‘What is this?’ said Joe, surprised, as they followed a rough road some minutes out of the station. ‘New road?’
‘No, it is a fire break that the Forestry officer has cut through the jungle. It is a popular way for ladies to ride. It takes you up to the high ground where there is a fine view and the Memsahib Carmichael was a nervous lady, I have heard people say. She would have liked this open ride; forty yards wide, quite straight and no surprises.’
He pulled off the road and followed the bumpy ride onwards until he said, ‘It was here that the memsahib was killed.’
He stopped the car and they all stepped out.
‘Nothing whatever to see,’ said Nancy.
‘She was found just here,’ said Naurung. ‘There was a pile of brushwood here then and there is a pile of brushwood here now.’
Joe took a seat on the running board of the car and stared around, trying to recreate the scene of eleven years ago. ‘Horrible story!’ he said. ‘It really haunts me… What’s the matter, Naurung?’
Naurung was staring at the ground.
‘What have you seen?’
‘It’s not what I’ve seen, sahib, it is what I’ve always thought. But I’ll tell you. This is a very strange place to find a cobra.’
‘Strange? How strange?’
‘This was not a King Cobra, this was not a Hamadryad. They are sometimes found in jungle places like this but this was the common Indian cobra – Naja naja. They are not found in the open jungle. They are found where they can find what they like to eat which is rats and mice. And rats and mice live near human habitation in grain stores and gardens. Anywhere rats and mice can be found you may find a cobra – but not out here. You can find a cobra in every village. To some they are sacred. You will find a cobra in the village temple – the village priests put milk out for them…’
‘So what are you saying, Naurung?’
‘I am saying I have a different picture. I see this lady who is not well and she comes up here and she squats out of sight of everybody behind this brushwood pile because I’m sure there was always a brushwood pile here. Somebody comes out of the jungle with a cobra in his hand…’
‘In his hand?’ said Joe, horrified.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Naurung. ‘I could not do it but there are many who can catch a cobra. If you catch it just behind its head it may writhe and wriggle but the catcher is quite safe if he keeps hold of its head and puts it in a sack. I know six, perhaps more, Indians who could do this. He approaches the memsahib. She is shocked, she is horrified, she is terrified. He holds the snake in his hand and he throws it at her. She was bitten here, sahib,’ he said, pointing to his left buttock. ‘From here to the heart is not far for the venom to travel. She would have died very quickly. It is terrible but I think that is what happened. And then, because he is a very bad man, he stands and watches her die and when the poor lady is dead he cuts the snake’s head off and disappears into the jungle. I have seen it in my imagination so many times. Now I stand here I believe it is the truth.’
‘Christ!’ said Joe. ‘I believe you’re right! It sounds terribly true. I didn’t know about cobras.’
‘I did,’ said Nancy, ‘but I never connected it. Naurung, we must catch this man.’
‘He is clever,’ said Naurung. ‘He is very clever. Now that we know he exists, we will find him.’
‘One last thing, Naurung,’ said Joe. ‘Have you ever heard of a white man, a sahib, who would know how to catch and handle a cobra?’
Naurung dropped his eyes to his boots and replied slowly, ‘No, I have never heard of such a man.’
Chastened, they climbed back into the car and made their way back on to the main trunk road through to Calcutta. Progress along the potholed road crowded with people and animals kicking up clouds of dust was slow in spite of Naurung’s enthusiastic use of the horn and Joe discovered that on Indian highways even the Collector’s Packard gives way to cows and elephants. Shaken and stiff in spite of the luxurious springing, it was well into the afternoon when they caught sight of the welcome green expanse of the maidan, the reassuring octagonal bulk of Fort William and the crowded masts and funnels on the river beyond. They drove north up the Chowringhee Road, their eyes dazzled by the glare of the whitened palaces along its route, and Joe was surprised, after his four days’ absence in the country, that he was finding the familiarity of the city reassuring. Naurung stopped the car.
‘Well, here you are,’ said Nancy. “This is where you get off. I think you know your way about? Carmichael ’s establishment is somewhere along this street – here, I’ve written out the address for you. Naurung is going to drop me off at the hospital where I’m to meet Forbes and we’ll meet up again for tea. Just take a rickshaw to the Great Eastern when you’ve finished with Carmichael.’
Naurung seemed anxious to go off on his own business and asked if he might be excused when he had finally dropped them off at the Residence, announcing that he was staying the night with a member of his family. Joe waved them off as they set off back towards the hospital and fixed his mind on Harold Carmichael, formerly second-in-command of the Bengal Greys, formerly the husband of Joan.
British India does not walk very often, but distressed by the anguished face in his imagination of Joan Carmichael, Joe resolved to walk the length of Chowringhee to Carmichael ’s office. As he made his way past the once opulent villas of bygone nabobs – many of which ranked as palaces rather than villas – he noted that the further he walked from the centre, the more multiplex the subdivision of these great houses became.
Initially, brass plates discreetly announced the presence of banks, insurance companies, the Calcutta office of internationally known trading houses, engineers, architects and solicitors. But soon the brass plates got smaller as the number increased. Brass plates gave way to cards. The number of bell pushes multiplied. Names appeared on upper windows, front doors stood open. Kites circled the damp air and crows pecked crumbling cornices. Numbers grew into the hundreds.
After about twenty minutes’ walk, keeping to the shade of the arcades whenever he could avoid being forced out into the road by the crowds, he found himself outside number 210. Number 210 had no fewer than twenty names at the door, some of these boasting new name plates, most boasting cards and amongst these – after quite a search – he identified Carmichael, Popatlal and Mandavia, Importers of Fine Wines, Beers, Spirits etc. There was an electric bell push which, without much hope, he duly pressed. An Indian emerged from the darkness within and spoke to him at length. Joe shrugged his shoulders and smiled, pointed to Carmichael ’s card and looked a question which only elicited a further flood of Hindustani but eventually a hand pointing helpfully up the dark staircase.
As he progressed, heads appeared in various doorways and eyed him with curiosity. A Metropolitan policeman in uniform was not often seen at this end of the Chowringhee.
He came at last to an open door through which he saw a white-clad figure seated at a desk and writing without much urgency on a pad in front of him. He was balding, he had a grey moustache which might once have been the standard moustache as issued to, or at any rate worn by, British cavalry officers. His collar, which had once been stiff, lay on the desk beside him and his shirt was open at the neck. A large copper ashtray was full of the butts of many cheroots. There were two empty whisky bottles in the waste paper basket and another about half full at his elbow. An Army and Navy Stores ‘Colonial’ refrigerator in a mahogany case stood against the wall but the door was open and the contents were gone.
The walls were lined with photographs, mostly, Joe noticed, of the Bengal Greys, but these were spotted and damp-stained and thunder flies had made their way in and perished behind the glass. There was not much about the figure before him to recall the dapper cavalry major.