Smoke and Ashes Read online

  I told him about the murder of Ruth Fernandes as he seated himself behind his desk and mopped at his brow with a handkerchief. It wasn’t particularly warm, but the news had brought a sweat to his temples.

  ‘Terrible,’ he mumbled, not once but twice. ‘Sister Fernandes had been with us a long time. Since before the war, I think. I saw her only yesterday.’ He shook his head in disbelief, as though doing so might change the fact of her death.

  ‘When you last saw her, did she seem anxious at all?’

  McGuire puffed out his cheeks. He picked up a pen from his desk and began rolling it between his fingers. ‘I don’t believe so, but then I only saw her for a moment. You’d be better speaking to Sister Rouvel – Nurse Fernandes reported to her.’

  ‘We’ll make sure to,’ I said. ‘We believe Nurse Fernandes left her shift early this morning. Have you any idea why that might be?’

  ‘Again, that’s a question better put to Miss Rouvel. And to be frank, I’m not certain what more help I can be to you.’

  ‘Mrs Fernandes was last seen alighting from a ferryboat at the jetty in Rishra in the early hours of this morning,’ I said. ‘We have reason to believe she was there to meet a man described as being of “Eastern” appearance, Assamese or Nepalese, possibly in his forties. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who might fit that description?’

  The question seemed to unsettle him.

  ‘You think this man killed Nurse Fernandes?’

  I’d no desire to tell him anything I didn’t need to.

  ‘It’s possible,’ I said, though if it had been a romantic assignation, my gut told me that the husband was the more likely killer. Not that that necessarily ruled him out. Indeed, a love affair gone sour was as much a motive for murder as anything else I could think of. But the chances of either a jilted lover or a cuckolded husband deciding to carve his revenge into her face in exactly the same manner as had been done to a suspected drug lord murdered in Chinatown thirty hours earlier were pretty slim. Whatever the truth, I couldn’t be sure of anything until we questioned him.

  ‘At this stage, though, we simply wish to talk to the man,’ I said. ‘Rule him out of our inquiries. Is there anyone on your staff who might fit the description?’

  McGuire set down the pen, removed his spectacles and began to wipe the lenses with the same handkerchief he’d used on his forehead. ‘I don’t think we have any Assamese staff here,’ he said, ‘but I’ll ask Miss Rouvel to confirm that. As for Nepalese, there’s presently a whole regiment of Gurkhas billeted in the cantonment.’

  I’d fought alongside Gurkhas during the war. They were hard bastards, descended from Nepalese hill tribesmen that had fought the British Army to a standstill in 1812. We couldn’t beat them, so we’d asked them to join us, paying them to enlist in the British Army. They were some of the fiercest soldiers in the world, with a disregard for death that was either heroic or foolhardy depending on your point of view. They’d fought at the heart of some of the bloodiest battles of the Great War, and as a British officer I’d been thankful they were on our side.

  McGuire impatiently checked his watch. ‘Is there anything else, gentlemen? I have an appointment in Calcutta this afternoon. I shall need to leave soon if I’m not to be late.’

  He made to rise.

  ‘There is one other thing you could help with, sir,’ said Surrender-not. ‘Could you furnish us with a copy of Nurse Fernandes’s service record?’

  McGuire stared at him.

  ‘It’s routine procedure,’ he continued. ‘We like to build up as detailed a picture of the victim as we can.’

  ‘I’ll have to check with my superiors,’ replied McGuire. ‘It’s not standard practice to hand out military records to civilian authorities. Anyway, shouldn’t this be a matter for the military police? After all, she was employed by the army, and worked in a military facility.’

  ‘She was a civilian,’ I interjected, ‘and she wasn’t killed in the military cantonment but in a civilian area on the other side of the river. That makes it a matter for the police. I take it I don’t need to remind you that this is an inquiry into the murder of one of your own staff. Now we’d appreciate your cooperation and the chance to review Nurse Fernandes’s service record.’

  The colonel hesitated. ‘As I say, I’ll have to clear it with my superiors, but I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, I suppose we’d better break the news to Miss Rouvel.’

