‘Who is this?’ he asked.
The woman’s hands twisted a fold of her sari; she glanced anxiously at Kuveni who spoke to her in the Vedda language. The woman was silent for a moment then made a halting reply. Even though de Silva spoke English, Tamil and Sinhalese, he had never learnt the ancient tongue of the Veddas, a dwindling race that most Ceylonese considered primitive, although Kuveni was living proof that with education and opportunity, they could hold their own against Ceylon’s other inhabitants.
‘Does she only speak Vedda?’ he asked.
Kuveni shook her head. ‘She speaks some Tamil, Inspector, but she is afraid. She is not used to coming to a place like this.’
‘I see.’
He went over to the woman and took her hand. ‘There’s no need to be frightened,’ he said gently in Tamil. ‘I’m here to help you.’
The woman must have understood him for a shy smile softened her face. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
With prompting from Kuveni where her Tamil failed her, the woman explained that her husband, Velu, was missing.
‘How many days has he been gone?’ asked de Silva.
‘Two days before last poya day.’
De Silva scratched his chin. Poya day was the day of the full moon; the last one had fallen a week ago. He knew that Vedda men liked to go on hunting trips into the jungle, often, unfortunately, without the requisite government licence, but an absence of eight or nine days did seem unusual, particularly if the man had a wife.
‘Where do you live?’
The woman glanced at Kuveni who spoke for her. ‘Her home is in the village where I lived with my father and my brother, Vijay, before I came to Nuala.’
‘Close to the old Hatton road then.’
‘Yes. At least, she and her husband live on the fringe of the village. The headman and the other villagers do not welcome them.’
De Silva remembered Kuveni’s own difficulties in her old village. Her family too had been forced to live on the outskirts of the village. He was glad that marriage to Prasanna had enabled her to put all that behind her.
‘How well do you know her, Kuveni? She looks much older than you.’
‘Quite well, although we are different ages.’ She gave de Silva an anxious look. ‘My brother sometimes worked with her husband as a tracker for hunters.’
Hmm, probably an irregular activity, thought de Silva. Tracking jobs were lucrative and much sought after. Local men who were well versed in the geography of their area and skilled at finding game for hunters could expect generous tips as well as good daily pay. To avoid jealousies and problems, as well as making money for the British, tracking jobs were tightly controlled by a system of government licences and habitually given to Sinhalese or Tamils. Still, he wasn’t going to make an issue of that today.
‘She told me she wanted to better herself,’ Kuveni continued. ‘For several months she has been walking into town to see if I have any work for her. If I can, I employ her to do simple sewing.’
De Silva nodded. He knew that the beautiful saris Kuveni made in her business required considerable skill in embroidery, but there was clearly some plain sewing to be done too.
‘So, she came to you for help with this matter of her missing husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘And does she have children to provide for?’
The woman understood and shook her head.
‘Perhaps in the circumstances that’s a blessing.’
‘With your permission, sir,’ Prasanna cut in, ‘Nadar and I would like to spend some time searching the area for her husband.’
De Silva hesitated. Was this really a good use of police time? It was a vast area.
Then a memory stirred: that sound he had heard in the storm. Jane was probably right that it was the wind but what if…? They could at least search in the area close to where the Morris had broken down.
He nodded to Prasanna. ‘Very well. There’s nothing much for you to do here today, so you may as well go there this afternoon and have a look round. In fact, I’ll be driving in that direction. My car broke down last night on the old Hatton road. I’m meeting some of Gopallawa’s men there to see what needs to be done. You can join me. It’s somewhere to make a start, I suppose.’
He glanced at the woman. ‘Have you understood what we’ve been saying?’
Shyly, she shook her head then brightened a little as Kuveni explained.
‘Have you or Nadar ever seen this man, Velu?’ de Silva asked Prasanna.
‘No, sir, but the lady has described him to us.’
‘Good. I think that’s all we can do for now.’
