Cold Case in Nuala (The Inspector de Silva Mysteries Book 10)

by Harriet Steel

  ‘I hope there was nothing seriously wrong with Emerald.’

  ‘On no, she just gets tired sometimes. It’s not long until the baby’s due. She had a rest and then was in good spirits over lunch. But tell me how you got on this morning. I hope you don’t mind that I told Emerald and David where you and Archie had gone. David recalled that Marina Moncrieff came to see him several years ago. He said she was very distressed because her husband had left home without any explanation and she had no idea where he was. He prescribed some medication for her nerves and told her to come back if she needed more help, but she never did.’

  ‘Well, it seems the husband never came back, and now Marina Moncrieff is missing too. But I’ll tell you more when I see you. Shall I pick you up?’

  ‘That would be lovely. We’re just having coffee in the garden. Emerald says you must join us.’

  ‘Excellent. I need a word with David in any case. I think the dead man may be Donald Moncrieff, and I hope he can help me to prove it.’

  **

  The Hebdens’ bungalow was in the same style as Sunnybank with a deep, shady porch to the front and a verandah running along the length of the building to the rear. The garden was, however, a different matter. David Hebden’s interests lay in sport. He was particularly keen on cricket and generally recognised to be the best player in the Nuala team. He was the first to admit that where gardening was concerned, he barely knew the difference between an orchid and an onion. The bungalow’s garden was kept tidy by two gardeners but when one of the house servants showed de Silva out to the verandah, as always he couldn’t help thinking of what he would like to do if the place was his.

  Hebden stood up to greet him. ‘Good afternoon, old chap.’

  De Silva kissed Jane’s cheek and Emerald’s proffered hand. ‘How are you, dear lady?’ he asked.

  ‘I feel like a beached whale, and a very hot one at that.’

  ‘I’m sure no whale has ever looked so lovely.’

  She laughed. ‘You always know the right thing to say.’ She signalled to the servant who had shown de Silva through. ‘Bring another cup and some fresh coffee, please. Would you like anything to eat, Shanti?’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ve just had lunch.’ He grinned. ‘The waistline police would not approve of more.’

  ‘Settle yourself down,’ said Hebden. ‘I understand you’ve had a busy morning.’

  ‘Yes, as I expect Jane’s told you, Archie Clutterbuck called at breakfast time and wanted me to go up to the Moncrieff plantation with him.’

  ‘And a dead body has been discovered there.’

  ‘Not exactly a body,’ de Silva said.

  He explained about Perera and his friends visiting the plantation and what they found, going on to describe his own visit with Archie. ‘So, we have a suspicious burial and a vanished husband,’ he finished. ‘I don’t think one needs to be Hercule Poirot to put two and two together and reach the conclusion that the bones in that grave may belong to Donald Moncrieff.’ He looked at David Hebden. ‘I hope you can help me put some flesh on that theory.’

  ‘So, Marina Moncrieff is nowhere to be found,’ said Jane thoughtfully.

  ‘Goodness, do you think she murdered him?’ asked Emerald with a frown. ‘If this were a detective novel, I think it would be too simple an answer. The story would be over almost before it began.’

  De Silva smiled. ‘Real life doesn’t necessarily follow the pattern of fiction, but I grant you that it’s too soon to close off all other avenues of investigation. Nevertheless, I want to find Marina Moncrieff as soon as possible. At the moment, she has to be my prime suspect.’

  The coffee arrived and he sipped his while the four of them talked and he told them more about the Moncrieff plantation, Flint, its manager, and Donald Moncrieff’s stepmother, Isobel.

  ‘She sounds a dragon,’ remarked Emerald. ‘And she obviously didn’t care for her stepson.’

  ‘From what Archie told me, not many people did.’

  ‘You said you hoped I could help you to put some flesh on your theory,’ said Hebden. ‘What did you mean by that?’

  ‘The man’s left tibia had been broken in two places. Perera’s doctor, Michael Rudd, pointed out that the break had been fixed and the bone fused before death. Do you have any memory of treating Donald Moncrieff for such a thing?’

