Daughters of India

by Jill McGivering

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Asha

  After the police-wallahs took away Isabel Madam, the house lost its life.

  Singh puffed out his chest and ordered them about, pretending nothing had changed. He made Bimal dust and polish empty rooms. Cook made meals for the servants only. All the talk was of the scandal and of how they might find new positions without references. Cook, in particular, was angry.

  ‘How does it look? A death from poisoning and me, a cook.’

  When the house fell quiet after dark, Asha sought out Bimal. He flinched when she found him, hidden away in one of his dark holes.

  ‘If you say anything, you’ll hang.’ She pressed her face against his. ‘You bought the poison. You’re as much a murderer as I am.’

  His eyes shone with fear.

  Asha passed the afternoons curled in Madam’s chair. The trees at the window stuck green fingers into the sky. I did it, Krishna-ji, she told him, just as you said. She remembered his face as she saw it for the last time, his brown eyes sunk in their sockets, his body hot with fever. I avenged you and my baba also.

  A mutter of voices rose like smoke from the servants’ quarters. The words were indistinct but she knew what the topic would be: how to find work. Where would she go? She didn’t know. Go back to Delhi or to your baba’s village, Amit had said.

  It seemed now to matter so little. Her baba was gone and Sanjay Krishna too and, however long she lived and however hard she worked and wherever she travelled, she would never see them again and her life seemed a spoilt thing because of it.

  She slipped on her chappals and went to the Hanuman temple to breathe the incense there and see the wilting flowers hung round the neck of the giant monkey statue and do puja in remembrance of those she had lost.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Isabel

  A thin British man with ink-stained fingers and a worn briefcase visited Isabel’s cell. John Scott, he said. Government lawyer.

  ‘Did you know my husband?’

  He looked round at the foul-smelling bucket in the corner of the cell, the rickety wooden table and chair, the rusting cot.

  ‘I didn’t have that pleasure, Mrs Whyte.’

  He wiped over the seat of the chair with his handkerchief, took a yellowing notebook and pen from his briefcase and unscrewed the pen’s top.

  ‘I am appointed to act as your defence counsel.’

  Isabel sat opposite him on the cot and folded her hands in her lap. ‘My husband and I did not have the happiest of marriages. But I didn’t poison him.’

  He didn’t answer. He busied himself with writing a heading, putting date and place at the top of the page and underlining both.

  Isabel said: ‘Are they certain it wasn’t heatstroke? He was out on the water all day. The doctor seemed to think—’

  He interrupted without looking up. ‘The symptoms of datura poisoning are almost identical to heatstroke. That’s what led the good doctor astray. But the tests are conclusive. They sent samples to the government laboratory in Calcutta.’

  Isabel looked at his head, bent forward over his notes. Strands of combed hair lay loosely across the pink dome of his skull. She clenched one hand with the other. ‘Mr Scott, do you think I murdered my husband?’

  His voice was without emotion. ‘My personal opinion is really of no consequence, Mrs Whyte. My role is merely to represent you.’

  Isabel looked round the cell. Flakes of lime from the walls peppered the floor. A single window, set high, gave a glimpse of empty sky.

  She said: ‘If you suspect me, is it right for you to take the case?’

  He gave a frown. ‘I depend on government work.’ He made another note in blue, watery ink. ‘Besides, no one else would take it.’ He set down his pen and cracked the knuckles of his right hand. ‘Now, shall we begin? Tell me exactly what happened on the evening of your husband’s death.’

  Isabel took a deep breath and began. He questioned her insistently on her final conversation with Jonathan.

  ‘Did you quarrel?’

  She shook her head.

  He lifted his pen from the paper. ‘Are you quite sure, Mrs Whyte?’

  ‘Of course. Why do you ask?’

  He gave her a queer look. ‘We may face testimony to the contrary.’

  Jonathan was dead. No one else had been present. ‘From whom?’

  He paused. ‘The prosecution will argue that there was a fierce row between the two of you that evening. That your husband accused you’ – he paused, searching for the most delicate form of words – ‘of inappropriate conduct with a third party. That he threatened you with divorce and you threatened him.’

