A Rising Man

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A Rising Man Page 8

by Abir Mukherjee


  ‘How does he expect us to progress the MacAuley case if he sends us scurrying out to investigate the murder of every Tom, Dick and Harry?’ he grumbled.

  ‘I’m sure the Commissioner has his reasons,’ I said, though I’d have been at a loss to say what they were.

  ‘Couldn’t he have found someone else? It’s the death of a coolie, for Christ’s sake. Surely the officers from the local thana could have handled it.’ He was panting now, from the heat and the exertion of the climb up the bank.

  On Taggart’s orders, we’d been dispatched here to investigate a murder. Initial reports spoke of an attack by dacoits on a train, an attempted robbery that had gone wrong and resulted in the death of a native railway guard. While the colour of a man’s skin should have no bearing on the importance of the case, the reality was that it generally did, and I confess that, like Digby, I was surprised that Taggart had deemed it prudent to divert us from the MacAuley case to investigate what was essentially a botched robbery.

  What activity there was seemed centred on the guards’ van at the rear of the train. I ordered Banerjee to go up front and question the driver while Digby and I headed for the rear. Two constables were busy lowering a body, wrapped in a sheet, from the bogie and onto the ground below.

  I ordered one of the constables to uncover the victim’s head. It wasn’t a pleasant sight: broken nose, face severely bruised and hair matted and sticky with blood. Whoever had done this wasn’t shy about using their fists. I nodded to the constable to cover him up.

  Inside the guards’ van, two men stood silhouetted and in the midst, it seemed, of a heated discussion. The shorter of the two, a man in a peaked cap, looked the more agitated, gesticulating, then pointing a fat finger at the chest of the other. I assumed he was the senior officer on site. It came as a shock then to find that he wore not the uniform of a policeman, but of a railway conductor. He looked Anglo-Indian, and the man he was busy berating was a native police sergeant. Both seemed relieved to see us.

  ‘English officers!’ exclaimed the railwayman. ‘Maybe now we’ll get somewhere.’

  I ignored him and turned to the sergeant, who seemed cut from the same cloth as Banerjee: thin, bespectacled, and almost as depressed-looking.

  ‘What happened here?’ I asked.

  The railwayman interjected before the Indian could reply. ‘If you want to know that,’ he said, ‘I’m the one to tell you, on account of me being the ranking railway officer and seeing as I was actually here when it happened.’

  I sighed. I never enjoyed dealing with minor public officials. They tended to have rather inflated opinions of their own importance, and the ones in peaked caps tended to be the worst.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Perkins, sir. Albert Perkins,’ he said, puffing out his chest and rising to his full height of five foot five, plus cap. ‘Senior guard on this train.’

  ‘In that case, Mr Perkins, you’d better tell us what happened. From the beginning.’

  ‘Well,’ said Perkins, ‘if you want it from the beginning, then that’s where I’ll start. We were scheduled to leave Sealdah station last night at a half past one,’ he began, ‘but were delayed by about ninety minutes, so it was after three a.m. by the time we finally got underway. For an hour or so, everything went as normal. Then as we reached this spot, someone pulled the communication cord. Of course the driver immediately brought the engine to a halt.

  ‘I made my way through the carriages to see what the problem was. I don’t mind telling you, it’s not often you get someone pulling the cord on a night train. It was when I reached the second-class passenger compartment that the trouble started. Two Indians stood up, respectable-looking types in suits, they were. One of them pointed a gun in my face and ordered me to lie face down on the floor. Of course, I did as I was told. Some of the passengers began to panic, but one of the men shouted something in Bengali and got them to shut up. I couldn’t see much from the floor, but I’m sure the other fellow then left the carriage. About a minute later, I heard voices coming from down on the tracks: natives, and quite a few of them by the sound of it. There was a bit of a commotion going on outside. I expected them to pass through the compartments robbing the passengers of their valuables, but they didn’t. Not even the first-class carriage. According to the driver, they just placed one of their men in each of the carriages and a couple up front in the locomotive, while the rest of them came here to the rear of the train.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  Perkins shrugged. ‘I don’t rightly know. The scoundrel kept me on the floor the whole time. All the while I could hear shouting coming from the rear. Eventually, it must have been just before five o’clock, there was a shout and the dacoit in our compartment went outside. I expected him to come back with some of his compatriots, but he didn’t. He and the rest of them just melted away.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything, not till the driver and his mate came looking for me. How was I to know the bastards had scarpered? After that, I left the carriage with Evans, that’s the driver. He’s a real Englishman, you know. From London, so he says. Been driving the number forty-three for almost twenty years now. Once I’d confirmed with him that the miscreants had made a run for it, I began checking each compartment in turn. Several English ladies in first class were quite distressed by the whole episode, but none had been harmed. It was only when I’d passed through the entire train and reached the guards’ van that I found young Pal’s body.’ He pointed down to the tracks, to the body wrapped in the sheet.

  ‘That was his name, was it?’

  Perkins nodded solemnly. ‘Hiren Pal.’

