A Rising Man

by Abir Mukherjee

  The first light of day was falling through slats in the shuttered windows. I got up slowly, partly out of consideration for the sleeping Annie, but also to avoid hurting my bruised body. On one side of the room, atop a wooden dresser, sat a large oval mirror. I hobbled over to it and examined my injuries. I touched the dressing on my head. It was wound thick as a turban and made me look like a coolie. I removed it slowly. A dark gash was etched into the purple skin of my right temple. Over my ribs, a large boot-shaped bruise had nicely flowered. Gingerly I felt the back of my skull. A sharp pain ran through my head as I touched a lump the size of a cricket ball. I’d had better mornings. Then again, I’d also had worse. I sat back on the bed as Annie stirred beside me.

  ‘So you made it through the night, then?’

  I moved a stray hair from her face. ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘It’s not me you should be thanking but that rickshaw wallah friend of yours. He’s the one who dragged you over here. Would you care to tell me what happened?’

  ‘I was jumped. I remember being attacked by two men. Then it all gets a bit confusing. I know it sounds odd, but I swear I heard little bells ringing. The next thing I know, Salman and his friends are helping me onto a rickshaw.’

  Annie smiled. ‘Those little bells. All rickshaw wallahs have them. You must have seen them. They ring them to let people know they’re coming, like the bell on a bicycle. Maybe they also use them to call other rickshaw wallahs if they’re in trouble?’

  ‘Like a policeman’s whistle?’

  ‘I suppose so. No one else would care if a rickshaw wallah’s in trouble. I imagine they look out for each other. By the look of you, it seems Salman and his friends got to you just in time. Any idea who attacked you?’

  I told her it was just some street thugs. It might even have been the truth. What with the goings-on in Amritsar, people’s blood was up. Maybe I’d just been unlucky. Wrong place, wrong time. But there was a more disturbing possibility: that it hadn’t been a random attack. The men had been better built than most of the locals: the bruises on my body were testimony to that. Then there were the boots. How many natives go around Calcutta in hob-nail boots? They seemed too well nourished and too well shod to be mere labourers. But if it was a targeted attack, then why and by whom?

  Indian separatists, angered by Sen’s arrest? My name had been splashed across the papers, after all. Or maybe it was MacAuley’s murderer? Maybe he feared I was getting too close to the truth? But there was a problem with that. There was no way for anyone to have known I’d be going to the opium den that night. I didn’t even know myself. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Someone must have followed me, at least from when I left Mrs Tebbit’s for Annie’s house. I hadn’t noticed anyone on my tail, certainly not a couple of natives built like dockers. Whoever it was must have had access to significant resources and there was only one organisation I could think of with the network and the manpower to have carried out such an operation: Section H.

  I wasn’t exactly in their good books. What if Colonel Dawson was sending me a message? The men were obviously fit enough to be military, and they also seemed to know about my wounded arm. If it was Section H, they now knew about opium habit. The information was probably already on Dawson’s desk. But whoever was responsible and whatever their motive, I wasn’t going to find the answers in Annie’s bed. More’s the pity.

  The thought of Dawson jogged my memory. I needed to speak to him urgently. I stood up and pulled on my shirt as fast as I could without aggravating the pain.

  Annie looked at her wrist. ‘You’re not going, are you? It’s not even half past five yet.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘At least let me make you some breakfast before you go.’

  ‘No time,’ I said. ‘But thank you.’

  Five minutes later I hobbled down the stairs, armed with two bread rolls which Annie had insisted I take. Salman lay dozing on a mat under his rickshaw. He heard me coming, yawned, stretched and stood up. I placed a hand on his shoulder and handed him one of the rolls. He nodded, before storing it in a box under the seat of his rickshaw. From beside it he removed a glass bottle, unscrewed the cap and held it above his mouth. Careful to avoid touching the bottle with his lips, he let a stream of water fall into his mouth. He gargled, then spat it into the gutter at the side of the road. He turned and smiled.

  ‘Where to, sahib?’

  ‘Lal Bazar.’

