Bernard Knight - Dead in the Dog

‘I suppose it was, if Gerry says so. I didn’t know you were going to interrogate him?’ she added sharply.

‘Just tying up loose ends, Diane. Quite a long chat, though?’

‘For God’s sake, Steven, this is the nineteen-fifties!’ she snapped irritably. ‘We did a bit of necking, that’s all. Not much room for anything heavier in that bloody Austin of mine. The way things were between James and myself, I think I deserved a bit of fun now and then.’

Blackwell looked at her impassively. ‘And how exactly were things between you and your husband?’

The blonde gave him a scornful look as she fumbled another cigarette from her packet. ‘Come on, Steve! You know damn well that we couldn’t stand each other. I’d even been thinking of going back to the UK.’

The police officer wondered if a certain surgeon might now figure in that scheme, but it seemed irrelevant, unless. .?

‘We know definitely that this wasn’t a terrorist shooting, so can you think of any reason why anyone would want him dead?’ he asked sombrely.

Diane tapped the ash from her cigarette into a potted plant standing next to the couch. ‘It’s no secret that he’d been getting his leg over a few local ladies. Maybe someone took strong objection to that?’

‘Are you going to tell me who they were?’ ventured Blackwell.

She shrugged dismissively. ‘A couple of other planter’s wives, but not lately, as far as I know. Then recently there was that sister down in the hospital. She was in Pangkor this weekend, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her bloody mouth!’

Diane paused and took a nervous drag at her Park Drive, before continuing.

‘Of course, there was that holy bitch next door, though again that was some time ago.’ She inclined her head towards the other bungalow lower down the slope.

This was news to Blackwell, though admittedly he wasn’t as close to the social gossip as some.

‘Are you saying that James had an affair with his manager’s wife?’

Diane feigned indifference, but viciously stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette in the long-suffering pot plant. ‘He must have been having it off with her for years — before I even married him, I suspect! It fizzled out some time ago, so maybe her religious conscience got the better of her, but more likely, Jimmy dumped her.’

‘Did Douglas know about this?’

The widow shrugged. ‘Hard to tell, he’s never said anything or showed any sign of knowing. James would have been very careful, he depended totally on Douglas to run this place, he wouldn’t have wanted to lose him. Maybe that’s why he gave her up.’

Blackwell, a happily married man with no inclination to go roving, marvelled at the risks that fellows would take in such a tightly knit community as this. He found it hard to believe that the news bore any relation to Robertson’s death, but it was another piece of information to add to the pitifully thin file on the case. Looking across at Tan, he saw that the inspector was quietly writing everything down in his notebook, so he launched into another topic.

‘Just for the record, to tidy up loose ends, it’s been obvious to everyone that Colonel O’Neill has been more than friendly towards you recently. Is there anything you want to tell me about that?’

He felt a little foolish asking this and Diane’s reaction made him even more embarrassed. She burst out into peals of laughter which though nervous, sounded quite genuine.

‘Poor old Desmond? Come on, Steve, where’s your sense of humour? I was just having a bit of fun, leading the poor old devil on. Those old witches that sit around the club already think I’m a scarlet woman, so I thought I’d give them a bit more scandal to gossip about.’

‘I’d be very careful, if I were you, Diane,’ advised Blackwell. ‘I think the colonel took it more seriously than you think. He could be a difficult man, if he thought you were making a fool of him.’

Diane Robertson waved a hand in dismissal. ‘It’s nothing, he just bought me a couple of drinks in The Dog and pranced about ushering me into his big new car. It’s rather nice, having a colonel fussing over you.’

Steven despaired of this attractive widow, who seemed to have about as much moral sense as the monkeys in the trees outside. After a few more profitless questions, he ended by cautiously raising one last matter.

‘You said that even before your husband died, you were thinking of going back to England, Diane. Would it be indelicate of me to ask if Major Bright might figure in any such future plans?’

She gave him a brittle smile. ‘What you are really suggesting is an Irish divorce?’

Steven stared at her, he had no idea what she was talking about.

‘An Irish divorce is with a twelve-bore, Steve, it’s a joke! That policeman’s mind of yours is really wondering if Peter might have shot James to make me available?’ she explained cynically. ‘It’s an exciting idea, I suppose. A handsome young man willing to kill for me, to get the woman he desires! But I can’t see Doctor Bright going to those lengths, keen as he is.’

Her head-on response to what he had hoped was an oblique question left him speechless, but Diane filled the vacuum.

‘Peter’s a good-looking chap, pots of money in the family. Bit of a stuffed shirt, but I suppose I could do worse. We’ll see how it pans out.’

A few minutes later, the superintendent was driven back down the road where James Robertson was killed, his mind still filled with the brazen attitude of the voluptuous blonde who seemed impervious to any emotion other than her own gratification.

The eight thirty meeting with the Commanding Officer had been even more fraught than usual, with O’Neill fractious after his night on the train up from Kuala Lumpur. He found fault with everyone, starting with Eddie Rosen, who had been Orderly Medical Officer the previous night.

‘Call that a satisfactory report on the SI list, lieutenant?’ he ranted, after the little doctor had given the usual resume on the three men with Weil’s disease. The CO carried on castigating Eddie for not delivering a blow-by-blow account of their temperature, pulse rates and blood pressures during the previous twenty-four hours, though this was a matter for the ward notes, not needed in a brief reassurance that their condition had not deteriorated.

After abusing Rosen, the colonel’s cold glare went around the room, doing his best to find fault with everyone. Tom Howden sat immobile, hoping that his usual invisibility would continue. Thankfully, O’Neill almost never questioned him, as he seemed neither to know nor care what went on in the laboratory and never visited it, except for the perfunctory walk-through at Tuesday inspections.

Unsurprisingly, the focus of O’Neill’s persecution fell upon the unfortunate quartermaster, Captain Burns. With a ferocity unmatched even by his previous tirades, he goaded Robbie about the state of his Stores records and demanded that a complete set of requisitions and dispensations of all drugs and medical equipment for the past three months be produced by next day. He all but accused the quartermaster of embezzlement and corruption, with veiled references to the ‘medical halls’ in Tanah Timah and Sungei Siput, retail pharmacies where cut-price army medicaments would be welcomed.

Robbie’s normally rough and ruddy face became almost puce with suppressed anger and seemed ready to erupt under the interrogation.

Alfred Morris prodded him covertly with his elbow from the next chair, warning him against any violent reaction which the colonel would undoubtedly welcome as evidence of insubordination and mutiny under Queen’s Regulations.

At the end of this blistering inquisition, the CO rapped on his desk with his cane. ‘You’ll see from today’s Part One Orders that training will begin tomorrow for the PE tests in four weeks’ time,’ he snapped.