Barbara Cleverly (12 page)

On arrival at her spacious bungalow, surrounded by the best gardens Joe had yet seen in Panikhat, a cascade of servants tumbled out of the door to greet them. A maidservant took Kitty’s hat and veil, her bearer handed over her church-going gear to another servant, a third set drinks out on the verandah and a fourth abjured a punkha-wallah to speed it up.

Kitty led him to a long chair. ‘I know why you’re here, of course,’ she began without preamble. ‘The station is divided, you know. Did you know that? Divided into those who think you’re wasting your time and wish you’d leave sleeping dogs to lie — this faction is headed by Superintendent Bulstrode, but I suppose he would think that. Anything you might turn up reflects unkindly on police procedures — and then there’s the other faction that think there’s been dirty work at the crossroads and this is headed by Nancy, under the benevolent eye of Andrew, of course. His eye is always benevolent where Nancy’s concerned as I dare say you’ve already found. He lets her do pretty much what she likes. Wouldn’t have done in my day! But there

He was very badly wounded in the war. His game leg is a legacy of the second Battle of the Marne. I respect and admire him and I wouldn’t like anything sad to happen to him. He didn’t have to go off to the war. The Indian Civil Service was a reserved occupation but he’d served for a year or so with the Rajputana Rifles and was on the reserve of officers and they were glad enough to lure him away. With the wartime expansions they needed all the linguists they could recruit so Andrew went off to France and only just made it back again. He always says he owes his life to Nancy’s nursing.’

After the slightest pause she continued, ‘Now tell me who you’ve met, where you’ve been, what you’ve seen, what you’re thinking. For example — have you met Prentice yet? The Pathans have a name for him. I can’t speak Pushtu so I can’t tell you what it is but — translated it means “never asleep” or something like that. He spent many years on the frontier, you know. Had a second tour with the Gilgit Scouts and only came away because his regiment insisted. Just in time to take them to France. By then he was more Pathan than the Pathan! What he didn’t know about Pukhtunwali

’

‘Pukhtunwali?

‘Yes, the Pathan code of honour. Giles pretty well lived by it. Still does, I’ve no doubt. Ready to avenge an insult to the third and fourth generation if necessary, ready to defend the stranger within his gates to the same degree. It’s logical, it’s consistent and no doubt essential for existence on the north-west frontier but it can be a frightful nuisance in Bengal. And an intelligent Pathan — if that’s not a contradiction in terms — would be the first to admit that it leads to some wild and ludicrous events. Drink up and have another one — must keep up the fluids in this country!’

‘And Dolly Prentice? What about her?’

‘Oh, she was wonderful! She’s been dead twelve years and she was at least twenty years younger than me but I still miss her. She was my friend, she was everybody’s friend. There was a quality about her that all admired. She could light up a room just by walking into it and if she was talking to you, you felt honoured and all the better for her conversation. I know it sounds sentimental and absurd but ask anyone who knew her and they’ll all say the same. Wait a moment.’

Kitty clapped her hands and called for the bearer. She spoke briefly to him and he bowed and left the room to return carrying two dusty and ragged, leather-covered books.

‘The Prentice family albums,’ said Kitty. ‘I don’t know that Giles would approve of my showing you these but I shan’t inform him of my intentions. It comes under the heading of helping the police with their enquiries, wouldn’t you say?’

She waved for the servant to place them on a table between them and began carefully to turn the pages. ‘Now, these escaped the fire. About the only things that did. They were kept in a metal trunk in Giles’ office at the end of the bungalow with the family papers. When they were salvaged, of course they were brought to me. Giles and Midge both know I’ve got them in safe keeping but they have never asked to have them back and, somehow, it never seemed the right moment to return them. Midge comes over to look through them and hear me tell stories of her mother but Giles has never shown any desire to have them returned. Too painful.’

She found the photograph she was looking for and pushed it towards him. ‘There, you can see something of her style. She was beautiful. There was an elfin quality about her that appealed to everybody.’

Joe looked with admiration and sadness at the bright, mischievous face raised to the camera. Yes, Dolly would have enslaved him too, he thought.

‘And her reputation remained intact?’ he asked delicately.

‘Well, she could have said, with Queen Elizabeth:

‘ “Much suspected of me,

Nothing proved can be.”

