Death in the East

by Abir Mukherjee

  ‘Yes?’ said Caine.

  ‘I see … death.’

  He stood up as though a thousand volts had just passed through him, his chair toppling over behind him, then rushed from the stage. The audience sat stunned, then exploded in a chorus of boos while the MC went after the fakir. It was Caine who restored decorum, waving the crowd into silence.

  ‘No expense spared bringing him here? Believe me, he’ll be going back third class.’

  As if on cue, the phalanx of white-coated waiters descended, replacing dessert bowls with china tea and coffee cups. Some of the assembled took the opportunity to stretch their legs, to go for a smoke or a chat with friends at other tables.

  I watched Emily Carter rise and make for the nearest exit. Her husband, engrossed in conversation, ignored her. I rose and followed her as she headed for the veranda.

  She stood with her back to me, staring out over the hills. Her bare shoulders rose and fell with heavy breath.

  ‘Emily?’

  She turned quickly, eyes wide. Behind her, the night sky had cleared. The clouds that had blanketed the valley were gone, as were the birds, swept clean from the sky.

  ‘Captain Wyndham. You startled me.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She shook her head. ‘Please don’t apologise. It’s been rather a traumatic evening. First the birds, then that two-rupee palm reader and his talk of death.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ I said. ‘It’s all a lot of rot. These fortune tellers have a flair for the melodramatic. You’d be just as upset if he’d said your husband was going off with a new love to start afresh in Tahiti.’

  She tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  I chose my next words carefully.

  ‘And anyway, the little man never said whose death he foresaw.’

  Her expression changed. ‘Excuse me?’

  I shrugged. ‘He just saw death. He didn’t say it was your husband’s. There’s always the chance that he saw the death of someone else.’

  Her skin tightened, forehead creased in confusion. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not sure I follow.’

  ‘Maybe your husband has a hand in someone else’s death?’

  She took a step back, and suddenly there was anger in her eyes.

  ‘Are you suggesting my husband might kill someone?’

  There was disdain in her tone. Disdain, but not outrage or incredulity.

  She knows, I thought, or she at least suspects. I took a gamble.

  ‘You pointed me out to your husband earlier.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’d asked.’

  ‘And why would he do that?’

  ‘Jatinga’s the sort of place where the curtains twitch, Captain. Someone must have reported to him that I’d been seen showing a strange man around town. When he got home today, he asked me who I’d been with.’

  It was exactly what Preston told me would not happen. That the good people of Jatinga would be too scared to be the bearer of bad tidings to their Ronald Carter.

  ‘Did you tell him my name?’

  ‘ … Yes …’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  She sighed. ‘Look, Captain Wyndham. I don’t know what this is about, but –’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He asked what you did.’

  ‘And you told him I was a policeman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He went silent. Stalked out of the room. Didn’t say anything else until he asked me to point you out at dinner.’

  ‘That’s because we’ve met before,’ I said. ‘Except he wasn’t called Carter back then. His name was Caine, Jeremiah Caine.’

  Emily Carter took another step back, but there was nowhere to retreat to.

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘He fled the country,’ I said, ‘England, that is. After killing his wife.’

  I expected tears. I expected the fury of a woman shocked at such allegations levelled at her husband. Instead all I received was a flat denial.

  ‘You must have the wrong man, Captain.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, ‘and judging by your bruises, I have a feeling he’s still more than happy to deal out violence to a woman.’

  Instinctively she moved a hand towards her face.

  ‘He has been hurting you, hasn’t he?’

  Her features contorted, the flawless suddenly polluted, made imperfect by my words. Her eyes glistened. ‘What gives you the right to ask a question like that of a woman you’ve only just met?’ She spat out the words like weapons.

  Of course I had no right, other than that of a man who knew what her husband was capable of.

  ‘You need to leave him, Emily,’ I said. ‘You need to get out of that house as soon as possible.’

