The Last Kashmiri Rose

by Barbara Cleverly

  The adjutant resumed his hospitable burble. ‘If there’s anything in the world we can do to help, please do tell us. Make full use of the mess, of course. Life can be a bit spartan in the dak bungalow, I know, and – something to ride? We’ll find you a syce. Talk to Neddy. He’ll fit you out with something. Neddy! What about Bamboo for the Commander? Good pony. Nice manners. He’ll look after you. Even got a turn of speed if required. Not working this afternoon, are you, Neddy? No? There we are then. That’s decided.’

  Joe settled down to clear soup, a lamb stew and a prune mould. It reminded him of staying with his grandparents and he presumed that the menus had evolved over the same period.

  Refusing a glass of port, he went out with the obliging Neddy, embarrassed to find Naurung seated on the ground outside the door waiting. He said as much to Neddy.

  ‘I said that once,’ said Neddy. ‘Doesn’t last. You do get used to it.’

  They set off for the stables, Naurung, to Joe’s irritation, a respectful three paces behind.

  India was evidently still horse-drawn though a model T Ford in a haze of carbon monoxide rattled its way with a grinding of gears across the parade ground and a syce was to be seen applying the starting handle to the polished brass nose of a Morris Cowley. Officers changed for polo cantered by in twos and threes, all acknowledging Neddy with a wave, all looking with curiosity at Joe. A carriage and pair in the charge of a smart groom trotted past bearing an opulent Indian lady under a fringed parasol. A solid, monolithic Englishwoman in her sixties, Joe guessed, in a veil and solar topee drove a smart gig up from the lines and went on her way.

  ‘Now,’ said Neddy, ‘that’s who you ought to be talking to.’

  ‘Why? Who is she?’ To Joe she looked as if she’d stepped straight out of the pages of Kipling. Plain Tales from the Hills, perhaps.

  ‘Oh, that’s Kitty. Mrs Kitson-Masters. She’s the widow of the last Collector and the daughter of the Collector before that. I suppose at some time she must have gone home to England for school but, really, apart from that she’s spent her whole life here and what she doesn’t know about the station isn’t worth knowing. Her information isn’t always entirely reliable but at least it’s pretty spicy! She can even make me blush sometimes! You’d enjoy her. She may not be able to help your enquiry but you’ll get a burra peg at any hour of the day or night. She keeps late hours, Kitty.’

  They arrived at the stabling and Neddy had Bamboo led out for Joe’s inspection. Rangy, chestnut, white blaze, three white stockings, old – distinctly past mark of mouth – but with the wise face that seems to go with age in a polo pony.

  ‘I couldn’t ask for anything better,’ said Joe sincerely.

  ‘Now,’ said Neddy, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I’m playing squash at three. Naurung’ll look after you.’ And he was gone.

  ‘Can you get a horse?’ said Joe. ‘I mean, can you get a police horse?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sahib, there are always police horses.’

  ‘Why don’t you get one and meet me back here in about a quarter of an hour. I’m tired of talking to the soldiery – I’d like to look round at the geography.’

  ‘Geography?’

  ‘I mean the lie of the land. Take me round and show me things. Show me the ford where Mrs Simms-Warburton was drowned. Show me the precipice from which Mrs Forbes fell, and the place where Joan Carmichael met her snake – I’d like to take a closer look at that.’

  Naurung soon returned on a ponderous waler, an import from Australia and the established workhorse of Anglo-India. Joe mounted and they set off together heading towards the ford but, as they rode, Joe heard the soft drum of cantering hooves coming up behind them and paused to meet the anguished gaze of William Somersham.

  ‘Sandilands,’ he said. ‘I fear I interrupt you. If you will spare me a few minutes? I was hoping to catch you. There’s one thing – they say – that you can’t buy in India however rich you are and that is privacy. What I have to say to you needs privacy.’

  He glanced round at Naurung who had tactfully fallen back once more and he resumed, ‘You’re here, I believe, to investigate the … the death … of my wife. Is that so?’

