Trouble in Nuala

by Harriet Steel

  Madeleine took a deep breath and steadied herself. ‘In any case, Charles came along. He was approved of by everyone – he seemed a kind man then. I did my best to make him a good wife but as time went by, he changed.’

  ‘Did you and Tagore still meet after your marriage?’

  ‘No, I tried to forget him.’ Her voice dropped to an undertone. ‘But I didn’t succeed. When we met again here, it was as if we had never been apart.’

  She gripped the arm of her chair. ‘I tried to tell him it was no use and I swear nothing has happened between us that I should be ashamed of. Then Ravi found out about the man Charles flogged: he was furious.’

  ‘But why did he make the complaint so openly? Wasn’t it rash to draw Charles’s attention to himself?’

  ‘It wasn’t just that man Ravi was concerned about. He was afraid for me. Charles could be vicious when he was drunk. He’d threatened me on several occasions. It was probably a mistake to tell Ravi that. He wanted me to leave Charles. He thought that if Charles was charged with assault, everything about him would come out. I would be able to get away safely.’

  ‘So did your husband challenge you about Tagore?’

  ‘Yes, we had a terrible quarrel the evening after you came to the plantation. He said I could get out if I liked but if I did, he’d blacken my name. He’d make sure Hamish was taken away from me too. I wasn’t sure if he could do that but I was so afraid it might be true. In the end, he stormed off and, as far as I know, he slept in his office. The next day, he kept saying how sorry he was. We were due to stay at the Crown that night. He said we’d have the day together with Hamish, but then David Leung arrived.’

  Her voice faltered and de Silva waited while she composed herself.

  ‘I never liked Leung. Even in the Colombo days I thought he was a bad influence on Charles. Oh, he could be charming but he was secretive. He always seemed to have money but how he made it wasn’t clear. When we came up here, I hoped we’d seen the last of him.’

  There was a knock at the door. ‘Yes?’ de Silva called impatiently. He didn’t want Madeleine interrupted.

  Nadar put his head in. ‘Mrs de Silva’s on the telephone, sir. Asking if you’re here.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll call her as soon as I can.’

  The door closed. ‘Please go on,’ he said.

  ‘Leung persuaded Charles to go up to the Empire Club with him to play billiards. They were there most of the day. While Charles was away, I had a note from Ravi asking me to meet him. I said I wouldn’t but when I took Hamish swimming at the lake, Ravi followed us. He wasn’t willing at first, but I persuaded him eventually that it was best to leave Charles alone. I also told him not to try and see me again.’

  ‘But you met at the cricket match?’

  She lowered her eyes. ‘Yes.’

  Her head jerked up and her eyes were filled with tears. ‘Ravi hasn’t killed anyone, Inspector de Silva, but I have.’

  A jolt went through de Silva. Was this the confession he’d been waiting for? If it was, he wasn’t sure whether to believe it. She might simply have some idea about protecting her lover.

  Instead, Madeleine gave him a wan smile. ‘I killed poor old Jacko. He must have heard Charles and me arguing and he was so quick to pick up words. After I chased him away that afternoon, there was no sign of him for the rest of the day. I kept trying to reassure Hamish that he’d be back but he would barely speak to me. In fact, I was glad Jacko had gone. I was worried he might say things that made people suspicious.’

  As indeed he did, de Silva thought.

  ‘Charles always kept a rifle in his dressing room cupboard. The plantation doesn’t have any near neighbours and he thought we might have to defend ourselves one day. He insisted on showing me how to use it so that I’d have a way of protecting us when he was away in Colombo for the tea auctions.’

  She wiped her eyes. ‘I hardly slept on the night Jacko escaped. It was nearly dawn when I heard him in the trees near the verandah. The maids always leave a bowl of fruit in the bedroom so I cut up a mango - that was always his favourite – and threw it as far as I could onto the lawn. By the time he hopped over to eat it, I’d fetched the gun. I was shaking so much, I was afraid I’d miss.’

  Her voice faded to a whisper. ‘But I didn’t; I killed him with one shot. Afterwards, I ran out and wrapped his body in one of my old shawls. I ordered one of the servants to bury him and made up the story about the wild animal.’