He smiled at Kuveni. ‘It’s a great pleasure to see you, my dear. Jane will be very glad to hear you’re well.’
Prasanna ushered the two women out. When he returned, he looked gloomy.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked de Silva.
‘Thank you for agreeing to a search, sir, but I think it will be very hard to find this Velu. I only asked to please Kuveni. The jungle stretches for miles, and he may not even want to be found.’
‘You mean he might want to leave his wife?’ asked Nadar, frowning.
‘Perhaps. Or he may have been killed and eaten by an animal.’
‘We can’t discount the possibility,’ said de Silva.
He looked at their downcast faces and wondered whether to mention the scream he thought he’d heard, then decided not to. He’d rather keep the panic he felt that night to himself. In any case, it would be a remarkable coincidence if the scream had come from this man Velu at just the moment he, de Silva, had been in the vicinity to hear it.
‘Cheer up,’ he said briskly. ‘We’ve told the woman we’ll search and search we will.’
He crossed to the door of his office and opened it. ‘I have some paperwork to do. Bring me a cup of tea and then fetch me my usual lunch from the place near the post office. It will be quicker than going home and we’ll set off once I’ve eaten. Oh, and one of you telephone Gopallawa. Tell him we’ll probably leave here in an hour or so.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the young men chorused.
A few minutes later, Nadar brought in the tea and shortly afterwards, Prasanna came back with a miniature feast: two kinds of vegetable curry, a large serving of fragrant rice and a crisp round of well-charred naan bread glistening with ghee.
As de Silva ate, he thought about the missing villager and his unhappy wife. If she had been abandoned, he felt very sorry for her. Life was hard enough for Vedda people without having a personal betrayal to bear. He wondered what was behind it. Had the husband found a younger woman whom he preferred? Kuveni said the woman had no children; that might have caused problems between the couple too. As villagers grew older, they relied on children to support them. A childless couple faced more than the normal hardships.
He finished his lunch and decided to close his eyes for a while. Jane liked to tease him about his fondness for regular naps, but he doubted that another twenty minutes or so would make any difference. Sadly, the hard truth was that it was extremely unlikely that this unfortunate woman’s story would have a happy ending.
Chapter 4
The mechanics from Gopallawa Motors were already with the Morris by the time de Silva arrived with Prasanna and Nadar. The elder mechanic hurried over.
‘We have found the problem, sahib.’
De Silva listened to the lengthy explanation.
‘We can make a temporary repair,’ the mechanic finished, ‘but the car will need to come to the garage for more work before it is reliable to drive again. And it will be best if I drive it there in case of more difficulties on the way.’
Reluctantly, de Silva nodded. Even though he recognised the mechanic and knew that he had worked for Gopallawa for many years, it went against the grain to hand his beloved Morris over to another driver.
‘How long is the repair likely to take?’
‘Perhaps a week, sahib. We may have to order a new part from Kandy.’
> De Silva sighed. He had been hoping that the trouble and expense would be minimal; it seemed he was to be disappointed.
‘I see. Well, tell your boss I’ll keep this car until mine’s ready. He may add something to the bill, but not too much, mind.’
The man grinned. ‘I will tell him, sahib.’
‘I’ll leave you to get on with the job.’
‘Thank you, sahib.’
The mechanic walked back to the Morris.
‘Shall we begin the search now, sir?’ asked Prasanna.
‘You may as well.’
The three of them stared at the near-impenetrable walls of green flanking either side of the road. Glancing at Prasanna and Nadar, de Silva saw that, now they were about to embark on it, they were totally daunted by the scale of the task they had taken on. If this villager, Velu, had chosen to disappear, the search would be a waste of time anyway; he was probably long gone by now. Perhaps it would be wise to call it off. But then he thought of Kuveni and the man’s wife. He didn’t want to let them down. Anyway, it was still too early to rule out the possibility that the man had fallen victim to a wild animal. Even the cleverest of trackers made mistakes that cost them their lives.
‘How close is the village to where we are now?’
