The place itself was full of ancient terror. Hard-nosed policeman he might be but Joe admitted to himself that he was sweating with fear. He wriggled carefully backwards on to the path and rose to his feet.
Naurung eyed him for a moment and said, ‘This is a bad, bad place. The horses do not like it.’
‘Can’t say I’d stop for a picnic here myself. Let’s look about, shall we?’
He turned and looked back the way they had come from the station. ‘Well-used track apparently but here, about fifty yards back, it narrows and a group of riders would have to split up and ride along in file.’ He looked in the northern direction. ‘And after this bend where the path runs right along the precipice between the edge and that large rock is another hundred yards – would you say a hundred? – before there’s a chance of bunching up again with your friends. Naurung, pass me the records, would you? It would be interesting to see where exactly in the file of horses Sheila Forbes was riding. Did Bulstrode record that?’
‘No, sahib, but I believe one of the witnesses mentions it.’
Joe found the place and sat in the shelter of the rock to read the accounts of the accident given by the friends she had been riding with.
‘This is interesting, Naurung. Mrs Major Richardson – Emma – has this to say: “Sheila was riding her own pony, Rowan – she never rode any other – and began to fall behind almost at once. She called to us that Rowan was going short on his near hind and she was going to dismount to look at it. She signalled to us to go on without her. It must have been a stone or something lodged in the hoof because she got back into the saddle and carried on. By this time she was about a quarter of a mile behind. We waved to her and rode on, expecting her to catch us up. We were getting to the slow bit anyway, the bit where the path narrows and you have to go single file, and we lost sight of her when we wound around the rocks. We’d all passed the tight place and gathered together to wait for Sheila to come round the bend. She never did. The next thing was the most appalling scream. The horse was neighing and we realised something dreadful must have happened. We rode back and there was just the horse, Rowan, by the side of the path, shivering. No sign of Sheila. Cathy Brownlow looked over the edge and shouted, “There she is! I can see her!’
‘ “Two of the party rode back to the station for help while the other three looked for a way down to the river bank. While we were casting about we came upon a saddhu by the road side…” A saddhu?’ Joe queried.
‘Yes. They are wandering holy men and I will say that I do not like them. For all their ritual washings they are dirty people. Some, I suppose, truly seek enlightenment and many stand on one leg for hours, perhaps days, on end. But I and others like me see them as dirty scoundrels who get what they can from foolish people – mostly from women – and what they get they spend on opium or on bhang. They daub their faces with wood ash and saffron. They wear a little pouch on a string and nothing else. They are really a naked people – very disgusting. I would chase them away and my father often did. They cover their bodies with ash and yellow paint and they are not polite to women. Oh, there are bad stories but they are holy people and must be allowed to behave as they have always behaved.’
Joe resumed his reading. ‘ “He told us how we could get down to the river. He didn’t speak any English but luckily Cathy can manage a bit of Hindustani and that seemed to work. We gave him a four anna piece and asked him if he’d seen anything. He said he’d seen the whole thing. The horse had shied at something in the path – a snake possibly – and had unseated Sheila.
‘ “At the time it never occurred to us that he could have been responsible. He made no attempt to hide which he could easily have done in that terrain – I mean, you could hide a whole division in those rocks – and was really very helpful. For a saddhu. We offered him another four annas and he agreed to come back with us to the station and make a statement.”
‘And so on… I notice that there’s no statement from the beggar! Not surprised. He must have taken his annas and run.’ Joe shook his head and smiled at the credulity of women. ‘Still – good witness, Emma. Brave girl too. She managed to scramble down to the river with her friends and they found Sheila or rather Sheila’s body. It seems she had died instantly from a broken neck. I think this tells us almost everything we need to know. I would just like to have a talk with Sheila’s husband to round things off.’
‘Do you agree, sahib, that this was an unfortunate accident? Now that you have seen the dangers of the place…’
‘No, Naurung. Nor do I believe that an evil spirit exacted a sacrifice, though it’s tempting in this place to imagine it. No – Mrs Forbes was murdered. With deliberation, with calculation and in very cold blood!’
They remounted and followed the trail for a further five miles until it arrived at the junction with one of the main roads to the station, a road which stopped abruptly at the river bank and continued across the other side north towards Calcutta.
‘This can’t be the main road north, can it?’ Joe asked, taking in the single small boat which made up the ferry service and which was just casting off on the further bank to make the crossing.
‘Oh no. Ten miles downstream there is a bigger road and there is a bridge. This is the road used by people going to the village of Jhalpani, two miles beyond the river.’
Joe watched as the boat came steadily towards them, rowed along by one Indian pulling on the pair of oars. His back was towards them but they could easily make out the two faces of the Indian ladies he was ferrying. Joe’s gaze intensified as the boat reached the middle of the river.
‘Now that’s about where the ox-hide ferry was when it went under?’
‘Yes, sahib. At the centre. About forty yards from where we are standing.’
‘Do Englishwomen from the station often use this crossing?’
‘No. Very rarely. They would normally have no reason to cross the river here. They would have no business in Jhalpani. If they came out riding they would have broken off at the place I showed you five miles south where there is a road branching back to the station, sahib.’
‘Then what on earth was Mrs Captain Simms-Warburton doing risking her neck on an ox-hide raft?’
Joe sighed. The heat was beginning to tire him and so much concentrated death was becoming unnerving. The slaughter on the Western Front which he had never expected to survive had disgusted and degraded him like every other man who had been involved but this digging up of dead memsahibs affected him quite differently. These were not soldiers expecting death at any moment; these were perfectly ordinary ladies, some happy, some dull, none outstanding apparently, and all being snuffed out in bizarre ways. Were they no more than random victims of their surroundings? People kept telling him, ‘Of course, India is a dangerous place, Joe. Watch out for…’
But no one had mentioned ox-hide ferries.
‘There’s a cool spot under that tree over there, Naurung. Let’s have another look at the notes on Alicia Simms-Warburton, shall we? Here we are – coroner’s verdict: accidental death by drowning.
‘Now first things first, why was she going over? Here’s an account from her husband, written to the coroner whom he apparently seems to know as he addresses him as “Dear Wilfred”. This seems to be leading up to it: