I WOKE TO a blinding ache behind the eyes. Beside me, Annie lay sleeping, and to be honest, the sight of her helped ease the pain somewhat.
The first light of day was falling through slats in the shuttered windows. I got up slowly, partly out of consideration for the sleeping Annie, but also to avoid hurting my bruised body. On one side of the room, atop a wooden dresser, sat a large oval mirror. I hobbled over to it and examined my injuries. I touched the dressing on my head. It was wound thick as a turban and made me look like a coolie. I removed it slowly. A dark gash was etched into the purple skin of my right temple. Over my ribs, a large boot-shaped bruise had nicely flowered. Gingerly I felt the back of my skull. A sharp pain ran through my head as I touched a lump the size of a cricket ball. I’d had better mornings. Then again, I’d also had worse. I sat back on the bed as Annie stirred beside me.
‘So you made it through the night, then?’
I moved a stray hair from her face. ‘Thanks to you.’
‘It’s not me you should be thanking but that rickshaw wallah friend of yours. He’s the one who dragged you over here. Would you care to tell me what happened?’
‘I was jumped. I remember being attacked by two men. Then it all gets a bit confusing. I know it sounds odd, but I swear I heard little bells ringing. The next thing I know, Salman and his friends are helping me onto a rickshaw.’
Annie smiled. ‘Those little bells. All rickshaw wallahs have them. You must have seen them. They ring them to let people know they’re coming, like the bell on a bicycle. Maybe they also use them to call other rickshaw wallahs if they’re in trouble?’
‘Like a policeman’s whistle?’
‘I suppose so. No one else would care if a rickshaw wallah’s in trouble. I imagine they look out for each other. By the look of you, it seems Salman and his friends got to you just in time. Any idea who attacked you?’
I told her it was just some street thugs. It might even have been the truth. What with the goings-on in Amritsar, people’s blood was up. Maybe I’d just been unlucky. Wrong place, wrong time. But there was a more disturbing possibility: that it hadn’t been a random attack. The men had been better built than most of the locals: the bruises on my body were testimony to that. Then there were the boots. How many natives go around Calcutta in hob-nail boots? They seemed too well nourished and too well shod to be mere labourers. But if it was a targeted attack, then why and by whom?
Indian separatists, angered by Sen’s arrest? My name had been splashed across the papers, after all. Or maybe it was MacAuley’s murderer? Maybe he feared I was getting too close to the truth? But there was a problem with that. There was no way for anyone to have known I’d be going to the opium den that night. I didn’t even know myself. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Someone must have followed me, at least from when I left Mrs Tebbit’s for Annie’s house. I hadn’t noticed anyone on my tail, certainly not a couple of natives built like dockers. Whoever it was must have had access to significant resources and there was only one organisation I could think of with the network and the manpower to have carried out such an operation: Section H.
I wasn’t exactly in their good books. What if Colonel Dawson was sending me a message? The men were obviously fit enough to be military, and they also seemed to know about my wounded arm. If it was Section H, they now knew about opium habit. The information was probably already on Dawson’s desk. But whoever was responsible and whatever their motive, I wasn’t going to find the answers in Annie’s bed. More’s the pity.
The thought of Dawson jogged my memory. I needed to speak to him urgently. I stood up and pulled on my shirt as fast as I could without aggravating the pain.
Annie looked at her wrist. ‘You’re not going, are you? It’s not even half past five yet.’
‘I have to.’
‘At least let me make you some breakfast before you go.’
‘No time,’ I said. ‘But thank you.’
Five minutes later I hobbled down the stairs, armed with two bread rolls which Annie had insisted I take. Salman lay dozing on a mat under his rickshaw. He heard me coming, yawned, stretched and stood up. I placed a hand on his shoulder and handed him one of the rolls. He nodded, before storing it in a box under the seat of his rickshaw. From beside it he removed a glass bottle, unscrewed the cap and held it above his mouth. Careful to avoid touching the bottle with his lips, he let a stream of water fall into his mouth. He gargled, then spat it into the gutter at the side of the road. He turned and smiled.
‘Where to, sahib?’
‘Lal Bazar.’
