‘YOU DIDN’T HAPPEN to go round to MacAuley’s flat last night, did you?’
In response, Digby almost spat out his tea. ‘What? Why the devil would I do that?’ We were in my cramped office. Surrender-not was in there too, making it nice and cosy. ‘Why d’you ask, old boy?’
‘Something MacAuley’s manservant said this morning. He told me some sahib officer had shown up at the flat around eight p.m. asking questions about MacAuley and Cossipore, then left with a load of files from MacAuley’s study.’
‘Could he describe the fellow?’
‘Tall, blond, moustachioed. That’s why I hoped it might have been you.’
Digby smiled. ‘Me and about half the officers on the force.’
‘You don’t think Taggart’s allocated any other officers to the case, do you?’
‘I doubt it,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, you’re his golden boy. You think he’d tell me before he told you?’
It was a fair point, but I had to make sure. Banerjee stuck up his hand. Both Digby and I stared at him.
‘You don’t need permission, Surrender-not. Just speak if you’ve got something to say.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ he replied. ‘I was just wondering how the servant was sure it was a policeman?’
‘The man was in uniform.’
‘With respect, sir, the military also have white dress uniforms, which look very much like ours. To the untrained eye, there’s not much difference between a white police uniform and a military one.’
‘What are you suggesting, Sergeant?’ asked Digby.
‘Nothing, sir. I was merely speculating that the officer may not have been a policeman. He may have been military personnel. After all, military intelligence did commandeer the crime scene.’
It was an interesting observation, one that got me thinking.
‘Did you get much else out of the man?’ asked Digby.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Only that something was troubling MacAuley in recent months. He’d been going out at odd hours, had given up the drink but was recently back on the sauce.’
‘Any enemies?’
‘To listen to his servant, you’d have thought MacAuley was a saint. Having said that, he doesn’t seem to have got on particularly well with his number two, some fellow called Stevens.’
‘Would you like me to organise an interview with him, sir?’ asked Banerjee.
‘I’ve already asked MacAuley’s secretary to do so,’ I replied in what I hoped was a neutral tone. ‘There is something I do need you to follow up on, though. I want you to post a guard at MacAuley’s flat. Make sure no one other than the domestic help enters or leaves without our permission, and even they are to be checked to ensure that nothing is removed from the apartment.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Banerjee, scribbling the instructions into his notebook.
‘And where are we in terms of tracking down the Reverend Gunn?’ I asked.
‘Mixed news on that front, I’m afraid, sir. Our colleagues in Dum Dum inform me that he is the minister at St Andrew’s Church up there, but that he is presently out of town. I understand he is scheduled to return this Saturday.’
It was yet another delay. It seemed nothing to do with this case would be straightforward. I turned to Digby.
‘Everything organised for tonight?’
‘Yes, old boy. All set for nine o’clock. We should depart here around eight-ish. That’ll give us plenty of time.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘That just leaves the small matters of interviewing the L-G and having a proper chat with that prostitute.’
‘Do you want me to bring her in for questioning?’ asked Digby.
‘No,’ I said, looking at my watch. ‘I think a softer approach is called for. I’ll head up there myself. Anyway, there’s something else I need you to do. Do you know anyone in military intelligence?’
I noticed a momentary tightening in the muscles of his jaw.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the chap who heads up the anti-terrorist unit. Goes by the name of Dawson. He’s a hard-nosed bastard. Why do you ask?’
‘Would he be their man dealing with the MacAuley case?’
‘Probably.’
‘I want you to set up a meeting with him for me, the sooner the better.’
‘Very well,’ he said, ‘but I should warn you, he’s not the most cooperative of chaps.’
There wasn’t much more to discuss on the MacAuley case. In truth, all three of us were on edge. The chances of solving a case are greatly diminished if there’s no breakthrough within forty-eight hours. After that, potential witnesses, evidence and momentum all tend to disperse like cigarette smoke on the breeze and the trail goes cold. We were getting close to the two-day mark and still had nothing. We sorely needed a break and I hoped the meeting with Digby’s snitch would provide it.
I turned to the little matter of the murdered railwayman.
‘Have you pulled the file on Pal?’ I asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Banerjee. He flipped through his notebook. ‘Hiren Pal, aged twenty, an employee of the Eastern Bengal Railway Company. Comes from a family of railwaymen – his father is a station master’s assistant up at Dum Dum Cantonment. He’d been employed by the railways in various capacities for the last nine years, most recently as a guard—’
‘He’s been working on the railways since he was eleven?’ I interrupted. ‘Isn’t that a trifle young?’
Banerjee gave a wry smile. ‘The authorities are somewhat lackadaisical when it comes to recording the births of much of the non-European population. The chances are he was at least several years older. I understand it’s quite common for railway workers to lower their ages on official documents.’
Digby laughed. ‘You see what sort of people we’re dealing with here, Wyndham! That’s the vanity of the Bengali for you. Even the bloody coolies lie about their age!’
Banerjee squirmed. ‘If I may, sir. I doubt vanity has much to do with it. The fact is, the railways impose a policy of retirement at the age of fifty-eight. Unfortunately, the pension provided to native Indians is generally too meagre for a family to live on. By lowering their ages on the forms I believe the men hope to work for a few years more and thus provide for their families just that little bit longer.’
