Midnight at Malabar House (Inspector Wadia series)

by Khan, Vaseem

  Blackfinch sent the waiter scurrying off to fetch a cold beer to begin proceedings. Persis settled for lime water. She watched as the Englishman shrugged off his jacket, set it neatly on the back of his chair, then pulled off his spectacles and wiped them with a tablecloth. A fan directly above the table cooled the sweat on his forehead.

  She looked on in mild amusement as he picked up and replaced his fork, knife and spoon with exacting precision, then set the condiments in a regimented line that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a parade ground. He twisted the salt shaker three times clockwise, then did the same with the pepper shaker.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He seemed to realise that his actions had provoked her curiosity. ‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ he muttered.

  ‘I suppose you’re one of those people who have to have things just so.’

  ‘Something like that,’ he murmured, not meeting her eyes. She realised that he was embarrassed by this revelation. She couldn’t imagine why. Most men she knew, including her own father, were far from meticulous. Her own temperament gravitated towards clean lines and orderliness; it was a welcome relief to find herself in the company of a kindred spirit.

  The thing with the shakers had been a bit odd, however.

  Around them conversations ebbed and flowed, punctuated by the clatter of cutlery and the clink of glasses.

  Persis discovered an unexpected awkwardness within herself.

  There had been other lunches, of course. Dinners too. With men, some of her own choosing, others foisted upon her by Aunt Nussie and other well-wishers who did not stop long enough to ask if she wanted or needed their help. Some of the men she had stepped out with had shone brightly for a while, and then things had simply fizzled out. Something never quite right. Too vain, too dull, too lacking. In what, she was not always able to define, to the exasperation of her aunt.

  There had been one, three years earlier, just before she had made the decision to join the police service. A fellow Parsee, son of a grandee, but a man who professed to an independence of spirit. He had been neither tall, nor broad, nor classically handsome. Yet he possessed that indefinable quality that some called charisma. Always impeccably dressed, with a cavalryman’s moustache, and a habit of smoking expensive Woodbine cigarillos. He fancied himself a littérateur. They had talked long into the night, debating the works of the greats – Dostoevsky, Joyce, Hemingway, the Brontë sisters, Tagore – aggressively comparing their favourite tomes. A decade older, he had seemed wise beyond her ken.

  One night, she had given herself to him.

  Three weeks later, he had vanished. A month after that, a wedding card arrived, inviting her to his impending nuptials in Delhi.

  ‘You have an interesting name,’ she said, seeking a neutral beginning.

  ‘I could say the same about you.’

  ‘Not really. Persis is common enough in the Parsee community.’ She explained that Persis meant from Persia, alluding to the fact that the Parsees had fled their ancestral homeland centuries earlier as a nascent Islam’s grip closed over Iran and its neighbouring states. That heritage hung lightly upon her shoulders. She was a child of Bombay, twenty-seven years old at century’s midpoint, and as fiercely patriotic as any of her fellow citizens, a matter that had been put to the test time and again in recent years.

  He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that lit up his handsome features. ‘My father was a scientist, a chemist. I think naming me Archimedes was his way of saluting one of the greats. I have a brother named Pythagoras. It was worse for him. I could always get away with being Archie. There’s not much room with Pythagoras. Boys can be awfully cruel.’

  They chatted for a bit, filling in family details, background. She told him about her father.

  ‘Do you still live with him?’

  Persis frowned at the question. Where else would she live? Who would look after him if she moved away? She had often wondered if this thought lurked at the back of her mind each time the idea of marriage reared its head. She couldn’t imagine Sam on his own; she couldn’t imagine not being there to stand vigil with him through his loneliness. Was it such a sacrifice? She did not think so. She was an independent-minded woman; she did not need to prove it by living on her own.

