by Vaseem Khan
She showed him her notebook, the riddle Healy had left behind. ‘I think this refers to an architect of the Raj. For some reason, Healy is directing us towards him.’
‘That hardly narrows it down.’ He stared at the page. ‘Sundered from Alba’s hearth he came. Alba . . .’
‘Do you know who Alba is?’
He gave an opaque smile. ‘Not who, Inspector. What. Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. Historically, Great Britain was called Albion. Later, the name became associated with the Picts of Scotland. Have you ever read Byron’s poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage?’
Persis shook her head. She knew most of Byron’s oeuvre but couldn’t recall that one.
‘It describes the travels of a young man, seeking distraction in foreign lands. As you can imagine, it held a certain appeal for me in my younger days. Byron uses the word Albyn to refer to Scotland. “And wild and high the ‘Cameron’s gathering’ rose; The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills; have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes.” ’ He smiled again, displaying a neat row of nicotine-stained teeth. ‘I believe you’re looking for a Scottish architect. That narrows it down, though not considerably. The Scots were wonderful engineers and a great many of them worked in Bombay.’ His eyes lingered on the page. ‘This is strange. Enjoined to begg. I can’t immediately think of a British architect in India reduced to beggary.’
‘I think that begg might be a deliberate misspelling. Healy was a supreme linguist; he wouldn’t have made such a mistake.’
Clark’s eyes rested on the words, then he got up, walked to his desk, returned with a pen, sat down, and wrote on the page. He turned the notebook to Persis. She saw that the sentence now read: Enjoined to Begg, his labours Empire’s pride.
‘John Begg was once the Consulting Architect to Bombay, and later to the Indian government. He, more than anyone, is responsible for the Indo-Saracenic style of architecture you see in the city. He worked on some of the most iconic buildings here: the General Post Office, the Customs House building on Prince’s Dock. And something else, of particular relevance to us now . . .’
He set his cigarillo down in an ashtray, then walked to a bookcase and returned with an outsized architectural volume. Laying it down on the desk, he turned back to the notebook. ‘This sentence here: His infernal porta, a King denied. Porta is Latin for “gate”. “Infernal” literally means “relating to hell”. So infernal porta can be read as “the gate to hell”.’ Persis had surmised as much. She hoped Clark had more to offer. ‘A King denied might be read in several ways. Either the king refused to build such a gate, or was denied in some way in relation to this gate.’ He paused. ‘I think this sentence is telling us that we’re looking for a man who worked on a gate that is held in a negative light, one associated with a king. As it happens, John Begg did indeed work on such a gate.’
He opened the book of architecture and turned it to Persis.
Before her was a full-page photograph of Bombay’s Gateway of India, the eighty-foot-tall archway that had been built at Apollo Bunder to commemorate the visit, in 1911, of King-Emperor George V.
‘I don’t understand.’ Persis frowned. ‘The Gateway is a celebrated monument. Why would Healy refer to it as the gate to hell?’
‘How much of your city’s history do you know?’ Not bothering to wait for an answer, he plunged on. ‘Before the arrival of the Portuguese in the early 1500s, Bombay was just a collection of marshy islands, home to fisherfolk. The Portuguese built a navy garrison overlooking the harbour, fortifying it with stone walls and cannons. A century after their arrival, they bundled up Bombay as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza when she married King Charles II. Charles wasn’t overly impressed with this trousseau offering of a bog in the middle of nowhere, and so he promptly leased the islands to the East India Company. The Company silted in the marshes, invested in a countrywide rail network, and began the hard work of transforming Bombay into a bustling trade port.
