After a few more rather futile questions, Blackwell finished his drink and rose to leave. As they walked out on to the verandah, he heard a car changing gear and crunching up the drive next door.
‘That must be Mrs Robertson,’ said Douglas. ‘I was told she’d been into the garrison to see a padre about the funeral.’
Rosa nodded. ‘That would be John Smale, one of the Anglican chaplains. He’s a very nice man.’ A mention of the priesthood seemed to draw her out of her usual reticent manner.
The pair watched him clatter down the steps and walk away through the bushes up towards the Robertson bungalow, waving to his driver to take the Land Rover around into the other driveway.
As they turned to go back into the lounge, Douglas put his arm around his wife, who began weeping quietly, burying her face in his jacket.
When Steven learned from Diane that James’s burial was to be the next day, he abandoned his intention of questioning her more rigorously, until the funeral was behind them. Declining her offer to join her in an early gin, he stood with the blonde on her verandah, saying that he couldn’t stay, but only wanted to check that she was alright.
‘Have you heard from James’s family yet?’ he asked solicitously.
‘His brother phoned back late last night — lousy line, I could only just hear what he was saying.’ From her tone, Steven guessed that she had little affection for her in-laws.
‘How did his mother take it?’ he asked. ‘Must have been an awful shock for the family. And being so far away, they must feel helpless.’
Diane shrugged, as she flicked her cigarette ash over the balcony rail.
‘They’re a pretty tough bunch, the Robertsons. Hunting, shooting and cussing, that’s their style. But George did sound cut up, what little I could make out over the wires.’
She was dressed in the same outfit as she was at the mortuary, a black skirt and crisp white blouse. It was obviously her version of a mourning outfit and Blackwell wondered what she would wear at the actual funeral.
‘This padre chappie was very helpful,’ she said calmly. ‘He rang around and fixed the ceremony for tomorrow afternoon, at the English church in Taiping.’
Steven nodded. ‘The coroner is issuing the release certificate in the morning, so I’ll give you a driver to take you to Ipoh to collect it and go to the Registrar.’
Diane looked surprised at this. ‘Oh God, do I have to go myself?’
‘Afraid so, you are the only eligible informant. It’s only a formality, you’ll be back before lunchtime.’
As he moved towards the steps, he turned back to the new widow.
‘We’ll all rally around at the funeral, Diane. A few of the people from BMH want to be there, as well as some other members from The Dog. You’ll need some support, with no one from his family able to be there.’
Diane murmured some thanks, but Steve felt she was not overcome with gratitude and suspected there were a couple of female faces that she would prefer not to see in Taiping.
As he drove away, his last glimpse was of her in her typical posture, leaning on the veranda rail with a glass in one hand and a Kensitas in the other.
Sunday lunch in the RAMC Mess was something of a ritual, a hangover from the days when many officers were ex-Indian Army and demanded their curry on a regular basis.
Though Meng was nominally the cook, she was assisted by Vellatum, an Indian kitchen ‘boy’, though he was actually a wizened fellow in his forties, who had been badly beaten up by the Japanese during the Occupation. On Sundays, Meng took the day off to go on the bus to visit her sister in Kuala Kangsar and Vellatum was given a free hand to prepare the weekly curry.
The general idea was for the residents to eat as much of the eye-watering mixture as they could manage, chase it with a few Tigers, then crawl satiated to their room to pull on a sarong and collapse sweating on to their beds for a few hours. Such a novel Sunday lunch was a new experience for Tom, as Tyneside had yet to see any oriental eating houses. Yet he rapidly took to the fiery concoction that Vellatum served up and happily spooned down the colourful food, alternating with mouthfuls of beer to put out the flames in his gullet.
‘I like all these little bits on the side,’ he said, after blowing through his lips that were burning from a shred of red chilli. He pointed to the tray in the centre of the table that held small dishes filled with shredded coconut, banana, mango chutney, cashew nuts and other unidentifiable substances.
‘What are these things?’
‘That’s Bombay duck,’ answered Eddie Rosen. ‘Little dried fish, actually.’
Tom shook his head in wonderment at the strange ways of the East, as he accepted some more rice, the Indian coming around the table with a tureen filled with the fluffy white grains. When the curry was finished and they were waiting for their dessert, the conversation inevitably turned to the dramatic events of the weekend.
‘The CO’s in an unusually benign mood,’ announced Alf Morris. ‘He’s said that anyone whose duties allow, should attend James Robertson’s funeral tomorrow. We should try to get there to give some support to Diane, as she’ll have no family there at all.’
There was a murmur of agreement around the table.
‘Is our dear colonel going himself?’ asked Percy Loosemore, managing as usual to inject sarcasm into his voice.
‘No, he says he’s too busy, with the ADMS coming up from Singapore next week — though I can’t see what that’s got to do with it,’ added Alf, with a rare hint of disloyalty to his senior officer. Tom had already added ‘Assistant Director of Medical Services’ to his compendium of acronyms.
‘We’d better work out a travel plan,’ suggested David Meredith. ‘No point in everyone taking a car to Taiping.’
‘Especially those who don’t have one,’ said Eddie. ‘Tom and I will need a lift from somebody.’
‘I can’t go, I’m afraid,’ said Peter Bright, stonily. ‘I’m on call and Roger Lane says he can’t stand in for me tomorrow.’ Most of his colleagues around the table assumed that this was a tactful gesture to avoid seeing off the man they suspected he had been cuckolding.
‘Is this going to be a funeral procession all the way?’ grunted the sardonic Percy. ‘Who’s taking the corpse — and how? On a gun carriage or in the back of a three-tonner?’
Alec Watson made a noise suspiciously like a giggle, but the Admin Officer glared at Percy.
‘He was a civilian, remember?’ said Alf. ‘A hearse is coming up from Ipoh in the morning. The only Western-style undertaker in Perak. We’re all to meet up with him in Taiping at three thirty.’
‘And that’s at the Anglican church, not the military cemetery!’ added Clarence Bottomley sternly. Montmorency had little sense of humour and Percy’s waspish tongue got up his long aristocratic nose.
‘Everyone in civvies, not uniform,’ commanded Alfred. ‘The colonel was insistent on that.’
Vellatum came in with a tray of glass dishes containing gula malacca, the traditional dessert served after a curry. Tom found he liked this as well, a sweet, sticky mound of sago swimming in palm sugar and coconut milk. After they had all ingested this antidote to the cook-boy’s culinary dynamite, the talk went back to tomorrow’s excursion.
‘Is it a men-only affair or are the ladies attending?’ asked Clarence.
‘As the widow is the only official mourner, the Matron suggested that it might show some feminine solidarity if a few of the QA officers went along as well,’ said Alfred Morris. ‘Maybe someone could give them a ring later and see if any want transport, as only a couple have cars.’
Tom’s thoughts immediately fell to hoping that Lynette might be going, especially if she could come in the same car and resolved to hint to Alf that he offer them space in his Hillman.
Coffee was next on the agenda before everyone crept off to their pits to sleep off the meal, but in the anteroom next door, the disgruntled anaesthetist brought up the murder once again.