The Last Kashmiri Rose

Chapter Five

Joe waved the letter at Naurung, waiting patiently but puzzled. ‘We’ll take this away with us as evidence of Peggy Somersham’s state of mind. It should have been discovered earlier.’

‘Her state of mind, sahib?’

‘Yes. This letter was written to her mother and father in England. It tells us quite clearly that she was happy, that she loved her husband and that she had much to look forward to. She was expecting a baby in the autumn.’

Naurung for once was at a loss for words and answered with a hissing breath of surprise and something else – satisfaction?

‘Come on then, let’s take a look at the bathroom. I think I’ve seen everything I need to see in the rest of the house.’

The bathroom door was splintered at the lock, presumably from Somersham’s desperate forced entry. The bathroom was exactly as it had been described to Joe and exactly as he had expected to find it. The bath had been cleaned and washed out but he found traces of dried blood under the rim. On one wall was a small mirror on a shaving stand carrying a mahogany box, its lid wide open, and a razor-strop. At the bath’s side was a tall wall mirror with, in front of this, a rickety bamboo table laden with toiletries.

Joe surveyed them. ‘Good Lord! Enough stuff here to stock the Coty shop! Look here, Naurung! Loofah, tin of talcum powder, eau de cologne, manicure set, Pears soap…’

‘That is so sad! The memsahib was obviously preparing to be a beautiful lady,’ murmured Naurung.

Not for the first time, it came to Joe that Bulstrode – perhaps deliberately – undervalued Naurung.

‘Exactly! And look – this is interesting.’ Joe pointed to an elegantly sculpted scent bottle. ‘It’s a perfume by Guerlain of Paris – Mitsouko. All the go at the moment for bright young things and costs the earth. Bought a bottle or two myself in my time,’ he added in response to what he imagined to be a slightly raised eyebrow. ‘This is very significant, don’t you think?’

‘I had thought so too, sahib. She was not preparing to die. She was expecting to go out for a pleasant evening. My wife also when she bathes sets out her bath things. And she keeps her special perfume locked away from the servants and takes it with her to prepare herself for a special occasion. A perfume so precious would not, I believe, have been put there as a matter of course by the memsahib’s maidservant.’

Joe’s attention went next to the open box on the shaving stand. ‘Somersham’s razors. Would it be usual for him to keep them in the bathroom? Didn’t he use a barber? Would you know this, Naurung?’

‘It is known, sahib. I have talked to his bearer. Somersham kept his razors here always in this box. He always shaved himself and never used a barber. He was careful with his blades. He kept them well stropped and always put them back in order in the box.’

Joe peered into the box. Lined with velvet, there were seven spaces, one for each day of the week. The third space from the right was empty. Joe took out the razor on the extreme left and examined it. London-made and expensive. He admired the fine bone handle and tested the sharpness of the blade against his thumb. Inscribed along the metal blade was the word ‘Monday’. Joe counted along the row to the empty space. Friday.

‘Naurung,’ he said slowly, ‘remind me. When exactly was Memsahib Somersham killed?’

‘Just after six o’clock on the 3rd of March last week, sahib. It was a Friday.’

‘If you were an intruder intent on killing Mrs Somersham, with little time to spare, which razor would you take from the box?’

‘I would take this one, sahib,’ said Naurung pointing to the nearest, ‘the Sunday razor.’

‘So would I. Tell me what happened to the Friday razor.’

‘It was taken away by Bulstrode Sahib. We have no way of taking fingerprints and it was said that so many people had handled it anyway there was no evidence to be taken from it. It was found at the bottom of the bath by the ayah who came to help with the body. She screamed and passed it to Somersham Sahib who gave it to another servant and he took it to Bulstrode. I think it remains locked in a drawer in his office. Would you like to examine it?’

‘Not now, Naurung. Much too late.’

Joe sighed. If only he’d been first on the scene how different the outcome might have been. He made no comment. There was nothing to be gained by criticising police procedure. No good would come from antagonising Bulstrode though a word to the Collector might not be out of place. He sensed that Naurung understood the shortcomings and though in no way accountable for them he was feeling embarrassed at the continual admissions of failure he was having to make. Joe began to see exactly why Bulstrode had put his havildar in the firing line.

‘At least we have a fresh and unbiased account of the scene in Mrs Drummond’s photographs. Let’s have another look while we’re here on the spot.’

Joe took out the photographs Nancy had taken, held them up and compared them with the scene before him. He produced, with the slight air of theatricality he always felt, a magnifying glass and began to examine them. No quips and jibes were forthcoming from Naurung who looked at the glass with appreciation.

