‘What about you?’ I asked Banerjee.
He looked up from his thoughts. ‘I’m not sure what to think, sir.’
‘You should be under no doubts, Sergeant,’ said Digby. ‘I’ve seen his sort before and believe me, sonny, he’d as happily slit your throat as a white man’s if he got the chance.’
Banerjee made no reply. Whatever he was thinking, he knew enough to keep his own counsel. The box file was on the table in front of me. I opened it, took out the bloodstained note, and passed it to him.
‘I should have shown you this earlier, Sergeant. Digby tells me it’s a note warning the British to quit India. Read it and tell me what you make of it.’
Banerjee examined the note.
‘Sub-inspector Digby is correct.’
‘There, you see!’ said Digby.
‘It’s rather odd, though.’
‘How exactly?’
‘Well, sir, it’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t speak Bengali. There are really two different types of Bengali. There is spoken Bengali and there is formal Bengali, similar to your notion of the King’s English, but far more formulaic and excessively polite. This note is not written in standard, colloquial Bengali. It’s formal Bengali.’
‘Is that significant?’ I asked.
Banerjee hesitated. ‘Well… it would be like writing a note in English using “thou” and “thee” instead of “you”. It’s not wrong, just unusual. Especially when you’re writing a threat.’
Digby continued to pace the room. ‘Sen’s an educated man. Maybe he prefers formal Bengali? I don’t see why it should matter.’
‘Maybe I’m not explaining it very well,’ said Banerjee. ‘If the note was written as a threat, it’s the politest threat you could possibly send. What it literally says is: “I must apologise for there will be no further exhortations. The blood of those from overseas will flow in the streets. Kindly take your leave of India.” I don’t understand why Sen would have written that.’
Digby turned to me for reassurance.
‘Look, Sen’s a known terrorist, responsible for countless attacks. He shows up after four years in hiding. On his first night in town, he gives a speech calling for action against the British. On the same night, not ten minutes away from where he gives this speech, MacAuley is murdered. The next night, there’s an attack on a train, which, by your own deduction, was a terrorist raid. You don’t seriously think all of that is just a coincidence, do you? So the man writes an odd note. What of it? The fact is, the note is a threat, a warning of more violence to come. It’s what Sen’s dedicated his life to. The man is guilty. Whether he admits it or not is irrelevant.’
In one sense he was correct. Whether Sen admitted it or not was irrelevant. He would be pronounced guilty and hanged. Too many people had too much resting on his guilt for the verdict to be anything else. The press were up in arms. To them the murder was a direct attack on British authority in India. That put pressure on the L-G. He had to respond with an iron will; show the natives that such an act would be met with savage and public retribution. What better way to demonstrate British power than the swift arrest and execution of a terrorist? Section H wanted Sen dead to make up for the embarrassment of letting him escape when the rest of the Jugantor leadership were liquidated back in 1915. Even we in the Imperial Police Force had reason to see Sen convicted, for the simple fact that we were under pressure to close the case quickly and we had no other suspects.
There was only one problem. I couldn’t be sure he’d done it.
It wasn’t just concerns about the note. I still had no idea what MacAuley had been doing outside a brothel in Black Town in the first place. No one else, from the L-G to MacAuley’s friend Buchan, knew or seemed to care much about that. I realised also that I’d been uneasy since the beginning. It was as though I was always two steps behind, following a trail of crumbs laid by someone else. Unfortunately Digby was right. How would I explain to Taggart that I had doubts about the guilt of a wanted terrorist who was in the vicinity of the crime on the night of the murder, just because of a rather eccentric note left at the scene? He would laugh me out of his office.
There was something else, though. A fear forming at the back of my mind. If Sen wasn’t guilty of the attacks, then it meant that the perpetrators were still out there. If so, the threat of a full-blown terrorist insurrection was still very real and time was running out. I tried to put the thought out of my mind. Sen was guilty. I just had to prove it.
‘Sir?’ asked Banerjee. ‘What are your orders?’
I told him to get his notes typed up. I wanted them ready so I could review them before I gave the Commissioner a progress report later on.
‘What about Sen?’ asked Digby. ‘Do you want to have another go at him?’
‘Do you think there’s much point?’ I asked.
‘If it were up to me, I’d hand him over to Section H today. See what they can get out of him. They can be very persuasive when they want to.’
‘Section H will get their hands on him soon enough,’ I said. ‘But in the meantime, I plan on holding on to him for as long as I can.’
TWENTY–TWO
I RETURNED TO my office, locked the door and collapsed into my chair. Throughout Sen’s interrogation the pain in my arm had been gradually worsening to the point where I feared it had clouded my judgement. I’d gone in certain, and come out unsure about pretty much everything. The result was two precious hours wasted.
I had to focus. What little time I had was slipping away. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bottle of morphine tablets. I took out two of the round white pills and swallowed them dry, then sat back and closed my eyes. Within minutes the pain started to ebb. But two tablets had been a mistake. I’d hoped the dose would remove the pain, allowing me to concentrate, but I’d misjudged it. The morphine was too powerful and I fell into a stupor.