‘So successful were their efforts that, in just a few decades, the city became the “gateway to India”, attracting settlers, chancers, and adventurers from all corners of the empire.’ Clark paused. ‘But the truth is that many of those who came to the subcontinent were swiftly disillusioned. They suffered terribly. Heat, malaria, dysentery, mutinous locals. To the European sensibility, India was a kind of hell. Yes, a few men at the top became fabulously wealthy, but for the rest, India was an experience they would rather have avoided.’ He picked up his cigarillo and took a deep puff. ‘The other key thing about the Gateway to India monument is that, although it was built for the visit of George V, the arch wasn’t actually completed by the time he got here. He’d come to India for the Delhi Durbar in 1911, where he was due to be proclaimed Emperor of India in front of every prince and nabob in the country. Bombay was the royal party’s official entry point, with the arch built in the king’s honour. But instead of a magnificent monument, he was greeted by a plasterboard replica.’
‘A king denied!’ she breathed. ‘Are you saying that the man I’m looking for is John Begg?’
Clark ground the cigarillo out into the ashtray. ‘No. Your riddle here says enjoined to begg. I take this to mean one of those young architects who arrived in India to work for Begg. There were plenty of them, but only one who fits the rest of the riddle. A Scotsman who made his name as a great architect of the Raj. Who worked for John Begg. And who was the principal designer of the Gateway to India monument . . . Inspector, I believe you’re looking for George Wittet.’
She knew the name. Wittet was the man who had designed Malabar House. When she’d first arrived at the station, she’d been given a tour of the building by an official of the company headquartered there. The man had made a great deal of the fact that famed architect George Wittet had worked on the building.
‘Wittet was fêted during his time in India,’ continued Clark. ‘But in recent years there has been a backlash against his legacy. Many in India view the monuments of the British as markers of enslavement. Not that much can be done about it. No one is about to pull down these wonderful buildings, though many are being systematically denuded of British artefacts – statues and the like.’
‘Where is Wittet buried?’
‘At last,’ he said, smiling. ‘An easy question.’
Chapter 14
The sun was high overhead by the time she parked the jeep outside the cemetery. She waited for Birla to disembark, then got out of the driver’s side and followed him as he walked to the arched iron gate. Embedded in the uppermost arc of the ironwork, the graveyard’s name: CHRISTIAN CEMETERY SEWRI.
A man in a dhoti was perched on one of the gate’s stone pillars, sanding down the trelliswork. He stopped what he was doing to watch them with curious eyes as they entered through the gate.
The cemetery at Sewri – ten kilometres from Marine Drive – was the largest Christian graveyard in the city. She had picked Birla up on the way. Before leaving William Clark’s office, she’d asked the Englishman what he knew of the funeral site.
Clark had dug through his bookshelf again.
The Sewri cemetery had been built in 1865, by the then Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Arthur Crawford, as a site for European burials. In the eighty-five years since, not only Europeans but many Catholic Indians had also found a final home there. One corner of the cemetery was dedicated to Italian prisoners of war. These luckless soldiers had been captured by the British during the North Africa campaign of World War Two. Brought to India, many had ended up in Bombay. Those that subsequently died were laid to rest in the Sewri cemetery, atop a hill raised in their memory.
The oldest section of the graveyard was reserved for luminaries of the British Empire.
The graves here were larger, more ornate: intricately carved headstones, and flowery epitaphs; statues of angels, cupids, ravens, and anchors. Many of the statues were stained and crumbling, ravaged by time and monsoon, and now neglect.
At the very rear of the se
ction lurked a series of small crypts, hunched in penumbral darkness created by the shade of a banyan tree. Over the years, it had spread and now its creepers curled around the tombs like the tentacles of some fabulous sea creature.
‘What’s his name again?’ sang Birla, as he crunched over crackling leaves.
‘Wittet. George Wittet.’
Between them they quickly examined the dozen or so crypts until Birla called her over. ‘I think I’ve found him.’
The tomb was about eight feet on a side, and perhaps ten feet in height, with a domed roof. The stone had blackened over the years and seemed to suck in the little light that filtered through the banyan’s branches. Creepers ran down the walls; in places the stone had crumbled beneath the onslaught.
