Joe looked around him more carefully. He was in a first class cabin, spacious and well-equipped. Discreetly he wriggled out of bed, drew aside a small lacy curtain from a porthole and looked out on a sunny deck. An aggressively healthy couple strode past, two young French naval officers presumably returning from leave lounged, smoking, against the rail casting speculative glances about them. A small party of schoolgirls on their way back to school in Europe pattered by. Joe enjoyed the sunshine and the French noises and the French smells. He enjoyed not being under British jurisdiction for a brief spell and being off duty. He had enjoyed the night; he looked forward to the day.
His sensual reverie was interrupted by a yawn and a rustle behind him.
‘Coffee? I smell coffee!’
A tousled head rose from the pillow and Joe turned to watch with appreciation as white shoulders shrugged off the light cotton sheet. ‘Pour me some, for God’s sake, Joe! Shan’t be able to focus on anything until I’ve had a cup. Not drunk it all already have you, you insatiable devil?’
‘Yours is over there on the table.’ Joe nodded towards the tray.
‘What? You expect me to get up and get it myself? Is that it? But you’ll see my bum!’ The indignation turned to resignation. ‘Oh, well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now.’
She slid naked out of bed and began to hunt about fretfully. Relenting, Joe picked up a bathrobe from the floor and went to drape it around her. He kissed her ear. ‘Maisie, for a showgirl you’re remarkably modest,’ he said, pouring out her coffee.
She scooped long, silky hair from her face the better to glower at him. ‘I was never a fan-dancer, Joe Sandilands! In public or in private. And you get out of the habit after a while. There hasn’t been anybody since Merl, in fact.’ She gave a throaty laugh. ‘And not a lot during Merl, if you see what I mean!’
‘Well, I’d never have guessed and I feel honoured that you should…’ Joe began gallantly.
‘Arsehole,’ Maisie commented equably. ‘No need for all that. Pigs is equal. We’re doing each other a favour. It’s going to be a long voyage and I don’t play cards. And with all these randy young Frogs hopping about the boat, pepped up with sea air and champagne, I’ll be rather glad of a steady old London bobby on guard at my cabin door.’
‘That’s all very well, Maisie!’ Joe’s voice was suddenly menacing. ‘But who’s going to guard the guard? Now put down that cup!’
They met some hours later, Joe more suitably clad for a promenade on the deck. Maisie had chosen to put on a white cotton day dress edged with broderie anglaise and was resisting the hot Indian Ocean sun with a wide straw hat and a parasol. As such she did not stand out from the French ladies demurely pacing the deck in chattering pairs and groups. Slipping his arm through hers, Joe duly admired, saying ‘Now let’s go for a little walk and show ourselves off.’
After two circuits of the deck they settled on the shady side of the ship on reclining chairs and ordered drinks. ‘I don’t know what it could be,’ said Maisie, ‘but something seems to have given me a thirst!’
From below there drifted up the sound of the ship’s orchestra rehearsing for the evening’s dance. ‘We’ve not had much time for conversation,’ said Joe, ‘what with one thing and another. Let me catch up on you, Maisie. Tell me why you left Simla. And why you’re on this boat.’
Maisie grimaced. ‘You did it again, didn’t you? Interfering bastard! Made life impossible and I had to move on!’
‘Impossible? Surely not? Sir George assured me that he was grateful for all that you’d done and he certainly wasn’t intending to make your life difficult.’
‘George wasn’t the problem! You changed things with that materialization of yours. Turned me into a freak show. Everyone wanted to come to a sitting for all the wrong reasons. Minerva Freemantle – purveyor of frissons (would that be the word, Joe? Frissons?) to the gentry. That bloody apparition brought in the sensation seekers and scared off my genuine clients. Oh, they would have come back again, I think, and it would all have blown over in time but… well… I’d had enough of Simla. India was beginning to get on my nerves. The place is coming to a boil, Joe, I can feel it.’ Maisie shuddered in spite of the heat. ‘I don’t look far into the future – can’t afford to – but it does sometimes force itself on you.’
