Dead in the Dog (15 page)

‘What time did he go?

‘No idea, he went off this afternoon to Taiping, said he had to see about some repairs to the latex machinery, though for all I know he was meeting some woman there. He didn't come back here, so I suppose he went straight to The Dog. He was there when I arrived, anyway.'

‘Did he tell you anything about where he had been – or anything else relevant?'

Diane crushed out the almost intact cigarette in an ashtray with a force that suggested that it could have been her husband's neck.

‘I told you, we weren't exactly on gossiping terms these past few days. I got mad at him earlier tonight, as he was dancing with that bitch from the hospital half the evening, deliberately leaving me stuck with a gang of old biddies.'

Blackwell found it hard to say ‘Which bitch?' but Diane sensed his problem and added ‘That Franklin woman, the nurse he's been having it off with lately.' Her voice was getting slightly slurred.

‘So when was the last time you saw him? I need to get some idea of when this might have happened, as well as where.'

She rocked slightly and Blackwell was afraid that she might fall over, but she pulled herself together and steadied herself with a hand on the arm of the settee. ‘We had a row later on, after the buffet. When the room was empty, I cornered him and gave him a piece of my mind. Then I walked out and that's the last I saw of him.'

‘What time would that be?'

‘I told you, after the supper had finished. About half ten or a bit later, I suppose.'

Almost like an automaton, Diane walked over to the sideboard and poured herself yet another drink, before coming back to flop heavily on to the settee. She lifted the glass to her lips, where it rattled momentarily against her teeth as she gulped at the gin. Her lipstick was smudged, half of it on the rim of her glass.

‘And when did you leave the club?' asked Steven.

‘Soon after that, I'd had enough of his nonsense. I left him picking at what was left of the buffet.'

The superintendent ran a hand nervously over what remained of his hair, as the next questions would have to probe into sensitive territory. He was conscious again of the difficulties of being a policeman in a small European community, where almost everyone he had to interrogate would be a close acquaintance.

‘Can you tell me what the row was about, Diane?' he said gently.

He need not have been so worried about embarrassing her, as she merely gave a derisive snort.

‘Need you ask, Steve? I've just told you, everyone in TT knows that he has been getting his leg over that bitch from the hospital, but he needn't have flaunted it in The Dog when I was there!' She waved an unsteady hand in the general direction of the next bungalow. ‘Though at least he wasn't playing quite so near home as usual.'

‘So you don't know what time he left the club?' Blackwell knew from the club steward that Robertson had left soon after eleven, but he always liked to cross-check when he could. She shook her head, the golden hair swirling across her shoulders.

‘I wouldn't be surprised if he went off somewhere to roger that bloody woman in the back of his car. The rear seat is the size of a double bed!' she added bitterly, thinking of the cramped space in her own little Austin.

‘And did you leave The Dog alone?' asked Steven cautiously, prodding to see if there was any way of confirming her movements. He had no real reason for this, but from his days as a CID man back in England, he still kept the habit of building up a mental picture of where everyone was at what they called the ‘material time'.

Diane peered at him over the rim of her glass. For the first time, the brittle nonchalance over her sudden bereavement seemed to falter and she answered rather defensively. ‘I gave one of the guys from Garrison a lift back to the gates, as the fellow who had brought him had gone off with some popsy.'

Blackwell nodded encouragingly. ‘Who was that, then? Do I know him?'

‘Oh, Gerry something-or-other,' she answered evasively. ‘One of the West Berkshires, a lieutenant, I think. I hardly know him.' She neglected to mention that the half-mile journey took them almost an hour.

He thought of pushing her harder, then decided it could wait, if it ever needed to be followed up. The fact was that her husband had been shot in circumstances which suggested it was part of the civil insurgence that dominated life in Malaya – and yet, like the attack the week before, it seemed at odds with the usual run of terrorist activity.

He stood up and looked across at the very attractive woman who was hunched over her drink on the settee. ‘Diane, I must get back to TT and see if there's any more news. The army's out in strength looking for any CTs in the area and I need to check with them. But what are we going to do with you? You can't stay here on your own!'