  Hebden pondered for a few moments. ‘I’m afraid not. I don’t recall him ever coming to me for treatment. That’s not to say he didn’t have an accident before my time. When Doctor Lucas retired, he left his notes on his patients at the surgery. It will take me a while to go back through them, but I’ll do that and see what I can find for you.’

  ‘I’d be most grateful.’

  Emerald smothered a yawn. ‘Oh, please excuse me. I seem to have no more energy than a baby at the moment.’

  Jane smiled. ‘I think that must have something to do with the fact that you’ll soon have one.’ She stood up. ‘We should be going, Shanti.’ She patted Emerald on the shoulder. ‘Take good care of yourself, my dear. I’ll telephone you in the week for a chat.’

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  ‘And thank you for the offer of help,’ said de Silva to Hebden.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  **

  As they drove home to Sunnybank, distant views of the green hills of the tea terraces flashed between the gaps in the trees lining the road. The taste of coffee still lingering in his mouth, de Silva wondered how different the landscape of the Hill Country would have looked if the coffee plantations that had originally cloaked the hills had not been devastated by the blight that had ruined many planters. Today, the tea grown in the ideal climate of the uplands was Ceylon’s most famous and one of her most profitable crops. Donald Moncrieff must indeed have been a neglectful owner if the Moncrieff plantation had run into difficulties in a couple of years as Peter Flint claimed.

  ‘A penny for your thoughts,’ said Jane.

  ‘I was thinking about tea. Peter Flint indicated that he’s still working to make the Moncrieff plantation as profitable as it should be after Donald mismanaged it. But with all the advantages up here, I’m surprised a couple of years had such a damaging effect.’

  ‘I suppose if he was very extravagant, it’s possible.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What will you do tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll have to go up to the Residence and talk to Archie again. I don’t expect he’ll relish raking over old events, but I want to know more about these rumours that Donald Moncrieff was seeing a woman and had run off with her. Where did they start and who spread them?’

  ‘That might not be easy, dear. The nature of rumours is that they tend to be slippery when you try to pin them down.’

  He sighed. ‘I know, but potentially Marina Moncrieff is facing a very serious charge. It’s no time to deal in assumptions, and if she turns out to be innocent, discovering who spread the rumours might provide me with alternative leads.’

  Billy and Bella emerged from the shrubbery and trotted over to meet them as they got out of the car. De Silva bent down to stroke them. ‘I think I’ll leave Archie in peace for today,’ he said, straightening up. ‘But I’d better telephone Inspector Singh at Hatton and the Kandy station. I’d like them to be on notice as soon as possible that we’re looking for Marina Moncrieff. She may even have got as far as Colombo by now if she drove through the night, so I’ll call there too.’

  They went into the drawing room and de Silva showed her the photograph of Marina and her husband.

  ‘What a handsome couple they make,’ observed Jane. ‘She’s very stylish, and that looks like a very expensive car.’

  ‘A Bugatti. Apparently, it’s the one he raced in, and it’s vanished along with him. The photo must have been taken at least eight years ago, of course. Archie reckoned that Marina would be in her mid-thirties by now. Donald was, or is, fifteen or twenty years older than her. I’m afraid the photograph won’t be a great help. It’s pity that the s
unglasses hide her eyes, but it’s all I could find. I’ll use it to get some missing person notices made and have them circulated but that will have to wait for the morning.’

  **

  The afternoon was well advanced by the time he had finished making his calls. He had caught up with Singh at home but had to contact the other stations direct. Being a Sunday, it had not been so easy to find the right people to issue instructions to mount a search for Marina Moncrieff.

  ‘Sit down and have a rest, dear,’ said Jane sympathetically when he came out to the verandah. ‘Shall I have some tea brought out?’

  ‘Thank you, but I think a walk around the garden will do me more good.’

  He went down the steps and headed for the vegetable garden, Bella following in his wake. On the way he stopped in the shade of a lime tree and paused to smell the citrusy tang of its fruits, nestling like little green grenades amongst the leaves. Further on, he nipped off a few leaves of the mint growing in his herb patch. Rolling them between a finger and thumb, he sniffed them, thinking fondly of the deliciously fresh sambol they would make.