The slow foxtrot from below swirled to a finish and was immediately followed by a livelier sound. A jazz quartet was tuning up and after a short warm-up they launched into a very creditable version of ‘St Louis Blues’. Two small children with their nursemaid came skipping by, wriggling delightedly to the music. Two nuns in light grey summer habit seated themselves in deck chairs, each with a book, each with a breviary.
‘And why this boat?’ Maisie went on. ‘Well, it wasn’t for the band! Like you – for the anonymity that’s in it, I suppose. No one knows me – no one would try particularly hard to talk to me on a French boat. Peace and quiet, that’s what I wanted.’
‘I wouldn’t count on that, Maisie, looking the way you do – I’d only have to relax my vigilance for a moment and the French Navy would lay you aboard.’
Maisie resumed, ‘Three weeks of peace and quiet.’ She gave him a sly smile. ‘And you had to come along and wreck those plans too! But you, Joe, what are you doing here? You disappeared from Simla and there were all kinds of rumours circulating. Some said Alice Sharpe wasn’t dead and she’d run off with you, a victim to your rugged charm!’
‘No such luck! No, George found a little job for me to do up on the north-west frontier and what I’m doing here is escaping back to reality. Like you, Maisie, I’d had enough. Too claustrophobic. Too foreign. And I got fed up with being used.’
‘George, you mean? Nothing personal in that, you know, the old bugger manipulates everybody.’
‘Well, it’s not what I’m used to. Charlie Carter once called me Sir George’s pet ferret. He wasn’t so far wrong. And that might not have been so bad… I can look after myself down rat holes. But it’s bloody annoying to surface with a dead rat in your mouth to be told by the boss that what you’ve caught is a mouse, all’s well and thank you very much.’
‘Not sure who your rat is. Rheza Khan? I don’t know all the details but I had heard that you – and Edgar Troop of all people – had saved the whole of northern India from a native uprising, a Russian invasion and God knows what else.’
‘That’s George’s official line and in part true. That’s why he’s so convincing. An uprising – yes, it could have happened – they’d certainly equipped themselves. George had been keeping an eye on them all along. He seized on this chance of coming down on Rheza’s father like a ton of bricks. That squadron of Slater’s was only a beginning. There was a Gurkha battalion ready to back up. Massive confiscation of arms and a finger wagged at the rajah. “See what your son has been up to – gun-running and two murders on his slate!” Rheza’s father took the hint. Enough menace to keep him quiet and north of the Zalori for a few years I should think. George has played down Alice Sharpe’s role in all this.’
‘Alice Sharpe’s role? I thought that girl must be at the bottom of things! And was it true, then, that story about the shikari trip that went wrong? How did she die?’
‘Well, you can’t just allow the owner of the country’s biggest trading empire to disappear in the night without trace. Too many questions. Too many unresolved problems and that’s just what George won’t tolerate. The Jardine version which is now largely put about, again, is convincing because most of it is true and verifiable. Alice, who as everyone knows is a superb rifle shot and had rather taken under her wing the visiting police commander from Scotland Yard, decided to introduce him to the delights of a shikari party in the Simla Hills. Of course she hired Edgar Troop to be their guide. Who else? There’d been talk of a man-eater raiding in one or two of the remote villages up towards Joginder Nagar and they thought they’d try their luck. Unfortunately Alice wandered off from the camp during the night – against all advice, of course – and was
found to be missing in the morning. Frantic searches, Carter and a police squad called in, rewards posted but no trace of Alice. ICTC ticking over until a representative can be shipped out from London and all that.’
‘Is Alice dead?’
‘That part of George’s story is based on the truth. She rode off into the night, miles from anywhere and has never resurfaced. Edgar rated her chances of survival pretty low. And the chances of finding a body in that bit of country are slim.’
‘Why on earth did she ride off?’
‘Because I’d just arrested her for fraud and as an accessory to the murders of Lionel Conyers and Feodor Korsovsky but mainly because she’d just put a bullet between the eyes of Rheza Khan.’
‘Now why would she want to do that? Good Lord! Rogue of the worst kind, I’m sure, but that seems a bit extreme. Especially when she had you and Edgar standing by, fingers on the trigger.’
