They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I justified my pact with the Spillers on the grounds that arresting Vogel might stop a bloodbath. And if he was innocent, he’d be able to prove it and then we’d go after the real killer.
‘Tell me,’ I said.
Spiller smiled a lopsided grin that revealed surprisingly white teeth. He picked up his glass and gestured to his brother. ‘I’ll let Wesley explain, but first, a toast to our new understanding.’
The brothers clinked glasses then held them towards me. I raised mine and matched them. I took a sip. I’d like to say that the whisky tasted like ashes upon my tongue, but it didn’t. The truth is it tasted just as smooth and as rich as before.
TWENTY-SIX
February 1922
Assam
Preston walked me to the steps of the club.
‘Got a site inspection up on the Maibang road,’ he said. ‘It’s not too far as the crow flies, but it’s the Devil’s own journey getting there. There was a mudslide during the monsoon. They pulled four bodies from the mess. Nasty business.’
He looked out across the valley.
‘You’ve come at a good time, there’s the annual dinner here at the club tonight. Anyone who’s anyone in the area will be there. I should be back by five and we can head over at seven.’
The thought of a formal dinner sent a shiver up my spine. With my addiction, it had been over a year since I’d had the presence of mind, not to mention the patience, to sit through a meal with a group of strangers, and while I was now clean and confident I could return to work and take on the bloodiest of murderers, the thought of three hours of making polite conversation still scared the life out of me.
Preston noticed the look on my face.
‘What? Don’t like parties?’
I considered telling him the truth, then thought better of it.
‘I’ve no suitable attire.’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ he said conspiratorially. ‘I’m sure we can find something to fit you.’
Out of excuses, I mumbled assent, and as he headed off, I suddenly realised that the prospect of being dressed by Preston was almost as worrying as attending the damn dinner in the first place. If his choice of tie and the shirts strewn over his sofa were anything to go by, there was a fair chance I’d end up looking like a Japanese geisha.
Before he’d departed, Preston had left me with the key to his house and suggested a few local sights I might care to see.
‘You should take a look at the waterfalls, and there are some wonderful views from the hills. A lot of Bengalis come up here from Calcutta and Dacca to take the air and admire the view. Big fans of nature, our Bengali friends. Mad about their “scenic beauty”.’
That much was true. According to Surrender-not, Bengalis were a pastoral people, uniquely unsuited to urban living and who, in his view, wished for nothing more than a return to the land. And if the sheer amount of bad poetry they wrote about it was any measure, he was probably right about that.
‘Otherwise, you could do a tour of the churches, not that there’s much to see architecturally. They’re all jaw-droppingly plain. Austere, even.’
I had assured him I’d be fine, then headed back up the stairs to the club’s veranda.
I took a seat at the same table where we’d taken breakfast. In my absence, the remnants of the meal had been cleared away and a fresh white tablecloth laid down. Summoning the waiter, I ordered another coffee and a copy of the most recent newspaper they had, which turned out to be a day-old edition of the Statesman, and which arrived neatly folded on a steel tray.
Taking a sip of coffee, I scanned through the pages. Sure enough, as Brother Shankar had alluded, stacks of column inches were devoted to the incident at Chauri Chaura, eulogising the massacred officers and castigating Gandhi and his Congress-wallahs.
In search of light relief, I turned to the sports pages. Back home, Tottenham were giving Liverpool a run for their money, while in the second division, I was pleased, and shocked, to see West Ham up among the leaders.
I finished the coffee, set down the paper and decided to head out. Neither the church nor the waterfalls particularly interested me. I was a copper after all, drawn magnetically to the darker side of things. As far as I was concerned, the good deeds taught in God’s house and the natural wonders of His work were as nothing compared to the complexities and intrigues of those He’d created in His image. And if Preston were to be believed, under its genteel, buttoned-down surface, the town of Jatinga boiled with passions and petty rivalries. For my part, I’d seen enough of India, and of human nature, not to doubt him.
