‘And what happens if those bastards come back tonight — or tomorrow?’ snapped Diane, with nervous anger.
‘We’re running a permanent patrol after dark, up and down between TT and Kampong Kerbau,’ reassured the superintendent. ‘The police will use an armoured Land Rover and there’s a scout car coming from the Garrison.’
He drained his orange juice and picked up his hat and stick.
‘I wouldn’t worry too much, I’ve got a gut feeling that this was some spur-of-the-moment shoot-up by some crazy devil. Go down to the dance at The Dog tonight and take your mind off it.’
‘I’ll use the Buick, at least that’s got some protection,’ glowered James.
‘More than my poor Austin,’ snapped his wife. ‘I’ll have to send Siva to Ipoh tomorrow, to get a new windscreen fitted.’
As Steven Blackwell turned to leave, Douglas rose to follow him, Rosa almost scurrying to his side to take his arm. The Robertsons offered a surly farewell to the trio and as the manager and his wife walked away across the coarse grass of the knoll towards their own bungalow, Diane went out on to her verandah to glower after them, reserving a specially poisonous glare for the trim figure of Rosa Mackay.
THREE
Although the Friday night function at the Sussex Club was nominally a dance, the majority of the members never set foot on the floor, which was a small area of the big lounge cleared of tables and chairs. The occasion was hallowed by tradition at The Dog, being the main social function of the week, where people came to meet their friends and catch up on the week’s gossip. They came to see and be seen, the men to ogle the younger women in their posh frocks and the older women to indulge in some righteous envy and to complain about their husbands.
In such an isolated community as Tanah Timah, the club provided virtually the only social diversion for the wives, who had not even the workplace or the Mess to relieve the boredom. There were not many Army wives there, as the place was still on the fringe of a brutal war, but as the terrorist threat had receded somewhat in this part of Perak, more of the senior officers’ wives were coming out from home. The planters’ wives had little choice but to stay, though some took extended leave back in Britain, often with the excuse that they had to see their children settled in boarding schools or colleges.
The younger women were almost all commissioned QA sisters from the hospital and being by definition unmarried, were the target of every military bachelor in the Brigade, as well as a few unaccompanied husbands and unmarried planters. Tonight, it was these ladies who monopolized the dance floor, being badgered by subalterns, lieutenants, captains and even the odd major, to gyrate with them on the polished boards, which a houseboy ritually lubricated with French chalk every Friday afternoon.
Tom Howden arrived at about eight fifteen, driven up by Alec Watson in his battered and rusty Morgan sports car. Dinner in the Mess was always brought forward on a Friday, so that they could get to the club reasonably early — a practice almost universal throughout the garrison. At about ten o’clock, the record player was switched off so that the assembled members could adjourn to the dining room, where Daniel always laid out a light buffet to keep them going until midnight, when the revellers drifted back to their mosquito nets.
Alec parked on the tarmac in front of the club, finding a space between the Austins, the Morris’s, the MG’s, the Land Rovers and a few big American gas-guzzlers, several of them armour-plated like the Robertsons’. Inside, there was already hardly an inch left free at the long bar, which ran across the full width of the lounge. A score of low tables fringed the dance floor, each with its circle of cane chairs. They were filled with people and the Indian servants were performing miracles of gymnastics with trays loaded with glasses and bottles, as they threaded their way through the obstructions. Half a dozen couples were swaying to a smoochy Sinatra number, generated by a Decca radiogram in the corner, operated by a fat Tamil houseboy who was worriedly studying a list of records supplied by Daniel, but constantly amended by the demands of the dancers.
The music was almost drowned by the buzz of chatter, which tonight was a good few decibels louder than usual. The inevitable topic was the new attack on Gunong Besar and as soon as Tom came in, he could see that the focus of attention was on James Robertson. He was perched on a stool at the centre of the bar, holding court amongst a cluster of acquaintances, all of whom had their own pet theory of what had happened. As Alec pushed his way to the bar for a couple of Tigers, Tom moved further along to be in earshot of the James’s clique.
‘Bloody bullets were coming like hailstones,’ brayed the planter, waving his gin like a flag. ‘Pushed the memsahib on to the floor out of the way, then took off over the verandah with my shooter!’ He stopped for a gulp of Gordon’s, then carried on with his elaborated saga.
‘But it was too late, the sods had all vanished. They’d shot up Douglas’s place first, then had a pop at the natives around the back.’
‘Sounds a bloody queer attack to me, Jimmy,’ drawled Les Arnold, the Aussie from the next estate beyond Gunong Besar. He was not actually part of the inquisitive circle around James, he had been sitting at the bar before they descended on his neighbour and had been enveloped by them.
‘What’s queer about being shot at, Les?’ demanded a captain from the West Berkshires, rather indignantly.
‘Not like the CTs to fire off a few rounds, then bugger off!’ objected the Australian. ‘Even in Jimmy’s last attack they killed a couple of blokes.’
Robertson flushed, both at being repeatedly called ‘Jimmy’ and at the insinuation that his latest moment of glory had not been all that glorious.
‘An attack’s an attack, Les!’ he snapped petulantly. ‘What d’you think all those holes are in the walls — giant termites?’
There was a guffaw from the group at this witticism, but Arnold just grinned.
‘Good on you, mate! I’m glad they didn’t call on me, just up the road from you. I need my beauty sleep every night.’
Alec came back with the beers and he and Tom leaned against one of the pillars that supported the high roof while they looked around at the talent in the room. The disc jockey had found one of the request records and now Tony Bennett was crooning about a ‘Stranger in Paradise’, giving the swaying couples the excuse to cling together as if they had been welded front-to-front, their feet hardly moving.
‘Some nice-looking birds here, Alec,’ murmured the pathologist. Stuck in his laboratory all that first day, he had so far hardly laid eyes on a QA, apart from their motherly Matron, Doris Hawkins. ‘Who’s the dark-haired one, in the slinky blue dress?’
Watson grinned. ‘You got it in one, Tom! Everyone notices her first. That’s our in-house femme fatale, Lena Franklin.’
Howden looked across to the centre of the dance floor and saw a slim, sexy-looking woman in her late twenties, with dark hair in what he called a Gina Lollobrigida style. Her eyes were enhanced catlike with make-up and her glossed lips were in a slight pout as she rested her chin on her partner’s shoulder. Her dress was a westernized version of the Chinese cheongsam, a skin-hugging sheath of blue silk with a high collar and a slit up each side to the thigh. Tom could almost see the disapproval coming off some of the older wives, like a black cloud ascending to the fans overhead. Lena was certainly a dish-and-a-half, he thought. No wonder David Meredith was brassed off at the prospect of losing her to someone else.
‘Who’s the guy she’s with? That her new bloke?’