‘It was very personal. She trusted him all the way and he betrayed her. She had no idea he was using her as a front for his gun-running. It was the one thing Alice couldn’t stand. All her life, she told me, she’d been used and betrayed by the men she loved. But I think her worst betrayal, the one she never got over, was Korsovsky’s.’
And slowly at first but with growing eloquence as the details of Alice’s story came back to mind, Joe filled in the details as far as he understood them of Alice/Isobel’s early life and the part Madame Flora had played in it. He explained the impersonation at the root of everything and how deception and murder had flowed from it. He went over everything again from the devastating experience of sitting alongside Korsovsky when he had been shot at Tara Devi to the disappearance of Alice and ending with George’s meticulous sanitizing of the story for public consumption.
Maisie’s eyes widened in astonishment as his story unfolded. ‘That’s the most extraordinary story I’ve ever heard! Definitely calling for another drink.’ She called a passing steward. ‘You’re telling me that Saintly Alice is a fraud and she’s pulled the wool over everybody’s eyes for three years?’
‘Yes, beyond any doubt and she has admitted it. Rheza Khan to a limited extent, Troop and Flora were the only ones in Simla – or the world – who knew the truth.’
‘What? Not even Reggie? Her husband!’ Maisie gave a throaty gurgle. ‘I can see a few difficulties there!’
Joe smiled. ‘I know what you mean! And how interested I would be to have heard Alice’s bedtime stories!’
‘I had no idea! And I thought I knew everyone’s secrets in Simla! But hang on a minute, Joe…’ Maisie bit her lip and narrowed her eyes in concentration finally saying slowly, ‘Look, I know you’re the detective and as smart as a new rupee, so I feel a bit daft even suggesting this but – it doesn’t add up! There’s one or two things you’ve just said that strike me as a bit odd.’
She looked at him speculatively. ‘And perhaps that’s what you intended? You’re not happy about it, are you, Joe? The murders, I mean? Alice obviously didn’t do either of the killings herself but was she guilty of ordering Rheza Khan to kill both those men?’
‘She was and she wasn’t,’ said Joe.
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Come on, Joe! You can do better than that!’
‘I’m afraid that it means justice has not yet been done. It means that I got only half of it right. It means that there’s a killer still on the loose.’
Joe paused for a long time, looking along the deck at the passengers enjoying the sunshine. He said at last, ‘Let you into a secret, Maisie. The killer is right here with us on this boat.’
* * *
Chapter Twenty-nine
« ^ »
To her credit, Maisie did not look round.
‘Maisie, I want you to go over this with me. Tell me if you think I’m reading too much into it, making an already mystifying situation even more complex than it really is.’
‘All right – just so long as you only expect me to call on my common sense. I can’t involve any higher authority so don’t think of it! Can’t be done – not on a personal level. It would be like asking the name of the next Derby winner.’ Maisie paused and looked searchingly at him. ‘Are you – are we – in danger, Joe?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure. We could be. This is rather a wild scene! There are no guarantees.’
‘I think you’d better explain.’
Joe began slowly, ‘It goes right back to the two killings. The modus operandi as we call it in the trade.’
Maisie nodded. ‘You don’t have to spell every word. I’m not illiterate. Merl’s brother (horrible man!) was a sniper in the war. Bored the pants off us talking about his experiences and I must say there’s not a lot I can still remember about what he had to say but there are one or two things in your account he would have picked up on and argued about till he was blue in the face. You said Lionel was hit in the head – one shot? – and Korsovsky was hit in the chest – two shots? Well there you are!’
‘Maisie, you’re amazing!’ said Joe with feeling. ‘It’s a foul trade. Merl’s brother would have said – and I would have agreed with him – that snipers always choose the same target area. I’m not talking about a snap shot across No Man’s Land – some fool putting his head above the parapet – but a serious, long-range, carefully planned killing. That’s what we’re talking about. We came to recognize snipers from their technique; even gave them nicknames. And the area they choose is the chest. Much bigger target, you see, less chance of getting it wrong. And if they have time they make sure they’ve pulled it off by firing two rounds. The killing of Korsovsky was cool, controlled and done by the book. I think it was done by a completely different person from the first killing. Lionel was killed by one shot. To the head. I inspected the scene of the ambush with Charlie Carter and I can tell you it was a pretty amazing piece of shooting! I’m a good shot but I wouldn’t have risked a single head shot. Not at that range.’
