by Nev March
Burjor grunted. “Byram, the old coot. It was his idea. After Diana’s display at the Sureewala dinner”—he sent her a hard look—“no decent Parsee will marry her! So we came to an accommodation with the elders.”
Adi said, “Papa’s being modest. He’s got to fund a trust for widows and orphans. And there are several conditions.”
“Yes.” Burjor nodded slowly. “Diana cannot inherit anything. And your children will not be Parsee.”
Children. Diana’s children. With me. My breath rattled about. I searched her face, saw it was true. Yet I didn’t understand—would they pay an awful price for this generosity?
“But sir, the scandal…”
“Oh, some will drop us, of course. But we’ll survive. If nothing else, we have the army contract for tea and coffee”—he poked my chest—“that you got us in Simla!”
They would be all right. My heart hammered like a drummer gone berserk. “The younger children?”
Mrs. Framji smiled her sweet smile. “They’ll wed, someday. In a few years, the Parsees may forget.”
Taking in her warm approval, I asked Burjor, “So we have your blessing?”
He smiled that wide, jowly, unconstrained grin, his dark eyes twinkling.
Diana wound her fingers through mine. “Such a mad scramble to get a cabin! Arcadia is full, not a cabin to be had. Can you imagine? Sutton got your friend General Greer to pull some strings. Chief McIntyre called the owner, Mr. James MacKay, himself! So I’m traveling first class!”
I laughed. My God. The Framjis, Byram, McIntyre, Sutton and Greer. A formidable army—resolute, inexorable and in my corner.
Joy overflowed, a deluge, like the rain now beating down on us. Adi shook out an umbrella and held it over his parents. Picking Diana up, I swung her around. A crowd gathered around us, but I didn’t care.
“Adi, let’s have that ring!” I cried, dropped to a knee, grinning at Diana, squinting up through the rain.
He handed it over. It was perfect. Lady Bacha would approve.
“You’re everything to me, Diana. Come with me, sweetheart, marry me, love me,” I said. “We’ve waited long enough.”
EPILOGUE
We were married on board two days later. Alone in our cabin, with the slow roll of the SS Arcadia Diana whispered into my neck, “Jim? Why did you write this book?”
Diana’s face against my skin, I breathed in her fresh sweetness. Catching the curl that bounced against my chin, I rubbed its satin between my fingers.
Those last weeks in Bombay I had tried to give her up. Yet it was giving up a part of me, and that I could not do. Some remnant of my tale should survive, I’d decided. Picking up my pen brought comfort. Precious, short hours slipped through the casements that night and each night after. I’d written to remember, so that something would remain when I was gone.
“Jim?”
“History. It will remember the ladies, Bacha and Pilloo. Adi will likely build something fine and go down in history. But us? History will never know us at all.”
Diana pulled up and gazed at me, amused. “History?”
“Mm. It will forget me. And you, sweetheart. I wanted to leave something behind. A record of some sort. To say, ‘I was here. I did my part. I loved Diana.’”
“Stop talking, love,” Diana said, and carried me away on a wave of pure joy.
GLOSSARY
Afghan: tribal militia in the Frontier province and Pakhtun-khwa princely state, now Afghanistan
Almirah: armoire, cupboard or cabinets of wood to store clothing
Angrez: English, British
Arkati: procurer of slaves and indentured servants for transport to Guyana (also called Guiana)
Arrey: an exclamation like “Oh!”
Babu: minor official
Baith-khana: chamber to meet people, sitting upon cushions and carpets
Bao-di: dialect form of Babuji, a term for an older male, father in some Indian dialects
Bearer: liveried servant
Betho: a directive to sit
Bhayah: brother
Bibi: a suffix for women
Bindi: round dot on a woman’s forehead indicating she’s married, and a Hindu
Brahmin, Shatriya: names of priestly and warrior castes (in Hinduism)
Burkha: floor-length covering, may cover the face or leave it open
Buss: “Enough!”
Chador: cloth covering for the head
Chaloh Dikra: Gujarati for “Come on, son,” may be used for either gender
Chana-wala: vendor of nuts
Chaprasei: peon or clerk, menial worker
Charpai: literally “four legs,” a bed or bench with woven seating
Chee-chee: exclamation of disgust, literally “dirt”
Chikki: sweets made with caramelized sugar, nuts or sesame seeds
Chor bazaar: flea market, literally “thieves’ market”
Coolies: porters who carry luggage or loads upon their heads
Dacoit: pirate, thief
Dharam: religion
Dhobi: washman, launderer who cleans clothes
Dhoti: baggy trousers formed by wrapping a long cloth about the lower body
Durwan: doorman
Fauji: soldier
Foolscap: legal-size sheets of paper
Gharry: enclosed carriage
Havildar: tower guard, in charge of security, usually locks and unlocks the facility
Hei Bhagvan: exclamation, “Oh God”
Hill station: vacation place, usually on a hilltop
Huzoor: a salutation, “sir”
Inquilab: revolution, rebellion
Jaldi: quick
Janab: a salutation, “sir” (northern India)
Johur: ritual suicide of noblewomen to avoid capture
Kasam-seh: “I promise”
Khastegari: formal meeting between two families to discuss marriage
Khoja merchants: a sect of Mohammedans, often trading families
Khuda-hafiz: goodbye
Kurta-khamiz: long shirt over baggy pants, worn by north Indian men
Maidaan: open field
Maji: salutation for mother
Malee: gardener
Mela: religious fair, festival
Melmastia: Afghan practice of hospitality, part of the tribal tradition of Pashtunwali, a code of honor.
