Still, best not to dwell on such things. Absently she rubbed her thigh through the layers of her dress. The ridges of the scar pressed into her skin though she could not feel them with her fingers. No, it is best not to dwell on the evil that could inhabit the minds of immature girls. A good Buddhist did not concern herself with material things. Nor did a good daughter of the Empire dwell on misfortune. Perhaps she should just remain in her room for the rest of the journey. She opened her copy of Romeo and Juliet, slipped the bookmark to one side, and continued to read from where she had left off.
There came an abrupt rap on the door, interrupting Romeo’s vengeance on Tybalt. Was it possible the universe connived against her? With a sigh, she lifted her feet from the comfort of the footstool and headed for the door. She glanced at herself in the usefully placed mirror by the door—her hair needed some attention, but she would do.
“Who is it?”
“Temperance,” said the light, Welsh-accented voice.
Maliha fixed on a smile and pulled open the door to the pretty and slightly flushed face of Temperance Williams. She inhaled deeply on the ivory cigarette holder between her lips and removed it, holding it delicately in the fingers of her right hand. There was an awkward pause as if Temperance were waiting for something. She breathed out smoke.
“Do you want to come in?”
“No, no, cariad, I won’t disturb you more than I must.”
There followed another awkward silence; Temperance took another lungful of smoke and glanced up the companionway to where one of the maids had appeared around the corner, wiping handrails. Temperance looked down at the book still clasped in Maliha’s hand.
“Do you have one of those Shakespeare plays I could borrow?”
Maliha suppressed her surprise. “Of course, any one in particular?”
Temperance glanced again at the maid. “Oh, I’m not so bothered. I just fancied something to read until dinner. Just like you. Thought I’d sit in the lounge. Something light?”
“Twelfth Night, perhaps?”
“Just the thing.”
Maliha stepped away, feeling awkward leaving her visitor at the door. It took only a moment to find the volume. Temperance waited and watched. She reached out her hand as Maliha returned.
“A couple of hours of Shakespeare, what could be better?” With that, she turned away and bounced lightly past the maid and into the port-side companionway.
Maliha closed her door with a click, looking at the Do Not Disturb sign that hung on the inside handle wondering if she dared hang it outside the room in the middle of the day. “Indeed, a few quiet hours with Shakespeare. What could be better?”
Chapter 2
i
Maliha had no one to help her change for dinner. Most of the first-class passengers came with at least one personal servant, if not an entire retinue. But she was not alone in doing without; even the general’s wife had no one. Irascible she might be, but she was self-sufficient. Or perhaps they simply could not afford it. They would rather travel first class without staff than second class. And the vessel did provide personnel on request. That, however, was a facility Maliha did not feel comfortable with. The school required them to look after themselves (although obviously the other girls had helped one another). This was no hardship.
She stared into the mirror one more time and adjusted her hair. She wondered whom she was trying to impress. Certainly no one on board this ship. But was it wrong to have pride in one’s appearance? At what point did making oneself look pleasing turn into hubris? But was life itself not a form of art? Should one not deport oneself as pleasingly as possible?
She had been born into a family of two religions, Hindu and Scottish Presbyterianism, and she had spent the last years being forced to behave like a good Anglican. She found the teachings of the Buddha to be more to her taste.
She cut herself short by pulling open the door. She closed and locked it behind her, slipping the key into her reticule. It was twenty minutes before seven, enough time to order a drink in the lounge as the other passengers would do. She would have avoided it, but it was important to conform, at least for now.
As she approached the junction between her side passage and the port-side companionway, she found her way barred by the steward she had noted earlier displaying the unexpected curiosity regarding the general’s private conversation. He moved to block her way, forcing her to arrest her motion by gripping the rail, but her momentum carried them inappropriately close. So close she could smell his breath. His wrinkled uniform seemed a size too large for him.
“Sahiba?” His voice was pitched high, and his eyes flicked nervously from somewhere near her feet to her face.