  She discovered that Blackfinch had been in the war. ‘I didn’t see much of the front, mind you. I spent most of my time behind a desk in Whitehall, in the War Office's science division. My background is chemistry – I’d followed in my father’s footsteps – and I was part of a team developing what they euphemistically called “modern” weapons. Classified stuff. When the war ended, I needed a change and so I joined the police, trained as a criminalist, a crime scene specialist. I did that for a while, then, a couple of years ago the War Office—now the Ministry of Defence—found me again. They had a special assignment for me, one that I could not rightly refuse. They sent me out to suspected mass graves across the former battlefields of Europe, to gather evidence of war crimes. I was there with a team: pathologists, ballistics experts, the like.’ He stopped a moment, his green eyes focused somewhere in the past. ‘It was one of the worst things that I have ever had to do, one of the worst things that anyone can be asked to do. You know, in some of those graves, we found women with babies still in their arms.’

  She had no idea how to respond to this.

  He asked her about her life, her childhood, growing up in India. The questions made her uncomfortable. Those had been difficult years; it wasn’t until her late teens that she had made any real friends, ones that she had carried with her into adulthood. But now Jaya was married with a young child and another on the way; Dinaz had moved to Calcutta to work with the Sunderbans Forest Management Division; and Emily had returned to England with her family in 1946. She had remained in touch with all three – sporadic pen letters, or hurried coffee meetings in Jaya’s case. They had stood shoulder to shoulder through the grim years of the Quit India movement – even Emily – but now, she felt their absence keenly.

  She remembered something Emily had said to her once. ‘You’re a hedgehog, Persis. You’re built to be alone.’ She had felt a sense of sadness at the remark, but Emily had not meant it unkindly.

  A waiter clattered over to the table, flapping gigantic menus at them. ‘Why don’t you choose for me?’ Blackfinch suggested from somewhere behind his.

  She ordered a mutton dhansak and the house speciality, chicken berry pilaf.

  He asked her about the case. Quickly, she filled him in.

  ‘You’ve made quite a bit of progress,’ he said.

  ‘Not as much as I might have hoped. I still have no real motive for the killing.’

  She realised that other diners were looking their way, sly glances that slipped away as soon as she turned to them. She wondered, briefly, if the lunch had been ill-judged. The Parsee community was a small one; gossip travelled around it at the speed of light, ricocheting from ear to mouth. God knows what Aunt Nussie would make of it. As cosmopolitan as she favoured herself, her aunt was a traditionalist at heart. It would be unthinkable for Persis to entertain an Englishman in that way. Not that that was what she was doing. As for her father . . .

  ‘Let’s examine what we know,’ the Englishman in question suggested. He began ticking off items on the fingers of his right hand.

  He has nice hands, she thought. A pianist’s hands. She shook the stray thought out of her head, annoyed with herself.

  ‘One: Herriot was killed between midnight and approximately one. His body was discovered at one-ten. Two: he was killed with a knife, a curved blade, which, as far as we can determine, is no longer on the premises. Three: he was murdered by one of sixty-seven people present that evening. Four: I discovered no fingerprints in his study that did not belong to Herriot or to his regular staff. This tells us that his killer was either incredibly careful or wore gloves. Which would not be surprising given that it was a costumed ball.’ He smiled. ‘Five: he was involved in a government enquiry int
o crimes committed during Partition. Six: something may have been taken from his safe. We can only speculate as to what that might have been. Valuables, perhaps, or documentation regarding his investigations – documentation that may have subsequently been destroyed.’ He stopped, his eyes trained on a fly that had landed on the lip of his glass.

  ‘Seven,’ she continued, ‘we know that he met a man named Vishal Mistry that evening, a man whose name was absent from the official guest list.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ He seemed annoyed that he had missed something. ‘Who is he exactly?’

  ‘I’m not sure. We’re still trying to trace him. Eight: Lal and Herriot were overheard fighting that evening. Nine: we have a set of trivial-seeming items that bother me.’

  ‘Such as?’

