We drove at speed along what was blithely titled the Grand Trunk Road, a stretch of tarmac so pitted with potholes that you’d be forgiven for thinking it had been on the receiving end of a Boche artillery barrage. The sun was high though, shining through a grey haze, making it pleasant weather for an Englishman but still perishing for an Indian.
We’d left Das’s house and headed straight for the bridge at Howrah, crossing it and heading north, away from the city. To our right, the river was visible through breaks in the trees, cutting its way like a gash across the flat plain of Bengal. Our destination – the township of Rishra – lay about ten miles upriver, where the jungle gave way to smokestacks and the sort of dark satanic mills that Blake would have happily burned down had they been back in England. According to the note the peon had delivered, there had been a murder in the township which the local police must have deemed above their pay grade and so had called Lal Bazar. That suggested the victim was British, or at least European. Someone must have informed Lord Taggart, as I couldn’t imagine anyone else assigning the case to Surrender-not and me.
The car slowed and weaved its way around another sinkhole like a drunkard negotiating his way home after last orders, and soon the first chimneys poked their heads through the jungle canopy of palm and palengra, punching fists of black smoke up into a sootstained sky.
Dilapidated native dwellings of exposed brick and bamboo began to dot the roadside as we drove past the hole-in-the-wall shops, tea shacks with their clientele of shiftless, listless old men, pariah dogs, itinerant cows and all the other detritus of small-town Indian life. The native dwellings gave way to the high-walled compounds of phosphate factories and jute mills, their ramparts impregnated with shards of broken glass to deter the mischievous and the mendacious.
The driver brought the car to a halt and barked a request for directions from a thin native who happened to be walking past with a bicycle in tow. The man responded with a nonchalance bordering on the insolent, pointing further down the road and slurring a few indistinguishable words in Bengali. With no more than a nod of acknowledgement, our driver put the car into gear and moved off, before taking a left and continuing down a narrow lane and stopping outside a squat structure with maroon-washed walls and a hand-painted sign above its entrance with the words ‘Rishra Police Station’ and the emblem of the Imperial Police Force emblazoned on it.
Surrender-not and I got out and headed for the open door.
The interior was no different to countless other flyblown provincial police stations, which is to say it was dimly lit and manned by an apathetic constable for whom the energy expended in straightening up and coming to attention seemed above and beyond the call of duty.
‘Who’s the officer in charge?’ I asked.
The man scratched at the folds under his chin. ‘Sergeant Lamont, sahib,’ he said. ‘He is not here though.’
‘Where can I find him?’
The man leaned over a counter awash with files, and opened his eyes wide. ‘Lamont sahib is being at Shanti-da’s Medical Clinic,’ he whispered. ‘He is seeing to one dead body.’
‘The body was found there?’ asked Surrender-not.
The constable’s brow furrowed in consternation. ‘No, sir.’
‘So it’s been moved from the scene of the crime?’
He nodded emphatically. ‘Most absolutely.’
Surrender-not and I exchanged a glance.
‘Where’s the clinic?’ I asked.
‘Very close, sahib. On Kalitala Lane, near the pond. You know Gaur-da’s shop? Near to that.’
Once more I looked to Surrender-not who sighed and then let fly a stream of choice Bengali invective at the constable. Two minutes later, and with the demeanour of a whipped dog, he was leading us at a trot down a mud alley to the door of a whitewashed building with a faded red cross and some words in native script painted on a sign beside the door.
As we approached, a British officer in a khaki police uniform and cap stepped out and was about to light a cigarette when he noticed us. He quickly returned the fag to its packet, stepped off the veranda and walked over.
‘Sergeant Lamont?’
‘At your service, sir,’ he said with a nod before holding out a hand.
He looked in his late twenties and was in good shape, a fact confirmed by the strength of his handshake.
‘Wyndham,’ I said. ‘From CID at Lal Bazar. And this is Sergeant Banerjee.’
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he said. ‘We don’t deal with too many murders in this part of the world.’ His accent was Scots. It stood to reason. Rishra was a stone’s throw away from Serampore, and Serampore was practically run by our tartan brethren.
‘Where’s the body?’ I asked.
Lamont gestured behind him. ‘Inside.’
‘You moved it from the crime scene?’
‘We had to. Orders from Serampore. It was attracting a fair bit of attention. The folk round here are a militant sort, Captain. This is the type of thing that could lead to trouble.’
It seemed to me that a murder probably already fitted the definition of trouble but there was little purpose in pointing that out.
‘Any idea as to the victim’s identity?’
‘Aye.’ Lamont gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘A woman by the name of Ruth Fernandes.’
‘Foreign?’ I asked. That might explain why Lal Bazar had been called.
‘That depends,’ said Lamont.
‘On what?’
‘Your definition of foreign.’
Lamont led us inside, through a cramped waiting room with empty wooden benches around two walls, through a doorway covered with a fabric curtain and into an anteroom, at the end of which stood a door guarded by a constable.
‘There’s no hospital in Rishra,’ he said, as the constable stood to one side. ‘The nearest one’s in Serampore, but it was felt best to bring the body here.’
‘Why do I get the impression, Sergeant, that Serampore isn’t keen on handling this investigation?’ I asked.
‘It’s no’ that, sir. It’s just, you know … what with the political situation an’ all.’