  The roads were quiet. The checkpoints were still there, manned by sleepy-looking sepoys. Lal Bazar too lacked the febrile atmosphere that had engulfed it the day before, and the building exuded the air of a quiet regional outpost rather than the centre of police operations for half a subcontinent.

  There was no note waiting on my desk. Nothing to say Dawson had tried to contact me in the ten hours since I’d called his secretary. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was still only six a.m. Still, Dawson didn’t seem the type of man who went more than a few hours without being in contact with his office.

  I considered what I was about to do. A lot had happened since the previous evening, not much of it good, and some of it still visible on my head and body. I suspected Dawson and his men might have been responsible for a lot of my troubles, but I was an officer of the Imperial Police and I had my duty to do, regardless of my personal feelings towards the man.

  I picked up the telephone and placed another call to Fort William. A different secretary answered this time. There was a delay on the line before I was connected to Dawson, I guessed on his telephone at home.

  ‘What can I do for you, Wyndham?’ He sounded alert and betrayed no surprise at hearing my voice. Nor did he mention whether he had received my message the previous evening. Not that either of these mattered now.

  ‘Do you have a surveillance team at your disposal?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then it’s more of a question of what I can do for you.’

  The call lasted about five minutes. It should have been quicker but he spent much of it asking why he should trust me after what had happened out in Kona. I might have asked him the same question. In the end we reached a compromise. He’d investigate my lead and I’d stay out of his business. He promised to give me an update on his progress but I wasn’t about to hold my breath.

  I hung up and went in search of Digby and Surrender-not. Digby’s office was empty, so I made my way down to the pit where the junior officers sat. Few men were around this early, and other than the duty sergeant, the pit looked deserted. It was only when I passed Surrender-not’s desk that I noticed the pair of skinny brown legs sticking out from under it. For an instant I feared he too had been attacked and left for dead. It was an irrational thought. No one murders a policeman in a police station and hides the body under a desk. I blamed it on the knock on the head I’d received from the two ugly sisters the previous night. Anyway, it was ridiculous to think he might be dead when he was snoring.

  ‘Sergeant,’ I called out, rather louder than necessary. He woke with a start and sat up, slamming his head against the underside of the desk. I’m not normally one for schadenfreude, but the thought that I wasn’t the only one with a sore head that morning did cheer me up.

  Surrender-not, dressed only in his khaki police shorts and a vest, crawled out from his foxhole, jumped to his feet and, after rubbing his head, finally remembered to salute. He looked shocked at the sight of my bruised face, but had the good sense to say nothing about it. I could have berated him for wandering around the office dressed like a coolie but I wasn’t exactly in full dress uniform myself. Instead, I asked him what the devil he was doing under his desk.

  ‘Sleeping, sir,’ he replied.

  ‘I can see that, but why?’

  ‘It pertains to my intention and subsequent retreat from that—’

  ‘Small words please, Sergeant.’

  He started again. ‘I have been forced to leave the family residence on account of my failure to resign my position.’
r />   ‘Your parents threw you out?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘And there’s nowhere else you can go?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not that I can think of, sir.’

  ‘What about your elder brother? Doesn’t he live in Calcutta?’

  ‘He does, sir, but we haven’t spoken in several years. We don’t really get on, and…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘You have irreconcilable differences?’

  ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘they’re reconcilable. That’s part of the problem.’

  ‘Well, you can’t keep sleeping under your desk. We’ll have to come up with a better solution when we have the time. Right now, though, I need to know the progress on Devi’s post-mortem.’

  ‘It’s scheduled for this afternoon.’

  ‘And Mrs Bose?’

  ‘Transferred to the women’s section last night.’

  ‘What about Stevens’ alibi? Any progress on that?’

  ‘His wife, a maid and the durwan all confirm Mr Stevens was at home on the night of the murder. I can bring the maid and durwan in for further questioning if you wish?’

  ‘Maybe later,’ I said. ‘For now, I want you to get dressed, then speak to Buchan’s people in Serampore. Find out what time he’s due back.’

