Smoke and Ashes

by Abir Mukherjee

  The nurses’ quarters were located in an austere, functional-looking annexe, at some distance removed from the main hospital building. The driver stopped the car and Surrender-not and I jumped out and made for the steps leading up to an open entrance. The night was cold and the chirping of crickets merged with the ticking of the engine as it cooled.

  To one side of the lobby, behind a rickety wooden desk, a porter in a faded blue shirt sat reading a native newspaper. I pulled out my warrant card and stuck it between his nose and the newspaper.

  He looked up lethargically.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nurse Rouvel’s room,’ I said. ‘Quickly!’

  ‘Second floor,’ he said, gesturing with his nose towards a flight of stairs. ‘Room 6 … or 7.’

  Surrender-not and I raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time … for the first flight at least. After that, I just climbed as fast as I still could. Rooms 6 and 7 stood at the far end, facing each other across a narrow, mustard-coloured corridor. We took a door each and knocked, then when nothing happened, we knocked again.

  The first to open was number 7. A stout woman in a crumpled cotton dressing gown stared out.

  ‘We’re looking for Nurse Rouvel,’ I said.

  Behind me the door to number 6 opened. ‘What are you doing here at this time of night, Captain?’ asked a familiar voice. I swivelled round. Mathilde Rouvel stood staring at me as if I was the ghost of Napoleon.

  ‘Miss Rouvel,’ I said, ‘I need to speak to you.’

  The woman from room 7 was still standing in the open doorway and showing no sign of returning to her business.

  ‘Maybe we should discuss this in your room?’

  ‘This is most unusual, Captain,’ she remonstrated. She looked tired, the smudge of dark circles around her eyes.

  ‘You’re right. Most unusual. That’s why we need to speak to you right now. So if we may … ?’ I gestured to the room behind her.

  She looked nervous. ‘It is against regulations. We are not supposed to have men in our rooms.’

  ‘We’re not men,’ said Surrender-not, ‘we’re the police!’

  She considered it for a moment.

  ‘Very well, come in.’

  I shook my head at Surrender-not’s comment, then followed her in.

  The room was tiny and furnished with a small table and chair, a wardrobe and a single bed with its mosquito net already hoisted. I checked my watch. It was still not yet 8 p.m.

  ‘I hope we didn’t wake you?’

  She shook her head. ‘Though I was about to retire. My shift starts at five o’clock.’

  It suddenly struck me that it didn’t take both Surrender-not and me to interview Miss Rouvel.

  ‘Do you have Colonel McGuire’s address?’ I said.

  ‘You could have asked me that in the corridor.’

  ‘I’ve a lot more to ask besides that,’ I said, ‘and time is short, so if you’d be kind enough to answer, we can get on.’

  She recited an address and directions which Surrender-not took down in his little notebook.

  ‘Get going, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘I’ll join you as soon as I’m done here.’

  Surrender-not nodded and headed for the door.

  ‘There,’ she said, once the door had closed. ‘Now please tell me what you want.’

  Anxiety was etched on her face, though whether it was the prospect of having a strange man in her room or something else that was exercising her was unclear.

  I pulled out the photograph that Surrender-not had pilfered from Dunlop’s house and pointed to Alastair Dunlop.

  ‘Do you know who this is?’

  She stared at me. ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘That’s not your concern,’ I said. ‘Now please identify that man.’

  ‘That is Monsieur Dunlop. He was here during the war, I think.’

  ‘And what did he do here?’

  She shrugged, in the manner the French do. She might have been born in India, but in some ways she was as Gallic as a pack of Gauloises. ‘You should ask le directeur, Colonel McGuire.’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘And I’m telling you I don’t know.’ Her tone was firm, but the look in her eyes suggested evasion and I didn’t have time for games.

  ‘He’s dead,’ I said. ‘Murdered. In a fashion remarkably similar to your friend Ruth Fernandes’ – I tapped the dead nurse’s image on the photograph – ‘and to this man here.’ I tapped the cross-legged figure of the dead man in Tangra. ‘All three killed in the same way in the last seventy-two hours. That’s one a night. Which means we’re due another one …’ I checked my watch for effect ‘… any time now.’

  I shoved the photograph towards her.

  ‘You’re in there too. So there’s a one in five chance that you’re going to be next. Not bad odds, but not great either if your life’s on the line. Now I’d suggest you afford me some cooperation.’

  I watched as my words registered, as she realised the implications; watched as her bravado melted away, till all that was left was a scared young girl.

  She stumbled over to the bed and sat down, pulling the mosquito net out of shape. She looked shell-shocked. I fetched the chair from beside the desk and sat down opposite her.

  ‘Miss Rouvel,’ I said, ‘what was Dunlop doing at the hospital here?’

  ‘Research,’ she said, looking at the floor. ‘I can’t tell you any more than that. They made me sign papers to say I would never talk about it.’

  ‘You need to tell me,’ I said. ‘Lives may depend upon it.’

  She wiped a tear from the corner of one eye. ‘I can’t. You will have to talk to Colonel McGuire.’

  I decided to try a different approach.