The roads were quiet. The checkpoints were still there, manned by sleepy-looking sepoys. Lal Bazar too lacked the febrile atmosphere that had engulfed it the day before, and the building exuded the air of a quiet regional outpost rather than the centre of police operations for half a subcontinent.
There was no note waiting on my desk. Nothing to say Dawson had tried to contact me in the ten hours since I’d called his secretary. That didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was still only six a.m. Still, Dawson didn’t seem the type of man who went more than a few hours without being in contact with his office.
I considered what I was about to do. A lot had happened since the previous evening, not much of it good, and some of it still visible on my head and body. I suspected Dawson and his men might have been responsible for a lot of my troubles, but I was an officer of the Imperial Police and I had my duty to do, regardless of my personal feelings towards the man.
I picked up the telephone and placed another call to Fort William. A different secretary answered this time. There was a delay on the line before I was connected to Dawson, I guessed on his telephone at home.
‘What can I do for you, Wyndham?’ He sounded alert and betrayed no surprise at hearing my voice. Nor did he mention whether he had received my message the previous evening. Not that either of these mattered now.
‘Do you have a surveillance team at your disposal?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then it’s more of a question of what I can do for you.’
The call lasted about five minutes. It should have been quicker but he spent much of it asking why he should trust me after what had happened out in Kona. I might have asked him the same question. In the end we reached a compromise. He’d investigate my lead and I’d stay out of his business. He promised to give me an update on his progress but I wasn’t about to hold my breath.
I hung up and went in search of Digby and Surrender-not. Digby’s office was empty, so I made my way down to the pit where the junior officers sat. Few men were around this early, and other than the duty sergeant, the pit looked deserted. It was only when I passed Surrender-not’s desk that I noticed the pair of skinny brown legs sticking out from under it. For an instant I feared he too had been attacked and left for dead. It was an irrational thought. No one murders a policeman in a police station and hides the body under a desk. I blamed it on the knock on the head I’d received from the two ugly sisters the previous night. Anyway, it was ridiculous to think he might be dead when he was snoring.
‘Sergeant,’ I called out, rather louder than necessary. He woke with a start and sat up, slamming his head against the underside of the desk. I’m not normally one for schadenfreude, but the thought that I wasn’t the only one with a sore head that morning did cheer me up.
Surrender-not, dressed only in his khaki police shorts and a vest, crawled out from his foxhole, jumped to his feet and, after rubbing his head, finally remembered to salute. He looked shocked at the sight of my bruised face, but had the good sense to say nothing about it. I could have berated him for wandering around the office dressed like a coolie but I wasn’t exactly in full dress uniform myself. Instead, I asked him what the devil he was doing under his desk.
‘Sleeping, sir,’ he replied.
‘I can see that, but why?’
‘It pertains to my intention and subsequent retreat from that—’
‘Small words please, Sergeant.’
He started again. ‘I have been forced to leave the family residence on account of my failure to resign my position.’
‘Your parents threw you out?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘And there’s nowhere else you can go?’
He shook his head. ‘Not that I can think of, sir.’
‘What about your elder brother? Doesn’t he live in Calcutta?’
‘He does, sir, but we haven’t spoken in several years. We don’t really get on, and…’ His voice trailed off.
‘You have irreconcilable differences?’
‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘they’re reconcilable. That’s part of the problem.’
‘Well, you can’t keep sleeping under your desk. We’ll have to come up with a better solution when we have the time. Right now, though, I need to know the progress on Devi’s post-mortem.’
‘It’s scheduled for this afternoon.’
‘And Mrs Bose?’
‘Transferred to the women’s section last night.’
‘What about Stevens’ alibi? Any progress on that?’
‘His wife, a maid and the durwan all confirm Mr Stevens was at home on the night of the murder. I can bring the maid and durwan in for further questioning if you wish?’
‘Maybe later,’ I said. ‘For now, I want you to get dressed, then speak to Buchan’s people in Serampore. Find out what time he’s due back.’
He looked at me as though I’d just asked him to organise a tea party in the tiger enclosure at Calcutta Zoo.
‘We’ve no choice,’ I said. ‘Without Devi or this man she confided in, we’ve no way of finding out what it was that MacAuley was so upset about the night he died. We know Buchan’s involved, so we might as well try to shake him up.’