  Joe hesitated to reply, not quite sure how far he wanted to take this complete stranger into his confidence, finally saying, ‘I’m here to investigate the death of your wife but I’m here, likewise, to enquire into what we are beginning to believe may be the linked deaths of other women, other wives, that is, in the Bengal Greys, stretching back over a number of years. Stretching back, indeed, to a time before the war.’

  ‘You think they may be linked?’

  ‘I don’t know what I think but it is a suspicion, even a supposition that comes to mind. Note this – they were all the wives of Greys officers and they all died in March.’

  ‘All died in March! I hadn’t appreciated that.’

  ‘It may be insignificant but I, for one, do not believe so. Further than that, honestly – and remember that I have only been here five minutes – I am not prepared to go. But that much is public knowledge.’

  ‘You will be aware of the suicide verdict. May I ask you – are you satisfied with that?’

  Joe hesitated again. ‘I will be quite candid,’ he said. ‘No, I am not.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ said William Somersham. ‘I have more reason to know than anybody that such an act would have been entirely out of character. Entirely. It was horrifying and astonishing to me but, initially, with everybody else, I accepted it. For a moment perhaps, but there is too much …’

  ‘Too much? You were going to say …?’

  ‘Too much that is not consistent. To begin with I was confused. I was stupid. Perhaps I was self-regarding but the incontrovertible fact is this – that if we are not discussing suicide, then we are discussing murder. You wouldn’t presumably deny or dispute that?’

  ‘No,’ said Joe, ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘And who, in those circumstances, is the prime suspect? Oh, all right, you don’t have to feel embarrassed with me – I know who the prime suspect is. Quite obviously myself. When this horrible thing happened, to my shame, I was concerned as much as anything to divert suspicion from myself. God knows why! Perhaps I’m not a very courageous character. I was even anxious that a suicide verdict should be upheld but only then did I realise how disloyal I was being to Peggy.’

  ‘Let us for a moment,’ said Joe, ‘let the alternative murder verdict stand between us. Let me ask you a few routine police questions.’

  William Somersham laughed shortly, ‘“Purely routine you understand …only anxious to exclude you from our enquiries” – do I get the words right?’

  ‘Yes, if you like. Tell me – had your wife any enemies? Was there anyone who might have a grievance against her? Real or fancied?’

  ‘No. Emphatically not. Never. She was the gentlest creature.’ His voice choked. ‘People often say this after a death but in her case it’s true – she hadn’t an enemy in the world. She was really, I believe, beloved by all.’ And he concluded, ‘And she was beloved by me. I think you should understand that.’

  ‘Take me through that evening again. Or rather tell me if I’ve got this right – you had gone to your study to work and you were under observation from the compound throughout the period in question. Your door was shut but the window was open. Correct so far? Your wife had gone to have a bath. A bath had been filled for her. You were getting ready to go out, to dinner and then on to a play? Correct? Pick it up from there.’

  ‘I listened for a while to Peggy giving instructions to her ayah – she was telling her which dress to lay out – and then she went off, singing, to her bath. Sandilands, she was singing! I was trying to get my quarterly returns in before the weekend – it’s always a problem and I always leave things till the last minute.’ A bleak smile. ‘After a while I suddenly realised I hadn’t heard her for a long time, a very long time. I began to get cross. I needed to have a shave, get ready for the evening. When you’ve been a bache
lor for years, sharing a bathroom even with someone you love can be a bit of an irritation.

  ‘I went and tried the bathroom door. It was locked. Most unusual. We almost never locked the door. I banged and said something like – “Hurry up, Peg, we haven’t got all evening.” Something like that. There was no reply and I got worried. I thought perhaps she’d fainted. They always fill the baths too hot. And then I remembered that she, that she …’ Somersham was unable to go on.

  ‘Look, Somersham, you don’t have to spell it out for me. I know that she was pregnant.’

  Somersham looked at him in surprise but then appeared to take the omniscience of the Law at face value and blundered on. ‘Ah, yes, well, can’t say I know much about the condition myself but it did come into my head that she might have swooned or whatever women do because of it. And then I got frantic. We had both wanted this baby so much. I couldn’t bear to think that something might have gone wrong. I yelled and pounded on the door and when there was still no reply I kicked it open.