‘And so it was. I would suspect there was a string of affairs or at least flirtations and if I was minded to do so I could name names.’

‘And Prentice? Was he aware of all this? Did he mind? Was he very devoted?’

‘What can I say? He had a reputation for devotion and it’s true that when he had to leave the station he took her with him whenever he could. And that’s unusual. Most of the officers are only too glad to leave domestic bliss behind for a few days, I’d say. But devoted? Truly I’d say he wasn’t. I’d almost be prepared to say he was indifferent to her, though you wouldn’t find many to agree with me. Fond of her perhaps and he never mistreated or neglected her certainly but, compared to all the other men on the station, indifferent.’

‘How did he come to marry Dolly? On the surface they don’t seem to have a great deal in common.’

‘Dolly had an Indian background. Rather like Nancy — and dozens of other girls — if you want to have a place in India there’s only one way to achieve it — you have to marry a man who is making his career here. After school, Dolly came out on the fishing fleet and never was likely to be a “returned empty” as we rudely used to call the poor plain girls who went back home without a husband. She had her pick of the eligible men that year — 1902, was it? Of course, by far the best catch is a three hundred pounds a year dead or alive man

’

‘Dead or alive?’ asked Joe puzzled.

‘A civil servant, like the one Nancy’s got for herself, the best paid and having the advantage that if he dies, you go on drawing your husband’s salary in full for as long as you live. Not a bad bargain, I think you’d agree?’

‘It beats police arrangements, certainly,’ said Joe.

‘And Dolly had her offers from that quarter but — and to many people’s surprise — she chose Prentice. And here they are on their wedding day.’

‘He was a handsome man,’ Joe commented.

‘Oh, yes. Physically an outstanding man. And he still is. Fiendishly handsome, don’t you think? But there was something about him which did not appeal to most girls. He didn’t flirt. All those years in the hills were no preparation for the trivialities of polite society. He had no idea, I think, of making himself attractive to women. It’s my opinion that he had been sent back to the regiment here in Bengal with advice from his senior officers to make a serious push for promotion and there is a point beyond which it is difficult to proceed if you do not have a wife. There’s a saying in the Indian army: “Subalterns may not marry. Captains may marry. Majors should marry. Colonels must marry.” Prentice was determined to make colonel. He got Dolly in his sights and carried off the prize of the season.’

The album with its melancholy parade of singed and stained but evocative images was entrancing Joe. ‘May I?’ he asked.

‘Certainly,’ said Kitty. ‘Take your time.’

She waved a hand again to her bearer who interpreted her gesture without a word and presented a cigarette box at her elbow and a lighted match. At her invitation, Joe helped himself to a cigarette.

‘And this is Midge?’ he asked, pointing to a tiny child being supported on a pony by a smiling syce.

‘Yes, that’s Midge. Very dark, you see. Takes her colouring from her father.’

Joe was silent for a moment as he gazed at another portrait. A tall, dark young man dressed in the baggy white trousers, loose white shirt and tight waistcoat of a Pathan tribesman smiled in a confident and swaggering way at the camera.

‘Ah, I see you’ve found Prentice’s bearer.’

‘Chedi Khan?’

‘Yes. Now how do you know that? Am I going to have to respect your detective abilities after all? Chedi Khan. That’s the name. Haven’t heard it for years. But I would never forget the man! No one who saw him ever would. I can still remember the flutterings he made in the hen coop when he appeared on the station with Prentice for the first time! The women swooned! Discreetly, of course!’

‘He has a strong look of Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik.’

‘We haven’t yet had the pleasure of moving pictures in Panikhat, so I am not able to comment. But Chedi Khan certainly cut a most romantic figure about the station. He was about six foot two and, as you see, handsome as the devil. He moved like a panther — stalked through the station looking neither to left nor right and he was subservient to no one but Prentice. His hair was black and he wore it long on his shoulders

sometimes he would twine a red rose through it. That was surprising enough but the most amazing thing about him was his eyes. They were blue. Yes, turquoise blue and he would ring them with kohl which made the effect even more devastating. Apparently some of these northern tribesmen do have light skins and blue eyes. They say the colouring goes right back to the invading armies of Alexander the Great. Extraordinary.’