  She explained about the ticket stub and the sheet torn from a notepad. She took out her own notebook and showed him the name, BAKSHI, and the enigmatic set of characters: PLT41/85ACRG11.

  ‘Means nothing to me, I’m afraid,’ he said after studying the page. ‘What makes you think these have any relevance to Herriot’s death?’

  ‘I just don’t like not knowing.’

  He smiled. ‘That makes two of us.’

  ‘There’s something else. Point ten . . .’ She paused.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘On the night of Herriot’s death, you took a handkerchief from his study.’

  Blackfinch set down his fork. ‘Yes. I was getting to that.’ He cleared his throat. Colour rose faintly to his cheeks.

  She wondered again how old he was. She suspected that his unlined face made him younger than his years.

  ‘I found something on the handkerchief. I took it away for testing.’

  ‘But you already suspected what it was?’

  ‘Yes.’ He stopped.

  ‘And?’

  His gaze slid away. ‘Perhaps this isn’t the best place to—’

  ‘For God’s sake, just spit it out.’

  Her reaction stumbled him across the finishing line. ‘Very well. There was a male . . .’ – he searched for the word – ‘discharge on the hankie.’

  ‘Do you mean semen?’ said Persis. ‘If you mean semen, then why don’t you just say semen?’ Her voice had risen; she realised other diners were staring at her. The waiter, returning with dessert menus, was gawking at them open-mouthed. ‘Look,’ she said, through gritted teeth, ‘I appreciate that you bring certain skills to the investigation, but the next time you take evidence from one of my crime scenes without explaining to me precisely what you are doing, I will not be so understanding.’

  He stiffened, then nodded. ‘Fair enough.’ They resumed their meal.

  The waiter set down the menus, took their orders, then retreated with haste.

  ‘This discharge,’ said Persis, ‘I suppose it means that Herriot was with a woman that night.’

  ‘Yes,’ he managed weakly. ‘My tests – acid phosphate-based – indicate vaginal secretion alongside Herriot’s . . . semen.’

  She looked down at her plate. In spite of her previous sentiment, colour had risen to her cheeks. It wasn’t every day one’s lunch partner seasoned the conversation with the word vaginal. ‘So who was his dance partner that night?’ she mumbled.

  ‘More importantly, what does it tell us about him?’

  ‘It tells us that somewhere out there is a person who was with him moments before he was killed.’

  She recalled the objects on Herriot’s desk, how something about them had bothered her. She realised now what that was. They had all been placed towards the edges of the desk, leaving the centre free. ‘They used the desk,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Herriot and his lover. They used the desk for their . . . liaison.’

  There seemed little to add to this. The waiter returned with coffees.

  ‘Is there a Mr Wadia?’ Blackfinch asked eventually.

  ‘Yes,’ she said automatically. ‘My father. Sam Wadia.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘No. There is no Mr Wadia.’

  A short silence. ‘What about you? Is there a Mrs Blackfinch?’

  ‘Not any more.’ He stared at her over the top of his cup, light reflecting from his spectacles.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I did not know.’

  ‘What are you sorry about?’

  ‘Your wife’s death,’ she burbled.

  ‘My wife’s dead?’ he said. ‘Well, in that case I pity the devil. Hell is going to be an uncomfortable place for the rest of eternity.’

  She stared at him. ‘I see. You did not mean that your wife had passed.’

  ‘I didn’t say that, did I?’ He gave a disarming grin. ‘My wife and I married young. Turns out we were completely unsuited to each other. We spent six miserable years together and then, one day, I discovered that she had taken up with another man. She left me a note. It simply said: Let’s not waste any more of our lives.’

  ‘She seems like a wise woman.’

  ‘She was a witch. A basilisk.’

  ‘I have only your side of the story. In my experience men are just as capable of duplicity.’

  ‘Do you have a lot of experience?’

  She coloured, but did not reply. ‘Do you have children?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘That, at least, was one mistake we did not make. Thank God.’ Another silence passed. ‘What is it like? Being India’s first policewoman?’

