Dead in the Dog

ELEVEN

Steven Blackwell was another worried man, as he sat alone in his office early on Monday morning. A Telex had come in over the weekend from the Police Headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, carrying an enquiry from the Assistant Commissioner wanting an update about progress in the Robertson investigation. Usually, the superintendent in Tanah Timah was given a fairly free hand, KL rarely breathing down his neck about cases, but it seemed that this death had come to the ears of the High Commissioner in Government House.

Though Steven had already assured his superiors that this was not a terrorist shooting, the murder of a British planter was being taken seriously by the representatives of Whitehall. The political set-up in Malaya was complicated and was likely to become more so as pressure for independence grew with the run-down of colonialism. The ‘Federation of Malaya’ consisted of nine separate states, though Singapore, Malacca and Penang remained British Crown Colonies. Each state had a Sultan, a nominal head, who took it in turns to be overall ‘king’, but the real administration and the efficient infrastructure was run by the British. Independence was being pushed hard by the Malay population, even though the numerous Chinese and Indians dominated the commercial and professional life. The problem was that many Chinese who, with British help had fought a three-year guerrilla war against the Japanese, now wanted a Communist state and had returned to the jungle to fight for it, with open assistance from Red China.

The superintendent sighed and mopped his sweating brow as he earnestly hoped that he could continue to convince KL that this incident was purely a local affair and not some renewed outbreak of insurgency. The best way to settle the matter would be to discover and arrest the perpetrator, but that seemed as far away as on the day of James Robertson’s death.

He spent the next hour on routine matters, including a fruitless review of the bank robbery investigation, then decided to go out. His dark blue Land Rover took him and Inspector Tan once more past ‘The Dog’ and up the Kerbau road to Gunong Besar estate, as he had decided that Diane Robertson had had long enough now to be ready for a formal interview. Half afraid that she might still be in her pyjamas at ten in the morning, he was relieved to see her leaning over the verandah dressed in a cream blouse and fawn slacks. For once, there was no glass in her hand, just a cigarette which she waved in welcome as they drove up the slope from the road.

‘I’m afraid this has to be rather official, Diane,’ said Blackwell as they entered her wide lounge. ‘We’ve taken statements from almost everyone else, but I left you until you settled down.’

‘No problem, Steven, I know you have to go through the motions!’

She said this almost gaily, as if he’d come to enquire about the theft of a bicycle, rather than the murder of her husband. Blackwell sat in one of the big rattan chairs and Tan slid unobtrusively into a corner with his notebook at the ready, as Diane went through the ritual of offering drinks and settling for fresh limes all round. After Siva had brought them and then silently vanished, the senior officer got down to business. He went yet again through the movements of Diane and her husband on that fateful night, getting a repetition of what she had said before, with no more definite timing as to when they had both left the club.

‘You took a long time getting back here, Diane?’ probed Steven gently. ‘You said you gave an officer a lift back to the garrison, but surely that would only add another ten minutes?’

The blonde coloured slightly. ‘We stopped for a chat on the way. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’

The policeman shook his head. ‘None at all. We had a word with Lieutenant Crosby, he says he thinks you dropped him off at about twenty to midnight. Would that be about right?’

The widow lifted her shoulders in a gesture of indifference.

‘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.

These were the annual Physical Efficiency tests that all Service personnel were supposed to pass, otherwise they could have their pay and allowances docked. Percy Loosemore had told Tom that these were something of a farce, held in the garrison athletic ground, where they had to climb a rope, jump over some boxes and perform a few other innocuous feats of strength and ability. In addition, there was a three-mile run part-way up the Kerbau road and back, that had to be completed within a certain time. Percy had alleged that last year, several of the officers had arranged for a taxi from Tanah Timah to pick them up as soon as they were out of sight and take them to The Dog, where they sat drinking beer until it was time for them to jog the few hundred yards back to the garrison. But now their increasingly malignant colonel seemed to have other ideas.

‘You may be doctors, but first and foremost, you are soldiers!’ he barked. ‘You’ve gone soft, lolling about the Mess, drinking and going off on pleasure weekends like a lot of suburban bank clerks!’

Glaring around, he dropped his bombshell. ‘Tomorrow morning and on alternate mornings for a month, you will parade at six thirty in full kit on the hospital car park. I have arranged for a drill sergeant from the garrison to give you an hour’s exercises, which will include three full circuits of the perimeter road.’

With his narrow jaw jutting forward, he delivered his final broadside. ‘This applies to all of you, with no exception unless you have urgent clinical duties. I will be there personally to make sure there are no backsliders. I’ll make soldiers of you yet, even if it kills you!’

Mutiny was in the air that day, as the medical officers digested this latest dictat from their leader.

‘The bugger’s flipped completely,’ muttered Percy Loosemore, whose idea of exercise was walking from the car park of The Dog as far as the bar. Appeals to the Admin Officer brought no relief, as Alf Morris confessed that he could do nothing with the CO when he was in this mood. After leaving O’Neill’s office, the others clustered around the notice board at the bottom of the main corridor and read Part One Orders, a typed sheet of paper pinned up every morning which gave details of duty rosters and events for the day. Sure enough, there was the command to appear fully kitted at the crack of dawn, an order which had the Other Ranks smirking all day at the discomfiture of their officers.