  The door behind us opened, the yellow light obscured by the solid silhouettes of a couple of men. They strode out, fat cigars wedged between fatter knuckles.

  ‘I should get back inside,’ she said, making towards the door.

  She stopped at the entrance, and turned.

  ‘This woman you claim he was married to. How did she die?’

  ‘She was electrocuted.’

  She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Well, that’s one thing to be grateful for, I suppose,’ she said. ‘There’s no electricity here.’

  FORTY-FOUR

  I didn’t stay much longer. I’d no wish to spend another moment in the presence of Jeremiah Caine and his coterie, at least not unless it was beside his grave or in the confines of a prison cell. I made my excuses to Preston, told him I needed fresh air, and he voiced no objections. Indeed he voiced nothing, seeing as his attention was fixed firmly on the gentleman friend he was propping up the bar with. Still, I was fairly sure my words registered.

  I took the road back down the hillside. The air was thick – a fog of damp grass and woodsmoke – and the forest echoed with tribal shouts and flickered with the flames of a dozen torches. Halfway down I crossed paths with a party of ebony tribesmen, semi-clothed and fully armed with blades and bamboo lathis. I looked on as they scoured the undergrowth for injured birds. Finding one, they staved its head in, then picked it up and deposited it in a large hessian sack which one of their number carried slung over his back.

  As I passed, their chatter died, replaced with cursory nods and sullen, suspicious glances quite different to the inquisitive looks one generally received from lower orders of natives in places where a white face wasn’t common.

  Preston’s bungalow was deathly still, its silence broken only by the ticking of the clock in the hallway. I lit a candle and stumbled through the sitting room in search of the drinks cabinet, found it, and in the absence of any whisky, poured myself a large measure of gin.

  I sat down on the sofa beside a pile of Preston’s shirts and sipped. Killing Caine wouldn’t be straightforward, but out here, without a warrant or backup, it was still easier than arresting him. The first task was to get my hands on a weapon – a revolver preferably, but any firearm would do. Even if I decided to kill the man some other way, a gun was good insurance should he choose to come after me. The problem was, I’d no idea where to find one. I doubted Preston kept one. He just didn’t seem the type. As for the ashram, there was more chance of discovering a sirloin steak within its walls than there was of finding a firearm. There was the possibility that the general store might stock a rifle or two, something for warding off wild animals, but Preston had told me that the owners were from Gujarat, and most Gujaratis, like their most famous son, Gandhi, had an issue when it came to the taking of life – any life. Some of them, those who followed the Jain religion, even wandered about with masks over their mouths, lest they accidentally inhale and kill an insect. There was no reasoning with such people.

  Draining the glass of its last drops, I rose, made my way to my room and s
tripped out of Preston’s suit and shirt, before wandering through to the bathroom. On my return I blew out the candle, got inside the mosquito net, lay back on the bed and worked out a plan.

  First thing in the morning, I’d head down to the post office and telegraph police headquarters in Calcutta, asking for any information, including outstanding arrest warrants, on both Ronald Carter and Jeremiah Caine. I assumed there’d be none, but it never hurt to check, especially if it saved me doing something more zealous.

  Nevertheless I wouldn’t waste time waiting for their response. Instead I’d use it judiciously, searching for a gun. The image of Le Corbeau’s dead body floated into my consciousness. The puckered scar, the lifeless corpse, the marks on his trousers. A shiver crossed my shoulders. He’d been of my height and build. In the dark we’d have looked similar. Had someone thought he was me? It was my second night at the ashram. The night after I’d first met Emily Carter, Caine’s wife; two days after Caine had seen me in Lumding station. My mind raced. Had Caine already sent someone to kill me? Had Le Corbeau been murdered by mistake?

  Suddenly I felt the familiar pang within. The call of the O, fuelling my paranoia, clouding my judgement. In a panic, I concocted the flimsiest of plans. I told myself I needed to find a weapon and fast. If not a gun, then a blade would do. I’d send Caine a note, telling him to meet me in the clearing in the forest near the ashram where Le Corbeau had been found, to discuss the price of my silence.