  I picked up the photograph. ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘You want their names?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but this is a group photograph,’ I said. ‘What’s the group?’ Rouvel moved a strand of hair from her face. ‘They were the people assigned to help Dunlop with his work … apart from le directeur, Colonel McGuire, of course. As head of the hospital, he is in all group photographs.’

  ‘And who is this man?’ I pointed to the image of the man killed in Tangra.

  She looked closely. She seemed to recognise him, but struggled to come up with a name.

  ‘Tamang,’ she said finally. ‘Prio Tamang. I think he now works for the hospital quartermaster’s office, though I have not seen him recently.’

  ‘Why would a quartermaster’s assistant be in this photograph?’

  She shook her head. ‘At that time he was just a hospital orderly. We had a lot of Gurkhas billeted here then. Tamang was Nepalese. I think he was assigned to us because he spoke the language.’

  Something jarred.

  ‘Why would Dunlop need a Nepalese speaker for his research?’

  I asked.

  ‘I told you. I cannot talk about that.’

  I turned the photograph over and showed her the words on the reverse. ‘“Barrackpore, January 1918.” Is that correct?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘If that is what it says, I have no reason to doubt it.’

  I flipped the photograph back over and pointed to Ruth Fernandes. ‘The problem is, according to Nurse Fernandes’s personnel file, she wasn’t in Barrackpore in January ’18. She wasn’t even in Bengal. So how could she be in this photo?’

  Rouvel’s brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean, she wasn’t in Bengal? Where else would she be?’

  ‘Rawalpindi.’

  The colour drained from Rouvel’s face. She gave a bitter laugh. ‘How can you hope to stop this killer when there’s so much you don’t know?’

  ‘Then tell me!’ I said, leaning forward and grabbing her arm.

  She pulled herself free. ‘I can’t tell you anything more.’ Rising from the bed, she made for the door and opened it wide. ‘Now please leave.’

  I got up from the chair and followed her.

  ‘The only one who can answ
er your questions is Colonel McGuire,’ she said. ‘I suggest you ask him.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I left Mathilde Rouvel with the promise that I’d be back after I’d spoken to McGuire. I told her to pack a bag and make arrangements to spend the night at a friend’s place somewhere in the cantonment and said I’d return to escort her over personally, not because I was feeling chivalrous but because I wanted to make sure I knew exactly where she was going.

  I walked downstairs in a fog, trying to make sense of the contradictions. Rouvel had known Fernandes during the war. She was adamant that Fernandes had been in Barrackpore in 1917 and 1918, and yet the word ‘Rawalpindi’ had triggered something in her; a reaction I couldn’t quite fathom.

  I walked out of the building and into the night, passing a native sepoy, a white coat over his uniform, who stood leaning against the wall, smoking a bidi. The smell of the cheap smouldering cheroot leaf was like balm on my synapses and I couldn’t resist stopping to light a cigarette before heading rapidly in the direction of the address for Colonel McGuire which Mathilde Rouvel had provided.

  I hadn’t gone two hundred yards when I saw Surrender-not coming out of the gloom towards me.

  ‘He’s not there,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘What do you mean, he’s not there?’ I asked. ‘Where is he then?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. His batman said the colonel had no plans for the evening, but that he received a telephone call about an hour ago. Fifteen minutes later, a car pulled up outside and he and his wife went off.’

  ‘I take it he didn’t say where they were going?’

  ‘No, sir. Nor when they’d be back.’

  ‘Did you ask him what the colonel’s reaction was to the telephone call?’

  ‘I did, sir. He said it was none of my business. Should we go back and press him on it?’

  ‘McGuire’s batman,’ I asked. ‘British or Indian?’

  ‘Indian.’

  I took a pull of my cigarette and thought for a moment. In lieu of anything more useful, part of me was sorely tempted to go and tear a strip off the man, even though he probably had little to tell us. The chance to take out some of my frustrations on someone was hard to resist. But we were on thin ice as it was. Section H had told us to leave well alone. Instead we’d marched straight into the lion’s den – onto a military base, looking to question a colonel – and as I knew from the night before, they didn’t take particularly kindly to my meddling. I’d little doubt that McGuire’s unexpected telephone call and subsequent vanishing act had been orchestrated by them, if not directly, then at least at their behest.

  ‘Leave it,’ I said finally. ‘I doubt we’ll get anything out of the man.’

  Surrender-not nodded. ‘Did you glean much from Miss Rouvel?’

  ‘A little,’ I said. ‘The name of the dead man in Tangra, for one. Prio Tamang – Nepalese apparently; an assistant to the hospital quartermaster. During the war, though, he was an orderly. According to Rouvel, he acted as liaison with the wounded Gurkhas who were patients here.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Just that Dunlop was running some research experiments here in 1917 and that Nurse Fernandes and Nurse Rouvel were on his staff.’

  ‘So Fernandes wasn’t in Rawalpindi?’

  ‘Apparently not. Someone must have falsified the details of her personnel file.’

  ‘Who?’ he asked. ‘And why go to the trouble of falsifying her service record? She was just a nurse. What is it they’re trying to conceal?’