He shuffled his feet slightly and said carefully, ‘While you have that device in your hand, sahib, perhaps you might find it worth your while to examine the marks on the lady’s shoulder. I have not had the benefit of such a glass but I am quite certain that there were marks of some kind there.’

Joe moved his glass to the white shoulders. ‘Yes, you’re right. And I think you have already guessed what these are? Impossible to say for certain and we will need to check this with Bulstrode if it’s not in the report – and as you question it, I take it that it is not?’

Naurung nodded, continuing to look uncomfortable.

Again Joe got the clear impression – and one which he was convinced was being subtly signalled by the havildar – that he found much to criticise in the professional performance of Bulstrode Sahib. He indicated by a slight pause that he had received Naurung’s unspoken message and went on, ‘Well, perhaps we should wait until I’ve spoken to the doctor but I think we’d both say that these are finger marks. Someone has forcibly held her down in the water while she bled to death. And the water was warm – the blood would flow.’

Again Naurung nodded then he asked, ‘But she would have screamed, would she not, sahib? Somersham has said that he heard her singing in the bathroom. He would surely have heard her screaming?’

‘Certainly. But no one has reported hearing any unusual sounds let alone a scream. He must have taken her by surprise and stopped her from shouting by putting a hand over her mouth, which would make it pretty difficult to subdue her and cut her wrists at the same time… I think he got into the room before she entered, hid somewhere, then slipped out and caught her unawares and gagged her with something – that sponge over there? A flannel? I don’t think so. I think our friend is too well organised to leave such details to chance – I think he probably brought a gag with him and took it away with him. On the same principle, he could have brought his own weapon too and used the razor on the spur of the moment. But why? A taunt? Some sort of appalling joke?

‘So what have we got? A happy young woman going to her bath at six o’clock. By seven she is dead. Her husband goes nowhere near the bathroom. So how did the killer get in?’

He looked around the room. In the corner of the room was a tall cupboard, locked and with the key still in the lock. At high level on the outer wall there was a small window. The top-hung casement was shut but not secured. Beneath this little window there was a stool.

‘Hold the stool for me, Naurung, I want to look at that window.’

When Joe climbed on to the stool the window sill was at his waist height. Peering through it he saw a narrow alley.

‘Where does this alleyway lead?’

‘It leads to the infantry lines and then on to the village.’

‘The village?’

‘Town perhaps. The native town. That is where I live.’

Magnifying glass in hand he examined the sill of the window with great care. Without question there were small smears of blood which, being above eye level, had avoided the cleaner’s cloth. He steadied himself on Naurung’s shoulder and jumped on to the ground. ‘Have a look,’ he said, handing him the glass. ‘What do you find? Paint? Chilli sauce? Lipstick?’

‘No, sahib, it is blood.’

‘Now let’s have a look in that cupboard.’

The cupboard had evidently been used as a box room. There were two suitcases, there were files of correspondence, a cricket bat, a hockey stick and a tan canvas shikar helmet hung on a peg. At first sight the cupboard seemed dusty and it seemed the dust was undisturbed but, on a closer look, it was clear that there had been recent disturbance. Joe took a flashlight from his pocket and examined the floor. The dust was scuffed and stirred up but there were no clear footprints to be seen. He turned the beam on to the walls and looked carefully at every square inch of the wooden partition. On the point of giving up his search he remembered to check the back of the door and, as he pulled it towards him, the light reflected on something white about a foot from the bottom edge. Bending nearer Joe saw that a tiny scrap of white fabric had been caught up on a splinter of the rough wood and delicately he detached it and held it up for Naurung’s inspection.

‘Indian cotton, sahib. Rough cotton. It is not a fabric a lady’s dress would be made from. And catching so low down on the door it must be from a man’s trousers – an Indian man’s trousers.’

Joe took a small pager evidence bag from his back pocket and popped the fabric into it, sealed it and put the date, time and his initials on it. Passing his pen to Naurung he asked him to add his own signature.

‘And would anyone have noticed someone climbing out of a high window? Someone bloodstained perhaps?’

‘Anyone bloodstained would have been noticed. Though when the crime is committed in a bathroom… it is not difficult to clean the blood away. And there was a blood-covered towel found by the bath. He could have used it as protection or cleaned himself on it afterwards. As for being noticed – a sahib climbing out of a bungalow and using the alleyway would certainly have been noticed, covered in blood or not, but an Indian walking in the alleyway would not have been commented on necessarily. It is commonly used by servants on their way to the town.’