‘Quite close, sir,’ answered Prasanna.
‘Right; I’ll give you a bit of help to start off with. It can do no harm to drive very slowly back towards Nuala and look out for anything unusual. You two keep watch. If you see anything out of the ordinary, shout out, and we can stop and investigate.’
‘What kind of thing do you mean, sir?’ asked Nadar.
‘I don’t know until I see it. Just keep your eyes wide open. If we find nothing, it might be best to call off the search, but I’ll make that decision when the time comes.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Prasanna. He looked relieved.
They climbed into the car. De Silva started the engine and set off at a snail’s pace. At first, they saw nothing untoward apart from a giant monitor lizard basking on the hot tarmac. It moved sluggishly into the undergrowth at their stately approach.
De Silva was beginning to think that the exercise was a waste of time when Nadar shouted from the back seat. De Silva drew to a halt and swivelled round. ‘What have you seen?’
‘It looks like there’s a track leading into the trees, sir.’
‘Right; let’s take a look.’
The three men got out and walked back to the place Nadar indicated. The break in the trees was narrow but it certainly seemed that someone, or something, had passed that way recently, either entering or leaving the jungle. Even through his cold, the smell of damp earth and leaf mould invaded de Silva’s nostrils. Prasanna inched in then crouched down and studied the ground.
‘No sign of footprints, sir. Although if a man was light and used to moving stealthily, he might not leave any tracks in this leaf mould.’
‘I suppose that’s true, but it doesn’t help us much. Go a bit further in.’
Prasanna straightened up and took a few more paces into the trees then crouched down again. He picked up a stick and flicked some of the leaf mould aside. ‘Animal droppings, sir.’
‘A predator?’
Prasanna shook his head. ‘From the look of them, sir, my guess is they were left by a deer.’
‘Pity, I thought we might have something. Never mind, we’ll carry on.’
Back in the car, their crawling progress resumed. A little further on, a glint to the right-hand side of the road caught de Silva’s eye. Suddenly, he remembered that on his night walk, before the white light spooked him, he’d noticed a stream coming in from the trees and running under the road. Last night, thanks to the monsoon rain, it had been a torrent, but already the water level had gone down, and it flowed sluggishly through a jumble of boulders, fallen timber and jungle detritus. He wondered if, in its present state, it might provide a pathway through the trees. Could the missing villager, Velu, have come this way? Had he been surprised by an animal at some point?
‘Shall we follow it for a little way, sir?’ asked Prasanna.
On brief reflection, de Silva had his doubts the stream would reveal anything useful, but it could do no harm checking. He nodded. ‘But don’t spend too long. I’ll wait with the car.’
He leant against the bonnet as the two young men picked their way over the stones in the stream’s bed, clutching at overhanging branches when their balance faltered. After a few moments, they disappeared. Their voices faded, to be replaced by the sounds of the jungle: the burble of the stream; the whistle of unseen birds high up in the tree canopy, and the hum of millions of insects.
All at once, de Silva felt a wave of apprehension come over him. He would normally be untroubled. Perhaps the villager’s mysterious disappearance, added to the unnerving experience of the previous night, made him ill at ease. The green walls of the jungle seemed menacing, and a shiver went through him as his imagination conjured up visions of blood-hungry demons with fiery eyes and fangs dripping gore, lying in wait for solitary travellers like himself.
‘Sir! Sir!’
The voice wrenched him back to a very welcome reality. He recovered his composure and saw Prasanna jumping from a stone back onto the road, kicking up a spray of water behind him.
‘We’ve found something, sir!’
‘What?’
‘It looks like someone was digging a hole back there.’ He indicated with his thumb over his right shoulder. ‘It’s quite a way in but I think you should come and see, sir. I’ve left Nadar digging, but it would help if we had better tools than the stick he’s using.’
‘Look in the car boot. You might find something there.’