  ‘The first thing I saw was that the window was open. It’s quite high – I suppose the sill must be five feet from the floor and the stool we use in the bathroom …’

  Joe felt that tears were not far away. He reached out a consoling hand and patted the other on the knee. ‘Take your time,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry. But, dash it! Peggy used to sit on that stool when she was drying herself. And there it was under the window and even before I saw Peggy I saw there was blood on the stool and there was a smear of blood on the window sill. And then I saw Peggy dead in a bath full of blood. Terrible, terrible sight! I’ll never get it out of my mind. Whenever I close my eyes I see her lying there … Her wrists were cut to the bone. They say she’d probably been dead for almost an hour.’

  ‘Your servants saw nothing? Heard nothing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me, Somersham – if you think back to the hours before six o’clock, to the period before she must have died, perhaps well before – were there any visitors to the house? Indian or English?’

  ‘Oh, good Lord! I was not at home until about three that afternoon. Peggy said that the padre had called in the morning. She went out to have lunch with one or two of her friends. No one in the afternoon, I think. But Indian? Look, you’d better have a word with my khitmutgar. There are natives in and out of the kitchen quarters all day. Delivering things, selling things, taking the washing away. Peggy and I wouldn’t necessarily have seen them.’

  ‘And when you began to see you were looking at a murder didn’t your suspicions light on some member of your staff?’

  ‘No, they didn’t. How can I explain this to you? It isn’t an Indian crime. People have a sort of picture of India – lustful black men seeking to do harm to virtuous white women. Oh, yes, I know it happened in the Mutiny but the Mutiny was a madness. An Indian once said to me, “An evil wind blew through the land.” Peggy’s death was an elaborate act. It wasn’t an impulse. It was carried out by someone who wanted to hurt her. To hurt her in a very personal way. And again, I say, I do not think this would be the Indian way.

  ‘My servants, so far as I have discussed it with them which is hardly at all, I might say, believe this act was not of this world …’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard that,’ said Joe. ‘But look, we are agreed that it was murder, that it was not the act of a native – we are left with a European murderer. Would you accept that?’

  ‘What else can I accept?’

  ‘One more question, Somersham, and believe me when I say we have to ask these things – were you happy together?’

  ‘Happy? Yes, we were. I was nearly twenty years older than she but I think she loved me. She was thrilled that we were to have a child. We both were. We had both decided just that day to announce the news. She was going to write to her parents.’

  Unchecked, the tears began to flow, ‘It wouldn’t be too much to say she was all the world to me. It’ll sound like a lot of twaddle to you, I dare say, but I used to sing “Annie Laurie” to her. “Oh like winds of summer sighing, her voice was low and sweet. She was all the world tae me. And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I’d lay me doon and dee.”’

  It occurred to Joe that this was probably the first time since his wife’s death that William Somersham had felt able to share his feelings with anyone and, in spite of his determination to remain detached, his heart and his sympathy went out to him. Joe had seen much suffering and bereavement – had become an unwilling expert – and he would have bet a year’s pay at that moment that the pain he was being shown was genuine. He waited for his companion to gain control of his emotions before continuing gently, ‘Somersham, I hope I don’t insult her and I hope I don’t offend you but I have to ask this question – was there anybody else in her life? Had there ever been?’

  ‘I was anticipating the question and I’ll tell you roundly – no. Ask anybody. I think they’d all say the same.’

  While they had been speaking the horses had ambled on but now William Somersham pulled his horse to a halt and, turning to look seriously at Joe, he said, ‘Another thing, Sandilands, a deuced peculiar thing and one I haven’t yet mentioned to anyone else. Not sure they would have taken any notice. Fact is, Peggy was horrified by blood. Couldn’t bear the tiniest cut on a finger and a nose bleed – well, one of the children had a nose bleed at a fancy dress party she was helping to give – only the usual childish thing – but it was too much for Peggy. She screamed and ran from the room! There is no way in this world that, if she wanted to take her life, this is the way she would have chosen. And if someone killed her by slitting her wrists and holding her there while the bath filled with her blood, then it was the most cruel, calculated death they could have devised! Why, Sandilands? Why?’