  ‘Threatened him?’ Isabel stared. ‘Who said such a thing?’

  ‘Your maid.’

  The walls of the cell seemed to press in around her until they squeezed the air from her lungs.

  ‘You said your marriage was unhappy. Why?’

  She hesitated, looked down at her hands in her lap, at the wedding ring still on her finger. ‘My husband’s sexual tastes were,’ she hesitated, ‘unorthodox.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Mr Scott raised an eyebrow. ‘I have no wish to be indelicate, Mrs Whyte, but I must ask you, in what sense?’

  She blew out her cheeks. ‘Our marriage was barely consummated, Mr Whyte. He seemed to prefer’ – she hesitated – ‘young boys.’

  He set down his pen. ‘That’s a very serious allegation. Do you have evidence?’

  She considered. ‘We have a houseboy. Bimal. My husband mistreated him.’

  ‘Will he testify to that effect?’

  She thought of Bimal, crouched, tearful, in a corner of the balcony. ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘On the question of your own conduct,’ Mr Scott looked over his papers. ‘Your maid named a gentleman. A Mr Edward Johnston.’

  ‘Edward?’

  He gave her a sharp look. ‘So you are acquainted with the gentleman?’

  ‘He stayed with us, studied my husband’s work.’

  The pen scratched across the paper.

  Isabel got to her feet and paced to the far side of the cell. Why had Asha dragged Edward into this?

  Mr Scott watched as she walked back and forth. ‘And how would you describe the nature of your relationship with Mr Johnston?’

  ‘He’s a friend. A colleague of my husband’s. He’s a government officer and missionary in Car Nicobar.’

  ‘So I understand.’ His eyes were sly. ‘And you recently stayed on Car Nicobar with Mr Johnston, I believe?’

  ‘With my husband’s consent, yes. That’s no secret.’ Her face felt hot. ‘I helped at the Mission School.’

  He tapped his pen against the paper. ‘The prosecution may summon Mr Johnston to testify, Mrs Whyte. If there has been any impropriety between you, it would be prudent to tell me now.’

  She shook her head. ‘Mr Johnston is an honourable man, Mr Scott. There was no argument that evening. I made no threat.’

  ‘I see.’ He closed his notebook.

  That night, Isabel lay awake in the darkness. Scraps of moonlight made the lime-washed inner wall gleam with an unearthly glow.

  She thought back to her first visit to the prison when Asha’s father hanged. Jonathan sent him to the gallows. The girl had every reason to hate them both.

  Somewhere in the darkness, a cockroach scratched across the floor and she drew the sheet more closely around her body. She’s just a child, she thought. I never understood how she suffered, how she grieved.

  She thought of Rahul, imprisoned far away in Delhi. She thought of Sanjay Krishna, striding through Delhi in his demand for freedom, chained like an animal in the hold of the SS Maharajah, bloated and defeated at last in a rough cotton shroud at the feet of his enemies. She turned on her side, lifted her hands to her face and wept.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  In the weeks that followed, Mr Scott made frequent visits to her cell. His pen scratched and his file thickened but they seemed to make little progre
ss.

  He returned often to the same questions. The prosecution had found numerous witnesses to testify that her marriage to Jonathan was not a happy one. Was she certain that she and Jonathan didn’t argue on that final evening, as her maid said? Had there ever been talk of divorce? Her decision to accompany Mr Johnston to Car Nicobar, without her husband, had shocked many in Port Blair. How could it be explained?

  She felt his eyes on her face as he repeated the questions, time and time again, and she rehearsed the same answers. Mr Johnston is an honourable man. There was no impropriety.

  On one occasion, he said: ‘You made certain allegations, Mrs Whyte, about your husband’s sexual conduct. I interviewed your houseboy.’ He checked his notepad. ‘Bimal.’

  Her heart quickened. ‘And?’

  ‘He denies there was any misconduct. Sahib was a kind man, he said. I quote: I loved him like a father.’

  She got to her feet, paced to and fro. ‘He was scared witless of Jonathan. Everyone knew it.’

  Mr Scott closed his notepad and slid it into his briefcase. ‘Everyone may have known it, Mrs Whyte,’ he said, ‘but if that is the case, it is strange, is it not, that no one will speak of it?’

