The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “That’s not mine,” I yelled. “I am not a junkie.” I turned to the woman holding me. “Check my arms. I’ve never taken anything like that.”

  “You slipped up, last time,” The Wolf said. “Kate Cruickshank. We found the mark.” He held up the bag again. Gave a wolfish grin. “Rebecca Colne, I am arresting you for the murder of Kate Cruickshank on ...”

  I didn’t hear the end of the caution. The room spun then dimmed. I passed out.

  They gave me four life sentences. They tried me for four murders. The third one, she was Alison Devlin. She was two months pregnant.

  The Metrolink had been closed the day I claimed to have seen the man leave the laptop and get off at Mosley Street: a system failure. When I told them the truth about the airport, they raised questions about my delay. Why wait so long? If I honestly thought this was information about a series of murders, why wait at all? I’d stolen the machine, I told them, I was frightened that I’d be prosecuted, I wanted to make sure it was true. None of my excuses made any difference. My change of story made them even more convinced I was responsible. And when I repeatedly claimed that the man who owned the laptop was one of the officers investigating me, they clearly thought me deranged.

  They seized my own computer and found all the other files. All the internet junk I’d copied: methods of murder. My defence counsel argued about the dates, demonstrating that I’d downloaded stuff long after the first three murders, but I could see the jury turning against me. Looking at me sideways. I was told not to make accusations about The Wolf, it wouldn’t help my case. They linked me to Fiona Neeson. We’d been members at the same gym. It was news to me.

  The clincher was the DNA evidence. A hair of mine at the scene of Kate Cruickshank’s death. It didn’t matter that I’d never been there. Someone had - with a hair of mine, or dropped it into the forensics lab. That coupled with the syringe “recovered” from my flat.

  Juries love forensics, ask anyone. Never mind about logic or witnesses or other evidence - a bit of sexy science has them frothing at the mouth. Clamouring for conviction.

  Like quicksand, the more I struggled for the truth the deeper I sank. Till I was swallowing mud day after day in the courtroom. The weight of it crushing my lungs.

  A stream of acquaintances and people I barely knew were wheeled out to attest to my controlling, cold and dubious character. The prosecution harped on about my lonely and dysfunctional upbringing, my isolation, my prior mental health problems. They held up my severe weight loss, my Prozac use, my insomnia, as evidence of a guilty conscience. And my stunt at the police station as a cry for help. They never had a motive. How could they? I was a psychopath, I had a personality disorder - no motive required.

  After the conviction, much was made of my lack of remorse and even more of the word murderess. The female of the species and all that.

  They’ve turned down my application for an appeal. No new evidence. And no hope of being considered for parole until I admit my guilt.

  Maybe I’m safer in here. The bars, the locks, the cameras. If they let me out he’d be waiting, wouldn’t he? Lips slightly parted, hair slicked back, those lupine teeth. Waiting to get me once and for all. The sting of the syringe as he inserts the needle. The dull ache as he presses the plunger, forcing the air into a vein. The seconds left as the bubble speeds around my bloodstream. Zipping along as if in a flume. An embolism. Fizzing through my heart and on into my lung - tangling with my blood vessels. Making me gasp, claw for air. A jig of death. Stopping everything. Blowing me away.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  BLOOD ON THE GHAT

  Barry Maitland

  C

  hristine woke before dawn. The night air was warm and sticky, and she threw off the cotton sheet and went over to the window. Opening it, she breathed in the unfamiliar smells of spices and pungent wood smoke and... well, something less pleasant. Down below her was the great river, the Ganges, which, very soon now, would begin to emerge from the darkness. She had arrived late the previous night with only a fleeting and confused picture of the city, of crowded narrow streets draped with electric cables and lurid signs, of old buildings tottering against each other, and of people everywhere, on foot, in tricycle rickshaws or sprawled on the footpaths. The glimpses of the people - the women wrapped in colourful saris and the men in white dhotis - had thrilled and also frightened her a little, for their strangeness and their sheer numbers. Her hotel, the Dubashi Guesthouse, was a modest affair of small rooms and limited facilities, but with spectacular views out over the ghats - the great cascades of stairs and platforms that descended from the edge of the city straight down to the river. The owners of the guesthouse, Mr and Mrs Dubashi, had welcomed her and offered her food, which she was too tired to accept, and shown her up to her room. There she had sat for some time at the window staring down at the spectacle on the ghat below, a line of priests performing a fire ceremony before a great crowd of worshippers and tourists, boats passing by on the edge of the darkness, the sound of chanting, bells and rhythmic clapping.

  Now she quickly made use of the bathroom at the end of the short corridor, taking care not to swallow any of the tap water, and returned to get dressed and go downstairs to the lobby. An elderly woman wearing a bright orange sari and with white hair and pale European skin was there, talking to Mr Dubashi, who introduced them.

  “Ah, Mrs Darling, please allow me to introduce Christine, another Australian. You are both going to visit the ghat at dawn, I think?”

  Mrs Darling shook Christine’s hand. “How nice to meet you. Your first visit to India?”