Memsahib: salutation for women
Naag: cobra
Paji: salutation for older male, like Babuji
Parade rest: an army standing position between attention and at ease
Pashto: language of the Afghan province
Pathan: a tall mountain race that live in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan
Pat-Rani: head queen, first queen
Payal: anklets made of metal links
Pehelvan: athlete, strong man
Poori: fried roti bread
Qila: fortress, village fortification
Rakhee: cloth bracelet given by a sister to a brother
Rakhsha-bandhan: festival in August when sisters tie a Rakhee on a brother’s wrist and receive a gift and promise of protection
Rani Sahiba: salutation to address a queen
Rickshaw: carriage pulled by a person
Roti: unleavened roasted bread
Sabzi: a vegetable dish
Sahib: a salutation, similar to “sir” or “Mr.”
Sais: groom who tends horses or drives carriages
Salaam, Sahib: a greeting, generally to a superior
Sanad: permission sheet
Saree: floor-length garment worn by Indian women
Sati: ritual immolation of a widow on husband’s funeral pyre
Sepoy: enlisted soldier
Shabaash, Sahib: “well done, sir”
Shalwar: garment, clothing
Shama karo: a request to forgive, apology
Shamshan Ghat: cremation ground
Sowar: mounted soldier
Subedar: army rank for native officer
&
nbsp; Tonga: two-wheeled carriage pulled by a mule or horse
Tonga-wala: driver of a tonga carriage
Tulsi: plant with medicinal properties
Vada: potato patty
Vada-pav: street food, potato inside a small loaf of bread
Vaid: local physician
Verandah: balcony
Victoria: horse-drawn vehicle or open carriage
Zenana: women’s quarters in a palace where upper-class women were secluded from all males other than the king and family members
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Reading Rudyard Kipling’s Kim in my youth left an indelible impression upon me—its wide landscapes, varied characters and non stop suspense. As children, Mum read us stories by Conan Doyle, “The Red-headed League,” “The Speckled Band.” With what bated breath we absorbed each winding sentence! To my parents I owe my love of books and reading, a gift more precious because books were expensive in Bombay in the seventies, when we had little—my father often worked three jobs. Having no TV, our family read and discussed books avidly.
To my husband I owe a debt of faith. When, after working twenty years in the corporate world, I grumbled, “When I retire, I’m going to write a novel!” he said, “Why not now?” Giving up an income is scary, more so for immigrants without a family safety net to fall back upon, such as the kindness of aunts and uncles in the old world. He saw the joy that writing gives me, and that was enough. My son Cyrus wrote a brilliant critique that shaped my revisions and steered me away from tired tropes. Thank you. To my early readers, Cindy Simon, Cindy Sapp, Crystal Willock and Khursheed Parakh, who as far back as the nineties told me, “Keep writing. It’s good,” I thank you.
Above all I’d like to thank my writing group, Marlene Cocchiola, Jay Langley, Mark Snyder, Tony Athmajvar and Evelyn Van Nuys. Marlene focused on emotion, insisting, “But how did he feel, hearing that?” while Evelyn measured pace and emotion, ensuring each page maintained the desired emotional temperature. With decades of editorial experience, Jay reviewed my manuscript twice to tighten up my prose. His wife Catherine pointed out what a reader might misunderstand, which helped me reword key sections.
My agent, Jill Grosjean, a God-send, guided me through the business side of publishing. Each conversation teaches me more about the business. With the calm born of vast experience, she shared industry norms and processes that gave me confidence to proceed.
I am indebted to Mystery Writers of America, to whose contest for unpublished writers I submitted a humongous manuscript of 138,000 words. Despite its length, MWA’s judges deemed it worthy, awarding it MWA/Minotaur’s Best First Crime Novel. Thank you. I am overwhelmed.
Kelley, Madeline and the staff at Minotaur, I have been blessed to have you midwife this book. Kelley Ragland’s unerring instinct for pacing was spot on. Each detailed email helped me see what I could not see before. Her insistence that I trim the mid-section of this book has made all the difference. Thank you, Madeline Houpt, Hector DeJean and Danielle Prielipp, for your professionalism and expertise. No book is written in a vacuum. I was incredibly fortunate to have a magnificent set of colleagues and friends support this one.
