Many of the questions that were directed at Mr Reid concerned the fate of the five fugitives who had escaped from the Ibis on the night of the storm, in one of the vessel’s longboats. When asked whether there was any possibility of their having survived, Mr Reid replied that there was not the slightest doubt in his mind that they had all perished.
Moreover, he said, he had seen incontestable proof of their demise with his own eyes, in the form of their capsized boat, which was found far out to sea, with its bottom stove in.
These details were fully corroborated by Captain Chillingworth, who similarly affirmed that there was not the remotest possibility of any of the fugitives having survived. These tidings caused a considerable stir in the Native Section of the Hall, where a good number of the late Raja of Raskhali’s relatives had foregathered, including his young son …
It was at this point in the proceedings that Zachary had understood why the courtroom was so crowded: many friends and relatives of the late Raja had flocked there, hoping, vainly, to hear something that might allow them to nurture the hope that he was still alive. But Zachary had no comfort to offer them: in his mind he was certain that the Raja and the other four fugitives had died during their attempted escape.
When questioned about the murder of Subedar Bhyro Singh Mr Reid confirmed that he had personally witnessed the killing, as had many others. It had occurred in the course of a flogging, when the subedar, on the Captain’s orders, was administering sixty lashes to one of the coolies. Being a man of unusual strength the coolie had broken free of his bindings and had strangled the subedar with his own whip. It had happened in an instant, said Mr Reid, before hundreds of eyes; that was why Captain Chillingworth had been obliged to sentence him to death, by hanging. But ere the sentence could be carried out, a tempest had broken upon the Ibis.
Mr Reid’s testimony on this matter caused another Commotion in the Native Section, for it appears that a good number of the subedar’s kinsmen were also in attendance …
Bhyro Singh’s relatives were so loud in their expressions of outrage that everyone, including Zachary, had glanced in their direction. They were about a dozen in number and from the look of them Zachary had guessed that many of them were former sepoys, like those who had travelled on the Ibis as the coolies’ guards and supervisors.
Zachary had often wondered at the almost fanatical devotion that Bhyro Singh inspired in these men. They would have torn his killer limb from limb that day on the Ibis, if they hadn’t been held back by the officers. It was clear from their faces now that they were still hungering for revenge.
At the conclusion of the Hearing the Committee retired to an antechamber. After a brief deliberation, Mr Justice Kendalbushe returned to announce that Mr Zachary Reid had been cleared of all wrongdoing. The verdict was greeted with applause by certain sections of the courtroom.
Later, when asked about his plans for the future, Mr Reid was heard to say that he intends soon to depart for the China coast …
And that should have been the end of it …
But just as he was about to go off to celebrate with Mr Doughty, Zachary was accosted by a clerk of the court who handed him a wad of bills for various expenses: the biggest was for his passage from Mauritius to India. Together the bills amounted to a sum of almost one hundred rupees.
‘But I can’t pay that!’ cried Zachary. ‘I don’t even have five rupees in my pocket.’
‘Well, I am sorry to inform you, sir,’ said the clerk, in a tone that was anything but apologetic, ‘that your mate’s licence will not be restored until the bills are all cleared.’
So what should have been a celebration turned instead into a wake: ale had never tasted as bitter as it did to Zachary that night.
‘What’m I going to do, Mr Doughty? Without my licence how am I to earn a hundred rupees? That’s almost fifty silver dollars — it’ll take me more than a year to save that much from the jobs I’ve been doing here in Calcutta.’
Mr Doughty scratched his large, plum-like nose as he thought this over. After several sips of ale, he said: ‘Now tell me, Reid — am I right to think that you were trained as a shipwright?’
‘Yes, sir. I apprenticed at Gardiner’s shipyard, in Baltimore. One of the world’s best.’
‘D’you think you’re still up to snuff with your hammer and saw?’
‘I certainly am.’
‘Then I may know of some work for you.’
Zachary’s ears perked up as Mr Doughty told him about the job: a shipwright was needed to refurbish a houseboat that had been awarded to Mr Burnham during the arbitration of the former Raja of Raskhali’s estate. The vessel was now moored near Mr Burnham’s Calcutta estate. Having been long neglected the budgerow had fallen into a state of disrepair and was badly in need of refurbishment.
‘Wait,’ said Zachary, ‘is that the houseboat on which we had dinner with the Raja last year?’
‘Exactly,’ said Mr Doughty. ‘But the vessel’s pretty much a dilly-wreck now. It’ll take a lot of bunnowing to make her ship-shape again. Mrs Burnham bent my ear about it a couple of days ago. Said she was looking for a mystery.’
‘A “mystery”?’ said Zachary. ‘What the devil do you mean, Mr Doughty?’
Mr Doughty chuckled. ‘Still the greenest of griffins, aren’t you, Reid? It’s about time you learnt a bit of our Indian zubben. “Mystery” is the word we use here for carpenters, craftsmen and such like
— men such as yourself. You think you’re up for it? The tuncaw will be good of course — should be enough to clear your debts.’
A great wave of relief swept through Zachary. ‘Why yes, Mr Doughty! Of course I am up for it: you can count on me!’
Zachary would willingly have started work the next morning, but it turned out that Mrs Burnham was preoccupied with the arrangements for a journey upcountry: her daughter had been advised to leave Calcutta for reasons of health, so she was taking her to a hill-station called Hazaribagh where her parents had an estate. Between this and her many social obligations and improving causes, Mrs Burnham was so busy that it took Mr Doughty several days to get a word in with her. He finally managed to catch up with her at a lecture that she had arranged for a recently arrived English doctor.
‘Oh, it was frightful, m’boy,’ said Mr Doughty, mopping his brow. ‘A satchel-arsed sawbones jawing on and on about some ghastly epidemic. Never heard anything like it: made you want to dismast yourself. But at least I did get to speak to Mrs Burnham — she says she’ll see you tomorrow, at her house. You think you can be there, at ten in the morning?’
‘Yes of course I can! Thank you, Mr Doughty!’
*
For Shireen Modi, in Bombay, the day started like any other: later, this would seem to her the strangest thing of all — that the news had arrived without presaging or portent. All her life she had placed great store by omens and auguries — to the point where her husband, Bahram, had often scoffed and called her ‘superstitious’ — but try as she might she could remember no sign that might have been interpreted as a warning of what that morning was to bring.
Later that day Shireen’s two daughters, Shernaz and Behroze, were to bring their children over for dinner as they did once every week. These weekly dinners were Shireen’s principal diversion when her husband was away in China. Other than that there was little to enliven her days except for an occasional visit to the Fire Temple at the end of the street.
Shireen’s apartment was on the top floor of the Mistrie family mansion which was on Apollo Street, one of Bombay’s busiest thoroughfares. The house had long been presided over by her father, Seth Rustomjee Mistrie, the eminent shipbuilder. After his death the family firm had been taken over by her brothers, who lived on the floors below, with their wives and children. Shireen was the only daughter of the family to remain in the house after her marriage; her sisters had all moved to their husbands’ homes, as was the custom.