  With that he rose and headed for the door, opened it and called out. ‘Sister Rouvel, could you come in here please?’

  ‘Mathilde,’ he said as she entered the room, ‘these gentlemen have informed me of some terrible news. Please take a seat.’

  Surrender-not rose from his chair and offered it to her. She sat down, too bewildered to ask any questions.

  ‘Sister Rouvel,’ I said, ‘I’m afraid that your colleague, Ruth Fernandes, was found dead this morning, not far from her home.’

  The girl raised a hand to her mouth.

  ‘She was attacked by person or persons unknown, shortly after leaving her place of work and crossing the river to Rishra.’

  Rouvel shook her head. ‘C’est pas possible. I saw her only a few hours ago.’

  McGuire put a comforting hand on her shoulder, causing the girl to stiffen almost imperceptibly. ‘Now now, Mathilde. We all need to be strong at a time like this. The officers have a few questions which I want you to answer. Can you do that?’

  Rouvel nodded and stared into the middle distance.

  McGuire turned to me. ‘I really must go now, Captain. Please feel free to stay here and ask Sister Rouvel your questions.’

  I stood, shook his hand and thanked him for his time and for the use of his office. As McGuire closed the door behind him, I walked over to the window, leaned on the ledge and resumed my questions.

  ‘Miss Rouvel,’ I said gently, ‘would you like a glass of water?’

  She snapped out of her trance and focused on me. ‘Thank you, no. That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘How was Nurse Fernandes’s state of mind when you last saw her? Did she seem agitated at all? Excited or nervous maybe?’

  Rouvel fiddled with her hands. ‘The last time I saw her, she looked tired. But then she’d been under strain for much of the last week.’

  ‘Was there something troubling her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Possibly, but I could not tell you what it was.’

  ‘We understand Nurse Fernandes finished her shift early, possibly around 4 a.m. That seems rather strange. Was it something you were aware of?’

  ‘There’s nothing strange about it, Captain,’ she replied. ‘She’d sought my permission to leave early. She said she had an appointment in Calcutta at eight o’clock this morning. She needed to take her mother-in-law to a clinic there. I believe the lady required a specialist.’

  Alarm bells sounded in my head. According to George Fernandes, he had only gone looking for his wife at half past eight, shortly after the time at which she’d usually return home. If she was due to take her mother-in-law to Calcutta for an 8 a.m. appointment, surely he’d have started searching much sooner? Someone was lying, though whether it was George Fernandes spinning me a yarn, or Ruth Fernandes lying to Mathilde Rouvel, or even Rouvel lying to me, was a matter of conjecture. It was, I supposed, possibly all three.

  In an effort to conceal my thoughts, I turned away and stared out of the window. Below me, I saw Colonel McGuire exit the building. I watched as he turned left, heading along the path to the riverbank in what seemed like inordinate haste. I followed his progress as far as I could, until he turned a corner and disappeared.

  I turned back to Rouvel.

  ‘Did Nurse Fernandes say which clinic she was visiting?’

  ‘I didn’t think to ask.’

  ‘Couldn’t she have brought her mother-in-law here? Why go all the way to Calcutta when I expect you have the finest facilities right here?’

  Rouvel shook her head. ‘She
couldn’t have brought her here. The hospital is only for military personnel and the families of officers stationed at the cantonment.’

  ‘There’s no exception for a close family member of a long-standing member of staff?’

  ‘No, Captain. At least, not for Indians.’

  Rouvel turned her gaze to the floor. ‘I should inform the other nurses,’ she said. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘We’d like to see Nurse Fernandes’s service record, if we may,’ I said.

  ‘Of course, but I’ll need Colonel McGuire’s permission before I can release it to you.’

  I considered telling her that McGuire had already cleared it. In her current state of distraction, there was a good chance she’d have taken me at my word. Respectable people are conditioned to believe that coppers don’t lie – it’s a credulousness we like to take advantage of – but I didn’t feel like deceiving her. For one thing, it could cause difficulties for her, were she to mention it to McGuire, and for another, I found it hard lying to women. It was one of my many flaws.

