she hurriedly dabbed it with her napkin. One benefit of reduced gravity was that dribbles travelled at a very unhurried pace, which meant it was easy to catch them before they became too obvious.

  “I understand you are travelling home.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Do you disembark this evening?”

  “No, at the Fortress in Ceylon. Then I take a flier to Pondicherry and a carriage home.” She concentrated on the melon, but the outer skin was soon stripped clean. The plates were cleared without a fuss and replaced with plates of various sandwiches, cheeses, and light biscuits.

  “You attended Roedean I believe, Miss Anderson.”

  The sandwich she was lifting to her mouth came to an abrupt stop. He knew. This was really too much. Was there nowhere she could go to escape the notoriety? She felt the scar on her leg begin to itch. She frowned in annoyance.

  She set down her sandwich and looked across at Temperance who had her lips very close to Mrs Makepeace-Flynn’s ear and was whispering something with a look of self-righteous pride on her face. On hearing the words, the general’s wife’s face distorted into a mask of complex emotions that were hard to fathom. But there was pain and anger in there, perhaps hatred and loathing too.

  There was a commotion at the main entrance to the salon. Maliha was forced to turn in her chair to see. The general had been pushed through the doors by a steward, who had managed to make a meal of it, scraping the wheel against the wood of the door. Maliha noted the shell of a military uniform that encased the pale, wasted figure the general had become. She barely noticed Mrs Makepeace-Flynn getting up from her chair.

  Maliha watched long enough to see the general’s wife approach her husband, raise her arm, and slap him with all her strength—an act to which he did not react. She then strode from the room, head high. Maliha turned back in her chair and saw the faces of all the diners watching the event. Including Temperance, her lips pressed into a thin, humourless smile.

  v

  The general dismissed the steward and locked himself in. He glanced at the connecting door to Lochana’s room. He rolled himself to the drinks cabinet and poured a large whiskey. He held the glass between his knees and pushed himself over to the writing desk.

  He took a sheet of paper and the steel-nibbed pen his wife had given him for his fiftieth birthday, the finest pen produced from the Birmingham factories. He unscrewed the ink pot and charged the reservoir. Now his secret was known to so many, the ignominy would be too difficult for his wife to endure. And the law would not be far behind.

  It did not take long to write what he needed to say. He pressed the upturned sheet into the blotting paper. He considered addressing it to an individual but concluded it would be futile. It had his signature at the bottom, and that was all that was required.

  Retrieving his pistol from the case he had placed under the bed required more effort, but the reduced gravity of the ship eased the task. He unlocked the door, then took the gun and his whiskey to the armchair and pulled himself across into its welcoming cushions. He checked the pistol carefully to ensure everything was in good working order, and loaded a single bullet. It wouldn’t do to have a misfire, nor to have someone else accidentally fire it when they found him.

  He took a long comforting mouthful of the whiskey and placed it on the side table. Raised the gun and placed it at his temple. And pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 5

  i

  Travelling so fast through the sky from west to east had a curious effect on time. The seconds, minutes, and hours became compressed. It felt like mid-afternoon as they cruised across the Indian Ocean, and yet the sun already dipped towards the horizon.

  Their table for the evening meal was barely half full as Maliha took her usual seat. She was not hungry since, in reality, lunch had not been very long ago. And it had been a very unpleasant lunch. Temperance was the only one who seemed in good humour as she helped herself to the food.

  “So, the general did it,” said Temperance. “Good riddance to the sodomite.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath from Valerie. Maliha was stunned by the remark. What was this? A factor in the murder of which she was not aware. Was the general a sodomite? With whom? Oh.

  “Please, Miss Williams!” asked Max. “There is a lady present.”

  “I think you’ll find,” said Mr Crier, “there are three ladies present.”

  “I do not require you to defend me, Mr Crier,” said Temperance. She pointed her knife at the Spencers. “You are the worst type of snob. You’re worse even than Mrs la-di-da Makepeace-Flynn. It’s taken generations of breeding to make her into the cow she is today. You two have only your own bourgeois aspirations to blame.”

  Max stood up, grabbed his wife’s hand, and pulled her to her feet. “If you were a man, Miss Williams, I would demand satisfaction.”

  “If you were a man, Mr Spencer, I would oblige.”

  Max looked as though he might strain something looking for a suitable retort. He failed. “Come, Valerie” was all he could manage. He turned on his heel and stalked off with Valerie fluttering beside him.

  “Thank the Lord,” said Temperance, and returned to her meal.

  “You are a curious missionary, Miss Williams,” said Mr Crier. Her only response was to glance up at him, her eyes devoid of discernible emotion. He turned his attention to Maliha.

