Barbara Cleverly (37 page)

‘All passengers taking the train from Joginder Nagar have their identity checked, sir. So far no European woman has tried to get on the train.’ He passed a list of passengers to Sir George.

‘And what about the exits from Simla?’

‘They likewise are being watched. The papers of every passenger are checked both in Simla and Kalka. I have men stationed on the tonga road and they too check all passengers. So far nothing.’ He passed over another list. ‘Not many leaving Simla of course at this time of year which makes our job easy. Mostly people are flooding in.’

Sir George inspected the list. ‘Mmm

six tax-inspectors, five opium smugglers, four French nuns, three box-wallahs, two brigadiers,’ he paraphrased, ‘but no partridge in this pear tree. Keep shaking the branches, Carter!’

‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ said Edgar Troop suddenly grim. ‘You’re looking in the wrong place. She had two more hours of daylight when she rode off into the wilderness. Not long enough to reach any civilized part or even shelter. She would have been riding a tired horse through dangerous country whichever route she took. Bandits

wild animals

rough terrain. Wouldn’t care to do it alone myself, even armed to the teeth. Alice didn’t have a rifle with her – she only had her little pop-gun. Wouldn’t scare off a monkey let alone a leopard. So, the other chance which none of you has mentioned is that Alice may be dead!’ He looked from one to the other and suddenly his large red face was haggard in the candlelight. ‘She may well be dead,’ he repeated. ‘Can’t think why you don’t all acknowledge it.’

There was a moment’s silence as all did acknowledge it.

‘Hmm,’ said Sir George. ‘If so –

‘Now boast thee, Death,

In thy possession lies

A lass unparalleled.’

Ť ^ ť

Summer 1922

In the moment of waking, Joe Sandilands could not work out where he was. A distant and regular underfloor throb accompanied by the cry of a passing sea-bird told him that he was on board a ship. But what ship and why he could not for the moment decide. A dazzle of sunshine reflected in the ceiling a few feet above his face told him that it was early morning, the breakfast tray at his elbow – a dish of croissants and a white china coffee pot – reminded him at last that he was on one of the few remaining French liners which ran from Bombay to Marseilles. A slight but insistent headache reminded him that, celebrating his escape from the confusions of crime-prevention in India, he’d had too much to drink the night before.

He was glad to be on a French boat. P&O were grand and formal but French boats were domestic, comfortable and informal. Furthermore, not many English people travelled this way and, in all the circumstances, on his present journey Joe was glad of the anonymity until, from Marseilles, he could run straight home to England by train and into the safe and predictable confines of his regular London life. ‘I’ve had enough India,’ he’d said to himself. ‘Yes, definitely enough India.’ He searched his mind. Any regrets? He found he was delighted – relieved and delighted – to be out of the shade of George’s umbrella. ‘Another month and I’d have become a performing poodle at the Residence!’ He spared a moment to think of Charlie Carter. ‘The Good Centurion’ he decided. ‘A bon copain if ever I had one. Could we have worked on together? Years of steady police work in the sun?’ It was for a moment a tempting thought. But at the last, London beckoned. ‘Okay. That’s it. Charlie’ll be okay.’

And Edgar? What about Edgar Troop? The eternal mercenary. The gun perpetually for sale. The world was changing. Would there always be a place for the likes of Edgar? He decided that there would. There must have been hundreds of Edgars in John Company’s India, designed to survive. Yes! Edgar would survive.

A glance to the right to take in the adjoining bedside table with its twinned breakfast tray told him that he was not alone and an exploring hand, encountering a warm female presence, confirmed this. Tentatively he whispered, ‘Good morning.’ And, after a moment’s thought, ‘Bonjour, ma belle.’

He arranged himself on one elbow and with an only slightly unsteady hand poured himself out a cup of coffee and began to sip. The excellence of the coffee, if nothing else, would have confirmed that he was not on a steamer of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. The quality of the champagne too had been exceptional and the amounts served by the captain, at whose table he’d dined, copious. They had all drunk too much, the passengers apparently determined to make their first night on the Indian Ocean a memorable one. The captain had held a small reception for a selected eight guests. As they began to arrive, some singly and some in couples and all French, the captain relaxed on hearing Joe chatting comfortably with them in their own language.