  “Yes.” She seemed a warm and enthusiastic woman, eyes bright with interest, although Christine thought that she detected some effort beneath the surface, as if perhaps she had been unwell and was struggling with fatigue.

  “And this is your first day? How exciting for you. It is one of the great sights, dawn on the Ganges, the pilgrims drawn to the sacred river.”

  “Have you been here for a while?”

  “A couple of days, but I have visited Varanasi many times before. And you? Do you have a special reason for coming here, Christine?”

  Mrs Darling was giving her such a penetrating look that Christine felt compelled to tell her the truth. “I... would like to understand death better,” she said, and saw the momentary look of consternation on the other woman’s face.

  “But you are so young,” Mrs Darling said. “We must talk later.” And Christine was saved from replying by Mr Dubashi, who said, “You should be going now, ladies. See, the dawn is breaking and the people are arriving.”

  Through the open door Christine saw that the street outside was filling with a stream of people heading for the ghat. The two women stepped outside and were immediately caught up in the crowd. Christine felt the excitement of becoming part of a great throng, and almost tripped over a woman sitting on the ground with a large basket of brilliantly coloured flowers. Nearby the driver of an ancient tricycle rickshaw was gesticulating to his two fat female passengers that they must get out now and walk because the way was becoming too congested. The crowd jostled and Christine found herself being squeezed back behind Mrs Darling. Ahead of them the street narrowed and the dark buildings on either side closed in, packing the crowd still more tightly together, and Christine felt a throb of panic as she tried to keep her companion in sight.

  Suddenly the street came to an end and the sky opened up overhead. They were at the head of the ghat, the great flight of steps running down to the Ganges, which appeared ahead of them as a broad silver sheet. Through the press of bodies Christine saw orange flags and electric lights on tall poles overhead, and raised platforms on which bearded holy men prayed and priests held up offerings to the dawn. Along the margins of the concourse squatted beggars and hawkers selling garlands of flowers, bunches of sandalwood sticks and brightly coloured shawls and saris.

  For a moment the press of people came to a stop, and she c
aught sight of Mrs Darling’s orange sari ahead, about to begin her descent of the ghat, and then the crowd closed in between them again. Suddenly a shock seemed to pass through the crush. There were shouts, people staggered and fell into one another. In front of her, immediately behind where she had glimpsed Mrs Darling, a tall, thin man with a shaved head tripped backwards and tumbled against a brightly painted scarlet shrine, hitting his head with a crack against the stonework. Christine dropped to her knees beside him, trying to pull him to one side so that he wouldn’t be trampled in the panic. She quickly took in the features of the unconscious man - his bare feet, his brown, weathered skin, his white dhoti and, the strangest thing, a piece of white muslin cloth tied with a string in front of his mouth.

  “Miss Christine!”

  She heard a shout, recognizing the voice of the hotelkeeper, Mr Dubashi, and saw him struggling through the crowd to reach her.

  “What on earth is going on?” he cried. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but this man was knocked over and hit his head.”

  Mr Dubashi squatted beside her. “Ah, it is a holy man, a Jain!”

  “What’s that covering his mouth? Is it a mask?”

  “No, no. It is part of his philosophy of aimsba - non-violence to all creatures. It is to prevent him swallowing a fly by mistake.”

  Christine looked at him, wondering if he was teasing her, but he seemed perfectly serious. He was gazing around. “There must be... ah, there it is!”

  He reached beside the shrine and raised what looked like a long-handled brush or flywhisk. “You see, Jain monks must sweep the ground in front of them to make sure that they don’t tread on any insects.”

  “Well, unfortunately he’s suffered some accidental violence himself.”

  At that moment the monk groaned and blinked open his eyes.

  “Yes, we must get him back to the hotel and look after him. Sir! Can you get up?”

  With some difficulty they helped the man to his feet, Mr Dubashi supporting him. Fortunately the monk seemed to be very light, while Mr Dubashi was stocky and strong.

  “Look,” Christine said, pointing to a bloodstain on the front of his white gown.

  “Perhaps he has suffered a cut,” Mr Dubashi said. “I shall take care of it. But what about Mrs Darling? Where is she?”

  “I don’t know, I lost sight of her.”

  “Find her. Make sure she is all right. I shall look after the holy man.”

  Christine agreed and struggled through the milling crowd at the top of the ghat. People were shouting and gesticulating to each other, as if trying to describe what had happened, but since they were speaking in Hindi, or perhaps Urdu, she couldn’t understand a word. She looked around but couldn’t see any sign of Mrs Darling’s orange sari. About twenty metres further down the broad flight, a knot of people seemed to be the focus of much pointing and staring from people on the platforms and terraces above. She made her way down. As she approached, a man burst out of the throng, shouting into a mobile phone, “Dead, I tell you! Quite dead!” Christine felt a thump in her chest as she peered down between the legs of the clustered men and saw a head of white hair lying on the stone steps.