  He looked at me as though I’d just asked him to organise a tea party in the tiger enclosure at Calcutta Zoo.

  ‘We’ve no choice,’ I said. ‘Without Devi or this man she confided in, we’ve no way of finding out what it was that MacAuley was so upset about the night he died. We know Buchan’s involved, so we might as well try to shake him up.’

  ‘Is that wise, sir?’ asked Surrender-not. ‘He’s a very powerful man. If we were to accuse him without proof, I imagine he could make life very difficult for us.’

  I failed to see how Buchan could make things much worse. ‘In the space of the last few days, Sergeant, I’ve been attacked, shot and almost poisoned by my landlady. If Mr Buchan feels he can top that, then good luck to him.’

  As Surrender-not had anticipated, the roads north were still closed, and the fastest way from Calcutta to Serampore was by boat up the Hooghly. So an hour later, after a quick stop off at Mrs Tebbit’s for a change of clothes, we drove to the police jetty near the Prinsep Ghat. Surrender-not had telephoned ahead to the jetty, as well as the thana in Serampore, and a police launch was waiting on the pier. The vessel was commanded by a young English officer named Remnant and manned by a crew of several natives. The boat itself was a bit of a tub, but Remnant and his crew seemed to treat her like a ship of the line. Every inch of her deck was scrubbed clean and her brass bell polished to a shine.

  The tide was with us and we made decent progress upriver. Remnant pointed out the Hindu burning ghat at Neemtollah as the smoke from a funeral pyre drifted out lazily onto the silver water. On the topmost step of the ghat, a priest, his chest bare but for the sacred thread, sat cross-legged, a small congregation at his feet, and solemnly intoned the cremation rites. All were dressed in white.

  The city gradually melted into jungle and the journey took on the air of an expedition. This was the India I’d dreamed of. The wild, mysterious land described by Kipling and Sir Henry Cunningham. The morning mist hung low over the river and clung to the banks like a fine muslin sheet, broken only by the occasional banyan tree or native dwelling. Small wooden boats, some with a simple sail, others little more than hollowed-out canoes, drifted slowly by, their pilots steering their course with long poles.

  On the east bank of the river, a great temple loomed out of the haze, a hundred feet high and utterly alien. The main temple, a large, white, double-tiered construct, was topped with a strange, dome-like structure surrounded by half a dozen or more spires. A row of shrines, twelve in all, stood facing the main temple like disciples paying homage. All shone bright in the early-morning light, their walls pristine white and roofs blood red.

  ‘That,’ said Remnant, ‘is the temple of Kali, or one of them, anyway. There’s quite a few of them dotted around Calcutta, but this one’s my favourite.’

  Offerings to the goddess floated out from the shore, a myriad marigolds, rose petals and small votive lamps carrying the prayers of devotees. Remnant pointed to a row of steps leading down to the water.

  ‘Those are the bathing ghats,’ he said. ‘Hindus believe that a dip in these waters washes away all sins.’

  ‘Odd,’ I said. ‘Yesterday, a Hindu told me that there was no forgiveness of sins. That his karma was unalterable.’

  ‘That’s the thing about Hinduism,’ replied Remnant, ‘it’s so mystical, even the Hindus get confused.’

  Some time later, several brick smokestacks appeared on the horizon, belching black smoke high into the blue sky.

  ‘Serampore,’ said Remnant, as his crew steered the boat towards the west bank. The jungle gradually cleared, revealing several large mansions. They reminded me of photographs of the cotton plantations of South Carolina, their manicured lawns stretching down to the river.

  ‘Elegant little place,’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t it just?’ replied Remnant. ‘It was founded by the Danes, apparently. Vikings on the Hooghly! By all accounts it was a prosperous little trading post until the East India Company throttled it by banning ships from coming upriver. In the end the Danes sold the place to us for a song. Since then it’s been pretty much run by Scots.’