‘Funny business, sir!’ grinned Lewis Cropper, as he brought Tom his pallid mug of mid-morning tea. ‘If you can’t find all your kit, let me know and I’ll scrounge some for you.’

The day after the pathologist’s arrival at BMH, the quartermaster sergeant had dumped a collection of pouches, green webbing and a water-bottle on Tom, together with a steel helmet. He had stuffed them into the bottom of his wardrobe and hoped that they were still there.

At the Mess before lunch, more disgruntled discussion took place, with the physician John Martin being pressured to get the Commanding Officer certified before he could wreak any more havoc. This plea fell on deaf ears, especially as the major had a cast-iron excuse to avoid the threatened parade, as he had to be in BMH Kamunting the next morning to hold a special clinic.

As it happened, the object of their disquiet was at that moment himself being interrogated. Steven Blackwell had telephoned for an appointment and Desmond O’Neill had grudgingly agreed, for the superintendent had made a point of reminding him that the garrison commander, Brigadier Forsyth, had sanctioned the questioning of all military personnel. The colonel did it with ill grace and sat stiffly behind his desk, glowering at the police officer.

‘This is highly irregular, Blackwell,’ he snapped. ‘The civil police have no jurisdiction over Her Majesty’s Forces, you know.’

Experienced copper that he was, Steven knew when to come on as a hard man and when to tread lightly.

‘Indeed, sir, I’m sure that if any serviceman was charged with this offence, he would be tried and sentenced by the Army. But as this is a civilian death and your SIB are collaborating fully with us, then the actual investigation is well within the ambit of the Federation Police.’

O’Neill snorted, but he had no valid argument against something sanctioned by the Brigade Commander. ‘What d’you want to know, then?’ he grunted sourly.

‘I have to record the movements of everyone, even those only peripherally involved, sir,’ Steven began diplomatically. ‘I gather that the first you knew of this death was when you arrived back here, some time after James Robertson had been certified as dead?’

‘The place was like a madhouse, people milling about the front of my hospital as if it was a fairground. I soon cleared them out, they had no business bringing a civilian corpse here, anyway!’

‘With respect, it wasn’t known that he was dead, until your doctors had confirmed that. But what time did you arrive, sir?’

‘About twenty to one, I believe — not that it can matter in the slightest! I found a messenger at my quarter, telling me what had happened, so I drove down here.’

‘They failed to contact you earlier by telephone at your house, I believe. Could you tell me where you had been, colonel?’

Desmond O’Neill scowled at the superintendent. ‘What the devil has that got to do with anything?’

‘All part of the routine, sir. You may have seen something or someone which might complement the rest of our evidence.’

The skull-like face looked balefully at Blackwell. ‘I had been to the AKC cinema in the garrison, if you must know. They were showing The Way Ahead, a wartime favourite of mine, if you need to check on my alibi!’ he added sarcastically.

‘The AKC show always finishes by ten thirty, colonel. May I ask where you were between then and the time you arrived at your quarter?’

O’Neill’s sallow face developed a slight flush. ‘I consider that question impertinent, Blackwell. I didn’t rush off from my billet as soon as I had the message, you know.’

Steven remained polite and impassive. ‘But the attempts to phone you there were not made until after midnight, sir. You couldn’t have been home by that time.’

The CO jumped from his chair and stood ramrod straight, glaring at the police officer. ‘Dammit, are you accusing me of anything?’

‘I just want answers about timing, colonel, that’s all. It’s essential to know where everyone was, and at what time that night.’

O’Neill subsided into his chair. ‘I drove around for a while to get some air, if you must know. The cigarette smoke in that damned cinema was so thick you could hardly see the screen. I had a headache and smarting eyes, so I went and sat in the car up on the Sungie Siput road for a while and looked at the valley in the moonlight.’

Blackwell managed to avoid raising his eyebrows at this unlikely tale. He had thought it unwise to bring his inspector on this particular interview, so he had his own notebook at the ready and as he jotted down the colonel’s words, he wondered how much air O’Neill had needed to keep him out alone in his car for almost two hours in the middle of the night.

‘You met no one during that time, sir?’

‘Are you doubting my word, officer!’ snarled O’Neill.

‘All policemen have to seek corroboration for everything, colonel,’ said Steven imperturbably. ‘I take it the answer is “no”?’

‘I saw no one and spoke to no one!’ snapped the other man. ‘Now if you have no more sensible questions, I would like to get on with my work. We are fighting a war here, you know!’

He spoke as if he were General Sir Gerald Templer, not the administrator of a small hospital. Considering that the police superintendent had more than once been personally involved in a shoot-out with the CTs, his remark bordered on the offensive. However, Blackwell let it pass and after a few more unprofitable questions, he left the irate colonel to become more bad-tempered as the day went on.