I’ve had the idea for the “secret letter” used in this book, for decades. In 2005 I advertised for a Gujarati translator to translate the 1858 autobiographical poem by my ancestor, Bejonji Ferdonji Jhansiwala, who was a British army mess man during the Sepoy Mutiny. Since it was written in 150-year-old Gujarati, our family could not read it! Fortunately, Mrs. Mani Bhathena of Australia replied, and I mailed her a copy of the manuscript. Lacking a computer, each day she took a single page to her public library to email me the translation. Four months later, I pieced together 123 pages, and at long last, learned of the awful brutality my grandmother’s grandfather witnessed. His account contradicts the official version—it would have been dangerous to publish before Indian independence in 1947, so our family kept it hidden. To Mani, I say thank you for your tireless devotion, unlocking my family’s secret history.
My book contains two incidents that historians could take exception to: the events I’ve described in Karachi and Lahore in 1890–1892. Records of Victoria Cross and Indian Medal of Honor recipients describe several skirmishes between tribesmen and British Indian soldiers between 1880 and 1919 (second and third Anglo-Afghan wars). While there is no record of an Afghan occupation of Karachi Port in 1890, there was much civil unrest in the area that is now Pakistan and Afghanistan, between tribes and the British Raj. In the 1891 Anglo-Brusho War, British Raj troops fought the armies of Hunza and Nagar princely states, which are now part of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan province. Hostilities began when the British began building a road through Kashmir, which the Mirs of Hunza and Nagar objected to. The British army won control of Nagar after the 1891 battle of Nilt Nagar (Jangir-e-Laye), and made it a British protectorate in 1893.
True, there is no record of Lahore being burned by Afghan tribes in 1892. In September 1897, Indian soldiers of the British Raj fought the Battle of Saragarhi against Afghan tribesmen. When thousands of Afghans surrounded the British Fort called Gulistan, the Sikh contingent holding this supply post was cut off from Fort Lockhart. Twelve thousand Orakzai and Afridi tribesmen attacked, vastly outnumbering the handful of defenders.
Led by Havildar Ishar Singh, the Sikh group chose to fight to the death, in one of history’s most tragic last stands. The outpost was taken back by the British army two days after their death. Therefore, while fictional, the episodes in my book are based on historical events.
To India, land of my childhood that woke so many memories, thank you for inspiring this book. To my Zoroastrian community, this book is for you, to see yourselves through the eyes of those who love you but are apart.
Nev March
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NEV MARCH is the winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. Leaving a long career in business analysis in 2015 she returned to her passion, writing fiction. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Hunterdon County Library Write-Group. A Parsee Zoroastrian herself, Nev lives with her husband and two sons in New Jersey. Murder in Old Bombay is her debut novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1: The Widower’s Letter
Chapter 2: The Interview
Chapter 3: The Facts
Chapter 4: The Father
Chapter 5: The Victims
Chapter 6: The Sister
Chapter 7: The Library
Chapter 8: The Tower
Chapter 9: A New Addition
Chapter 10: The Key Witness
Chapter 11: Let Me Help
Chapter 12: Who was Bacha?
Chapter 13: Ripon Club
Chapter 14: Doctor Jameson’s Revelation
Chapter 15: Damned Personal Questions
Chapter 16: An Old Friend
Chapter 17: Where is Diana?
Chapter 18: Back to the Clock Tower
Chapter 19: Night Menace
Chapter 20: Maneck, the Accused
Chapter 21: Dinner with the Police Superintendent
Chapter 22: Miss Pilloo’s Letters
Chapter 23: The Dance
Chapter 24: Confrontation
Chapter 25: Lady Sleuth
Chapter 26: Making Plans
Chapter 27: Reckoning
Chapter 28: A Pathan Comes to Dinner
Chapter 29: Away to Lahore
Chapter 30: Unexpected Events
> Chapter 31: The Purchase
Chapter 32: Ambushed
Chapter 33: On the Trail
Chapter 34: Reunion
Chapter 35: The Test
Chapter 36: Setting Off
Chapter 37: Tale of Port Karachi
Chapter 38: A New Partnership
Chapter 39: Exploring Pathankot
Chapter 40: The Haunted Zenana
Chapter 41: Sheared
Chapter 42: The Quarrel
Chapter 43: Leaving Simla
Chapter 44: Maneck’s Story
Chapter 45: Havildar’s Secret
Chapter 46: Revisiting Poona
Chapter 47: New Allies
Chapter 48: Magic
Chapter 49: Following Kasim
Chapter 50: My God, Man!
Chapter 51: I’ve Been a Fool
Chapter 52: SS Vahid Cruiser
Chapter 53: On Board
Chapter 54: A Funeral
Chapter 55: Interrogation
Chapter 56: Kasim’s Story
Chapter 57: Bacha’s Sacrifice
Chapter 58: Colonel Sutton’s Proposal
Chapter 59: Diana’s Conjecture
Chapter 60: Burjor’s Edict
Chapter 61: Discovery
Chapter 62: The Missing Letter
Chapter 63: Purple Milkweed Flowers
Chapter 64: Port Karachi Revisited
Chapter 65: Return to the Clock Tower
Chapter 66: Meltdown
Chapter 67: A Verdict
Chapter 68: A Farewell
Chapter 69: Leaving Bombay
Epilogue
Glossary
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
MURDER IN OLD BOMBAY. Copyright © 2020 by Nawaz Merchant. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
www.minotaurbooks.com