‘Is that wise, sir?’ asked Surrender-not. ‘He’s a very powerful man. If we were to accuse him without proof, I imagine he could make life very difficult for us.’
I failed to see how Buchan could make things much worse. ‘In the space of the last few days, Sergeant, I’ve been attacked, shot and almost poisoned by my landlady. If Mr Buchan feels he can top that, then good luck to him.’
As Surrender-not had anticipated, the roads north were still closed, and the fastest way from Calcutta to Serampore was by boat up the Hooghly. So an hour later, after a quick stop off at Mrs Tebbit’s for a change of clothes, we drove to the police jetty near the Prinsep Ghat. Surrender-not had telephoned ahead to the jetty, as well as the thana in Serampore, and a police launch was waiting on the pier. The vessel was commanded by a young English officer named Remnant and manned by a crew of several natives. The boat itself was a bit of a tub, but Remnant and his crew seemed to treat her like a ship of the line. Every inch of her deck was scrubbed clean and her brass bell polished to a shine.
The tide was with us and we made decent progress upriver. Remnant pointed out the Hindu burning ghat at Neemtollah as the smoke from a funeral pyre drifted out lazily onto the silver water. On the topmost step of the ghat, a priest, his chest bare but for the sacred thread, sat cross-legged, a small congregation at his feet, and solemnly intoned the cremation rites. All were dressed in white.
The city gradually melted into jungle and the journey took on the air of an expedition. This was the India I’d dreamed of. The wild, mysterious land described by Kipling and Sir Henry Cunningham. The morning mist hung low over the river and clung to the banks like a fine muslin sheet, broken only by the occasional banyan tree or native dwelling. Small wooden boats, some with a simple sail, others little more than hollowed-out canoes, drifted slowly by, their pilots steering their course with long poles.
On the east bank of the river, a great temple loomed out of the haze, a hundred feet high and utterly alien. The main temple, a large, white, double-tiered construct, was topped with a strange, dome-like structure surrounded by half a dozen or more spires. A row of shrines, twelve in all, stood facing the main temple like disciples paying homage. All shone bright in the early-morning light, their walls pristine white and roofs blood red.
‘That,’ said Remnant, ‘is the temple of Kali, or one of them, anyway. There’s quite a few of them dotted around Calcutta, but this one’s my favourite.’
Offerings to the goddess floated out from the shore, a myriad marigolds, rose petals and small votive lamps carrying the prayers of devotees. Remnant pointed to a row of steps leading down to the water.
‘Those are the bathing ghats,’ he said. ‘Hindus believe that a dip in these waters washes away all sins.’
‘Odd,’ I said. ‘Yesterday, a Hindu told me that there was no forgiveness of sins. That his karma was unalterable.’
‘That’s the thing about Hinduism,’ replied Remnant, ‘it’s so mystical, even the Hindus get confused.’
Some time later, several brick smokestacks appeared on the horizon, belching black smoke high into the blue sky.
‘Serampore,’ said Remnant, as his crew steered the boat towards the west bank. The jungle gradually cleared, revealing several large mansions. They reminded me of photographs of the cotton plantations of South Carolina, their manicured lawns stretching down to the river.
‘Elegant little place,’ I said.
‘Isn’t it just?’ replied Remnant. ‘It was founded by the Danes, apparently. Vikings on the Hooghly! By all accounts it was a prosperous little trading post until the East India Company throttled it by banning ships from coming upriver. In the end the Danes sold the place to us for a song. Since then it’s been pretty much run by Scots.’
The launch heaved to shore and slowly docked at an old wooden jetty where stood a bear of an officer who introduced himself as Superintendent MacLean. He was a curious-looking fellow. Flame haired and built like a dreadnought, but with the ruddy pink complexion and soft features of a child, as though his face hadn’t kept up with the growth of the rest of him. His uniform merely accentuated the effect and gave him the look of an overgrown schoolboy, the sort who looks like he was born to play the tuba in the school orchestra.