Perched at the apex of the domed roof was a black Cross.
Another jolt of comprehension. ’Neath Cross and dome, his resting place.
Inscribed on the lintel above the wooden door was an epitaph: Here lies George Wittet, architect of the Empire, recognised for the greatness of his conceptions.
Persis glanced at Birla, then pushed at the door. To her surprise, it opened a little, then became stuck. Together, they put their shoulders to the wood; there was an instant crack, and the door flew backwards. She realised that a short wooden stick had been used to hold the door shut from the inside, a sort of makeshift bolt.
Stepping into the darkness, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.
The first thing that materialised out of the murk was a stone coffin set in the centre of the space. Wittet’s final resting place. She moved further in, over unbroken flagstones. She could make out a shape atop the sarcophagus. The only light came from behind her, filtering in through the doorway, and around Birla.
She walked up to the coffin and stopped.
A slow heat rose to engulf her.
There, stretched out on the stone lid like a resting knight, was the body of John Healy.
Chapter 15
‘This isn’t going to end well.’
Leaning against the jeep, Birla looked morose.
The mortuary van had just departed. Two hours earlier, Birla had walked from the cemetery to the main road to find an office where he could make the call.
Persis had waited in Wittet’s tomb.
Leaning over the body atop the sarcophagus, she had stared at the man’s face. There was no doubt. Even without his eyeglasses and robbed of life’s essence, it was the same face that had stared out at her from the newspaper cutting at the Asiatic Society.
Healy was fully clothed; a worsted suit, complete with tie. She could not make out any sign of injury. She pushed up the sleeve of his right wrist and checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
What had he died of? How long had he been here?
On the floor, at the base of the coffin, was a leather bag – possibly the same one Pillai had mentioned at the Asiatic Society.
She pulled gloves from her trouser pocket.
The bag’s leather was soft and worn. She undid the clasp, and pushed open the top, the two sides moving apart like a yawning mouth. Inside, she found three spiral-bound notebooks, a collection of pens, Healy’s spectacles, a sealed envelope, and an empty pill bottle. Tuinal. The same sleep sedatives she’d discovered in his apartment.
But no missing manuscript.
She’d asked Birla to place a second call to Archie Blackfinch.
He arrived thirty minutes later, with a nervous-looking young man in tow, dressed in a lab coat. Blackfinch introduced him as one of his students, Mohammed Akram. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two, Persis thought.
She pulled the Englishman aside. ‘This investigation hasn’t been made public yet.’
‘Not to worry. He’s under instruction not to discuss anything he sees here.’
‘I don’t understand why you brought him along. He has nothing to add.’
‘I won’t be in India for ever, Persis. It’s technicians like Mohammed you’ll be relying on. He’s the brightest bulb in my class. It’s better you get acquainted now, don’t you think?’
She glanced at the young man, hovering nervously at the door to the crypt. He was tall, as thin and willowy as a sapling, with a prominent Adam’s apple, and ears that stuck out like jug handles. His hair gushed up in Brylcreemed fountains and an ill-advised pencil moustache lingered in embarrassment above his upper lip.
Ignoring the boy, she led Blackfinch into the tomb.
The Englishman had brought a torch, which he now shone over the corpse. ‘Mohammed. Set up the camera, please.’
They waited while photographs were taken, the flashbulb exploding brightly into the tomb’s semi-darkness. Next, Blackfinch asked them all to wait outside while he and his assistant used Lightning powder to dust for fingerprints. ‘Stone is a poor surface for prints,’ he called out as Persis waited impatiently by the door. ‘But maybe we’ll get lucky on the bag or the door.’
By the time he’d finished, the mortuary van had arrived, together with a medic. The man, a dour old soul with sagging eyes and a pugnacious jaw, quickly pronounced death – cause to be determined – then left without a further word.
They followed Healy’s body as it was transferred via a stretcher to the van. A family of graveyard visitors turned to watch the strange procession as they moved past. A langur shrieked from the branches of a tree.