  ‘We’ve already requested it from him,’ I said. ‘It’s a routine matter and he’s clearing it with his superiors. But in the interests of time, it might prove helpful to our investigations if we could have prior sight of it.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait until the colonel authorises me to give it to you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. I walked back and took the chair behind McGuire’s desk, so that I was now seated opposite her.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ she asked.

  I glanced at the framed photographs of the woman and the young soldier on the desk and realised that the woman in the first photograph was younger than I’d initially assumed. She was probably in her early forties, and it was only her demeanour – the tired eyes and baleful expression – that made her look older. As for the young soldier, he wore the pips and insignia of a lieutenant of the Coldstream Guards.

  ‘The woman in this photograph,’ I asked. ‘Is she the colonel’s wife?’

  The question seemed to throw her for a moment.

  ‘Oui, that is Madame McGuire.’

  ‘And the young man?’

  ‘That is his son, George. He died in the war, at Ypres.’

  I reflected on that last statement. It meant there wouldn’t even have been a body to bury. Nothing for a mother to lay to rest.

  ‘Captain,’ she said, breaking my reverie, ‘if there’s nothing further, I should get back to my rounds.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Before you do, though, maybe you could arrange for a car to take us back into town?’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  Rouvel rose and made for the door, while I got up and walked back to the window and stared out. Behind me, Surrender-not began examining the books on McGuire’s shelf.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’ he asked.

  The truth was I didn’t know what to think. The similarities with the murdered man in Tangra were difficult to ignore, and yet nothing we’d learned in Barrackpore suggested that Nurse Fernandes’s death was anything other than a marital dispute. Was it possible that the two cases were linked – that either George Fernandes or the stranger whom Ruth Fernandes met at the riverside in Rishra had killed both the nurse and the drug lord in Tangra? Such a connection seemed at best fanciful and at worst preposterous.

  I continued staring out of the window in the hope of making some sense of it all. Some minutes later an olive-green military staff car drew to a halt outside the front entrance below.

  There was a knock at the door and Mathilde Rouvel entered once more.

  ‘Your car is waiting downstairs,’ she said.

  I thanked her and told her we’d be down in a few moments. After she’d left, I turned to Surrender-not.

  ‘That’s odd,’ I said.

  ‘What is?’ said Surrender-not, looking up from a book he’d taken from the shelf.

  ‘Colonel McGuire’s meeting in Calcutta.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘He said he was late and that the meeting was extremely important …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If so, I’m wondering why there was no car waiting for him downstairs.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I watched him walk out of the building and head off down the street. If he was in such a hurry to get to Calcutta, why didn’t he just request a staff car to come here to the hospital? Sister Rouvel managed to organise one for us at the drop of a hat. Look’ – I pointed down at the street – ‘it’s already here.’

  Surrender-not pondered the issue. ‘Maybe he needed to go somewhere else first?’

  ‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘Or maybe he just didn’t want to talk to us any more.’

  THIRTEEN

  The journey back took longer than expected on account of the Chitpore Road being clogged by a host of the great unwashed and unshod, all heading south with their placards as if off to a day at the races. I’d intended to stop off at our lodgings for a dose of kerdū en route to Lal Bazar, but there was no time for that now and the withdrawal pangs were beginning to bite with a savagery. Instead, I ordered the driver to make straight for police headquarters, and after depositing Surrender-not at his desk to start on the paperwork, I found myself being escorted into Lord Taggart’s office by his secretary, an officer called Daniels.

  The commissioner was behind his desk, pen in hand and hunched over some papers. ‘What have you got for me, Sam?’ he said, not deigning to look up as I crossed the expanse between the double doors and his bureau.

  ‘Das, sir. He’s not calling off his demonstration and he’s not moving it, despite us explaining the seriousness of the situation and the consequences of any action he should decide to take.’