  “So, Miss Anderson, what do you make of it all?”

  “I do not believe I have anything to add, as I said at lunch.” She attempted to make her statement as final as possible, but he seemed immune. She needed to think about this new idea, Lochana was a man?

  “A queer business though. The general is having an affair with his nurse. That much is understandable given the disagreeable nature of his wife. But in a most sordid turn, it seems his nurse was a man in disguise.”

  “It wasn’t a disguise,” Malih
a said absently as memories surfaced of her old life at home: all the different people who visited and consulted her mother.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I was just saying it wasn’t a disguise, Mr Crier.” Maliha felt awkward as she had made herself the centre of attention; even Temperance was listening. “Sometimes, an Indian might feel they are in a body of the wrong sex. I believe they are called Hijra.”

  “Ridiculous,” said Temperance. “Primitive. Now you see why I am a missionary to these people, Mr Crier.”

  Mr Crier smiled and nodded in her direction. “Then something happens between them and he kills her.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Maliha. “Except…” She trailed off, as thoughts played hide and seek in her mind. Silence hung about the table while, around them, the chink of crockery and scrapes of cutlery on porcelain went on.

  “Except what?” demanded Temperance.

  “I wonder what time she died?” Maliha said. “You saw her at six and no one saw her again. So the general probably didn’t do it.”

  “That’s what he wrote,” said Mr Crier.

  Maliha’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve seen his suicide note?”

  Maliha could almost read the excuses that ran through his mind as he thought of them and rejected them again. “I haven’t seen it. I was told what it said.”

  She nodded. “I imagine he also said he had returned to his room after bridge and found her dead in his room. Realising the scandal that would ensue if he were to report it, he got the window open in his cabin and pushed the body of his lover out, expecting it to be gone forever.”

  “How did you know?”

  “It only takes a logical mind, Mr Crier.”

  “I knew it was you,” he said, and Maliha’s excitement drained away. “You were the one involved in the Taliesin Affair. They said it was a schoolgirl but never said who.”

  “I was not involved.”

  “You?” Temperance could not have been more incredulous. The revelation also caused her to frown, and she seemed to be contemplating something.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” said Maliha, “I think I will retire.” She rubbed her fingers absently on the napkin and dropped it beside her plate. She found Mr Crier ready to remove the chair from under her as she stood. There was nothing she could do to stop him, so she allowed it.

  She did not look back as she headed for the salon door.

  ii

  Maliha pressed her back against her cabin door in a futile attempt to keep the world at bay. Would this nightmare trip never end? Now they knew she was the “schoolgirl investigator”. She hated the journalists but for once her Anglo-Indian heritage had helped: they had not used her picture or her name.

  But still. The general had stated he did not kill Lochana. It made sense because the timings were wrong; there was no motive and—she realised she had no idea how Lochana had been killed. Had she been shot with the general’s gun? Or stabbed? Or even poisoned? Probably not poison, murder would be hard to prove. And a gunshot would doubtless have been heard unless it were done in the engine room; it was a sound that would reverberate and carry in the metal of the ship—just as it had with the general’s suicide. Would a gunshot wound bleed more than a stabbing? Probably it would; if it were going to kill at all it would do a great deal of damage.

  Most likely stabbed, then. Sufficiently badly to be fatal, but not enough to kill her immediately, as she still had the strength to go from where she had been attacked to the general’s cabin. It couldn’t be too far, or she would have been seen.

  Maliha cried out and kicked the door with her heel. Not having full access to the facts that were clearly known to others was a significant disadvantage. She stopped at the thought. Turned and faced the mirror.

  “What am I doing?” she asked her reflection, but her simulacrum looked as confused as she felt. “The general will be blamed for the murder, and they will wrap it up with a nice red bow. His wife will have to live with the social ignominy of being married to a murderer, a suicide, and a sodomite. And the real murderer will go free.”

  She nodded at herself. It would be unfair if the general were to be found guilty of both crimes, though what befell Mrs Makepeace-Flynn was neither here nor there. But that the true murderer should go free? That could not be borne.

  She would need to act quickly because as soon as the vessel was in radio range of Bombay they would report the murder, and police would come aboard as soon as they landed. If her previous experience was anything to go by they would settle for what was convenient and any further investigation would be stifled. Only a few hours remained.

