CALCUTTA 1922

Commander Joseph Sandilands of the Metropolitan Police was delighted to be going home. Delighted that his six months’ secondment from the Met to the Bengal Police should, at last, be at an end.

He’d had enough India. He’d had enough heat. He’d had enough smells.

Though no stranger to the midden that was the East End of London he’d not, by a long way, been able to accept the poverty that surrounded him. And he still resented the social formalities of Calcutta. As a London policeman, his social status had been, at the least, equivocal in the precedent-conscious atmosphere of the capital of Bengal. He had counted the days until he could pack, say his farewells and go, but even that pleasure was denied him; inevitably, the bearer who had been assigned to him had done his packing for him. But, by whatever means, it was at last done and tomorrow he’d be gone.

For the last time – he sincerely hoped it was the last time – he made his way into the office that had been allocated to him. For the last time he cursed the electric fan that didn’t work. For the last time he was embarrassed by the patient presence of the punkha-wallah manipulating the sweeping fan that disturbed but did not disperse the heavy air. There was, however, a neat envelope lying on his desk. Stamped across the flap were the words: ‘The Office Of The Governor’.

With anxious hand he tore open the envelope and read:

Dear Sandilands,

I hope you can make it convenient to call in and see me this morning. Something has cropped up which we should discuss. I have sent a rickshaw.

Yours sincerely,

And an indecipherable signature followed with the words ‘Sir George Jardine, Acting Governor of Bengal’.

Joe didn’t like the sound of this. Could he pretend he’d never received it and just leave? No, they’d catch him in the act and what could be more embarrassing than being brought back from the docks under police escort? Better not chance it! He looked angrily out of the window and there were, indeed, two liveried rickshaw men waiting to deliver him to the Governor. He’d met George Jardine on one or two formal occasions during his secondment and formed a good impression of the distinguished old pro-consul who had come out of retirement to bridge the gap between two incumbents.

The appointment seemed to be a formal one and he paused in the vestibule to check his appearance. ‘God! You look tired, Sandilands,’ he muttered at his reflection. He still half expected to see the eager youth who had set off for the war with the Scots Fusiliers but, though the hair was still black and plentiful, after four years in France and four years with the police his expression was watchful now and cynical. An old wound on his forehead – badly stitched – had pulled up the corner of one eyebrow so that, even in repose, his face looked perpetually enquiring. Six months of Indian sun appeared to have bleached his grey eyes as it had darkened his skin. But at least in India everything he possessed was polished without any word from him. He adjusted his black Sam Browne belt shining like glass, his silver rank badges and his medal ribbons, the blue of the police medal almost edged out by the red and blue DSO and his three war medals. He’d do.

The rickshaw set off without a word, the rickshaw men trotting steadily ahead through the heavy press of traffic. Seeing the Governor’s livery, people made way for him. ‘Another six months,’ he thought, ‘and I believe I could get used to this. It’s certainly time I was home!’

‘Morning, Sandilands,’ said the Governor, as though greeting an old friend. ‘Not too early for a peg, I hope? Whisky-soda?’

‘Yes,’ thought Joe, ‘far too early but what can one do?’

He watched as Jardine poured out two generous glasses.

‘I have your chit, sir,’ he said, hoping he didn’t sound as resentful as he felt.

‘Yes, well…’ the Governor began. ‘Funny business. I’ve wired your chaps in London, and hope you don’t mind my having done so, over your head, as you might say. But – your lecture the other night – I was very impressed… Everybody was. Opened our eyes to a lot of things! Don’t want to cut down our chaps here – they do a wonderful job – but they’re up to their ears and it has come to me that maybe we need a little bit extra. May be nothing in it, of course. Once the women start gossiping you never know quite where it’s going to end and…’ He paused and sipped his drink. ‘Do help yourself. But the fact is that I telegraphed your chief to ask if we could borrow you for a bit longer. Everyone here would be delighted – but the problem isn’t here, it’s in a place called Panikhat about fifty miles south of here. It’s on the railway. Not a bad journey and they’ll put you up in splendour and state, no doubt. Pretty good fellows down there. It’s a civil and military station.’