‘But where did Prentice acquire such a servant? If servant is what he was

’

‘He certainly didn’t behave like one. He was a law unto himself. The story is that he was committed to Prentice’s care when he was a boy after some flare up on the frontier. Where Prentice went, Chedi Khan followed.’

‘And what were his relations with Prentice’s family? Is it known?’

‘I wouldn’t say known for certain. That was a very tightly knit household by Indian standards. He seemed to be devoted to Dolly and to Midge. Of course, there were wagging tongues to hint that in the face of Prentice’s indifference, Dolly found special comfort in her husband’s bearer. And perhaps she did

No, Commander, it would not be unknown,’ she finished in response to Joe’s enquiring glance. ‘And when the two bodies were discovered entwined together in the wreckage of the bed in Dolly’s room, well, you can imagine that the station biddies had all their suspicions confirmed!’

‘It puzzles me that anyone should have been still in their beds in those circumstances,’ said Joe. ‘According to the report there was a lot of noise — servants screaming, fire roaring

there were even shots. Loud enough to attract the attention of officers half a mile away in the mess

’

‘It was no puzzle to anyone who knew Dolly,’ said Kitty thoughtfully and she was silent for a moment while she decided how far she might confide in Joe. ‘Look here, Commander, you haven’t seen much of station life but perhaps enough to judge that for many women it’s a boring and lonely life. It’s rarely necessary for a memsahib to lift a finger for herself and when her morning task of supervising the servants is complete, there is little else to occupy her time and certainly not her mind. Dolly was bored. She drank. She’d been drinking a bit for months before the fire. It’s an old story. I would guess that when the dacoits set fire to the bungalow she was lying dead to the world already.’

‘But Chedi Khan?’

‘A Muslim so he certainly wasn’t under the influence of alcohol. Who knows? The bodies were trapped under a beam. Perhaps he’d been trying to wake her up

make her move

left it just too late. Chedi Khan was devoted to Prentice and what would he do but spend his life defending the memsahib? Well, that’s always been my version of the story anyway’ She looked at him with the trace of a challenge. ‘And I would be obliged if you would accept it as the authorised version, Commander. There are the living to consider and to me they are more important than the dead. And perhaps even more important than the truth.’

Joe nodded his acquiescence and understanding. He would leave it there — for the moment.

It occurred to him that a proper autopsy would have revealed the contents of Dolly’s stomach. Drunk? Drugged? The fire started to conceal evidence? He couldn’t recall a medical report on Dolly’s body and made a note to himself that he would need to enquire further. His mind automatically sped down a widening avenue of speculation.

‘Can you remember how Giles Prentice reacted when he heard what had happened?’

‘He was devastated. He didn’t utter or move for a week. He was in no fit state to care for Midge, of course, and she, poor dear, was out of her mind with panic and distress. My husband and I scooped her up and brought her over here and cared for her. She lived with us for nearly a year. Too disturbed to be sent away to school so I taught her her lessons myself. Bright little thing! But terribly highly strung and who shall wonder?’

Her face clouded at an unwelcome memory. ‘She was sitting at my feet one day while I was sewing, reading her way through my children’s old books and she came across an old Victorian volume — India Told to the Children I think it was called. Suddenly Midge pointed to a page, screamed and began to sob. It was a long time before we could calm her down. In fact, we had to fetch Giles to reason with her.’

‘What on earth had she seen?’

‘A depiction of the ritual of suttee. A beautiful young Indian lady, dressed in her finest clothes and her jewels, was lying on a blazing funeral pyre by the side of her husband’s dead body. Just the thing for a children’s book, I think you’ll agree!’

‘And Prentice took her back to live with him again?’

‘Eventually. She stayed with us until their new bungalow was built.’

‘At number 3, Curzon Street?’

‘That’s right. Next door to the ruins of the old bungalow. Very odd of Giles, I thought, to build so close to the old site — it must have brought back bad memories every day. But then he already owned the land. He was always an unpredictable fellow! Though in military ways, perfectly predictable. When he came back to his senses after the disaster the Pathan in him took over. He gathered up a troop of Greys — at the express request of the Collector because there was much public sympathy and outrage, as you can imagine — and he rode off. They came back after ten days. No one has ever seen troops so exhausted. Not one of them has ever spoken about that sortie.’