He did not seem menacing, and Maliha suppressed her fears. The idea that anyone would attempt something unpleasant in such an open place was not sensible. Still, she stepped back until a more suitable gap opened between them.
“What do you want?”
He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a folded envelope, and thrust it at her.
“For Lochan.”
“Lochana Modi?”
The steward hesitated then nodded. “Ji haan.” He spoke in Hindi.
With an effort (it had been a good many years), Maliha made her best effort to reply in kind, though her native tongue was Tamil. “Give it to her yourself.”
Unfortunately that was the exact moment Mrs Makepeace-Flynn chose to float past. The older woman stared at the two of them—an eyebrow raised in admonishment—before her momentum carried her out of sight towards the lounge. Maliha was grateful the general’s wife seemed unable to grasp the simple science behind movement in reduced gravity. She turned her attention back to the steward.
“I cannot,” she said.
But he pushed the letter into her hand, and she clutched it reflexively as it slipped when he released it. He spun around and headed away from the lounge. He was clearly experienced at movement under the Faraday effect.
Maliha spread the envelope out in her hands. The name “Lochan Modi” was written in careful English in the centre. She turned it over and examined the back: it was one of the older sort of mass-produced envelopes where the sticking was left to the purchaser. That was another deprivation living in India would impose, unless she chose to spend a great deal of money on the imported pre-gummed envelopes. In this case, the sender had chosen to seal the envelope with a large splash of common wax.
She wondered whether it came from the steward or someone else. If it was the steward, why had he not attempted to deliver it in the previous few days? The answer was clear enough even as the question presented itself. She did not recall having seen him before; therefore, he had come aboard at Khartoum. His confidence on the vessel, however, indicated he was a genuine employee of the P&O line.
She examined the envelope again. The handwriting was quite precise, but the pen must be old since the letters were uneven and scratchy. Most likely written by one of the street-corner scribes she had seen in Pondicherry when visiting with her mother.
ii
“Seen my nurse? Blasted chit’s disappeared off somewhere.”
The general hove into view, wheeling himself. This was no great exertion with the ship in flight, although he still seemed to expect someone to do it for him if such were available. Maliha pushed the letter into her reticule, and when she looked up the practiced smile was once more on her face.
“I’m sorry, General, I have not seen her. I’ve been in my room since tea.”
“Be a dear and shove me up to the lounge, would you? We’ll see if she’s there. Couldn’t dress myself for dinner, had to get one of the ship’s boys to give me a hand.”
“Of course, General.”
She got behind him and propelled him effortlessly to the lounge.
The buzz of polite conversation grew as they approached, small knots of people discussing everything and nothing. She scanned the room for the group to which they belonged. She spotted Mrs Makepeace-Flynn talking to the Spen
cers, Valerie and Maxwell. They were newlyweds moving out to the Fortress in Ceylon. He was an engineer engaged by one of the many companies that had sprung up around the British void-port, for the construction work of the Queen Victoria station hanging thousands of miles above Ceylon on the very edge of the void itself.
As they passed the bar Maliha glanced across to see if the steward was there. He wasn’t.
“It’s really terribly exciting.” Maxwell Spencer’s voice was the kind that penetrated background noise like an angry wasp or, in his case, a happy wasp. Maliha couldn’t decide whether the perpetual bonhomie of the Spencers was genuine. “They keep the station with its Faraday device continually activated, and it stays up there at about seven thousand miles. We’ll be able to see it on clear nights, I’m sure.”
Maliha let the wheelchair roll to a gentle halt beside the small group.
“That seems an awfully long way,” said the general’s wife. She did not acknowledge her husband’s arrival.
“About the same distance from London to Bombay, in fact.”
“So it would take five days to get up there? That would be wearisome, without even a change of scenery or stopovers.”
“Oh, not at all.”