  The launch heaved to shore and slowly docked at an old wooden jetty where stood a bear of an officer who introduced himself as Superintendent MacLean. He was a curious-looking fellow. Flame haired and built like a dreadnought, but with the ruddy pink complexion and soft features of a child, as though his face hadn’t kept up with the growth of the rest of him. His uniform merely accentuated the effect and gave him the look of an overgrown schoolboy, the sort who looks like he was born to play the tuba in the school orchestra.

  ‘Welcome tae Serampore,’ he said. A Scots accent. No surprise there. If I were a betting man I’d have put quite a tidy sum on him hailing from Dundee. He shook my hand with the vigour of a long-lost friend, then proceeded to do the same to Surrender-not, almost lifting the little sergeant clean off his feet. The pleasantries concluded, he led us off towards a Sunbeam 16/20 that stood idling by the roadside.

  ‘You’re in luck, Captain,’ said MacLean as we drove down a pitted dirt track, ‘I believe Mr Buchan returned from Calcutta just this morning.’

  ‘You keep track of his movements?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he laughed, ‘but the pace of things in our sleepy wee town changes when he’s around. There’s always a lot of activity when he comes and goes.’

  ‘The lord of the manor?’

  He smiled. ‘We prefer the Scottish term: laird.’

  The car left the dirt track and joined a main road bordered by a high wall on one side and train tracks on the other. From somewhere close by came the shrill note of a steam whistle. MacLean checked his wristwatch.

  ‘Shift change at the mills,’ he said to no one in particular.

  A little further on there came a break in the wall. A stream of men, both white and native, poured through a set of iron gates embossed with a large metal seal bearing the legend:

  BUCHAN JUTE WORKS

  DUNKELD MILL

  SERAMPORE

  Behind the gates stood a long brick building topped with a corrugated-metal roof, from the top of which rose a large chimney belching black smoke. Beside it were open sheds, some stacked with wooden crates and great circular reels of burlap, others piled high with coarse textiles that shone gold in the morning sun.

  ‘Raw jute,’ explained MacLean.

  Minutes later the car turned off the road and between two tall stone pillars. On one sat a shield depicting three black lion heads in profile, on the other an image of a belt encircling a sun shining on a sunflower. We continued up a long driveway towards a stately baroque pile that made Government House look like a miner’s cottage.

  ‘Here we are,�
� said MacLean. ‘We call it Buchan-ham Palace.’ He smiled, pleased with his own joke.

  ‘Is that sandstone?’ I asked.

  MacLean nodded. ‘There’s precious little of it in Bengal,’ he said. ‘Most of it’s from the Rajput princely states, but some of it was even shipped in from the old country.’

  As we approached, it became clear why the driveway was so long. It was only from a distance that the whole edifice could be taken in. Two vast wings, three storeys tall, surrounded a central core fronted by enough columns to make the Parthenon jealous.

  The car pulled up beside a set of stone stairs that ran up to two large black doors, open to the heat. A couple of native footmen dressed in dark blue and gold livery ran over and opened the car doors, the sun glinting off the fans atop their stiffly starched turbans.

  ‘Thanks for your assistance,’ I said to MacLean, exiting the car.

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said, seeming rather put out. ‘You don’t want me to come in with you?’

  He seemed a nice enough sort, but I didn’t know if I could trust him. Serampore was Buchan’s town and I had no idea where MacLean’s loyalties lay. It was better to keep him out of it.

  ‘There’s no need. I assume Buchan has a telephone rattling around somewhere in this place. We’ll telephone the police station when we’re done.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ he said, stiffening. He saluted and squeezed back into the Sunbeam.

  Surrender-not and I climbed the stairs to the front entrance. Behind us the car started up and sped off back down the driveway, churning up a cloud of dust in its wake.

  We were met at the top by a butler. Not a native, but a white man. In a land where native labour is cheaper than livestock, the presence of a white butler spoke volumes. He was bald, save for a band of white hair that encircled the back of his head. Dressed in a pristine morning suit, he was old and bent and had a creased face that reminded me somewhat of Ratan, Mrs Bose’s decrepit manservant.

  ‘This way please, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Mr Buchan will see you shortly and apologises for your wait.’