  ‘Whatever it is, I think Rouvel knows, but she was too scared to tell me. Seeing as how Colonel McGuire seems to have disappeared for the evening, maybe we should go back and question her again. Come on,’ I said, flicking the cigarette butt into the darkness. I turned and began striding back towards the nurses’ quarters with Surrender-not half a pace behind.

  The porter was still at his seat in the lobby. He looked up as we passed and said something to Surrender-not in Bengali. The sergeant froze in his tracks. Then turned and fired back a response. From the inflexion in his voice, I guessed it was a question. The porter hesitated, then replied, and without warning, Surrender-not took off towards the stairs.

  ‘Come!’ he said. ‘We have to hurry.’

  I ran after him. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘Miss Rouvel,’ he panted, between breaths. ‘The porter said someone else asked for her room number.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Two minutes ago.’

  ‘But who?’ I said. ‘No one passed us.’

  Then I remembered. The sepoy in the white coat having a smoke outside. It was dark and I’d paid him scant regard, assuming he was some orderly who was billeted in the building. That had been stupid. The chances of a native sepoy being billeted in the same building as a European woman were zero.

  We reached the first-floor landing when there came a scream from the floor above.

  ‘Hell,’ I said, casting a glance at Surrender-not as we ran up the second flight.

  Doors were already opening in response to the commotion as we made it to Rouvel’s floor. At the far end, I saw the head of the short nurse in room 7 sticking out into the hallway, angrily sniffing the air like a mongoose searching out danger. She stared at the doorway directly across from her and suddenly let out a scream of her own.

  Time slowed to a crawl as we sprinted along the corridor. Behind me, Surrender-not was shouting at the nurses to get back in their rooms and lock their doors.

  Suddenly, a man burst out of Rouvel’s room. He was barely five feet tall but carried himself with a purpose and a poise that I realised I’d seen before. Something glinted in his hand – a thick, curved blade. As he turned in my direction, I got a decent look at him, and immediately I had no doubt. The smooth, bronzed, taut skin, the determination in the set of the jaw, the fire in the eyes. The man was a Gurkha.

  He saw me and took off in the opposite direction, towards a set of doors at the far end of the corridor.

  ‘Stop! Police!’ I shouted, as though that had ever worked. Ahead of me, the man reached the doors and burst through. I made it to Nurse Rouvel’s door and peered inside, bracing myself for what I might find. In front of me, Rouvel stood catatonic, rooted to the spot. In her arms she held a suitcase.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She looked at me, and then through me, her eyes not seeming to register what had happened. I grabbed her.

  ‘Mathilde.’ Her eyes focused. A spark of recognition.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  In the meantime, Surrender-not had run on in pursuit of the attacker, and suddenly I realised I had another problem. If the man really was a trained Gurkha, then Surrender-not wouldn’t stand a chance against him. Not at close quarters at least, even with a revolver. I’d heard stories of Gurkhas charging through walls of German machine-gun fire before setting to work on their enemies armed with nothing more than their kukri knives. It was said that their blades could cleave a man’s head from his shoulders in one blow.

  I turned and ran after him, throwing myself through the doors. The stairwell beyond was in darkness and I groped around, blindly feeling the wall for a light switch as my eyes took their time to adjust. From close by came the sound of footsteps falling rapidly on concrete steps. Then the explosion of a gunshot. I gave up looking for the switch and made for the stairs. From somewhere below came the clang of metal on metal, then a muffled cry.

  I reached for my revolver and ran down the first flight, then the second, then stopped dead. In the illumination of the pale light filtering through a window, two bodies were locked together, struggling in the darkness. I raised my gun, then hesitated. There was no clean shot to take.

  ‘Stop!’

  The attacker had his arm around Surrender-not’s throat, in his hand the kukri, the metal of its blade glinting in the half-light. In his other hand he held Surrender-not’s revolver. Slowly he raised it, aiming it at my head.

  ‘Drop the gun,�
� I said, as calmly as one can when one’s heart feels as though it’s about to burst through one’s chest.

  I struggled to bring my breathing under control. Surrender-not too looked like he was having trouble breathing. The man stared at me, then shook his head.

  ‘I don’t want to kill your friend.’ His voice was thick. Nicotinecoated.

  ‘Then let him go.’

  ‘And then what? You shoot me?’ His gun was still pointed squarely at my face.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t shoot you if you let him go. On that you have my word.’

  ‘Your word?’ He laughed bitterly. ‘You are police. Your word means nothing.’

  ‘I’m ex-army,’ I said, hoping he at least believed in military honour.

  ‘What regiment?’

  ’10th Fusiliers.’ That wasn’t strictly true. I’d spent most of the war in military intelligence, but we wore the uniform and insignia of the fusiliers and now wasn’t the time for a clarification.

  ‘I got no quarrel with you,’ he said. ‘But if you don’t do as I say …’ He tightened his grip around Surrender-not’s neck. ‘Now put down your weapon. Slowly.’

  I paused to consider my options and realised I had none.

  ‘Do it now!’ There was a nervousness to his voice.

  ‘All right,’ I said. With my arms outstretched, and keeping my eyes on him, I slowly bent down and placed my Webley on the floor in front of me.

  ‘Kick it over here.’

  I straightened and did as he ordered.