  The powerful aroma of peppermint cleared his head. First thing tomorrow, he would get the printers to make the missing person notices and have them put up around Nuala and other places Marina might have reached. Then he would give Prasanna and Nadar the job of searching the area where the skeleton had been found. The chances of finding anything after eight years were slight, but he must close off that avenue. Whilst they were busy with that, he would pay a visit to Isobel Moncrieff. He wanted to know more about why she was so sure that her stepson had run off with this mistress of his.

  He moved on to potter in the greenhouse; he always found it restful to tend to the plants that he and his gardener grew there. Bella leapt up on the staging and daintily picked her way between flowerpots and seed trays to an empty space that had been warmed by the sun. She lay down and stretched, then proceeded to wash her paws. De Silva was just finishing pinching out the tips of some geranium cuttings when he noticed that the sky had turned pink, shot with streaks of gold. Soon it would be dusk. He finished his task and wiped the soil from his hands. Bella’s head lifted and she yawned, showing sharp little white teeth against a rose-pink mouth. He scratched her behind one ear and her eyes narrowed in bliss.

  ‘Time to go in, little one. I expect your supper will be ready. I wonder what there is for you this evening. Some tasty fish perhaps.’

  Bella jumped down from the staging and darted off in the direction of the bungalow. De Silva smiled. It was amazing how she understood what you said to her, although Jane claimed it wasn’t the words that she understood but the tone you spoke them in.

  After dinner, he and Jane went to sit on the verandah.

  ‘Poor Archie,’ said Jane. ‘I can’t help feeling a little sorry for him. I know it looks as if he did the wrong thing, but at the time it must have been tempting to sweep an unpleasant business under the carpet. And if none of the family was pressing for an investigation, there wouldn’t have been much incentive to start one.’

  Time in the garden, and a good dinner that included his favourite pea and cashew curry, dahl fragrant with caramelised onions and spices, and fried jackfruit chips had put him in a mellower mood where Archie was concerned.

  ‘I suppose it isn’t so hard to understand. I’ll forgive him as long as he doesn’t try to obstruct me now.’

  ‘I’m sure he won’t, dear.’

  She was probably right. Whatever one said about Archie – and there were times when he found his boss infuriating – he was on the whole a fair-minded man.

  ‘Shall we have some music this evening?’ he asked.

  ‘That would be nice. It seems ages since we listened to the gramophone.’

  ‘Is there something you’d like?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t mind. You choose.’

  In the drawing room, he went over to the gramophone and thumbed through their record collection. It had grown over the years and was now quite extensive although records were costly in Ceylon as they had to be imported from England or America. He wasn’t in the mood for anything classical this evening, and dance music seemed too energetic. He settled on Cole Porter, removed the record from its sleeve and put it on the turntable. As he went back to the verandah, the languid opening bars of Begin the Beguine drifted through the balmy evening air.

  Chapter 5

  The following morning, after he had arranged for the posters to be printed and spoken to the undertakers, he went to the station and brought Prasanna and Nadar up to date with events, also explaining the background to Donald Moncrieff’s disappearance. The two young men looked slightly bemused, as well they might. It was a lot to take in.

  ‘Do you think this gentleman did not run away with his lady friend after all, sir?’ asked Prasanna.

  ‘That’s about the size of it, but we need proof, not just a hunch. I want to go back to the Moncrieff plantation now. We’ll lock up the station so the pair of you can come with me. Two people are better than one for the job I have in mind.’

  The journey to the plantation passed without hindrance from broken-down carts or runaway chickens. When de Silva parked the Morris at the house, the servant, Muttu, must have heard the car for he hurried out to meet them.

  ‘There has been no word from the memsahib, Inspector,’ he said anxiously.

  ‘It’s alright, Muttu. We’ve not come to check up on you. I want my men to search the area where the bones were found, and I want to pay a visit to Mr Moncrieff’s stepmother. Please telephone her to say that I am on my way and give me directions.’