  A long shudder went through her and her hands were clenched in her lap. ‘Now that you know everything, Inspector, you will let Ravi go, won’t you?’

  An abyss of silence gaped between them. She rose from her chair, her face chalk white. For a moment, he thought she would lose control and strike him then she slammed her fist on the desk with surprising force. ‘You will let him go. I’ll make you.’

  For a brief, intense moment, she glared at him, such fury emanating from her that she seemed to increase in size. Then with a swish of skirts, she turned and ran from the room, leaving de Silva rigid in his chair, his ears ringing from the slam of the door.

  Chapter 20

  ‘Dammit de Silva, what the hell’s going on?’

  He held the receiver away from his ear as Archie Clutterbuck’s irate voice boomed out. ‘My wife tells me you’ve arrested that damned meddling lawyer Tagore for the murder of Charles Renshaw and I’m the last to know! It’s… it’s… unconscionable!’

  ‘I can explain—’

  ‘Oh you can, eh? It had better be good. You’ve made me look a fool, and my wife is on the warpath. She’s heard some infernal gossip about Tagore and Madeleine Renshaw and she wants to get to the bottom of it. Mrs Renshaw has become quite a pet of hers.’

  The assistant government agent’s breathing quietened as de Silva ran through the events of the last few days as succinctly as he could. When he had finished, he waited, listening to the cogs of Clutterbuck’s brain whirr.

  ‘All right,’ he growled at last. ‘Keep Tagore where he is for the moment. You may continue your investigation but if you’re right and we’ve got a murder on our hands, I’ll have to give serious consideration to involving the police in Colombo. We’ll need their resources.’

  A sinking feeling came over de Silva. Much as he respected his old colleagues, he didn’t want any interference. The honour of the Nuala police force was at stake.

  ‘But I hear the line’s still down this side of Hatton,’ Clutterbuck said in a milder tone. ‘I’ll have to wait until it’s fixed to speak to Colombo.’ He paused. ‘Make good use of your time, de Silva.’

  Abruptly, the line went dead. De Silva pulled out his handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his brow. It was a relief to have more time. The problem was, how to follow Clutterbuck’s advice and use it well.

  The telephone rang again. His heart thudded as he answered it. It was Jane.

  ‘Shanti? Whatever’s going on? Florence Clutterbuck has just called to ask if I know where Madeleine is. They were at the Crown this morning – she’d promised to take some raffle prizes up early – and the place was full of the most scurrilous rumours about Ravindra Tagore. Someone said he’d killed Charles Renshaw and you’d arrested him. Apparently Madeleine went white and ran out of the hotel before anyone had time to stop her. She jumped into a rickshaw and no one’s seen her since.’

  He struggled for the right words and her voice rose. ‘Shanti! You don’t mean to tell me you have arrested him?’

  Once more, de Silva went through the facts.

  ‘I can hardly believe it,’ Jane said sadly. ‘I hope you’re wrong, Shanti. Poor Madeleine, she’s gone through so much.’ He heard her sharp intake of breath. ‘You don’t think she had any part in it? Oh Shanti, that’s impossible.’

  ‘I’m afraid nothing’s impossible, my love. I’m not sure of anything yet. I have to go. I’ll telephone you later.’

  But for a few moments, he didn’t leave his desk. A terrifying vision of Florence Clutterbuck in full
battle cry assailed him. Madeleine might have gone to enlist her help in freeing Tagore. The blood seemed to fizz in his ears and he had to breathe deeply until the sensation faded. As it did, he pulled himself together. He needed time to think in peace. Maybe he should go back to the plantation. It would remove him from the theatre of war and there might even be a clue he had missed.

  **

  The Morris purred along the sunlit roads. The soothing influence that driving always had on him exerted its effect and by the time he reached the Five Palms, he felt calm. He would begin by making one more check through Renshaw’s papers.

  To his surprise, he wasn’t alone at the plantation; the black Daimler was parked in the yard. As he crossed to the factory door, he noticed that the bent wheel spokes still hadn’t been attended to. He would never have left that kind of thing undone with the Morris. It was a pity Leung didn’t take more pride in his expensive car.