  He gave her his cold smile and got to his feet. He banged on the cell door with the heel of his palm to be released back into the outside world.

  ‘I can only help you, Mrs Whyte,’ he said, as he waited to leave, ‘if you tell me the truth.’

  The trial began.

  Isabel was led to a stuffy room in a remote wing of the jail. As she entered, a prison officer grappled with the windows, set high in the outer wall. They seemed stuck fast. His only tool was a long hooked pole and the task of catching the worn ring at the top of each window and hauling it open was not an easy one. His efforts loosened specks of paint, which fluttered down and peppered his hair.

  Battered ceiling fans turned overhead. There was a long table at the top of the room and she was escorted to a seat to one side of it. Chains, binding her wrists, were fixed to its arm. A dozen rows of chairs had been set out for spectators and, as she settled herself, she felt a general craning forward in her direction and an intake of breath, followed by windy whispers.

  Lady Lyons sat on the front row in a subdued grey suit, flanked by Mrs Copeland and Mrs Allen in a flamboyant new hat. Mrs Allen flinched and looked away when she caught her eye. She knew others too, some by name, some merely by sight. Port Blair society had gathered in full force.

  The prison officer released a second window with a bang and was anointed by a fresh shower of paint. At the same moment, a procession of British men filed in from the back, wove a path between the spectators and gathered behind the long table at the front. Mr Scott was amongst them, battered briefcase in hand. He and several other gentlemen stood reverently by their chairs and waited while Sir Philip settled into his place in the centre, grandly flanked by his men as if he were presiding over The Last Supper.

  A middle-aged man rose and declared himself to be the chief prosecutor on behalf of the Crown. He was balding and his nose was bulbous and criss-crossed with veins. He tucked his right thumb into the side of his waistcoat.

  ‘I submit,’ he said, ‘that this was a cold-blooded, premeditated crime.’

  Isabel looked along the table to Mr Scott. His chin tipped forward onto his chest.

  ‘Jonathan Whyte was a kind and patient man whose only crime was to marry unhappily.’ He pulled his hand from his waistcoat and flourished it. ‘The prosecution will show that his wife’s infidelity drove him to threaten divorce proceedings against her, provoking such fury in her breast that murder ensued. A cunning murder. Murder with a poison whose symptoms were so similar to those of heatstroke that, had suspicions not been aroused, it might have lain undetected.’

  Isabel saw at once how things lay. The ladies were round-eyed with shocked pleasure. This was the most delicious scandal to erupt in the Andaman Islands since Mrs Doyly was axed to death by her manservant. In the eyes of this community, she was already guilty. She closed her eyes as the prosecution began its evidence against her.

  One of the most damaging witnesses was Mrs Copeland.

  ‘How would you describe the accused, Mrs Copeland?’

  She sniffed. ‘When Mrs Whyte arrived in Port Blair, I made every effort to befriend her. I would describe her, however, as a cold and aloof person.’

  She spoke with deliberate care, as if rehearsed. Isabel looked across at Mr Scott. He bent forward over his papers, pen in hand, drawing a series of concentric circles and shading them in.

  ‘How would you describe the accused’s relationship with her husband?’

  ‘Most peculiar.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘After his marriage, Mr Whyte spent most evenings at The Club, everyone knows that. Why would he rather eat there, all alone, than go back to his own home? Well, it speaks volumes, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Indeed.’ The prosecutor paused, shuffled his papers. ‘You suggest in your evidence that the accused’s affections lay elsewhere?’

  She sniffed. ‘While Mr Whyte dined at The Club, she and Mr Johnston had intimate suppers under his roof. Then she ran off with him to join the savages. It was the talk of the town.’

  Sir Philip interjected: ‘If you could perhaps confine your answers to evidence you saw or heard yourself, Mrs Copeland?’

  ‘Of course, Sir Philip.’ She smiled across at him.

  The prosecutor continued. ‘Mrs Copeland, you spent some time with the accused immediately after her husband’s death?’

  ‘I did.’ She looked smug. ‘As soon as I heard, I went straight round. Out of Christian charity.’