She made a visible effort to pull herself together, putting her now empty glass on the table and standing up, brushing back her hair from her forehead.

‘I'll be fine, Steven, really I will. I've got my
amah
and Siva at the back of the house – and Douglas is only a few yards away.'

He noted that she pointedly avoided any mention of Douglas's wife.

‘I'll have to talk to him first thing in the morning,' she went on. ‘About the running of the estate – not that it will make much difference, he did all the real work around here, anyway.'

Reluctantly, the superintendent had to accept her decision. There seemed little alternative to Diane staying in the bungalow that night – there were no decent hotels nearer than Penang and the government rest-houses in the smaller towns were hardly suitable for an unaccompanied young woman. He could not think of any female companion who would be willing to come and stay with the new widow, given her reputation and the remoteness of Gunong Besar. If only his wife had not gone back to England, she could have sorted this out – Margaret was good at mothering people.

Again reassuring Diane that the police and the army were thick on the ground around the estate and promising to come up again first thing in the morning, Steven Blackwell went out to his vehicle, leaving another Land Rover with two armed constables parked ostentatiously outside the bungalow.

By the time Steven Blackwell got back to BMH, the place was buzzing with activity, mostly centred around the Casualty hut at the end of the car park.

Pushing past two red-capped Military Police standing in the doorway, he found that the Matron had joined the throng and was deep in conversation with Alfred Morris and the night sister. Tom Howden was talking in a corner with Peter Bright, who had seen all the activity when he had driven in a few minutes earlier and come to investigate. Although Morris was his equal in rank, Alf was non-medical and in the absence of the Commanding Officer, the surgeon was assumed to be top dog when it came to a medical problem, which apparently included sudden death. It was not a responsibility he welcomed.

‘So where the hell is O'Neill?' he demanded irritably, in his cut-glass accent. ‘Did you try his quarters again?'

‘Three times, but nobody answers the phone,' grunted the pathologist. ‘Alf has just sent a runner up there now, to knock on his door.'

He looked curiously at Peter Bright, who seemed to be in a fever of excitement, more than even these unusual circumstances warranted. The surgeon was agitated, running his fingers through his fair, wavy hair and nervously nibbling at his lower lip. Even Tom's superficial knowledge of the intrigues in Tanah Timah was enough to set him wondering if Peter's thoughts were now dominated by the fact that the love of his life had suddenly become a widow.

The major from the garrison was on the telephone, but now slapped it down and came across to the police superintendent. ‘We've had patrols up and down that damned road as far as Kampong Kerbau, but there's not a sign of anything out of the ordinary. I just don't understand it, the bandits don't just loose off a single shot, they usually set up an ambush and blast hell out of whatever comes up the road.'

‘That's if it did happen on the estate road,' replied Steven. ‘At the moment, we haven't a clue where the shooting took place.'

Everyone in the room gravitated towards the speakers, forming a circle around them. The QA corporal, her orderly and the pharmacy staff sergeant stood on the periphery, a captain from the provost marshal's unit pushing in front of them. He was in charge of the military police, though the nearest investigators, the SIB, were in Ipoh. Speaking to Steven, who he knew well both professionally and socially, he voiced what was in most people's minds.

‘Why the hell poor old Jimmy? And where did it happen?'

A confused chatter began filling the room and Blackwell saw that the whole affair was in danger of becoming a circus, with so many people milling about, most of whom had no real need to be involved. He held up his hands and called for quiet.

‘This is a police matter until we learn otherwise,' he said loudly. ‘Mr Robertson was a civilian and he suffered his fatal injuries somewhere out there.' He waved his hand at the rest of Malaya, before turning to Peter Bright and Alf Morris who were now standing together.

‘Could I suggest that the body is taken to your mortuary, as we've nowhere else to put him nearer than the ones at the civil hospitals at Ipoh or Taiping. I'll contact the coroner first thing in the morning, but I'm sure he'll want a post-mortem carried out.'