  He climbed the stairs to the first floor and, as he entered Renshaw’s office, Leung looked up from some papers he had out on the desk. ‘Ah, Inspector de Silva. I was just going through Charles’s papers, trying to find something that might help Madeleine. I want to salvage as much money as possible for her. I’m afraid I’ve had no luck so far. But as I’m here, is there anything I can help you with?’

  Inwardly, de Silva cursed. He had hoped to have the place to himself. He forced a civil smile. ‘It’s good of you to offer but I wouldn’t dream of taking up your time.’

  An uncomfortable silence fell then Leung smiled. ‘Well, if I can’t be of use, I’ll leave you in peace, Inspector. In any case, I have an appointment in town shortly.’

  De Silva moved aside and Leung started down the stairs. Watching him go, de Silva wondered whether he was telling the truth. When the footsteps had died away, he turned his attention to the papers that lay on the desk. Some were unpaid invoices; others letters from impatient creditors: nothing to suggest he wasn’t.

  After an hour of sifting through Renshaw’s disorderly filing system for a second time, de Silva was no further forward and growing weary. His stomach told him it was midday and a glance at the clock confirmed it. Downstairs, he went to find the caretaker to tell the man that he was leaving.

  The caretaker was scooping dahl into his mouth with a big piece of naan bread. The spicy aroma made de Silva’s stomach rumble even more. He walked across the quiet yard and got into the Morris. He’d stop for lunch rather than wait to get home. There was a curry stall he’d passed on the way that looked perfectly clean. He looked at his watch. Even with a stop, he could be back in Nuala by half past one. It suddenly occurred to him that someone must have put the plantation clock back to the right time, for now it tallied with his watch.

  On reaching the stall, he paid for a drink of coconut water, some roti with vegetables and a bowl of curry sauce. The stallholder ladled out the food then picked out one of the big orange coconuts from the pile by the stall. He sliced its top off with one stroke of a broad-bladed knife and handed it to de Silva with a paper straw.

  De Silva took his purchases to a table in the shade of a coconut palm and started to eat. The food was hot and good. It was a pity he couldn’t enjoy it as much as he might have done with less on his mind. He wiped up the curry sauce with his last piece of roti and went back to the Morris. As he drove on to Nuala, he wondered apprehensively what he would find there. He had nothing new to tell Clutterbuck and once the fault on the Colombo line was traced, it wouldn’t be long before he involved the police down there.

  Unconsciously, he eased his foot off the accelerator. His head throbbed with the effort of thinking of something, anything, that might turn the tide. It was his experience that quite often the solution to a case turned on something that had, at first, seemed insignificant. Was there some small fact he had overlooked?

  He ran over his suspects’ stories. Tagore’s had the obvious incriminating element that he had no alibi for the night of Renshaw’s murder. Leung’s, on the other hand, appeared to be watertight. Only one thing bothered him: it was strange that a man as fastidious as Leung left unnecessary blemishes on his very expensive car. When he’d had the puncture repaired, why hadn’t he asked for them to be dealt with at the same time?

  He frowned. The garage owner had confirmed there was an invoice but it might be worth asking why only the puncture had been repaired. He put his foot down and headed for Nuala.

  **

  ‘All our invoice has is a repair for a puncture,’ the manager said when de Silva asked the question. ‘If there was anything else to do, the owner must have told us to leave it.’

  ‘Do you remember if there was?’

  The man shook his head. ‘We have many cars through here. The mechanic who did the job might.’

  The heat in the workshop was searing. The cacophony of hammers on metal; engines revving and blowtorches hissing made de Silva’s ears hum. He gagged on the stench of petrol and engine oil as the manager took him over to where a wiry Tamil had his head under the bonnet of a light-blue Hillman. He tapped him on the shoulder and spoke a few words then the mechanic followed them outside.

  ‘This is the man who repaired the puncture on the Daimler.’

  ‘Some of the metal spokes on the offside rear wheel were bent,’ de Silva said in Tamil. ‘Was there any reason why you didn’t put that right?’

