Barbara Cleverly - The Last Kashmiri Rose

He was a sociable man on the whole and on the whole – as he was aware – it was his tendency with strangers to talk too much. He decided to don a mask of formal severity but this did not survive his encounter with the adjutant who, with hand outstretched, came congenially to greet him.

‘So glad to welcome you, sir! Station’s buzzing with rumours. Half of us expected Sherlock Holmes, the other half expected a red-necked London bobby!’

‘I think I’m something between the two,’ said Joe.

‘Let me give you a glass of sherry and let me introduce you…’

And he led him round the circle. John this, Bonzo that, Harry something else, the names meant nothing to him with the exception of William Somersham. Tall, with a cavalryman’s stoop and balding, the husband of the girl whose body he had so recently been inspecting was the only one of the company of officers who did not smile when he shook his hand. His grip was firm and he gave a not unfriendly nod but his eyes on Joe were wary, his expression concealed.

The adjutant resumed his hospitable burble. ‘If there’s anything in the world we can do to help, please do tell us. Make full use of the mess, of course. Life can be a bit spartan in the dak bungalow, I know, and – something to ride? We’ll find you a syce. Talk to Neddy. He’ll fit you out with something. Neddy! What about Bamboo for the Commander? Good pony. Nice manners. He’ll look after you. Even got a turn of speed if required. Not working this afternoon, are you, Neddy? No? There we are then. That’s decided.’

Joe settled down to clear soup, a lamb stew and a prune mould. It reminded him of staying with his grandparents and he presumed that the menus had evolved over the same period.

Refusing a glass of port, he went out with the obliging Neddy, embarrassed to find Naurung seated on the ground outside the door waiting. He said as much to Neddy.

‘I said that once,’ said Neddy. ‘Doesn’t last. You do get used to it.’

They set off for the stables, Naurung, to Joe’s irritation, a respectful three paces behind.

India was evidently still horse-drawn though a model T Ford in a haze of carbon monoxide rattled its way with a grinding of gears across the parade ground and a syce was to be seen applying the starting handle to the polished brass nose of a Morris Cowley. Officers changed for polo cantered by in twos and threes, all acknowledging Neddy with a wave, all looking with curiosity at Joe. A carriage and pair in the charge of a smart groom trotted past bearing an opulent Indian lady under a fringed parasol. A solid, monolithic Englishwoman in her sixties, Joe guessed, in a veil and solar topee drove a smart gig up from the lines and went on her way.

‘Now,’ said Neddy, ‘that’s who you ought to be talking to.’

‘Why? Who is she?’ To Joe she looked as if she’d stepped straight out of the pages of Kipling. Plain Tales from the Hills, perhaps.

‘Oh, that’s Kitty. Mrs Kitson-Masters. She’s the widow of the last Collector and the daughter of the Collector before that. I suppose at some time she must have gone home to England for school but, really, apart from that she’s spent her whole life here and what she doesn’t know about the station isn’t worth knowing. Her information isn’t always entirely reliable but at least it’s pretty spicy! She can even make me blush sometimes! You’d enjoy her. She may not be able to help your enquiry but you’ll get a burra peg at any hour of the day or night. She keeps late hours, Kitty.’

They arrived at the stabling and Neddy had Bamboo led out for Joe’s inspection. Rangy, chestnut, white blaze, three white stockings, old – distinctly past mark of mouth – but with the wise face that seems to go with age in a polo pony.

‘I couldn’t ask for anything better,’ said Joe sincerely.

‘Now,’ said Neddy, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I’m playing squash at three. Naurung’ll look after you.’ And he was gone.

‘Can you get a horse?’ said Joe. ‘I mean, can you get a police horse?’

‘Oh, yes, sahib, there are always police horses.’

‘Why don’t you get one and meet me back here in about a quarter of an hour. I’m tired of talking to the soldiery – I’d like to look round at the geography.’

‘Geography?’

‘I mean the lie of the land. Take me round and show me things. Show me the ford where Mrs Simms-Warburton was drowned. Show me the precipice from which Mrs Forbes fell, and the place where Joan Carmichael met her snake – I’d like to take a closer look at that.’

Naurung soon returned on a ponderous waler, an import from Australia and the established workhorse of Anglo-India. Joe mounted and they set off together heading towards the ford but, as they rode, Joe heard the soft drum of cantering hooves coming up behind them and paused to meet the anguished gaze of William Somersham.

‘Sandilands,’ he said. ‘I fear I interrupt you. If you will spare me a few minutes? I was hoping to catch you. There’s one thing – they say – that you can’t buy in India however rich you are and that is privacy. What I have to say to you needs privacy.’

He glanced round at Naurung who had tactfully fallen back once more and he resumed, ‘You’re here, I believe, to investigate the… the death… of my wife. Is that so?’

Joe hesitated to reply, not quite sure how far he wanted to take this complete stranger into his confidence, finally saying, ‘I’m here to investigate the death of your wife but I’m here, likewise, to enquire into what we are beginning to believe may be the linked deaths of other women, other wives, that is, in the Bengal Greys, stretching back over a number of years. Stretching back, indeed, to a time before the war.’

‘You think they may be linked?’

‘I don’t know what I think but it is a suspicion, even a supposition that comes to mind. Note this – they were all the wives of Greys officers and they all died in March.’

‘All died in March! I hadn’t appreciated that.’

‘It may be insignificant but I, for one, do not believe so. Further than that, honestly – and remember that I have only been here five minutes – I am not prepared to go. But that much is public knowledge.’

‘You will be aware of the suicide verdict. May I ask you – are you satisfied with that?’

Joe hesitated again. ‘I will be quite candid,’ he said. ‘No, I am not.’

‘Neither am I,’ said William Somersham. ‘I have more reason to know than anybody that such an act would have been entirely out of character. Entirely. It was horrifying and astonishing to me but, initially, with everybody else, I accepted it. For a moment perhaps, but there is too much…’

‘Too much? You were going to say…?’

‘Too much that is not consistent. To begin with I was confused. I was stupid. Perhaps I was self-regarding but the incontrovertible fact is this – that if we are not discussing suicide, then we are discussing murder. You wouldn’t presumably deny or dispute that?’

‘No,’ said Joe, ‘I wouldn’t.’

‘And who, in those circumstances, is the prime suspect? Oh, all right, you don’t have to feel embarrassed with me – I know who the prime suspect is. Quite obviously myself. When this horrible thing happened, to my shame, I was concerned as much as anything to divert suspicion from myself. God knows why! Perhaps I’m not a very courageous character. I was even anxious that a suicide verdict should be upheld but only then did I realise how disloyal I was being to Peggy.’

‘Let us for a moment,’ said Joe, ‘let the alternative murder verdict stand between us. Let me ask you a few routine police questions.’

William Somersham laughed shortly, ‘ “Purely routine you understand…only anxious to exclude you from our enquiries” – do I get the words right?’