As Birla relayed instructions to the van driver, Persis pulled Blackfinch aside.
In her hands were evidence bags containing the notebooks and the envelope she’d found inside Healy’s leather bag. ‘How soon before you can get me your fingerprint results?’
‘I’ll make it a priority. I’ll also call Raj and ensure that he schedules the post-mortem immediately.’ He hesitated. ‘I have to say, on the face of it, there seems to be no evidence of foul play. It looks as if Healy came here, broke into the tomb, then swallowed enough sedatives to floor a rhino.’
‘And you don’t consider that strange? Or the fact that he led us to him by means of a riddle?’
‘Who knows what goes through a man’s head once he starts thinking about topping himself.’
‘There’s more to this. There has to be. Where’s the manuscript? Why would Healy lead us here only for the trail to run cold?’
‘Perhaps he’d already disposed of the book? Perhaps his accomplices betrayed him? They took the manuscript, then refused to pay him.’
‘That’s hardly a reason to kill himself.’
Blackfinch said nothing. He’d seen men die for a lot less. ‘Have you checked the envelope?’
She reached inside the evidence bag and took out the sealed envelope. Blackfinch had already dusted the contents of Healy’s bag. She looked around, saw Akram hovering. ‘Do you have a scalpel?’
He nodded furiously, his gigolo hair bouncing atop his skull, then rummaged in his pockets.
She took the scalpel, set the envelope down on the bonnet of the jeep, and opened it carefully.
Inside was a single sheet of paper. On it, written in Healy’s looping hand, were three sentences:
Midway upon the journey of our life,
I came to myself, in a dark wood,
For I had wandered from the straight and true.
Blackfinch looked over her shoulder. ‘Another riddle?’
She didn’t answer. The words seemed to bear down on her, like a foot pressed against her throat. There was a heavy, exculpatory tone to the verse.
Was Healy reaching out to them from beyond the grave, telling them how to hunt down the manuscript? But then why not just come out and say it?
A burst of frustration flickered through her.
Perhaps Blackfinch was right. Healy couldn’t have been thinking logically, not if he was suicidal. Perhaps all of this was nothing but the death spiral of a madman. A dying jest.
She put the letter back into its envelope and cast around for Birla . . . She realised that Blackfinch was staring at her. ‘Persis . . . ab
out dinner last night? I – ah – I’m sorry if I said anything untoward.’
‘You didn’t,’ she said automatically, not looking at him.
‘I may have gotten my wires crossed,’ he mumbled, before falling silent. She knew he was waiting for her to correct him. The words pushed against the inside of her mouth, but her lips wouldn’t move.
‘Right. Well, then.’
She didn’t dare look at him, couldn’t bear the thought of it.
‘Glad we cleared that up. Mohammed and I had better get back to the lab.’
She watched him walk stiffly away, disappointment spilling from his eaves, knowing that she’d wounded him in a way that neither of them fully understood. A part of her wanted to call out and stop him, but another part of her felt a release of tension.
It was better this way, she thought to herself, as she climbed into the jeep. This was the sensible thing to do.
The only thing to do.
Chapter 16
A caller awaited her at Malabar House.
She entered the interview room to find a white man standing beneath the ceiling fan. He turned at her approach.
‘Mr Ingram?’
‘James, please.’ He stuck out a hand. He was a tall man, long-limbed and wide-shouldered. The jacket of his black, double-breasted, chalk-stripe suit was buttoned at the waist, his tie securely knotted. Clean-shaven cheeks, a sharp jawline, pale, piercing blue eyes, and blond hair, cut short and smoothed back with such precision it looked as if it had been painted on by a Renaissance master. A side-parting that could have been made using a ruler. There was a severity about him that Persis found both pleasing and mildly disturbing. ‘I must apologise for not coming sooner,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get your message until a short while ago. My understanding is that this has something to do with John?’
