‘And then came the war.’
‘Yes. People were moved around. The series was broken and – goodness knows! – there were enough deaths to worry about in the next few years… people forgot. But this fifth death revived memories. It began to be said that marrying an officer in the Greys was a high-risk occupation! Gossip and speculation are meat and drink to officers’ wives and they live in a very restricted circle. They can and do talk each other into a high state of panic about the slightest thing – you can imagine what this is doing to their nerves! One of the wives is talking, quite seriously I believe, about returning to England. And some of the younger ones are running a sweepstake on which one of them is to be the next victim! Just a piece of bravado but I think it’s a sign that the tension is becoming unbearable. Commander, we need you to come to Panikhat and get to the bottom of this. Either we investigate the whole thing, decide there’s no foundation for any of these wild theories and reassure the ladies or…’ She paused for a moment and her expression grew grim, ‘… or we find the… the… bastard – sorry, Uncle! – who’s killed my friend and make absolutely sure he’s in no position ever to do it again!’
Chapter Three
Anglo-India goes to bed early. By ten o’clock the rattle of trotting hooves had died away. Sweet and haunting, the strains of the Last Post played by the buglers of the Shropshire Light Infantry, sharing the station with the Bengal Greys, had died away and Joe Sandilands, glad of the peace that had descended, set himself to write up the notes of the day.
A very long day! A day that had started in the Governor’s office at ten o’clock that morning and had extended onwards through the railway journey to Panikhat in the company of Nancy Drummond.
Half his mind was on the flood of information and speculation, gossip and rumour she had poured out and half was on her. He remembered her reclining, her feet on the opposite seat, fanning herself as her narrative unfolded, pausing occasionally to pass an order in enviably fluent Hindustani to her bearer, organising the day, ensuring that the ice block which sat melting in its tin tray between them on the floor of their first-class carriage was duly renewed as the train drew into one station after another. He recalled listening to the staccato whine of the extractor fan and gazing through the window as the lush, grey-green landscape unfolded.
And he remembered the surprise with which, as she had searched her hand luggage, his eye had been taken by a pistol. Nancy had caught his interested look. ‘Andrew makes me carry it. It’s only a Smith and Wesson.22 target pistol and it would take me hours to dig it out, slip the safety catch and “load, present, fire!” but it makes him happy. Mind you – I’m a pretty fair shot.’
Joe believed her.
‘It’s nice to be locked away from prying eyes for an hour or so,’ she said, finding her cigarette case. ‘Even in 1922 a Collector’s wife can’t be seen smoking in public! You’re a bit surprising, Commander,’ she added.
‘Surprising? How so?’
‘When Uncle George first suggested I go to hear you speak I was expecting a London bobby. Inspector Lestrade at best, perhaps.’
‘Well, you’re a bit surprising too! I was expecting an iron-grey mountain of rectitude, a one-woman Deed That Won The Empire, if you like. Instead of which…’
She laughed. ‘Instead of which – what?’
‘Now how can I answer that?’ he thought. ‘If I said what I was thinking – young, beautiful, clever, energetic, talented – what would she think of me?’
He drew a deep breath. Oh, the hell with it!
‘Instead of which, you’re young, beautiful, clever, energetic and talented,’ he said.
‘Great heavens!’ she said. ‘I was just about to say the same to you! But, tell me, Uncle George is taking all this very seriously – are you?’
‘Yes, I am. I don’t see how one could do otherwise. We’re considering five deaths. “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action,” as they say in America. What does that make five times, I wonder? Come on – begin at the beginning and take me through it again.’
‘Well, I’ll begin at the beginning… No, come to think of it, I’ll begin at the end because that’s the bit I’m clearest about. That horrible thing that happened last week. We were looking at the photographs. On the advice of Bulstrode the coroner brought in a verdict of suicide but I saw the cuts, now you’ve seen the cuts and so has Uncle George and I think we can start from a point where we all agree that they could not have been self-inflicted. How we can just sit here and talk about it so dispassionately is more than I can imagine. But, it’s just run-of-the-mill stuff for you, I suppose?’
‘Well you do acquire a modicum of detachment, but, come to think of it, I’ve never investigated the death of anyone I knew. Certainly not the death of anyone I was fond of. Perhaps the old detachment would wear a bit thin if ever I did.’
‘But I knew Peggy Somersham very well. We hadn’t known each other long but I suppose you could say she was my best friend.’ She paused and ruminated a bit and then said, ‘In this funny world of India friendships brew up very quickly. Peggy and I had the same background, we knew the same jokes, we’d both suffered an English education – well you get very fond of each other when you have so much in common. And, besides, she was a bright and amusing girl.’
She looked bleakly at him for a moment. ‘I was shattered. I was nursing in France for three years in circumstances where one corpse more or less is hardly stop-press news. But I know what you mean – when it’s someone you know…
‘When it came to us that all was not perhaps what it seemed, I discovered quite by chance what had happened before the war. I think it was Ronny Bennett who said, “Poor old Bengal Greys! They don’t have much luck with the memsahibs!” I asked him what he meant and he said, “But wasn’t there a bit of a scandal before the war? Weren’t there one or two sudden deaths?”
‘And then I started enquiring and I found that Alicia, the wife of Captain Simms-Warburton, was drowned crossing the river on the ferry. They all used the ferry then and they all use it now. Since the accident, though, the bullock-hide contraption has been replaced with a less terrifying and much more solid boat.’
‘Bullock-hide?’
‘Mmm. Ingenious arrangement and obviously effective because I’ve never heard of another accident using one, but, as I say, totally terrifying! Four bullock hides are inflated (legs still attached and sticking up into the air, can you imagine!) and a little platform bridges the central two. That’s where the passenger sits. And then you have two native ferrymen lying stretched out like outriggers one on either side and they propel the thing along with their feet. On this occasion though there was only one.’
‘And it capsized?’
‘Yes. Two of the hides burst at the same moment and the whole thing tipped over shooting Alicia into the river.’
‘Any odd circumstances?’ Joe asked. ‘Were there any other passengers? Spectators? Was the raft inspected?’
‘Plenty of spectators. The whole thing was witnessed from both sides of the river. No other passengers – they can only carry two persons at the most and she was crossing by herself that day. But the ferryman gave a clear account of what happened.’
‘The ferryman?’
‘Yes. He was interviewed afterwards, of course. I’ve got copies of the coroner’s notes at the station. You can examine them. He was a brave man. The coroner commended him for his courage. He could have just swum to shore but he saw Alicia struggling in the water – sinking under the weight of her long skirts I should think, and there’s some doubt as to whether she could even swim – and he dived under and tried to rescue her. He nearly made it. They were seen struggling together but by the time one or two bystanders had jumped in and swum out to help it was too late.