‘Was there anybody nearby?’

‘You will find this problem in India – there is always somebody nearby. There are servants in the compound, strangers come and go.’

‘Did anyone come forward to be interviewed?’

‘No one wants to get into trouble, you understand.’

‘So, suddenly this popular pathway is deserted?’

‘Almost deserted. You will see in Bulstrode Sahib’s notes – a witness did come forward. A merchant. A representative of Vallijee Raja. Spice merchants in Calcutta. He was on his way to the kitchens at the Club where he was going to try to sell spices to the cook and was taking this short cut from the village. It was being said in the bazaar that such a man had been seen leaving the alley and then he came forward willingly to make a statement. He said that he had reached the Club shortly after “Cookhouse” sounded and must have been in the alleyway about ten minutes earlier. He saw nothing suspicious and heard no unusual noises.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Joe, exasperated. ‘I’d give a lot to interview him!’

‘It would be difficult. Bulstrode Sahib did not detain him. He did not appear to be lying, according to the Superintendent. If he had anything to hide he would have lied about the time he was in the alley. He called at the kitchens at the time he says he did and the cook confirms that he placed an order with him for spices. He could be anywhere in India by now. These box-wallahs travel many miles in a week. Sometimes by train.’ He shrugged his shoulders.

Joe was aware of a sense of helplessness. He was not short of evidence. In many ways there was too much evidence, too many witnesses. He would need to settle down for a quiet half-hour and go through Bulstrode’s notes, however imperfect, and dredge out the important material.

He walked with Naurung back into Somersham’s study, unconsciously choosing to be as far away from the murder room as possible. Joe turned to Naurung. ‘Here are five deaths spread over twelve years. Were there other deaths of Englishwomen during the same period? It must be a matter of record. Can you find out?’

‘Sahib,’ said Naurung, ‘I have a list here. It was perhaps the first thing I thought of.’

From the back of the packet of papers he extracted a handwritten list which he put on the desk in front of Joe. It was headed ‘The Demise of English Ladies. Panikhat 1910- 1922.’

There were thirteen. Of these, two had died of cholera in the hot weather season, two had died together in a car smash in Calcutta in January 1918, one had died in childbirth and one of pneumonia whilst on leave and attempting to climb a peak in the Himalayas. These were all married to officers in the infantry regiments stationed at Panikhat. The second group were all wives of cavalry officers of Bateman’s Horse. Two had died of fever and the remaining five had all died unnaturally and in the month of March.

Joe sighed. Nancy Drummond and the chattering memsahibs had it right, he feared. Dolly, Joan, Sheila, Alicia and Peggy. Five ladies violently done to death.

Naurung took a fat gunmetal watch from the breast pocket of his tunic. ‘It is now a quarter to one, sahib. It is about ten minutes’ walk to the mess where you are expected for tiffin. I think we should start out now.’

They set off to walk together. Although Joe declared himself quite capable of finding the way Naurung obviously thought it would be inappropriate if he was left to do so by himself.

‘Tell me,’ said Joe as they walked, ‘Bulstrode – he said to me, and I think I quote his words correctly, “I was out myself in the native town when it happened.” I don’t suppose it’s relevant but it was some time before he could be located. I would be interested to know what took him to the native town at that exact time of day. Is it known? Was he on police work?’

‘Bulstrode Sahib is always on police work, I do believe… but he was not in the old town officially as far as I know. Although he spends much time there, it is said.’

There was a very long pause and Naurung seemed to be wrestling with himself. To say more or to let Joe’s question go unanswered?

Joe prompted him. ‘I know very little about Bulstrode. I don’t know where he lives. I don’t even know if he’s married. Is he married?’

‘He is married but the memsahib is in England. I know this because my father was havildar before me. It is no secret. This happened when I was nine years old and beginning to be a help to my father. The Memsahib Bulstrode came out from England to marry him. I think it was not a happy marriage, sahib. She discovered that he had already an Indian woman though she had been sent away as was the custom. One day the memsahib took her little boy who was no more than a baby at the time and went back to England. She said it was not healthy for a child to be brought up in India and that is the last anyone saw of her or the boy. Bulstrode Sahib was very upset by such an act of betrayal and everyone was very sorry for him.’

‘So Bulstrode’s all alone, then?’

Again Naurung looked acutely embarrassed saying finally, ‘Not exactly alone and not exactly all the time.’

‘So, would you like to make a guess as to why he was down in the old town?’

“There are ladies. Not ladies it is good to be with, you will understand.’

Joe pondered this piece of oblique information.