‘Welcome tae Serampore,’ he said. A Scots accent. No surprise there. If I were a betting man I’d have put quite a tidy sum on him hailing from Dundee. He shook my hand with the vigour of a long-lost friend, then proceeded to do the same to Surrender-not, almost lifting the little sergeant clean off his feet. The pleasantries concluded, he led us off towards a Sunbeam 16/20 that stood idling by the roadside.
‘You’re in luck, Captain,’ said MacLean as we drove down a pitted dirt track, ‘I believe Mr Buchan returned from Calcutta just this morning.’
‘You keep track of his movements?’
‘Not at all,’ he laughed, ‘but the pace of things in our sleepy wee town changes when he’s around. There’s always a lot of activity when he comes and goes.’
‘The lord of the manor?’
He smiled. ‘We prefer the Scottish term: laird.’
The car left the dirt track and joined a main road bordered by a high wall on one side and train tracks on the other. From somewhere close by came the shrill note of a steam whistle. MacLean checked his wristwatch.
‘Shift change at the mills,’ he said to no one in particular.
A little further on there came a break in the wall. A stream of men, both white and native, poured through a set of iron gates embossed with a large metal seal bearing the legend:
BUCHAN JUTE WORKS
DUNKELD MILL
SERAMPORE
Behind the gates stood a long brick building topped with a corrugated-metal roof, from the top of which rose a large chimney belching black smoke. Beside it were open sheds, some stacked with wooden crates and great circular reels of burlap, others piled high with coarse textiles that shone gold in the morning sun.
‘Raw jute,’ explained MacLean.
Minutes later the car turned off the road and between two tall stone pillars. On one sat a shield depicting three black lion heads in profile, on the other an image of a belt encircling a sun shining on a sunflower. We continued up a long driveway towards a stately baroque pile that made Government House look like a miner’s cottage.
‘Here we are,’ said MacLean. ‘We call it Buchan-ham Palace.’ He smiled, pleased with his own joke.
‘Is that sandstone?’ I asked.
MacLean nodded. ‘There’s precious little of it in Bengal,’ he said. ‘Most of it’s from the Rajput princely states, but some of it was even shipped in from the old country.’
As we approached, it became clear why the driveway was so long. It was only from a distance that the whole edifice could be taken in. Two vast wings, three storeys tall, surrounded a central core fronted by enough columns to make the Parthenon jealous.
The car pulled up beside a set of stone stairs that ran up to two large black doors, open to the heat. A couple of native footmen dressed in dark blue and gold livery ran over and opened the car doors, the sun glinting off the fans atop their stiffly starched turbans.
‘Thanks for your assistance,’ I said to MacLean, exiting the car.
‘Oh, right,’ he said, seeming rather put out. ‘You don’t want me to come in with you?’
He seemed a nice enough sort, but I didn’t know if I could trust him. Serampore was Buchan’s town and I had no idea where MacLean’s loyalties lay. It was better to keep him out of it.
‘There’s no need. I assume Buchan has a telephone rattling around somewhere in this place. We’ll telephone the police station when we’re done.’
‘Very good, sir,’ he said, stiffening. He saluted and squeezed back into the Sunbeam.
Surrender-not and I climbed the stairs to the front entrance. Behind us the car started up and sped off back down the driveway, churning up a cloud of dust in its wake.
We were met at the top by a butler. Not a native, but a white man. In a land where native labour is cheaper than livestock, the presence of a white butler spoke volumes. He was bald, save for a band of white hair that encircled the back of his head. Dressed in a pristine morning suit, he was old and bent and had a creased face that reminded me somewhat of Ratan, Mrs Bose’s decrepit manservant.
‘This way please, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Mr Buchan will see you shortly and apologises for your wait.’
We followed him through what I presumed was the hallway but could just as easily have been an art gallery, its walls covered with more paintings than I’d seen anywhere since a trip to the Louvre during the war.
He stopped outside a door and directed us inside. The room smelled of tobacco and appeared to be Buchan’s library. It was the sort of room favoured by a certain type of self-made man: oak panelled with shelves full of books that looked like they’d never been read. Light streamed in through French windows set in the far wall.
‘May I bring you some refreshment?’ asked the butler.
I declined.
‘And you, sir?’ he said, turning to Banerjee.
‘Yes please. A glass of water, thank you.’
‘Very good, sir.’ The butler nodded and exited.