  The man scratched his head. ‘Nothing on the wheel was bent.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Daimler a very fine car, I remember it. Except for the puncture, the wheel was in good condition.’

  ‘So once you’d repaired the puncture, you fitted the wheel back on the car?’

  The manager shook his head. ‘No, sir. There was much to do that day and Mr Leung came back before we finished. He said he was tired and didn’t want to wait for the wheel to be changed over, he would come back another time. So we put the mended one in the place for the spare wheel.’

  ‘I see. Did you notice anything else? Anything unusual?’

  The mechanic pondered for a few moments then shrugged. ‘Plenty of mud that day after the rain but the wheel was pretty clean.’

  De Silva thanked him and returned to the Morris. He felt a mounting surge of excitement as a hypothesis took shape in his mind. If the wheel the garage had mended had no bent spokes, then it wasn’t the one that Leung claimed had needed repair. It was possible of course that he had remembered incorrectly which one it was. But say he hadn’t? Suppose there’d never been anything wrong? Then there was the clock. He put his hand on the horn to clear a path through the traffic. At last this case looked as if it might be on the move.

  At the station, Sergeant Prasanna greeted him with a triumphant smile. ‘Nadar and I’ve had some luck, sir. There were a dozen or more shops that have sold pitta tea recently. When we described Mr Renshaw and Mr Tagore, none of the proprietors recognised them, but one did remember serving a man who answers to Mr Leung’s description.’

  ‘Prasanna, I could kiss you. Come along, we’re going to the Crown Hotel.’

  **

  Heads turned and conversations died as they walked across the Crown’s grand lobby. De Silva strode to the reception desk and asked for David Leung.

  ‘I’m not sure where he is, Inspector.’ the receptionist said nervously. ‘Perhaps you’d like to see the manager?’

  ‘Stay here and keep an eye on the door,’ de Silva muttered to Prasanna.

  He was at the door of the manager’s office when he heard running feet behind him. ‘He’s leaving, sir,’ Prasanna gasped. ‘I tried to stop him but he ran.’

  They dashed back to the foyer in time to see Leung hurtle down the steps outside the hotel. Sweeping aside astonished guests, they raced after him.

  ‘Where’s he gone? Can you spot him, Prasanna?’

  There was the roar of a powerful engine and they had to jump aside to avoid being knocked down by the Daimler.

  ‘Quickly! To the car!’

  De Silva reversed the Morris out of
its parking place and jammed his foot on the accelerator. ‘Hold tight, Sergeant! You’re in for the ride of your life.’

  The Daimler swerved through Nuala’s busy streets like a bull on the rampage. De Silva needed all his concentration to keep up and avoid the pedestrians, rickshaws, bullock carts and carriages that stood in his way. Dogs, monkeys and chickens scattered in a tempest of barking, chattering and screeching. His heart thumped. The Daimler’s engine was more powerful than the Morris’s. Once they cleared town, Leung would probably be able to outrun him. If he was to have a chance of catching up, he must stay close now.

  Prasanna yelped as de Silva wrenched the wheel across and veered into a side street to take a short cut; they were lucky and the alley was quiet. The Morris emerged several hundred yards later with a much narrower gap than before between it and the Daimler. Moisture streamed from de Silva’s eyes and hot wind stung his cheeks as they cleared town and headed toward the lake. ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered under his breath.

  Prasanna gripped the side of the car. ‘Sir, what if the…’

  The Morris sped into a bend. As it swung out of it, Prasanna’s voice rose to a shout. ‘Look out, sir!’

  De Silva slammed on the brakes and the car left the road and ricocheted over the grass. In the eternity before they came to a halt, every bone in de Silva’s body seemed to grate against its neighbour. Then there was a moment of stillness, broken only by a ringing in his ears that gave him the sensation there was a long distance between him and the world. He felt for his heartbeat and found to his relief that it was still there. He heard Prasanna shift in his seat.

  ‘Are you alright, Sergeant?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  A faint mist rolled from the bonnet into the front seats, making them both splutter. De Silva looked over his shoulder and saw the small herd of shaggy brown ponies, drowsing and flicking their tails in the middle of the road, sublimely unconcerned by the trouble they had caused.