The sun was high now and the air pleasant as I set off, back down the road towards the general store. Preston had described it as a treasure trove of a place, and while they may not have stocked alcohol, I doubted there was a general store in the country that didn’t sell tobacco.
En route, I passed a native mali tending to the roadside verge. Barefoot, and with his head covered against the sun, he stood bent over, neatly trimming the grass with a pair of antiquated shears, with the forest looming large behind him. I was impressed by the sheer futility of his task. In a land as fecund as this, he seemed like Canute trying to hold back the tide, attempting to keep the might of nature at bay with nothing more than a pair of scissors. And yet he continued, probably because he was paid to do so by some sahib. No Indian would be foolish enough to think they could tame Mother Nature in such a way, but we British were cut from a different cloth. We preferred the order of a neat grass verge to the chaos of the natural forest, and we’d fight to maintain that order, unnatural as it was, for as long as possible.
The Bhagwan general store was a two-storey structure, built in the same colonial style as the other buildings, raised on stilts but without a veranda. Above the door, a freshly painted sign billed it as the ‘Harrods of Assam’, which was enterprising advertising if nothing else.
A bell went off as I entered, and a bald, light-skinned native looked up from behind a wood-and-glass counter. The store itself was an Aladdin’s cave of flummery, with items stacked almost to the ceiling and shelves stocking everything from cooking utensils to car spares. To one side, a blonde woman, dressed in khaki shirt and jodhpurs, stood with her back to me, flicking through one of a number of magazines that sat on a rack. I recognised the perfume immediately.
‘How can I help you, sir?’ asked the man behind the counter.
‘Cigarettes, please,’ I said. ‘Twenty Capstans.’
The man nodded, then turned to a shelf behind him.
‘Well, who have we here? Captain Wyndham?’
Emily Carter closed her magazine and walked over. Her tone was amiable, or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part, because she was a fine-looking woman, and I always tended to think the best of attractive women, which, when you thought about it, was rather an Achilles heel for a detective.
‘What brings you into town?’
‘Recuperation,’ I said. ‘Brother Shankar thought I might take the air for a few days.’
She placed the magazine on the counter. ‘I’ll take this too, Shalin,’ she said, turning to the shopkeeper, ‘and let me know when the brake drums arrive.’
‘Very good, madam.’
The man made a note of the purchase in a ledger, then passed the book across the counter for Mrs Carter to verify. I noticed oil stains on her shirt cuff. She caught me staring and rubbed at the mark on her sleeve.
Feeling suddenly awkward, I found myself talking to fill the silence.
‘Are you moonlighting as a mechanic, Mrs Carter?’
She pouted in mock offence. ‘You don’t think I could be a mechanic?’
‘Most mechanics I know don’t tend to wear lipstick,’ I said, ‘and if they did, I’d probably ask questions.’
The shopkeeper placed the cigarettes on the counter. I handed him a few coins and he disappeared into a back room.
‘So where are you staying?’
she asked.
‘At Mr Preston’s place.’
‘You didn’t fancy staying on at the ashram, then?’ she asked playfully. ‘Scared Shankar would make a Hindu convert of you?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think he tried. Anyway, I’d have thought British converts to Hinduism were even rarer than female mechanics.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
The shopkeeper reappeared carrying a heavy package in both arms and dropped it on the counter.
‘Your box has arrived, Mrs Carter. Would you like me to have a boy take it over?’
She assessed the size of the package on the counter. ‘I say, Captain Wyndham, would you be kind enough to give me a hand with that?’
‘Of course.’
‘You don’t mind?’
That was an understatement.
‘I’ve nothing better to do.’
I followed her out into the sunshine and down the steps to the street.
‘It’s just a few hundred yards down the road,’ she said. ‘You really are a godsend.’
‘Rather odd for a mechanic to be married to the lord of the manor,’ I said as we walked.
Her expression changed subtly. ‘You know my husband?’
I shook my head. ‘No, but his reputation precedes him.’