Maxwell Spencer was warming to his subject and given half a chance would talk all evening. Maliha had experienced the same effect when she had been cornered by Valerie and made the mistake of mentioning she had never read an Indian romance by Bithia Mary Croker. She had come away reeling from the onslaught of plot details and character names.
“You see, this top-of-the-range Sky Liner—the pride of the P&O fleet—has a maximum speed of a mere one hundred miles per hour. But a vessel built to travel the void, even one that only travels between the ground and the station, can achieve speeds of five hundred miles per hour or even more: Less than a day is required to reach the station.”
“And you will be going up?” asked Mrs Makepeace-Flynn innocently. There was no doubt she already knew the answer and sought only to pierce his good humour.
There was a distinct lag in Maxwell’s enthusiasm. “Not personally, no.”
The general chose that moment to cut in. “Evening, Barbara. Max. Seen Lochana by any chance?”
If Mrs Makepeace-Flynn’s tone with Maxwell Spencer had been subtly cutting, her response to her husband was undisguised malice.
“I have not. Perhaps she fell overboard.”
Valerie Spencer chose that moment to turn away and take a long sip from her glass. Her husband, on the other hand, completely failed to recognise the menace.
“Oh, nobody can actually fall overboard, can they? I mean, the upper decks are fully enclosed and do not open.”
“Who’s fallen overboard?” Temperance arrived from deeper within the lounge, a freshly lit cigarette burning in the holder dangling from her left hand; she wore a very modern dress with a distinctly French look about it and no corset. Mrs Makepeace-Flynn’s face reddened with the effrontery of such a provocative garment, and even Valerie looked shocked. The general seemed unmoved.
“Seen my nurse, Miss Williams?”
Temperance looked down at the general as if he had just crawled out of a sewer. Then her face relaxed, she placed the tip of her cigarette holder delicately between her lips and drew a leisurely breath.
“She came through the lounge earlier, said she was feeling a little under the weather. She said she might take a turn about the Promenade deck.”
“Oh dear, she’s not well?” Valerie chimed in. “Perhaps someone should check on her.” And her eyes flew to Maliha. “Don’t you think so, Miss Anderson?”
Maliha smiled. One thing one could be sure of with Valerie Spencer; she would never use Maliha’s first name. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know, Valerie; besides, who would push the general?”
“Quite right,” said the general. On cue, the dinner gong sounded, and like Pavlovian dogs the ensemble drifted towards the companionway. “If you wouldn’t mind, Maliha.”
iii
The dining salon’s round tables had been transformed. Where they had held the simple adornments for tea earlier in the afternoon, they now carried a ravishing selection of china and cutlery. There were huge flower arrangements that towered, thin and spindly, up to the ceiling with a minimum of support. Elegant glassware—made especially for the vessel—with images from Greek mythology engraved into each piece, artistry of the finest quality, finished off the place settings in fine style. Rows of Greco-Roman columns supported the ceiling and the walls were decorated with Greek frescoes. During the day, the pictures were covered up using curtains, to give the room a cosier aspect.
Being forward of the main cabin areas, the port side of the room was lined with windows that looked out on the darkening sky and the Red Sea; they were now travelling south-east along the African coast. When they reached Abyssinia they would turn north-east, following the Gulf of Aden and thence to the Indian Ocean and Bombay.
Stewards moved swiftly but without haste, seating travellers in the oak chairs and providing drinks as needed. Maliha wheeled the general into position as one of the stewards removed a heavy chair from the table; then she took her place between him and Maxwell Spencer.
Each person at the table positioned themselves in their usual configuration. There was a vacant seat on the other side of the general that would have been occupied by Lochana, and beyond that Mrs Makepeace-Flynn. Beside her on the other side was William Crier—a banker or an accountant, Maliha wasn’t sure which. He disconcerted her in that he did not express the natural prejudice of his peers, and always took time to be interested in his companions—an interest that seemed quite genuine.