Joe Sandilands was hardly listening. ‘I could have been sailing down the Hooghly River by now! Why the hell didn’t I go last night?’

The Governor resumed, ‘I don’t suppose this is what you wanted for a moment but if you’ll take this on it couldn’t do your career any harm, I think. As I say, there are some very good fellows down there – Bateman’s Horse. We call them the Bengal Greys – grey horses – the Indian equivalent of the Scots Greys, don’t you know… But I won’t waste any more time chatting.’

He held up a letter by its corner. ‘It’s all here but there’s somebody I would like you to meet.’ He seemed for a moment reluctant to come to the point, finally concluding, ‘It’s my niece, you see. She’s about the place somewhere… Her husband is the Collector of Panikhat and they’re stationed down there. Between you and me – and strictly between you and me – he’s a peaceful sort of chap… anything for a quiet life. Not much go about him. Perhaps Nancy ’s only taken this up because she was bored. But, I don’t know – they seem happy enough together. Anyway, Nancy ’s as bright as a new rupee and – ah! Nancy, my dear, there you are! This is Commander Sandilands. Sandilands, my niece, Nancy Drummond.’

For the first time since this terrible news broke for Joe, he woke to the possibility that there might be compensations in this so unwelcome interruption to his life. Mention of the Collector’s wife had instantly produced a vision of Anglo-Indian respectability at its most oppressive but the figure before him was quite a surprise.

For one thing, she was younger by twenty years than he had been expecting and for another, she was smartly – even fashionably – dressed. White silk blouse, well-cut jodhpurs, broad-brimmed hat in one hand, fly whisk in the other and an enquiring – if slightly suspicious – face. He tried not to be too obviously appraising her. He was aware that she was fairly obviously appraising him. This could just be rather fun.

‘Now, Nancy,’ said the Governor, ‘sit down and tell Sandilands what you told me. I’ve warned him that there may be nothing whatever in it but you’ve interested me at least and we’ll do our best to interest him.’

Nancy sat down in a chair opposite Joe and looked at him seriously and for a long time before speaking. Now she was closer he saw that the pretty face was pale and strained. She made no attempt at a smile but went straight into her narrative. Her voice was low and clear, her tone urgent. She’d obviously prepared and prepared again what she was going to say.

‘A week ago a ghastly thing happened on the station. Peggy Somersham, the wife of William Somersham, Captain in the Greys, was found dead in her bath with her wrists cut. Of course, everybody said “Suicide” but, really, there was absolutely no reason. They weren’t very long married. Quite a difference in age – that’s often the way in India – people wait to get hitched till their career is established and an officer does not in fact qualify for a marriage allowance until he is thirty. One can’t always tell, of course, but they seemed not only happy, but very happy together. People often said – “Ideal marriage”.

‘I know that funny things happen in India but just the facts by themselves, to my mind at any rate, were suspicious and Bulstrode, the Police Superintendent, didn’t seem able to explain anything to anyone’s satisfaction. We all thought for one moment he was about to take the easy way out and arrest poor Billy Somersham…’

‘Now Nancy,’ said the Governor, ‘tell it straight.’

‘Sorry, Uncle! And look here…’ She took an envelope from her uncle’s desk, slid out two photographs and handed them to Joe.

His mouth tightened with distaste.

‘Who took these?’

‘Well, actually, I did…’

‘My niece served as a nurse on the Western Front for three years,’ said the Governor and sat back, apologetic but happy with this explanation.

‘Mr Sandilands, sadly, a bathful of blood in my experience is nothing. And I have first-hand knowledge of wounds. Even cut wrists…’ She paused, disturbed momentarily by her memories. ‘I suppose you think it rather shocking that I should be able to stand there in front of this appalling scene and take photographs?’

Not wishing to stop the flow of her story Joe merely nodded. He did find it shocking but realised that a conventional denial would not deceive this determined woman. His professional curiosity was eager for details of how she had managed under those difficult circumstances to take photographs of such clarity but he remained silent and looked at her with what he hoped was a suitable blend of sympathy and encouragement.