  ‘And while you were in their home, you happened upon some surprising documents?’

  She nodded emphatically. ‘Someone had to look through her husband’s papers for details of his relatives, addresses and whatnot, in order to write to them. Mrs Whyte was in no fit state.’

  Isabel recalled the soft flap of paper as Mrs Copeland rummaged through their belongings.

  ‘And what did you find?’

  She looked round the court, savouring the moment. ‘First of all, an incriminating letter addressed to Mr Whyte.’

  ‘In fact, I have it here.’ The prosecutor pulled a thin sheet of paper from his file. ‘A letter to Mr Whyte from Assistant Commissioner Barnes, the officer in charge of the Cellular Jail. The assistant commissioner makes reference to enclosed material with regard to, I quote: your wife’s regrettable conduct. He writes: Please be assured of my utmost discretion.’ He turned back to Mrs Copeland. ‘Did you then, or do you now, know to what this letter refers?’

  Mrs Copeland pulled a face. ‘I didn’t at the time but afterwards I happened to invite Mrs Barnes, the assistant commissioner’s wife, to tea and she told me everything. Apparently that woman, the accused, was in correspondence with one of the most dangerous subversives in the jail, that fellow who drowned.’ She paused, for emphasis. ‘She was a sympathiser.’ She looked round the courtroom. ‘We might have been murdered in our beds because of her.’

  A tutting and bobbing of hats.

  ‘Mr Barnes has made a statement to the court to that effect.’ He pulled a sheet from his file and presented it to the court clerk to set before Sir Philip. ‘Mrs Copeland, did you find anything else?’

  ‘I did.’ She glowed. ‘A receipt in Mrs Whyte’s writing case. From a pharmacist in Port Blair. For datura.’

  ‘The same substance that was used to poison Mr Whyte?’

  ‘Exactly.’ She stabbed the air with a podgy finger. ‘It was made out to Mrs Whyte quite specifically. Dated a fortnight before his death.’

  The prosecutor looked round the courtroom with satisfaction. ‘I would like to submit to the court a signed statement from the aforementioned pharmacist. He confirms the sale of datura to the accused. He saw the accused with his own eyes, waiting outside his shop while her servant made the purchase. Clothing, matching the description he gave, has been found in the accused’s wardrobe.’
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  He turned back to the witness. ‘Thank you, Mrs Copeland. You’ve been most helpful.’

  That evening, Mr Scott came to visit Isabel in her cell. He looked doleful as he seated himself at the rickety table and drew out his papers.

  ‘You should have told me about your relationship with Sanjay Krishna, Mrs Whyte.’

  Isabel paced up and down in front of him, turning on her heel in the small space. ‘He wrote to me and I replied, that was all. It was nothing.’

  ‘But enough to alarm Mr Barnes and your husband, it seems.’ Mr Scott shook his head. ‘Now, about the poison.’ He pushed his spectacles back up his nose. ‘The pharmacist is quite certain he saw you outside his shop. Have you any explanation?’

  She leant forward and rested her forehead against the wall. The brick was cold and lime flaked onto her skin. She imagined how many other prisoners had pressed against it through the years.

  ‘None.’ She lifted her head and turned to face him. He regarded her without expression. ‘Mr Scott, I did not murder my husband. I don’t know what more to say.’

  He straightened his papers into a pile.

  ‘They have one more witness, I believe. Mr Edward Johnston.’

  She sat down on the cot with a bump. Her breath stuck in her throat.

  ‘He’s here?’

  ‘He’s just arrived in Port Blair.’ He watched her closely. ‘He has made a request to see you.’ He paused. ‘I’m not sure that’s wise.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head at once, feeling panic rise. ‘Please refuse the request.’

  He slid his papers into his briefcase. ‘That’s probably for the best.’

  ‘Will he testify?’

  ‘The court won’t sit over the weekend but I expect him to be called on Monday.’ He got to his feet. ‘As you know, he’s a man of God. If anyone speaks the truth under oath, I would imagine it might be him.’ He gave her a curious look. ‘If, as you say, there has been no impropriety in your relationship, his testimony may prove helpful.’ He turned to leave.