The general’s wife had taken to him, and apparently he never tired of listening to her complaints. Continuing clockwise around the table, there was Temperance who was another confusing character: she was passionate in her faith but fond of Parisian fashion. She had been very friendly towards Maliha on the first day but turned cold quite quickly. After that, she had turned her attentions to Lochana.
Then came Valerie Spencer and finally Maxwell. It was easy to prod Maxwell into talking for a long time before he wound down, and to Maliha, at least, his talk of machines and engineering was not uninteresting, even if he did have a habit of repeating himself. As a result, the evening meals were not as arduous as they might have been. If Maxwell dried up or conversed with his wife, the general was another easy target for a pretence of conversation.
Apparently Mr Crier had commented about war wounds and set off the general.
“Not been bound to this damn chair for very long at all. Last saw action in the Transvaal, putting down that damn farmers’ revolt back in ’02.”
Temperance’s head jerked up. “But surely, General, it was their land.”
“Nonsense. We took it fair and square back in the 80s; they only existed at all on our sufferance. We let them stay and farm, provided protection from the natives, and then they had the audacity to object.”
Temperance looked down at her plate. “You just don’t see it, do you? You started with the Welsh, then the Scots, then anywhere else in the world that isn’t significant enough to give you pause. A nation of bullies.” Her accent became more pronounced with every word.
“Oh look, the first course!” broke in Valerie, as waiters flooded from the door at the end of the salon. “I wonder what it is.”
“Fish,” said Mr Crier.
Maliha breathed a quiet sigh of relief and turned her attention towards the food.
iv
The general’s nurse failed to put in an appearance during dinner and, as a consequence, Maliha was co-opted for more wheelchair management. They returned to the lounge for bridge. The tradition of the men drinking and smoking without the ladies was dispensed with on-board and, as the evening drew on, it was natural to either retire or return to the lounge. The Spencers had chosen to retire, claiming the shortened days of the vessel for their excuse.
Maliha found herself the general’s partn
er against Temperance and Mrs Makepeace-Flynn. The other tables were occupied with games of whist and backgammon. The electric lights burned through the pall of smoke that rose from the combined combustion of a hundred cigars, pipes, and cigarettes. The steady hum of conversation filled the ears along with the occasional bark of laughter or raised voice.
Meanwhile, through the wide expanse of glass in the stern, the twin trails of smoke were lit by a brilliant moon that reflected off the Red Sea, with the dark masses of Africa to the left and Araby to the right.
It was all so civilised. So British.
Both Mrs Makepeace-Flynn and Temperance were matched in their aggressive bidding and more often than not, one or the other was dummy, forcing Maliha to remain at the table. The general was more measured, though it might have been the brandy slowing him down. Maliha bid predictably; she had learned years ago it did not pay to stand out. At around 10 p.m. they were on the last hand of a rubber, and she was dummy.
She grabbed at the opportunity and excused herself for the night. A turn around the deck to clear her head of the smoke and noise seemed wise, and she quickly mounted the stairs. She kept on past the Promenade deck up to the Observation deck. As she had expected, there were many passengers of a similar mind, but the subdued lighting protected her from their stares.
She looked over the inner balcony down onto the Promenade deck. Some young fellows were playing football, with their jackets for goalposts. It was a foolish idea in reduced gravity, but their good-humoured laughter at their own antics, bouncing high into the air and doing somersaults and making the ball fly to prodigious heights and distances, made her smile—although she judged them a little worse for drink.
Moving to the outer hull, she gazed into the dark. The moon’s light sparkled on both the rotors and the sea. Here and there, along the coastline, the light of fires: perhaps tribes of African nomads, or villages of sunbaked mud buildings.
v
“A penny for your thoughts, Miss Anderson?”
“Mr Crier.” He had appeared beside her, quiet as a mouse. He held a glass of wine in one hand and a glass of water in the other. To her, he proffered the water.
Murder out of the Blue (Maliha Anderson Book 1) Page 2