  Muttu explained the route then de Silva took Prasanna and Nadar to the site of the grave before returning for the Morris and setting off.

  **

  Isobel Moncrieff’s home was a bungalow, but a rather large one. Its paintwork looked fresher and its woodwork better cared for than that at the main house. Someone cared about the garden too. The shrubberies to either side of the gravel sweep in front of the property were neatly clipped, and there was a central bed filled with roses with not a weed in sight.

  He went to the front door and looked for a bell to ring but there wasn’t one. Instead, there was a brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head, so he rapped sharply. A few moments passed before he heard the rattle of a chain being undone. The door opened. A servant who looked considerably older than Muttu and a great deal less obliging regarded de Silva with an impassive expression on his face.

  ‘Is Mrs Moncrieff in?’

  ‘She is at breakfast.’

  Eleven o’clock seemed a late hour for breakfast but de Silva didn’t comment.

  ‘Please tell her that Inspector de Silva of the Nuala police would like to speak to her. I understand my visit has been notified, but if it is inconvenient, I will return later.’

  The servant murmured something, then leaving de Silva on the doorstep, went back inside. Whilst he waited, de Silva contemplated his surroundings. The dark-green paint on the front door was immaculate, and the lion’s head knocker gleamed. The windows along the front of the bungalow looked spotless, but it was impossible to see into the rooms beyond because blinds were pulled down in each one. When he finally managed to get inside, though, he doubted he would find a cobweb-festooned ruin as Pip had done in Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations, a book he had recently read. Isobel Moncrieff was probably exacting, even if she was reclusive, and her servant just ill-tempered. From the way Archie had described her, he had probably caught that from his mistress.

  Just as he was beginning to think that he was to be left on the doorstep all morning in revenge for having given such short notice of his visit, the impassive servant reappeared. ‘The memsahib will see you now.’

  De Silva stepped inside, and as his eyes became accustomed to the change in the light from the brightness of the morning sunshine, he saw that the hallway was not at all gloomy. The walls were decorated with a pretty wallpaper patterned with leaves and flowers in
the Chinese style. A vase of fresh flowers stood on a small side table, also in the Chinese style, and on either side of it there were high-backed mahogany chairs with cane seats.

  The servant paused by the door at the end of the hall and stood aside for de Silva to enter. He stepped in and froze; a few feet away from him there was a tiger. Its lips were drawn back in a snarl, and white fangs gleamed in its cavernous, scarlet maw. De Silva’s feet seemed glued to the floor as, heart thumping, he waited for it to spring. Then the servant moved between them, and he realised that there was the hint of a smile on the man’s face. A tiger-skin rug: no doubt it was a little joke at the expense of new visitors that he enjoyed. On a side table nearby there was a framed photograph of several men and one woman dressed for hunting. A tiger carcass lay at their feet, presumably the same tiger that was now a rug.

  Sufficiently recovered to turn his attention to the rest of the room, de Silva saw that it was airy and elegantly furnished with a view over the rear garden. Unusually, there seemed to be no verandah, but perhaps there was one elsewhere.

  ‘Come in, Inspector. Let me have a look at you.’

  The haughty, disembodied voice came from the direction of a wing chair upholstered with red velvet. Isobel Moncrieff was obviously bent on getting the upper hand. Resolving to do his best to counter her efforts with calm composure, de Silva approached across the turquoise and rose Persian carpet.

  ‘It’s good of you to see me at such short notice, ma’am. I trust you didn’t have to hurry your meal.’

  ‘Not at all, although breakfast is, I’m sure you will agree, the most important of them all.’ He thought he detected a hint of mockery in her smile. In her day, he thought, she must have been a beauty. Even now, her classic features and high cheekbones gave her a very striking appearance, although the thick makeup she wore didn’t completely conceal the lines on her forehead and the crows’ feet around her eyes. Her hair was a soft shade of dove grey, arranged in a chignon, and she wore a flowing caramel-coloured ensemble with a string of pearls and delicate pearl earrings.