‘I wasn’t always a mechanic. I became one during the war. I was in the army, you know. It’s good for a girl to learn a trade, don’t you think? After all, I’d no idea I’d one day marry Ronald.’
‘You were in the WAAC?’ I asked, not even attempting to mask my surprise.
‘That’s right, fixing engines, maintaining lorries, that sort of thing. I was even posted to France towards the end. We had a lark of a time.’
A lark of a time was hardly how I’d have characterised my wartime experience; however, despite the death and privations, I’d met more than a few people who, when it was all over, admitted that they’d never felt as alive or as free as during the war years.
After two hundred yards I felt the sweat start to trickle down my back. The box weighed a ton and I hadn’t appreciated quite how weak I’d become since the start of my treatment.
‘What have you got in here, anyway?’
‘Take a guess, Mr Detective.’
‘From the weight, I’d say the engine from a Sopwith Camel.’
‘No,’ she laughed, ‘but a valiant try, nonetheless.’
‘What then?’
‘You’ll see in a minute. Here we are,’ she said, pointing to a pillar with the word HIGHFIELD chiselled into the stone in clean, elegant letters. We turned off the main road and I followed her up a tree-lined path towards the large whitewashed house I’d spied from the terrace of the Jatinga Club. Set apart, at a distance of about thirty yards, was an outbuilding that looked like a small barn. We walked up and Emily Carter fiddled with a padlock, then unwound the chain that held its doors closed. There was the scrape of wood on dirt as she opened a gap, just wide enough for a man and a package to fit through, and theatrically waved me in.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, as I lowered the box onto the dirt floor.
The walls of the barn were lined with shelves and crates and, on one side, a workbench. In the centre stood the hollowed-out bones of an old automobile.
‘Very nice,’ I said. ‘What is it?’
‘That,’ she beamed, ‘is Beatrice. She’s a 1913 Bugatti Type 18, or what’s left of her. I’m doing her up.’
‘Where did you come across a Bugatti in the middle of Assam?’
‘Found her in a knacker’s yard in Guwahati. Apparently she was the property of the Maharajah of Cooch Behar until he wrapped it round a palm tree. Picked her up for a song and had Ronald transport her up here.’
I took a closer look at the car. Its royal-blue coachwork had rusted and was now coated in dust, its left side missing a wing. The engine and the driver’s seat had long since gone the way of the dodo, but at the front, the starter handle was still there, as was the red badge on top of the grille, with ‘Bugatti’ picked out in white lettering. The ground around it was strewn with the greasy detritus of cannibalised car parts: shock absorbers, brake cables, engine components, a battery; all lying there like the bones of some fossilised beast.
Emily Carter took a knife from the workbench and slit open the package I’d been carrying. Lifting the flaps, she heaved out the large black box inside. On one side were printed the words ‘Hudson Motor Car Co., Detroit MI, USA’. I walked over and helped her carry it to the workbench.
‘Surely your husband could have just bought you a new car?’
‘Probably,’ she replied, ‘but where would be the fun in that?’
I suddenly felt rather ridiculous. Here I was, standing in a barn, trying to catch my breath and discussing car restoration with a rather beautiful married woman whom I hardly knew.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose I really should let you get on with things,’ and half turned towards the door.
‘You could stay a while and keep me company? I shan’t be long, and then I can show you round the village. I just have a few odds and ends to sort out, and you did say you’ve nothing better to do.’
There was a coquettishness to her that, if I hadn’t known better, would have made me think she’d taken a shine to me. But, of course, I did know better, or at least I should have. In my present emaciated state, I doubted any woman would have looked twice at me, let alone the young wife of the richest man in town.
‘Do say you will,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s been such a while since I’ve talked to anyone interesting, and you, Captain Wyndham the policeman, seem like you may have interesting tales in spades.’
‘When you put it like that,’ I said, ‘I can hardly refuse.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should start by telling me how you came to find yourself in India.’