Banerjee looked amused.
‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.
‘Nothing, sir.’
I sat down in one of several high-backed leather chairs dotted about the room while Surrender-not busied himself examining the book-lined shelves. Above us, a large punkah started moving on the ceiling, delivering a cooling breeze. The butler returned with a glass and a jug on a silver tray.
‘Will there be anything else, sir?’
Surrender-not looked at me. I shook my head.
‘No, that will be all, my good man,’ he said, ‘now please kindly leave us.’
A week earlier and I might have thought the sergeant was being facetious. Now, though, I wasn’t so sure. In a land where everything was seen through the prism of race, his words, directed as they were to a white man, could just as easily have been a political act.
The minutes ticked by. For want of something to do, I wandered over to the French windows. They opened on to a veranda beyond which lush green lawns ran down to the languorous Hooghly. Behind me, the door suddenly opened and Buchan strode in, dressed in blue silk trousers and a white shirt, open at the neck.
‘My apologies, Captain, but as you can imagine, your request to see me this morning took me a wee bit by surprise.’ His tone was businesslike. ‘It’s a pleasure, nonetheless. I read about your arrest of that terrorist. Hell, they’ve been chasing him for years and you catch him like that.’ He snapped his fingers and smiled. ‘If you ever get tired of police work, or fancy something a wee bit more lucrative, you let me know. I could use a man like you.’
He gestured towards a couple of the leather chairs beside a small glass table. ‘Please, take a seat and tell me what I can do for you.’
‘It’s about MacAuley’s murder. I need to ask you a few more questions.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘More questions? I assumed the case had been closed.’
‘We’re tying up a few loose ends.’
Buchan nodded slowly. ‘Very well.’
‘We have it from a witness that MacAuley was seen arguing with you shortly before he left the Bengal Club on the night of his death. Could you tell me what you were arguing about?’
‘I don’t know where you heard that, Captain, but it’s not true. We did speak afore he left but it wasn’t an argument. MacAuley was asking me for money.’
‘But he was well paid. What did he need money for?’
Buchan shrugged. ‘He didn’t tell me.’
‘And you didn’t think to mention it when we spoke last week?’
‘It was a delicate matter, Captain, and irrelevant to your investigation. I saw no reason to sully the man’s reputation.’
‘Did you also think it irrelevant to tell us that Buchan supplied you with prostitutes?’
His expression darkened. ‘I don’t see the relevance of any of this, Captain. Frankly, it’s an intrusion into my private affairs.’ His voice hardened. ‘I should warn you, Captain, to choose your words carefully. It would be foolish to throw about accusations like that without proof or reason. Such actions can have far-reaching consequences.’
‘The question is pertinent to a murder investigation.’
Exasperated, Buchan threw up his hands. ‘But the investigation has been closed, Captain! The murderer has already been caught! By you!’
‘It may not be quite so straight forward,’ I said.
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘So it’s true, then. You don’t believe Sen’s guilty. I’d heard as much.’
‘From whom?’
‘Och, it hardly matters. You shouldn’t be so naive, Captain. I know pretty much everything worth knowing in Calcutta. I dare say if your employment were to be terminated out here, I’d know about it afore you did.’
There was little point arguing the matter. The way things were going, we’d find out soon enough whether he was right. Instead, I returned to the original question.
‘Was MacAuley supplying girls for you?’
The colour rose in Buchan’s face. ‘Very well, Captain,’ he said, ‘I see you won’t be warned. I’ll answer your question, but the consequences’ll be on your own head. MacAuley did, on occasion, provide entertainment for some o’ the parties I held for clients.’
‘And what did you argue about on the night of his death?’
‘I told you. It wasnae an argument. He asked for money and I refused.’
‘He didn’t try to blackmail you, then?’
Something flickered in Buchan’s eyes. ‘Not at all.’
‘Here’s what I think happened,’ I said. ‘I think you asked him to supply you with some girls for your party that night, but he confronted you and told you he wanted out and you couldn’t allow that.’
‘And for that, I had him killed? Answer me this, Captain – assuming MacAuley did wish to stop supplyin’ these women, what does that prove? I’ve no shortage of fixers. I could have replaced him with a snap o’ my fingers. On top of that, he was my friend. Why would I want him dead?’