‘That’s fascinating, Sergeant,’ said Digby, ‘but it has little to do with why the chap was killed.’
‘Why was he killed?’ I asked.
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ said Digby. ‘As I said before, it’s a botched robbery. Dacoits attack the train on the off chance of finding cash in the safes. When they discover there isn’t any, they take out their frustration on the guard. He dies, they panic and run off.’
Banerjee shook his head. ‘But they were there for an hour. Why not rob the passengers or take the mail sacks? If you know what to look for, those sacks probably contain a lot of value.’
‘Remember, Sergeant,’ said Digby, ‘your average illiterate dacoit won’t have the first clue about the value of the mail sacks.’
I had trouble believing this was the work of illiterate peasants. For one thing, it was too well planned. For another, there were those tyre tracks leaving the scene. Peasants would be lucky to have access to a bullock cart, let alone motorised transport.
‘I think the whole enterprise was planned extremely thoroughly,’ I said. ‘The two men on the train knew exactly when and where to pull the communication cord so that their accomplices could storm the train.’
‘So why kill the guard, and why not take anything?’ asked Digby.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Maybe they hit the train specifically to kill the guard?’ ventured Banerjee.
‘Unlikely,’ I replied. ‘To organise such a complex operation simply to kill a railway guard seems far-fetched.’
‘Then why?’ asked Digby.
A theory began to form in my head. ‘That they didn’t rob the passengers or take the mail sacks suggests they were looking for something specific, something they thought was on the train. When they couldn’t find it, they beat up the guard in the hope that he might tell them where it was. But he wouldn’t have known anything and they ended up killing him. My guess is they’d have started on Perkins, the conductor, next, but they ran out of time.’
Digby sucked his teeth. ‘How can you possibly know that?’
‘I don’t. It’s a guess. But the whole thing seems to have been planned meticulously. They must have had a railway timetable. Remember, the train was running late. If it was on time, it would have been attacked over an hour earlier. That would have given them at least two hours of darkness to complete whatever it was they wanted to do. It can’t be coincidence that they pulled out just before sunrise and ten minutes before another train arrived on the scene. From what the driver told us, they left methodically and on a schedule.’
‘Let’s say you’re right, old boy,’ said Digby sceptically, ‘and these fellows weren’t just petty dacoits hoping to get lucky. If they’d planned things so exceedingly well, why didn’t they know the safes on the train would be empty last night? It seems rather a huge oversight.’
It was a good question. One I didn’t have an answer for.
‘Maybe there should have been something in them?’ said Banerjee.
Digby snorted. ‘Fine. Let’s assume they expect to find something in the safes, but don’t. Why not just take the mail sacks? If they’re not illiterate peasants, they’d know there was value in the mail. You can’t have it both ways. You want me to believe they were a sophisticated gang who, in all their detailed planning, managed to bungle the operation by hitting the train on a night when what they were looking for wasn’t there and when it’s running an hour late. Then they fail to take the mail sacks or rob the passengers and finally end up accidentally killing a guard.’
He turned to me. ‘You’re overthinking this, Wyndham. It’s not your fault. You’re probably used to cases in England where the villains are a lot smarter than they are here. Trust me, this is just a random robbery gone wrong.’
He was probably right, but I didn’t appreciate being lectured.
‘There’s one way to find out,’ I said. ‘Sergeant, get down to Sealdah station. Speak to the station master. I want the baggage manifest for last night’s train. Find out if there was anything that should have been on the train that wasn’t. And find out the reason for the delay in its departure.’
Banerjee nodded and scribbled the instructions down into his little pad. As he did, the telephone rang. I answered it and was asked by the switchboard operator to hold while the connection was made to Annie Grant at Writers’ Building. Something jumped in the pit of my stomach. I told her to wait while I hastily dismissed my officers: Digby to set up a meeting with Dawson of Section H, and Banerjee to Sealdah station by way of posting the guard at MacAuley’s flat.
‘Yes, Miss Grant?’ I asked after the door had closed behind them.
‘Captain Wyndham,’ she said, her tone bearing none of the warmth it had over lunch. ‘You requested a meeting with Mr Stevens. I’m afraid things are still quite chaotic here. Mr Stevens apologises but he will not be able to see you today.’
I guessed he was in the room with her. He might even have been standing over her shoulder.
‘How about tomorrow?’ I asked.
There was a pause. ‘He has an opening at one o’clock. Would that suit you?’
‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘Good day to you, Miss Grant.’
‘Good day, Captain Wyndham.’
I replaced the receiver, then picked it up a second later, asked to be put through to the car pool and requested a vehicle and driver be made ready for a trip to Cossipore. It was time to have a proper chat with Devi the prostitute.
Just as I strapped on my cross-belt and gathered my cap, the door to my office flew open and in charged Lord Taggart’s secretary, Daniels, looking like he’d been pursued by a bear.
‘Wyndham,’ he puffed, ‘thank goodness.’
‘Is there a fire, Daniels?’
‘What? No. Didn’t you get my messages? The Commissioner’s organised a meeting for you with the L-G.’
‘That’s good news,’ I said. ‘When?’
‘Ten minutes ago.’