A quick search revealed a shovel with a long handle. It was the type of implement many people carried in the monsoon season in case they needed to scrape away thick mud that had washed onto the road, or, in the worst case, dig out a vehicle that had skidded off the road into a ditch.
Shouldering it, Prasanna headed back along the stream. De Silva followed cautiously, testing the stones before he put his weight on them, wary of their coatings of slimy moss, but after a few minutes, he became more confident and managed to keep up. It was a while since he’d done anything more strenuous than tend his roses, so it was good to know he hadn’t completely lost his touch. In the Colombo days of his youth, he’d had plenty of stamina and been able to muster a perfectly creditable turn of speed. Frequently, he’d needed it when he was pursuing a criminal.
By the time he reached the place where Nadar was scraping away at the earth, however, he was starting to feel out of puff. Prasanna handed Nadar the shovel. The patch of disturbed ground that lay before them was about six feet long by three feet wide. It must have been dug over not many days ago for, despite the speed of growth in the jungle, the vegetation hadn’t had time to inch back.
Nadar started to dig again, but, in the humid heat, he was soon dripping. Prasanna took over and de Silva watched with mounting interest. Whoever had excavated this hole before them had sliced so cleanly through the network of roots that marbled the soil that they must have used a sharp implement. No animal would dig in such a way.
Even through his cold, de Silva became aware of a nauseating smell: a smell that was horribly familiar. His stomach roiled.
Prasanna stopped digging and rested the shovel against a nearby tree. He hunkered down and picked up a flat stone that lay nearby, then began to tease the earth away from an object that was half-buried in the soil. After a few scrapes, he recoiled. His face turned pale and sweat beaded his forehead.
‘This isn’t a root, sir.’
‘You’d better let me carry on,’ de Silva said quietly. ‘Stand back if you want. I’m afraid this isn’t going to be a pretty sight.’
Taking the stone from Prasanna, he crouched by the hole and worked the soil away from the buried object. Gradually, the contour of an arm appeared, then a shoulder. Moving up, the soil was dark; de Silva knew it was stained with blo
od. Steeling himself, he continued with his grisly task.
Revealed at last, the man lay on his back, flung unceremoniously into his makeshift grave. His filthy hair, matted with blood, fanned out around a face so badly bruised and battered that it barely seemed human. The blood that caked his upper body came from several deep knife wounds in the region of the heart. His killer hadn’t left anything to chance. By the look of him, thought de Silva, he’s been dead for several days, so it’s impossible that the noises I heard were his dying cries. Perhaps though, some supernatural power took a hand in causing the Morris to break down close by the right place.
He frowned and banished the thought. He mustn’t let superstitious fears take control. He’d made enough of a fool of himself over the Mohini. Hearing hurrying feet behind him, he glanced over his shoulder to find that Nadar was in the bushes. The sound of retching followed. Poor lad, it was probably the first time he’d had to face a sight like this one. It was good to see that Prasanna was coping. De Silva motioned him to come closer.
‘Do you think he’s our man?’
Prasanna pointed to the livid scar running diagonally across the dead man’s right shoulder. ‘I think he might be, sir. It’s impossible to tell from his face, I know, but his wife mentioned he had a scar like that one.’
He looked at the man’s hands. ‘She said he was missing the fourth finger on his right hand too, just as this man is.’
De Silva sighed. ‘The evidence seems sufficiently conclusive. Poor woman; although I imagine she already fears the worst. I wonder how much she knew about her husband’s activities. This clearly isn’t a case of falling victim to an animal. We’ll need to question her again, I’m afraid. I’d better get back to Nuala and arrange to have the body brought in. Whatever he did, the fellow ought to have a decent burial. The two of you had better stay until the undertakers come. I don’t want to cover the body up again and now it will be a magnet for predators.’
He removed his uniform jacket, unbuckled the holster containing his Webley and handed it to Prasanna. ‘Here, you’d better keep this with you. You might need to defend yourselves.’
Fatal Finds in Nuala (The Inspector de Silva Mysteries Book 4) Page 2