  ‘I don’t think about it. I just want to be allowed to do my job.’

  ‘Fat chance of that.’ He grinned. ‘We’ve had them for a while in England. Policewomen, I mean. I met one once. Very bright woman. Also, great teeth.’

  She picked up her coffee again. ‘How did you end up in India?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure. I did seven months with the war crimes team, before returning to London. But I couldn’t settle. Something had changed, I had changed. I rejoined the Met Police, spent six months teaching at a new forensic science training college they’d just set up. One day, I got a call, out of the blue, from a man I’d worked with on the war crimes team, a pathologist. He said he’d been invited out to India. Said they were looking for trained people. Told me I could write my own ticket. I talked to my bosses at the Met. They agreed that it might not be a bad idea for me to spend some time out here.’

  ‘Do you enjoy it? Being here?’

  ‘I’m not sure if enjoy is the word I’d use.’ He caught her expression. ‘What I mean is, that it’s all very different. The heat, the language, the mosquitoes. The lack of attention to things I’ve always taken for granted.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as . . . well, hygiene, for one.’ He moved on hastily, as she bristled. ‘I’m not saying I dislike it. It’s just . . .’

  ‘Different?’

  The meal ended on this discordant note, and she found herself wondering what it was about people that inevitably brought her to this pass. Then again, as Aunt Nussie would sometimes tell her, perhaps it wasn’t other people.

  Perhaps it was her.

  Following the lunch, she drove to Marine Drive and Laburnum House to track down Madan Lal. Blackfinch did not accompany her. He had lab work pending on a number of other cases. The Mumbai Police Service was keeping him busy, supervising a team of eager young technicians, training them in the dark arts of forensic science.

  Entering Laburnum House for the second time in as many days, Persis was struck by how different the place seemed. Gone was the gaiety of the New Year’s Eve ball. The house was all but deserted, accentuating its size. She wondered what it must be like to live in such a vast space. Perhaps her father was right. A home was only a home if you could reach out and touch another human being.

  She was escorted to an office on the ground floor where she found Madan Lal scanning a newspaper at his desk. His jacket was off and he sat in a stiff-backed wooden chair in a pressed white shirt and tie. He waved her into the s
eat before him, then gestured in disgust at the newspaper. ‘I sometimes wonder if journalists take a sacred oath to misrepresent the truth. A great man dies and all they can talk about is the fact that Sir James was found in a state of undress.’

  ‘You have to admit, it is unusual.’

  ‘That’s hardly the point,’ he countered. ‘Should a man’s life be reduced to the circumstances of his death? Here lies Sir James Herriot, tireless campaigner for Indian independence, consummate diplomat . . . who died without his trousers.’

  Persis forbore from replying. She sensed Lal’s exasperation.

  ‘At any rate,’ he continued, planting his elbows on the desk and fixing her with an earnest gaze, ‘how have your enquiries fared?’

  She realised what it was about him that she found so attractive. He reminded her of the man she had surrendered herself to, the con artist who had stolen her heart, then trampled it into the dust. Lal had the same physical presence, small and neat, exuding a sense of self-belief that belied his seemingly placid nature.

  She debated with herself just how much to tell him.

  Lal had no official standing in her investigation; she was not required to report to him. And yet, he had access to information that would be difficult for her to obtain without his cooperation. She would have to tread a careful path.

  She supplied him with a summary of her actions since the night of Herriot’s death.

  ‘What did you make of Tilak?’ he asked, when she had finished.

  ‘He was very open. He explained the work that Sir James was doing for the government. You knew, didn’t you?’

  Lal nodded slowly. ‘Yes. Sir James confided in me. At least the outlines of the task. He could not go into any detail.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because it was not my place to do so. You must understand, these are highly sensitive matters. Sir James’s investigation was of national importance. It is not something that I, or, for that matter, you may discuss openly.’

  ‘Then how am I to investigate?’