‘And you say the guns were different?’
‘Yes. I think Merl’s brother would have had a comment to make on that too.’
‘Killings were only a year apart – he’d have used the same rifle. Merl’s brother went through the whole war with the same gun. God! – he knew the sensitive parts of that bloody gun better than any woman’s. Still he did sleep with it for four years.’
‘So what I’m saying is that the first murder was done by Rheza Khan. It’s his style. A first-rate shot, arrogant sod! A hard target – the head – and only one shot necessary. We know he was five feet ten or thereabouts – a couple of inches shorter than me I would guess – and that he smoked Black Cat cigarettes. His motive was strong. I don’t think he did it with Alice’s knowledge though, let alone her approval. I’ll swear she was genuinely surprised when Troop and I brought it to light in her presence. I’ll go further – I’d have sworn she genuinely put down both killings to her blackmailer, whoever that was.’
Joe paused for a moment, his thoughts on the last few minutes he had spent with Alice, his nostrils seared with cordite, his ears singing from the gunshot echoing in that small stone room and, above all, he remembered her saying over her shoulder before she jumped: ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe.’ He remembered her almost proud insistence on the fact that she had never lied to him. He had set this aside in the face of the one enormous outrageous lie of her impersonation. But suppose she had been telling him the literal truth all along?
He spoke aloud her farewell sentence, changing the emphasis. ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe,’ became, ‘I never asked Rheza to kill anyone for me, Joe.’
‘But did you ask someone else to kill for you, Alice?’ Joe asked.
‘Listen, Maisie! How does this sound? Lionel gets killed without Alice’s knowledge by Rheza for the reasons we know. Now, a year later, Korsovsky is expected in Simla. Alice wants him dead.’
‘To protect her identity? Couldn’t she just have done a bunk with her ill-gotten gains? She had plenty of warning – the th
eatre had booked him back in November. All she had to do to avoid being recognized was stay in bloody Bombay in April. Doesn’t wash, Joe.’
‘That wasn’t the reason she asked for his head on a plate. No. There was a darker reason. Revenge. She hated him with all the fury of a woman who had truly loved him and been rejected, deserted. I know she was capable of this. I’ve seen her kill a man for the same reason. The moment she discovered Rheza had cheated and betrayed her he was lost. I watched her face as she shot him. I even pleaded with her not to do it. She didn’t hear me. She was set to kill: concentrated and unswerving. And she smiled while she shot him.’
Joe shuddered. ‘And then she turned her gun on me. I’ll never know why she didn’t kill me.’ He described the last few charged minutes before Alice escaped.
Maisie snorted. ‘There’s two reasons and neither of them is that she was overwhelmed by your masculine allure! You were a good insurance policy, Joe! There was no point in upsetting Sir George by gunning down his guest and agent and she left you feeling flattered — aren’t I right? – that she’d kindly not pulled the trigger. Just in case you ever met again your last memory of her would be that she had – I can’t say saved your life – but had failed to take it. You owe her one, Joe. She knows that. You know that.’
‘And the second reason?’
‘Drama. Playacting. Showtime. Takes one to know one! That’s what Alice or Isobel or whoever she is has really been doing all the time. If you’ve got it right she spent five or six years whoring her way through France and, by God, you learn to put on a performance on that kind of stage!’ Her face clouded for a moment. ‘I’ve known one or two tarts who could have played Drury Lane if they’d had the vowels. And this one had. I always thought there was more to Alice Sharpe than the virtuous veneer. God! Think about it, Joe! That sugar-icing, touch-me-not respectability underpinned by a tart’s skills in handling men – it’s an unbeatable combination!’
Ragtime in Simla Page 30