  He might suspect a trap, but he was a man used to buying loyalty and my request for cash was, I hoped, something he’d readily believe. I’d tell him to come alone, remind him that I knew how he’d killed Bessie Drummond and wouldn’t take kindly to any attempt by him to try something similar with me. When he turned up though, I’d kill him in cold blood.

  It wasn’t much of a plan, but then I wasn’t much of a murderer.

  It was dark outside and sleep was hard to find. It had started with the adrenaline rush from seeing Caine, but then, as I lay in bed, something else took over: that primal urge that had been my driving force for almost the last two years. My body ached, the sort of pain that could only be salved by a hit of O. I fought it, which is to say I lay there with a pillow over my face, but that voice at the back of my head, the one that always whispered such sweet poison, refused to be silent.

  ‘Just one pipe … Just to help with the sleep …’

  It was tempting.

  Extremely tempting.

  And then I told myself that all of this had started with just one pipe. Just one to help with the sleep.

  I must have dozed off at some point because the next thing I knew, I was waking to the sound of someone fiddling with the front door. My first thought was that it was Preston, coming home after consuming a skin-full and having trouble getting his key in the lock. The next moment, there was a crash and I heard the front door smash back on its hinges. Instinctively I lifted the mosquito net, rolled out of bed and onto the floor. There were voices in the hallway beyond. Indian voices in a foreign tongue. I cursed myself for having been so stupid. Caine had been sharper than I’d expected. I should have done the smart thing, left the dinner and been halfway to Lumding by now. Instead I was standing here in my underclothes and his killers were on the other side of the door. I stood up and frantically searched for a weapon, but there was nothing. The seconds slowed. I heard the men making their way through the house. Any moment now, they’d reach my room. I looked around in a panic, searching for something, anything I could use to defend myself.

  Then I saw it – a rectangular tin box on Preston’s camera shelf. I grabbed it, pulled open the lid and poured the powdery contents into a heap on the floor. Reaching for my trousers, I pulled out my matches and made ready.

  Suddenly the door to my room burst open. I made out the shapes of two stocky men. Something in the hand of the first man glinted in the half-light. I struck my match and it flickered to life. Closing my eyes, I dropped it into the mound I’d heaped on the floor. It was flash-powder: a mixture of magnesium and potassium chlorate, used for lighting a room when a photograph was taken. There was an explosion of brilliant white light which registered on my retinas even though my eyelids were shut tight. Quickly I opened them to find my two guests groping about, temporarily blinded by the flash. I wasted no time smashing the first man in the face and felt a sharp, satisfying pain run up the length of my arm as my fist connected with his nose. He yelled out, dropping his knife. I followed up with a punch to his gut, then a knee to his head as he doubled over.

  Behind him, his accomplice, still blinded, began to back out of the room. Picking up the knife, I stepped into the hallway after him. The man stumbled, knocking over a chair on his way to the front door, and I roared a volley of curses at him to make sure he didn’t have any second thoughts about helping his friend.

  Barring the front door, I returned to my room. At least my first problem had been sorted. I had a weapon. The man on the floor was still out cold. I lit a candle and bent down to take a closer look. He was a native, with the slightly oriental features that the locals of the region possessed. Pouring a glass of water from the jug on the desk, I took a sip, then threw the rest onto his face. He came to with a start, raised a hand to his head, and then saw me standing above him. A look of panic spread across his bloodied face.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ I said, brandishing the knife and ending any scope for debate.

  I felt an anger building within me at the thought that this man had the temerity to try and kill me, and I considered punching him again just to make myself feel better. I resisted the urge, however. I needed to question him. And him lying on the floor while I stood punching him while dressed in nothing but my underwear wasn’t exactly standard interrogatory procedure.