‘Can’t blame the poor bastard,’ he thought. ‘Lonely work at the best of times being a policeman, but I really have to pursue this.’

‘Many men do the same,’ he said consolingly, ‘but tell me, Naurung, if you think you can, does it weaken his position? There must be people who know things he would rather the world at large did not know.’

‘If there are such things I do not know them, sahib, but it is said that he has been seen in the company of very small girls… This is India and even in Panikhat such things can be arranged. For a fee. Or an exchange.’

‘An exchange?’

‘I do not want to say any more, sahib. It is all, at the best, speculation.’

It occurred to Joe that a Police Superintendent who had arranged at times to be supplied with underage girls was a vulnerable man. A colleague not to be entirely relied on. And then, he himself had an ethical problem. Should he be discussing these things with Bulstrode’s inferior officer? For the time being he decided to let it go and they resumed their walk.

A few yards from the mess Naurung stopped.

‘I will wait for you here and we will continue our work afterwards. But the sahib need not lose any time. He can go on working even over tiffin.’

‘Working?’

‘You may meet one or two bereaved husbands there. As one officer to another, they may confide things which they would not reveal to an Indian Police Sergeant, sahib.’

Joe paused for a moment in front of the mess and looked at it without much favour. To all outward appearances the Officers’ Mess was bleak and functional, its walls painted a public works department grey and its corrugated iron roof painted public works department red. Window boxes with flower pots were meticulously cared for but the general impression was one of utility. Externally that is. Internally, the visitor stepped back in time to the nineties or beyond. Here was the extreme of opulence that mahogany, turkey carpeting and regimental silver could provide. A host of whiskered officers looked down from the walls from posed Victorian portraits and stiff Victorian groups. Their disapproving faces were interspersed with the no less disapproving and no less whiskered faces of tiger, leopard and wild pig. A ferociously moustached and stiffly posed figure stared out from a dark portrait. Presumably Bateman himself, the founding father of the Bengal Greys. There was a spirited oil painting occupying the whole of one wall showing Bateman’s Horse charging with Havelock to the first relief of Lucknow. Loyal, turbaned troopers, their dripping lances at rest, led a battalion of kilted Highlanders. It kept the memory of that celebrated episode alive and well since the regiment had hardly been in action between the Mutiny and the bloodbath of Flanders.

Joe was unsure of his welcome with the Bengal Greys. A London policeman, appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor to investigate and possibly uncover a scandal in the closed ranks of a fashionable regiment, was likely to be given a frosty reception. Anglo-India was caste-conscious. There was a rigid order of precedence. The Indian Civil Service were at the top of the pile, the British army below and the Indian army below that, cavalry regiments taking precedence over infantry regiments and, as Joe rather suspected, all taking precedence over visiting policemen. There was even a condescension for which he was sure he ought to be grateful in his invitation to lunch in this exclusive cavalry mess.

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?’

‘Yes, if you like. Tell me – had your wife any enemies? Was there anyone who might have a grievance against her? Real or fancied?’

‘No. Emphatically not. Never. She was the gentlest creature.’ His voice choked. ‘People often say this after a death but in her case it’s true – she hadn’t an enemy in the world. She was really, I believe, beloved by all.’ And he concluded, ‘And she was beloved by me. I think you should understand that.’

‘Take me through that evening again. Or rather tell me if I’ve got this right – you had gone to your study to work and you were under observation from the compound throughout the period in question. Your door was shut but the window was open. Correct so far? Your wife had gone to have a bath. A bath had been filled for her. You were getting ready to go out, to dinner and then on to a play? Correct? Pick it up from there.’

‘I listened for a while to Peggy giving instructions to her ayah – she was telling her which dress to lay out – and then she went off, singing, to her bath. Sandilands, she was singing! I was trying to get my quarterly returns in before the weekend – it’s always a problem and I always leave things till the last minute.’ A bleak smile. ‘After a while I suddenly realised I hadn’t heard her for a long time, a very long time. I began to get cross. I needed to have a shave, get ready for the evening. When you’ve been a bachelor for years, sharing a bathroom even with someone you love can be a bit of an irritation.

‘I went and tried the bathroom door. It was locked. Most unusual. We almost never locked the door. I banged and said something like – “Hurry up, Peg, we haven’t got all evening.” Something like that. There was no reply and I got worried. I thought perhaps she’d fainted. They always fill the baths too hot. And then I remembered that she, that she…’ Somersham was unable to go on.

‘Look, Somersham, you don’t have to spell it out for me. I know that she was pregnant.’