  I surveyed the van. The compartment was divided in two by a wire grille, with a door allowing movement between both halves. On this side of the grille stood a small desk with papers strewn over it. On the floor beside it an overturned chair, a smashed hurricane lamp and some papers that had fallen and become stuck in the pool of coagulating blood. On the other side sat a dozen or so heavy-looking burlap sacks, and beside them two large safes, both open.

  ‘Why d’you think they attacked him?’ asked Digby.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied the conductor.

  ‘What did they take?’ I asked.

  The railwayman removed his cap and scratched his head. ‘That’s the thing. As far as I can tell, they didn’t take anything.’

  ‘Nothing?’ asked Digby. ‘A bunch of dacoits attack a train, kill a guard and then leave with nothing? That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m telling you,’ said Perkins vehemently, ‘all the mail sacks are still here, and as I said before, they didn’t rob the passengers.’

  ‘What about those safes?’ I asked. ‘What was in them?’

  ‘Last night, nothing,’ said Perkins.

  ‘Is that usual?’

  ‘Some nights they’re full. Other nights they’re empty. This is the forty-three down after all.’

  He read our expressions.

  ‘The forty-three down is the Darjeeling Mail,’ he said by way of clarification. ‘It’s the main service between Calcutta and North Bengal. Most everything going up there, from people to livestock to official government correspondence, goes on the forty-three down.’

  ‘And how did you raise the alarm?’ I asked.

  ‘The twenty-six up passed by about ten minutes after the dacoits had fled. We flagged it down and told the conductor what had transpired. They offered to help, then went up the line to Naihati and got the word out.’

  I turned back to the Indian sergeant. ‘Where are the passengers?’ I asked.

  ‘The second- and third-class passengers have been removed to the station at Bandel Junction for questioning,’ he replied. ‘The first-class passengers were all Europeans, sir. They were also taken to Bandel but allowed to continue their journeys. We have names and addresses for all of them, though.’

  The first-class passengers had been white. As such, there was little prospect of them follo
wing the order of a native officer to hang around for hours in the middle of nowhere for questioning. In India, it seemed, even the forces of law and order were subordinate to the hard fact of race.

  I left Digby to take a full statement from the conductor while I crunched my way across the gravel to the front of the train. Banerjee was talking to the driver. On seeing me, he clambered down from the locomotive.

  ‘Have you got much out of him?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve been taking a statement from him, sir, but it’s proving most challenging. His English isn’t so good.’

  ‘Odd,’ I said. ‘The conductor said he was an Englishman.’

  ‘I fear he may be correct, sir. You may wish to question him yourself.’

  Evans was a stocky man who looked as solid as the locomotive he drove. His face and overalls were flecked with coal dust and the creases of his face were lined with soot. I took an instant liking to him.

  His version of events was similar to that of Perkins: around an hour out of Calcutta’s Sealdah station, someone had pulled the communication cord and Evans had brought the train to a halt. But while Perkins had spent the rest of the attack making a close inspection of the floor of the second-class compartment, Evans, up front in the locomotive, had had a better view of what had then transpired.

  ‘As soon as we was stopped,’ he said, ‘a whole load of the buggers came at us from all sides. From the front, from the left, from the right.’

  ‘How many?’ I asked.

  Evans shrugged. ‘Can’t rightly say, Guv’nor, on account of it being pitch black, but there would’ve been at least ten of ’em, I’d say. Then one of ’em climbs up ’ere an’ points a shooter at me. Tells me to put me ’ands up. Twenty years ago I’d ’ave took a swing at ’im, but I’m not exactly in me prime no more. Anyways, then the rest of ’em fans out along the train. I could ’ear the ladies in first class all shriekin’. Still, they quieted down smartish. I ’spect one of the wogs probably pulled a shooter on them an’ all.’

  ‘Could you make out what was going on in the guards’ van?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nah. Too far away.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘The wog that was in ’ere with me an’ Eric,’ he pointed to his mate who was busy shovelling coal into the engine’s furnace, ‘he wanted us to get down off the engine, but we refused, didn’t we, Eric?’ The coal man nodded and continued shovelling. ‘I says to ’im, “You might as well bloody shoot me, cos I been drivin’ the Darjeelin’ Mail for more years than you been on God’s green earth an’ I ain’t gettin’ down off this engine till we reach Hardinge Bridge.” In the end, the little bastard changed his mind an’ let us stay up ’ere. It was all quite civil after that, just me an’ Eric and the little wog wiv his gun trained on us. We could hear all sorts goin’ on round the back but we couldn’t see nuffink in the dark.