  ‘Get up. Slowly. And keep your hands above your head.’

  I gestured him to a chair by the desk.

  ‘Sit. And keep your hands where I can see them.’

  The man eyed me warily but did as ordered.

  Keeping the knife trained on him, I put on my trousers.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  The man said nothing.

  ‘Who sent you?’

  Again the only response was the ticking of the clock in the hallway. Not that it mattered. It was patently obvious who’d dispatched him.

  It was impressive how quickly Caine had been able to martial his forces. But maybe I could turn this to my advantage. Maybe there was a way of extracting justice for all those whom Caine had killed without having to get him to sign a confession, or me having to murder him. And the most satisfying part was that Caine had given me the ammunition himself.

  I tried again, this time taking a different tack.

  ‘You can read English?’

  The man nodded slowly.

  ‘Good,’ I said. From my pocket, I fished out my wallet and extracted my warrant card. ‘You know what this says?’ The man stared at the blue, dog-eared document. ‘Well, I’ll tell you. It says I’m an officer of the Imperial Police, and attacking an officer is a serious offence. People have been hanged for less.’

  Fear registered in the man’s eyes; a blacker, deeper fear than before.

  ‘Now I’ll ask you again. What’s your name and who sent you?’

  ‘My name is Deori. Bogoram Deori. I work for Mr Carter.’

  ‘And he sent you to kill me?’

  He said nothing, but slowly nodded.

  ‘And has Mr Carter asked you to kill anyone else?’

  Deori shook his head in confusion. ‘Sahib?’

  ‘A week ago – did you kill a man and leave his body in a stream up near the ashram?’

  ‘No, sahib. I swear it.’

  I used to have a good instinct for telling when a man was lying, but with my descent into opium addiction and the improvement of my own ability to lie, it seemed I’d lost the knack for telling the difference between truth and fiction. I stared hard at him, hoping the scrutiny might cause him to crack, but I saw nothing.
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  I shook my head and changed tack.

  ‘Can you write in English?’

  The man seemed unsure of what I was driving at.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. I walked over to the bed and pulled the case off a pillow and threw it to him. ‘Clean yourself up. I can’t have blood all over your confession.’

  While Bogoram Deori washed his face and hands with water from the jug and dried them on the pillowcase, I searched the desk drawer, retrieving pen and paper.

  ‘Here,’ I said, passing them to him. ‘Get writing.’

  I dictated his statement, outlining that on the orders of his employer, Mr Ronald Carter, he and an accomplice had come here with the express intention of killing me, then got him to sign and date it.

  ‘This letter will stop them hanging me?’

  ‘Not quite,’ I said, ‘but we’re not finished yet.’

  On a fresh sheet of paper, I got him to write out the same confession, but this time I added a line to the effect that, despite having been ordered to commit murder, Deori could not bring himself to carry out his instructions. That he’d come to me and confessed all. Once more, he signed and dated the sheet. I held one in each hand and brandished them at him.

  ‘This first letter sends you to the gallows. The other sends you home as a free man. Which one I submit will depend upon your cooperation. Understand?’

  Deori nodded.

  ‘Right then, here’s what we’re going to do.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  ‘We need transport.’

  Deori shrugged. ‘Only few sahibs have car here.’

  We were standing outside his hut in the native settlement further down the valley. The sky was still black and I judged it must be sometime between two and three in the morning.

  As I’d anticipated, Deori’s accomplice, a man called Boja, had retreated back to the village to lick his wounds, and we’d found him holed up in a neighbouring hut. Unlike Deori, Boja could neither read nor write, so I wrote out similar statements and, colouring his thumb with ink from Preston’s fountain pen, I’d got him to place his thumbprint at the bottom. Now I needed to get those documents to the nearest police post and lodge what was called an FIR, a first information report, the basic document declaring that a crime had been committed and which set the wheels of justice in motion. The problem was, the nearest thana was in Haflong, almost five miles away.