‘Yes, well, I was pretty much shocked myself. She was my friend, Mr Sandilands, and this was not easily done. But this is the hot season. There was little else I could do to preserve the scene of the death as it was. Bulstrode was giving orders for the body to be taken away and buried at once and he authorised the khitmutgar to arrange for the bathroom to be cleaned up. I’m afraid I stepped in and insisted that Andrew – that’s my husband, the Collector – called him off. Of course the body had to be buried, after a quick post-mortem done by the station doctor, but we managed to get the servants to leave as much as possible of the bathroom untouched. I don’t want to interfere, of course…’ (The Governor smiled ironically.) ‘… but a word with the doctor mightn’t be out of place. His name is Halloran. I don’t know him very well. Irish. A lot of army doctors are. He seems nice enough.’

‘You preserved the scene of crime – if crime it was – Mrs Drummond, and with the skill, apparently, of a seasoned officer of the Met. But I’m wondering why it should have occurred to you to take these steps…?’

‘My uncle had spoken about you and the work you were doing here in Calcutta when I was last here some weeks ago. I popped into one of your lectures and I was very impressed with what you had to say. I tried to wangle a meeting there and then but you were besieged by a phalanx of earnest young Bengali Police Force officers and I had to drift away. But then, when this happened, I rang Uncle at once and he made a few telephone calls, worked his magic and here we are.’

She smiled for the first time since they had met and her face lit up with mischief. ‘And I don’t suppose you’re at all pleased!’

Joe smiled back. He had an idea that there was not much he would be able to conceal from the Collector’s wife.

‘It’s difficult to make out but if you will look at the second photograph…’ she said, drawing his attention back to the horror he still held in his hand.

Joe concentrated on the close-up of the dead girl’s wrists and saw at once where she was leading but he let her go on.

‘You see it, don’t you? She couldn’t have done that herself, don’t you agree?’

Joe nodded and she went on, ‘But that’s not all of it, nor perhaps even the worst of it, Commander. After Peggy’s death the gossip started. I’ve only been on the station for three years and I hadn’t heard the stories… in any case, I think people thought it was all over… like a nightmare. It stops and you lull yourself into thinking it’s never going to happen again. And then it does. And it’s worse than before.

‘Everyone who had been there since before the war was eager to tell me the stories.’ She leaned forward in her chair to emphasise her point. ‘Mr Sandilands, every year before the war and going back to 1910, the wife of a Greys officer has been killed. In March.

‘The first to die was Mrs Major Prentice – Dorothy. In a fire. Tragic, of course, but no one paid all that much attention as it was quite clearly due to an act of dacoity – banditry. The forests and some of the villages too used to be infested with bandits before the war. They are still to be found but it’s nothing like so bad as it was thanks to Prentice and others. The following March in 1911, Joan Carmichael, the wife of Colonel Carmichael, was fatally bitten by a snake. And there’s nothing strange about that in India, you’re going to say – but in this case there was an oddity… The next March, Sheila Forbes fell over a precipice while out riding and in 1913 Alicia Simms-Warburton was drowned.’

‘And then came the war.’

‘Yes. People were moved around. The series was broken and – goodness knows! – there were enough deaths to worry about in the next few years… people forgot. But this fifth death revived memories. It began to be said that marrying an officer in the Greys was a high-risk occupation! Gossip and speculation are meat and drink to officers’ wives and they live in a very restricted circle. They can and do talk each other into a high state of panic about the slightest thing – you can imagine what this is doing to their nerves! One of the wives is talking, quite seriously I believe, about returning to England. And some of the younger ones are running a sweepstake on which one of them is to be the next victim! Just a piece of bravado but I think it’s a sign that the tension is becoming unbearable. Commander, we need you to come to Panikhat and get to the bottom of this. Either we investigate the whole thing, decide there’s no foundation for any of these wild theories and reassure the ladies or…’ She paused for a moment and her expression grew grim, ‘… or we find the… the… bastard – sorry, Uncle! – who’s killed my friend and make absolutely sure he’s in no position ever to do it again!’