I was floating serenely down the Hooghly. Past palm trees and paddy fields, an orange sun enveloping me in its warmth. My mind and body parted company. It was glorious. People were standing on the banks, gazing down at me as I passed. Sarah was there. Young, fresh and beautiful, the Sarah I’d first met. She said nothing, just looked on with the most caring of countenances. I wanted to go to her, but she was out of reach and I had no control over my body. I couldn’t even call out. She faded from view and I kept floating downstream, past a train marooned on tracks halfway up to a tea garden, past more faces, past Lord Taggart and Mrs Tebbit, past Banerjee and Byrne, past Annie Grant. She looked concerned, but why wasn’t clear. Beside her stood Benoy Sen, dressed in prison clothes, with his manacled hands held out in front of him, palms up. I tried to move, to rise from the river, but my body refused. Sen and Annie faded from view as the current pulled me along and into a cavern. It grew colder. Water dripped from the ceiling. There stood MacAuley, in black tie and bloodstained shirt, one glassy eye trained straight ahead. As best I could, I turned to see what he was staring at. Figures silhouetted in the darkness. I strained to get a better look, but without success. The gloom turned to blackness and I felt myself sinking.
I was swimming. Underwater. There was a noise coming from somewhere. A persistent hammering. A light was shining above the surface. I swam towards it. The noise grew louder, more focused, and I surfaced and found myself slumped in my chair. Someone was knocking at the door. Groggy, I rose and with some difficulty, made my way over and turned the key in the lock. Surrender-not stood in front of me. My appearance seemed to shock him.
‘Sorry, Sergeant,’ I said, ‘the medication the doctors gave last night must have knocked me out.’
The poor boy’s ears turned crimson. He held out a half-dozen sheets of closely typed paper.
‘The notes from this morning’s interrogation, sir.’
I thanked him, took them from him and returned to my desk. Banerjee loitered in the doorway, his hang-dog face on again.
‘Is there something else?’ I asked.
He stood there, nervous
ly rubbing his chin.
‘I was hoping to speak to you privately about the interview this morning.’
‘You mean without Sub-inspector Digby being present?’
He nodded.
I gestured to him to sit.
He closed the door and took the chair across the desk from me.
‘What’s on your mind?’
Banerjee shifted in his seat.
‘It’s this MacAuley case, sir. I have certain misgivings.’
‘You mean about Sen?’
‘What if he’s telling the truth?’
‘That he just happened to be in the area that night, gave his speech and then headed straight off to Kona? He’s got no alibi, Sergeant.’
‘He claims we killed his alibi last night.’
‘What would you expect him to say?’
Banerjee squirmed. ‘What about the note, sir? Why write a note like that?’
I didn’t have the answer to that. ‘Maybe Digby’s right,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s just a ploy to throw us off the scent.’
He grew tense. ‘I don’t believe that, sir, and, with respect, I don’t believe you do either.’
It took courage for him to question me like that, but it was still out of order.
‘Remember your place, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘That man is going to hang. If not for this, then for a raft of other crimes. You’re dismissed.’
Banerjee held his tongue, though his eyes betrayed his frustration. He rose, saluted and marched out of the room.
I instantly regretted taking such a stern line with him. He was right, after all. The evidence we had was purely circumstantial. Nothing connected Sen directly to MacAuley’s murder or the attack on the train. No court would have convicted an Englishman on what we had. But under the Rowlett Acts his reputation alone would be enough to send Sen to the gallows. It made me uneasy. The man was going to hang for crimes I wasn’t wholly convinced he was guilty of. Before India, I’d never have contemplated such a thing. But now that was exactly what I was proposing to do. And why? Because it was easier to convict him than prove him innocent. Because it would help cement my reputation in a new job. Because the life of an Indian has less value than that of an Englishman.
Banerjee had dared to point out details that made me uncomfortable. Facts that my own conscience should have rebelled against and I’d rebuked him for it. Would I have done so with a white subordinate? Probably not, especially when I shared his concerns. But Banerjee was Indian, and even in the short time I’d spent in India, I knew that an Englishman should never show doubt in front of a native, lest it be interpreted as weakness. No one had explicitly told me, it had just sunk into my consciousness as if by osmosis. But why should my agreeing with Surrender-not be a sign of weakness?
Then I realised. It wasn’t personal error I was afraid of, it was the possibility of an error by the state. Our justification for ruling India rested on the principles of impartial British justice and the rule of law. If we were willing to pervert the course of that justice, by hanging Sen for the murder of MacAuley without proof, then our justification for ruling, our moral superiority, would amount to naught.
Moral superiority. They had been the words of the Irishman, Byrne. He was right. Our rule in this country depended on our claims to moral superiority. It was often unspoken but obvious in everything we did. We believed in it. The empire was a force for good. It had to be, otherwise why were we here? But the empire’s killing of Sen for the sake of expediency would undermine that claim. It would be an abrogation of our core values, and abandoning those values would make us hypocrites. I’d rebuked Banerjee because he was calling me out on my hypocrisy, and in that minute he’d lost his respect for me, and by extension for the empire that I represented. The problem was, while I could afford to live without his respect, the empire couldn’t.