  With new purpose coursing through her, she equipped herself with a light jacket and a hat, pinning it firmly in place. She hefted her walking stick; she might not need it for walking, but it always lent her positive strength when dealing with others. Thus armoured, she stepped through her cabin door and locked it.

  iii

  It was Mr Crier’s custom to take a turn around the Observation deck after meals. It took him a moment to recognise the lady striding purposefully in his direction swinging her cane. He almost started when he realised it was Miss Anderson. It looked like her, yet her demeanour was that of a different woman to the one he knew.

  He touched his cap as she approached. “Good evening, Miss Anderson.”

  “Mr Crier. Please walk with me.”

  She walked past him without slowing. He had to overcome his momentum and almost run to catch her up.

  “How can I assist you?”

  “You must tell me everything you know about the death of Lochana Modi and General Makepeace-Flynn.” He was quite taken aback at her demanding tone.

  “Shall we have a drink?”

  She stopped abruptly by ramming her cane into a ridge between the planks of the deck. Once more he was forced to dance to her tune as he sailed further along the deck and had to turn back. “This is not a social matter, Mr Crier. All I require is your information.”

  “Naturally I was not suggesting anything of that nature. I thought you might prefer somewhere a little more private.”

  Miss Anderson looked about at the scattered groups of individuals, families, and couples promenading. “This is quite private enough,” she paused, considering. “Perhaps if you were to offer me your arm we might continue. If you do not feel it would reflect badly upon you.”

  Mr Crier extended his arm and felt the lightest of touches as her thin fingers brushed his arm. She did not come in close, but that was to be expected. She was most certainly a strange woman.

  “Where would you like me to start?”

  “Do you know when Lochana is believed to have died?”

  “I understand the best estimate is early evening but that the nature of her death makes it hard to judge accurately.”

  “And can I ask how you know this?”

  “The doctor is an old school chum,” he said. “May I ask why you want to know? This will not help the general now, or his wife. It can only cause more upset.”

  “The apprehension of the real murderer is paramount, wouldn’t you say?”

  He sighed. “What else do you want to know?”

  “How was she killed? Was she stabbed? With what? And how many times?”

  She sounded almost ghoulish in her demand for detail. “Yes, she was stabbed. It was something with a very thick blade and quite long.”

  “How many blows were delivered?”

  “Only one, I believe.”

  She fell silent. He stopped and turned towards her pensive face. “I do apologise, are you feeling well?”

  She returned from wherever she had been. “What? Unwell? No, of course not. The facts must be evaluated one against the other.”

  “It does not disgust you?”

  “Of course, I am disgusted. Can you imagine the mind of someone who could commit such a crime?” She did not pause for an answer. “It is just a matter of considering the motive, means, and opportunity. If they cannot be divined we on
ly lack sufficient information.”

  She gestured to him to continue walking.

  “Your involvement in the Taliesin Affair has given you a taste for mystery then?”

  “I was not involved, Mr Crier. There was a great deal at stake and I was the only one to see it.”

  They had come around to the forward part of the deck and crossed in front of the Ladies’ Reading Room.

  “Perhaps you would like to watch the sports?” he asked and paused for a reply that did not come.

  Thin clouds hid the stars, and all that could be seen of the moon was a whitish glow, but the electric lights kept the dark at bay across the deck. There were shouts and cheers from the game players. He walked on and she followed along with him.

  Miss Anderson remained quiet, wrapped in a cocoon of thought. He had never before associated with a woman with such a power of concentration. It was almost unnerving. They approached the starboard stairwell. She finally spoke, but “Ah” was all she said.

  iv

  Back in her room Maliha retrieved her reticule from where it lay in the dressing area. She poured a glass of water and switched on all the lights. With the glass beside her, she sat in the armchair with her reticule open in her lap. She pulled out the letter. The name on the outside, Lochan Modi, now made sense.

  She broke the seal and withdrew a single sheet of folded paper. She examined the interior of the envelope briefly, then discarded it. With delicate fingers she opened the letter and stared at the strange characters for a few moments, then dropped it with a sigh. There were so many languages in India and as many different scripts to go with them. If she had been educated there, she might have known this form of writing.

  It was critical she speak with the steward who knew Lochana.

  For the first time in the journey, she eyed the push button on the wall near the bed that would summon a member of the staff to her room, but there was no guarantee he would be the one to respond.

  She stuffed the letter back into her reticule and headed towards the stern lounge.

  Beside the bar, she paused and looked out across the empty room. All was quiet—far quieter than would be expected at this time of night. The deaths and the imminent arrival at Bombay had cleared the decks. Except for one chair, facing the huge windows, from which a thin line of cigarette smoke rose. On the small table next to it was a small glass of something green, a liqueur no doubt. The chair’s occupant, however, was hidden by its high back.