I wasn’t sure how to answer. The truth was that I’d come here because I had nothing left in England. My wife was dead, as were my family, most of my friends and the better part of my soul. I’d come to Calcutta because it was a better option than suicide, though the decision had been marginal. But you couldn’t say that to a woman you’d just met. Not if you’re English.
I puffed out my cheeks. ‘The usual story, I suspect. I fancied becoming a snake charmer.’
‘And how’d that work out for you?’
‘Not well. My snakes kept wandering off. A lack of charm on my part.’
She smiled. ‘That must be it.’
‘And you?’ I asked. ‘How does a girl from the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps, with time served in France and a knack for fixing engines, find herself a hundred miles east of the middle of nowhere and married to a millionaire?’
She paused before answering. ‘It’s a long story. I suppose you could say it starts at the Battle of Arras in 1917. I was engaged to a man, a lieutenant of the Royal Engineers. My David was killed, I’m told, when a tunnel he and his sappers were working on collapsed. They say he didn’t suffer … but that’s what they always say, isn’t it? I couldn’t trouble you for one of those cigarettes you bought, could I?’
‘Where are my manners?’ I said, fishing out the packet and a book of matches.
I passed her a cigarette, took one for myself and lit both.
She took a ragged drag and exhaled. ‘The war ended and I returned to England. But by then I was in my mid-twenties and … well, let’s just say that there weren’t many avenues available to an unmarried woman over twenty-five, either marital or professional. If you’re choosy about who you marry, and don’t fancy being a governess or a lady’s maid, then you’re pretty much out of options.’
I supposed that was true. The fact was eligible young men with their limbs and sanity intact were thin on the ground after the war. Women of all classes were finding it difficult to find a husband, but middle-class women had it the worst. There were standards to be maintained after all, and marrying beneath your station was worse than being a spinster. At the same tim
e, a woman could hardly continue as a mechanic once the war had ended. For one thing, the men returning from the front needed those jobs, and for another, well, what would the neighbours say?
‘So what happened?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’ve heard the old maxim about India – that it’s the last place on earth you can still find an English bachelor – so I did what all the other girls were doing. I bought a ticket for Calcutta and set sail in search of adventure.’
‘And by adventure, you mean a husband?’
She eyed me: a glance, sly, askance. ‘Captain Wyndham, I do believe you’re mocking me.’
‘Not at all, Mrs Carter. I meant no offence.’
‘Good, because if all I’d wanted was any old husband, I could have been betrothed the week I arrived in Calcutta, earlier even. There was a man who proposed to me on the crossing itself. He was sweet enough. Very earnest. The sort of man who parts his hair down the middle. Did something terribly clever in insurance. Kept telling me what wonderful prospects he had, but I just couldn’t picture myself as the wife of an actuary.
‘Anyway, long story short, after a few weeks in Calcutta, a bunch of us girls, those of us who hadn’t already hooked a man, were invited up to Darjeeling for the summer.’ She looked wistful. ‘That was quite a season. A party almost every night. I met Ronald at one. Well, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and six months later we were married.’
‘What’s your husband’s line of business?’
‘Lumber, mainly, but he has interests in a lot more besides … Fingers in lots of pies.’ The look on her face seemed almost contemplative. Then, with a shake of her head, she snapped out of it and began rummaging through a box on the workbench, before pulling out a component of some sort and holding it up with a look of triumph. As she did so, the sleeve of her shirt fell back, revealing a dark bruise on her forearm. Four distinct bruises to be precise.
I’d seen enough marks on women to have my suspicions as to how it was caused. I also knew there was little point in my asking her about it, and as it happened, I didn’t need to. She caught me staring and quickly lowered her arm, the sleeve falling back into place. Gravity restored her dignity, but the act merely confirmed my suspicions. I said nothing, but now, as I looked at her face, I saw that the make-up on her right cheek looked heavier than on the other. It might have been nothing, but Mrs Carter didn’t strike me as a woman who was anything other than a perfectionist when it came to her cosmetics.
Death in the East Page 17