‘My dear Commander,’ he had said, ‘how fortunate we are that you speak French so well! Believe me, it is a most unusual accomplishment in an Englishman. Your countrymen can speak Hindustani, it would appear, and any one of a hundred native Indian languages with ease but French they do not deign to learn. And, like a good host, I had taken the trouble to invite the one other English passenger we have aboard to join us tonight so that you would have one person at least to talk to. I understand you also have travelled recently from Simla?’

As Joe nodded cautiously the captain had caught sight of the last guest to appear and had extended arms in welcome. Joe stared in amazement, the five other male guests in open admiration. With a warm smile of recognition for Joe, she listened carefully to the captain’s introductions and acknowledged that she and Joe were already well known to each other. After this auspicious beginning and after four hours sampling the hospitality of the Duc de Bourgogne, and along with the prevailing holiday mood, it had seemed entirely natural that, on escorting his partner back to her cabin, she should have offered him a brandy and that he should have accepted.

Joe looked around him more carefully. He was in a first class cabin, spacious and well-equipped. Discreetly he wriggled out of bed, drew aside a small lacy curtain from a porthole and looked out on a sunny deck. An aggressively healthy couple strode past, two young French naval officers presumably returning from leave lounged, smoking, against the rail casting speculative glances about them. A small party of schoolgirls on their way back to school in Europe pattered by. Joe enjoyed the sunshine and the French noises and the French smells. He enjoyed not being under British jurisdiction for a brief spell and being off duty. He had enjoyed the night; he looked forward to the day.

His sensual reverie was interrupted by a yawn and a rustle behind him.

‘Coffee? I smell coffee!’

A tousled head rose from the pillow and Joe turned to watch with appreciation as white shoulders shrugged off the light cotton sheet. ‘Pour me some, for God’s sake, Joe! Shan’t be able to focus on anything until I’ve had a cup. Not drunk it all already have you, you insatiable devil?’

‘Yours is over there on the table.’ Joe nodded towards the tray.

‘What? You expect me to get up and get it myself? Is that it? But you’ll see my bum!’ The indignation turned to resignation. ‘Oh, well, I suppose it doesn’t matter now.’

She slid naked out of bed and began to hunt about fretfully. Relenting, Joe picked up a bathrobe from the floor and went to drape it around her. He kissed her ear. ‘Maisie, for a showgirl you’re remarkably modest,’ he said, pouring out her coffee.

She scooped long, silky hair from her face the better to glower at him. ‘I was never a fan-dancer, Joe Sandilands! In public or in private. And you get out of the habit after a while. There hasn’t been anybody since Merl, in fact.’ She gave a throaty laugh. ‘And not a lot during Merl, if you see what I mean!’

‘Well, I’d never have guessed and I feel honoured that you should

’ Joe began gallantly.

‘Arsehole,’ Maisie commented equably. ‘No need for all that. Pigs is equal. We’re doing each other a favour. It’s going to be a long voyage and I don’t play cards. And with all these randy young Frogs hopping about the boat, pepped up with sea air and champagne, I’ll be rather glad of a steady old London bobby on guard at my cabin door.’

‘That’s all very well, Maisie!’ Joe’s voice was suddenly menacing. ‘But who’s going to guard the guard? Now put down that cup!’

They met some hours later, Joe more suitably clad for a promenade on the deck. Maisie had chosen to put on a white cotton day dress edged with broderie anglaise and was resisting the hot Indian Ocean sun with a wide straw hat and a parasol. As such she did not stand out from the French ladies demurely pacing the deck in chattering pairs and groups. Slipping his arm through hers, Joe duly admired, saying ‘Now let’s go for a little walk and show ourselves off.’

After two circuits of the deck they settled on the shady side of the ship on reclining chairs and ordered drinks. ‘I don’t know what it could be,’ said Maisie, ‘but something seems to have given me a thirst!’

From below there drifted up the sound of the ship’s orchestra rehearsing for the evening’s dance. ‘We’ve not had much time for conversation,’ said Joe, ‘what with one thing and another. Let me catch up on you, Maisie. Tell me why you left Simla. And why you’re on this boat.’

Maisie grimaced. ‘You did it again, didn’t you? Interfering bastard! Made life impossible and I had to move on!’