Covered by a white sheet, the body lay on a metal table in the centre of the room which was beginning to smell rather unsavoury. Lamont lifted the top of the sheet, lowering it to reveal the face of a native woman; or rather what was left of it. I took a step back and felt like I’d just been coshed over the head. The eyes were missing, gouged out in the same manner as the dead man down in Tangra, leaving in their stead two bloodied hollows. On her lips an encrustation of blood. Walking over, I steeled myself and reached for the sheet. I pulled it lower, revealing the upper half of her torso. Rather than a sari, the woman wore a blood-smeared blouse. On her chest were the marks from two stab wounds, one on either side. I stepped back and steadied myself against a chair as the room started to spin.
Two murders, ten miles and twenty-four hours apart, both exhibiting identical injuries, which in themselves were hardly commonplace, and yet the only person who could testify to the similarities was me. There were just too many coincidences for comfort.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ asked Banerjee.
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
Lamont seemed amused. ‘I’d have thought you CID boys would be used to seeing this sort of thing.’
I proceeded to tear him off a strip, mainly to hide the torrent of thoughts rushing through my head.
‘You think there’s something funny about seeing a woman carved up, sonny?’ I said.
‘No, sir,’ he stammered, ‘I only –’
‘Let me tell you, Sergeant. I pray I never get used to seeing it.’
They say that opium addiction and paranoia go hand in hand, and maybe that was why the first thought that went through my head was that someone was toying with me. Of all the detectives in Lal Bazar, why was it that I had been called out to investigate the death of this native woman?
Lamont mumbled an apology which I barely listened to.
‘Why are we here?’
The question seemed to take Lamont by surprise.
‘Sorry?’
‘This woman’s a native,’ I said, ‘not a European, despite her name. This is a matter for the Serampore police, not Calcutta.’
‘You’ll see, sir,’ he said.
He walked over to a small metal trolley on which sat a tray containing, I presumed, the dead woman’s possessions. He picked up something, turned and held it aloft. A small golden crucifix glinted in the light.
‘She might no’ be European,’ he continued, ‘but she was from Goa, and that makes her technically Portuguese. And she’s a Christian.’
Beside me, Banerjee let out a whistle.
The Portuguese used to control quite a bit of territory on the western coast of India. Now all they really had left was Goa, a speck of land which they and their priests administered in a manner which, to my eyes at least, appeared rather distasteful, converting as many of the locals to Catholicism as they could.
‘Standing orders,’ continued Lamont, ‘are that all matters which may be linked to the current tensions be escalated to Lal Bazar.’
‘Did anyone request me or the sergeant specifically?’ I asked.
Lamont shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t think so, sir. The details were telephoned through to Lal Bazar. I expect the decision to send you was taken there.’
I walked over to the table to get a better look at the body. In addition to the wounds to her head and chest, I noticed that a finger on her left hand was bent backwards, as though recently broken.
‘Look at this,’ I said to Surrender-not.
He examined the mutilated finger. ‘Curious.’
‘What else do we know about her?’ I asked.
Lamont consulted a small notebook which he pulled from his pocket. ‘Ruth Fernandes, a nurse, aged thirty-four, married to George Fernandes, an engineer at the Hastings Jute Mill here in Rishra.’
‘Where did she work? At this clinic? Or at the hospital in Serampore?’
Lamont shook his head. ‘Neither. She was a nurse at the military hospital across the river in Barrackpore.’
‘Has anyone contacted her employers?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
That she worked for the military could complicate matters. One whiff of her murder and there was a fair chance military intelligence would swoop in and take over the case. That might actually be in my best interests, but for the moment, I wanted to keep my options open.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s keep it that way for now. Any idea why someone would want to kill her?’
‘We ruled out the obvious motives – she wasn’t robbed and she wasn’t … interfered with.’ He pointed to the body. ‘Her undergarments were intact and untouched. That’s why we assumed it might be related to the current tensions. The bastards keep talking about non-violence, but this is the reality: attacks on anyone who might not agree with them.’
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Banerjee.
The question took Lamont by surprise. ‘What?’
‘Why do you assume she was against the independence movement?’
‘Well, she worked for the military, she was a Christian, and she wasn’t a local. I’d imagine that would be reason enough to make her a target for a lot of these vigilantes.’
I looked closely at the corpse. There was a slight discoloration around the sides of her neck. It could have been bruising, but it was often hard to tell on dark skin. I lifted her right arm and turned it over, revealing the lighter skin on the inside of the wrist. There was more discoloration there, and this time I was sure it was bruised.
‘Have you requested a post-mortem?’
‘I thought it best to wait for you,’ said Lamont.
‘Contact Dr Lamb,’ said Surrender-not. ‘He’s the pathologist at the Medical College Hospital in Calcutta.’
Lamont wrote the name in his notebook.
‘I want the body moved there as soon as possible,’ I said. ‘And how does a Goanese woman find herself in the middle of Bengal in the first place?’ The question was rhetorical, but Lamont saw fit to answer.
‘As I said, her husband’s an engineer at one of the local jute works. He probably got a job here and then sent for her. That’s the normal practice with a lot of these folk.’
‘And where’s he, now?’
‘We sent him home. He reported her missing this morning. Collapsed in shock when we brought him here to identify the body. Poor bugger.’
‘I’ll need to speak to him, and any other eyewitnesses. Who found the body, by the way?’
‘And where?’ added Surrender-not.
‘She was found face down in a ditch, a few hundred yards from the ghat where the boatmen operate. We interviewed them. One of them remembers bringing her across at around 5 a.m.’
‘And was he the one who found her?’
Lamont gave a laugh of sorts and shook his head. ‘No. That was someone else. A holy woman the locals call Mataji. It means Reverend Mother apparently, though she’s like no nun you’ll have seen before. She’s back at the thana if you’d like to talk to her.’