‘I think he tried to blackmail you. Threatened you that he’d come clean if you didn’t pay up.’
Buchan laughed. ‘Is that it, Captain? That’s your great theory? That I was afraid of being exposed for utilisin’ the services of whores? That wouldnae be news to many in Calcutta, and those that didnae know wouldnae care. Now is there anything else?’
I said nothing. Mainly because I had nothing to say.
‘In that case…’ Buchan rose from his chair. ‘You’ve wasted your time and mine comin’ out here, Captain. Given what’s been goin’ on in Calcutta these past few days, I’d have thought the Commissioner would want his men working for more productive purposes. Rest assured I’ll be informing him of our wee chat today. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to. Fraser will show you out when you’re ready.’
With that he turned and left the room. There was silence for some moments. I stood and stared out of the French windows.
‘Well, that could have gone better,’ I said drily.
‘Yes,’ agreed Surrender-not, ‘I was hoping to ask to borrow one or two of his books. I don’t suppose he’ll be willing now.’
I turned and walked over to him. ‘And exactly where were you planning on reading them?’ I asked. ‘You’re homeless, remember? Maybe you’d be better asking him for a bed for the night? It doesn’t look as though he’s short on space.’
I suddenly felt exhausted. The sheer size of the hole I’d just dug myself was becoming clear. It had been stupid to come and question a man as powerful as Buchan with nothing more than a salacious titbit about his predilection for prostitutes. It was an act born of desperation. I turned and dropped into one of the leather chairs.
‘So where does this leave us?’ asked Surrender-not.
‘Who knows?’ I said wearily. ‘I’m convinced Buchan’s involved. We just don’t have the right motive. If only we knew what MacAuley was doing at the brothel the night he was killed. Devi was adamant that he hadn’t been with any of the girls, even though Mrs Bose tried to make out otherwise.’
‘So what do you think he was doing there?’
‘I don’t know, but it must be linked to whatever secret he was keeping from Reverend Gunn. That’s the key to the whole thing. Though without Devi, we’ve no way of discovering what it was.’
‘Unless we find the man she mentioned? The one she’d confided in. Or have we given up on that?’
I shrugged. ‘We questioned everyone in the building. There was no one else there.’
I leaned back, put my hands behind my head and immediately lowered them again as a bolt of pain shot through my skull. I sighed. It really was the end of the road. I might as well stop off at the P&O office on the way back and book myself a ticket back to Southampton. I couldn’t see any way forward. We’d hit a wall of silence. Those who might know the truth either wouldn’t speak – like Buchan or Mrs Bose – or were dead – like Devi. And no one else wanted any explanation other than that of Sen’s guilt. I watched as a small brown lizard appeared from behind a book on one of the shelves. It climbed quickly up the wall and on to the ceiling. There it clambered hesitantly forward, waiting patiently for the punkah to swing past, then darted through the gap.
That’s when it hit me.
The punkah.
I jumped up and stared at it. It was connected to a pulley, which made it sway back and forth. I followed the pulley rope across the ceiling to where it passed through a small hole in the wall and into the corridor beyond. I ran out into the hallway and followed the rope, first along the hall and then around a corner. There sat a small native man, his foot rhythmically moving up and down on a pedal attached to the end of the rope. If he seemed surprised to see me, I was overjoyed to see him.
I turned and ran back towards the library, almost colliding with Surrender-not coming the other way.
‘The punkah wallah!’ I exclaimed.
Surrender-not looked at me as if I’d gone mad. ‘What about him?’
‘That first day,’ I gasped. ‘At the brothel. When we questioned Mrs Bose and the girls. The punkah. It was moving!’
The light went on in Surrender-not’s head. ‘Hai Ram! There must have been a punkah wallah! He would have been operating it from the courtyard outside. That’s why we didn’t see him.’
‘We need to get back to town,’ I said. ‘I’ll head to Cossipore. I want you back at Lal Bazar. I want an update on Devi’s post-mortem. And find out where Digby is.’
‘What should I tell him?’
‘Tell him about our little chat with Buchan, but that’s all. I’ll telephone you from Cossipore thana later.’