  Christine cried out and the crowd parted for her, watching with bright eyes as she knelt beside the motionless body of Mrs Darling. For a moment it almost seemed as if she were asleep, but there was something unnatural in her pose, one leg twisted awkwardly beneath the other, and when Christine stretched a tentative hand to her wrist she could find no trace of a pulse.

  “The police have been called, madam,” one man reassured her eagerly.

  “Police?” Christine felt as if time were moving very slowly. “An ambulance, surely?”

  “But she is quite dead!” the man insisted, and then, with an unnecessary relish, added, “Murdered!” and gestured with his hand up the flight of steps, where Christine saw a trail of dark stains. “Blood, madam. Blood on the ghat! The lady has been most atrociously stabbed!”

  “But, who...?”

  He broke off and everyone turned their heads back up to the city at the sound of a siren’s wail, the scream of braking tyres, and then the clatter of boots as three men in berets and uniforms, carrying rifles, came down the steps of the ghat, followed by another man in a dark suit. Immediately the man who had been talking to Christine began speaking to them in a rapid stream of Hindi, while they frowned at the body, and at Christine, with suspicious glares. The man in the suit stooped to look more closely at Mrs Darling. He pressed his fingers to the side of her throat, then he lifted the back of her sari, and Christine saw that it was saturated with blood, and she gave a gasp.

  The policeman looked up at her and got to his feet.

  “Good morning. I am Sub-Inspector Gupta of the Varanasi CID. What is your name?”

  Christine told him, watching him take out a notebook and write.

  “And do you know this woman?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Her name is Mrs Darling.” She felt absurdly exposed, standing like this surrounded by all those silent listeners as she answered his questions. He sounded very serious and severe, but this gravity was somewhat undermined by his youth, for he didn’t look much older than Christine herself, who was twenty-four. “We are staying at the same hotel, the Dubashi Guesthouse.”

  “Aaah...” A murmur spread out through the crowd as the information was repeated.

  The policeman coughed loudly and they fell silent. “And did you witness what happened?”

  “No. I was behind Mrs Darling when we reached the top of the ghat, but I couldn’t see her because of the crowd. Then something happened, people began struggling and shouting...” heads nearby were nodding their agreement “...and the man next to me fell down and I tried to help him. Then Mr Dubashi found us, and by the time I came looking for Mrs Darling, she was like this.”

  “Hmm.” Sub-Inspector Gupta turned to the crowd and called in a loud voice, and in several different languages, for anyone who had seen what happened to the white lady in the red sari to come forward. A babble of conversation started up, but no one moved. The man who had spoken to Christine earlier did speak up, saying that he had been standing nearby when he saw the body tumble down the steps, “like a sack of potatoes”, but confessed he hadn’t seen her attacker. Nor, it seemed, had anyone else.

  Christine had a thought. “Inspector,” she said, “it’s possible that the man I told you about, who was knocked down when it happened, may have seen something. He must have been very close behind Mrs Darling, and there was blood on his dhoti. He may have seen the murderer.”

  “Really? What was he like, this man?”

  “He is a Jain monk. He was very shaken up, and Mr Dubashi was taking him back to his boarding house. He may still be there.”

  “Good!” The detective looked relieved and flashed Christine a broad smile. ‘I’m only a sub-inspector, by the way. This is my first real murder case. The forensic people will soon be here to examine the scene. Let us go to Mr Dubashi.”

  He said a few more words to the uniformed men and then he and Christine set off, climbing back up the ghat.

  When they reached the Dubashi Guesthouse they found the Jain monk sitting stiffly upright on a chair in the lobby, his flywhisk brush across his knees, while Mr and Mrs Dubashi fussed around him, applying a dressing to the back of his head. Christine introduced Sub-Inspector Gupta and told them the terrible news about Mrs Darling’s murder, which caused much consternation, Mr Dubashi in particular becoming very agitated, hopping around from foot to foot, in contrast to the monk who maintained a stoic immobility.

  Sub-Inspector Gupta called for calm, and began by writing their names and addresses in his notebook. The monk’s name was Nemichandra, apparently, of no fixed address, since Jain monks were wanderers, obliged by their faith to move constantly so as not to become attached to any one place. Mrs Dubashi was able to provide Mrs Darling’s Australian passport from the hotel safe, causing a
nother wave of agitation in her husband.

  “Mrs Darling’s son is here in India,” he cried. “He is in Kolkata, she told me, on business. He must be informed.”

  A further search of the hotel safe yielded a package of other personal items belonging to the murdered woman, including a diary with a note of her son’s Kolkata hotel number.

  “I’ll get on to it,” said Sub-Inspector Gupta, who was having trouble making them do things in the correct order. “First I must know if you have any knowledge of what happened at the ghat. You, Mr Nemichandra, were close behind the lady when it happened, were you not? You must have seen the murderer.”

  They all stared at the mystic who, a man of few words apparently, said, “I can tell you nothing.”

  “But,” the sub-inspector insisted, “Mrs Darling was stabbed in the back at the same height as that bloodstain on the front of your dhoti. The murderer must have brushed his weapon against you as he withdrew it.” This produced a gasp from Mrs Dubashi. “It was probably he who knocked you down.”