That left me with a choice. I could accept things as they were and watch Sen hang, or I could do my job; find proof that he was guilty, or if he wasn’t, discover who was. I got up from behind my desk, slung Digby’s jacket round my shoulders and headed out of the door and down to the cells.
It was feeding time, the dull aroma of cooked rice doing little to dispel the stench of the place. Sen had been returned to the same cell I’d found him in earlier. He was sitting on the floor next to the plank bed, beside him a battered metal pannikin containing rice and a thin yellow daal of lentils. There was no sign of the doctor who’d accompanied him earlier. Sen ate, deftly gathering a small portion of rice and lentils with his hand and lifting it to his mouth. He looked up as the warden unlocked the cell door, swallowed his mouthful of food, and smiled.
‘Captain Wyndham. Is it time for my transfer to your colleagues in military intelligence? If so, would you mind waiting a few minutes for me to finish this repast? I believe the room service at Fort William is not as reliable as it is here.’
I smiled, despite myself. ‘You seem very calm, Sen. Especially for a condemned man.’
‘Is that what I am, Captain? Condemned without a trial? You are correct, of course. I am a condemned man. I’m sure there will be a trial though, and, like you, I have no doubt about its outcome. But as I told you earlier, I have reconciled myself to my fate. I am not scared of death.’
I sat down on the plank bed. ‘Do you have any regrets? Anything you want to get off your chest?’
Sen scooped up another small mouthful of food and contemplated the question. He sighed. ‘I have many regrets, Captain. I think what I might have made of my life had I been born under different circumstances. My father always maintained I was born under a very bad star. He was a good man, my father; a military engineer during the Afghan wars, respected by the British. They even gave him a medal – the Indian Order of Merit, second class. And he admired them greatly. It was he who made me join the Indian Civil Service. For a time I considered it the highest honour for an Indian.’
‘What changed?’
‘I grew up. I became involved in politics. It’s what Bengalis do. It’s our national hobby. You have gardening, we have politics. I grew interested in the writings of men such as Pal and Tilak. They opened my eyes to the true nature of your rule in my country. But I am sure you do not wish to hear about my journey from rising man to revolutionary.’
‘You said you had regrets?’
Sen deftly picked up the last few lentils and grains of rice and transferred them to his mouth. He nodded. ‘Yes, I have regrets, Captain. I regret thinking we could ever win our freedom through violence. That we could fight fire with fire. I regret every single life lost; the deaths of our foes as well as those of my comrades and the innocents. I regret what all the killing did to me. I lost my sense of compassion. I think any man who witnesses such things has to switch off a part of his humanity, otherwise he could not live with himself. And in doing so, I think he loses part of his soul. Maybe now you begin to understand why I say I am prepared for death. How can I be scared of it when the best part of my nature died long ago?’
I looked Sen in the eyes.
‘Did you kill MacAuley?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I had nothing to do with it, or the attack on that train.’
‘You know they’ll hang you anyway.’
‘I know, Captain. But a man cannot cheat his karma. If it is written that I will hang, then so be it. I am ready.’
Experience had taught me to trust my instincts, and they were telling me that, whatever his other crimes, Sen hadn’t murdered MacAuley or Pal, the railway guard.
I rose and called for the warden. He came shuffling along with the keys and unlocked the door. I looked at Sen, still sitting on the floor. I took his hand and helped him up on to the plank bed.
‘May I ask you one thing before you go, Captain?’ he asked. ‘When will I be handed over to the military?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but I doubt it’ll be long.’
Sen considered this. ‘Thank you for your candour,’ he said.
A black cloud fell over me a
s I walked back to my office. I arrived to find a note from Daniels on my desk. The Commissioner wanted to see me at his residence at five o’clock. That gave me time to read the transcript of Banerjee’s notes and mull over my options. I’d read a few pages when the telephone rang. A tinny voice ordered me to hold for a call from Writers’ Building. Moments later I was connected to Annie Grant. The sound of her voice made me irrationally happy, like receiving those extra rations during the war, which signalled we’d be going over the top the next morning.
She sounded agitated. ‘Sam? I’ve just heard the news. Are you all right? Everyone here’s in a flap.’
‘What have you heard?’ I said.
‘That you captured MacAuley’s killer. Section H are saying the man’s a known terrorist and that you refused to hand him over.’
‘How did you hear all this?’
‘The L-G wants him transferred to the military. The order was typed up by a friend of mine at Government House. She telephoned to tell me the news. She said you’d been injured.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Are you sure? You sound exhausted.’
‘I didn’t get much sleep last night.’
‘Is it true, then?’ she asked. ‘Have you caught the killer?’
I was wary about telling her too much. Seeing her outside the Statesman’s offices still bothered me. ‘We’ve arrested a suspect,’ I said. ‘That’s all I can say for the moment.’
‘What’s wrong, Sam? You sound… distant.’
‘I’m just preoccupied, Annie. I’ve a lot to do.’
She was silent for a moment.
‘I understand,’ she said finally, though her tone suggested the opposite.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. I just have a hell of a lot to deal with right now. How about I take you to dinner tonight?’
Her voice brightened. ‘Well, Captain Wyndham, I think I could manage that.’
A Rising Man Page 22