  ‘After about an hour or so, just before the sun was comin’ up, one of the bastards down on the track starts shoutin’ summink. Then the whole bleedin’ lot of ’em, includin’ our little friend up ’ere, jump off the train an’ scarper. Some of ’em headed off in that direction.’ He pointed across the fields to the north. ‘The rest of ’em went down there towards the road. They was all gone in a matter of minutes.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, me an’ Eric, we waits a little while. By now the sun’s comin’ up, so we ’ave a look around, just to make sure the coast is clear an’ that none of the bastards is still ’angin’ about. We can’t see any of ’em, so we jump down and make our way along the train lookin’ for old Perkins. I was rather hopin’ they’d have ruffed him up a little, but there he was, lyin’ on the floor of the second-class carriage, like a baby ’avin’ a nap. Anyway, once he’d got up off his belly, he told me to get back up to the engine while he checked the rest of the carriages. It was ’im who found poor Pal.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  Evans shrugged. ‘Decent chap, came from a family of railwaymen. ’E’d been workin’ on the railways since ’e was a boy. Quiet lad, ’e was, wouldn’t say boo to a goose. I can’t imagine ’im standin’ up to a gang of dacoits, though. Why they saw fit to beat ’im up rather than Perkins, I can’t rightly say.’

  ‘You’re not fond of the conductor?’

  ‘Well, you’ve met ’im. Do you like ’im? Now imagine you ’ad to work with the old coot day in, day out, for the last seven years.’

  I had one final question. ‘Are dacoit attacks common in these parts?’

  Evans shook his head. ‘It’s not un’eard of, specially in the wilds up-country or out in Bihar – which is the arse end of nowhere, by the way – but I ain’t never ’eard of dacoits hittin’ a train this close to Calcutta before.’

  Thanking him, I jumped back down to the track and called over to Banerjee, who was talking to one of the local constables.

  ‘Let’s take a walk, Sergeant,’ I said, heading towards the fields through which, according to Evans, some of the attackers had made off. For ten minutes we scoured the area to the north of the train, but other than some flattened grass, there was nothing.

  Returning to the train, we headed south-east, towards a tarmac road, where the driver had said the rest of the dacoits had headed.

  ‘What road is this?’ I asked Banerjee.

  ‘The Grand Trunk Road, sir.’

  ’Does it lead back to Calcutta?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And in the other direction?’

  Banerjee smiled. ‘It’s over two thousand miles long, sir. It goes all the way to Delhi and then on to the Khyber Pass and Kabul.’

  ‘I think we can discount the possibility of our culprits fleeing to Afghanistan, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘What I want to know is what’s the next major town it passes through.’

  ‘In the immediate vicinity, sir, I think it passes through Naryanpore.’

  ‘How far is that?’

  ‘No idea, sir. I’m not sure exactly where we are.’

  We continued walking along the road for some minutes until we reached a small dirt lay-by.

  ‘Look,’ I said to Banerjee, pointing to some tracks in the earth.

  ‘Tyre prints,’ he said. ‘A motorised vehicle was here, probably not too long ago. A car?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘The tracks are too wide for car tyres. These were made by something larger, a lorry most likely.’

  We continued to search for some time longer but found nothing. I checked my watch. It was almost nine thirty. We’d need to leave soon if we were to catch Mr Buchan at the Bengal Club. Reluctantly I called to Banerjee to head back to the train.

  ‘Theories, gentlemen?’ I asked as the car sped back towards Calcutta. All three of us were squashed into the back.

  ‘It seems pretty clear to me, old boy,’ said Digby. ‘Dacoits attack the mail train hoping to rob the safes. They find them empty and in their frustration attack the guard. When he dies, they take fright and flee. We should order the district police to round up the local miscreants. We’re not dealing with the most sophisticated individuals here. One of them’s bound to talk and give the whole game away.’

  It was a tempting course of action. Chalk it down to incompetent bandits and get the local boys to deal with it. The problem was that particular scenario didn’t fit the facts. From what I could tell, the attackers had been far from incompetent. Indeed, everything suggested they’d planned things meticulously. Everything except the outcome, of course, and that raised the biggest question of all. If robbery was their motive, why didn’t they steal anything?

  EIGHT

  THE BENGAL CLUB was situated on the Esplanade, a wide avenue tucked between the L-G’s residence of Government House and the Hooghly river. The gates were manned by two mountainous, bearded Sikhs, and given their size, there seemed little need for the gates themselves. Both wore uniforms of red and white and sported as much gold braid as an entire regiment of the Household Cavalry. Golden badges, affixed to their white turbans, gli
nted in the mid-morning sun.

  As we approached, one of the hulking sentries stepped forward, raising a hand the size of a tennis racquet. The driver slowed to a stop and Banerjee got out and walked up to the man. He barely came up to the Sikh’s chest. What happened next was unexpected. Banerjee began shouting and gesturing like a madman, and the startled guard immediately changed his attitude, bowing and frantically waving us through, while his colleague stood ram-rod straight and saluted. It was like watching a Jack Russell scare the life out of a Doberman.

  ‘Good show, Surrender-not,’ I said as the sergeant rejoined us. ‘I feared for a moment he might squash you.’

  The car crunched down a long gravel driveway between immaculate lawns. A number of native gardeners were busy cutting the already perfect grass, like barbers tending to a bald man. The club itself resembled a mini Blenheim Palace whitewashed and transported to the tropics, and was yet another example of us living out our imperial fantasies through architecture. British India, where every Englishman has a castle.

  The car came to a stop outside a rather grand entrance. A brass plaque screwed to one of the columns read, The Bengal Club, Est.1827. Beside it stood a wooden sign, its perfect white letters bearing the message:

 

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