  ‘That’s unfortunate,’ he said, gesturing with a hand for me to sit. ‘Anyway, it appears the matter’s out of our hands. The viceroy’s ordered out the military. They’ve imposed a curfew from 6 p.m. tonight.’

  To me that sounded like a sure way of adding not so much fuel to the fire as a ton of high explosive. After all, the military weren’t exactly known for their judicious crowd-handling techniques.

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘Deadly,’ he replied. ‘Is that all you’ve got for me?’

  ‘No, sir,’ I said, dropping into the chair opposite him. ‘I’ve been up in Rishra.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ With his pen, Taggart scored out some typewritten words of the report he was reading and scribbled something in the margin.

  ‘A woman’s been murdered. A Goanese nurse returning from work at the military hospital in Barrackpore. You wouldn’t happen to know why Banerjee and I were assigned to the case?’

  Taggart finally looked up. ‘Don’t be obtuse, Sam. It’s tiring. You were assigned because I ordered you assigned. And I ordered it because the viceroy’s key concern now is discrediting Gandhi and Das and all these other Congress hypocrites.’ He set down his pen and sighed. ‘Look, Sam, I’m not one to condone a murder, especially not one on my own turf, but as such things go, this one could be useful. I want it solved, and solved quickly. It could help get the viceroy off my back.’

  Maybe it was the withdrawal symptoms, but I still didn’t see what that had to do with me. A more sensible man might have kept quiet, but me – I preferred to give voice to my ignorance.

  ‘You mean you want it tied back to Das and his followers?’ I said.

  The vein in his temple began to throb. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You think I want a whitewash? If I did, I’d hardly have chosen you for the task. I’ve got plenty of pliant officers who could do a better job of that than you. What I want, Sam, is the truth. I want to be able to tell the viceroy that I’ve got my best men on the case, and as shocking as it may seem, that just happens to be you and Banerjee.’

  ‘What if it’s not Das’s supporters?’

  He eyed me suspiciously. ‘Have you any re
ason to think it isn’t?’

  I could hardly tell him that my concerns centred on similarities between the mutilation of the woman’s face and that of a corpse hidden in an opium den in Tangra.

  ‘Not really. Though there’s a chance this may be a domestic affair. The husband might be involved.’

  ‘Have you any evidence?’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s just a theory.’

  He stared at me for a moment. ‘She was a non-Bengali, working for the British military and living in Rishra, probably the most Bolshie township east of Moscow,’ he said. ‘Unless you can prove it was her husband who did her in, I suggest you concentrate your efforts on Congress sympathisers. Now, is there anything else?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Nevertheless I made a mental note to ask Surrender-not to contact Sergeant Lamont out in Rishra and get him to confirm George Fernandes’s movements at the time his wife had gone missing, and to speak to some of her friends and neighbours. Tongues wagged, in Bengal as much as they did in England, and if Ruth Fernandes was carrying on behind her husband’s back, the odds were someone would have seen something.

  ‘In that case,’ continued Taggart, ‘you and Sergeant Banerjee had better make your way down to Howrah Bridge. The viceroy might have ordered the military to handle it, but I want you there to keep an eye on things.’

  The Strand Road was a study in static, with trucks, cars and omnibuses all marooned like rocks amid a sea of people, a foaming river of brown men dressed in white kurtas, dhotis and Congress caps. For a moment, I thought Das might have heeded our warning and ordered the Congress Volunteers to keep away, but then I saw them, the students and young men, some of them not much more than boys, pigeon-chested and thin-legged, dressed in oversized khaki shirts and shorts and looking to all the world like a Scout troop that had got lost while hiking on Hampstead Heath. These were the boys that had so frightened the readership and editors of the Englishman that the viceroy had had no option but to ban them.

  The truth was I doubted we had much to fear. These lads were never going to kick us out of India. Indeed I suspected it wouldn’t take more than a platoon of the women’s army auxiliary corps to strike fear into them, and if Surrender-not’s problems with talking to the opposite sex were anything to go by, the ladies probably wouldn’t even need to use force. Simply engaging them in conversation would likely see them turn tail and run.