‘Impossible? Surely not? Sir George assured me that he was grateful for all that you’d done and he certainly wasn’t intending to make your life difficult.’

‘George wasn’t the problem! You changed things with that materialization of yours. Turned me into a freak show. Everyone wanted to come to a sitting for all the wrong reasons. Minerva Freemantle – purveyor of frissons (would that be the word, Joe? Frissons?) to the gentry. That bloody apparition brought in the sensation seekers and scared off my genuine clients. Oh, they would have come back again, I think, and it would all have blown over in time but

well

I’d had enough of Simla. India was beginning to get on my nerves. The place is coming to a boil, Joe, I can feel it.’ Maisie shuddered in spite of the heat. ‘I don’t look far into the future – can’t afford to – but it does sometimes force itself on you.’

The slow foxtrot from below swirled to a finish and was immediately followed by a livelier sound. A jazz quartet was tuning up and after a short warm-up they launched into a very creditable version of ‘St Louis Blues’. Two small children with their nursemaid came skipping by, wriggling delightedly to the music. Two nuns in light grey summer habit seated themselves in deck chairs, each with a book, each with a breviary.

‘And why this boat?’ Maisie went on. ‘Well, it wasn’t for the band! Like you – for the anonymity that’s in it, I suppose. No one knows me – no one would try particularly hard to talk to me on a French boat. Peace and quiet, that’s what I wanted.’

‘I wouldn’t count on that, Maisie, looking the way you do – I’d only have to relax my vigilance for a moment and the French Navy would lay you aboard.’

Maisie resumed, ‘Three weeks of peace and quiet.’ She gave him a sly smile. ‘And you had to come along and wreck those plans too! But you, Joe, what are you doing here? You disappeared from Simla and there were all kinds of rumours circulating. Some said Alice Sharpe wasn’t dead and she’d run off with you, a victim to your rugged charm!’

‘No such luck! No, George found a little job for me to do up on the north-west frontier and what I’m doing here is escaping back to reality. Like you, Maisie, I’d had enough. Too claustrophobic. Too foreign. And I got fed up with being used.’

‘George, you mean? Nothing personal in that, you know, the old bugger manipulates everybody.’

‘Well, it’s not what I’m used to. Charlie Carter once called me Sir George’s pet ferret. He wasn’t so far wrong. And that might not have been so bad

I can look after myself down rat holes. But it’s bloody annoying to surface with a dead rat in your mouth to be told by the boss that what you’ve caught is a mouse, all’s well and thank you very much.’

‘Not sure who your rat is. Rheza Khan? I don’t know all the details but I had heard that you – and Edgar Troop of all people – had saved the whole of northern India from a native uprising, a Russian invasion and God knows what else.’

‘That’s George’s official line and in part true. That’s why he’s so convincing. An uprising – yes, it could have happened – they’d certainly equipped themselves. George had been keeping an eye on them all along. He seized on this chance of coming down on Rheza’s father like a ton of bricks. That squadron of Slater’s was only a beginning. There was a Gurkha battalion ready to back up. Massive confiscation of arms and a finger wagged at the rajah. “See what your son has been up to – gun-running and two murders on his slate!” Rheza’s father took the hint. Enough menace to keep him quiet and north of the Zalori for a few years I should think. George has played down Alice Sharpe’s role in all this.’

‘Alice Sharpe’s role? I thought that girl must be at the bottom of things! And was it true, then, that story about the shikari trip that went wrong? How did she die?’

‘Well, you can’t just allow the owner of the country’s biggest trading empire to disappear in the night without trace. Too many questions. Too many unresolved problems and that’s just what George won’t tolerate. The Jardine version which is now largely put about, again, is convincing because most of it is true and verifiable. Alice, who as everyone knows is a superb rifle shot and had rather taken under her wing the visiting police commander from Scotland Yard, decided to introduce him to the delights of a shikari party in the Simla Hills. Of course she hired Edgar Troop to be their guide. Who else? There’d been talk of a man-eater raiding in one or two of the remote villages up towards Joginder Nagar and they thought they’d try their luck. Unfortunately Alice wandered off from the camp during the night – against all advice, of course – and was found to be missing in the morning. Frantic searches, Carter and a police squad called in, rewards posted but no trace of Alice. ICTC ticking over until a representative can be shipped out from London and all that.’