Somersham looked at him in surprise but then appeared to take the omniscience of the Law at face value and blundered on. ‘Ah, yes, well, can’t say I know much about the condition myself but it did come into my head that she might have swooned or whatever women do because of it. And then I got frantic. We had both wanted this baby so much. I couldn’t bear to think that something might have gone wrong. I yelled and pounded on the door and when there was still no reply I kicked it open.

‘The first thing I saw was that the window was open. It’s quite high – I suppose the sill must be five feet from the floor and the stool we use in the bathroom…’

Joe felt that tears were not far away. He reached out a consoling hand and patted the other on the knee. ‘Take your time,’ he said.

‘Sorry. But, dash it! Peggy used to sit on that stool when she was drying herself. And there it was under the window and even before I saw Peggy I saw there was blood on the stool and there was a smear of blood on the window sill. And then I saw Peggy dead in a bath full of blood. Terrible, terrible sight! I’ll never get it out of my mind. Whenever I close my eyes I see her lying there… Her wrists were cut to the bone. They say she’d probably been dead for almost an hour.’

‘Your servants saw nothing? Heard nothing?’

‘No.’

‘Tell me, Somersham – if you think back to the hours before six o’clock, to the period before she must have died, perhaps well before – were there any visitors to the house? Indian or English?’

‘Oh, good Lord! I was not at home until about three that afternoon. Peggy said that the padre had called in the morning. She went out to have lunch with one or two of her friends. No one in the afternoon, I think. But Indian? Look, you’d better have a word with my khitmutgar. There are natives in and out of the kitchen quarters all day. Delivering things, selling things, taking the washing away. Peggy and I wouldn’t necessarily have seen them.’

‘And when you began to see you were looking at a murder didn’t your suspicions light on some member of your staff?’

‘No, they didn’t. How can I explain this to you? It isn’t an Indian crime. People have a sort of picture of India – lustful black men seeking to do harm to virtuous white women. Oh, yes, I know it happened in the Mutiny but the Mutiny was a madness. An Indian once said to me, “An evil wind blew through the land.” Peggy’s death was an elaborate act. It wasn’t an impulse. It was carried out by someone who wanted to hurt her. To hurt her in a very personal way. And again, I say, I do not think this would be the Indian way.

‘My servants, so far as I have discussed it with them which is hardly at all, I might say, believe this act was not of this world…’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that,’ said Joe. ‘But look, we are agreed that it was murder, that it was not the act of a native – we are left with a European murderer. Would you accept that?’

‘What else can I accept?’

‘One more question, Somersham, and believe me when I say we have to ask these things – were you happy together?’

‘Happy? Yes, we were. I was nearly twenty years older than she but I think she loved me. She was thrilled that we were to have a child. We both were. We had both decided just that day to announce the news. She was going to write to her parents.’

Unchecked, the tears began to flow, ‘It wouldn’t be too much to say she was all the world to me. It’ll sound like a lot of twaddle to you, I dare say, but I used to sing “Annie Laurie” to her. “Oh like winds of summer sighing, her voice was low and sweet. She was all the world tae me. And for bonnie Annie Laurie, I’d lay me doon and dee.” ’

It occurred to Joe that this was probably the first time since his wife’s death that William Somersham had felt able to share his feelings with anyone and, in spite of his determination to remain detached, his heart and his sympathy went out to him. Joe had seen much suffering and bereavement – had become an unwilling expert – and he would have bet a year’s pay at that moment that the pain he was being shown was genuine. He waited for his companion to gain control of his emotions before continuing gently, ‘Somersham, I hope I don’t insult her and I hope I don’t offend you but I have to ask this question – was there anybody else in her life? Had there ever been?’

‘I was anticipating the question and I’ll tell you roundly – no. Ask anybody. I think they’d all say the same.’

While they had been speaking the horses had ambled on but now William Somersham pulled his horse to a halt and, turning to look seriously at Joe, he said, ‘Another thing, Sandilands, a deuced peculiar thing and one I haven’t yet mentioned to anyone else. Not sure they would have taken any notice. Fact is, Peggy was horrified by blood. Couldn’t bear the tiniest cut on a finger and a nose bleed – well, one of the children had a nose bleed at a fancy dress party she was helping to give – only the usual childish thing – but it was too much for Peggy. She screamed and ran from the room! There is no way in this world that, if she wanted to take her life, this is the way she would have chosen. And if someone killed her by slitting her wrists and holding her there while the bath filled with her blood, then it was the most cruel, calculated death they could have devised! Why, Sandilands? Why?’