The coroner for this area of Perak was an Indian lawyer in private practice at Kuala Kangsar and Steven knew from experience that he would agree to almost any suggestion made by the police.

‘It's almost one thirty,' he continued. ‘My men and the army are still combing the area, but there's nothing more we can do here until the morning, so I suggest we all get back to our duties or to our beds.'

There was a general shuffling as people began moving, but they halted abruptly as a harsh voice suddenly barked at them from the doorway.

‘What's the meaning of this? Major Bright, what's going on here?'

It was the Commanding Officer, Desmond O'Neill, dressed in a dark blazer and striped tie, with grey flannels above black shoes. His bony face glowered at them, lips compressed into a thin line.

‘What are all you people doing in my hospital at this hour of the night?' Even at this tense moment, Tom Howden noticed the colonel's proprietary attitude towards the BMH.

‘There's been a tragedy, sir.' Peter Bright chose his words carefully, being well aware of his senior officer's peculiarities. ‘James Robertson has been shot dead. Outside somewhere, but he was brought here in case he could be resuscitated.'

‘He's a civilian,' snapped O'Neill. ‘He should have been taken to a general hospital.'

No one wanted to point out to him that the nearest was more than twenty miles away but Steven Blackwell was in no mood to be obstructed by some military martinet.

‘He wasn't actually certified dead until he was on army premises, colonel – and the death may well be due to enemy action. I'll clear it with the Brigadier in the morning, but I've asked if we could have the use of your mortuary in these urgent circumstances. As you will know, bodies go off rapidly in this climate and we'll need an examination to help our investigation, as this is a murder.'

The cold eyes of the colonel roved aggressively around the room, then his mercurial moods changed into an almost benign state.

‘Of course, superintendent, of course!' He turned on his heel like a marionette and glared at Tom.

‘Howden, you're supposed to be a pathologist! Get the corpse to the mortuary and perform a post-mortem in the morning.'

He swung back to the others and his ferocity returned. ‘This is a Casualty Department, not a peep show. Everyone who has no business here can clear out – now!'

With a last glare at the discomfited faces, he vanished and they heard his car start up and accelerate away.

‘Cheeky bugger,' muttered the garrison major to Alf Morris. ‘If I had another pip on my shoulder, I'd have told him where to get off!'

The faithful Admin Officer murmured something about O'Neill's bark being worse than his bite, but the major had joined the general exodus and soon only the RAMC staff remained with the policeman.

‘In the morning, I'll have to come and take statements from everyone who was in The Dog tonight,' said Blackwell. ‘I'll contact the coroner as early as I can and get his authority for you to carry out a post-mortem, Captain Howden.'

Alf Morris gave an indrawn whistling noise to indicate his concern at this.

‘You'd better get back to the colonel to get his consent for that, Steven.'

‘But the bloody man has just ordered him to do it!' protested the police officer.

‘Our beloved leader can be very fickle,' warned Peter Bright. ‘What he says tonight, he might flatly deny in the morning.'

Blackwell gave a small sigh of exasperation and after making his farewells, went wearily out to his waiting Land Rover, the surgeon following him to his own sporty MG. By now, the orderly sergeant had got two RAMC privates to bring a trolley from the Families Clinic next door and with the others watching with sombre expressions, they covered James Robertson's body with the sheet from the examination couch and hauled him across on to the trolley. As they pushed the sad burden away to the mortuary, Tom Howden had a sudden thought, as he had inspected the place only a couple of days ago. The morgue was part of his domain as the pathologist, a hut little larger than a garden shed on the edge of the helicopter landing pad, incongruously next to the badminton court.

‘There's no refrigeration there. He'll go off pretty fast in this heat,' he said to Alf Morris.

As usual, the imperturbable Admin Officer had the answer. ‘That's under control, we get blocks of ice brought in to put all around them. There's a Chinese contractor in the town who supplies it, I'll organize it first thing in the morning.'