  Chapter Six

  THERE WAS A long pause, broken at last by Somersham. ‘For God’s sake, Sandilands – do what you can!’ And he swung his pony about and cantered away without a further word.

  Naurung drew up beside Joe. ‘The sahib is very distressed by his wife’s death. We must perhaps think that he certainly did not kill her …’ Naurung left the sentence trailing so that it turned into a question.

  ‘We must think no such thing! I’ve interviewed many bereaved husbands in tears and storms of emotion and calling on the police for retribution only to find their fingerprints all over the knife or bludgeon. And the strange thing is, Naurung, that the tears and the distress are genuine. No – William Somersham must remain a strong suspect for the time being.’

  Naurung pondered this for a moment but then nodded his approval and they resumed their tour.

  Turning into Plassey Street, Naurung pointed to a card on a gatepost. ‘Terence Halloran. IAMC.’ The station doctor. ‘You are expected, sahib.’

  Joe handed his card to a servant who came out to greet him and was shown instantly into the doctor’s office where he sat surrounded by the debris of lunch. Jovial and Irish, he greeted Joe as an old friend, shouting orders for the remains of his meal to be cleared away and coffee served.

  ‘I was hoping we’d meet sooner or later,’ he said. ‘Very interested to help in any possible way with your enquiry. I expect you’ve come to talk about Peggy Somersham? Not much I can tell you that’s not in my report, though, and I take it you’ve seen that?’

  ‘I’ve had time to do no more than glance through it,’ said Joe, selecting the document from the pile. ‘So, if you wouldn’t mind going through it with me while I check the facts it would be a great help. Especially now I’ve familiarised myself with the scene of the death.’

  ‘Of course. Fire away. Though I should say at the outset that you must understand that I’m not a pathologist – I’m an army doctor, no more than that. Autopsies are not something I’m ever called on to perform. Stitching people up is more my line, not taking them apart!’

  ‘Yes, I understand that,’ said Joe. ‘Now you say in your statement that you were fetched to the Somersham bungalow by your bearer?’

  ‘Yes.
I have a telephone here and the Collector rang with the news. My bearer took the message. I was out in the lines at number 12 Victoria Road – suspected measles – and he came running over to find me. It was about a quarter to eight by the time I got there.’

  ‘Can you tell me what state the corpse was in when you arrived?’

  ‘As I said, any initial cadaveric rigidity had passed so death had not occurred immediately preceding my arrival. But there was no sign of rigor mortis either so I would place the death at less than two hours before.’

  ‘The time given by the ayah of her last sighting of Mrs Somersham alive was six o’clock.’

  ‘Yes. I believe she died very soon after that. Impossible to calculate from the evidence of the blood clotting because the temperature of the water would distort it. It was still very liquid when I saw her.’

  ‘Did you see anything odd about the wounds which caused her death?’

  ‘Yes, of course I did!’ said Halloran. ‘But, as Bulstrode pointed out to me on more than one occasion, it’s no part of my job to do more than indicate the cause of death and the cause of death was obvious enough – loss of blood. Poor girl bled to death.’

  ‘But did you notice anything unusual in the direction of the cuts?’ Joe persisted. ‘There is no mention of the actual wounds here in the report.’

  ‘I most certainly did notice something unusual. And so did Mrs Drummond. It’s not in the report because Bulstrode told me not to waste time theorising but if you’re ready to listen, then I’ll tell you. There were three anomalies. Firstly, there were no trial wounds.’

  Joe looked questioningly at him and he elaborated, ‘If someone’s going to cut his wrists he usually makes a few trial slashes on one wrist – just to get the feel of it, to estimate how much force he’s going to need to do the job. And I say “he” because it’s a male sort of method. Can’t think of another woman who’s done it … Secondly, the direction and strength of the cuts was odd. You find that one cut is weaker than the other. Peggy was right-handed. I would have expected her to cut the left wrist first then transfer the blade to her weaker hand and have a go at her right wrist. This second cut would normally be much more hesitant with the shock of the blood flowing. Also the direction was not right. Show me how you’d do it – go on, cut your wrists with this,’ he said, offering Joe a paper knife.